Liao Qing’er and Meng Ying asked together, “How’s that? Is Xiaoyi (He Danggui) still alive?” Meng Xi nodded but shook his head later. He replied, “The hexagram told me she died, but her room still looks very vibrant and it shouldn’t belong to someone dead.”

“What does that mean?” Liao Qing’er looked up at him with her eyes wide open. This master’s enigmatic words made her confused.

“Here’s what it means.” Meng Xi said in a soft and calm tone with a smile. He began to be straightforward, “The hexagram I had was wrong.”

“That means He Danggui is still alive, right? We can save Meng Xuan, right?” Meng Ying who should be to blame for all this asked hopefully, “Since you can predict that Meng Xuan will be in trouble today, you must have had the solution to help him, right?” Meng Xi nodded and answered, “There are two solutions. First, we can feed him with medicine that will make him forget everything. After eating it, he won’t remember that woman anymore and the trouble will be settled naturally.” Hearing it, Meng Ying nodded vigorously to show his approval, but Liao Qing’er shook her head hard to oppose it. Then, Meng Xi continued, “But this is just a method that cures only the symptoms. I can’t guarantee how painful he will be if he remembers her again in the future. Maybe he will suffer more than he does today. Thus, I don’t support this solution.”

Hearing what he said, Liao Qing’er began to admired him slightly. She immediately asked, “What about the second solution? Should we find Xiaoyi and let Meng Xuan and her get married and live happily?” Meng Xi smiled gently and replied while shaking his head, “I don’t approve of letting them get married. Judging from the Marriage Plate, Meng Xuan’s wife isn’t this lady, but he loves her the most. And the hexagram has also implied an old saying going like ‘Husband and wife are birds in the same forest, but they fly separately when disasters come’. That isn’t a good sign at all… Um, we should heal Meng Xuan first. He won’t be able to come back to life if we miss the right time.”

Meng Ying whispered in his heart, “You should’ve done so before. It’s just like a case of acute disease being treated by a procrastinating doctor.” He let Meng Xi sit on the bedside and put down the bed curtain as he told to stop others from seeing how Meng Xi was treating Meng Xuan. At the same time, Liao Qing’er noticed there were maids of Tao Yao Yard coming toward the room. They might be attracted by the noise just now so they came to have a look. Liao Qing’er went out and talked to them briefly before asking them to leave.

Liao Qing’er turned around to get back to the room but she was stopped by Meng Ying outside the door with one hand. She asked in confusion, “Why did you stop me? I need to check Meng Xuan. He loves Xiaoyi and I’m Xiaoyi’s best friend.” Meng Ying frowned and looked down at her. Then, his expression showed he had realized something. He exclaimed, “You are… Liao Qing’er! Liao Qing’er is you! You are the lady He Danggui mentions to me who has ‘Skin Remover’! Liao Qing’er! You are Liao Qing’er!” Liao Qing’er looked up at the old man who was even a bit more handsome than Meng Xuan and saw his lips moving when he said “Liao Qing’er” four times. She was very shocked so she pointed at him first and then, she touched her nose. She asked to confirm it, “Third Childe, you even recognize me? And you know I’m Liao Qing’er as well?”

Right. Liao Qing’er knew Meng Ying several years ago in the capital and she had some unrequited love with him. Thus, when she saw he was about to commit suicide outside the window, she rushed into the room to stop him regardless of everything. Although his face looked dozens of years older than it should have been, Liao Qing’er still remembered him clearly. She once witnessed how he grew from a pretty boy to a handsome teenager and how those horny girls and women chased him while she could just bite her handkerchief with tears welled in her eyes and adore him secretly in somewhere he couldn’t see.

Back then, Liao Qing’er had done something sensational in the capital. She imitated Zhu Yingtai and became a student of Yinghui Academy by disguising herself as a boy. There were four reasons for her to do that. First, she wanted to learn more about the joys and pains of ancient people when they went to school. Second, she wanted to meet a bookworm like Liang Shanbo in such a pure environment. Third, Yinghui Academy and Meng’s Mansion were just separated by a street. Fourth, the primary class she was in and the middle class Meng Ying was in were just separated by a hallway.

To sum up, she paid lots of effort to disguise herself as a boy with chest wraps, get up early at four in the morning every day, learn traditional Chinese characters hard to get admitted by an ancient primary school, and read “Ode to the Goose” loudly together with a group of children that were about eight years old in average while she was already fifteen. Most of the reasons why she did so were that she wanted to see Meng Ying who was handsome, two years younger than her, and reading “Every day I examine myself on three counts” in the middle class next.

She also knew that she should have acted as a more mature person since she was from the future world, had almost been living for thirty years and started her business four or five years ago here as a postgraduate. How could she adore a boy so naively like those girls or women who didn’t know how to find the square root of 3 or write the chemical equation of photosynthesis? However, her heart couldn’t help being pounding every time she saw Meng Ying who perfectly showed the handsomeness of the Dream Team formed by Kaede Rukawa, Akira Sendoh, Kenji Fujima, Soichiro Jin, and Mitsui Hisashi.

She had had an unrequited love with Meng Ying when he was a teenager for almost four years by fits and starts. Of course, she only loved what he looked like instead of what a person he was, so she barely knew him and her love was relatively superficial. Sometimes when she found a profit-making program, she would be busy making money and didn’t even think about Meng Ying once in months. However, when she ran into him on the street some day and saw his amazing handsome face again, the endless love in her heart would be woken up and she would bite her handkerchief with tears welled in her eyes secretly.

She didn’t have many experiences in relationships. About what love should be, she only learned it from books or TV shows and she didn’t know if this was what people called “a young girl falling in love”. Although her “cumulative age” had been twenty-eight, she was full of childlike innocence and regarded herself as a young girl after she had been rejuvenated. She also didn’t know whether it was dedication of love to go to school by disguising herself as a boy for a teenager who didn’t even cast a glance at her, but during the four or five years, for Meng Ying, she had rejected seven or eight men who seemed to be good in total. Until one day, when she was sixteen, which was a quite mature age in ancient times, she had a terrifying dream.

What happened in that dream made her dare not to look at Meng Ying in about a month. By the way, she seemed to never be able to look into his eyes, In the dream, he confessed his love to her. First, he jumped down from a high tower while riding a horse. The horse died later but he was still alive. Then, with a cool special cloak usually worn by an Indian chief, he walked to her by moving his hand and foot on the same side and laughed hysterically as if he had Qi Deviation after practicing Nine Yin Skeleton Claw. “Yo, ha, ha, ha…”

Seeing this, she thought of lots of dramatic lines such as “I come with the wind and leave with it. I’m a little bird in the wind and trying to fly high but I can’t. I keep looking for a warm hug…”, “Some people still live in the world, but they are actually dead; I’m dead but I will still live in the world…”, and “It doesn’t matter to cut off my head as long as I have the right belief. I’m killed but lots of people like me will stand out. My furious compatriots, let’s fight for our new country…” Suddenly, Meng Ying stopped laughing and stood right in front of her. He looked at her affectionately with his eyes that were prettier than glass balls and said with his red lips that were more tasty than jelly pops, “Liao Qing’er, I’ve been loving you secretly for four years. I’ll cut my belly open if you are still unwilling to marry me.”

In the dream Liao Qing’er blacked out because of scare (surprise). When she woke up, she and Meng Ying were riding together on a horse which had been dead before and now resurrected. They ran in the sky unreasonably and reached a cloud gradually. Meng Ying held her waist (which became slender in the dream) and jumped off the horse with her. They looked down at the world below and she thought he would comment on the views and people in excitement, but he said to her, “Qingqing, you jump. I jump. What do you think? Yo, ha, ha, ha…”

Then, Liao Qing’er woke up terrified from the dream. All her clothes got wet because of her sweat and she found it was about one or two in the morning, which was exactly the time when ghost stories often occurred. She got out of the bed and drank a lot of cool water. She comforted herself that it must because she had told her brother too many stories in “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio”. She had scared others too much so that she was scared now. How could she not get her shoes wet if she often walked by the river? She should stop talking about “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio” from now on. She could try “Robinson Crusoe”, “The Others” or “Ring”. The next day when she regained most of her senses, she sat in a daze while holding her cheeks with her hands in her classroom. After thinking about what happened in her dream last night, she kept shaking her head.

She guessed Meng Ying didn’t even know her. The word “guess” used here was just because of her pride as a female, because she didn’t need to guess at all and she knew Meng Ying would never recognize her. As for the reasons, there might be thirty of them.

First, compared with the other children in the primary class, she was so tall and chubby that her position was at the last but one row by the window, which faced the East Restroom at a slant and provided a narrow view. Second, as a genius who had skipped grades, Meng Ying was shorter than his fellow students in the middle class so that his position was at the fourth row by the window and a wide racecourse could be seen there. Thus, during the eight hours when he was at school, he spent three hours listening to the teachers, another three reading story books and laughing secretly, and the other two sleeping. He didn’t spare any moment to look at the primary class the whole day. Third, it was said that Meng’s Family was the descendant of Mencius, a handsome student of Confucius while the ancestors of her Liao’s Family were said to be woodsmen and fishermen. Thus, Meng’s Family had much more glorious history than her family did. Finally, she was nothing outstanding in the appearance, disposition or knowledge and might not have handwriting as good as that of a maid beside Meng Ying. That maid might even be prettier than her so Meng Ying would rather look at the maid than at her.

Anyway, he would never know her! An ordinary girl like her knew him just because he was famous in Yinghui Academy and even the whole capital. He was the eldest legitimate son of Meng’s Family and the successor of the title “Earl Baoding”. He would be a mighty general… An ordinary girl like her and a famous figure like him led lives completely unrelated to each other. The only meeting with him deliberately made by her even ended in a farce and tragedy. At last, that farce ended with people’s mockery for her as a fool and because of it, she couldn’t bear to stay in the capital anymore and ran away from home. However, Meng Ying still didn’t remember her name at that time. Why did he know her now suddenly? Why did he call her name four times? Did her dream come true?

“Liao Qing’er, I’ve been loving you secretly for four years. I’ll cut my belly open if you are still unwilling to marry me”?