Mr. Pantalone has no crazy plans today.

That's such a childish reason that it leaves you speechless.

She still remembers the words that man said to her the last time they spoke.

"Sometimes, it is necessary to pay a small price in order to fight against the great cause of justice."

"In the endless eternity, humanity will live a peaceful, dreamless life, but in the blind spot of the gods' vision, I... still want to try dreaming."

"Who told me to be such a childish dreamer?"

In the memory of the "girl" Columbia, the man held the moon in the night sky, as if he were holding the whole world in his hands.

His tone was full of...

That was the last time she saw that man.

The man appears to have made some kind of deal with the queen, and the queen seems to have undergone some minor changes afterward.

The man suddenly vanished, as if he had never existed in her memory.

He became one of the executors of the Fools, but the man who always had wild ideas disappeared from her memory, replaced by a businessman who considered himself a banker.

It was as if that heartless, rationalist yet occasionally childish man had vanished, as if the man in her memory had never existed.

However, some recent events have made the "girl" think of a man who has disappeared.

Columbia, who was a "young girl", gently opened her slightly closed eyes.

Her skin was as pale as ashes, her eyes were lowered, and her slender fingers caressed the strings of her instrument as she softly sang an ancient melody that only she could understand.

As Columbia gazed at the moon in the night sky, it was as if she were back to the last words someone had said to her before disappearing, which brought a gentle smile to her face.

What kind of surprise will you bring me?

As she spoke, Columbia softly uttered a name.

"Streetlights."

Chapter 23: Plans to Cash Out Funds in Mondstadt

For the winter season, snow is the most common weather.

The cold wind at midnight is always so unexpected, making people feel a sudden, inexplicable shiver.

Pantalone, who was lying on the table, suddenly felt a chill run down his spine, which made him shiver.

It could be said that he was startled awake from his deathbed, barely clinging to life for another day. Ugh... He remembered that the second half of that sentence should be, "A cold wind blows rain into the window."

The icy winter snow fell on him, melting into water that seeped into his thick cotton-padded coat, leaving him defenseless. A bone-chilling cold shot straight to the top of his head.

This made him suddenly realize that he seemed to have fallen asleep while working overtime.

After returning from Sandoni, Pantalone has been working overtime to figure out how to raise enough money, but no matter how hard he tries, he realizes that it's not something that can be easily resolved in a short time.

If his plan and ideas were to be implemented, it would undoubtedly take years.

Unless he runs straight to Liyue right now, ties Morax up, and then beats up the kidneys of that God of Contracts.

This way, he can directly manipulate the issuance of currency and inflation.

However, this is obviously impossible, considering that Morax is still sitting on his throne.

If Morax has already faked his death, then he could try to steal the Immortal Ancestor's physical body directly.

After all, in a sense, they are essentially the flesh and blood of Morax, and using them directly as Morax is the same.

Otherwise, he could just find a way to have the people at the Liyue Northern Bank branch find an old man named Zhongli who walks birds, and have him find a way to owe the Northern Bank a sum of money. That way, he could openly ask Morax for the money.

If the other side doesn't intend to forge Mora, that would be even better. Just have the Rock King donate his blood for free, and drain millions of tons of his blood to completely destroy the economy of Teyvat.

However, Pantalone doubts whether Morax's true form, including his bones, weighs several million tons.

He shook his head to clear his mind, dismissing the idea that even he found absurd, and Pantalone sighed softly as he picked up the documents on the table and began to read them.

These were intelligence reports submitted by his Northern Bank branches in seven different countries, necessary for analyzing the layout of the plan.

If one cannot have a general understanding of the situation in the seven kingdoms, then there is no way to make targeted plans based on this situation.

However, he did not expect to be able to attack the other six countries all at once, so intelligence gathering was still necessary, as it was one of the essential means of strategic deployment.

After all, you have to eat one bite at a time; if you take too big a step, you might end up tearing your balls.

After turning to the next page of the document in his hand, Pantalone found a name.

"The Lawrence family?"

Pantalone fell into deep thought after seeing the name.

If he remembered correctly, the Lawrence family should be one of the old noble families of Mondstadt.

Two thousand six hundred years ago, the wind god Barbatos overthrew the rule of the Lone King in the Tower. The god of liberty knew the value of freedom and therefore did not choose to become king. Thus, Mondstadt became a free city-state and a kingdom without a king.

But humans are not gods, and excessive freedom will only breed endless desires over time, eventually leading to corruption.

As the saying goes, the dragon slayer will become the new dragon.

The Lawrence family, once warriors of Mondstadt's pioneering era, succumbed to corruption driven by their lust for power, ushering in an era of aristocratic oppression and rule—one of the darkest periods in Mondstadt's history.