/
Chapter 459 – Unparalleled Nitpicking
No one expected Claire to make a demand like that and they met a temporary impasse.
Just as Claire thought she had completely collapsed their offensive, Hardy suddenly spoke.
“A specific implementation plan? I have one!”
“Y-you do?”
Claire was shocked and then watched as Hardy waved at someone behind him and retrieved a thick document from the attendant then slapped it down in front of her.
“Princess, I aggregated the results of our discussions beforehand, please take a look.”
“Eh!? T-this
”
What should she do?
Lin Xiao originally wanted her to request for a specific implementation plan and if they didn’t have one, then she would use the excuse of empty talk to make them shut up!
And Lin Xiao’s plan was indeed effective, Taike and the others were helpless, but unfortunately, Hardy actually had a plan!
“General Hardy, y-you actually already finished it?” Taike was delighted when he saw the thick document.
“Hm, I knew the princess would want to have a look, so I organized it overnight.”
Hardy shook his head and feigned modesty, but his curled lips spoke of his smugness.
“Haha, so you were already done! Then why didn’t you take it out earlier? We were worried for nothing
”
“Hehe, sorry, I would have forgotten if it wasn’t for the princess mentioning it, it’s my bad.”
“General Hardy, you’re too modest, as the adjunct assistant to the grand marshall, you must be extremely busy, yet you still had the time to organize everyone’s opinions, it must be difficult.”
“Please don’t say that, this is something I should do.”
The two sang to each other like they already won, which infuriated Claire. She clenched her fists and really wanted to give them a beating.
It’s over, what should she do? She shot herself in the foot! Since she requested a specific plan to make things difficult for them, they brought out a document and shut her mouth with it, so she couldn’t find a reason to refuse them.
If she forcibly overthrows his plan, then not only would it invite backlash, she would lose credit with the officials, and be known as someone unfaithful to one’s word!
At that time, it would be difficult to convince the public and her job as the king’s representative would end there.
What to do? What should she do next, damn Lin Xiao never taught her!
“Princess Claire, aren’t you going to take a look?”
Hardy ‘considerately’ reminded her when he saw her motionless, he even helped her flip open to the first place and revealed the dense text and numeric data right in front of her.
“O-okay
 I’m looking!”
It was impossible for Claire to stop halfway, she could only force herself to start flipping through the document. But even though her eyesight fell on the document, her mind was somewhere else completely!
Damn Lin Xiao, hurry up and come up with something! You tormented me for a whole night yesterday and you smacked me with a ruler every time I wanted to sleep, so you can’t let me get KO’ed right now and just admit defeat!
Lin Xiao helplessly shook his head and really wanted to take out a ruler to smack her. It was her own fault that she completely forgot everything and now she’s blaming him for not teaching her? It seems like he didn’t hit her hard enough! Lin Xiao had no choice but to obscurely remind her to help her pass this.
“Princess, how are general Hardy’s plans?” Lin Xiao quietly asked.
“Um
”
“Hmph, the plans are a culmination of everyone’s discussions, not only is it detailed but also supported by data, so it’s credible and reliable! It is not your turn to question it!”
Hardy rushed to respond before Claire when he heard what Lin Xiao said.
Lin Xiao smiled and didn’t argue with him, “Yeah, I trust general Hardy ‘s ability, but princess Claire reprimanded me yesterday and said that all plans need to be reviewed from two important aspects that can’t be missed?”
“Two important aspects?”
“Two important aspects?”
Both Hardy and Claire repeated it, but Hardy was just surprised and Claire suddenly remembered what Lin Xiao had taught her!
Damn, Lin Xiao had already taught her but she just forgot!
Two important aspects, two, two
 damn, which two!?
“Princess, didn’t you say that you had to review data reliability and theoretical feasibility?”
“Data and theory
 oh, right, I remember! 
 Uh, no, no, this is what I said, not something you taught me
 cough.”
When she finally remembered Lin Xiao’s teachings, Claire almost exposed the truth and quickly changed her wording and started to pretend like she was flipping through the plan seriously.
Hardy and Taike exchanged a glance and had no idea what Claire wanted to do, but she soon gave them an answer.
“General Hardy, I’m finished, your plan isn’t bad, but there are two problems.”
“What problems? Princess, you better not have misread it because of carelessness!”
Hardy didn’t believe that Claire could notice problems so quickly.
“Firstly, some data in the plan isn’t reliable, there’s possibility of cribbing and piecing together, so there might be bias in conclusions reached with data like this.”
“
 ah?”
Hardy had wanted to retort but immediately went speechless after hearing what she said.
How is that possible? How could Claire notice that? He clearly hid the unreliable data in the most inconspicuous places, but Claire was able to find them just by causally flipping through a couple of pages, how is that possible!?
“Additionally
 a lot of your conclusions are too idealistic, it didn’t take various situations into account, and lacks flexibility so it’s too difficult to implement a plan like this.”
“That
 how is that possible? How could she see through everything?” Hardy muttered to himself.
“General Hardy? Are there really problems? Is the princess right?”
Taike nervously tugged at Hardy’s sleeve and after receiving a reluctant nod, he slumped back into his chair and instantly aged several years.
Claire found two big problems with the prepared plan, isn’t that too humiliating!?
More importantly, Claire just flipped through a couple of pages and found them, where did she learn that observation skills from? They never knew she was this amazing!
Could Lin Xiao have taught her?
When they thought about that, the two turned their gaze to the lazy-looking black-haired youth and tried to use their gaze to kill him! Lin Xiao just ignored them and yawned.
He definitely didn’t teach Claire any observation skills, he wasn’t a god, so how could he improve her skills in such a short amount of time?
All he did was made her memorize some lines. Yes, all the problems Claire pointed out were just something Lin Xiao made her memorize beforehand! That was because those two problems were something that nearly all plans shared!
No matter how long you take to organize the document, with that much data and conclusions, there will be unavoidable imperfections.
To put it bluntly, those two problems weren’t big problems, it was simply nitpicking at the plan, but with the princess’s power, it was obviously different than a normal person doing it!
Even if you knew Claire was nitpicking, who would dare say it?
Just like that, the peace faction with Hardy in lead was completely defeated in the first exchange. No one else dared to pressure Claire and the atmosphere quieted down a lot.
“Why is uncle Barrett not here yet?”
It was like Claire was showing off her victory as she broke the silence.
“The grand marshall just pulled back from the front lines, he’s probably just entering the city and should be here soon.”
Hardy dejectedly replied as he mentioned the strong foe that was about to arrive.
He had originally thought that Barrett would be the largest obstacle, but he already failed miserably to Claire and her advisor, how depressing.
Lin Xiao

Hardy angrily glared at the black-haired youth and wanted to think of a way to deal with him, then he suddenly remembered something and had a way for him to make a fool of himself! So he smiled and started chatting with Claire.
“Right, princess, speaking of grand marshall Barrett
”
Hardy secretly took back the plans and at that time, grand marshall Barrett entered the palace and was quickly heading towards the meeting room!