♂
**That naked confession made Li Nianjun's delicate face flush bright red as well, but this time she showed no intention of stopping or mocking Jing Xiaoman. Instead, she seemed to feel a shared misery with her, which made me more curious than surprised.
"Xiaoman, if I said I wanted to marry you, would the Demon Lord agree? Such willfulness could very well provoke conflict between the two realms. Don't you care about that?" I asked with a wry smile.
"No, I don't care about any of that. Going back means certain death for me anyway, and I don't want to go back. Aside from Grandfather, King Lingyue, you've treated me the best. Besides, at most, Father will just assume I'm dead. I never planned to become the Demon Lord anyway..." Jing Xiaoman was as willful as ever. I had simply been overthinking things.
"They won't send you straight into the Molten Fire Demon Realm as soon as you go back, will they? Is there any time to buy?" I asked. Although I had thought that successors chosen by the supreme rulers of the various worlds were usually superior to those selected by the current leaders, cases of brothers turning against each other were indeed rare.
"There's still... some time. After all, the successor went into seclusion as soon as he arrived, and no one knows when he'll come out, so King Lingyue didn't receive much information. But judging from what we heard from the other princes and kings, his aptitude is unimaginably good. He isn't someone like me, who can be matched through hard work alone..." Jing Xiaoman sighed repeatedly.
"After you go back, delay things for as long as you can. I'll contact you as soon as possible, all right?" I truly did not have many options at