Servini put down the document in her hand, looked up at Xu Yi sitting opposite her, and suddenly burst out laughing.
Xu Yi touched his face in bewilderment. "What? Is there something on my face?"
"No, no..." Servini waved a hand, tapped the document on the table, and said with a smile, "I just think... not only did you snatch a whole bunch of researchers from the Sark Kingdom's Military Magic Machinery Research Institute this time, you also took every last scrap of their research. You're practically a burglar. If I were the king of the Sark Kingdom, I'd hate your guts."
Xu Yi gave a chuckle, utterly unconcerned.
"Those researchers made the choice of their own free will. How does that make me a burglar?"
"Their own free will?" Servini's smile widened. "If the Xinfei Merchant Guild hadn't secretly bought them off in advance, why would they have willingly gone over to your guild?"
"The fact that our guild could buy them off is proof enough that they had no loyalty to the Sark Kingdom." Xu Yi sneered and continued, "That's why I'll only give them ordinary research assignments. I'll never let them near the core work."
Servini couldn't help rolling her eyes at him. "You lured them over with all those offers, and now you're complaining that they aren't loyal enough..."
Xu Yi shook his head. "Actually, this isn't about loyalty. The reason I deliberately leaked some information about military magic machinery to the Sark Kingdom through Teresa was to try getting them to commit fully to researching it themselves. I hoped they might develop something new from their own perspective. That might give our guild some inspiration for our own military magic machinery research."
"So what were the results? Did they give your guild any inspiration?"
"It's