original

Flowers in the mist

Author: paw_meh

Chapter 1: One

Dong Mei had always been a hardworking cannon fodder. Constantly throwing herself into the pit of fire for the sake of raising the protagonists as upright people.

She had faced rain of daggers, wind of arrows, had gained eyes full of sand and a voice extremely hoarse from calling out without being heeded. Yet, still, she persisted. She sat through the rain and sat through the storms as though it were the only way to live.

Even after she gained awareness of her current lifetime, she didn't stop pursuing death.

"Sister," she called coquettishly, "don't be shy. Put your hand forward and let the uncle see."

The person she called out to was the female lead or as she was normally called, Li Hua.

Dong Mei had read her own story in a book of sorts. It was one with real life characters and events but that kept referring to her as the villainess and to Li Hua as the female lead.

Just like their assigned titles, the two characters contrasted like night and day.

Li Hua was kind and gracious, honest and always seeking justice. Despite being poor, she was generous and always willing to help the poor and rich alike, in which every way she could. She was also slightly gullible, which is why she fell for most of Dong Mei's nasty trickery. But even towards Dong Mei, her kindness and goodness was overflowing. Li Hua was described in such light that Dong Mei could almost see her next step would lead her to fall into heaven directly.

Meanwhile, Dong Mei was the epitome of the world's greatest curse. Not only did she have more than everyone else but refuse to appreciate, she also wanted to go ahead to grab Li Hua's things. Some of those things she took without permission while others, Li Hua simply gave them to her without a fight.

Dong Mei was a two faced witch. Lies spilled out of her mouth like a river drained into the ocean. She conspired left and right on almost any evil matter. In fact, king Yama would rise up from hell in the next step, and offer up his throne to her. Because, not only was she capable of torturing others for her own gain, she was also able to let thousands die under the whims of her temper.

(A/N; Yama- lord of hell)

"But, why do you want to do this?" Li Hua blinked her eyes at Dong Mei.

Dong Mei blinked. For a second there, she had realized Li Hua's nation collapsing beauty that could call heaven down.

It was described a thousand times in the book. Li Hua's phoenix eyes, her pink lips, her white skin despite toilling under the sun; a beauty that only knew how to grow while in people's eyes.

While Dong Mei's appearance was only described in two lines. One line said that her beauty was one that struck at first but quickly got boring and ordinary. The other line heavily contrasted her brown skin with Li Hua's pale one.

Dong Mei smiled generously and softly pulled Li Hua's cheek, "look at you! You're not even calling me sister. Do you think I can tell you if you don't?"

The real question was whether Dong Mei would actually tell her.

See, she had read about the fortune telling scene in the book. Where, Li Hua, around whom all the world's luck revolved, came across a weird old monk with some form of spirituality. He read out her great fortune and blessed her even more, making her more fortunate.

Since Dong Mei had brought her to the place, it could be concluded that she was simply trying to snatch those blessings for herself. All she had to do was grab the necklace that Li Hua would be handed which was the medium for the blessings.

Suddenly, a huge stick waved across her eyes, almost slamming into her head. With a small scream, Dong Mei nimbly dodged the stick.

"Ah! Old man! So you want to kill me today?" she snapped at the man.

"If I wanted you dead, what would you still be doing alive?" the old monk shot back, "get out of here immediately. Haven't I chased you enough times already?"

He was seated with his legs crossed and on a wooden board raised off the floor. He had beads making rounds between his fingers and his expression was completely twisted to show his vexation.

This, the old monk, was her problem.

Of course Dong Mei had already planned to take the blessings for herself. She would have kept Li Hua away from the monk by any means necessary if it weren't for the fact that the old monk was so hard when it came to giving any blessings to her.

She had been chased a bunch of times before she came up with the idea of bringing Li Hua.

"You've been here before?" Li Hua asked.

"Of course I have. Why would I bring sister to some unknown place? What if we encounter danger?" Dong Mei said pretentiously, "I just want to have fun with sister, I don't want any trouble."

"If anyone heard it, they would think they were twins. But who knows the truth? It's actually a grandmother calling a toddler 'sister'," a mocking chuckle came from close by.

Just from the sound of it, Dong Mei felt her blood stop and run stale immediately. Her face twisted in disgust so much that it almost cramped in pain. But she quickly covered up her emotions with a smile, because she knew whom that voice accompanied.

She turned and faced the two men but her sights were only drawn to one.

"Brother Bai!" she called in a sweetened voice full of surprise.

"Tsk!" the mocking came again, "will you turn the whole world into your family now?"

The young man called 'brother Bai' completely ignored Dong Mei as usual and made his way towards Li Hua who only smiled gently at him as her eyes told of her pleasure in seeing him.