While Jing Yi and Qiu Ling were happily spending time together, another person wasn’t happy at all.

Shao Hai had pursed his lips and was sitting behind the building where he lived with Xiao Dong, staring at his sword in a gloomy mood.

Xiao Dong raised his brows at him, holding his own sword lightly. With his king and his king’s beloved gone, there was no need for him to do much. After all, there was no chance for Shao Hai to run into Jing Yi. Still, he wanted to do the best job possible. If he was able to lure Shao Hai away from the Yun Zou Sect before his king returned with his beloved, that would be for the best. If he managed to achieve that … His Majesty would probably praise him!

Thinking like that, Xiao Dong went over and sat down next to Shao Hai, propping his weapon up on the ground and folding his hands on top of the hilt. Anyway, he wasn’t the one who needed to train these mortal techniques. He was far past that stage. "Don’t you think you’ve been moping for long enough now?"

Shao Hai glared at him in response. "I’m not moping!"

"No? Strange. It sure looked that way to me."

"I’m angry at you! If not for you talking me out of going to visit Jing Yi that day to tell him that he shouldn’t marry that senior martial brother Qiu or whatever, he wouldn’t be gone now. He would still be here and I would be able to prevent this whole marriage thing from happening. But because I listened to you, Jing Yi is now gone. Who knows what that guy will do to him while they’re outside?"

Xiao Dong leaned against the wall of the building and looked up at the sky. Hopefully, the two of them would get married while outside. That was certainly what his king would want. He wasn’t too sure if it would happen though.

Naturally, he didn’t doubt his king’s ability. But obviously, Jing Yi had been still very confused after he had gotten that proposal. Who knew if he would be of the slow sort that needed years to figure things out? Then His Majesty would need to pay attention to all potential rivals the whole time. It really sounded exhausting.

Next to him, Shao Hai harrumphed. "Oh? You have nothing to say to that? Could it be you’re finally admitting that you did something wrong?"

Xiao Dong looked back at him and shook his head. "I was just thinking that whatever they do, it still has nothing to do with you. Anyway, they’ve already left and they’ll only return when they feel like it which probably won’t be anytime soon. There’s nothing you can do about that. Instead of sitting here and pulling a face all day long, you might as well do something useful."

Shao Hai pursed his lips. "What kind of useful thing? I only came here because of Jing Yi. Since he’s gone and even wants to marry somebody else, what am I supposed to do?"

"Well, if that is the case, you could bring me to visit your family. I certainly wouldn’t mind."

Shao Hai obviously minded though. He leaped to his feet and then pointed at Xiao Dong’s nose. "Get that thought out of your head right now! I’m definitely not taking you to meet my family. Why would you even want to meet them? They have nothing to do with you!"

Xiao Dong raised his brows but didn’t react otherwise. "So? Well, then they don’t. How about training then? Or how about we go on a mission ourselves? I’m pretty sure that Jing Yi would be totally disappointed if he came back as a fully-fledged cultivator and you were still trying to get the hang of the basic sword arts. If that was me, I’d be so embarrassed.

"And you can be sure that Jing Yi will be much more proficient when he returns. After all, senior martial brother Qiu Ling is a genius. He’ll be able to teach him all the things that you never could. Actually, now that I think about it, we might as well stay here and do nothing. You don’t have any chance to ever catch up to him anyway. So why should you bother trying?" With that, he also stood up, put his sword on his shoulder and wanted to march off.

Shao Hai stared at him with his mouth gaping open. What … What did this bastard mean?! There was no way he’d ever lose to that senior martial brother Qiu! He might not have an awesome Master and might not have practiced his sword arts as far as that guy but that was only a question of time. And anyway, he was younger than that despicable guy so he still had some years to catch up to him. In the end, he wouldn’t lose to him. He would show that stupid Xiao Dong!

Shao Hai huffed and picked up his sword, rushing after Xiao Dong. "You don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ll learn really fast as soon as I truly put my mind to it. You’ll see. In a few months, I’ll have reached the next stage."

Xiao Dong snorted. "Sure. But even if you do, what will it matter? Learning the moves is one thing but you need to be able to use them when you’re out there in a real dangerous situation. Can you do that? Because I bet senior martial brother Qiu can."

Shao Hai almost stopped. What was the meaning of this? Was this Xiao Dong that senior martial brother Qiu’s biggest admirer or something like that?! Shouldn’t he be on the side of his friend instead? He was really starting to question his loyalty here!

In the end, he huffed and grabbed Xiao Dong’s arm, pulling him towards the public area between the inner and outer sect. "Well, if it’s like that, then we should go and get a mission ourselves. We’ll see if I won’t be just as good as that senior martial brother Qiu when we get back. I’m sure Jing Yi will be really impressed when he sees that."

With that, the two of them entered the building where the missions were being given out. Needless to say, the thing Shao Hai finally stumbled upon was precisely the mission that Yu Jin had had pasted to the wall.

Seeing that this was something that was available to all disciples and something very special with the way that it was being showcased, he felt that this was the best mission to impress Jing Yi when he came back. Thus, he didn’t hesitate for even a moment and had the disciple that was in charge write both of them up for the mission. Then, he took one of the prepared jade slips and pulled Xiao Dong out of the building again. After all, they still needed to talk through how they should best prepare for this.