“Oh? So now you're protecting him like that?”

Zixian rolled her eyes, a little jealous. At her age, she had every right to call Shen Yi a kid.

He wasn't Qin Jiaoyang, the true head of the Nanhong Seven. He was just a young junior. Why couldn't she even tease him a little?

“Be serious. We're talking business.”

Ji Jingxi gave her old friend a helpless, reproachful look.

Zixian probably had no idea how exalted Shen Yi's standing in Nanhong was now. Never mind anyone else—if Senior Brother Ye heard someone talk about him this dismissively, he would never let it go with a laugh.

But she couldn't explain that openly.

Ji Jingxi moved straight past the subject. “If the West Dragon Palace is guarding against you this closely… why not go back?”

Shen Yi had sent her to draw some information out of Zixian, but this was also something that truly worried her.

The East Dragon Palace was powerful, no doubt. But if the West Dragon King was really pushed too far, Zixian was on its home ground, among strangers. Never mind any danger to her life—being held captive for a hundred thousand years or more was not out of the question.

“……” At that, Zixian fell silent for a moment. “It's nothing, really. You can barely look after yourselves right now. There's no need to worry about this too.”

But under Ji Jingxi's soft, steady gaze, she bit her lip, as if making up her mind, and finally sighed. “My Royal Father means to bring charges against the immortal.”

“Hiss.”

Ji Jingxi's fingertips trembled slightly, and she glanced toward the door without meaning to.

What on earth was happening in Hongze these days, that someone else had set their sights on the immortal again… Wait. Why had she thought "again"?

At that, a sigh showed on the Clear-Moon Sect Master's face.

Sure enough, she really couldn't pretend not to see it. Back at the Nanyang treasured site, one look at Xuanqing's troubled expression had been enough to set her guessing.

Shen Yi being who he was, he must…