In a corner of the garden in front of Shun Tao’s study, another servant girl furrowed her brows when Hong Bao left. She watched her walk through the gate, then turned to look at the window of Shun Tao’s study. Her frown deepened even more before she left the courtyard and hurried to a magnificent palace in the middle of the capital of the Nine Heavens.

She didn’t bother about the guards at the gate and stormed right in, running down a corridor and into a spacious hall. "Your Highness!" The girl plopped down in a heap of pink fabric while crying out in a whiny voice.

Opposite her, a woman in a white dress sat on something that might have been called a chair but was so heavily decorated that the word seemed somehow misplaced when describing it. Actually, even the Heavenly Emperor’s throne wasn’t as much embellished as this chair. The woman on top of it furrowed a pair of perfectly-shaped, thin eyebrows and glanced at the servant next to her.

The girl turned around to the servant that had just stormed in and furrowed her brow just the same. "What are you dallying around for? Stop your whining and tell Her Highness what you found out! The Goddess of Love doesn’t have the time to wait for you to sort your thoughts in such an unsightly manner!"

The first servant girl retracted her head and hurriedly nodded. "Yes, yes. It’s all this one’s fault. Forgive me, Your Highness!"

The woman in the white dress waved generously while the servant girl next to her translated the gesture into words.

"Quit your blabbering and tell Her Highness what she wants to know!"

The girl on the ground bowed and hastily started to explain. "This one went to the Scribe’s Palace and monitored the study of the Fate’s Scribe from the gardens. After a while, an unfamiliar servant girl wearing an orange dress indeed entered and stayed there for a rather long time. She looked just like the rumors described her. Nothing special about her. In fact, she’s not just not special, she’s looking rather ugly!" The girl peeked at the face of the woman in front of her, hoping that her words would lighten up her mood at least a bit.

Unfortunately, the woman that was only wearing white had an expression as black as the bottom of a pot. She still kept quiet and looked at her aide though.

"Is there anything else you need to tell Her Highness?"

The girl on the ground pondered and finally shook her head. "No. This one returned right after she left to inform Her Highness."

"Hmph. Useless thing! What should Her Highness do with just this bit of information? Get out!"

The girl scrambled to her feet and ran out, feeling a lot like she had just been granted amnesty.

Inside the room, the servant girl next to the woman in white turned to her with a worried expression. "My Lady, what should we do now? You wouldn’t want to let this go on, would you? The Fate’s Scribe …"

The woman rose to her feet in a fluid motion, her thin brows still drawn together. "That Shun Tao. He dares to refuse me, Yin Lin Lin, the Goddess of Love, for an inconsequential servant girl?!"

Her aide tightened her lips but the woman was too engulfed in her anger to notice.

"Naturally, this slight can’t be tolerated!" She clenched her hand and stared at the gate where the other servant girl had just vanished. "I’ll make sure he won’t be happy for long. That girl he took a fancy to, what do we know about her?"

Her aide paled and scrambled for the right words. "At the moment, we don’t know much about her, my Lady. Just that she is a servant of the lowest rank and doesn’t seem to have frequented the Scribe’s Palace until a few days ago. There wasn’t any clue that there might be a woman in the Fate’s Scribe’s life until then either. All the scribes were rather shocked when they discovered those two together."

Yin Lin Lin pursed her lips. So this was just a budding romance? Even better! She would destroy it before Shun Tao had the time to grow tired of that girl. After all, nobody would be able to make her believe that this was actually true love that would hold fast for more than a few weeks. No, Shun Tao had probably just been curious. Wasn’t that obvious from how he treated her? Doing it outside where everyone could see them … That certainly wasn’t how a man would treat his true love!

Yin Lin Lin turned to her aide. "Sent someone to investigate. I want to know everything about that girl: Who she is, which family she comes from, who she has contact with, how she met Shun Tao. Everything! Don’t bother reporting before you haven’t found out these things!"

"Of course, my Lady. I’ll make sure the servants won’t waste your time. We’ll certainly have a detailed report about that bitch in just a few days."

"No!" Yin Lin Lin raised her chin. "A few days is too much time. I can’t risk that Shun Tao tires of her before I take my revenge. Have them hurry up! I want to know everything in two hours at the very most." She didn’t even wait for the response and just went back to her chair, sitting down gracefully while waving another servant toward her.

"Get me a change of clothes and prepare a bath for me. I have to look my very best when I start my plan." Her eyes narrowed into slits.

Ah, just thinking about how she would break this so-called couple up and make both of them miserable, she felt thrilled. Especially ruining that servant girl who didn’t know her place. How dare she compete with her, Yin Lin Lin? It was necessary to let her experience just what it meant to be a servant of the lowest rank!