"Why? Didn"t Master say that you won"t allow palace maids to enter the princess"s manor anymore?"

Xiao Qing did not understand the situation.

"At first, Master made a fuss after Fengyun Manor had sent palace maids to Liu Yun Kingdom. He wanted to force them back to Fengyun Manor. 

"But, Master did nothing when he saw the palace maids."

"Yes." Nan Xian smiled calmly. "I saw their faces."

"And?"

"Qing"er only likes beautiful people."

Qing Zhu was quiet.

Male snakes had the ability to identify the beauty of female snakes. For them, the humans looked just the same.

"But…" Qing Zhu replied weakly, "I saw that the princess eloping with the palace maids just now. The princess has abandoned you."

At that moment, the air around them froze. Although Qing Zhu was a cold-blooded animal, it still felt cold and it started to tremble. It looked at the man in front of it, fearfully.

"What did you say?"

Qing Zhu trembled vigorously. But, it was still brave and stubborn. It finished its report stoically. "The princess has eloped with the palace maids. They have left the imperial city. The princess has abandoned you, Master."

Nan Xian was no longer calm. His mood had changed.

A white figure moved very quickly. He grabbed the tail of the snake with one hand and disappeared into the quiet and serene Southern Bamboo Grove. 

***

At the Divine Herbs Sect.

The master gazed steadily at the elder below him in the Divine Herbs Sect.

"Sect Master, the beastmaster of the Forest of Spirit Beasts seems to have made a breakthrough. It has even started a riot there. It looks like it"s searching for somebody. Don"t we have to do something? We can still capture it and bring it back to keep it even if we don"t kill it."

Dragons and phoenixes were considered rare spirit beasts in this land.

"Did Shen Yue Manor and Deities Gate do anything about this?" Master asked calmly.

The elder was quiet for a moment. "Both of them did nothing."

"Then, we don"t have to do anything. The black dragon is of the lowest tier among the dragon species. Its potential is low but its strength is quite attractive for the other families. But, it"s useless for us." The master said with a smile.

The elder was stunned. "But, there"s a record in the ancient book of the Divine Herbs Sect. It mentions that the black dragon was the guardian spirit beast of the Divine Herbs Sect a thousand years ago."

"It"s different." The master shook his head. "The previous guardian spirit beast of the Divine Herbs Sect was not a black dragon but a spirit dragon."

"A spirit… dragon?"

"Yes. It was not a true spirit beast but it was formed with the surrounding spiritual qi. It was not a dragon but it was the only one in this world. It had disappeared and there are no more spirit dragons."

"How could a black dragon be compared to a spirit dragon?

"The black dragon is the weakest kind in the dragon family. It"s too worthless to be my spirit beast."

"You can leave now. Those two families are not even bothered about it. So, we don"t have to do anything for the black dragon." The master smiled softly. "Moreover, there will be a war soon at the Forest of Spirit Beasts. We don"t have to join their fight. We will just sit here and watch their fight."

"Furthermore…" The master"s eyes narrowed. "The other families went there not only to capture the black dragon. Although the black dragon is the most worthless kind of dragon, it won"t bow down to the humans because of the arrogance of the dragon."

"But, I heard that the other families had captured quite a lot of spirit beasts in the Forest of Spirit Beasts."