Waking up in a daze, Qiangu looks around the raft but instead of finding Dong Feng, she finds Bai Zhiha standing beside her, staring at her wordlessly.

“Teacher, how come you are here too, are you an immortal as well?” Qiangu looks at Zihua with curiosity in her eyes. Teacher’s expression seems extra cold. Is he angry about something?

An arm suddenly wrapped itself around her waist and picked her up. A bit frightened to have Bai Zihua so close and to have his dark eyes seemingly seeing right through her soul Qiangu tries to say something but her mouth was abrupted sealed.

It all happened too suddenly. Like a firecracker has been lit inside her, Qiangu could almost hear a series of popping sound in her mind as if dazzling bright colors of fireworks explode in unison. Bai Zihua’s kiss was soft but fierce at the same time. His lips are simply resting against hers but even the exhilaration of soaring through the stars is nothing compares to this moment.

But wait, isn’t this wrong? How could teacher kiss her? This is her first kiss!

Qingu pinches herself hard to clear her head then tries to get free but it was useless against Bai Zihua’s grip. Between the pushing and pulling the raft begins to shake violently until it topples over.

As the two slowly make their descend among the countless stars that twinkle like fireflies, Bai Zihua deepens the kiss until Qiangu could hardly breathe.  Is she dying? Is this what heaven is like?

A short distance away, Diety Tianji and Diety Yao Guang are scratching their head as they complain together in a hushed voice.

“That Dong Feng sure is gutsy. He dared to trick us into getting drunk?”
“We can worry about that later but what are we suppose to do about the situation at hand? Chang Liu’s most Honorable One not only broke the rules but broke it under our watch!”
“So what if he broke the rules. Do you dare to strike him with thunder? Can’t you tell that he is furious right now? Do you want to live or not?”
“Ah? So we just ignore it? Wouldn’t that make the bet unfair?”
“How is that unfair? It’s not like he is kissing someone else’s wife. I don’t care, if you want to you can strike him with thunder.”
“How would I dare!”
“Then let’s forget it about it and pretend we didn’t see anything. Let’s go back to bed…”

Kissed until her whole body has gone limp and her world is spinning, Qiangu could do nothing but wraps her arms around Zihua’s neck tightly.

Bai Zihua can’t understand how she could abandon him again and again? He had placed so much faith in her love, trusted that her love would not change no matter what the circumstance is but she would rather leave with Dong Feng instead of staying by his side. She would rather die by herself instead of allowing him to die with her…
If everything could start over, would you really not fall in love with me again?
I refuse to believe that.
This life and evey lifetime after this you can only love me. You can only be mine.
Chance? No chance. Even if Dong Feng reincarnates ten more times, hundred, thousand, or tens of thousands more times, I will not give him any chance!

By the time Qiangu woke up it was almost noon the next day.
Ahh! She is late again! Qiangu sat straight up then promptly turns bright red as her sore and limp body instantly reminds her what happened the night before.
So what happened after that? How did she get back?

Wait, it must’ve been a dream. How could she dream such a thing! Pulling hard on her hair, Qiangu berets herself.
Finally sitting down in front of her dresser table, Qiangu jumps in surprise as her chubby face seems to be a plum flower in blossom with her lips red and swollen.
Drat! Was it real then?
“Ahh!!!!” Qiangu finally lets out a scream. She was assaulted by Teacher!

Keeping her head down the whole way to the academy, Qiangu is really embarrassed but she has to get Bai Zihua to answer a few questions. What does he mean by what he did? Why did he kiss her out of a sudden? Does he want to marry her too? Hmm…it actually wouldn’t be too bad to marry Bai Zihua! Just a bit stuffy. Her married life will probably be kinda stuffy.

After being on pins and needles the whole day, Qiangu finally sees Bai Zihua during class but then he didn’t even spare a glance her way.

“Qiangu, what’s wrong? Why is your face so red?”
“No…nothing…” Qiangu lowers her head and quickly starts to write fiercely until she belatedly realized she filled the paper with the word “Dummy”. She doesn’t even know if she is calling herself or Bai Zihua dummy.

The moment class is over, Qiangu raced to where Bai Zihua is.
Bai Zihua stops and turns to look at her coldly.
“T…teacher…”
“What do you need?”
“Y…you, yesterday…why did you…” Stumbling over her words for a long moment, Qiangu finally asks “Why did you do that to me?”
After a few moments of silence, Bai Zihua replies “I don’t know what you are talking about.” then promptly walks away without a backward glance.

He doesn’t know what she is talking about? Qiangu’s lips formed into a pout and almost begins to cry. Has he forgotten? Or was it really all a dream?

From that point on, Qiangu starts to pay extra attention to Bai Zihua and would even try to follow him around at times. She simply refuses to believe what happened that day wasn’t real. However, no matter what she does, Bai Zihua continues to act like his usual aloof self even when she tries to be nice to him. The other day she had made a special cold plum drink for him but he walked off after saying he doesn’t like it. Some of the girls from the other class saw her coming back with the drink in hand and begins to jeer that she is a fat pig trying to eat delicate grass. (Delicate grass=Bai Zihua) Qiangu hates it when people call her fat now so she was extra furious and almost threw the drink on those girls…until she figures it would be better to not waste it and to drink it herself.

Feeling maligned, Qiangu doesn’t understand why Bai Zihua would kiss her then not admit it. He is just an irresponsible guy. It’s not like she would force him to marry her, she just wants an honest answer.

Finding her in the bamboo frost chugging down the plum drink by herself, Liuhuo laughed until his belly started to hurt.

“Are you mad because of that thing with Bai Zihua? Don’t you want to know why? I can tell you the answer, follow me.”

Liuhuo leads her to the area behind the waterfall then takes out a giant Heavenly Mirror and lift it above both of their heads.

“What are you doing?”

“Just in case. I don’t want to die by lightning. Here, squat down and I will tell you secretly.”  Liuhuo waves and Qiangu quickly leans her ear close.

“I don’t need your ear, give me your hand.”

Curious, Qiangu reaches out as Liuhuo uses his right hand and her right hand to form a spell that promptly allows her to hear his voice.

“Bai Zihua kissed you a few days ago, didn’t he?”

Horrified, Qiagu blurts out “How did you know?”

“I could guess just by how distracted you have been! But then this bet was never fair to begin with. He does have a special status after all.”

“Bet? What bet?”

 

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