Shun Tao frowned at the scroll of fate in front of him. Surprisingly, it wasn't the crown prince's scroll of fate this time. Instead, it was Hong Bao's.
Shun Tao read through the fate already written there and couldn't help but sigh. "No wonder! No wonder! It's really no wonder. That explains how she managed to get into the nine heavens."
It turned out everything had been a mix-up. Hong Bao had never been supposed to ascend to the nine heavens.
Shun Tao leaned back. Should he report on that? After all, the person who should have ascended hadn't gotten the chance. Wasn't that unfair? Seriously, how had that happened? Those guys taking care of the ascensions were usually so meticulous.
There had to be a story behind this.
Shun Tao rubbed his head. He felt a little guilty toward Hong Bao so he had thought he should write her a nice fate where she could fall in love with a nice man that would reciprocate her feelings and, most importantly, a fate where she couldn't cause any chaos. Now it seemed that her fate had been quite strange from the beginning till the end.
She was born as a normal mortal child but things started to get strange when her sister became a cultivator and left. Hong Bao stayed alone with her mother — their father had long died — but the surroundings of their village grew more dangerous by the day. Finally, her mother fell prey to the beasts that lived in the forest now.
That was when Hong Bao's sister came back. She was talented, so she was hailed as a genius cultivator by now. When she heard that something had happened to her little sister, she naturally couldn't just sit back and watch. She got no help from her sect, in fact, they didn't even want to let her go. What if something happened to this genius of theirs? Wouldn't their sect lose out a lot?
Hong Bao's sister didn't care for that. It was her sister they were talking about here! Thus, she sneaked out of the sect and traveled to her village all on her own. Then, she single-handedly destroyed the demons that were the cause of all the trouble, sustaining grievous injuries.
Her heroic and selfless deed was what had led to her being noticed by heaven. For this act, she had been chosen for ascension and obviously, someone had even been sent down to fetch her. It was just … How had the person actually ascending ended up being Hong Bao, that happy-go-lucky girl? Those two were obviously nothing alike!
Thus, Shun Tao could only sit there and frown. He was of half a mind to descend to the mortal world to take a look at the situation himself but … First of all, he was still under detention and only allowed to go out to report to the Heavenly Emperor. And secondly, what if Hong Bao saw him and actually fell in love with him again, doing such crazy stuff once more?
This woman was obviously incredibly motivated whenever it had anything to do with the man she loved. She might just start cultivating and ascend again. What would happen then?
No, he couldn't take any risks. But he also didn't want to leave those things be. Someone had to have an eye on Hong Bao or who knew what might happen?
Shun Tao stood up and went to the door, motioning one of his scribes over and handing him the scroll of fate. "I want you to investigate the details of this person's fate."
"Sure." The scribe took the scroll and hurried off to start on his assignment.
Shun Tao went back to his study and sighed in relief. As long as someone had an eye on her, nothing should happen, right?
Of course, Shun Tao's thoughts too simple. Hong Bao had already managed to get embroiled in the next troublesome thing.
Being in a familiar surrounding but suddenly finding everything unfamiliar was quite the shock to Hong Bao. She didn't notice right away, though, because she was busy. Busy with waiting.
She stood there and looked around, waiting for the person who was supposed to come and fetch her. The minutes trickled by and became hours and the sun climbed up the horizon and somehow climbed down again from the zenith.
When the sky started to darken, Hong Bao frowned. "What's with these people from heaven? Ai Ai said they would come today. Why are they still not here? How long do they want me to wait?" She looked at the sky that was turning darker with reproach. They should better hurry up! It was getting cold, too.
With her simple thinking, Hong Bao didn't even get the idea to just stand up and hurry back home. So, she just sat there next to the stump of a tree that had broken because of some storm. She started drawing circles on the ground, then stood up and paced around. Finally, it got so dark that she couldn't see anything anymore.
Hong Bao sighed. "It seems they won't come. Maybe they somehow found out that Ai Ai didn't want to go up there? That's alright and everything but couldn't they have at least told me? I've waited for so long!"
She shook her head. "There's nothing I can do about that. I'd better go home now."
Thus, Hong Bao started to stumble through the darkness. She thought she knew the way, after all, she had grown up in the village and she had always liked to run around everywhere. But just after a couple of steps, she tripped over a root and fell down.
"Argh!" Hong Bao cried out but instantly stood up again. She had just fallen down, what was the big deal? Someone with Hong bao's frame of mind would naturally not reconsider moving through the night like this.
Thus, she once again started stumbling forward. Soon, she had completely lost her way. She didn't notice, though, and was still sure that she was going in the right direction. She only found out that something was wrong when there suddenly wasn't any ground under her feet anymore.
She cried and fell. And then, she landed in a pair of strong arms.