Lan said blankly, "...A gentleman."
Akivili readily took the correction and immediately rephrased:
"A gentleman like my best friend... really is a rare sight."
His voice brimmed with emotion.
"Honestly, I never expected someone in such a high position as my best friend to have stayed single for so long... It really is surprising."
"I imagine he'd prefer a soulmate, wouldn't he? He has extremely high standards for love, and-"
Akivili quietly swallowed the words "unrealistic fantasies" and said instead, "Overly idealized expectations."
He concluded firmly:
"Any woman he falls for must be very special."
Lan nodded in wholehearted agreement.
Akivili paused, then smiled at Hua. "Children shouldn't listen to this."
Hua: "..."
Then don't discuss these things right in front of her, a child!
Akivili acted decisively, covering Hua's ears with his hands before whispering to Lan:
"Although I don't know what kind of woman my best friend would like... I can more or less guess how they'd get along."
He let out a wistful sigh.
"I imagine he'd treat her just as he treats Xianzhou natives and his subordinates, wouldn't he? Extremely set in his ways, providing her with the best material comforts, giving her things she might not need at all according to his own ideas, without consulting her."
"Oh, and even if he wanted to break up, he might marry her first so she'd get a bigger share of his assets."
Those words left Lan speechless.
Who would marry someone they'd planned to leave just so that person could get a larger share of their assets?
Wasn't Akivili's guess... a little too strange?
Then Lan reconsidered. It's the Marshal. Never mind, then.
Had it been anyone else, he would only have thought their mind worked differently from everyone else's.
But when he considered that it was