"He wanted to show you goodwill and extend an olive branch. You could call it an attempt to win you over."
Jing Hongchen explained, his tone candid and undisguised.
"He specifically asked for my opinion that day, too. He wanted to find out through me what you thought of him."
"After all, I'm your immediate superior at the academy and the first senior figure in the Sun Moon Empire to have dealt with you. Naturally, he wanted to sound things out through me first."
"If you agree, I'll speak to His Majesty for you. Not as a subject reporting to his sovereign, of course, but as a friend passing along a message."
"Hmm... I still have things to take care of right now, so I can't go see Xu Tianran just yet. But perhaps we could cooperate in the future."
"With Xu Tianran's support, establishing the Spirit Pagoda should go much more smoothly. With the emperor's endorsement, land approvals, Soul Master recruitment, and resource allocation would all be much easier. It would also save me the trouble of cultivating those official connections myself."
Lu Ren raised a hand to his chin in thought, his gaze sweeping back and forth across the distance. Clearly, he had already begun mapping out the Spirit Pagoda's future in his mind.
"Cooperate? You, cooperate with His Majesty?" Jing Hongchen was amused by his words and could not help laughing aloud.
A fifteen-year-old boy was talking about cooperating with the emperor of the Sun Moon Empire. Had anyone else said that, he probably would have thought they had gone mad.
Yet coming from Lu Ren, it somehow did not seem unreasonable.
The boy before him was someone who could force even Xuan Zi to his knees. If he really wanted to negotiate with Xu Tianran as