The Journey of Flower

Epilogue 3 : Changliu Academy
Early in the morning, Hua Qiangu was pulled up by Sheng Xiaomo and dressed her up. He put white powder on her face and red rouge. After wearing new clothes and a hairpin on her hair, put a gold necklace around the neck and an emerald bracelet on her wrist, Hua Qiangu felt like she’s like a landlord lady. But as a landlord lady, she can’t even eat a steamed bun for breakfast. Feeling afraid that she would skip school halfway, Sheng Xiaomo specially hired a sedan chair. Several strong men have been ordered to send her off to the gate of the Academy.

Hua Qiangu wanted to weep but no tears. She was barely breathing by the time she got out from the sedan.

People around her couldn’t help laughing in private when they saw her. Whose rich family is this lady from? Well-nourished, fate and white, could hardly walk.

Hua Qiangu looked up at the new big characters in black and gold at the gate—— Changliu Academy.

Well, it’s not a big deal to study. Anyway, she used to go to school for a few days before and her father also taught her a few words. Although she didn’t learn well, she didn’t dislike it.

The surrounding students range from ages six to thirty, but most are about the same age as her. It’s said that this academy used to be called Supreme Wisdom Academy and was managed by just an old scholar named Qin. Later, fewer and fewer students enrolled, so the school ended up closed down. Not long ago, he received a huge capital injection. He hired many excellent teachers and famous people to teach. There were also many talented officials to participate in the ribbon cutting at an opening ceremony, with a great momentum of publicity. This time school opens, many rich merchants in Hangzhou sent their children here and Hua Qiangu is one of them.

She didn’t understand why her father attached so much importance to studying in this academy. He probably dislike her and wanted her to meet a good family in the college and marry her off. Most of the people who send their children to study here are embracing this idea as well.

There are probably more than 100 new students entering the school. All gathered in the square for roll call. In a moment, they will be divided into four classes, Plum blossoms, Orchid, Bamboo and Chrysanthemum, by drawing lots.

Although the academy changed its name, the dean is still Scholar Qin. He’s a little older and looked very imposing, compared with a group of teachers sitting next to him, who were invited or came in without invitation.

He first gave a speech to welcome the new students and looked forward to the bright future of the academy. He then started to introduce the teachers. In addition to the Four Books and Five Classics, other courses taught by other teachers can be selected.

“This is Yan Wen Master. He is from the capital. He will give lectures in the future. This one is Dongfang Yuqing. He will teach …”

“Calligraphy.” Dongfang Yuqing interrupted with soft smiled. Under the stage, a gasp sounded from the audience.

Hua Qiangu was so hungry that she nearly faint and has no strength to look up. The morning sun was not so hot, but it made her sweat repeatedly on her forehead.

Then the teachers all introduced themselves briefly.

“My name is Liehuo and I will teach you culinary skills.” The audiences were surprised.

“My name is Leiyin. I will teach you medicine and acupuncture in the future.” Another surprised from the audiences.

“Qingliu. I teach wine brewing and drinking.”

This time, even Dean Qin couldn’t help wrinkling his old face and whispered: “Is drinking required teaching?”

“Of course. The Wine table is an important place to communicate with people.”

“This is…..” Dean Qin stroked his beard.

“My name is Luo Shiyi. Welcome to my Little Animal Breeding Association.”

“This old teacher called Luo Hedong. I’m specialized in killing demons and catching ghosts!” His voice was like a thunderbolt, making all the students below all stunned. This academy is really different. They teach all sorts of things!

“Mo Bing. Teaching painting.” There was a sigh of relief below. Finally there was something normal one.

At this time, a red-haired woman on the stage seemed to be a foreigner opened her mouth: “Everyone can call me Beihai. For the time being I can’t think of what to teach everyone. Let’s start with swimming lessons for now.”

Everyone was dumb-struck. There was a female teacher and more than one. As soon as she had finished speaking, another woman started to talk.

“My name is Sha Qianmu. You can ask me bout embroidery, tailoring, cosmetics, and clothing matching, as long as it is related to beauty.”

Beihai was already pretty, but compared with this woman, it’s too far off. Now everyone below the stage is boiling and even the boys are determined to take his class.

Sha Qianmu has looked around the crowd for a few times, but he couldn’t find his beloved Little tot.

He wanted to take part in the game, but he refused to use ordinary appearance. In his opinion, ordinary is ugly and without character! After bargained with Dongfang Yuqing for half a day, they finally reached an agreement. He can appear in a better appearance than ordinary people, but in the first three months, he must disguise as a woman.

Sha Qianmu’s mind has always been simple. He thought to himself, before Little tot mistaken him as Jiejie anyway. He didn’t have much hope to win this game. He just here to play for fun and sabotage Dongfang Yuqing. Think about it, it’s fine to lose to Bai Zihua. In any case, he’s genuinely admired him from his heart. But if he loses to a ragged scholar, how can he accept it! Thus, even in a woman’s appearance, he Sha Qianmu still wanted to be the most beautiful of all!

Next, more people continued to introduce themselves. They really teach everything. Martial arts, boxing, concealed weapon, vegetable planting, sculpture …..not to mention the students below, even the Dean Qi kept on sweating. What kind of people did he invite!

Hua Qiangu was hungry and tired. Before she went out, Sheng Xiaomo with great difficulty used the strength of nine bulls and two tigers to stuff her into a piece of what she called ‘slimming clothes’. Inside, the straps strangling her almost out of breath. She felt her head started to blur and the girl next to her was kindly supported her.

“Are you OK?”

Hua Qiangu waved her hand. She couldn’t even speak and her face turned purplish red. At that moment, she heard a cold voice from above.

“My name is Bai Zihua and I will teach you what patience is.”

His voice was like a clear stream flowing into the heart, bringing a little coolness. But after listening to the introduction above, she already knew that she would not have a good day in the future. She originally thought that when she came to the academy, she was just learning calligraphy, painting, and reading four books and five classics. Yet, she didn’t expect it to be this much!

There are more than thirty teachers on the stage. After everyone got to know each other, they began to roll call and draw lots to divide the classes.

At this time, all the people on the stage put up their ears, because none of them have found where huaqiangu is. Oh, of course, except for Dongfang Yuqing who has been gently shaking his folding fan the whole time.

“Nanxiang.”

“Presence.” The student whose was called stepped forward, drawn the lottery and handed it to Lou Shiyi.

“Plum blossom class.” Upon hearing his class number, he walked toward the class team.

“Huo Xi, Bamboo class.”

“Liu Huo, Bamboo class.”

“Ru Shoung, Orchid class.”

———–

As in the plan, You Ruo, Huo Xi, Wu Qingluo, Tangbao, and others Changliu’s disciples mostly came to the Bamboo class with Hua Qiangu. Unlike the teachers, most of them have their memories eliminated.

Finally, they heard the familiar name being called: “Hua Qiangu.”

The people on the stage couldn’t help holding their breath. After fifteen years of waiting, the game finally started.

After calling twice, there was no response from the audience below. Luo Shiyi continued to call.

Hua Qiangu was on the verge of collapse, half and half awake. She only came back to her scenes when they withdraw her name. Struggling to move her small, chubby legs, came out of the queue. Finally, she made it, standing in front of Luo Shiyi. At the moment, Luo Shiyi was dumb-struck with half of his mouth opened looking at her.

“Little tot!” The fan in Sha Qianmu’s hand fell to the ground. Standing up from his seat, he squinted his eyes and look left and right. Although she has gained weighed making her shape looks different, but the small face still remains as Hua Qiangu.

Her footsteps were stumbled and almost fainted on the spot. Fortunately, Mo Bingxian hurriedly supported her. She opened her eyes in unbelievably.

There was a weird silence in the audience. Hua qiangu unconsciously picked out a sign. When she looked at it, it was Bamboo class.

She breathed a sigh of relief. Finally,it’s almost over. She’s really hungry. Staggering towards her team, she completely unaware that all eyes on the stage were looking at her with utter grief-stricken.

It seemed that the sun can’t bear to look anymore and hide in the clouds. A cool breeze blew making her nose felt itchy. Hua Qiangu couldn’t help opening big mouth.

“Ahchoo!”

At the same time, there was a sound of breaking and tearing. She froze and seemed to feel cool air in her back. There was a big ripped. That slim dress was gloriously sacrificed and her plump meat rushed out to reveal itself.

All of a sudden, her body felt relaxed. Hua Qiangu took a deep breath, but her body did not listen and fainted.

The audience was silent for three seconds before they reacted. Luo Shiyi and Mo Bingxian were the first to rush over.

They then saw Sha Qianmu rolled up his sleeves and swear: “Damn, Sheng Xiaomo! I’ll fight it out with you!”

—————-

By the time Hua Qiangu woke up, it was already dark outside. She found that she was lying in her own home.

“Father, I am hungry.” The first sentence she shouted as she opened her mouth.

“Wait.”

After a while, Sheng Xiaomo brought in a bowl of porridge from the outside. Hua Qiangu was surprised to find a few grains of rice and two pieces of vegetable leaves in it. Hua Qiangu hurriedly finished it.

“Father, I am still hungry!”

“Hungry, hungry, hungry! Every day only know how to shout hungry! I told you to study well, yet on the first day of school, you make me lose face in front of the whole school!” Sheng Xiaomo couldn’t hold back reached out his hand to poke her forehead.

Hua Qiangu put on sad puppy face, held his sleeve and conveniently used it to wipe her mouth. She then looked up and found something was wrong: “Father, what’s wrong with your face?” What a big panda eye!

Sheng Xiaomo hugged his chest and answer with aggravation: “Hit!”

She still has a face to ask. It all thanks to her. When Sha Qianmu piggyback her back, as soon as he entered the door, he was welcomed by his punch.

Phew, yeah, he couldn’t even hold her. It was not about weight problem, but he couldn’t hug around her. Hence, he could only carry it back like a sandbag. Sha Qianmu’s face turned green from rage.

How can this blame him? Either way, let her eats or not still his fault.

He didn’t expect that himself a dignify Honorable Scholar has reduced to be a nanny is already bad enough yet fell into the unfortunately situation being hit by other but had no excuse to fight back. Alas …the next day, before Hua Qiangu left for school, she tried every possible way to persuade him to let her eat a steamed bun before went out.

In the classroom, she saw the girl sitting next to her was eating pancakes. Hua Qiangu swallowed her saliva.

“You want it?” It was the beautiful and charming girl who helped her yesterday.

Hua Qiangu bluntly accepted the pancakes and ate it.

“My name is You Ruo. You passed out yesterday, Are you alright now?”

“I’m alright.” Hua Qiangu shook her head. “I just didn’t eat enough. My father wants me to lose weight.”

The petite cute girl in green in front of us turned around and asked: “I have some peach blossom cake left. Do you want to eat?”

Hua Qiangu was so grateful, she nearly burst into tears. It turned out the academy was pretty good. At the beginning, she was worried about being bullied.

“My name is Tangbao. What is your name?”

“Hua Qiangu.’

“You don’t want to lose weight?”

“I do, but I want to eat more.”

“In the future, I’ll leave some delicious food for you.”

“I’ll bring some for you as well.” You Ruo said with a smile and stretched out her hand to poke Hua qiangu’s face. She’s so addicted of poking her cute face, almost poke it into a hole.

Hua Qiangu nodded gratefully.

Within a few days, Hua Qiangu became familiar with people around her. It turned out making friends was not as difficult as she imagined. There were still some of them laughed at her because she is fat, but they found that no matter how hard they made fun of her, Hua Qiangu was not angry and grinned happily. Soon after, those people found it boring and gave up. Everyone’s energy is basically focus on the teachers.

Classes are mainly elective. Hua Qiangu herself chose Lie Huo’s cooking class and Mo Bingxian’s painting class. Then she was dragged by Tangbao to sign up for Dongfang Yuqing’s class and You Ruo to sign up in Bai Zihua’s class. In the end, Sha Qianmu came to find her and forced her to choose his class as well, which made her completely confused.

Speaking of it, so many people that came here to take part in the game with enthusiasm, in fact they wanted to take the opportunity to butt in her and Bai Zihua. Those immortals wanted to show how charming they are, can surpass the High Immortal of Changliu. However, after seeing Hua qiangu’s face, half of them gave up in less than one day. They’re no longer pursuing, just watching from the sidelines.

The few remaining people are most likely to win are Bai Zihua, Dongfang Yuqing, Sha Qianmu, and Mo Bingxian. Except for Sha Qianmu who stick around with Hua Qiangu everyday, took her to temple festival, took her to fly the kite, went out to eat at the restaurant, the other few did not make a move at all.

Because it will take at least three months to tell Hua Qiangu that he is a man, afraid that he would lose the chance, Sha Qianmu tried his best to be nice to her now, hoping to win with a long time of affection.

Hua Qiangu also found that there seemed to be a lot of people around her all of a sudden, temporary could not adapt to it. Nevertheless, apart from eating, she didn’t care much about other things. Occasionally she received flowers, gifts or love letters from others, but she took it as a prank. Of course, the food will stay and everything else will be thrown away.

As a result, everyone knew the trick. Whoever could get the delicious food, Hua Qiangu would obediently will go with that person. Every day, they use delicious food to lure her. Hua Qiangu also felt it was strange. Why do so many teachers and classmates always invite her to dinner?

Today, after Hua Qiangu, Tangbao, and You Ruo ate and drank together, they went home with her.

In order to avoid suspicion, Luo Shiyi often invited the three of them together. However, from You Ruo’s observation, everyone else is desperately trying to serve Hua Qiangu food and Luo Shiyi only care picking food for Tangbao.

“Qiangu, all the teachers in academy seem to like you very much.”

Hua Qiangu nodded: “Maybe my father know them and got in by the back door (connection), asking them to look after me.” Hua Qiangu Hua thought to herself, this is the only reasonable explanation.

“Speaking about it, where is your father? Why didn’t we see him today?” You Ruo’s brows wriggled while asking. Every time she came, she saw Sheng Xiaomo’s lazy appearance, her heart beating pu tong pu tong.

“Oh, maybe he went out to play cricket fighting. He’ll be back soon.”

“Qiangu, how about your mother?”

Hua Qiangu scratched her head: “I don’t know. When I asked my father, he was too lazy to tell me in detail only said she ran away with someone.”

You Ruo looks at her with pity: “It’s not easy for your father to bring you up alone. I think he’s still young. Why doesn’t he find another one?”

“He’s been idling around all day. If he finds another one, I guess she’ll run away with other too.” Hua Qiangu has eaten her fill, yet she still couldn’t stop her mouth from eating lemon seeds.

You Ruo shouted in her heart, no, if it was her, she would not run away.

Tangbao asked: “Qiangu, do you have anyone in your mind? My family sent me to the academy just to find a good family.” The so-called family Tangbao mentioned, naturally are also played by the immortal who played a small role in this game. Beside Hua Qiangu and Sheng Xiaomo, everyone else has been in the Human World for less than a year.

“Someone in mind?”

“Yes. Like Huo Xi and Wu Qingluo in our class, isn’t it good? I heard that their family are very satisfied. I guess they’ll get married after graduating from the academy.”

Hua Qiangu pondered about it with her head tilted. She was impressed by three people. The first one was Dongfang Yuqing. He likes to smile at her with squinting eyes. Her heart beat fast whenever he held her hand and taught her to write. Another person is Mo Bing, whose painting skills are superb. Wherever he goes, he looks like a picture from the ink painting. Hua Qiangu could often feel his line of sight. From far away, slightly sadness falling on her body, let her have the illusion of melting. And the last one is Liu Huo. Others brought her food, only he remembered to bring her drink. Every time she ate too much and choked, he became her big savior. Most importantly, he’s very outstanding, has good grades, no matter what he learns, he does the best and makes the stupid her admired endlessly.

“Speaking about someone in mind. I’ve been quite worried.” Hua Qiangu’s brows frowned.

“Worry about what?”

“Worry that I’ll marry an idiot in the future.”

“Ha?” You Ruo and Tangbao laughed at the same time.

“It’s true. I’ve had strange birthmarks on my arms since birth. It wrote a line!”

Hua Qiangu rolled her sleeves to show them both.

There are really words written on her arm.

——I, love, Bai, Zi.

T/N: Even it sounds like Bai Zihua’s name ‘白子’, Bai Zi ‘白痴’ which Hua Qiangu referred to here means ‘Idiot’. I think Dongfang did it on purpose when he feeds her the pill lolz.

You Ruo and Tangbao were speechless for a moment: “Are you sure you didn’t write it yourself?”

“Of course not. No matter what method I used I can’t wash it out. Every time I ask my father what’s going on, He reeling left and right on the table with laughter, praising who is the most talented. I don’t understand what he’s talking about.”

“It’s a bit weird indeed!”

“Yeah, and it’s mystical. Will I really like an idiot in the future?”

Tangbao laughed without holding back: “As long as you like it, it doesn’t matter if he’s an idiot!”

“That’s also true. Tangbao, do you have someone in your mind?”

Tangbao nodded shyly and admitted it. She smiled and announced loudly: “I like Luo teacher! He actually knew that I don’t like meat but like vegetable leaves! He also bought me candied haws the other day and taught me how to cut paper!”

You Ruo was totally incomprehensible. Hua Qiangu nodded fully agreed with her: “As long as my future husband doesn’t dislike me for being fat, treats my father well, ans not stop me from eating, an idiot or not doesn’t matter at all.”