"……" The Heaven-Sword Sect Master paused, then shot an odd look at his fellow disciples beside him.

In all of Hongze, hardly anyone would treat the Immortal Maiden Zilan as coldly as Shen Yi just had.

It was not because of the dragon maiden's immortal beauty. Plenty of cultivators had no interest in women, after all.

It was mostly because of the way the purple-whiskered white dragons behaved.

They were living bodhisattvas, all of them. They demanded no tribute from you, and whenever you were in the right, they gave you whatever you asked. Who would turn them away?

Some might laugh at the East Dragon Palace behind its back and call it foolish, but at least to their faces, no one minded showing them some courtesy… A few kind words never cost anyone a scrap of flesh.

Who knew? Someday these purple-whiskered white dragons might save your life.

And when they looked at Xuanqing beside Shen Yi and compared the two, the Sect Masters' sense of absurdity grew even stronger.

They had all thought the two were alike, in temperament and in talent. But now it seemed they were quite different.

Shen Yi kept his guard up deep inside, as though he would rely on nobody in the world except himself. The old Xuanqing had been the exact reverse, certain the whole world owed him its favor.

A temperament like that might cost Sect Master Shen a good many friends, but it would also greatly lower the risk of being betrayed.

"All right."

The Immortal Maiden Zilan was silent for a long time. At last she hung her head in defeat and said softly, "You're right."

If others distrusted the East Dragon Palace, she might have argued a little. But the Nanyang Sect had good reason not to trust it. Her grandfather had stripped Aunt Purple-Caltrop of her place as a dragon maiden of the East Palace, and the old man would never stoop to currying favor with the immortal up in the heavens.

Even so, the wounds the Nanyang Sect had suffered could never be undone.

Shen Yi…