XH 75

"Xiao Ting, wake up." A familiar voice said in a demanding and annoyed tone.

 

Eyes fluttered for a second before the lid parted, Le XiaoTing dazedly stared at the good looking guy sitting opposite her. "Third Prince?"

 

"What 'Third Prince'? Are you too amazed by my existence and imagined me to be a prince?"

 

That familiar sharp tongue and indifference expression. It was not her gentle and kind Third Prince.

 

"Boss?" Le XiaoTing stared in confusion.

 

He Zhu sighed in exasperation. "I'm still amazed at how you could sleep in such a noisy place."

 

Le XiaoTing blinked and finally noticed that they were in her high school cafeteria, with students lining up to buy food or chattering with friends as they eat. She and He Zhu were sitting right among the crowd.

 

"President?"

 

"You're finally awake," He Zhu said dryly as he rolled his eyes. "You are just like a pig, sleeping after finish eating. You're still not done with your task."

 

"Task?" Le XiaoTing was confused. Was she back to her original world? But why would she back to her high school days? Did the transmigration business go wrong?

 

He Zhu finally lost his patience and flicked a finger at Le XiaoTing's forehead. "Stop daydreaming and get going!"

 

He Zhu stood up and marched out of the cafeteria, not at all self-conscious at how the female students would blush and whisper among themselves as he passed by them. He was used to it.

 

Le XiaoTing stood up and shakes the sleepiness away before chasing after him. The unfriendly and hostile gazes focused on her were as unnerving as ever. There was one time, where the fangirls decided to be violent to threaten her to stay away from He Zhu but lucky for her, President found out and decided to have a 'talk' with the clingy girls. Since then, his fangirls always glared at her but did not approach to scare her away from him.

 

Now that she thinks about it, it was as if her fate to be his underling. She met him during her high school days, with her one year younger than him. In high school, she called him 'President' and in the workplace, she called him 'Boss'.

 

They stepped into the student council room, which was surprised empty of occupants. Normally during break time, the student council room was always filled with council members catching up with their duties.

 

He Zhu stepped closer to a desk and slammed his palm down on the tall stack of papers.

 

"You did not finish passing out the flyers," He Zhu's voice was filled with annoyance, causing Le XiaoTing's younger body to flinch involuntarily.

 

Sadly, that was a normal reaction for Le XiaoTing whenever He Zhu gets angry. It was only after graduating high school did she finally gotten immune to it and learned to talk back.

 

Stepping closer so that she can identify what were those flyers, her body cringed first before her eyes finish transmitting the image to her brain.

 

"These are the flyers for the teacher's day event, right?" Le XiaoTing could not forget that traumatic flyer with their terrifying female teacher's face printed on it. Her large face that could not be differentiated from her neck was framed with wild curly hair that takes up most of the flyer's space. Bright red lipstick was painted on her pouting thick lips as she blew a kiss at the camera with words 'Love Your Teacher!' printed beside it.

 

It was understandable why students refused to take the flyers even when they can take it first as a courtesy and throw it aside later.

 

Le XiaoTing remembered that in the end, the flyers ended up being used to keep a small campfire going. That was done behind the teacher's knowledge, of course.

 

"Do you think it's ugly?" He Zhu asked as he lifted a flyer up. “Like a pig’s head.”

 

Le XiaoTing: '...' President, you are the only one that can say it out loud and escape from punishment!

 

That female teacher on the flyer was not one to be messed with! Her torture device - cough- punishment method was enough to traumatize a person! Let's just say Le XiaoTing had experienced it once, and no, that punishment was not against the rules, but from that day on, she made sure not to commit any mistakes in front of that teacher.

 

"Xiao Ting, even if it's against your comfort zone, you have to do it."

 

Le XiaoTing had the urge to shove the flyers into his good-looking face and rub it.

 

V.i.o.l.e.n.t.l.y.

 

"Just like that time, you hesitated to save the injured dog in the middle of the road."

 

Le XiaoTing: '...' It's a normal reaction, you hear me?! Only you are crazy enough to cross the busy road to save the wounded puppy, ignoring the oncoming cars!

 

"Stop being a coward," He Zhu said coldly.

 

"I'm not a coward!" Le XiaoTing snapped in defense, but her fists were shaking, as snippets of blurred image flashing past her mind. She could not see the images clearly but she felt as if she had forgotten something important.

 

Something that was involved with fire and an unconscious boy under a shelf.

 

"Really?" He Zhu stared at Le XiaoTing mockingly and parked his ass onto the table beside the flyer. "You don't like working for me but you did not refuse it. Isn't that an act of a coward as well?"

 

Le XiaoTing did exactly what she had done years ago when she faced the same situation. She remembered clearly how she felt that time; angry, humiliated, and pressured.

 

When she punched his smug grin off his face, the tight feeling inside her chest died out.

 

***

 

It was a scream of a banshee that woke up Xiao Hua. Her muscles were aching from her previous physical exertion and tiredness clung onto her like her personal shadow. One look around and she quickly realized she was dreaming, with the combination of an old memory.

 

She swallowed and immediately feels her dry throat and started to cough. She tried to stop coughing, but it refused.

 

"Drink slowly."

 

Xiao Hua blinked in confusion when something liquid flow into her parted mouth and without checking what it was, she gulped it down to calm down her demanding throat. Someone was behind her, helping her to sit up so that she could drink the water without choking.

 

Once her coughing diminished, she turned her head slowly and saw a beautiful lady in red smiling down at her, with golden light shining on her from behind. The beautiful picture leads Xiao Hua to assume she was her own guardian angel.

 

"Do you want more water?" The angel asked gently and Xiao Hua shakes her head dazedly. She looked around and found herself to be in a simple room with only bare necessities. The only luxurious thing was the blanket that was draped over her.

 

"Who are you? Am I dead?" Xiao Hua truly believed she had died, for this lady with a red flower between her eyebrows, was truly beautiful, fitting her image of a Goddess.

 

Even her giggles sounded wonderful. "You are still alive. My name is Feng Jiu."

 

Feng Jiu? The nine tail fox goddess from the 'Eternal Love' drama? But this Feng Jiu was much more beautiful than the actress Feng Jiu. Sorry An Jing and Long Lian, but Feng Jiu is now the most beautiful lady in this young lady's eyes.

 

The memory of fire, suffocation and the helplessness rose to the front of her mind, pulling out a panicked gasp from Xiao Hua's mouth.

 

"Er Yen! You are the one that saved me from fire, right? Did you save Er Yen too?!"

 

"Calm down before you hurt yourself. The doctor is now tending to him."

 

Feng Jiu rubbed her back and effectively calmed Xiao Hua down. "Thank...Thank you for saving us."

 

Xiao Hua could not stop the tears gathering in her eyes. She could still remember how scared she was and she could imagine how she was going to die.

 

First, the smoke will render her unconscious. Then the fire would slowly spread to her area and starts burning her. She might be lucky to remain unconscious until the end or she might wake up halfway and suffer the burning till the end. But it would have been worse if she was rescued after having half of her body already burned. Living the rest of her life with burned flesh and pain was not something she looked forward to.

 

"I suppose you are lucky that I happen to be in this Courtyard at that time."

 

Xiao Hua smiled weakly. "Then you are my lucky star."

 

"Lucky star?"

 

Xiao Hua nodded shyly as she poked her bandaged hands. "You saved me when I needed help the most. So you are just like my lucky star."

 

Feng Jiu wanted to sigh, but that might cause the little girl to think she disliked being regarded as her lucky star. The cause of her yearning to sigh was the murderous intent coming from behind her by a certain stalker that was hidden at the corner of the room where the shadow was the thickest.

 

She had heard from Qiang Laohu that Long Zhu had lately treated his new servant too well. He had not assigned tasks for her to do, and even if there were, those duties were extremely easy ones!

 

Only having the luxury to sigh inwardly, Feng Jiu decided to fix this. "Then your lucky star is actually Long Zhu."

 

Xiao Hua tilted her head sideways, looking adorable with her wide, round eyes that were filled with confusion. "Who is Long Zhu?"

 

Feng Jiu could feel the murderous intent abruptly disappeared and to be replaced with an extreme sense of despair.

 

Long Zhu, why are you acting like a heartbroken little girl whose crush was not aware of her existence? Where had that little boy that snorted with contempt towards love gone to?

 

But for this little girl to not know about Long Zhu... could it be she lost her memory? Or...had Long Zhu not introduce himself to her and secretly followed her everywhere like a shy maiden?

 

The image of a shy maiden Long Zhu was... surprisingly adorable.