Unedited
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After a few more minutes, Madam Luo asked if she could see her grandson. Lily immediately asked someone to escort Claude towards his grandmother.
“You alright?”
She nodded at Zhou Jingren’s words. “I am.” Slowly, the sadness in Lily’s eyes vanished. “I don’t think she will last that long.”
“Where are you going?”
“We need to discuss something,” Lily said as she walked towards their room. Death is indeed a part of life and it will soon come for Madam Luo. There is no point in staying here anymore.
“Lily, Jingren…” The Duchess’ soft voice reached their ears. Both halted their steps. “I heard Grandma Luo is already awake?” A bead of sweat trickled down the duchess forehead. “I had to run here… Is she alright? How was her wound?”
“I don’t think she will survive this night. I asked her to rest first, but she refused to do so. Instead, she requested to talk to her grandson.” She let out a sigh. “She is pretty weak.”
Tears immediately trickled down the duchess’ cheeks. “I will go and see her.”
Lily and Zhou Jingren nodded and watched as the Duchess ran towards the room where Madam Luo was kept.
“Life… is truly unexpected,” Lily said as they started walking towards their room. After a few minutes, the duo arrived inside their room.
“Is something wrong?” Zhou Jingren said.
“How was the plan?”
“The Duke already agreed to keep it a secret. Not even the Duchess will know it.”
“Good.”
“Did something happen?” After he grabbed a bottle of water, Zhou Jingren sat next to Lily. He gave her the water. “Did Madam Luo said something?”
“Madam Luo keeps on saying… Mr. Neeson here and there. He is the Duchess’ Father. While the Duchess had been kind to us, I don’t want to risk it. It is better to take measures now than regret it later.” Lily accepted the bottle of water as she thought about Madam Luo’s words as she clutched the pendant of her necklace. “We need to go to Madam Luo’s mansion after her death. Asked Jichen to talk to Yang Mi. I want to buy that property.”
“Hmmm.” He stood and immediately started making calls.
“Hey… are you familiar with the Divine Manipulation of Threads?” Lily asked when Zhou Jingren ended the call.
“The use of five spies?” Zhou Jingren asked. In Sun Tzu’s art of war, this was known as the Sovereign’s most precious Faculty. Controlling five spies could change the game, it could win a war without shedding a single drop of blood or losing a lot of resources.
According to Sun Tzu, there are five types of spies. The inward spies, the local spies, the converted spies, the doomed spies, and the surviving spies. The person who could have these five spies will surely win the war as long as they manage the spies accordingly.
“I believe that is happening in this country,” Lily said. “The Duke might not be aware of this yet… but I think… someone is behind all this.”
“For power?” He asked. “Then… Do you think it’s— “
“Mr. Neeson,” Lily said. “And he is using the Duchess and Leandro. After all, Leandro is the person who will inherit the throne. I believe… they are making mistakes because of my presence. Whatever plan that they have… must have changed because I am here.”
“So the Inward Spy and the Surviving Spy?”
Lily nodded in response. If Madam Luo’s words were true, then this organization would not bat an eyelid in causing havoc just to change the leadership of a country. “I believe these people… wanted to change Duke Phil because they cannot control him.” Luxembourg’s economy started booming because of Duke Phil’s bold choices. Shortly after he became the Grand Duke, Luxembourg rose from the ashes and became the richest country in the EU. Because of this… Luxembourg along with Belgium received the highest money from the EU. “You mention that The Order’s purpose is to maintain the status quo of the world. They would not allow such an imbalance of wealth.”
Lily was quick to put herself in the shoes of the Organization. If they wanted to maintain the status quo, then they would not want Luxembourg to become too rich as this would affect the whole EU. Now that Lily reflected on it, the scheme was actually pretty simple.
The Order created an enemy, and that is Pierre Weber. Then everything — every little thing that had been happening in the country. The poisoning and spying were linked to Pierre Weber. This could easily overwhelm someone into thinking that he was the real enemy. However, Pierre is nothing but a piece of pawn in this elaborate game of Chess that the Organization wanted to play against the Duke.
If Lily was with the Organization, she would immediately think of using the Divine Manipulation of Threads to control such a big country.
First is the Inward Spy. This is the spy that involves officials of the enemies. That would be the people that could easily hear the enemy’s plans. For instance, the knight commander or even the Duchess.
Next is the Local Spy. These are local citizens. People who would get affected once war broke out. War or conflict would bring significant changes in their life. Thus, some people could easily convince them to spy to prevent a war or make their lives easier. If she was right, then that would be the servants of the Duchess. Surely, Mr. Neeson wanted to monitor his daughter’s actions. So… he planted some spies next to her.
The third is the Converted Spies. As the name suggests, these are people who are double agents. They spy for the enemy but were converted and are now working for the other side. These are the most untrustworthy people in the game. They cannot be trusted and could turn on you at any time of the day. These people are also very hard to identify as they usually don’t reveal themselves and hate the attention. All they wanted was to gather information secretly.
And actually, this is the part that Lily was afraid of… She could not stop herself from thinking that this spy… is just around her. But… who could it be?
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