Xin Lan furrowed his brows and closed the door behind him. He might not like Qiu Ling much but he also wouldn’t ignore this kind of situation. Qiu Ling was the king of the dragon realm, after all, and Jinde considered him an important person in his life as well. He didn’t want to see him get sad over this matter, especially not this shortly after losing Jin Ling. “What happened?”

Fu Min looked up with a worried face. “We have no idea. We were discussing some ideas to sway the Heavenly Emperor’s opinion of His Majesty when he suddenly looked as if he was in pain. Then a moment later, he just collapsed without a word.”

The other advisers stayed silent, simply continuing to watch their king.

Xin Lan frowned even more and stepped closer, taking a look himself. He couldn’t see anything so he turned his gaze to the spirit beast who was still checking him over.

After a moment, Zheng Yin looked up at everyone. “It’s nothing physical. His body is alright. I believe he had a lover? You should check on him to make sure it’s not his soul.”

The expressions of Qiu Ling’s advisers all turned solemn. Considering what had happened before, it was obvious that their king had bound his soul to the Son of Heaven. In that case, if anything happened to the crown prince, then it would also affect their king. Right now, that seemed like the most logical explanation.

Xiang Yong took out his transmission stone. “I’ll contact An Bai.” He imbued his spiritual energy under everyone’s hopeful gaze but the other side didn’t react. Xiang Yong furrowed his brows, not sure what to think.

An Bai was doing research in the Nine Heavens. Even though that was an important task, it was also one that could be halted for a quick transmission. If he didn’t do so at such a time … was that a bad sign?

Next to him, Qiang Wei gulped. “That … he’s working with others. Maybe he was having a conversation and didn’t want to be impolite by taking care of something else?”

Fu Min nodded furiously. “Yes! Or maybe they had a breakthrough in their research and he didn’t think the transmission was that important in comparison.”

Xiang Yong shook his head though. “I know him. An Bai is measured. He wouldn’t ignore this just for something like this. No, there has to be something else going on.” He tapped the table next to him, his gaze still fixed on their king. “If Zheng Yin is right and something happened to His Highness, then the capital city should currently be in chaos. In fact, depending on what happened, I don’t think anybody will be able to spare a thought for us.”

He took a deep breath and then straightened up. “Alright, we need to deal with this. “Fu Heng, you bring His Majesty back to his room. It’s unseemly to let him just lie here and he needs to rest up.

“Fu Min, you head over to the capital city of the Nine Heavens. See what is going on and get in touch with us. If there is a way we can help, we’ll organize that afterward. If possible, directly get in touch with His Highness. No matter what the actual reason for His Majesty’s current state is, he would likely feel better with the Son of Heaven around.

“Zheng Yin, I would like to ask you to accompany Fu Heng and stay with His Majesty. I don’t want to get a physician from the dragon realm involved just yet. Otherwise, there might be chaos here as well and if this spreads further …” He shook his head. “I don’t trust that new demon king despite his actions so far so it’d be best to ensure this stays quiet for now.”

The three people nodded and immediately took action. The others turned to look at Xiang Yong, hoping to get some tasks as well.

Xiang Yong pondered. Right now, there were only a few things that needed to be urgently taken care of. If this continued though, they’d need everyone to get active. “As for you two, just stay on standby and take care of your usual tasks. If His Majesty doesn’t get better by night, one of us will likely have to stay with him at all times to ensure how he is doing. Zheng Yin can’t do all of that by himself. We’ll likely know more about the reason for his collapse by then though. For now, just keep up appearances. We need to keep the situation stable.”

Thinking about it, he was glad that they had Jinde on their side. If their king indeed didn’t wake up soon, they had somebody experienced who could take over in the worst case. Also … he turned to Xin Lan and inclined his head. “I presume Senior Xin Lan came here for a reason. Can we help?”

Xin Lan shook his head. “I wanted to see how Jinde was doing but he wasn’t in. That fallen god didn’t want to tell me where he went either so I came to look for Qiu Ling. Don’t worry. I will keep this quiet. I don’t like getting involved in these kinds of matters.”

Xiang Yong nodded. “Thank you.” In fact, he hadn’t been too worried. Instead, he had been afraid that there was something else going on that would need their king’s attention now that he wasn’t available. Since that wasn’t the case, he was relieved.

“I don’t know where he went either but since he and his husband live in the palace, I presume they will come back soon so I suppose you can simply wait for them. Now, if you would excuse me. I should follow along and take charge of the situation. We can’t leave this unattended.”

Xin Lan nodded and watched Xiang Yong leave, Qiang Wei and Yi Zan trailing after him. When the door closed, he sighed and finally went to sit down. Today, nothing seemed to be going well.