Currently, Hong Bao was standing not far from her village close to the forest that had still been infested with demonic beasts a while before. Actually, this while had been about a thousand years ago but Hong Bao didn’t know anything about that. To her, it was as if not a single day had passed since she ascended to the Nine Heavens. No, in fact, she was still waiting for the person from the Nine Heavens to come and fetch her. After all, in her mind that lacked the memories from the previous three years today was the day when she was supposed to ascend.

Thus she stood there and looked around at the familiar surroundings that somehow seemed a little strange suddenly but she didn’t think about it any further. Because of the demonic beasts, she hadn’t dared to get too close to the forest in the previous weeks. Who knew what had changed because of them?

In this way, the minutes trickled by and became hours and the sun climbed up the horizon and somehow climbed down again from the zenith. When the sky started to darken, Hong Bao frowned. "What’s with these people from Heaven? Ai Ai said they would come today. Why are they still not here? How long do they want me to wait?" She looked at the sky that was turning darker with reproach. They should better hurry up! It was getting cold too.

By now, Hong Bao had already grown tired. She looked around and spotted a tree that had fallen to the ground at the edge of the forest. She went over and sat down, putting her elbows on her knees and propping her face up on her hands. She also pursed her lips, not happy at all with how late these people were. If Heaven was like that, then it was really better if they didn’t come!

With her simple thinking, Hong Bao didn’t even get the idea to just stand up and hurry back home. So, she sat there on the trunk. After a while, she picked up a twig from the ground and started drawing circles in the sand to pass the time. The sky continued to darken.

Finally, the first stars started to twinkle. Hong Bao furrowed her brow and threw the twig away. She pondered and finally got up. "It seems they won’t come. Maybe they somehow found out that Ai Ai doesn’t want to go up there? After all, they’re from Heaven. They should be able to find out stuff like that." She couldn’t help but sigh at the thought. Being from Heaven really was convenient! She looked up at the dark sky with an equally dark expression and pointed at one of the stars with her finger. "It’s alright and everything if you know but couldn’t you have at least told me that you wouldn’t come anymore?! I’ve waited for so long!" After all, she wasn’t from Heaven. How would she know that those guys had changed their mind? They really should have sent a message or something.

Hong Bao sighed. Unfortunately, there was nothing she could do besides scolding them in her heart. And it was already too late to do anything now anyway. She could only go home and then go and ask Ai Ai what she should do.

Hong Bao nodded to herself. Yes, that was the best thing to do. Even with the stars over her head, it was too dark to see anything but she didn’t mind. This was her home. She had grown up here for fifteen years. It couldn’t be that hard to get home in the dark, could it? Thus Hong Bao started to stumble through the darkness.

Just after a couple of steps, Hong Bao tripped over a root and fell down.

"Argh!" She cried out but stood up again. She had just fallen down, what was the big deal? Thing like that could happen. Naturally, someone with Hong Bao’s frame of mind wouldn’t reconsider moving through the night like this.

Thus she once again started stumbling forward. She extended her arms to make sure she didn’t run into anything and carefully tapped around with her feet so that she wouldn’t get stuck on some root again. She only made progress at a snail’s pace but she still felt that she was doing great. Even if she came home late, it was still better than not getting home at all tonight and having to camp outside for the night!

Unfortunately, things weren’t as easy as Hong Bao imagined. Soon enough, she had completely lost her way. She didn’t notice though and was sure that she was going in the right direction. She only found out that something was wrong when her tapping feet couldn’t find the ground in front anymore.

Huh? Hong Bao furrowed her brow and tilted her head and leaned forward to pat around with her hands. It couldn’t be that there was no ground anymore. She had never seen any huge hole here! And she had certainly remembered the way right!

Unfortunately, her fingers couldn’t reach the ground either. Hong Bao frowned even more and reached out further, finally losing her balance. She cried and flailed her arms but it didn’t help. She tumbled down a precipice, falling further and further down as if there was no end to this slope.

Finally, she landed in a pair of strong arms, managing to throw the person in front of her to the ground as well.