Smiling, Qiangu answers “Of course! I would love to find myself as tall as Master tomorrow! Once I am big then I won’t have to worry about being bullied. I could also protect my parents and Master!”

Falling silent, Bai Zihua wonders if he really is going to rob her of her right to grow up just because of his own selfish desires? But this is the only way she can continue to stay by his side living this simple life…he can’t afford to take any more risks.

“Master?” Qiangu looks towards Zihua questionly but jumps in surprise when he knocks the bowl of soup to the floor with a wave of his hand.

“Don’t eat it.” Let’s wait a few more years…

Running up to throw her arms around Zihua’s waist to stop him from leaving, Qiangu asks “Master, what happened? What did Xiao Gu do again to make you angry?”

Turning around, Zihua slowly kneels down and pats Qiangu’s head “You didn’t do anything wrong, Xiao Gu is very good. Promise Master that no matter what happens, you will never leave Master.”

Nodding with half of an understanding, Qiangu promises “Of course I won’t leave Master. But Master, can I go out and see the world when I am done learning? The village storytellers always tell these awesome stories about super cool heroes! It really is so boring to stay in this mountain with just us two and little Henji!” She has played everything that could be played in this mountain, so her happiest time is when Master takes her down to see her parents and sometimes Master will even carry her in his arms as he flies.

The hand around Qiangu suddenly tightens “Xiao Gu, you don’t like to stay in the mountain with Master?”

Shaking her head vehemently, Qiangu explains “No, no, I just…” She just misses her little friends. Even though they were mean to her in the past but they are always happy when she goes home and even gives her candy. In the mountains, other than Master, she has no friends to talk to.

Frightened by the pain and confusion in Bai Zihua’s eyes, Qiangu wraps her arms around his neck and plants kisses all over his face. “Xiao Gu likes Master the most! I won’t go anywhere, I will stay with Master in the mountain.”

Not avoiding Qiangu’s kisses, Zihua stays still as her soft lips pressed against his cheek and the corner of his lips…even as the scar on his left arm sends excruciating pain through him.

…Both of them are ill, they are not whole anymore.

Four more years pass, Hua Qiangu is now 17 years old.

“Xiao Gu, how many times have Master taught you that is improper for you and me to sleep on the same bed.”

Ignoring Zihua completely, Qiangu wiggles her way into the blankets. Why in the heaven does this mountain get colder with each passing year?! Even though Master’s body is always cool so it doesn’t really help with the cold but at least she feels settled and secure to have him near.

“Master, I am cold!” With a practiced ease, a hand skillfully wraps around Zihua’s waist and attempts to reach into his robe. Giving Zihua a cheeky smile when her hand was captured by his large hands, Qiangu nestles her head on Zihua’s shoulder. Burying herself deeper into Zihua’s arms when he instinctively turns his body because of her breath gliding across his ears and neck, Qiangu plants a loud kiss on Zihua’s face.

His flashing red as he feels the soft body in his arms, Zihua tries to push Qiangu away but like a sneak, she immediately grabs onto him even tighter.

“Master, can we go down the mountain earlier so we can go walk around somewhere?” Since the time she complained of being bored on the mountain, Master has been taking her to visit her family often and traveling around. Except there is one time they ran into a group of people and one of them threw herself on her while sobbing “Master! Master!” totally scaring her. Master was quite displeased and whisked her away before she could even figure out what was going on. It seemed like those people knew her but she has never seen them before so why did that girl call her Master?

“Where would you like to go?”

“I don’t know but I am happy as long as we can go play somewhere!” Rubbing her face against Zihua’s chest, Qiangu is excited that after all her hard work, this day has finally come.

Every time Zihua looks at Qiangu’s face that looks so much like the Demon Goddess, a beauty that makes the whole world pale in its presence, his heart starts to ache. The face is the same but the haughty expression of a goddess towering over all is gone and what remains is just a childlike innocent smile.

“Alright, if you like, we will leave right after we eat breakfast. I am going to get up first. You sleep some more so you won’t get tired while we are traveling.”

Ignoring Qiangu’s protest, Zihua walks out of the room leaving her rolling around on the bed biting the blanket to vent her displeasure. By the time Qiangu opens her eyes again, it is already noon. Yawning widely as she stares at her messy hair in the mirror, Qiangu decides that she is going to attempt to brush her hair herself and not trouble her Master today. Haphazardly using a ribbon to tie up her hair, Qiangu runs out of the room.

Stopping suddenly when she spots a five colored bird hopping around in the yard, Qiangu excitedly runs after it. Too focused on chasing after the bird that always manages to hop out of her reach just when she gets within touching distance, Qiangu looks up belatedly to find herself in front of a room Master has forbidden her to enter and had even put a lock on the door.

The bird suddenly flew towards the door and with a touch of its beak, the lock falls to the ground. Forgetting the bird promptly when she sees the door opening, a curious Qiangu walks into the room.

The room really didn’t have much in it. It only stored some random items but it was very clean. Looking around aimlessly, Qiangu opens a drawer and grabs a hairpin randomly. As she is about to put the hairpin in her hair, Qiangu wonders if Master had bought all these girl stuff for her? Wait, if they are really Master’s present for her, then she better put the pin back and wait for Master to give them to her personally.

Hmm…some of the clothes are too small, she won’t be able to wear them. Her face breaking into a smile when she looks through a wooden box and finds many drawings of Master. Qiangu’s smile turns into a confused frown when she spots the signature on the bottom of the draw- Hua Qiangu.

How strange. When did she draw these? How come she has no memory of it at all? Moreover, based on her terrible drawing skills how could she have drawn these? She would’ve been lucky if one could discern a nose from the mouth if she had attempted to draw Master.

Even more puzzled when she looks at the date…these were all drawn sixty years ago…

Instinctively feel like something is strange but unable to figure out why Qiangu puts the drawings back and leaves scratching her head in confusion. How did she make so many drawings of Master sixty years ago?

Walking past the bird that is still hopping around, Qiangu doesn’t notice the bird grabbing the lock with its beak and hanging the lock back on the door.

Distracted the whole time while she was out traveling around with Zihua, it wasn’t until Qiangu gets back home that it suddenly hit her in the middle of the night- Hua Qiangu is not her. Her name was given to her by Master. Hua Qiangu is another person. She is not Hua Qiangu, she has just been using her name.

Qiangu’s new realization rattled her a bit. She is uncertain now who she is supposed to be. The issue of her being someone’s replacement aside, the question she is more curious about is who is this Hua Qiangu and why did Master give her to name to her? Feeling depressed to know that she is not the one and only Hua Qiangu to Master, Qiangu wants to know what is that Hua Qiangu like? Is she prettier? More obedient? Does Master like her more? Her head overwhelmed with all these questions, Qiangu walks right into a warm body.

“Xiao Gu, what’s wrong?”

She has always been filled with excitement, bursting with chatters about the outside world every time they have come home from their little trips but she is strangely quiet this time. Could it be that her memory is starting to return? It can’t be this fast…could it? Bai Zihua’s face pales at the thought.

The old Hua Qiangu from the previous life would not have wanted to worry Zihua so she would have laughed and said nothing is wrong. But the Hua Qiangu now doesn’t know how to lie nor all the intricacies of worrying about other’s feelings, therefore, she naturally wants to tell Bai Zihua about all she has been thinking. However, just when Qiangu is about to tell her Master what she saw in the room and ask him who Hua Qiangu is, Bai Zihua’s expression turn icy as he turns around.

“Who is there? Come out now!”

Confused as she looks around, Qiangu couldn’t see anyone other than the shining golden words that have suddenly appeared underneath their feet. Thanks to Bai Zihua’s complete and utter protection all these years, Qiangu has rarely come in contact with other people, let alone danger. With Bai Zihua by her side, Qiangu is not afraid, instead, she is actually strangely excited as she stomps on the shining letters on the ground.

Grabbing Qiangu so she is behind his protective shield, Zihua warns “Xiao Gu, don’t move about.” This trap is quite good but not good enough to imprison him, Zihua is simply curious who dared to use a trap on him. His guess is that it must be You Ruo since she refuses to give up and keeps coming up with new ways to bother him. Is not that he is set on preventing her from seeing her master is just that he really would rather Qiangu could live a simple life this time around which meant starting over and not knowing of the messy past.

A fog suddenly rises within the trap and like it has been infused with life, the fog attacks like a thousand invisible hands separating him from Qiangu. With a wave of his arm, the fog is shattered in a million pieces but Zihua turns in alarm when he hears Qiangu’s high pitched scream only to find her gone.

How could this be possible when he had surrounded her with his protective shield?! Moreover, this trap is nothing to him so how could it be possible that someone stole Qiangu away right from his watchful eyes?

His face full of icy anger, with a few flips of his hand Zihua disappears as the golden letters on the ground melts away and the golden net above him shatters into dust.

“Ahhhh!” comes another high pitch scream. So frightened by Bai Zihua’s sudden appearance in front of her You Ruo lets out a scream and trembles uncontrollably.

Without any expression, Zihua holds You Ruo by the neck and asks in a deceitfully calm voice “Stop messing around. Where is Xiao Gu?”

So scared that she is almost in tears, You Rou shook her head violently and says “I don’t know! I don’t know! I was just going to use the trap to hold you off so I can grab Master but somehow a strange wind came over me then I couldn’t move or speak anymore!” She had heard about this super powerful trap and especially went to the palace to steal it but who knew it was completely useless against Bai Zihua. But who was it that dared to come out in the middle of it and took her Master away?

Knowing full well that with You Rou’s skills there is no way she was the person that took Qiangu, Zihua doesn’t bother to wait until You Rou has finished speaking before he disappeared again.

Helpless, You Rou yells “Most Honorable! Free me so I can go with you to find Master!”

The sound of crickets were the only replies she got.

“What am I going to do?!” After all her effort she has only free part of her body but her hand and legs are still immobile, outstretched like a strawman. Most Honorable is too cruel! Isn’t she at least his grand-pupil?! If she knew this was going to happen she should’ve never snuck out of Chengliu without telling anyone! Are Luo Shiyi and the others going to discover soon that she is missing?!

Baking under the sun, without any power to shield herself You Rou wonders how many deep-sea scrubs she is going to have to slather on herself to get her pale skin back after this. Almost falling asleep, You Rou suddenly hear the clinking sound of metal bowls and looks up with joy. Someone is here!

“Is someone there? Help! Help!”

The sound comes closer and closer until the bushes are separated to reveal a shiny bald head! What a handsome looking monk!

The monk slowly walks to her and asks “Miss…this?”

You Ruo desperately wishes at that moment she could find a tree to hang herself on so she wouldn’t bring disgrace to Changliu.

“Master (respectful title for monks), help me! A scoundrel has trapped me with a spell!” This young monk looks so kind, he wouldn’t just abandon her, would he?

Walking a full circle around You Ruo, the young monk says after a long while “But Miss, I don’t know how to break a spell.”

Of course I know that how would you know how to break a spell, You Ruo grumbles silently to herself.  “It’s alright, it’s alright. Master, I only beg of you to move me underneath the shade. The spell will break in due time but by then I will be completely cooked by the sun.”

Shaking his head, the monk says “Miss, that would be improper.”

Silently cursing the monk to high heavens, You Ruo begs “Master, are you really just going to leave me to be baked?! How am I supposed to get married after this then?” (Meaning she will end up getting so dark skinned that no one would want her.)

After thinking for a moment, the young monk takes off his outer robe and holds it over You Rou to shield her from the sun.

Feeling bad after two hours goes by and the young monk is still holding the robe as a shield for her while he is drenched in sweat, You Rou asks “Master, your name?”

“My name is Yan Yue.”

“Yan Yue Master, I am still so hot!” Yan Yue plucks a big tree leaf and started to fan You Rou.

“I am hungry Master Yan Yue!” So Yan Yue picked some wild fruit and fed it to You Rou quite awkwardly.

“Master Yan Yue, the mosquitos are biting me, my back is itchy!” So Yan Yue got a long tree branch and stood a long distance away to scratch You Rou’s back.

“Master Yan Yue, it’s getting dark, you can’t leave me by myself alright!” If You Rou was having trouble freeing herself before now she is just having too much fun and is too lazy to break the spell.

I am skipping over the rest of the interactions between You Rou and Yan Yue. In short summary, You Rou was so moved by Yan Yue especially when he ended up protecting her from the hungry wolves’ attack with his own body that You Rou vows to make the young monk hers.

Yan Yue is actually the reincarnated Nan Xian Yue, that’s the guy that had all the demon goddess’ power in him and was trapped in a dark endless tunnel. He was the guy Qiangu befriended once she realized instead of some scary demon goddess,  he was just an innocent childlike person that desperately wanted to be loved. Qiangu ended up getting all the demon goddess power from Nan Xian Yue but she still wasn’t able to save him. If my memory serves me right, in the novel Nan Xian Yue wasn’t as innocent as he pretended to Qiangu but he was given a second chance in his next life.

Anyhow, Nan Xian Yue is the young monk and he will be paired off with You Rou. I guess to an immortal the tiny issue of him being a monk is not big at all, but You Rou still had a long journey ahead of her chasing down her monk. Thankfully, tenacity is clearly one of You Rou’s strong point.

All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com

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