Yes, Lady Funina!

"If I could say it, I would have said it long ago!" said Funina with a blushing face. She was sure that Richard understood it. Wasn't it the same before?

Even though he didn't say anything, he could always guess what she meant. Sometimes, Funina even suspected that he understood her better than she did.

Richard saw that he had been teased enough and stopped provoking his boss.

He deliberately showed a distressed expression, looked at the tempting and delicious little cake in front of him and said: "But having said that, although cakes are good, if you eat too much of something delicious at once, you will feel a little greasy, even if you have black tea to relieve the greasy feeling. And if you eat too much dessert at afternoon tea, it will also affect your appetite for dinner."

"But if I don't eat it, it's a bit of a waste, and wasting is not good. It really gives me a headache."

When Funina heard this, she became excited. She hadn't had any dessert today, so she could do her part. After all, avoiding waste was also a kind of saving!

"Yeah, waste is not a good thing."

"In that case, let me eat it. It's okay to eat a little more occasionally. Just think of it as implementing your 'thrifty' concept, Lady Fu Nina." Richard changed the subject and picked up the fork to start eating Fu Fu's cake.

"Wait!" When Furninna saw Richard's fork was about to fall on the cake, she became even more anxious. This was not what they had agreed!

Normally, after I said that waste was not a good thing, shouldn't Richard just go with the flow and give the cake to me to enjoy?

Why not play by the rules?

"What's wrong again? Lady Furninna." Richard put down the fork in his hand and looked at Furninna with an innocent face, as if he really didn't know why Furninna called him.

Fu Nina also knew that Richard did it on purpose, but she couldn't do anything about it. After a long while, she finally came up with a barely reasonable excuse: "I, I also want to implement the concept of 'saving'."

The subtext is: I want to eat cake too.

Richard pouted at the boiled water in front of her and said, "Aren't you already implementing this?"

"I..." Furninna was speechless.

I don’t know if Richard did it on purpose, but he was waving the fork above the cake, as if he was trying to choose the right angle to cut into it, but he just wouldn’t fork it down.

As Furninna watched Richard's fork going up and down, and her cake becoming more and more dangerous, she didn't care about anything anymore.

"Okay, okay, I admit it, I just want to eat the cake. You all have some, but I don't. This is not fair!" Funina came clean and admitted that she just wanted the cake in Richard's hand.

After all, the cake originally belonged to her, but Richard had used rhetoric to block her from having the cake before afternoon tea began. It was not easy for her to embarrass herself in front of Linnet and Clorinde.

Now that Linnet and Clorinde were gone, there was only herself and Richard, so naturally there was no need to act pretentiously. After all, Richard knew her deepest secrets, and there was nothing to hide from him.

"But didn't Lady Funina say..."

"That's for later. Now it's just a proposal, right? It hasn't even been implemented yet. Why are you depriving me of my right to enjoy the cake?"

Funina's current situation can be described in one sentence: "When the thought of giving up comes, the world suddenly becomes wider."

"But having said that, according to what you said, Lady Funina, the afternoon tea time in Momang Palace will definitely be reduced or even abolished in the future, right?"

"We'll talk about what happens next later!" Now all Funina had eyes for was the cake.

Richard held up a fork and pretended to cut it, which frightened Funina so much that she hurriedly said, "I do have such an idea, but now I am discussing it with you..."

Let’s talk it over nicely. Just put down the fork on the cake first. We can discuss everything.

Not to mention it really feels like robbers taking hostages.

Lady Funina, you don't want your cake to be eaten by me, do you?

Richard shook the 'weapon' in his hand, and Furninha stared at the hostage in Richard's hand. A delicate balance was reached in the office.

"So, in the end, Lady Funina probably feels that the current City Hall and even the entire Momang Palace are too extravagant. Office equipment, entertainment facilities, private office staff, typewriters... these are what you really want to improve, right?"

"Yes...that's right, that's exactly what I wanted to say." In fact, Funina didn't think so much about it. She just wanted to save money. As for why she started with afternoon tea, it was because afternoon tea was the thing she was most familiar with in Momang Palace.

As for the office equipment Richard mentioned, such as typewriters, she had never used any of them...

Even when issuing documents, she only needed the simplest paper and pen, as well as some seals that symbolized her identity.

"But there's another problem here."

"I knew it……"

"If these benefits are cut, and those at the top can continue to enjoy the comfort and convenience brought by these benefits without sharing them with those below, it will inevitably cause strong dissatisfaction, just like you are now dissatisfied about not having a small piece of cake."

After all, one of the main causes of disputes since ancient times is that some people have more than I do and resources are unevenly distributed.

If Funina wants to implement such reforms, she will definitely face this situation.

"You make me sound like a greedy person when you say that!" Finina blushed. "Besides, I didn't cut the benefits of the people below me."

"That would be even worse. The people at the top have put in more effort and paid more price, working hard to climb up from the bottom, but now they are told that they have to be treated the same as those at the bottom. Would you feel good if you were in their shoes?" There was actually one thing Richard hadn't told Fu Ningna clearly.

That is, the people above have far more resources, wealth, and connections than those below. The influence and destructive power they can cause will naturally far exceed the influence brought by those below. Even if Finina is the water god, she cannot ignore it.

I am afraid that in the end, even if Funina wins the final victory, what she has paid must be far more than what she has gained...

"If there is a leader who can set an example, the impact will be reduced a lot, right?" Finina was no fool and naturally understood what Richard meant.

Richard raised the knife and fork in his hand, and pointed at the small cake on the table with it. The meaning was self-evident.

Do you think you can set a good example? Miss Funina who loves cakes.

Hmm... her performance just now is still vivid in her mind. At this point, Funina no longer has the confidence to say "I can do it".

"But I didn't just reduce the benefits for the upper class. I didn't leave out those below me either. I treated everyone equally."

"So you have offended two troublesome groups, haven't you?" Richard asked back.

When people implement policies, they tend to win over one group of people and suppress another group.

When it comes to Furninna, it's better. She advocates equality for all. Everyone gets hit, and no one can blame anyone else...

It's a good thing that you're the God of Water. If a normally appointed executive minister dared to do this, not only would he not be able to implement the policy, he would probably be fired the next day after the policy was proposed because he stepped into the office with his left foot first.

This is not how you should treat everyone equally, my naive Lady Funina.

"So it's impossible to do it no matter what?" Finina finally realized this. She showed a distressed look. Why is it so difficult to save money?

"It's not that it won't work, it just requires proper methods and approaches. But before that I'd like to ask you a question..." Richard said. In fact, he also knew that there was a big trick hidden in this, but this was a common problem for any large group, and it could only treat the symptoms but not the root cause.

What made Richard more curious was why Funina suddenly wanted to cut spending.

To this, Funina explained, "Because I want to buy the Qun Yu Pavilion."

Richard:?

"Buy the Jade Pavilion? Why?" Richard could never have imagined that Funina promoted the 'saving movement' to cut spending in order to save money to buy the Jade Pavilion.

"You see, in the past, Mo Mang Palace would pay a large amount of research funds to the Academy of Sciences every year to study ways to deal with the flood crisis."

"The Academy of Sciences has given many answers, and the one that has the greatest chance of success is the Edwin space flight experiment that exploded not long ago."

"As you know, the Sky City was not built, but two-thirds of the Fontaine Academy of Sciences was taken away."

"And now that Liyue has a successful case, I was thinking, instead of throwing money into the Academy of Sciences, why not just buy the Qun Yu Pavilion?"

"Even if we can't buy the main body of the Qun Yu Pavilion, buying the technology and building it ourselves is also a solution."

There was nothing wrong with Fu Nina's idea. Although the initiative was in Liyue's hands, once negotiations began, Fontaine would be in a very passive situation. But the most urgent task at the moment was to deal with the flood crisis that could happen at any time, and everything else could be put aside.

As long as we can successfully avoid the crisis in the end, or even reduce some casualties, all the efforts will be worth it.

Volume 99: Chapter Richard and Fernina once again reach an agreement

Richard never expected that Furninna's reason for saving money was so simple.

But it must be said that Funina's method is indeed feasible, because compared with Fontaine's immature and unstable anti-gravity technology, the Qun Yu Pavilion built based on the Floating Stone and immortal magic seems to be more reliable.

Moreover, Funina also knew that the Jade Pavilion was being expanded every year. From a small house at the beginning, it gradually "grew" into the large building complex that can accommodate the daily office of the Seven Stars of Liyue, which was enough to prove its potential to become a floating city.

At least it is definitely much better than the Fontaine Academy of Sciences, which has already "ascended" on the physical level before it ascended to the sky.

"But Lady Funina, how can you be sure that Liyue will be willing to sell it?"

"Because as far as I know, the owner of the Qun Yu Pavilion, Tian Quan Star among the Seven Stars of Liyue, is a pure businessman. As long as Mora gives enough and the reasons are sufficient, I think she will sell the Qun Yu Pavilion to me." As soon as Fu Ningna knew that there was a building like the Qun Yu Pavilion in Liyue, she arranged for people to inquire about it.

Naturally, I learned some information about Ningguang. If the intelligence was correct, then although it might be difficult to purchase the Qun Yu Pavilion from her, at least there was still hope.

"Besides, isn't the Jade Pavilion currently mostly destroyed because of the demon god's rebellion? If we want to rebuild it, it will definitely cost a lot of Mora. So even if Ningguang doesn't plan to sell the Jade Pavilion, it is very likely that she can sell related technologies to fill the funds needed for reconstruction, right?"

Furninna's inference was not without reason. Given Ningguang's attitude towards Mora and her extremely positive reasons, the possibility of reaching this deal was indeed quite high.

However, having the skills alone is not enough. Although Richard didn't know much about the magic of immortals, he still knew something about the main materials that allowed the Qun Yu Pavilion to take off.

"Lady Fininna, even if you can obtain the corresponding technology, there is no way to guarantee that you can collect enough floating stones before the prophecy comes true." Richard said.

The Floating Stone will not float into the air before being activated. Only after being activated through secret methods will it break free from the constraints of gravity and rise into the sky. This material is also the main material that constitutes the foundation of the Qun Yu Pavilion.

Floating Stone is actually not rare in Liyue. The sky lanterns used in the Lantern Festival are made of this material.

Although it is uncommon, it is still extremely difficult to find a giant floating stone that can support an entire city.

The Qun Yu Pavilion uses a sufficiently large floating stone as its core, and then uses other small floating stones to gradually expand outward with the largest floating stone as the center.

With the current reserves of floating stones in the Liyue market, even if Fontaine took them all, they could probably only build another Jade Pavilion at most.

As for the floating city, that is even more of a distant prospect. Even if Liyue works overtime to increase production capacity and mine floating stones, it will take ten years as a basic unit to build a floating city.

But given Fontaine’s current situation, can it last until the floating city is built?

At present, all signs indicate that the time for the prophecy to come true is not far away.

In three years at the shortest and five years at the longest, the flood crisis is bound to occur. By then, Fontainebleau will be submerged in water, leaving only the water god sitting on the throne crying.

"But this is all we can do now..." Finina knew that the floating city could not be built overnight, but she didn't have any better choice now, right?

"That's a lot of Mora. To support a project of this level, the Mora required can't be saved by just saving."

Even if all the daily benefits of the civil servants in Mo Mang Palace were cut, the Mora saved each year would probably only be enough to build an aerial toilet.

What's more, it is impossible for Funina to cut all daily benefits, so it is nothing but a fantasy to want to save enough money to build an enlarged version of the "Qun Yu Pavilion".

Finina also thought that saving money is better than saving money, so when she heard Richard's words, she nodded.

"So the focus still has to be on open source." Funina figured it out.

Since saving money is difficult, find ways to make money.

But then again, how big a business would it take to earn that much Mora?

As we all know, making money is much harder than saving money, not to mention that the money that Funina has to earn is not a small amount.

"Do you have any good ideas?" Furninna looked at Richard expectantly and stretched out her hand towards the small cake in front of Richard.

Since she had already decided to focus on increasing revenue, the discussion on cost-cutting could naturally be postponed, and she could legitimately enjoy this hard-earned afternoon tea.

Then I saw Richard's knife and fork fall directly and cut off a small piece of cake.

Furninna: !!!

Funina's eyes widened as she looked at Richard in disbelief, pointing at the small cake that had been cut off, her gaze switching back and forth between the cake and Richard.

"You, you, you..." Funina was so anxious that she couldn't speak.

Richard found this kind of Furniture very interesting. He pushed the cut cake forward and easily stuffed it into Furniture's mouth.

"Hmm..." Finina subconsciously held the cake in her mouth. The familiar sweetness exploded in her taste buds, blocking out all the words she wanted to say.

So delicious...

Although this cake can be eaten almost every week, Funina always feels that today's cake is particularly delicious, with an indescribable taste.

She guessed that the reason why it was so delicious was probably because this cake was hard to come by, just like being thirsty for a long time and patiently going home to have a sip of Fengda.

But soon, Funina realized a problem: was she being fed by Richard?

The temperature on Funina's face instantly rose. She quickly snatched the fork from Richard's hand and said with a stutter: "I, I can do it myself..."

As she spoke, she brought the cake in front of Richard to herself, cut a piece and put it into her mouth without saying a word. Her expression seemed a little tense and a faint mist could be seen on her head.

Steam is coming out and it says yes.

However, what confused Furninna was that although this bite of cake tasted delicious, it was not as good as the previous one.

This reminded Funina of a widely circulated saying in Fontaine, that is, a bottle of Fontaine costs 300 moras, and the first sip is worth 200 moras.

Maybe... the same is true for cakes?

It can't be because the previous bite was fed to him by Richard, right?

After calming down her agitated mood, Funina's pretty face still had a little redness, but she spoke fluently again.

"Actually, I just thought of an idea." Furniture poked the cake with a fork unconsciously. For some reason, her eyes were elsewhere, and she didn't dare to look at Richard.

"tell me the story."

"Since Momang Palace has no money, let's collect the money from the rich." Funina said and pointed to the house outside the window.