Crimson Blossoms

Chapter 006: Foolish Child, Quickly Sit Down! [1]

ᵀᴵᴹᴱ/ EIGHT YEARS AGO; THREE YEARS BEFORE THE MASSACRE

Bustling crowds laughed merrily, matching the festive mood of the Lunar New Year as firecrackers were set off and children danced alongside the dragon performers.

Red lanterns were strung up along the houses and in between the streets of the Xiá Clan grounds, which were situated outside seemingly normal human reach, at the peak of the Shén Zhīyǎn mountain range, the highest peak in Great Continent.

Though it was a high enough location to cause difficulty breathing, the people of the clan had all been born and raised in these mountains, making them quite used to the air.

A young, nine-year-old girl was making her way through these crowds, dressed in expensive and fine clothes of golden embroidery on a red and black hanfu, which were incidentally the clan colours and were worn by the clan head's family.

They matched the deep crimson eye colour of the girl, who made her way through a small opening and darted through to reach a quiet alleyway where she could get a moment's rest.

Behind her was her maid of a few years elder, Lan Li, who although was a delicate young maiden herself, to her misfortune was born with an androgynous male face and was tragically flat chest as well.

Her young Mistress was of no comfort to the fact, since she felt the need to tease her for it on any given opportunity, telling her that she made for a very handsome man and that it was a shame she wasn't born one, causing her to cry.

"My Lady Xiá, I believe that we have escaped from your brothers' now." Lan Li panted, her hands on her knees as her the Young Miss looked completely unfazed from all that running and hiding.

"I can't understand why you're tired from this amount of exercise, Lan Li." Xiá Xiao Hu raised an eyebrow at her childhood maid cooly. "You'd think you would have had plenty of practice running away from your female admirers on a daily basis, you playboy."

"My Lady, please! (ಥ﹏ಥ)" Tears started to form in her maid's eyes. "I'm not a playboy and I don't want female admirers either! I'm a girl despite my looks and want to be remembered as such!"

A sympathetic look came over those crimson eyes, making the maid's tears cease before they started to sob again and the girl laughed.

"With such a handsome face as yours? What innocent maiden wouldn't be seduced by you?"

"Haaaa~ Such noisy girls, you two are."

A voice interrupted them from a rooftop above the alleyway, with a boyish figure resting on his side and looking down on them. He was wearing an expressionless face mask and sat up lazily as the Maid and Young Miss whirled around in surprise.

He was dressed in all black robes and his long raven hair flowed loosely, untied like other boys who kept it neatly back.

"You dare eavesdrop on our conversation?" The young girl glared at the intrusive boy, firecrackers and gongs going off in the distance.

"Aren't you the one being unreasonable?" The boy shrugged uncaringly. "Clearly you're the one who intruded on my dreams, first."

How irritating! The girl fumed in her thoughts, trying to keep cold but failing for some reason around this masked boy.

"Why don't you come down here?"

"Nope."

"Get down! 💢"

"Nah."

The boy had the audacity to snicker at their exchange. "If you have a problem with me, shouldn't you come up here yourself?"

Xiao Hu could practically feel his smirk behind the mask, irritating her further. It grew to the point of unbearable when he arched a finger at her as if beckoning a child.

Biting her lip at that, the young heiress was not used to people looking down on her besides her three elder brothers, who only did so playfully at that. Not merely because she was of a higher status in the Clan but because she honestly was not a child to be underestimated easily. 

"Lan Li!" She called, her attendant pushing up her sleeves with an affirmative 'yes, miss,' in answer, placing her hands low and one on top of the other for her.

Xiao Hu placed a foot on them as a springboard and lept up the wall, swinging over to the top next to the boy triumphantly. 

"There, how was that? This noisy girl made it up here." <(￣ ￣)>

The boy seemed surprised and laughed amusedly at her energy through his mask. "I don't know many kids who are capable of doing that." He complimented honestly.

"Hoh? Who're you calling a kid, anyway? You don't look more than a few years older than me. And what's with the mask? Do you not want people to see you?"

"Why do I need to explain myself to you?" He stood up and started walking off and away from her along the rooftop, his long untied hair billowing in the cool night wind. 

Xiao Hu felt her eye twitch. How could a single boy be so irritating in her eyes? One would think having three unruly brothers herself would make her used to foolish boys but this one completely broke her composed stance. 

"Why don't you take off your mask instead and I may forgive you for your eavesdropping." She snipped back coldly.

Underneath the expressionless mask, the boy stopped walking and grinned with an evil undertone, turning back around and taking the younger girl's chin in his hand, forcing it up to look at him directly.

"What an annoying troublemaker..." He scoffed threateningly. "If you keep bothering me, I'll kiss you." 

Noting her silence after he had made the threat, the boy assumed that he had frightened the young girl. After all, what girl wants their first kiss taken by some masked stranger? They were foolish in their romantic fantasies that way. 

"Scared?" He asked with a laugh.

Red eyes calmly gauged him for a moment, expression perfectly composed as she grabbed the front of his black robes and pressed her lips against the mask's covered mouth. 

(・_・)     ...

As the boy was completely and motionlessly stunned by the forward action, the young first miss of the Xiá clan pulled the mask off the boy's face with a hand covering her mouth in laughter going, "fufufu."

However, finally gazing upon the uncovered face, Xiao Hu blinked once at the handsome boy, his skin pale and his eyes dark, sharp and cruel in their look yet holding a mischevious childishness underneath all of that.

He looked at her acquiescently, as if accepting that she had removed his mask, though he cursed his own underestimation of others. 

"Wow, you're really good-looking." Xiao Hu noted unembarrassedly as if she would state any other fact she knew. "Even my elder brothers would shy in comparison."

(・_・) ...

He was stunned yet again.