Genshin Impact: I'm The Envoy of Snezhnaya
Chapter 360: Cooperation?
Moonlight, thin like mist, drifted down gracefully. It filtered through the finely crafted window frames of Dawn Winery, softly floating into the room like the lightest and most beautiful fallen leaf of autumn—subtle, silent, yet carrying a cold elegance in its arc.
"Apple cider? Or dandelion wine?"
Unlike Bai Luo, Diluc rarely smiled. When he remained silent, his lips formed a straight line, revealing a stubborn and resolute expression.
"Apple cider. Preferably the non-alcoholic kind. I have someone here who shouldn't drink."
Bai Luo wore his usual gentle, faint smile. He glanced at Jianna behind him, making it impossible to tell whether that smile was genuine or not.
Diluc believed he had dealt with the Ausbilder long enough. Yet even he could not determine what meaning was hidden behind that smile.
"You already knew about Dvalin, didn't you?"
With practiced movements, Diluc poured apple cider for Bai Luo and Jianna before asking the question.
Even now, he still didn't know what exactly had happened between the Ausbilder and the Abyss that day in Whispering Woods. But he was certain that the Ausbilder must have had some kind of conflict with the Abyss.
And Dvalin was very likely the key to that conflict.
"You're blaming me for not informing you earlier?"
The fragrance of apple cider drifted into Bai Luo's nose as he gently swirled the glass in his hand, asking with interest.
Whether it was a drink or milk, once it reached his hands, he could somehow make it look like something extremely luxurious.
"No. Actually, you didn't know Stormterror's true identity at the beginning either, did you?"
Pouring himself a glass of grape juice, Diluc looked at Bai Luo's puzzled expression. For the first time, he felt like he had finally won against him in something.
"Relax. The bard didn't tell me. He's still unconscious. I just deduced the answer based on your actions."
"…"
That was a very good deduction.
Next time, maybe don't deduce.
Bai Luo didn't know exactly what Diluc had deduced, but judging from the fact that he hadn't realized that the bard was actually Venti, the deductions had probably gone wildly off course.
However, Bai Luo's strange expression only made Diluc more convinced that his guess was correct.
Finishing his grape juice in one gulp, Diluc asked:
"Want to cooperate?"
Cooperate?
Bai Luo's expression became even more subtle.
To be honest, he was usually the one asking others to cooperate. Having someone approach him first was a first.
"A Favonius Knight wants to cooperate with the Fatui?"
"Don't lump me together with the people from the Knights of Favonius. I'm just the owner of a winery. Whether I cooperate with any organization has nothing to do with the Knights' stance."
Before dawn arrives, someone must walk through the darkness to scout the path ahead.
Without a doubt, Diluc was that night owl who walked alone through the endless night.
He had thought about cooperating with the Ausbilder for a long time, but hasn't decided on whether to go with it or not.
After all, the Ausbilder had tricked him once before.
But under the current circumstances, the only person who seemed capable of fighting the Abyss alongside him was this Harbinger.
According to the intelligence he had gathered, this Harbinger was very different from the other Fatui Harbingers. Every action he took was unpredictable, yet somehow always produced results at critical moments.
Most importantly, among all the Harbingers who had gathered together for various motives, the Ausbilder was an absolute oddity.
Because he never cared about the consequences of his actions.
This made his thinking nearly impossible to understand.
After all… if someone doesn't care about the outcome, then there is no way to judge their true intentions.
You might exhaust all your efforts disrupting his plan, only to find that the resulting chaos actually makes him even happier.
So if you cooperate with him, the chance of success and failure is exactly fifty-fifty.
Either he finds your plan interesting and helps you accomplish it, or he decides that ruining your plan would be more entertaining and betrays you midway by helping your target instead.
Regarding this point, Diluc had firsthand experience.
Back when he first dealt with the Ausbilder in Mondstadt, the Ausbilder had simultaneously helped the Fatui place those mechanical birds around Mondstadt—devices capable of driving monsters into a frenzy—while at the same time secretly informing others about them.
He had even said that famous line:
"Personally, I keep public and private matters separate. Setting up these traps for the sake of the mission, and telling you their locations to save this child—there's no real conflict between the two, right?"
Although Bai Luo was now in a hostile stance toward the Abyss Order, Diluc still wasn't entirely sure whether this guy might suddenly switch sides halfway through and help the Abyss instead.
But he decided to gamble.
Throughout his life, he had faced many choices.
To him, a 50% chance was already worth betting on.
"First, tell me what kind of cooperation you have in mind."
It had to be said that Diluc's proposal genuinely piqued Bai Luo's interest.
Bai Luo glanced at Jianna beside him, who kept sneaking looks at Diluc's grape juice from time to time, before speaking.
"I don't expect you to tell me what kind of dealings you have with the Abyss. I only hope that before the Abyss problem is resolved, you won't take action against Mondstadt."
Investigating the matters concerning Dvalin and the Abyss meant that Diluc would have to leave Mondstadt City.
But with a ticking time bomb like Bai Luo inside the city, how could he leave with peace of mind?
"And the price?"
Bai Luo took a small sip of the apple cider in his hand.
Hmm… a faint sourness, yet compared to a Sunsettia, it could practically be called sweet.
No wonder Barbatos liked the stuff so much.
"You can name it. Even if it means giving up part of my profits in the wine business, that's acceptable."
Diluc understood very well that when dealing with someone like the Ausbilder, money and power meant nothing.
It would be better to let him propose his own conditions.
Perhaps that would increase the chances of their cooperation succeeding.
"Hmm… how about a barrel of good grape juice?"
After finishing the apple cider in one gulp, Bai Luo proposed a price that made Diluc momentarily stunned.
"Grape juice?"
What did he mean?
Was he referring to Mondstadt's grape-juice-related industry? Or perhaps wine?
It wasn't impossible… but in Mondstadt, the wine business was clearly more profitable.
The revenue from grape juice didn't even reach one percent of the wine industry's profits.
After all, in the entire city of Mondstadt, aside from him, hardly anyone was particularly fond of grape juice.
Even children preferred apple juice or Sunsettia juice.
"That's right. The kind you're drinking, bring me a barrel of it, and I'll agree."
Bai Luo pointed at the grape juice that Diluc had casually placed beside him.
"So you mean… just one barrel of grape juice? Nothing else?"
This time, Diluc finally understood.
The grape juice Bai Luo was talking about was literally just this ordinary fruit drink.
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Latest Chapter: Chapter 391: Never Make a Deal with Bai Luo[1]
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