Mr. Pantalone has no crazy plans today.

That experimental subject was a vital asset of Winter, but Lord Pantalone said to leave it alone and hand it over to the Knights of Favonius to deal with. Wasn't that just handing over Winter's important asset to Mondstadt?

This answer left her momentarily unable to understand what Lord Pantalone meant.

Seeing the confusion in Anastasia's eyes, Pantalone sighed, seemingly worried about the intelligence of his subordinates, and then explained.

"The Knights of Favonius are destined to be unable to handle this matter. We will begin containment procedures when the Knights can no longer manage it."

"At that time, we will be able to use the pretext of reclaiming the Winter's assets to interfere in the internal affairs of the Knights of Favonius and Mondstadt, while simultaneously infiltrating Mondstadt. Do you understand what I mean?"

After listening to Pantalone's words, Anastasia understood everything, and her shock and awe towards Pantalone rose to a new level.

No wonder he was able to take down Mondstadt Pantalone without shedding a drop of blood.

The kind of insight and strategy that allows one to calculate everything perfectly anytime, anywhere in the blink of an eye is truly terrifying and chilling.

If it weren't for Lord Pantalone being one of their Winter's men, she couldn't even imagine how they could possibly defeat an enemy like Lord Pantalone.

After understanding Pantalone's meaning, Anastasia took a deep breath.

"I understand. I'll go and arrange it and tell the people below exactly what to do."

Chapter 113 I'm not asking for your opinion, I'm informing you (6k)

The visit of Pantarone, the "rich man" and ninth seat of the Fatui Order's executive officers, to Mondstadt, a friendly nation, as an envoy of winter, is undoubtedly a matter that the entire Knights of Favonius must take seriously.

Perhaps others wouldn't feel anything if it were just said like that, but if we add another identity, then no one in the entire Mondstadt would dare to take the arrival of this Winter's Messenger lightly.

Not only is he an envoy of Winter, but this executive from the Winter Fools is also the helmsman of the Northern Bank, one of the most powerful banks controlling the economy of the Seven Kingdoms.

At the same time, it is also the creditor that truly controls the entire debt of Mondstadt after the Mondstadt wine bubble incident.

Based on this, whether Pantalone is acting as an envoy of winter or as the head of the Northern Bank, he is an important figure that Mondstadt cannot ignore, regardless of his role.

Mondstadt's diplomatic weakness is not a recent phenomenon, especially since incurring a huge debt to the Northern Bank, which has further weakened the already passive Mondstadt in terms of diplomacy.

Anyone with even a modicum of status would know who this executive known as "The Rich Man" is. As the primary contributor to bringing the economy from its slump to its current state, Pantalone deserves immense credit.

His political and economic vision is exceptionally outstanding and far-sighted, even after the Mondstadt wine bubble.

They further learned that the scheme targeting Mondstadt was orchestrated by the executive known as "The Rich Man."

Compared to others, facing this executive directly at the negotiating table and in diplomacy is undoubtedly a very troublesome thing for them.

For the vast majority of knights in militant knightly orders, this kind of situation—playing word games and diplomatic rhetoric at the negotiating table—is undoubtedly their least forte.

The sudden visit of the Fools' Enforcer, in particular, made them reasonably suspicious.

The Fools are currently plotting something against Mondstadt that they are unaware of.

However, the lack of evidence, coupled with their status as debtors, makes them even more vulnerable.

Regardless of what the Fools might be plotting, in order to maintain the current stability of Mondstadt, he had already decided to accept whatever schemes the Pantarones might have up their sleeves.

Inside the embassy and meeting hall used to welcome the envoys of the Fools, seated at the far end of the table was none other than the apex lord of the Knights of Favonius.

Fargard, Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius, known as the "Knight of the North Wind".

This familiar scene reminded him of the last time he had a conversation with the "lady" of the eighth seat of the Fools, which was also a similar scene.

However, compared to the aggressive "lady," the executive known as "the rich man" was extremely mild-mannered.

The man before me, named Pantalone, spoke only kindly, and from a diplomat's perspective, all his actions seemed impeccable.

Even when others are confused, they will answer their questions with a gentle smile.

From a purely diplomatic standpoint, the man before them had shown Mondstadt considerable respect as a friendly nation.

This did not make Falgar, the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius, happy in the slightest. On the contrary, if he could, he would prefer to have someone else negotiate and conduct diplomacy with the Fools.

Although the man named Pantalone seemed to give Mondstadt plenty of face and respect, his words never revealed any useful information.

This airtight way of speaking further underscored just how tricky it was to deal with this executive known as "The Rich Man."

"...Then, the next point concerns my visit to Mondstadt on behalf of Zhi Dong as an envoy, and as the de facto highest-ranking manager of the Northern Bank. One of the main reasons for my visit is the enormous debt that Mondstadt owes to Zhi Dong and the Northern Bank."

"Based on the latest policy for Winter, we need to make some minor changes. I think Mondstadt, considering the interests of its allies, would not refuse to accept our new policy for Winter, would it?"

Pantalone placed his fingers together on the conference room table and looked at Falgar, the Grand Master of the Knights of Favonius, with a smile.

After a long exchange of pleasantries and flattery, Pantalone finally revealed to the Knights of Favonius the true purpose of his visit to Mondstadt.

"Due to the recent new policy of Zhi Dong, all commercial settlements of the Northern Bank must be settled using our newly issued special currency, 'Virtual Currency'."

"Therefore, the purpose of my visit to Mondstadt is to coordinate this point. Regarding the settlement method of Mondstadt's debt to Winter, in order to cooperate with our Winter's new policy and to facilitate the statistics of everything that follows, we hope that Mondstadt will cooperate with the Northern Bank's account settlement."

“We also understand that Mondstadt cannot produce the Mora to repay these debts in the short term. On the other hand, in order to stabilize Mondstadt’s own economic circulation, we will provide ‘imaginary currency’ as the currency to maintain Mondstadt’s economy, which is equivalent to Mora.”

"The 'imaginary currency' issued by the Winter Solstice is an intermediate medium and a general equivalent of Mora, created to regulate the macroeconomy. The use of 'imaginary currency' is to more conveniently regulate Mora itself."

"Of course, as I mentioned before, we do not force Mondstadt to circulate the 'imaginary coins' issued in winter, but from the perspective of the Northern Bank, we also recognize the creditworthiness of these Mora-equivalent alternative currencies."

"Under the premise of a gold exchange standard based on the morra, we promise that anyone can exchange gold with the Northern Bank at the official rate of 1:1000 morra."

"In order to take care of Mondstadt's current predicament, as long as Mondstadt cooperates with the new winter policy and circulates 'imaginary coins' as a substitute for Mora."

"Therefore, Mondstadt's current economic crisis will not only receive a great boost, but Mondstadt will also be able to recover quickly in the next few years at most."