“Honored Elder, I’ve long since started my preparations for dealing with Li Mo and Yun Ruoyan, Rong Yueshan replied. “The moment I first laid eyes on Yun Ruoyan, I knew we would be bitter rivals to the death, and all her allies are my enemies as well. Although the Slaughtering King is powerful, I believe that it’s only a matter of time before he suffers a defeat at your hands.” Her words both clarified her stance and flattered the silver dragon elder, who was clearly weak to such effusive praise.

“Good, good!” the silver dragon elder replied. “I intend on taking a qualified disciple from a lower realm. If you succeed in this task, I’ll choose you.”

“My gratitude, Elder.” Rong Yueshan bowed and replied passionately. “I’ll do my utmost to complete this task. However, given this failed kidnapping, it’ll be far harder to succeed in snatching the baby boy again.”

“You don’t have to worry about this. Once they’ve dealt with matters on the Chenyuan continent, Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo will undoubtedly head to the Jiyuan continent. The boy’s too small to accompany them, so you’ll have ample opportunity to strike when they’re gone.” The silver dragon elder’s voice suddenly turned cold. “You must hand the child to 

me

.”

“I understand, Elder.” At that moment, Rong Yueshan’s scarred face somehow seemed to accentuate, rather than diminish, her features. “Elder, may I ask a question?”

“What is it?”

“May I ask why you want the child? Do you plan on using him to threaten Li Mo and Yun Ruoyan?”

“That is not something you need to know,” the elder replied coldly. “All you have to keep in mind is that this boy is of particular importance, even more so than her mother.”

“Yes, Elder,” Rong Yueshan replied.

After three whole months of management, Yun Ruoyan finally succeeded in restoring the Yun household to how it had been before. Now, she was able to delegate most of the responsibilities to Li Luo. After all, Li Luo would soon become the female head of the Yun family, and she would need to deal with these issues on her own in the future.

In the past three months, three major incidents had occurred within the Li kingdom, two of which had something to do with Li Mo—first, Li Mo had killed Li Qianyuan, who sought to claim the throne for himself, and second, he had supported Li Qianhan’s ascension to the throne of the Li kingdom. Third, Yun Moxiao had sent word that he had quelled the Farsighted King’s rebellion and was dealing with the last of its forces. If everything went according to plan, he would be able to return to the capital within the month.

Before Li Mo announced his support for Li Qianhan, quite a few of the court officials had begun recommending Li Qianyue for the throne. It was then that Li Mo realized that Dong Tiehe had taken advantage of him and used him as a means of removing Li Qianyuan. 

As the oldest member of the Li royalty, Li Mo had temporarily taken the throne as regent. He gathered all the officials who had been recommending Li Qianyue to the throne and had the Mo guards reveal evidence of their bribery and corruption. The officials instantly turned pale and begged for clemency, and support for Li Qianyue instantly crumbled.

Li Qianhan successfully became the next emperor of the Li kingdom.

During the past three months, Li Mo had been very busy, as had Yun Ruoyan. He was helping Li Qianhan manage the kingdom, whereas she was helping Li Luo manage the Yun household. In the end, their hard work had finally borne fruit.

That day, Li Mo returned home to accompany Yun Ruoyan early in the day.

“Are all the matters at court dealt with? You’re never back this early these days.” Yun Ruoyan was breastfeeding Li Yan, who had just woken up.

“Qianhan’s able to take care of things on his own now, so I won’t be this busy from now on.” Li Mo sat by Yun Ruoyan’s side and watched his son suckle on Yun Ruoyan’s teat. Ever since she recovered, she had taken over for the wet nurse. Following the demonic dragon forefather’s suggestion, she infused some of her spiritual energy into her breast milk.

According to the demonic dragon forefather, the children of the demonic dragons had always been brought up in this manner. The small quantities of spiritual energy would help strengthen the children’s bodies, and there weren’t any drawbacks that had been identified even over millennia. On the other hand, the situation was the exact opposite for humans: if human mothers had too advanced a cultivation, their breast milk would naturally contain trace amounts of spiritual energy. Human children were too weak to handle such energy, so these women would have no choice but to employ a wet nurse.

Yun Ruoyan was worried that Li Yan might be unable to adapt to the amount of spiritual energy in her breast milk, so she had strictly controlled the spiritual energy concentration in her milk in the beginning. When she saw that Li Yan seemed to be adjusting fine, she slowly raised the concentration. Li Yan grew surprisingly rapidly—he was able to crawl after just a few months, with strong, supple arms and legs. 

Even as she infused more and more spiritual energy into her milk, Li Yan seemed able to ingest it without a problem. Yun Ruoyan felt as though he was like a black hole, one able to accept any quantity of spiritual energy she poured into him—despite his being little more than a baby, despite his not even having formed a spiritual vortex.

Li Mo glanced at Li Yan’s cute, chubby little cheeks and had a sudden desire to knead them. Li Yan burbled happily as he did so, then slowly fell asleep amidst the kneading.

“Ah, he’s asleep again?” Yun Ruoyan murmured. “He fell asleep less than two hours after waking up! Is this normal?”

“Of course!” Li Mo said. “Didn’t the physician say that Li Yan has a wonderful constitution? The more he sleeps, the more his body will be able to grow.”

As Li Mo spoke, his hands shifted from Li Yan’s cheeks to Yun Ruoyan’s body. The motherly aura surrounding Yun Ruoyan suddenly made Li Mo’s libido flare. “Yan’er, I’ve been thinking of you day and night. Have you felt similarly toward me?” Li Mo leaned forward invitingly.

“No.” Yun Ruoyan clicked her tongue. “I see you everyday, so what’s there to think about?”

Li Mo had been curbing his desires ever since finding out that Yun Ruoyan was pregnant. After Li Yan was born, they had both been busy with their additional responsibilities. By the time Li Mo returned late at night, Yun Ruoyan had already gone to bed. By the time Yun Ruoyan woke up, Li Mo had already left for the palace. Given their duties, it had been almost a month since Li Mo had touched Yun Ruoyan.

Ignoring Yun Ruoyan’s protesting gaze, Li Mo quickly brought Li Yan to his little crib, then brought Yun Ruoyan to bed and began nibbling at her ears.

Yun Lan was still infusing spiritual energy into Lin Yuemei’s body. His original estimate of eighty-one days had been too optimistic—not because of any problem with the technique, but because Yun Lan’s body wasn’t able to support the transfusion. Not only did he have to expend one drop of vital blood to nourish the two statues daily, he also had to transfer large quantities of spiritual energy into Lin Yuemei’s body, a body that had been slumbering for decades.

In order to ensure that his body was able to withstand the exertion, he had no choice but to cultivate intermittently during the process. Nevertheless, his constitution was slowly deteriorating, day by day.

Yun Ruoyan would frequently visit Yun Lan. Each time she saw his whitening hair and aging appearance, her resentment toward her erstwhile father slowly decreased. Eventually, she thought that she would forgive Yun Lan’s coldness toward her.

In contrast to Yun Lan’s aging appearance, Lin Yuemei seemed to be brimming with vitality. Although she was still unconscious, she looked as though she were in the peak of her life. Her young, beautiful mother might as well have been her older sister given her appearance—she had been early in her twenties when she fell unconscious. After decades of stasis, she still had the appearance of a woman in her twenties. Yun Ruoyan would soon be nineteen, so it was only natural that they would seem to be sisters.

Early the next morning, Yun Ruoyan and Li Mo brought Li Yan to the Lin family. Li Yan was almost five months old when Lin Zainan finally saw his great-grandson for the first time. He cradled him in his arms, unwilling to let go of him once he had picked him up. Because of Li Yan’s unique constitution, he seemed like a one-year-old child despite his age, and was even able to take a few stumbling steps. 

Lin Zainan spent almost half the day playing with Li Yan; worried that he would be tired out from the exertion, Yun Ruoyan asked Li Mo to play a game of 

go

 with her grandfather while she accompanied her cousins to Lin Qingchen’s bamboo garden. Lin Qingchen had been asking for Yun Ruoyan to visit for quite some time, but it was only now that Yun Ruoyan had finally been able to free herself to do so.

“Sister Ruoyan, you have to mentally prepare yourself, or you’ll receive a big shock when you see Whitey,” Lin Qingxue warned.

Yun Ruoyan glanced at Lin Qingchen, who smiled in affirmation of Lin Qingxue’s words. She couldn’t help but grow curious at the dramatic change that Whitey had to have undergone.

“Sister Ruoyan, will Li Yan be scared by Whitey?”

“No, he’s very brave,” Yun Ruoyan replied.

Despite being mentally prepared, Yun Ruoyan was still very surprised to see Whitey—because it now appeared more like a fledgling dragon than a white python.

[1]

The two small ponds in Lin Qingchen’s small bamboo garden had been replaced by a large pond. Whitey was basking in the water, and it appeared that his body was filling up the pond in its entirety. Its gigantic head was exposed to the sun, and its eyes, the size and color of two copper cymbals, were closed. Its small nostrils had become enlarged, and its breathing rippled the water around him. Most shockingly to Yun Ruoyan, it had grown two large protrusions by either side of its forehead, like bamboo shoots about to emerge from the ground after the spring rains.

1. Imagine the evolution from Dratini to Dragonair…