By the time the story ended, Liu Sanshui was thoroughly drunk. He kept insisting that anyone who wanted to learn cooking had to pay in Star Source. If they really could not come up with it... they could owe him for now. Black Brother Dog carried his newly acquired master away and took him back to his quarters to rest.
Little Bad King cleaned up the kitchen, then pondered what Cloud Sea had experienced in his youth while he washed up.
First of all, he truly sympathized with the Third Seat. What people experienced when they were young often formed an important foundation for their values, mindset, and character. The fortunate could more easily see the beauty in the world later in life; the unfortunate might spend their entire lives shrouded in gloom and suspicion, treading on thin ice everywhere, always anxious about what they might gain or lose.
Without a doubt, Cloud Sea certainly had not been fortunate. Yang Qi's betrayal and the Divine Court's filthy political machinations were bound to affect his entire life.
But just how great would that effect be?
As someone listening to the story, an observer, Little Bad King could not actually feel what Cloud Sea had felt. Nor could he judge how deeply the Nansheng Case had affected Cloud Sea's mindset, or how far it would push him.
To analyze someone's mindset and character, he had to identify the pivotal points in their experiences. He carefully recalled the details of the Nansheng Case, constantly considering what the key point truly was.
Was it Yang Qi's betrayal? His momentary greed upon seeing the treasures in the secret chamber? Or the remembered scene of his brothers dying gruesomely, corpses strewn across the ground, while Yu Fengchun gestured with both hands to show wealth piled higher