Chapter 51 - I Don’t Need to Hear That

Hong Bao stumbled out of the scribe's palace in a daze. She didn't know what to think let alone do. Shun Tao, her one true love, might … die? And it might be her own fault, because she had told someone about this assignment, he had entrusted her with.

Oh no, oh no … What to do?

Hong Bao went back to her room, without noticing anything about her surroundings. Accordingly, she didn't detect, that quite a few gazes were following her. She could only concentrate on the problem at hand. Back in her room, she paced up and down, trying to think of something she could do. I have to help him somehow!

First of all, we have to make sure, that nobody finds out about this! The only people, who know about the assignment are Shun Tao himself, me as his helper and Leng Jin Yu. I should first go and tell Leng Jin Yu!

After not even five minutes in her room, Hong Bao stepped outside again and hurried to the courtyard. Unfortunately, nothing could be seen of Leng Jin Yu. Hong Bao grew anxious. Why wasn't he there, when she needed him so urgently?

What to do? What to do? She paced outside the courtyard and looked around in the hopes, that Leng Jin Yu would come back. Unfortunately for her, he was still in the god of war's palace and as long as he didn't have to, he would certainly not come back so soon. This was his chance to establish a relationship with the god of war. He would be an idiot, if he didn't use such an opportunity.

Hong Bao stopped near the entrance, lifted her hand and started biting at her fingernails. Notifying Leng Jin Yu would have to wait. Then how about after that? What was the next step to make sure, that nothing would happen to Shun Tao?

She smote her forehead. Right! She had totally forgotten to tell Shun Tao, what she knew about the gods in the courtyard!

Like that, Hong Bao hurried back to the scribe's palace, once again preoccupied with her own thoughts and once again observed by quite a few people on the way.

"Fate's scribe!" Thankfully, Hong Bao still had enough of her thoughts with her to remember, that she couldn't just casually call him by his name in front of him and maybe even other people.

Shun Tao looked up from the scroll of fate, he had once again picked up.

"I forgot to tell you about what I found out."

"Mn." Shun Tao furled the scroll of fate and put it down. There was nothing he could do at the moment anyway. "So, what do you know?"

"You only cared about Zhi Hao and Wen Xia, right?"

Shun Tao nodded. They were the most likely candidates from that patch of young gods. He just didn't know, which one of them was the culprit.

"Wen Xia really did monitor different people each time. I don't know much about the tasks of the scribes, but it seemed like he was watching those mortals entire lives in a short amount of time."

"That doesn't sound, as if it had anything to do with the crown prince."

Hong Bao nodded. "At least I wouldn't know, what a connection could be."

"Then what about Zhi Hao? He should be our culprit then. What kind of people did he monitor? It should also be more than one person."

Hong Bao nodded again. "There weren't that many people though. The first one was a woman around 30 years of age."

Shun Tao nodded. That could be Zhong Jing Yi's mother, Madam Zhong.

"Then there is another woman, who is a little younger. Sometimes, they even seemed to spend time together."

Shun Tao nodded again. That should be one of the women from the village. Since she was younger than Madam Zhong, it could be Madam Shen, Lian Mei, who had lived in the house next to the Zhongs.

"There's a third woman."

Shun Tao's brows lifted. Where did all those women come from? "Did she have a relationship with the other two?"

"Not as far as I know. At least they never appeared together. The same is true for the other two women he observed."

"Two other women?"

"Mn!" Hong Bao nodded. "He observed five women altogether."

"Then … was there anything they had in common? Like … did they appear at the same places? Even if they themselves didn't meet?" That could very well be the case. In fact, not monitoring Zhong Jing Yi, but instead people in his surroundings was brilliant. If the heavenly emperor had someone from the scribe's palace watch over his son, he wouldn't needlessly alarm them, while still being able to find out everything that happened around the boy.

There were a lot of women in his village and the surrounding ones. Selecting some in strategic positions would be easy.

"Mn, something like that. It weren't exactly the same places, but really similar ones. And the things these women did were similar, too."

"Oh? They were probably working in the village?"

"No, no. The places they went were mostly ones with water, like the river or a room in the house with a big bucket." Hong Bao tried hard to remember every detail Leng Jin Yu had told her. "And they mostly did things like washing their hair or —"

"Alright!" Shun Tao lifted a hand to interrupt her. "I don't need to hear that. I can … imagine, what else he was observing there."

"Really?" Hong Bao was impressed. As expected of the man I fell in love with! He's just so smart!

In regards to Hong Bao's worshiping gaze, Shun Tao could only smile wryly. Yeah, he could vividly imagine, what a young god was doing, monitoring a bunch of women in the mortal realm … How come, this whole mission ended in disaster without yielding any results? Could it be, that I was wrong? Is the culprit really not one of them? But then … who is it?

He sighed. "It seems, I'll have to confess to the heavenly emperor."

Hong Bao sprang to her feet. "No! You can't! What if he really …"

Shun Tao shook his head. "Going and admitting my mistake is at least a bit better than waiting until he finds out himself."

"You can't. Give me a while. I'll find a solution!"

"Hong Bao …" Shun Tao wanted to advise her against it, but Hong Bao just bent over the table and took his hand, squeezing it as if they were incredibly familiar with each other. "Don't you worry! I'll find a way, I promise!"

"Well then, good luck. But I can at most wait another day. After that … I have to tell His Majesty."

Hong Bao nodded. She certainly wouldn't allow for anything to happen to her one true love!