Jing Yi widened his eyes when he was suddenly hugged by somebody. He wanted to push the person off but then he noticed that this was actually somebody he knew. "Shao Hai?!" How come he was here? Wasn’t he in the capital?

Shao Hai took half a step back and gave a big grin. "Xiao Yi! You must be super surprised! Xiao Dong and I came to visit you!" He pondered for a moment and pursed his lips, finally looking at the ground, scratching at it with his feet. "Actually, I also wanted to become a disciple so that we could spend time here in the sect together. Who knew I wouldn’t have any spirit veins? Now, it seems like Xiao Dong and I can’t stay here."

Jing Yi looked from Shao Hai to Xiao Dong who was trailing behind him with a dark expression. It seemed Xiao Dong also regretted this very much. Who would have thought! hadn’t they only known each other for a bit? Well, anyway, he was happy to see them. Ah! He should show them a bit of the sect now that they were here! After all, they should be just as confused as he had been when he first came here.

He motioned over to the crowd. "Currently, two of the senior martial brothers are fighting with each other. The other disciples said that we should go and have a look because we could learn something from them. They said something about cultivators being superior to practitioners too but I didn’t really understand. Actually, I haven’t learned that much about cultivation yet. There was a nice martial sister who explained a bit to me at the beginning but she went into something called closed-door cultivation. I don’t really know what that is." Actually, he didn’t know the difference between a cultivator and practitioner either but he felt that he shouldn’t burden Shao Hai and Xiao Dong too much with all this.

Shao Hai glanced over but didn’t say anything. Actually, even though he would normally be thrilled to see a fight between real cultivators, he wasn’t too interested today. After all, he had come here to see Jing Yi. Now that he had found him, everything else was uninteresting. No, he just wanted to spend time with his future bride. Thus he ignored what Jing Yi had said and clasped his hands instead. "If you’re not really learning anything here, then why don’t you come back home with me? Isn’t it much better if we’re both living in the capital? Then we can spend all of our time together and when we’re grown up, I’ll marry you."

Jing Yi blinked his eyes. He certainly would’ve loved to spend his time with Shao Hai and Xiao Dong. But on the other hand, his father had wanted him to become a hero. How could he just ignore that? Thus he could only regretfully shake his head. "No, I’ll have to stay here."

In the branches of the tree, Qiu Ling’s expression that had darkened before turned into one of happiness. Look at that! His beloved still knew what was best for him! He had no interest in spending time with that stupid brat whatsoever.

Jing Yi felt that what he had said wasn’t too good though. At the very least, he should explain to Shao Hai, shouldn’t he? "Well, even if I take a long time, it’s still important to learn everything about cultivation so that I can become a hero like my father. So I need to stay here."

Shao Hai lowered his head and pouted. "Oh. So you don’t want to come back." Naturally, he wasn’t happy about this but he had already learned one very important principle from his father: A husband always had to listen to his wife. Even if he didn’t agree with her, he still had to listen to her. That was the way it was supposed to be. After all, even the very first emperor of their Long kingdom had done as his wife said which was what originally enabled him to found the kingdom.

And his own father had said that he himself had taken this important advice to heart and lived very good with that. So naturally, he would listen to his father and do the same. Even though Xiao Yi wasn’t his wife yet, it couldn’t be wrong to start with listening to him early.

While Shao Hai made this very important decision, Xiao Dong looked around to try and see if he could spot his king. Currently, he wasn’t able to. Don’t tell him His Majesty wasn’t here? Well, that would be good considering that his king wouldn’t see that Shao Hai had actually managed to meet up with Jing Yi then but it sure was strange. He couldn’t help but feel anxious at the thought that his king might instead appear suddenly. How would he explain himself then?

With Xiao Dong looking in all directions, even Qiu Ling who was normally fixated on his beloved, couldn’t help but notice him. Seeing his blond hair, he couldn’t help but curse. "Who’s that? Blond hair? That should be one of our people! What the fuck is he doing here? And why isn’t he helping me keeping that person from my beloved?!"

Even though Qiu Ling had only mumbled to himself and the disciples were loud, Xiao Dong still had the hearing of the dragon. Furthermore, he had just been trying to find out where his king was, so he naturally picked up on the sound. He turned around and found the person he had been looking for crouching in a tree.

The two dragons stared at each other.

Xiao Dong tensed and his hands trembled, making him hide them behind his back so as to not embarrass himself in front of his king. Ah, his biggest fear had actually come true! Shao Hai had found Jing Yi and His Majesty had found out. He was ruined! The king would be furious!

Meanwhile, Qiu Ling tilted his head. He somehow felt … that this person looked kind of familiar. Had they seen each other somewhere before?