Author's Notes
A-ji stay...
In Dacheng Kingdom's Daguoshi Mansion...
Chapter 7 – Meeting at Daguoshi Palace
"I could eat in peace. Or rather, any jiaoren would do that. But since your race is small and most of my kind are large, we prefer larger prey. Now, if a jiaoren is poisoned or weak and there was a human in the ocean, it will most likely attack if it is hungry. We only attack to eat when we feel hungry."
She is stunned by the answer to a question in her mind, realizing that he spoke objectively, bluntly and practically.
In fact, Chang Yi was quite sincere, honest and straightforward.
As she remembered that they were different races, she found that she couldn't be offended. Humans did not belong in the sea. The sea was of the jiaoren and from what she understood, they were a predatory species.
Even if you were to analyze it coldly, what could be considered deplorable were humans attacking other humans because they were of the same race. That was indeed reprehensible as he analyzed without any sentimentality what he heard.
She clears her throat, pulling herself together, then asks, "So is it a meat-only diet?"
"Not because I also eat seaweed as I said earlier. But I prefer meat, preferably tender."
"Indeed, he is a shark demon. But, I confess that the seaweed part surprised me. I thought I heard wrong" She thinks to herself.
"Is it customary for your species to use spoils from killed prey? You mentioned earlier that you like to use their shell to sleep after devouring them."
"Yes. I'm not the only one. Besides, the taste for a certain place to sleep can vary from tribe to tribe, as well as from bloodline as I said before. Those who don't have considerable power and consequently size, can't eat beings. bigger than they are. This shellfish we are can be considered small in relation to the size of my true form."
She sighs and then says, "Well, I think we humans, at least, the overwhelming majority, are still pretty reasonable in some ways."
Chang Yi thought for a while and after reflecting, he replied with his usual sincerity, "I don't lie to them. I won't let them live in the first place when I look at them. We only kill prey when we feel hungry. You don't eat meat too?"
"Yes. But we don't just eat meat. We eat eggs, vegetables, fruits, grains and other foods. We are omnivores and not carnivores. Our diet is very broad. We practically eat everything."
"Is it only use the flesh of the beings they eat?"
"Well, we use feathers to fill pillows and other objects. We use fur and skin to make clothes and accessories, in addition to using bones and organs in food. We even make use of hooves and horns. The beak is also used. Also, we use—" At that, she stops talking while looking at him who smiles discreetly, making the princess sigh, "In fact, looking at it from that angle, there is no distinction in the fact that you use your prey's shell after slaughtering it. la. In a way, we humans do that too."
"It's not right to waste. You have to enjoy everything. There's nothing wrong with that."
So, deciding to bury the subject of food after discovering some disturbing facts, she comments while remembering that she could only stay in that environment and well, thanks to the merfolk's magic, "I never thought that the jiaoren had such practical magic as the one you used on me. But that's not a very useful spell for you and your people, is it?"
"Yes. It's the first time I've used it."
The princess smirks and asks, "Big-tailed fish, in the short time we've known each other, how many firsts have I gotten away from you?" The young woman asks with a smile on her face.
The jiaoren was silent as he thought about the answer.
From the little she interacted with Chang Yi, the demon master knew that he had taken her casual question seriously.
"You're really counting, right?" The young woman asks in a confirmation tone.
"Yes. I haven't finished counting yet."
The princess chuckled lightly as she shook her head from side to side, amused by the fact that he was so serious even with trivial matters.
"You really are a very serious big-tailed fish."
"It's good to be serious."
"Beyond rigid."
"It's also good to be strict. That's how I was taught."
Then, she remembers that he was the Crown Prince of the Ocean and comments with a smile, "Indeed, as the Crown Prince it is necessary to have these two traits, among others."
Then, seeing that he forgot about her trivial question, the young woman asks after sighing, "It looks like the ocean is quite calm under the waves. Do all jiaoren like to talk?"
"Yes. It's calm. As for talking, not everyone likes to do that and when we talk, we tend to use our own language."
A-ji remembers how the merman sang in a language she couldn't understand.
Then, the demon master turns to the demon and asks, "Could you sing for me again? Your voice is beautiful."
"Would you like something specific?"
"No. It might be your favorite song."
Then, the jiaoren starts to sing a beautiful song in his language, making her close her eyes while enjoying the beautiful music that lasts for some time until he ends.
"What is this song? It's so beautiful."
"It's the shark's song and it's a praise of freedom."
The princess is fascinated to hear this and agrees that jiaoren should always be free.
After a few minutes, the young woman tries to adjust herself better where she was sitting and ends up slipping, making her rest one of her hands on Chang Yi's tail, and then remove it, realizing that when she touched his tail when she slipped slightly to the side , the merman backed away as if in a trance.
"Did I touch where I shouldn't have?" The demon master asks with visible concern at his attitude, "If that was it, I apologize. It's just that I momentarily lost my balance."
"No."
The human saw that he looked at her, and then tilted his head while he hesitated for some time, making her confused by this reaction because she had never seen him look like that until that moment.
The young woman notices that his face shows a little confusion when he looks at her, and then asks, "Do you like me? It's not the first time you've touched me, although this time it was by accident whereas in the past , one of the times you touched me was to help heal my wounds by performing that long tap to heal spell."
The princess was stunned as she absorbed the unexpected question at the same time as she looked at the handsome jiaoren, the young woman struggling to control the blush on her cheeks as she remembered the times she had touched him.
In the meantime, dozens of kilometers away, in the Daguoshi mansion of the Dacheng kingdom, more precisely in the room used for meetings, the king and queen were together with the general, in addition to the Grand Master of demons, Ning Qing. Also there was the head of the castle's defensive troops, Zhu Ling, whose title was Tower Commander Ling Shuang. He was also the cousin of the princesses as he was the son of the current queen's late brother.
They were all seated around a mahogany table inlaid with gold and studded with precious jewels. On the cap was a map and a marked point. There were also some old parchments scattered on the table and that were open containing glyphs in the text when using a brush to highlight those points. Others were partially destroyed.
"It's amazing that you were able to rescue these ancient texts." The king comments in a joking tone.
"Thank you, your majesty" Ning Qing bows respectfully.
"Do you really think our target is in that location?" The queen asks with disbelief in her gaze, "It's not the first time we've been tricked."
"My predecessor was not careful or even thoughtful about this matter. If he had investigated the facts more closely, he would have seen his mistake. I am not like that. I have researched many places and found crucial information in an abandoned Buddhist temple near the capital ."
"As I recall, these monks showed clemency towards demons. They were against the decision to enslave and kill them all, if I'm not mistaken" The general speaks with anger in his voice, "And to think that they think they are followers of the Buddha! They deserved the The end they met, as well as all the persecution of previous and current generations of the royal family. Now, they are nothing more than pariahs authorized to be executed."
"It's a shame there are still monks around. They look like cockroaches." The queen speaks with disgust.
"Defending a demon is unacceptable! They deserve to be killed for protecting them while demons have to be killed or enslaved!" The king exclaims slamming his fist on the table.
"Please calm down, your majesty. Any monk will be killed by a soldier as soon as he is seen." Zhu Ling speaks respectfully, "To help, they even put a bounty on a monk's head."
"Even so, it's been a while since anyone has come for some reward."
"Certainly they are being careful. I have heard rumors of extremely isolated temples. Any and all temples seen are destroyed and if villagers try to protect the site they are arrested and executed for treason."
"Great!" The king exclaims with satisfaction.
Ning Qing just watched the conversation while mentally questioning when the comment about an incident from years ago that was currently considered a headache for the kingdom will be made.
Furthermore, their attitudes against monks still provoke popular indignation, even running a campaign smearing them as protectors of demons.
The problem with the campaign is that the persecution of demons was so intense and equally relentless over the centuries that there were none left in the vicinity and even their sightings were rare, with that rarity gradually increasing over time. This campaign would carry more weight to change part of public opinion if there were frequent demon attacks.
Therefore, with an almost negligible weight, the campaign did not change the opinion of the overwhelming majority of people and the acceptance of the royal family by the people was the lowest of all centuries, with this popular dissatisfaction increasing with each generation, aggravating the fact that the kings had making unpopular decisions. There was also the fact that the princess, Ru Ling, who appeared alongside them frequently as the crown princess, was considered unlikable and spoiled to an extreme, generating popular outrage at the same time as the youngest princess, A-ji, was so suppressed. that many regarded its existence as merely a rumour.
For the people, there was only one princess in the kingdom and she was called Shunde because her real name, Ru Ling, was only spoken by close people or members of the royal family.
High taxes only harmed people's lives and caused the kingdom's revenue to fall sharply over the centuries along with the exodus of people to remote places aiming for their survival when trying to escape brutal taxes.
To aggravate popular dissatisfaction, those who could not pay taxes were converted into slaves with their families.
In his view, if the royal family did nothing, an immense and uncontrollable civil revolt would break out because popular dissatisfaction only gradually increased and with the declaration of slavery instead of prison, the feeling of dissatisfaction with the royal family was converted into hatred. The hunger that was advancing among the most vulnerable and poor was another factor that instigated the anger of the people.
All of this led to tougher laws, with punishments being extremely severe for anyone who tried to call an uprising against the royal family or who was involved in treason. The King's personal attendant, Official Zhang, who also attended to the Queen and Crown Princess Shunde, was especially creative in the punishments that were extremely sadistic, aimed at inflicting maximum pain before death.
That's why many tried to commit suicide in prison. It was less suffering.
However, with so many suicides, they created ways to prevent prisoners from continuing to commit suicide.
After all, Zhang wanted them alive to carry out his sadistic and equally cruel acts. The act of begging for death or for mercy only heightened his pleasure in the suffering of his victims.
Indeed, the royal family declined with each generation. From an extremely prosperous kingdom and a royal family loved by the people in a very distant past, the next several generations together with the current royal family made the kingdom decay, weakening it while the people's feeling was of contempt and hatred.
In fact, it was not invaded by another kingdom because in the distant past, the ancient king managed to conquer all the small kingdoms, subjugating them, and the other kingdoms that might try to conquer Dacheng were beyond the sea, causing the disadvantage of distance.
However, at the rate at which the capital was falling, in Ning Qing's view, it was only a matter of time before the kingdom was completely weakened.
The kingdom was only currently maintained due to the fact that they managed to enslave demons together with the power of a demon master's occult pulse that granted the ability to use magic, in addition to making their bodies more resistant together with the fact that they had physical strength. above other humans, thus managing to use the power of demons and demon masters against any invader and to subdue any attempt at rebellion by the people together with the hardening of laws.
All this made people hate not only the royal family. Demon masters were also hated and despised along with the demon grandmaster who was feared by the world and hated by the people.
Ning Qing arches her brow as she sees Zhu Ling looking at him with a sneer.
"Your Majesties, should we remind the grandmaster of the grave mistake he made years ago in allowing Ji Chengge to escape from his sect and that he currently changed his name to Kong Ming by becoming a monk, bringing trouble to us? there's a blood brother who's still in the sect, right? His name is Ji Chengyu."
"If you're speculating that I didn't do my part, know that I did everything I could. I even used a truth matrix to check if he knew his brother's whereabouts and the technique revealed that he spoke the truth when he said he didn't. I didn't know and also, I never knew about the big brother's plans. Everything indicates that Ji Chengge acted on his own. As for his escape, I took additional measures to prevent that, besides the use of Frost. I also don't understand how he didn't go affected by the curse's effect. Perhaps, it was something he learned from the monks. Because of relentless persecution, knowledge about the monks has been lost over time. What we know about them is very strict."
"How dare you argue that — !"
"Silence!" The king exclaims and Zhu Ling promptly stops speaking as he flinches, "We are here to discuss the discovery and not to trade accusations and events that cannot be changed."
"Yes, your majesty. Please forgive me." The king's nephew bowed as he knelt on one knee.
"Get up and don't touch the subject again."
"Yes, your majesty. I thank you for your mercy."
"You have to learn to contain yourself. How do you want to reach the title of general being like this?" His paternal grandfather who was a general speaks in a reproachful tone while glaring at him, making him cringe again with the older man's angry look.
"You are right. Forgive me."
"Dominate yourself before trying to dominate the soldiers. If you can't dominate yourself, you will never succeed as a general."
"I'll do it."
"I want actions not just words."
"Then, Ning Qing, is the data accurate? And the knowledge as well?" The queen asks for the focus to return to the map on the table.
"As for the data on the location, yes. As for what's sealed there, no. But I've found evidence that it's quite powerful."
"Can such a powerful demon be subdued?" The king asks, "Has a demon of this level ever been tamed?"