Oh. My. Fate?! (BL, Volume 12, Part 3)

406 A Great King

The generals who were less bothered by their king's heritage than Min Jun like Jia Su and Chang Bo nodded. The reason the revelation this morning had shocked them so much was not just because it was related to the demons but also because they had known their king for so long and had never even suspected anything.

On the contrary, if they had suspected anyone of having demon blood, their king would have been very, very far down the list of potential half-bloods. After all, he wasn't fighting any less hard against the demons than Min Jun. While they did indeed know little about his past, they had always assumed there had to be some kind of loss involved like for Min Jun, something so big and life-changing that the hatred simply couldn't be quelled even after millennia. So how come such a person actually shared their blood?

Either way, during these years, he had fought the demons valiantly, always giving everything he had. Such a person indeed shouldn't be defined by whatever percentage of demon blood was running through their veins. Clearly, he acted as a dragon and that was how they should judge him.

Jinde saw that some people were finally seeing the light. Well, it wasn't that surprising. In the dragon realm, the word 'demon' always led to visceral pain and fear because, throughout the years, almost everyone had suffered at their hands. The only exception might be those living in the very far east and south where the demons seldom managed to attack. But even those people had lost family or friends who were living elsewhere or had traveled through the realm. Nobody was truly free of the pain the demons had caused.

When someone they trusted was suddenly revealed to have demon blood, that pain was called awake and their reactions were correspondingly strong. They were of an emotional nature that was easy to understand and yet completely wrong. As soon as they calmed down and were reminded of the facts that they knew — that this person had also suffered at the hands of the enemy, that he had fought alongside them for the same future they envisioned, and that today's dragon realm existed to a significant degree all thanks to him — when this came to mind again, the fear of what he could possibly do in the future suddenly vanished. After all, why would he, after everything he had done for this realm?

This was what Jinde wanted them to think of. Now that they did ... "I have missed many years but I watched Qiu Ling grow up when he was still a child and I knew his father well. Definitely well enough to know what kind of person he raised him to be. Chun Yin — his father — and I were both taught by my predecessor, Longjun Gao Huan, and while I ultimately acceded to the throne, Chun Yin knew just as well as I did what made a good king.

"Qiu Ling has learned all of that from him and life has taught him lessons that neither Chun Yin nor I ever had to face. I believe that ... actually makes him an even better king than I was during my reign." He lowered his gaze but his lips curved up into a beautiful smile, reminding the people at the table how the reputation of 'greatest beauty of the dragon race' had come to be.

Jinde didn't mind comparing himself to Qiu Ling and he indeed felt that he might have had something to learn from him. He had taken over the realm during a time when it was relatively stable and he had had the leisure to promote arts and research. The dragons had been thriving during his reign, yes, but how much of that was his credit and how much of it was based on the efforts of his predecessors? The truth was that he had been lucky until almost the very end.

Sure, when Jian Heng finally showed his true face and attacked the dragon realm outright, he had also been there, fighting with everything he had, commanding the army just as he had learned, coordinating with the gods, and forcing the demons back again and again. He had done well. The best he could under those circumstances. He would never let anyone tell him that he hadn't been a good king but he had been one who took a thriving realm to new heights and then preserved what he could of it when the circumstances changed.

Qiu Ling though, he had been handed the crumbling remains of that realm and had brought it back to stability, back to its former glory. And now that that was achieved and his own personal matters had been straightened out, he wasn't afraid any longer to change this realm even further and let it reach a state that would have been unthinkable for many generations before.

What more could you expect of a king?

He wasn't ashamed to admit that he himself couldn't have done it and he doubted that his Master would have been able to do this either. Before that ... most of those sovereigns had been forgotten, apart from the scrolls they still lived forth in and in the minds of the scholars who preserved that ancient history. Maybe there had been some but it would have been so long ago that it hardly mattered now. No, the only thing that mattered was what Qiu Ling currently represented to the dragons.

He raised his gaze, once again glancing at each of the generals. This time, he didn't bother giving Min Jun any special attention either. No, this was for all of them to take in. "I don't know everything that happened during my absence but when I returned here with my husband, I found a realm that was in a much better state than it was when I died. It seems that Qiu Ling has mostly restored peace and once again given the dragons the will to fight for what should be theirs.

"Do you truly dare to call such a person a demon for what is — at the absolute most — a quarter of his blood? Do you dare say that he is secretly plotting against the dragon race after serving it dutifully as king for almost ten millennia?

"Personally, I find such a theory to be quite far-fetched. You'd think he would realize such a plan when the realm was at its weakest or at the latest a thousand years after he acceded to the throne and won everyone's trust, not ten thousand years later when there are enough people to protect this realm against any threat."