The throne room plunged into silence, making the people present feel awkward.

Shun Tao glanced at the door, wishing that he had added a sentence to his previous statement mentioning how we should go back to his own palace to reflect further. Now, it was unfortunately too late.

Li Yin glanced from the Heavenly Emperor to his friend standing beside him and back again. He knew how to make the Heavenly Emperor give in but he didn’t feel that it was the right moment yet. He would only bring it up if there really was no other way to make the Heavenly Emperor see the light. After all, he would have a hard time explaining what he had to say.

Seeing that nobody else was willing to speak, Qiang Yan could only sigh and start a new attempt. "Even if that is your opinion, it doesn’t change the fact that he is the king of the dragon race. They are our allies so it is our duty to help them out in this situation. Otherwise, we would not be taking our part of this alliance seriously enough."

The Heavenly Emperor huffed. "So what? Anyway, don’t they have any people who can treat him? What does this have to do with my son? He’s on his trial. That is something extremely important for a trueborn god. There’s no way he should have to cut it short just because something is wrong with that guy."

Qiang Yan sighed. His brother-in-law was really way too stubborn. Couldn’t he give in a little or at least not state his stance so directly? If somebody heard this … Well, not that Longjun didn’t know how his future father-in-law thought of him. "I do understand what you mean. But anyway, Longjun is important to them as well. And as the Fate’s Scribe said: Jing He has already finished the necessary trials so he won’t be hurt even if he stopped his trial right now. How could you justify your decision in front of the dragons in this case?"

"Why should I justify anything? They don’t know about the trials. And they certainly don’t know what kind of trials Jing He already accomplished. For all they know, he could have been in grave danger himself."

"So you just want to lie to them? Aren’t you afraid that will come out?"

The Heavenly Emperor looked at the three of them and then raised his brows. "If it gets out, then wouldn’t it have been one of you three people who told them? After all, who else was in the know about this?"

Shun Tao looked away, not wanting to have anything else to do with this matter. Unfortunately for him, the Heavenly Emperor wasn’t willing to let go.

"Fate’s Scribe, do any of the scribes in your palace know what is written in my son’s scroll of fate?"

Shun Tao hurriedly shook his head. "None of them does, Your Majesty."

Rong Su looked back at Qiang Yan and gave him a triumphant smile. "You hear that? There’s no reason to worry at all!"

Qiang Yan took a deep breath, reminding himself of the fact that he wasn’t alone and couldn’t completely let go of his inhibitions. He really would’ve liked to give his brother-in-law a piece of his mind right now. How could he be so selfish? "Even if they never find out, if something happens to Longjun, then you should know very well what that would mean for the dragon realm.

"He has reigned for a long time. They would have a very hard time finding a successor for him. It would take a lot of time and until then, we couldn’t rely on them if there was any problem with the demons. Furthermore, even if there’s a new king, nobody knows how it would turn out. That person might not be as good as the current Longjun or he might not be willing to continue the alliance. It could be somebody who feels that the dragons have done enough for the gods. Do you really want to risk that?"

The Heavenly Emperor pursed his lips, clearly not wanting to admit that there really was no way for him to just ignore Qiu Ling’s plight. "What does this guy have so many advisers for? They might as well take over. And we already know their attitudes."

"A group of them, yes, and while they might be able to make up for their king missing for a while that is all. The time he spent in the mortal realm right now might already be testing enough for them. We certainly can’t expect them to continue doing this if something really happened to Longjun. No, on the contrary, it would be very likely that they would also step down. What would we do then?"

"Well, we don’t even know if the demons will try anything." Rong Su pursed his lips, his temper clearly much calmer than before. In fact, it was obvious he as already winding himself in his seat. He was just making a last ditch-effort to somehow argue against this.

Qiang Yan sighed, not even sure how he should react to that kind of immature argument. Did his brother-in-law really want to play like this?

Li Yin once again glanced at his friend and then looked up at Tianjun. He hadn’t wanted to say it but they weren’t making any progress and time was being wasted. "Regarding that … There’s something I feel like I should mention."

Everybody looked at him.

The Heavenly Emperor couldn’t help but furrow his brows. "God of Justice, what might this be about?"

"Originally, I hadn’t wanted to bring this up until it was confirmed without a doubt but considering the current circumstances, I don’t feel like I have the option to remain silent any longer. In fact, it could be that we will very soon need Longjun’s help. There have been … developments regarding the demon realm and their relationship with our Nine Heavens."

Qiang Yan also raised his brows at that. "What? What happened?" And why hadn’t Li Yin mentioned that before?

Li Yin turned to him, his expression unchanged. "Yin Lin Lin — the daughter of the previous God of War — is said to have betrayed us and married the demon king, Jin Ling."