Qiu Ling smiled triumphantly. Now, this guy certainly wouldn’t dare to think of hurting his beloved. Well, maybe he should make sure just in case. Some people needed things to be spelled out for them so it was better not to take any chances.

He narrowed his eyes and lowered his voice, adding a hint of a threat to his words. "I don’t have to remind you that I have the strength to raze this tiny sect of yours to the ground in case anything happens to my beloved, do I? So, you’d better tell that demon who was snooping around yesterday that he should stay far, far away from him."

Shen An De frowned as soon as he was over the first shock. "Which demon? I don’t know about anyone else in the sect who is of demonic descent." There might be some people with the blood of demonic beasts but humans who had actual demon blood were exceedingly rare. After all, demons usually wouldn’t bother about them.

The benefits of hooking up with a human just weren’t worth their time. There were at most a few who felt that it was fun to seduce mortal women and then leave them to fend for themselves after they got pregnant but even among demons that couldn’t fall in love that was seen as a somewhat sick pursuit.

So, the number of people like him was quite low indeed. Having a second one in the Hei Dian Sect would be pretty strange. Although he did have to admit that he couldn’t say for sure. It wasn’t like he tested every new disciple for whether they had some non-human blood or not. In any case, it couldn’t be done that easily anyway.

"Uh?" Qiu Ling froze. Damn! If this guy didn’t know anything about that, then … wouldn’t that mean that that bastard Jin Ling was directly behind this?! That could only mean that he already knew that Jing He was … well, Jing He! "Damn this!" Qiu Ling slapped the table.

Shen An De sighed. "If this is about someone as important as the Son of Heaven, then it’s probably Jin Ling who is behind all this."

"You don’t say."

Shen An De frowned. He really wanted to give this shameless guy a piece of his mind but he reconsidered at the last moment. If this person was indeed the current Longjun, then it really wouldn’t be a problem for him to flatten the whole sect. And it was rather unlikely that someone would pretend to be the dragon king.

Shen An De had lived most of his life as a human so he didn’t know too much about either the demons or the dragons. But even he had heard that the dragon race adored this king of theirs. If someone dared to impersonate him, he probably wouldn’t even have to utter a single word before they would hunt that person down.

Hong Ai looked at her husband. She did know quite a bit about the demons since the cultivators from the good faction had fought against them quite often. She had participated in these fights up until she met him. Even though he had a bit of demon blood in his veins, her husband had never liked to have anything to do with them. Now that they had the dragon king sitting at their table and the Son of Heaven, as well as some demon, in their sect wouldn’t he inevitably be pulled into the fray?

Shen An De smiled. He could understand her apprehensions and honestly, he thought the same way. If it was possible, he’d like to stay out of this but it was probably too late for that already. "I guess we can’t stay out of this. So, Longjun, what can we do to help?"

"Hmph. Shouldn’t you be asking that your king instead?"

"He isn’t my king." Shen An De smiled. "In fact, a few millennia back, Jin Ling came here and proclaimed to be my 'good uncle' who would very much 'like to lend me his help'. Naturally, he was expecting something in return. When I didn’t accept and even went so far as to mobilize the whole of the Hei Dian Sect to drive him off he swore he’d come and take care of me someday. So you could probably say that I’m a traitor to the demons."

Qiu Ling pursed his lips. This sounded good but he knew how tricky demons were. Who knew if this guy wasn’t just trying to pull the wool over his eyes so he’d have it easier when he tried to kill Jing He?

Shen An De sighed. He probably shouldn’t have expected that the dragon king would believe a person with demon blood. Especially if they were talking about the demons. Even he knew that the two races had been at war for a long time so there was no trust left between them. But he had no idea what he could do to make the dragon king believe him.

Hong Ai couldn’t stand watching her husband act like this. He was the Grandmaster of the Hei Dian Sect, someone with a status that so many looked up to. He shouldn’t feel so down because of something he originally had nothing to do with.

She leaned forward. What dragon or demon king? These were just people making trouble for her husband. "If you don’t trust An De, then why do you even stay here? Since you already know he’s part demon you can just leave."

"I can’t."

"Why?"

"Obviously, it’s because of my beloved." Qiu Ling straightened up and looked especially sad. It was time to bring out his great acting skills and tell them the pitiable story about how they had ended up here that he had long prepared to explain the names they had given themselves. Well, he would have to add some new things to it now that they already knew a bit about the story behind all of it.