At this time, Zheng Yin was sitting at the table in his room, reading. For the last two days, he had stayed at the side of the dragon king with one of his advisers so he would be there at once in case his help with needed.

To be honest, he had felt that this didn’t make much sense. Could his skills be compared to Longjun Jinde? Of course not. Since this was the case, why have him stay around? He couldn’t understand but since the dragons wanted him to, he naturally wouldn’t refuse.

Not to mention that he would always be willing to help a person in need, the current dragon king had opened up the dialog with their spirit beast tribe a while ago. He’d love to see that kept alive so he naturally didn’t want to see anything happen to the dragon king and would also take the opportunity to show their people’s attitude. In the long run, this could only benefit them.

These days, while waiting for the dragon king’s condition to change, he had his advisers bring him books about souls in the library of the palace, slowly reading through them. The idea behind this was that the issue clearly wasn’t the king’s body but likely his soul. If they wanted to diagnose this and find a way to heal it, he’d have to learn a lot more.

Now, the king had already woken up and didn’t need his assistance any longer. Still, he had realized that there was still a lot for him to learn so he took the last book back to his room with him and also went to the library to see if there were more of them.

When he did, he was in for a surprise: He actually found a whole shelf full of books related to matters of the soul. Not just dragon souls but even souls in general were thoroughly detailed. Clearly, somebody had studied this idea here in the past and accumulated quite a few tomes.

Zheng Yin took a few of the books back to his room with him and had been leafing through them ever since. The longer he looked, the more he became aware that the research on this had to have been rather thorough. At first, he was still puzzled but then, he remembered how many of the trueborn gods and dragons had lost their lives in the war with the demons because of a weapon that could injure one’s soul. Even Longjun Jinde was said to have succumbed to it.

Well, clearly, the latter was wrong. As to why that was, it seemed he had now found the answer to that question. Even though he couldn’t guess how he had done it in the end, the dragons had clearly done their research and must have finally found a solution. Although he still wondered why the person had then given up the throne …

Zheng Yin was confused about this point but finally gave up pondering the political issue in the background, instead focusing on the content of the books and what they could teach him. Just while he was reading, a knock on the door interrupted him.

Zheng Yin glanced up, his brows raising slightly. “Come in, please.” There weren’t many people who even knew that he was here so he wondered who this was. Adviser Xiang Yong? He had had more to do with him the last few days …

The door opened and Xin Lan strolled in, his brows also raising faintly when he saw Zheng Yin behind the desk. “Am I disturbing you?”

Zheng Yin’s expression blanked. “… Xin Lan?” Truth be told, when guessing who it might be, he’d have thought it more likely for the dragon king to come looking for him than this person. Clearly, Xin Lan had completely ignored him when they were in the same room two days ago. They hadn’t seen each other again since then but … still, he felt like Xin Lan truly didn’t care about him. So why bother coming here?

Xin Lan closed the door behind himself and then turned back around, giving Zheng Yin a deep look. The two of them had spent a long time together in the mortal realm so he was quite familiar with him. Looking at him now … he didn’t feel much but then, they had only just seen each other again and with there not being any difference to how Zheng Yin had looked before, maybe he was missing that element of surprise.

He didn’t think too much and only faintly raised the corners of his lips. “Mind giving me a check-up?” He didn’t walk over yet, first wanting to see what Zheng Yin would say. Anyway, seeing how he would react to him was only the positive side-effect. He had originally come here to do as Jinde had asked him after all.

Zheng Yin felt puzzled by the request but more than that, his heart fluttered under Xin Lan’s focused gaze. He couldn’t help it. Even though he knew that the other person didn’t really like him, his heart wasn’t calm when in front of him. Getting over this feeling would likely take a long time.

Zheng Yin took a shallow breath, trying not to show his agitated state too openly. “I’m surprised you would come to me with this. But if you want me to, I naturally won’t say no.” The room he had been given wasn’t small so he motioned over to the other table where three chairs were placed. “Sit down then. I’ll see if I can help.”

Xin Lan nodded and quietly followed Zheng Yin over, his gaze brushing over the familiar silhouette of his body. He remembered clearly how it looked without the robe on and also the things they had done with their clothes off. But even thinking of that, his heart stayed completely silent in response. Obviously, his reaction to seeing Xiang Yu and his reaction to seeing Zheng Yin couldn’t be compared at all.