Oh. My. Fate?! (Bl, Volume 10, Part 1)

99 A Needle in a Haystack

For a while, neither of the four people knew how to continue. There were several ways to go about this and neither could provide a definite answer.

An Bai slightly furrowed his brows and then motioned at the lists that they had made. "Well, we can't tell anything from just this. You mentioned that we could look at the scrolls of fate that had to do with these people.

"I would suggest taking this list to the Palace of Fate first and have them gather the corresponding scrolls of fate. Even though it will be a lot of work, we can go through all of them and find out the details of the relationships. This way, we will know for sure what happened and could help with solving our current issues."

The senior official slowly nodded. "I'm afraid in this situation, there won't be another way to go about this. Let's do that then." He rolled up his own list, and then got up, motioning for the others to do the same. "This matter, I'm afraid it will need some explanation so I'll go to the Palace of Fate personally."

An Bai got up with a smile. "I'll assume that this will take a moment. In that case, I will use the time to go to the Tower of Wisdom and check on our people to see how they are doing and if there is anything they might need my help with. Afterward, I will come back here."

The senior official nodded and the two of them left together.

"Adviser An Bai doesn't need to rush. I will go over and explain but it will take some time to gather all the scrolls. This list has gotten rather long and we haven't even worked on all of the Jades of Love yet."

An Bai nodded. "To be honest, I am surprised by just how many dragons were involved in the trials of the gods or the lives of the mortals so far. I would've thought that the number would be very small. In any case, we're not necessarily known to venture outside."

"It would be the same if a mortal fell in love with a trueborn god. I would be surprised about that as well. Usually, whether it is the gods or the dragons, our people stay in the immortal realms. But I guess it is easy to forget that over a long period of time, even small numbers will accumulate.

"The trials have been done since the time Tian left the Nine Heavens. That is a stretch of time I can't even begin to imagine. Of course, there will be millions of trials and mortal lives playing out in that time. But I guess we will see things slow down soon enough. The dragons probably won't have gone to the mortal realms as much in recent years with the risk of falling in love with a mortal there. In the beginning, they might not have been able to accurately judge the likelihood of that and were less careful."

An Bai nodded. "Yes, that's true. I guess it was a good idea to start with the Jades of Love though. This way, the people of the Palace of Fate will be able to find the corresponding scrolls of fate much faster. That is valuable time we are gaining."

The official nodded and then glanced over his shoulder. "Most likely, the next box of jades will soon be delivered as well. If that happens while we are away, those two are going to check them ahead of time. So when we return, maybe we will only need to deliver yet another set of lists to the Palace of Fate."

An Bai smiled. "The God of Justice sure chose well who to appoint this task to."

The senior official inclined his head. "You are flattering me, adviser An Bai. I am proud to be able to hold this position at the Court of Justice and receive enough trust to be put in charge of such tasks."

An Bai nodded, completely able to understand that kind of feeling. It was the same for him when he realized just how much Qiu Ling actually trusted him. "From what I've seen, that trust isn't misplaced. I feel reassured having you help out with this. It makes me feel that maybe it isn't impossible to save our king." His expression was a little tangled, but he finally shook his head. "Well, no matter, we should hurry up and take care of our respective tasks. They aren't going to do themselves."

The senior official nodded as they had reached the place where they would have to go their separate ways anyway and inclined his head again. "Then I'll see you back at the Court of Justice, adviser An Bai."

The two of them bid farewell and An Bai indeed returned to the Tower of Wisdom, taking a look at how the half-bloods were doing.

Walking up the staircase, he found all of them still in their positions, reading through the scrolls and books that had been distributed with great focus. It seemed that he did not need to worry. Even though not all of them were as fast as the people of the Court of Justice or a dragon scholar might have been, they were still making progress and that was what was important.

Actually, he didn't even want to disturb them but in case there had been any questions that they wanted to ask, he still went over to check. As a result, nobody had had any questions. Unfortunately, nothing had been found out so far either, making them look quite down.

An Bai shook his head when he saw their gazes. "Don't feel distraught. We've been working on this for some time already and we also weren't able to find much. This kind of matter, it is like looking for a needle in a haystack. You need a lot of patience and look everything over, not ignoring the smallest detail.

"It takes time and maybe you will have to go through the whole haystack to finally find that the lowest layer was where the needle was hidden. It is just something that you will have to live with.

"So don't feel bad if, at first, you can't find anything. There might only be traces or maybe nothing at all in the texts you look through but, collectively, we are bound to find something sooner or later. In any case, weeding out what isn't needed is already a big help."