Qiu Ling furrowed his brows when he saw Li Yin’s expression and finally jumped to his feet. “What did you do?”

The God of Justice just looked at him and then slowly raised his brows. “I didn’t do anything. In any case, we have an agreement about the situation: The ascended deity Zhong Jing Yi is to stay in the capital city of the Nine Heavens while we investigate the matter. As long as that is the case, we will not try to make an attempt on his life. So unless he were to try and break that agreement first, I don’t think the dragon king has anything to worry about.”

Qiu Ling’s gaze darted around and his hands clenched into fists, his claws extending. He was currently trapped here. He didn’t know what was going on with Jing Yi. Maybe he had made it out of the city without anyone noticing but maybe he hadn’t. Maybe when he did try to get out, the God of Justice had used the opportunity to really have him killed. But in that case …

An Bai jumped to his feet and hurriedly grabbed Qiu Ling’s arm. “Your Majesty, there is no reason to worry. If Zhong Jing Yi had been killed, His Highness would wake up. At that time, Qiang Wei would contact you and then pass the information along to the heavenly guards stationed at the door who would, in turn, inform the Heavenly Emperor and Heavenly Empress first. So if he had died, we would already know.”

There was another matter that he was worried about that he didn’t mention: Qiu Ling’s soul was bound to Jing He’s. And from everything that he knew about the trials of the gods after reading up on things in the last few weeks, the reincarnation for the trials wasn’t the same as a regular reincarnation. They might call it the same name but it worked differently.

For a true reincarnation, the soul would be changed. Not only would the memories be wiped clean but things that weren’t supposed to be there would be erased. A carving like that on the soul of the Son of Heaven would’ve been washed clean, the cracks that might be found in the soul of a god on the precipice of falling would be repaired, a dragon that died with part of their partner’s soul would also be stripped of that part, returning it to their partner before they reincarnated. And only then, after all this had happened and the soul was in a pristine state once again, would it finally go and be reborn.

In the case of the trials, things were different though. The carving that the Son of Heaven had done on his soul hadn’t vanished. If there were cracks, they wouldn’t be healed. Any damage done to the soul would’ve been passed on from Jing He to Zhong Jing Yi. And in the same manner, the part of His Majesty’s soul would also be given to Zhong Jing Yi alongside Jing He’s.

But that also meant that at the moment when Zhong Jing Yi died, it would be as if his real partner died. Because this was the soul that Qiu Ling was currently bound to. Since the soul would just return to its original body, Qiu Ling might not notice it as much but the impact would probably be grave anyway.

That was why his king had such a difficult time coming to grips with the possibility of Zhong Jing Yi’s death. He was drawn to him because it was the very same soul. Especially so after Jing Yi had started to regain his memories. What had originally been covered with a layer of the water of the River of Forgetfulness had been partly recovered. This made Qiu Ling’s soul be able to recognize it even more as what it had originally been.

If Zhong Jing Yi died, there honestly was no way to say how His Majesty would fare. Even if he wasn’t there to witness it or failed to prevent it in a way that he should have. So the situation was even direr than they were probably able to anticipate.

Not that he would admit to that before he had more information. At this very moment, that would only cause more trouble. He would continue to look further and when he knew what this meant, then he would inform his king first and then the gods.

Qiu Ling slowly calmed down when An Bai gave him reason to believe that Jing Yi wasn’t dead. Right, there was no way that Jing Yi had really died. No need to be worried. He sat down but looked incredibly pale at this moment, driving home the point that if Zhong Jing Yi really died, there might indeed be hell to pay.

Even the Heavenly Emperor who usually wouldn’t pass up on an opportunity to make trouble for Qiu Ling couldn’t help but have some second thoughts when he saw this. The curse wasn’t something to play around with. The gods knew.

In the beginning, they had been somewhat tried to go against what Tian said. The results … they had been too disastrous to be easily mentioned. But still, at the very least in his family, they knew of all the records that were passed down.

Doing the trials halfheartedly would result in harsh punishments. How many gods at that time had lost the ability to see, hear, speak or feel? How many of them had been in unspeakable pain? And those who completely refused to go on the trials … they died a horrible death.

Tian was a cruel sovereign.

Maybe he hadn’t been originally but the three races had driven him to that point. There was no doubt that if the curse was ignored, the consequences would be dire. If this was true for the gods, it would be for the dragons as well.

Seeing the dragon king’s reaction right now, none of them would really say that they still dared to entertain the thought of just quietly killing that ascended deity. Because — just as the dragons that told them before — if they tried, they might lose one of their strongest allies. And they didn’t think that they wanted to risk that, especially not after there had been information sent over from the demon realm that currently, there was somebody vying for the throne who was intent on starting a new war with them, one that would be much fiercer than what the incumbent demon king Jin Ling had done since the day he started his reign.

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