Regarding his succession as Belobog's Lifetime Honorary Great Guardian, Bai Heng's only request was to keep everything simple.
He disliked cumbersome ceremonies, so he turned down any arrangements for a speech as well.
After all, Bai Heng could not devote a great deal of time and energy to Belobog.
It was enough for Belobog's actual decision-makers to understand his identity and be able to coordinate work with him directly.
After the negotiations over signing the contract concluded,
Bai Heng placed an interstellar long-distance call to Chairman Edmond. Although securing the agency rights to the planet Belobog had been a case of acting first and reporting later, Edmond showed no displeasure.
Not to mention that Edmond himself had always looked after Bai Heng.
Even without that relationship, a company's owner would readily grant certain privileges to their star salesperson.
Besides, Edmond probably could not wait to toss the position of president of the Interastral Astronomical Society to Bai Heng and retire to some vacation planet to fish.
The snowline reflected the clear afternoon sunlight. Bai Heng declined the afternoon tea invitations from the ladies of Belobog's high society and instead arrived at a cold, cramped alley, where he pushed open the door of an old tavern with a homemade-brew sign hanging outside.
Bai Heng leaned lazily against a wooden chair.
Two cups of Belobog's local specialty, kvass, sat on the square table before him.
The homemade kvass, fermented from rye bread, sugar, and dried fruit, gleamed an enticing dark red.
Fragments of sunlight spilled through the half-closed wooden window, dyeing the yellowed tabletop a faint cream color. From time to time, snow from the snowline drifted through the gaps in the sill and into the tavern, adding a touch of winter leisure to the old establishment.
"Now that the Jarilo-VI