Oh. My. Fate?! (Bl, Volume 10, Part 1)

142 The Things Lost

Qiu Ling smiled when he saw Xiang Yong's expression but he didn't stay around to chat any longer. Anyway, he had a task and since he wanted to help Jinde, he couldn't lose any time. He finally opened the door, and then pulled Jing Yi outside, pulling him toward the treasury.

In the dragon realm's capital, pretty much all the important places were located right in the dragon king's palace. As such, the treasury naturally wasn't far either and he was pretty sure that he would be able to find somebody there that could help them find what they were looking for.

Jing Yi had already gotten a tour of the palace but he still wasn't too familiar with it. From the little that he remembered from his first day here, the throne room was in the middle while the corridor where Qiu Ling and his advisers lived was a little further to the back. Around the entrance and also at the back of the building were the quarters of the soldiers, split into different parts depending on their specific task, while everything else was grouped together by use.

The treasury wasn't that far away from the corridor where they lived. Since this was a place where the advisers might need to go every now and then, and that might — in the worst of cases — need to be accessed fast, it naturally wouldn't have been a good idea to have it be too far away.

Looking around the corridor leading up to the door, Jing Yi couldn't help but raise his brows. "That over there is the door to the library, isn't it?"

Qiu Ling glanced at him and then motioned at another door on the right side. "It is. And over there, that's where the armory is. This part of the complex is pretty much only used to store things."

Jing Yi nodded, already having expected that. "Well, this kind of place probably has a lot of things to store way."

Qiu Ling nodded but he didn't really know what else to tell Jing Yi so he didn't say more on the subject and just continued to lead him over to the treasury. Usually, there were guards stationed inside and outside, so it shouldn't be difficult to find somebody he could approach for the objects he needed.

The guards immediately straightened up when they saw him, really happy that they managed to get a glimpse at him. These days, their king seemed to be in the palaces more often, and even in places where normal people like them were able to see him. Of course, they were ecstatic!

"Your Majesty!"

Qiu Ling nodded and then motioned to the door. "I'm looking for something specific that might be in the treasury or at least should have been in the treasury at one point before being moved away. Please go and get the person that is usually in charge of keeping the books for me."

One of the guards immediately inclined his head. "I will be right back." With that, he already rushed off.

Qiu Ling gave a hum and then nodded at the other guard before pulling Jing Yi inside. "I'll show you around until he returns."

Jing Yi nodded even though he wasn't quite sure how interesting the treasury could really be. Anyway, he still didn't know a lot of the things in the immortal realms so to him, it probably wouldn't hold much meaning. But anyway, it was always nice to learn more.

Stepping inside, the other two guards greeted them as well before they passed by.

Qiu Ling swept a look around and then pulled Jing Yi straight down a path in-between the shelves that were crisscrossing through the whole room, turning it into somewhat of a labyrinth.

"I remember how, back when I took over as king, parts of the treasury had been lost. Somehow, the palace always gets damaged when there's a large-scale attack. I guess we got lucky though: We only had to rebuild those parts and not the whole thing. Matters were different under Jinde's reign. They lost almost the whole palace where he grew up. He had to have the rest of the ruins torn down and start anew."

He narrowed his eyes, looking over the things that were displayed there. He couldn't help but reach out, brushing over the edges of the shelves. "If you were to compare this with the treasury in the Nine Heavens, you would probably find that it looks a bit ... small.

"That is also because of these kinds of attacks. They have made us lose many things over time. While we are quick in gathering new items if it is something that we can hunt, other things will be lost forever, never to be recovered. "That shows. Not immediately but after it happened a couple of times, there was no denying that."

Jing Yi looked at his fiance's profile and couldn't help but feel that if the one who had been with him right now was Jing He instead of him, he would've been able to appreciate this information much more.

Personally, he couldn't say that this treasury was small. This room was bigger than the house he had grown up in. In fact, it was probably bigger than the small estate that the Zhong family in the Long kingdom's capital city had had. And it was filled with shelves that reached from the floor almost up to the ceiling. How was that small?

But for a king and one that had reigned for as long as Qiu Ling had, it probably was like that. And maybe Jing He who had seen how things were in the Nine Heavens and had something to compare this to would be able to understand those feelings that Qiu Ling held.

He, on the other hand ... he knew how it was to lose people, but he didn't know how it was to lose things because he had never had anything in the first place. In fact, everything he had possessed at any time in his life had been given by Qiu Ling in one way or the other. So this ... he was afraid that it didn't mean as much to him as it probably should as Qiu Ling's partner.

Well, he would still happily listen to him reminisce. That was what he wanted after all: time with Qiu Ling, no matter how much was left for them.