Shun Tao held his head in his hands and pitied himself for a few seconds. Reminding himself of the difference in time between the mortal and immortal realms, he picked himself up though. If he took his sweet time getting over himself, then that Zhong Jing Yi and that Liu Cheng would’ve made plans already and maybe even met Hong Bao before he had time to do something about it. Right now, he could still intervene. He had to use that chance wisely.

First of all, Shun Tao went to call out to one of the scribes outside. As soon as the young man stopped in front of him, he gave his orders. "Go and inform the God of Justice and the God of War that I’d like to speak to them. Tell them that it is urgent."

The scribe nodded and then rushed out, dragging another one with him that he had happened upon in the hallway so each of them could go and inform one of the two gods. After all, the Fate’s Scribe hadn’t sounded as if he had just pretended for this to be an urgent matter. Who knew? This might be a life and death situation!

Meanwhile, Shun Tao went back inside the study and sat down at his desk, picking up the brush again. He couldn’t wait until the two of them would come over but he knew that he had to discuss the overall situation.

Even though the dragons had said that they would first try to take care of the matter in another way, it was uncertain if they would indeed manage to do that. Thus, it was better if he made some more preparations.

And then there was still the matter with Hong Bao. Even though she hadn’t appeared yet, Shun Tao couldn’t help but be worried. Her appearance would definitely cause some trouble. He could feel that in his bones. If he wanted to prevent that, he should have a talk about this with Li Yin. Since Hong Bao was currently cultivating in a demon-hunting sect, she should be under his jurisdiction. So if anybody could help him, it would be Li Yin.

While he waited for the two of them, he scribbled a few sentences down on the scroll of fate: Zhong Jing Yi meets with the demon hunter Liu Cheng, asking if he would be able to take him with him to the Long kingdom. While Liu Cheng originally agrees, he soon has to abandon Zhong Jing Yi because of urgent matters he needs to take care of. Thus, Zhong Jing Yi is once again left alone in the wilderness.

He heaved a sigh of relief when he finished writing the last character. Putting the brush down, Shun Tao leaned back. Even though he was the Fate’s Scribe and the scroll that he wrote dictated what would happen, it wasn’t like this method was a hundred percent guaranteed. The dragon king’s interference had shown as much.

While there normally wasn’t a problem with mortals, it was a different matter with people who were cultivating. He could write down what he wanted to happen but it was prone to error. The stronger the cultivators level was, the higher the risk of the prewritten fate failing.

Furthermore, if he wrote something that went against the cultivator’s usual behavior, it was likely that the sentence would just be erased and things would happen according to the cultivator’s actual wishes as far as they were able to influence things. In this case, he didn’t want to — no, he couldn’t — risk that.

Since Liu Cheng had agreed to meet with Zhong Jing Yi, he would likely be willing to take the boy. There was also nothing speaking against it from his perspective. After all, there was a helpless person and the demon hunters normally saw themselves as mankind’s greatest help. Eradicating demons was naturally most important to them but if helping others didn’t interfere with that, they would always lend a helping hand.

Looking at all that, his rejecting Zhong Jing Yi would be more than unlikely and probably crumble as soon as he wrote it down. Thus, Shun Tao hadn’t even tried to write that kind of fateful encounter.

If it would fall through anyway, it was better to take another approach: Zhong Jing Yi might be able to follow him at first but because of the nature of Liu Cheng’s task, they might very soon encounter new troubles.

Then, he could lure Liu Cheng somewhere else and the crown prince’s reincarnation would once again be on his own. And even if he couldn’t separate them, wouldn’t it be great to embroil Zhong Jing Yi in a conflict like this where danger was ripe and accidents could happen in the blink of an eye? The boy was bound to suffer some losses there!

Hopefully, that would also reduce the chances of Jing Yi meeting up with Hong Bao somehow. Even though he wasn’t completely sure that things would go further if they met, Shun Tao wasn’t willing to take any chances. He had experienced first-hand just how much chaos Hong Bao was able to cause. He definitely wouldn’t risk anything if he could help it.

Having done what he could, Shun Tao stared at the scroll of fate, once again worrying over whether or not this fate would change soon. He didn’t see any reason why it should considering that nobody was interfering anymore and that he had been vague enough that everything should be able to play out in some way or the other but he could never be sure about that.

In the end, he could only hope and see what happened. Maybe the God of War and the God of Justice would also have another idea what he could do. It would definitely be a nice surprise if they did.