Sir! Don't close the net!

Alma couldn't help but glance at the large travel bag in Li Yili's arms, then quickly looked away.

Without a doubt, Princess Nakya was definitely inside that travel bag.

“Secretary Alma… I suddenly feel that I might be a bit of a jerk,” Li Yili turned her chair to face Alma and let out a helpless sigh.

Alma subconsciously moved to the side, looking at Li Yili with some wariness.

When someone who has never admitted to being a jerk suddenly starts to repent, either that person has truly turned over a new leaf, or that person has stopped pretending and is about to do something even more despicable.

Li Yili's words...

Without a doubt, it's the latter, and right now, Li Yili is confessing to her.

This guy probably doesn't actually want to do *that* here!

Alma stood up nervously, wanting to show Li Yili that she wasn't the kind of woman who would give in just because she was intimidated. But when she thought about how both Valhou were Li Yili's mistresses and how the Thorn Princess was in the large suitcase on Li Yili's lap, Alma suddenly lost her confidence.

Thinking about it carefully... could it be that Li Yili deliberately revealed Valhae and Nakya to her in order to humiliate her into submission?

I have to say...

It's very useful.

“Although I don’t know what little drama is playing out in your head, Secretary Alma, I’m really reflecting on some of my thoughts right now,” Li Yili raised a finger and bent it at Alma before turning her chair and letting out a long sigh. “Actually… I’ve always thought the Instasians are trash, and I was thinking of just squeezing them to death.”

"Then you really need to reflect on why you have such thoughts—" Unexpectedly, Li Yili said this...

The blunt Alma couldn't help but shout, "Seriously, what's the difference between you and Austin?!"

“Secretary Alma, I must emphasize one thing: I am fundamentally different from Austin,” Li Yili said, raising her finger. “Austin has always treated the residents of Instas as human batteries. He hopes that the residents of Instas have no sense of self, while I simply don’t care.”

"Uh... does it make a difference?"

“Of course, to me, they are just the background in my life. Whether they are shining or as black as coal is none of my business. Of course, the biggest reason is that I don’t want to respect them from the bottom of my heart,” Li Yili raised her hands above her head, confessing her thoughts like a prisoner confessing with a gun pressed against the back of her head.

"Their way of life is something I can't respect, but now that I think about it, it was really bad of me to categorize them as someone who doesn't need respect just because their way of life is different from mine. Even though they live that way, they are still alive and have their own dignity."

Alma's expression was incredibly awkward.

"Don't look at me like that, okay? Even I can get hurt, you know?" Li Yili raised her eyes.

"Oh... it's really touching that you can reflect on your actions," Alma said, scratching her face. "So, are you planning to donate all your assets, or try to improve the treatment of the residents of Instas? By the way, isn't there anything else you should reflect on?"

"Well..."

Li Yili placed her hands on the armrests, looked up at the sky and pondered for a while before looking at Alma with a serious expression.

"I also need to make a living, hey hey hey—don't give me that look, okay? Self-reflection is self-reflection, and doing business is doing business. The market doesn't operate on sentimentality and empty talk."

"Ha... Minister Li Yili, don't you think what you're saying sounds like empty platitudes to get your employees to work for you?" Alma sat back down, picked up her pen, and started writing in the books while complaining, "Especially since I'm doing the work you're supposed to be doing right now."

"Well..."

Li Yili tapped the armrest with her fingers and then shrugged.

"Because I am battling my own desires."

“I think Minister Li Yili, you have already succumbed to your own desires,” Alma rolled her eyes.

“There’s a voice here that keeps telling me not to care about the lives of the Instas residents and to make me a typical capitalist,” Li Yili pointed to her head. “But I didn’t sit in this position to conform. I acted because I was unhappy with that kind of exploitation.”

“Then why don’t you just overthrow Austin and his group?” Alma scoffed. “Wouldn’t that be faster?”

"That's the problem, Miss Alma."

Li Yili raised her hand and pointed at Alma.

"This is also what the god of displacement taught me."

Alma's lips twitched. "Minister, let me make this clear first: I won't be fooled by a title like 'God of Displacement'."

"To break through that abyss and reach the place of light, one must accept the abyss—"

Li Yili's gaze shifted from Alma, passing through the window to the deep, abyss-like walls of the Dead Sea that stretched straight to the sky.

"Only by accepting the abyss can one enter the abyss. Only by clearly understanding which part of oneself has become part of the abyss and which part remains oneself can one ensure that one will not completely become part of the abyss. And no matter where one is in the abyss... only those who can calmly accept and expel that part can break through the abyss."

Alma's mouth dropped open.

The man in front of me is just explaining the principles of submarines... right...?

“So, do you understand, Secretary Alma? I’m currently lurking in the abyss called the capitalist’s world. I was just doing a self-examination just now,” Li Yili said, turning her gaze away and spreading her hands at Alma. “Fortunately, I did find a problem and adjusted my mindset in time. Starting today, I can begin to prepare for the elimination of the problem and prepare to break through the abyss called the capitalist’s world.”

Alma nodded with some difficulty. She wasn't sure if she was overthinking it, but she felt that what Li Yili was saying wasn't just the simple principle of submarines, nor was it about capitalists, but something much deeper.

Alma suddenly had a bizarre feeling that a god of water displacement really existed in this world, and that he was really conveying to Li Yili the method to break through the Abyss.

Chapter 121 Hello, Teacher Meng

Only those with a guilty conscience can glean a lot of meaning from a single sentence.

Just as Alma was troubled by Li Yili's teachings from the god of submarines, Li Yili, like a scumbag who had just finished having fun and was now feeling refreshed and discussing ideals, didn't mention the previous content at all, but instead started asking about the proportion of the tickets.

This made Alma even more distressed. This was a question that Li Yili, as the minister, should have asked. Li Yili should be happy to work as diligently as a serious boss, but isn't it a bit much to pretend to be a saint after having her fun?

But she couldn't appear as if she were sexually frustrated.

“That’s strange… Why is Austin suddenly so well-behaved?” Li Yili put her hands into her travel bag and gently rocked the chair from side to side.

"That...your hand...is..."

"

"Given Austin's greedy nature, shouldn't he seize this opportunity while we're compromising and further solidify our superior-subordinate relationship?"

Li Yili tilted her head towards Alma and raised an eyebrow.

“Well… he’s probably worried we’ll all perish together with him,” Alma said, abandoning her吐槽 (tu cao, a Chinese internet slang term for sarcastic remarks) and following Li Yili’s leaps of thought. “After all, we’re not a real logistics company or steel mill. Our influence extends all over the world. With a little resource mobilization, we can establish a new base anywhere. But Austin can only stay in Instas. If he pushes us too far and tries to take us down with him, we can just pack up and leave. Austin, on the other hand, will simply become a rich man without a care in the world. A rich man in Nibelungen can easily become a pauper.”

“Ha…so we’re sitting face to face right now, each holding the detonator of the bombs on the other’s body. Even if we blow each other up first, the aftershocks will blow us up. The only difference between us and Austin is that we didn’t shatter on the spot,” Li Yili shook her head from side to side.

“That’s how it is,” Alma paused, then turned to Li Yili and bent two fingers at her. “Unfortunately, Minister Li Yili, the abyss called the capitalist’s is not so easy to cross.”

“That’s hard to say,” Li Yili said, resting her chin on her hand and revealing a meaningful smile.

Alma's lips twitched. Her intuition told her that Li Yili had come up with some bad idea again, but reason told her that there was no room for Li Yili to maneuver in the current situation.

Surely the minister of the Black Goat's cubs wouldn't run away with his Valkyrie mistress.

"By the way, Secretary Alma, how's the construction of my submarine going?" Li Yili's eyes darted around.

“Well… if it doesn’t involve the power system, we can make as many basic parts as we need in one night,” Alma straightened up slightly. “Because it’s something you asked Minister Li Yili for, all the orders that could be postponed were postponed last night, and we should have produced five or six batches by now.”

"This is the best news I've heard today."

Li Yili pulled her hand out of her travel bag, stood up, and slung the bag over her shoulder.

"Secretary Alma, let's go see my submarine. Oh, and call Sieg along; after all, he's one of the passengers too!"

After saying that, Li Yili rushed out with her eyes shining. This left Alma, who still wanted to say something, with no choice but to slump her shoulders, tidy up the ledgers on the table, and call out to Zig, who was still splashing in the swimming pool. She and Li Yili got into the carriage and went to a factory in the Fire Elf Steelworks that had been set aside to make submarine parts.

The assembly line clattered as parts were transported by conveyor belts to a designated assembly area. There, a submarine had already been assembled, and several men who appeared to be senior engineers were gathered around it with furrowed brows and chins raised. Nearby, several workers were filling a newly dug deep pool with water.

"Hehe—I'm so lucky to have stumbled upon the experimental phase so soon after arriving," Li Yili whistled.

Meanwhile, the still-young Sieg, his eyes shining, squeezed to the front of the submarine, raised his hands above his head, and exclaimed, "So cool—"

"It's just for looks; this design is completely unreasonable," a middle-aged man with a full beard, who looked to be over forty, couldn't help but frown.

Alma awkwardly stepped behind Li Yili.

The middle-aged man's striking personal style caught Li Yili's attention. "This man... isn't a resident of Instas, is he?"

"And this is...?"

Alma reluctantly stepped out from behind Li Yili, raising her hand to accept the middle-aged man's identity, when the middle-aged man rudely interrupted Alma.

"I am Eddie. I came all the way from Millennium because I heard there was some groundbreaking theory here and I was planning to build a corresponding model. But humph—I was asked to build this unreasonable thing right from the start. How disappointing," the middle-aged man said with his arms crossed and a cold laugh.

“Teacher Meng, you’ve misunderstood,” Li Yili said, raising her hand to stop Alma from speaking and smiling at Eddie.

Eddie was taken aback, looked around, then pointed to himself, "You're talking to me?"

"Yes, Teacher Meng."

"So...didn't you hear me? My name is Eddie."

"It's definitely Teacher Meng."

Eddie's lips twitched, then he rubbed his forehead and sighed. His resentment towards the client was washed away by the overwhelming exhaustion that washed over him, leaving him speechless.

"Alright, so you're the head of logistics at Sheep Village? You wrote all those formulas?"

“I wrote it,” Li Yili said, her left hand on her hip and her right hand gesturing up and down. “Does Teacher Meng have any insights?”

I'm Edison, not Teacher Meng!

Eddie felt a tightness in his chest, but he suppressed his inner complaints, took a deep breath, and crossed his arms. "I have no problem with your formula. In fact, I'm quite satisfied and respectful of it. Seeing you in person makes me realize that the future belongs to young people."

"Thanks--"

Not only Alma, but the other engineers standing behind Eddie also twitched their lips. Zieg even whispered cautiously, "Mr. Li Yili, you should be more humble at this time."

Eddie's face twitched before he exhaled. "But youth is both your strength and your greatest weakness. You see too far ahead and fail to notice the situation right in front of you. If you can't achieve it, no matter how brilliant the formula or..."

Theory is nothing but fantasy.

"that……"

"Take this submarine you designed, for example!"

Eddie turned around and patted the assembled submarine hard.

"This size is so large that even a steam engine can't fit inside. How are you going to pump the seawater that controls the levitation out of the auxiliary cabin? By manpower?!"

"As expected of Teacher Meng!"

"Eh?"

Eddie stood there, stunned.

Chapter 122 No one favored by the gods would willingly become a human engine.

As a second-level engineer in the millennium, Eddie firmly believed that science existed to make life easier and free people from the limitations imposed by poor human labor. Therefore, Eddie loved mechanics and especially the steam engine.

"What...what do you mean..." Eddie looked at Li Yili standing in front of him with utter bewilderment. "Rely on manpower? You want to rely on manpower?"

“Of course, if it’s manpower, we just need to include one person’s weight in the calculation,” Li Yili said, spreading her arms wide. “But compared to a steam engine and its fuel, a person’s weight is practically negligible.”