Peng Ziyi and his group met Bai Yicheng who came down to greet them on the second floor, but Bai Yicheng's next words were beyond their expectations.
"Chairman Guo is finally here. This time we finally have a stabilizing force. This time, we didn't even have time to rest. We hurriedly called everyone here because there was a secret envoy from the Empire. He arrived at Hewan New City yesterday and has something extremely urgent to discuss with us."
"Imperial secret envoy?" Guo Qian glanced at Peng Ziyi, who shook his head slightly, indicating that he knew nothing about it.
"What is their purpose?" Guo Qian asked.
"Let's go talk in the room upstairs." Bai Yicheng turned around and gestured to lead the way.
He looked at the intelligence agents accompanying the committee members, then looked at Peng Ziyi and asked, "Minister Peng, who are these people?"
Peng Ziyi said calmly, "The situation is tense right now, and we had to strengthen security all the way back. We were dragged here by you for a meeting, so our security personnel have not been withdrawn. But now that you said an envoy from the Empire is coming, it's just right for my colleagues to take over the security work."
Bai Yicheng said: "There are staff arranged by Jiang Yitian."
"Now that I'm back, I'll take over this matter." Peng Ziyi smiled and said, "No one will think too many people are too much for security. Besides, when the imperial people see so many of us, it will be enough to show their importance to them, right?"
"Okay." Bai Yicheng did not object and led the way with a normal expression.
After walking a few steps, Bai Yicheng came to stand shoulder to shoulder with Guo Qian and whispered to him, "Chairman Guo, the visit of the imperial envoy was actually facilitated by Chang Lin."
"What do you mean?"
"It is a well-known secret that the Empire has always had intelligence personnel operating in our territory, but we have never caught a truly valuable big fish before. When you were out on patrol before, Jiang Yitian seized a contact point set up by the Empire here based on the clues he had accumulated before. After interrogation, it was found that the contact person left here by the Empire had a considerable influence on the country.
It just so happened that the plague broke out at Heimu Pass. Vice Chairman Chang learned that the empire was also in a panic and some people had already thought of withdrawing their troops. He contacted several powerful people in the empire through this person, hoping to achieve the effect of withdrawing the enemy without bloodshed through negotiations. "
"Who are those so-called powerful people?" Guo Qian asked.
"The most important one among them is the Prime Minister of the Empire, Duke Bernard of Whitefish City. However, the envoys sent by Duke Bernard are kept secret from other people in the country. They can only stay for a short time and have to leave early tomorrow morning. Therefore, we have no choice but to invite you all to come now."
Peng Ziyi, who was following behind, interrupted and said, "That's strange. If we delay the trip, will these so-called secret envoys not talk?"
"Well... Actually, Vice Chairman Chang had already talked to them alone yesterday, and they reached some consensus. However, Vice Chairman Chang felt that since you guys are back, it would be better for you to talk to the imperial envoy in person, rather than for him to talk to them alone and then report back." Bai Yicheng explained.
"Do you know the details?" Guo Qian asked.
"I just learned about this today. I'm not very clear about the details of the discussion. Chang Lin just told me the cause and effect and... some of his inner motives and thoughts." Bai Yicheng said with some entanglement, "Chairman Guo, there is something I don't know whether I should say."
"Go ahead." Guo Qian said.
Bai Yicheng said: "In fact, I think Chang Lin did this as a gesture to the committee. The fundamental reason he did this was to share the committee's worries. Contributing the results of this negotiation is a gesture of goodwill to the committee. I think he regrets some of the things he did in the past. If the committee can let bygones be bygones and look forward together at this time, I think we will get the most satisfactory result."
"Is this what he meant or your guess?" Guo Qian asked.
"Probably a little bit. Although he didn't say it explicitly, I can grasp his thoughts." Bai Yicheng said.
Neither Guo Qian nor Peng Ziyi responded directly to Bai Yicheng's words. Peng Ziyi asked, "Where are his people? Why didn't they show up?"
"Vice Chairman Chang said earlier that he would arrange for the Imperial envoy to come. Let's go up first, they should arrive later."
Guo Qian and his party arrived at the meeting room arranged by Bai Yicheng and found that some committee members who were originally in Hewan Xincheng were already waiting in the meeting room. However, many members were unable to attend for various reasons, such as Meng Guoqiang who was building a new factory in the south, and Mao Kai, Qin Mu and Liu Yisheng who were assisting Wang Jiyuan in Suero. They were all absent from the meeting.
Peng Ziyi followed him into the room, looked around, and said to his special agents, "Leave six people to check and protect this room, and the remaining four people will check the surrounding rooms in groups of two."
He walked to the conference table in the middle of the room and sat down, but he felt uneasy. Although Bai Yicheng's words just now did not seem to have any logical flaws, he always felt that something was wrong.
He was of course aware that the Empire was attacked by the plague. However, he was able to establish contact with the Empire's top brass through a spy, and then they would react so quickly and send people to negotiate... All this seemed a little too smooth. Peng Ziyi had just been observing Bai Yicheng. In the field of vision of detecting spirits, Bai Yicheng's mental power fluctuations were relatively stable, and Peng Ziyi could not see any signs of him lying.
Even now, when he was following Guo Qian and talking about Chang Lin, it seemed that he was speaking from the bottom of his heart.
This guy seemed to be neutral on the surface, and he was not particularly close to Chang Lin, but in fact he was Chang Lin's secret ally. Peng Ziyi wondered whether Chang Lin really wanted to show his goodwill to them, or whether Chang Lin had deceived Bai Yicheng as well.
Just as he thought of this, one of his special agents rushed in from outside, ran to his side, and whispered in his ear: "Boss, we saw the Imperials when we checked a room. They were led by Li Ke from our Intelligence Department. There were four of them in total, three men and one woman. They didn't look like good people, nor did they look like officials on a visit. They gave people a very strange feeling.
They claimed to be secret envoys and said they were waiting for Chairman Guo.
Li Ke refused to say anything at first, but after I interrogated him a few more times, he said that it was Jiang Yitian who arranged for them to wait here.
Now I let Xiao Zhang guard there, what should we do?" (To be continued)