Origin Xia, in order to steadily advance its plan of harmonizing the Heavenly Order, naturally needed to continue making agreements with Celestial Xia. Ideally, Celestial Xia could remain peaceful until they had finished retrieving the treasures.
To avoid letting Celestial Xia gain too great a hold over them, the time for concluding agreements was always set for the period before the yearly cycle turned. Thus, they had dispatched Councilor Lan early to Celestial Xia to settle the matter anew.
Celestial Xia could readily see the intention behind this, so they would deliberately drag things out and then put forward further demands. This happened almost every year.
Yet all this was actually a deliberate posture, intended to conceal their true purpose on some future day and cause Origin Xia to lose its necessary vigilance.
For the sake of concluding the agreement smoothly, so long as Celestial Xia did not go too far, Origin Xia would generally agree outright.
To avoid provoking Origin Xia too severely, Celestial Xia generally kept proper measure. Their demands amounted to no more than manpower and material resources, and the quantities were judged precisely right. Origin Xia had as much of such things as it wanted anyway, so they would not become overly entangled over them.
One side did not care, while the other achieved its aim. Even if there were a few twists and turns in between, it was not difficult to conclude the agreement in the end.
This time, Councilor Lan had not come alone. He had brought quite a few attendants and disciples with him.
Before coming here this time, he had been summoned and instructed at length. Thus, he also bore the responsibility of observing Celestial Xia's movements. Some of these disciples were under his command, while others had other people standing behind