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

144 A Time Long Past

He would've loved to listen to Qiu Ling even longer, but at that time, a voice already sounded from the entrance.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty?!"

Qiu Ling glanced in the direction and called out. "Over here." He didn't bother to go over, feeling that it would just make it even more unlikely to meet up if the person had obviously started to dash in their direction on another way.

A moment later, the person in charge of the treasury already walked out.

Qiu Ling inclined his head at her and then immediately got to the point. "I am looking for the possessions left behind by the previous king. I'm not sure if they are actually in the treasury or not but they should've been at one point at least. Could you check if they've been moved or if there's still something here? I'm looking for his objects for refinement in particular."

The woman immediately nodded and motioned back to the entrance. "The indices are in the corner. I will go and look at them immediately."

Qiu Ling inclined his head and then wondered whether he should follow. He finally felt that it would probably be best to do so. He reached out to Jing Yi, taking his hand, and then pulled him along.

The woman led the way and the three of them soon arrived in front of a separate corner where a couple of shelves had been pushed together in a way to form a little room of their own.

Jing Yi curiously looked around and realized that all of the shelves were filled with books. It seemed that these really were just records of what had been part of the treasury once and what hadn't.

He couldn't help but feel that wanting to find a particular piece of information would be difficult though. After all, there should be hundreds, if not thousands of volumes. How long would it take to look through all of them? And she probably wouldn't even have a guess when those objects had been moved if even Qiu Ling and his advisers didn't know about it, right?

Qiu Ling had a similar thought at first but then he spotted a small pedestal with jade slips on top and figured that the books were probably only one way of keeping track of the objects. No, instead, most of the information was also contained in these jade slips. And finding something in there would be much easier.

Indeed, the woman walked over to the pedestal with the jades and picked up one that was further to the left, imbuing some spiritual energy into it. Her expression went blank for a moment before she seemed to come back with a start, and put the jade slip down. "I'll need a moment to figure out which objects were originally moved to the treasury and when. Then we can look from there."

Qiu Ling inclined his head. "No problem, take your time." He turned away, not wanting to pressure her, and randomly pulled out one of the books. Leafing through the pages, he couldn't help but smile.

This was telling of a time long past. In fact, this hadn't been either during his reign or during Jinde's reign as far as he could tell. Instead, it should have been from the period of the king that had reigned even before Jinde, Gao Huan.

In all likelihood, this shouldn't have survived from that time but the records were clearly there. It made him wonder if somebody had sat down to write these after the fact just based on the information they had from the jade slips or if this was the original book after all.

Turning it around in his hands, he figured that it might actually be the genuine article. The ink had faded slightly and the paper seemed to be somewhat different from the paper they used nowadays. Yes, this wasn't impossible.

Realizing this, he couldn't help but stare at the objects that were listed there. Gao Huan's reign ... that had been the time when Jinde and his father had been young. Some of the objects in this book, they might have been brought in by these two.

Thinking of that, he couldn't help but sigh and put the book back. It always made him feel like his life had seriously gone off-track somewhere. That was just a fact but whenever he was confronted with it, he still couldn't help but mourn the life he could have had. Well, at the very least, they had somehow managed to reunite even if the circumstances were strange. And he would definitely make sure that his sibling had a better life. He wouldn't let anybody get between Jinde and Leng Jin Yu or them and their child.

He narrowed his eyes, once again thinking of the war in the demon realm and suddenly couldn't help but feel that he couldn't wait any longer. Yes, Jinde's advice would be appreciated in that regard but if he knew in detail what was going on over there, maybe he would push off having that child once again. He didn't want that for him. So it was best to make some decisions on his own first and hope that the situation stabilized a bit.

Qiu Ling looked over his shoulder and realized that the woman was still busy checking the jades, so he turned to Jing Yi. "Let me contact An Bai for a moment."

Jing Yi just nodded, even though he wasn't quite sure why Qiu Ling would want to do so. Had he found something in the book just now? But even though he was curious, he didn't ask. After all, judging from Qiu Ling's expression, this was something that was important. Maybe time was of the essence.

Qiu Ling smiled faintly and then took out a transmission stone, imbuing some spiritual energy.

At this moment, An Bai was in the Nine Heavens, once again going through the scrolls of fate with the senior official from the Court of Justice and the Fate's Scribe. Noticing that his transmission stone was pulsing, he froze and then inclined his head to the two of them. "I'm sorry, may I have a moment? This might be orders from the king."

Shun Tao immediately stopped talking and nodded, not wanting to interfere in the business of the dragons.

The senior official also gave a nod, then used the opportunity to take some more notes.

An Bai got up and walked to the door to the courtyard before pulling out his transmission stone and answering his king's call. "Your Majesty, what may I do for you?"

Qiu Ling looked at him and gave a hum, already wanting to get to the point when he remembered what had happened with Xiang Yong before. "Before I get to that ... you should know that my condition is better."