Liang Taibai politely thanked the king, and the king looked thankful as well, but the truth was, even if the king did not hand over command, Liang Taibai had countless ways to seize command for the army anyway.
Those many years of support that Dawn Academy had given the Rosa Kingdom were not all for naught; the support had given them absolute control of the country, politics, financial matters, and even the military. That was especially true when the current king started to show signs of disobedience. Dawn Academy had arranged for officers closer to them to be in key positions, which were all fail-safes for certain scenarios.
The king understood that as well, and decided to make things easier.
After getting what he wanted, Liang Taibai did not leave immediately. After exchanging some empty pleasantries with the king, the ambassador suddenly turned around, pushing the idle Xiao Lin to the front before smiling and saying, “We were in a rush last time, and I didn’t have time to introduce you. This is Xiao Lin, a personnel sent over by Dawn Academy not long ago. He might be young, but he has a lot of combat experience. If it’s possible, I want him to hold a temporary officer’s rank in the city. It would make command easier later.”
“I’ve already given command of the military over to you. You can decide on the officers yourself.” The king felt like it was strange. He knew that Liang Taibai would definitely place more of his own people into the military after achieving command, but there was no need to tell him that since he was already mentally prepared.
Liang Taibai’s goal was obviously not just that. He smiled. “You might not know this, but you actually owe Xiao Lin a huge debt.”
The king had a curious gaze. “A debt?”
Liang Taibai said, “Your granddaughter went out a few months ago, and Wildfire Town was under attack back then. She was saved by Xiao Lin.”
The king had a neutral expression. “Our princesses all stay in the palace year-round, not even allowed to leave the Rosa Kingdom, let alone head to Wildfire Town. Of course, they were escorted out by you two days ago.”
Liang Taibai let out a smile, ‘kindly’ saying, “I’m talking about Princess Ibeiya. I don’t think you would have forgotten about your own granddaughter.”
The palace immediately fell into a deathly silence.
The king’s face was frozen solid. He looked over, measuring Xiao Lin in earnest for the first time. The last two times they met, he had just treated Xiao Lin as Liang Taibai’s lackey.
Xiao Lin felt a bit awkward and confused. He did not understand why Liang Taibai suddenly brought up Ibeiya, but he curiously observed the king’s face, trying to see if the old man felt any regret for chasing his own granddaughter out of the palace.
After losing himself for a moment, the king regained his calm, turning to Xiao Lin and saying, “Ibeiya’s mother might have been chased out of the royal family for violating the law, but Ibeiya still has royal blood in her. Thank you for saving someone of royal blood.”
The king’s expression was very neutral, his warmness carrying a hint of coldness. It was easy to see that the gratitude was purely for formality, and the king did not care about Ibeiya.
Xiao Lin never felt anything good about the king, but now his impression of him was worse. If it was not a diplomatic situation, he might even have rushed forward to beat up the cold old man.
After that, Liang Taibai did not stay around, taking Xiao Lin out of the palace. Once there were no guards around, Xiao Lin could not help but voice his confusion. He did not believe that the sharp and experienced ambassador would do something so meaningless.
However, Liang Taibai did not answer immediately, instead seriously asking, “What kind of person do you feel Rosa’s king is?”
“I don’t know him very well.”
“Doesn’t matter. Tell me your first impression.”
“He might have seemed friendly to us, but everything he says feels very defensive. He doesn’t welcome us. I can’t say if he’s a good king or not, but he’s definitely not a good family member,” Xiao Lin said.
Liang Taibai smiled, unable to deny it. He said with a complicated expression, “To be honest, putting aside my own biases, he’s not a bad king. Do you know what the first thing he did was after he got the throne?”
Xiao Lin shook his head.
Liang Taibai continued, “The natives were all quite curious about our mysterious toys from Earth, and many of our things have turned into mainstream items. The last few kings would always ask for those things from us, and it was an annoyance, but the diplomats would all naturally fulfil those small requests. However, this king was different; he started to ask us for books the moment he got to the throne. Large amounts of books on every subject.”
“Books from Earth?”
“That’s right. We have quite a lot kept in our own library. Of course, we would never let the natives look at our history books. However, with the amicable state between our countries, we gave him quite a lot of books. After all, those were not worth anything.”
“What books did he ask for?” Xiao Lin seemed to have guessed something.
“He asked for many of them. Out of books on history, culture, art, and everything else, the most he asked for were economy books. We never felt like it was anything before for someone who knew nothing of Earth’s history to read Earth’s economy and governmental books. However, after a few years, the king started to reform the Rosa Kingdom.”
Xiao Lin opened his mouth in shock. “He wants to shed away our ties?”
“That’s right.” Liang Taibai sighed, his face revealing a mix of regret, pity, and even admiration. “How could he be better at politics than those higher-ups in Dawn Academy that are centuries old. Even though the king’s reforms were very subtle, the academy quickly realized what he was doing”
Xiao Lin fell silent. “We probably did not allow him to put those reforms in place.”
“The Rosa Kingdom is a very important vassal state for us. We would never let it go that easily. However, if we tried to assassinate him or used other methods to force the king off the throne, we would have instigated the conservative officials in the kingdom, or even the military. We don’t want a Rosa that is in chaos either. That was why we secretly sent our people in to stop the king’s reforms in various places. It caused the officials to believe that the failure of the reforms that led to the country being even poorer was because of the king, causing them to lose faith in him.”
Xiao Lin suddenly exclaimed, “Ambassador Liang, surely you aren’t telling me that the civil war was instigated by us!”
Liang Taibai smiled bitterly. “We calculated our actions back then, and we could never have caused a civil war. However, it ended up being used by someone else who caused some waves in the shadows, who used us to start a civil war.”