At the port of Ender's imperial city.
Two children, a silver-haired boy and a golden-haired girl, had appeared on the street at some point.
"I have a question, Teacher," Aurora asked, looking up.
"Since you don't want Prince Eric and Ariel to truly elope into the sea, why did you brew a medicinal wine that can turn humans into merfolk?"
During this journey, Aurora gradually realized that although her talent was theoretically very high due to the blessing, she was still too young and lacked social experience.
Many things she learned from textbooks were just dead knowledge that she couldn't actually apply.
And that blessing only enhanced her memory, seemingly without directly improving her intelligence.
It seemed she still had much to learn… Aurora thought.
"That medicinal wine isn't really for them to elope into the sea; it has another purpose," Rhine replied.
"Oh? What does that mean?" Aurora asked.
"Talking too much about fate makes it lose its effectiveness," Rhine chuckled.
"In a very distant land, there's an ancient saying: 'Heaven's secrets must not be revealed.'"
He was telling the truth.
Divination and prophecy were inherently highly restricted, not only requiring a medium but also yielding only vague fragments.
Moreover, some prophecies involving the future, if revealed to others, could affect the accuracy of the outcome.
"Speaking of which, fate is truly a marvelous thing," Rhine gazed at the flowing clouds in the sky.
He still remembered that when he initially suggested that the King of Rose Kingdom invite the Black Witch, he thought it would change the fate of "the Black Witch furiously breaking in because she was not invited."
However, Black Witch Maleficent became enraged by something else and still cast the curse.
Similarly, when Granny Rosa was looking for the tinderbox, she didn't inform him in advance, causing him to miss the opportunity to remind her, allowing the Soldier to successfully obtain the tinderbox.
Everything seemed to be predetermined in the unseen.
These two incidents gave Rhine, who had initially believed he could easily change fate, a strong sense of frustration.
Having recently acquired this crystal ball and strengthened his prophetic abilities, Rhine finally vaguely sensed that for him, a visitor from outside this world, fate possessed a powerful self-correction ability.
Some important, crucial scenes from the original work—those fate nodes that, once altered, would cause the entire story to almost cease to exist—even if one tried to prevent them from happening, the world might force them to occur!
"But this absolutely does not mean that fate cannot be changed," Rhine thought.
With his previous failures, he had now mastered a better approach:
There was no need to forcibly prevent the corresponding fate nodes or scenes from happening, as that would only be counterproductive, allowing the destined future to come to pass through unexpected turns of events.
The key was to make the corresponding scene happen "on the surface," but in reality, be completely different from the original!
For example, changing the content of the blessing given to Aurora was a suitable approach.
"Fate can also be deceived!"
Rhine was instantly filled with emotion.
"I suspect that before long, we will receive news that Prince Eric and the princess of Ender are to be married," Rhine said.
"What?" Aurora was stunned.
"But that's impossible! Prince Eric would never agree to the wedding.
And Ender has no reason to force him, right?"
"Why would they have no reason?"
Rhine flipped his hand, and a small amount of fine powder appeared in his palm.
"Earlier, I transformed into a bird and secretly touched the Ender princess's cosmetics, and I found something amiss."
"I used divination to examine them, and these spices are ground from magical herbs, imbued with powerful spells.
This magic only works on males: if Prince Eric smells their scent for a long time, he will become the caster's puppet."
Aurora's expression suddenly turned grave.
"So the marriage alliance with Ender hides such a big conspiracy.
We must quickly inform the King of the Summer Kingdom!"
Rhine shook his head:
"Others, including mages with ordinary divination abilities, cannot detect the subtle magic in this scent.
Even I, without the aid of the crystal ball for divination, would not be able to discover the hidden danger within it."
"Just this one piece of criminal evidence is completely insufficient.
Ender can accuse it of being just a mage's one-sided statement and deny that these spices have any problems.
The alliance between the two countries will still continue."
Aurora looked worried and fell into thought: "Then what should we do?"
"Think about it, Prince Eric will definitely refuse the marriage.
But that Old Witch of Ender will absolutely not sit by and let this happen," Rhine chuckled.
"They are about to reveal more of their true colors and actively provide us with new evidence."
"If our plan succeeds next, we will not only disrupt the alliance between the Summer Kingdom and Ender, but the prejudice between humans and merfolk will also be cleared away!"
...
The Old Witch found the heartbroken princess crying in her room.
"My little princess, there's no need to be sad.
I've long heard that Prince Eric of the Summer Kingdom is a rebellious youth."
"Perhaps he is deceiving you? Perhaps he just casually made up a non-existent lover to refuse his father's arrangement."
The princess stopped crying, lifted her head, and stared at the court witch with glistening azure eyes, half-believing, half-doubting: "Really?"
"You can try it," the Old Witch handed a bottle of wine to the princess.
"People often say that only when drunk do people speak the truth.
You let the Prince drink some of my treasured strong liquor, and while he's heavily intoxicated, ask him if such a lover truly exists?"
"My little princess, I guess you are the one he loves most in his heart!"
The princess of Ender took the wine.
"Hmm, I can certainly give it a try."
She then left the small room to find Prince Eric.
Watching the princess's departing back, the Old Witch grinned.
She had added a potion of oblivion to the wine, capable of making someone permanently forget something.
As long as the Prince drank that wine, he would completely forget Ariel!