Considering Deena Dazed's illness, everyone wholeheartedly dedicated themselves to enjoying their time with her. They visited every stall at the Sabzeruz Festival, sampling and experiencing all its customs.
However, Deena Dazed's physical condition was indeed poor. After lunch, she lacked the energy and was taken home by Dehya to rest, preparing to watch Nilou's Dance of the Goddess of Flowers that evening.
Happy times always fly by, and night slowly descended.
In Sumeru City at night, more and more people finally noticed the festival.
Even in Sumeru, where technology and living standards were a cut above The Seven Nations' average, the entertainment options for ordinary Sumeru citizens were extremely limited. After a tiring day, when Sumeru citizens heard that someone had spontaneously organized the Suflower Festival, the eager Sumeru people gathered in groups and came to the celebration site.
Among them were many young Akademiya students or graduated scholars.
From this detail, it seems that those with prejudice against art only existed among the old fuddy-duddies in the Akademiya's upper echelons.
Imposing their preferences on the people of Sumeru—this alone indicated a significant problem with the current Akademiya's governance methods.
With the addition of people, the celebration site was clearly more lively. Zubayr Theater, the organizer of the Sabzeruz Festival, and Deena Dazed, the sponsor, watched this bustling scene, their eyes welling up.
It was a pity that this grand occasion, after tonight, might never be seen again.
As the head of the theater, Zubayr had a large number of actors and helpers who relied on him for their livelihood. Thanks to his excellent management and strict focus on the quality of artistic dance performances, coupled with the addition of Nilou, their current star, Zubayr Theater was able to flourish.
But now, a single announcement from the Akademiya directly imposed an Art Ban on public artistic performances throughout the entire Sumeru region. This meant that not only major cities like Sumeru City and Port Ormos lost their space to operate, but even small towns like Caravan Ribat could not escape.
During this time, Zubayr was incredibly worried about the future of his theater. Now, if he didn't want his theater to close, he essentially had two choices. The first was to perform in the Desert regions beyond the Akademiya's control, but this decision was not a good solution either.
Many of the theater's staff were from the rainforest, and whether they could adapt to the harsh climate conditions of the Desert was another matter. More importantly, the Desert regions of Sumeru were not peaceful. Eremites mercenaries often robbed merchant caravans, and there could even be life-threatening dangers.
The second option was to take on private performances. After all, the Akademiya only prohibited public artistic performances. If they performed behind closed doors, who could stop them?
In a vast Sumeru, rich people were as numerous as cattle. There would always be some Regrator who, for various reasons, hosted grand banquets in their mansions. They couldn't just offer food, could they? Entertainment was also an essential means to set the mood for a banquet.
However, if they did this, future performances would likely only become playthings for the wealthy, which went against Zubayr's original intention of establishing the theater.
Just as Zubayr was about to bite the bullet and choose the second method for the theater's survival, two forces almost simultaneously extended an olive branch to him, offering a third method: turning their attention to other nations.
One was the Inazuma Regent, who invited the entire theater troupe to Inazuma.
Inazuma had no Art Ban on artistic performances, and the Inazuma Regent stated that he would provide good accommodation and performance venues for the theater's personnel. Furthermore, an agreement could be signed: the Inazuma Shogunate would invite Zubayr Theater for at least one large commercial performance each month.
The income from just one large commercial performance would be enough to cover the entire Zubayr Theater's monthly daily expenses. For the remaining days, they could participate in several small and medium-sized commercial performances throughout Inazuma. It was imaginable that Zubayr Theater would have greater and better development opportunities.
Zubayr was already grateful to the Inazuma Delegation for the help they provided during this Suflower Festival, and the generous treatment offered by Inazuma might be related to his star, Nilou.
After all, ever since Nilou returned from the Inazuma Delegation's residence last time, she often seemed lost in thought, gazing in the direction of the Inazuma Delegation's residence.
As an experienced person, Nilou's unusual behavior, combined with the extraordinarily generous treatment offered by Inazuma, gave Zubayr a rough guess. After all, Zubayr Theater had no connection with the Inazuma Regent, so how could such generous treatment be offered for no reason?
It could only be because of Nilou!
Just as Zubayr was about to accept, a letter from another well-known wealthy merchant in Sumeru City, Dori Sangemah Bay, was also sent to Zubayr's hands from Port Ormos at the first opportunity.
Dori, Sumeru's most resourceful and wealthiest merchant, was practically a copy of Liyue's Ningguang. Her obsession and love for Mora were perhaps even purer than Ningguang's.
Besides being a merchant, Ningguang was also an outstanding politician, but Dori, she was a pure merchant. It was a pity that Dori was born in Sumeru, a land that valued wisdom. If she had been born in Liyue, she might have secured a place among the Liyue Qixing.
Good quality and low prices were a fallacy to her. In her eyes, it was perfectly normal for high-quality goods to sell for a high price.
According to her, some people would bother her with deals that only offered a 30% profit. She was very busy and had no interest in even listening unless there was a 100% profit.
It was precisely because of Dori's business philosophy that while she rapidly accumulated wealth, her reputation in Sumeru became polarized.
Some regarded her as a timely savior in times of need, while others saw her as a cunning merchant who took advantage of others' misfortunes.
In fact, Dori and Zubayr had dealt with each other a few times. After watching Nilou's dance, Dori, with her unique business acumen, constantly urged Zubayr to let her have Nilou. She wanted to take Nilou on a tour across Teyvat.
With Nilou's wonderful dancing, Dori had every reason to believe that the tour would be a great success, and she would make a huge profit.
Unfortunately, her repeated proposals were decisively rejected by Zubayr, which forced Dori to give up on the idea.
But times had changed. When Dori learned of the Akademiya's Art Ban, her little scheme immediately reignited. She immediately wrote a letter to Zubayr, bringing up the matter again.
In her letter, she stated: Nilou's dance was good, but staying only in Sumeru was too much of a waste of her talent. She deserved a broader stage.
She believed that Zubayr would definitely agree to her this time, and preparations for Nilou's tour could begin. She seemed to see countless glittering Mora flying towards her endlessly, and she salivated with excitement.
It was a pity that her ideas were beautiful, but reality was harsh. She had no idea that someone else had already set their sights on Zubayr Theater before her, and was willing to pay more.
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