Oh. My. Fate?! (BL, Volume 12, Part 1)

149 Not a Good Relationship

Qiu Ling didn't need her to say anything either. He simply felt sorry for himself but still walked into the throne room while Shou Quan stayed behind at the door, not wanting to intrude.

The Heavenly Emperor actually couldn't be seen yet but Qiu Ling didn't mind. He walked through the room and over to the study, taking a look there only to find it empty as well. To be honest, he still didn't feel surprised. He usually arrived long before the Heavenly Emperor did. He couldn't remember a single time since arriving here when it had been different.

That old bastard would only turn up an hour or two after he did and then look at him as if he wanted to accuse him of showing him up. Which ... wasn't his intent but probably the exact result of their respective actions. The Heavenly Emperor usually looked as if he couldn't be bothered to do his job at all and when he had to deal with others, he'd often lose his temper. As a leader, he truly didn't seem all that competent.

Qiu Ling sat down at the table, picked up the teapot standing on the tray to the side, and made some tea first. He didn't care himself but he felt that it was only right to have some ready for when his mother-in-law or his uncle-in-law arrived. Especially the latter tended to be here a lot earlier than his father-in-law so it couldn't hurt to prepare early.

Having done that, Qiu Ling pulled out one of the reports he had received from the dragon realm yesterday. He actually didn't have that much to do considering that he had six rather capable advisers who had taken over a lot of matters in the past but since Jing He wasn't there anyway, he was using this opportunity to make up for the changes he hadn't dared to implement in the past because he had been scared of the consequences.

Since the large-scale war with the demons under Huo Yan's reign ended back then, the dragon realm had been stabilized and it could probably be said that it was thriving. Qiu Ling knew that it could be better though. There were issues that needed fixing or if not fixing, then at least a few cosmetic changes to run more smoothly. Since he currently had the time, why not work on that?

So recently, he had been dealing with whatever news An Bai received from Xiang Yong about the daily happenings in the dragon realm and then slowly making plans for the continued development of the realm. Regarding the latter, he felt grateful that he had been smart enough to use past opportunities when they arose.

Regarding the changes he wanted to see, there were two major ones: the betterment of the half-bloods' situation and the closer relationship with the spirit beasts who were considered his subjects as well, after all. Both were matters he had tended to before so pushing for further changes wouldn't make too much of a fuss.

Well, he didn't worry too much about that in regard to the half-bloods. They were simply happy that they were finally remembered and would take any positive change they could get no matter how small. No, the worrisome part was the spirit beasts because their king was giving him a headache.

Hong Huan, the current king of the spirit beasts, was somebody who could be called cautious in nature. He especially showed that whenever dealing with their dragon race. He still remembered several times in the past when the guy had stood in front of him on his enthronement anniversary, fidgeting uneasily and making him fear for the secrecy of his parentage. As a result, their relationship really hadn't been close. In that regard, he envied Jinde who had supposedly been considered a close acquaintance or maybe even a friend of the previous spirit beast queen Jia Bai. Having that kind of relationship had probably made things a lot easier.

Qiu Ling sighed deeply and rubbed his forehead. Well, Jinde was a full-blooded dragon and didn't need to worry about being exposed. His biggest so-called 'secret' had probably been his crush on his fellow disciple and that had been out in the open for the most part. Why worry about the spirit beast queen finding out as well?

As for him, he couldn't say the same about himself. He had been terrified whenever he saw one of the spirit beasts because he wasn't sure if the blood suppression between dragons and spirit beasts still worked if your blood wasn't purely that of a dragon. Thus, he had tended to hide away whenever they came by, probably making them believe that he didn't hold them in high regard and even faintly looked down on them. For the spirit beasts who were naturally suppressed by the bloodline of the dragons, the idea that one of the dragon realms' rulers had this attitude toward them was likely terrifying. In this way, both sides had suffered a lot.

This situation had gone on for several thousand years. Even though he had tried in the beginning, he had been even more insecure at first so his attitude probably hadn't seemed great. Later, he threw more and more at his advisers which likely seemed perfunctory. To undo this now ... that would likely take a lot of time and effort.

So even though he had already started to work on this as soon as the matter of the mortal realm's demon-hunting sects holding spirit beasts and half-bloods captive was out in the open and even apologized for not helping earlier, they were far from back to having a trusting and friendly relationship. That went for both the spirit beast king and him as well as for the spirit beasts and dragons in general.

Qiu Ling pursed his lips, wondering what exactly he should do to cause a big change in this relationship. On the side of the gods, his wedding with Jing He would certainly change a lot. But ... he probably couldn't just marry off one of his advisers ... or could he?