daomingsi, dongshancai.

échange de corps, part 1

She hoped she never saw him again.

That idiot boy.

She had been only slightly mollified when Si explained to her how he'd thought it was her hand he had grabbed, but at the time being, even though he knew her hand was smaller, slighter, all he could think of was getting away from his mother and her dastardly plan.

"If you knew it was not my hand you were holding, them why did you keep running?" She retorted.

"I just told you!" He said, his eyes full of apology and despair. "I wasn't thinking about that, because—"

"Well maybe you should've been thinking about it," Shancai had snapped back, not letting him finish. She knew she was being extremely childish but she didn't care.

All around her, she could only see red.

In fact, and while it was something that eluded her, she couldn't be oblivious to the fact that the thought of Daoming Si and Xiaozi together filled her with an all consuming rage, one that she'd never felt until now. . . except for a hazy memory of when she was small, when an annoying boy had ridiculed her backpack.

She got even more shocked when she felt the burning tears start to prick at her eyes, and not wanting him to see, turned on her heel and walked away, slowly at first, then into a slight jog, and finally a sprint. She could hear from behind her his yells for her slowly becoming softer and softer.

Normally, his voice would send her running back but at that moment, she didn't care. She would do anything to get away from him and his confusing and seemingly apologetic words as fast as she could.

Dazed and confused, and with her thoughts racing at a mile a minute in her head, Shancai didn't notice the hard wooden door in front of her and slammed right into it. She bit her lip to stifle the cry of pain, and for good reason: she noticed for the first time that somehow it was already night, and she knew it was dangerous.

Looking around her to make sure nothing had fallen out of her purse, she turned her eyes to the door she had just slammed into, and saw it was connected to a huge and building. The sign on the door read "Shanghai Natural History Museum." Curious, she pushed on the door, and to her surprise, it opened.

"Hello?" she asked. "Is anyone there?"

She was greeted with silence.

Frowning, Shancai walked deeper into the darkness of the museum hall, and no sooner had she made the second step, there was suddenly light all around her. She gasped and looked up to see a huge glittering chandelier on the ceiling, and a large number of paintings and sculptures decorating the walls of the space.

Shaking her head in wonder, she walked up to one of the paintings. It was an oil work of a pineapple. Shancai laughed at first, but then quieted instantly because it reminded her of him, whom she would never speak to again.

Continuing along the wall, she eventually came up to a large sculpture of dragon. It was beautiful, gold-plated ceramic, with red tassels attaches to the top. The placard under it read "Ming Dynasty Dragon." She traced the italicized words underneath it with her finger.

"Often one finds one's destiny just where one hides to avoid it."

And what on earth was that supposed to mean? Something tugged at her heart, but she ignored it.

"This is stupid, she said out loud, her voice echoing against the ceiling. Of course, no one responded. She repeated what she had just said, louder.

Still just deafening silence.

Frustrated for some reason now, she yelled it out. "This is stupid!"

The dragon quivered precariously on its stand and suddenly she snapped. All the bad events of the day came flooding back to her; his infuriating mother, that jezebel Xiaozi, and his terrible apologies. How could she have trusted him? Now it was probably almost midnight and she was in a creepy old museum staring at a dragon, while he was having the time of his life with Xiaozi.