Arknights, but the Family Has Fallen Again, Again, Again — Part 23

She whimpered and lifted her head toward Oute.

Her blood-red eyes welled up with tears again, shifting into a wine-red hue.

Ah, this...

Oute glanced at Kal'tsit.

As if she had touched something filthy, the lynx withdrew her hands.

"Comfort her. Specter's mental state is still not stable enough." Her expression remained blank.

Oute slipped his hand beneath the nun's hood, his fingers sinking into her silver-white hair as he gently soothed her.

Kal'tsit casually picked up a document and said, "We should prepare for the negotiations with Lungmen."

Amiya hesitated, then pointed out, "Doctor Kal'tsit, you're holding the report upside down."

Seeing this, Oute could not help laughing.

"..."

Kal'tsit silently turned the document right-side up.

After reading it carefully, she sighed and said, "Amiya, please go to my office and bring me the contract draft from before."

"Okay, Doctor Kal'tsit!" Seeing that the atmosphere had eased, the little rabbit skipped out of the room.

After waiting for quite a while, Oute asked, "What is it this time? Why send Amiya away?"

Kal'tsit shot him a look. "If I wanted to send someone away, isn't there someone beside you who could hear us?"

She meant Specter.

"Compared to the topic that required the Abyssal Hunters to avoid yesterday, what we're discussing now..." Kal'tsit shook her head. "It is merely boring Terra politics."

Oute's identity as a remnant of the previous civilization really was inconvenient to discuss before the Abyssal Hunters.

"Doctor! I found it!"

Not long afterward, Amiya returned with a document in hand.

"Give it to Doc Otter." Kal'tsit seemed completely unaware of what she had just blurted out again.

Oute quickly flipped through it.

"The other contents of this contract... are relatively unimportant."

"They are merely ordinary commercial arrangements."

"The Reunion Movement's foolishness has given us an opportunity."

Kal'tsit was still speaking in riddles.

"Twenty years ago, Edward Artorius—the current leader of the Reunion Movement, Talulah Artorius's father—died in Lungmen."

Oute raised an eyebrow.

Add Wei Yenwu's ten years of keeping the death secret, and that made thirty years.

If Big Sis Talulah were a Liberi, a bird, she would already have lived through most of her life. But she was a Draco.

"When he fled Victoria for Lungmen, he took with him... the key to Victoria's Resting Place of the Kings... It is a very important item."

Kal'tsit felt a little self-loathing—she had actually begun hoping Oute had not lost his memories.

"Since you have lost your memories, it is not convenient for me to elaborate for now."

"In short, when we are in Laterano in the future, we will certainly need that relic..."

"And that relic is currently in the hands of Lungmen's governor, Wei Yenwu."

Only then did Amiya realize. "Huh? Talulah's father died in Lungmen? Is that why she wants to attack Lungmen?"

Oute smiled. "When you narrate something by selecting only certain points in the sequence of events, you often arrive at such ass-backward... such distorted conclusions."

Kal'tsit neither agreed nor disagreed. "Doc Otter, in that case, use your intelligence and find us a way to obtain that key."

What Are You Laughing At? I Thought of Something Funny

This was actually very difficult.

The key held two meanings for Wei Yenwu at once:

First, it was a political bomb.

Victoria's "Resting Place of the Kings" was, from a certain perspective, a shared "royal tomb" for its two royal houses. After the Aslans conquered it, the famous Excalibur was kept there most of the time.

And now that the throne stood vacant, this sword, which practically served as proof of Aslan royal authority, held extraordinary significance for the great dukes—especially one certain great duke of unspecified identity who possessed Aslan royal blood.

Although it had effectively fractured into four pieces and could hardly act in unison, Victoria was still a superpower entrenched in the heart of Terra.

This key, now lost abroad and capable of opening the gates to the Resting Place of the Kings, could undoubtedly influence the entire political situation of Terra.

Second, it was the keepsake of Wei Yenwu's sworn brother.

During Edward's time in Lungmen, he fell in love with Wei Yenwu's sister, and they conceived a posthumous child who carried the bloodlines of both Victoria's and Yan's royal families—Talulah. Because of Koschei's scheme, the matter was exposed soon afterward...

Despite the immense pressure from both Victoria and Yan, the person who ultimately bore inescapable responsibility for Edward's death was Wei Yenwu himself.

Not to mention that, in order to protect his own sister, he directly found a Yan nobleman to take over, forcibly marrying off his sister—Edward's widow...

Worst of all... Wei Yenwu had failed to protect his sworn brother's only child...

Talulah had been abducted by Koschei!

A debt, another debt, and yet another debt. Burdened by all that guilt, Edward's keepsake held even greater significance for Wei Yenwu.

All in all, whether as a politician or as an individual, Wei Yenwu could not possibly surrender this key so easily.

—Unless he was sweating bullets.

Oute stroked his chin through his glove and that oddly shaped hood.

In the original plot, Kal'tsit's negotiation skills could be described with one phrase: "Needs improvement."

But considering the amount of time she had available to improve her negotiation skills... it would be more tactful to put it this way: "There is plenty of room for growth."

Before the Reunion Movement had even acted, Rhodes Island had already exposed its negotiating bottom line.

They signed a military contracting agreement with Lungmen that ran completely contrary to the principles they claimed to uphold, only to part ways in the end because of the ideological incompatibility they should have recognized from the very first step...

Frankly speaking, Kal'tsit obtaining that key was ninety percent thanks to the Black Snake. Of the remaining ten percent, ninety percent was due to the frontline operators risking their lives and Amiya taking part in the decapitation of "Talulah."

If the Black Snake had not insisted on using public-channel broadcasts and ramming into Lungmen to forcibly ignite the war, Kal'tsit could never have obtained that key through ordinary means.

Even Ch'en joining Rhodes Island could not have happened without the Black Snake stirring things up within the Reunion Movement.

If the Black Snake had not pushed the conflict between Lungmen's authorities and the Infected to its absolute limit, Ch'en, who had not yet been beaten down by reality, would never have abandoned the path of reform from above, left Lungmen, and joined Rhodes Island.

Hurry up, Kal'tsit. Why aren't you thanking little Miss Black Snake already?

"Pfft."

Little Miss?

Thinking of that, Oute could not help laughing aloud.

Kal'tsit found it baffling. "What are you laughing at?"

"Hahahahaha! Cough! Ha! Hah! Hahahahaha!"

This time, even Reynauld's Head could not keep Oute's sternum intact through that unending laughter.

Yet Oute still had to laugh.

This smile was extremely healthy.

But the only people present who could see Oute's smile through his hood were Kal'tsit and Specter.

Did that not mean Amiya was the only one who could not see it?

"I... I thought of something funny... Hahahaha!"

Not merely from his smile, but from the mental link Oute had not severed, Kal'tsit sensed something as well.

The lynx narrowed her eyes. "Oh? Would you mind sharing it with us?"

Oute cleared his throat and said solemnly, "Since this key is Talulah's father's keepsake, why don't we let Talulah ask for it herself?"

"Doc Otter?" Amiya first touched her own forehead, then stood on tiptoe and touched Oute's.

After finding his temperature normal, she let out a startled cry. "Huh?"

"What?" Kal'tsit had no doubt Oute was capable of making this happen, so she approached it from another angle. "But Talulah is currently threatening Lungmen..."

"Under those circumstances, judging from our intelligence, Wei Yenwu's side as a politician will most likely prevail."

"And politician Wei Yenwu is unlikely to hand over such a major political bomb simply because of personal feelings."

"Hmm?" Kal'tsit also caught the key point.

Oute chuckled. "Conversely, as long as the person threatening Lungmen is not Talulah, and Lungmen's crisis is resolved..."

Kal'tsit fell into thought. "Then guilt and the desire to make amends will capture Wei Yenwu's heart. For the time being, he will treat Talulah as... a flesh-and-blood individual, rather than merely as a politician."

"And Talulah herself is Edward's direct relative. Under those circumstances, Wei Yenwu will likely even hand the key to Talulah of his own accord."

Oute added, "Furthermore, as long as our demands remain within reasonable bounds and do not provoke Wei Yenwu's instincts as a politician..."

Kal'tsit's eyes lit up. "Then he will even take the initiative to sign a commercial contract more favorable to us!"

So the balance sheet PRTS gave me earlier was not padded at all...

Oute raised an eyebrow. "Taking that into account, the current contract draft should be based on this premise and leave room for deeper cooperation later."

His words were not baseless.

In the original plot, Wei Yenwu had privately told his wife, Wen Yue, that after the Chernobog incident ended, he intended to let Rhodes Island take away as many Infected as possible, allocate urban districts to Rhodes Island, and provide Rhodes Island with resources, funding, and information.

Although that had been little more than a private exchange between husband and wife after the fact, it could still be seen as Wei Yenwu's ultimate bottom line, repeatedly raised amid the escalating Chernobog incident.

After all, compared with the conditions Wei Yenwu had ultimately talked about, the key Kal'tsit wanted as a negotiating bottom line could only be called six of one, half a dozen of the other...

Both were pretty fanciful.