The cloaked figure fell silent and looked at him as if she was trying to figure him out.
But then she gave up and said, "Explain yourself."
Lin Fan gave a shrug and said, "As long as you don't get too greedy, then there's nothing the others can do to you since this is just fair competition. It's not as if we'll completely give up our freedom to serve you and give you everything, we'll just give you a share of what we earn and you won't have to do a thing."
The cloaked figure still looked at Lin Fan and said, "That still doesn't answer my question."
Lin Fan shook his head and said, "Does your neutral faction only have you? Aren't there others that have wanted a piece of this city for a long time?"
The cloaked figure suddenly shook before falling into deep thought as if she had been provoked by his words. The taller cloaked figure though still looked confused as he asked, "So what? What does that have to do with this situation?"
Lin Fan gave a sigh and shook his head.
Seeing this, the taller cloaked man trembled, but this wasn't out of understanding, but rather anger out of shame. He was about to stand up and point his finger at Lin Fan to say something to Lin Fan, but the shorter cloaked figure raised her hand to stop him.
She looked right into Lin Fan's eyes and silently stared at him for a long time.
After a long time passed, she finally said, "You really like to play big, don't you?"
Lin Fan said, "There are four rulers in the middle city and six powerful gangs in the outer city, you can decide how you want to arrange them."
The smaller cloaked figure didn't give an answer to this and instead asked, "What is your goal? It's not as if you would do all this without any plans."
Lin Fan gave a shrug and said, "I just want to peacefully open a pet store in the capital city. Would you believe me?"
The smaller cloaked figure repeated, "Pet store?"
She just silently stared at him for another while before saying, "No matter what your motives are, your conditions are indeed very favourable to us. However…" Her voice turned ice cold as she said, "If you ever think to harm our family, you should understand that the consequences are not what you can bear."
This was a clear threat, but Lin Fan didn't mind it since he already expected it.
Lin Fan just nodded and said, "As long as you agree to my conditions, you won't have to worry about anything."
There was another long period of silence before the smaller cloaked figure said, "Alright, we'll have to talk about it with the people in charge of the family, but I think that we can come to an agreement. Just give us two days and we'll tell you of our decision."
Lin Fan didn't mind this at all. He had already waited a long time to get to this point, another two days wouldn't matter.
So he nodded and then stood up to leave.
But before he could leave, the smaller cloaked figure suddenly said, "You should be careful during these next two days. You're already drawing a lot of attention and that attention can turn into bad intentions."
Lin Fan stopped moving when he heard this and he turned back to look at the smaller cloaked figure with slightly knitted brows.
That only lasted for a split second before his brows relaxed and he said with a nod, "I will."
Then without even looking back, Lin Fan just walked out of the room and left the hotel.
Back in the room, there was only silence.
After a long time, the taller cloaked figure finally said, "Young miss, why did you agree to his conditions? There's nothing for us to gain from this deal."
The smaller cloaked figure that had been called young miss shook her head and said, "I've always said that you need to improve your brain or people will think you're an idiot."
The taller cloaked figure didn't take offense at this and just asked, "Young miss, what do you mean?"
The young miss said, "You said that we don't have anything to gain from this, are you just blind? Can't you see just how much he's offering us on a silver platter?"
The taller cloaked figure was even more confused as he asked, "Young miss, what do you mean by this?"
The young miss shook her head and said, "Forget about the benefits that we can gain from this city because they don't mean a single thing. Focus on what he said about the neutral faction and how many gangs with power there are in the middle and outer cities."
The taller cloaked figure was still confused as he tilted his head to look at the young miss.
The young miss gave a sigh before saying, "He said that we don't need to take all of the gangs and their resources for ourselves, but they will still have to go to someone in the end. Who do you think that they will go to?"
The taller cloaked figure was silent in thought for a long time before suddenly saying, "Oh, the other members of the neutral faction! He's saying that we can give the resources of the other gangs to the other members of the neutral faction and build our influence like that."
The young miss nodded before saying, "But it's not only that. By giving the gangs to the other members of the neutral faction, we will be turning this matter into a matter of the neutral factions and the other nobles won't be able to make a move easily. At the same time, by giving all these resources to the neutral faction, we will be increasing the overall power of the neutral faction. With our increased influence in the neutral faction from all the connections that we will be making, it'll give us even more power in this stronger neutral faction."
The young miss couldn't help shaking her head and saying with a sigh, "This really is a perfect plan of killing three birds with one stone…"
The taller cloaked figure suddenly thought of something and said, "That's right! Since he knows all of this, doesn't this mean that he has a good understanding of the neutral faction and our family?" He suddenly couldn't help having a trace of worry in his voice as he asked, "Could it be that this is all a trap?"
The young miss was silent for a bit before shaking her head, "No, if it was a trap, there would be plenty of other signs. This person literally appeared out of nowhere and took over in an instant, his power and wisdom far surpasses anything that those other idiot nobles could come up with."
But then she said with a sigh, "Still, no matter how you look at it, this seems too suspicious."
The taller cloaked figure asked, "Should we send someone to investigate where he came from?"
The young miss shook her head and said, "No, there's no point in doing this. Someone as smart as him would never leave a tail and if we were to offend him while investigating, there would be no benefits for us."
The taller cloaked figure couldn't help asking, "But young miss, didn't the elders already give you full authority in this matter. You could have agreed to his proposal right away, so why did you give him two days? Also, why did you give him that warning at the end?"
The young miss revealed a faint smile under her cloak, "Well, I wanted to test him to see if I could get a peek at what he's hiding. Of course, we don't want him to be injured since that would be shooting ourselves in the foot, so I gave him the warning. Now it'll all depend on how he acts."
Then after a pause, she couldn't help saying, "But on that note, send someone to watch over him and make sure that nothing too tragic happens to him. If he's hurt and we save him, he'll have a better impression of us and that will make things easier for us."
The taller cloaked figure gave a bow before saying, "Yes, young miss."
Then he left to go outside to give instructions to Zhong Jun who had left as soon as Lin Fan had left. Zhong Jun knew his place and knew that the two of them would want a secret conversation, so he left right away.
He was smart like that even with the way he looked. That was why this young miss trusted him to act on her behalf in this city.
After the taller cloaked figure was gone, the young miss couldn't help taking out something from under her cloak that she clenched in her hand as she murmured, "Big sis, I know that you wanted to find your child, but it's really hard…I'll do my best still."
It was a lie to say that this young miss only wanted to expand their family's influence in the slum city just for benefits, there was another reason that she wanted to expand their influence and it was a personal reason.
Of course, she would never let anyone know about this since this was a matter that was very taboo and if anyone were to learn about this, she would definitely be in danger.
But what was clasped in her hand right now was actually a handkerchief that had the same cherry blossom pattern as the token that Lin Fan had.
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