In Kunning Palace in the Sacred Capital, Pan Ning and Li Chen sat facing each other in discussion. Both found the situation thorny.
"I should have thought of this long ago. From the very beginning, we should never have entertained any hope of getting lucky. The sages of the Confucian Sect and the Great Powers among the demon cultivators are no fools. They would never let us live at ease here for years without noticing a thing."
"No matter how skillful our disguise, no matter how flawlessly we conceal ourselves, unseen threads of cause and effect always run through Heaven and Earth, perceptible to those mighty experts."
"Those whose magic power reaches the mysteries of the world can glean something from that awareness and unwittingly make the right choices..."
"Perhaps they decided long ago that they would launch East Zou's Campaign Against the Demons no matter what, seizing the initiative completely."
Li Chen said, "I do have a thought, though I don't know whether it's right."
"What thought?" Pan Ning asked.
Li Chen said, "I originally thought Hu Meiniang's past misconduct had angered the Second Sages of the Confucian Sect. But now it occurs to me that it might very well be because we reined things in after replacing her. Or perhaps building the Deer Terrace and draining Great Qian's treasury and manpower put them on their guard..."
This was rather like the notion of fate: someone traveled into the past, hoping to change an earlier cause along the timeline and thereby alter its consequences, only to find that the very act of trying to change the future triggered a chain reaction of causality and destiny.
In other words, by reining themselves in to conceal the truth, they had only made it more conspicuous.
The magic power of those mighty