In Summer's Spring (Zài Xiàjì Chūn)

CHAPTER 2 LET'S GET IT OVER WITH

A thousand years later...

-          And as the reign of the Heaven gifted Ying emperor; Qian Wan Quan came to it's end, and the all so powerful Lord of darkness Hu Xian Leng was trapped into being an eternal static tree, China remained unperturbed by neither the Heavens, nor Hell.

The Chinese language and cultural history professor at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China finished his speech, while waiting for some commentaries from the students. It was a new semester, and there were more international students than the one before. Some easily got adapted to the institution's system of education, and handled the class well, others more, or less got the hang of it, and as expected of a class with diversity, there were the ones that slacked off, and thought that their A's, B's, and if lucky, their C's would hover gracefully into their grade reports. They looked pitiful, drooling on their notebooks while they slept, doodling nonsense impertinent to the class, and even flirting and chatting all about. But why are these buffoons the ones to grab the spotlight? The most important student body was sitting from the middle row towards the front. Those really showed interest, even if they didn't understand a thing about Chinese, and mostly answered with,

-          I love the colors, and characters on the illustration Lao Zhi Chen!

Or even with monotones agreed with what little they could get from all the presentation, which thankfully was subbed in English...

-          But Lao Zhi...

Suddenly, someone from the crowd of students while raising her hand, and her voice to compete with the talking group from behind, said in a blissful English,

-          Why would the legend state that the Lord of Darkness Hu Xian Leng remained eternally static, as a motionless tree? Didn't the emperor tell him, that when the source of his real strength arrived to him, the red buds would open, and he would regain other than strength, his freedom from the island's where about?

Lao Zhi Chen,

-          Yes, indeed... You have a point there Mss. Pamella... A good point indeed, but I'll make you another question. From what we've discussed today, do you believe freedom for this Lord of Darkness exists, from what is destined to actually happen?

-          What do you mean?

-          To better put it; assuming the legend to be true, and the existence of the characters be relevant, do you have a guess unto how many years would have to pass for the Lord to be freed both from his punishment, and at the same time be free from the control of the King of Hell? It is evident he has done to many of bad deeds, that no one would ever come to his rescue, and as for his relationship with the bearer of his soul, the King of Hell, would never release control of him in fear of a vengeful fight against him.

Pamella processed what was said to her right then. Her whole name was Pamella Zavala. She came from a prominent university at a little island on the Caribbean, as a transfer student for a two semester Chinese language and historical culture course. She was a polyglot by all the essence of the word. She knew both Spanish, and English; and knew basic conversational, French, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. Her attentive, and hard-working attitude towards the course made Lao Zhi Chen be proud of his teaching career and assured him that it wasn't his fault that about half of the class students were mediocre. If there wasn't anything bad with his teaching method, then definitely it was something to do with the students. He could feel himself feel slightly emotional, and at the brink of tears every time she raised to her feet and commented in class. Even now he could feel his eyes water up...

Sniffle*

The classroom,

-          ...