“It’s you!”
Liam’s attitude did a complete one-eighty.
He bent even lower, his face plastered with an ingratiating smile.
“You’re my benefactor! You must have put in a good word with Lord Lage, which is why I landed this big project!”
He instinctively assumed that this man was the deeper reason Lord Lage had taken notice of him and given him that mysterious investment.
After all… he’d run into this man right before the investment happened.
And now he was showing up at Lord Lage’s banquet—it was hard not to connect the dots.
Tess was shy.
She nervously hugged her brother’s arm, half her body hidden behind him, sneaking glances at Joen.
Feeling his sister’s movement, Liam’s heart dropped.
Wait… could it be that this benefactor… had his eye on Tess first, and that was why he came up with the so-called “donation project investment”?
Panic flashed through his mind.
In the midst of an inner struggle, his ideals and his strong desire clashed, but instead grew more resolute.
Liam tried to act calm, but his hands wouldn’t stop trembling.
He turned, putting on a fierce expression, and shooed his sister away.
“Go on, go on! Men are talking about important things. What are you, a girl, listening for? Go eat something over there!”
He pointed at the cold buffet table in the distance.
Tess froze at his words.
Her eyes reddened, and she pouted in grievance.
She shot her brother a reproachful glare, but in the end, she lowered her head and silently ran off.
With his sister gone, Liam finally relaxed.
He rubbed his hands together and, unable to contain his eagerness, pulled Joen into a corner of the balcony.
“My Lord, the reason I came here today is actually to report on the progress, and also to ask when those gold coins will hit the account.”
He started airing his grievances.
“You have no idea. It’s supposed to be a project, but right now there’s only two or three silver coins in the account. And the materials we were given are junk—rags that look like they were dug out of some dead man’s pile. Trying to fool people with this stuff, especially those shrewd nobles? It’s tough!”
Joen listened quietly.
He knew the other man had misunderstood, but he didn’t bluntly correct him.
Instead, he took the chance to fish for information, occasionally chiming in to ask for specifics:
“How are you promoting it?”
“Who’s managing the accounts?”
“How do you ensure the supplies reach the Hero in the end?”
At first, Liam answered fluently, but the more he heard, the more uneasy he felt.
This lord… his focus was a bit strange?
He didn’t doubt that Joen was the one pulling the strings behind the scenes—instead, he drew in a sharp breath and thought in alarm:
Could it be that this lord is actually serious?
Liam was silent for a long while, his expression gradually turning odd.
He probed cautiously:
“You don’t mean… you actually want to use the money for disaster relief?”
“Of course.”
Joen nodded matter-of-factly.
“Isn’t that the original purpose of what we’re doing?”
Liam fell silent.
He stared at Joen like he was looking at a fool.
After a long moment, he realized that wasn’t polite, so he coughed awkwardly, forced a strained smile onto his lips, and spoke with a bitter, helpless tone of advice:
“My Lord, this won’t work. You’d be better off focusing on making money.”
“Why won’t it work?” Joen countered.
“Because charity was never meant to save the poor. It’s a business.”
Liam started gesticulating with his hands.
“Let’s set aside everything else—do you know how much overhead goes into fundraising? If you don’t spend most of the money on networking, hiring people for promotion, and throwing banquets, who’s going to show up to donate?”
“After all that trouble, offending so many people, just to do a good deed… forgive me for saying this, but it’s a huge loss.”
Joen’s brow gradually furrowed.
A wave of disappointment rose in his chest.
“So you mean you were deceiving people from the very start?”
“I wouldn’t call it deceiving.”
Liam gave a bitter smile.
“Let me be honest with you—it’s just mutual benefit.”
“My Lord, take a look at this imperial capital.”
He pointed at the brilliantly lit districts in the distance.
“Why would those noble lords donate to the Dry River Territory? Is it really because they sympathize with a bunch of strangers they’ve never met and will never meet in their lives?”
“Of course not. If you don’t know them, haven’t seen them, where does the pity come from? Where does the caring come from?”
“They donate to buy themselves a moment of self-righteous satisfaction. To be able to puff out their chests at a banquet and say, ‘I’m a good person.’ To get that high-and-mighty thrill of condescending charity!”
Liam’s gaze grew gradually dazed.
It was as if, through the window, he could see himself years ago, begging on the streets with his little sister on his back.
“When I was a kid, I used to beg with my sister. Those noblewomen and young ladies would throw me a piece of bread, but at the same time, they’d look at me like I was a cockroach. They’d even cover their noses with handkerchiefs and say, ‘Tch, little bastard, take it and eat.’”
“Back then, I could never figure out—was she kind or wasn’t she?”
“If she wasn’t kind, why did she give me alms? If she was kind, why did she hurt me on top of it?”
“Later, I slowly figured it out. They weren’t really trying to save me—they were saving themselves.”
“My suffering and my gratitude could save them from the boredom and monotony of their sheltered lives.”
“So then—”
Liam spread his hands, and a twisted honesty spread across his face.
“Why don’t we streamline this process?”
“We wholeheartedly provide a ‘kindness experience’ service. The customer gets psychological satisfaction; we get the money. As for disaster relief… that cost is too high. Once you add it in, you might not make any profit at all.”
The more Joen heard, the more absurd it seemed.
He almost wanted to laugh.
It was too darkly comedic.
People who ran disaster-relief fundraisers were trying to optimize away the “disaster relief” part—the part that lost money.
“And what about those who really need help?”
Joen’s voice was low.
He looked askance at Liam and asked:
“The ones struggling in the floods, waiting to die from hunger—don’t they deserve a chance to live?”
“I don’t know.”
Liam answered frankly.
He shrugged.
“No one really cares about strangers. My Lord, don’t hold on too tight. Even the truly kind people—when they give alms, they’re only pitying the version of themselves they imagine in trouble.”
Joen said nothing.
Through the gradual growth of his mentality, he no longer got angry at words like these.
But it wasn’t exactly easy to take, either.
When the boy talked about making money, even his face changed.
Joen didn’t know what he felt inside.
He shook his head and turned to leave.
“Wait! My Lord!”
A desperate shout came from behind.
“Please! Give me a chance!”
Liam thumped to his knees, grabbing Joen’s hem, his eyes burning with determination and ambition.
“I can build this business big! Bigger than the Church! I’ll make every noblewoman in the capital dig out her private savings in tears! I’ll turn this money into a mountain of gold!”
“And then—”
He held up eight fingers, then quickly changed it to nine, his voice trembling.
“I’ll give you eighty percent! No, ninety! Ninety percent—deal?”
Joen stopped in his tracks.
He didn’t turn around.
A thought suddenly rose in his mind, and then he found it ridiculous.
He was thinking that rather than trusting the Church, it might be better to trust this merchant reeking of copper.
Let’s give it a shot.
It couldn’t turn out any worse than the Church anyway.
“Fine.”
Joen turned around.
Everything he once knew, believed, and thought had been constantly changing and twisting as he walked among the people—even leading him to decisions he never would have imagined in the past.
He didn’t know if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
Whatever.
Things had already come to this point.
He only cared about the results.
“I can provide you with what you need…”
“As long as you deliver results.”
“I won’t ask about the process.”
Joen half-crouched, looking Liam directly in the eye.
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