“…No way? Ziya… what kind of backlash will there be?”
Bai Li asked with a look of deep concern.
Ziya’s small head was spinning rapidly as she racked her brain, trying to come up with a plausible excuse.
“That! It, it’ll be like Sister—no, Elder Sister Longjiu—consumed by desire, forming a Heart Demon!”
“What? That’s so serious!”
Bai Li immediately recalled the sight of Longjiu’s painful struggle.
His heart clenched into a ball at the thought of his precious darling Ziya suffering such a fate.
However, he still held a sliver of doubt and asked tentatively,
“Ziya… you aren’t fooling me, are you? This, this is no small matter!”
“Uuu… it’s…”
A battle was raging within Ziya’s heart.
Should she tell the truth, or continue to maintain this lie?
“Hmm, Ziya, you’re hesitating. You don’t seem very honest…”
The suspicion in Bai Li’s eyes grew deeper.
“It… it’s true… but it’s not as serious as Elder Sister Longjiu’s case. It’s just that sometimes I can’t get a full stomach.”
Ziya gritted her teeth and decided to keep up the deception.
However, she downplayed the consequences slightly.
Otherwise, if she were exposed later, she wouldn’t have any way to explain herself.
“Phew… you scared me to death, Ziya! Next time, explain these things clearly! Don’t leave things hanging halfway; do you want to scare your father to death?”
Bai Li patted his chest and let out a long sigh of relief.
“Uuu… I understand, Father… Mother…”
Ziya called out both titles at once.
They were contradictory, yet strangely harmonious.
“Hmm… but if you can’t fill your stomach, that’s still not good…”
The moment Bai Li thought about his daughter often going hungry, he felt that he had been negligent as a parent.
But Ziya was a Succubus.
And the traditional ‘food’ for a Succubus…
Bai Li instinctively looked down at his own lower abdomen.
‘Tsk, this is going to be difficult. Do I really have to take care of it in the bathroom and then feed it to Ziya?’
That was too… too much.
He really couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Um, Mother…”
Ziya seemed to see through the internal drama in Bai Li’s mind and spoke softly.
“Actually, it doesn’t necessarily have to be the juices from that place~”
She reached out a finger and gently tapped her own small mouth.
“There’s actually a lot of juice here, too~”
Bai Li froze for a moment, thinking it over slowly.
Compared to those other fluids, saliva did seem easier to accept.
“But Ziya was his daughter?”
Even if those fluids were food to her… this would either involve mouth-to-mouth contact or spitting it out for her to drink.
Such acts would be considered intense even for a couple, let alone with his own daughter!
‘Sigh, Ziya… why did my most well-behaved daughter have to be a Succubus?’
“Mother, don’t think about it anymore. We can talk about these things next time~ I’m just not full, I’m not starving~”
Ziya felt the air was about to freeze, so she quickly tried to smooth things over.
After all, this was just a lie, and she didn’t want her mother to struggle with it for too long.
“Mhm… go to sleep, Ziya,” Bai Li said softly.
“Mm-hmm, goodnight, Mother~”
“Goodnight~”
The parent and daughter both closed their eyes.
However, the thought of Ziya “not being full” had already taken deep root in Bai Li’s mind.
One day, it would sprout and bear fruit.
—
“Report! Lord Dragon King!”
“Speak.”
“As you command! The investigation from the front lines is complete! The Vampires have mobilized their entire army to deploy against the Human Empire! They aren’t targeting the Succubi or our Dragon Race!”
“Tsk.”
A soft click of the tongue echoed, carrying endless irritability and coldness.
The dragon soldier reporting below trembled all over.
He was so terrified that his scales tightened, and he didn’t dare to breathe.
‘It’s over! Lord Dragon King is angry!’
‘I-I’m just a soldier delivering news… Please don’t take your anger out on me, please don’t…’
“Dismissed.”
Longjiu’s tone was flat, revealing neither joy nor anger, but the sense of pressure did not diminish in the slightest.
“Y-Yes! Lord Dragon King! This lowly one will leave at once!”
The soldier felt as if he had been granted a grand pardon.
He scrambled out of the hall, fearing that if he were a step too slow, he would draw fire upon himself.
Silence returned to the great hall.
Longjiu sat alone on the cold and majestic Dragon Throne.
She slowly closed her eyes and inhaled the scent of the clothes in her hand.
She wasn’t angry about the Vampires’ movements; she was angry at…
She was angry at her sister, Baining, for still being so headstrong.
‘My foolish and stubborn sister…’
‘Do you really think that by raising your blade and trampling the humans, you can end everything?’
‘Father always said that everything in the world has a cause and an effect, a beginning and an end.’
‘You haven’t even found the true source of your hatred, yet you want to start a bloody storm based purely on a fit of rage.’
‘Even if you truly destroy the human kingdom and the old hatred dissipates, new disasters will be born from it.’
‘This is the most cruel and fair cycle of Karma in the world.’
‘Destruction does not bring liberation.’
‘Sister Baining, even now, you still haven’t seen through this…’
At the thought of this, Longjiu sighed softly, a trace of complex emotion crossing her eyes that no one could understand.
It was precisely because of this that she was even more certain.
In this world, the only person who could truly understand Father and stand by his side from beginning to end was her.
“Someone, come!”
A light shout vibrated through the hall.
The Dragon Race general guarding the door immediately bowed and entered with a steady aura.
“The general is here!”
“Mobilize half of the national military resources to station at the border and watch from the sidelines.”
“If the Vampires do anything even slightly out of line, do not act on your own. Wait for my orders before striking. Do you understand?”
“This general understands!”
“Then go, quickly!”
“Yes!”
The general did not dare say more.
He turned and transformed into a streak of light, galloping away.
Longjiu looked at the empty hall, her gaze deepening.
‘Sister Baining, I wish you luck.’
‘The humans of today are no longer the weak group that could only rely on the protection of a Hero.’
‘Even without a Hero, their resilience and their bottom line are far more terrifying than you imagine.’
She slowly stood up, her dragon scales shimmering with a cold and lonely luster under the faint light.
It was time to pay a visit to the dungeon.
She would go to see the one who had personally killed her ten years ago and rewritten the fate of her entire life—
“The Lord Hero.”
Old grudges had not faded, and a new game was beginning.
Some debts should be settled once and for all.
With steady steps, Longjiu walked toward the depths of the hall, down the long path leading to the dark dungeon.