"Tell me everything you know!" In his haste, Zhao Feng moved his chubby body towards Shen Yan, accidentally sitting down on the corner of one of her velvet shawls. With an obviously disgusted expression on her face, Shen Yan gathered her shawl back, gently brushing the tassels on it as if it were her own tail he stepped on, and not a piece of clothing. "You need to calm down first," she warned him. "I told you before, so much stress is not good for your body. I don't see any young Alphas interested in your old ass, so if you end up in the hospital, it would still be me who would have to drag this useless body to take care of you." 

A cold shiver ran down Dean Zhao's back as he had a vision of his impending demise. Maybe one of these days, Shen Yan would get fed up with him... She might even decide to feed him one of her damned recipes, and then calmly watch as he squirmed on the floor in agony. Determined to preserve whatever he had left of his life (and the dignity of his pants), Zhao Feng quickly calmed down, swearing that from now on, he would triple-check all the tea mugs that found their way into his office. 

"Then, Your Majesty..." he started coaxing her. "The one and only goddess of my dog life... please share your wisdom with this humble one..."

"Hmpf!" Shen Yan turned her head in disgust, but the lifted pointy tip of her nose betrayed the fact that she was pleased with his sweet words. "You're my friend, of course, I'll tell you everything I know. No need to beg..." she continued, with a tone that said otherwise. "Let me think... I seem to remember that, during his student days, Li Zhen had quite the animosity with Little Xu."

"WHAT?!"

If everything that had happened so far was just a simple revelation of Dean Zhao's poor attention to detail, Shen Yan's final words came like a bolt from the sky. "Little Xu, who?!" he asked, feeling that his life was about to turn into a terribly bad movie.

"Xu Jinli?! That Little Xu?!" 

The bane of his existence, the child he couldn't deal with, nor could he get rid of, that Little Xu?! 

Oh, gods in Heaven, just spare my useless life! Could I be that lucky to have the two headaches that caused me the most amount of stress come together, shake hands, and gleefully dance on top of my grave?!

"Of course, who else?" Unaware of her friend's distress (or just uninterested), Teacher Shen continued down the memory lane, recalling one specific event: "You probably don't remember, with your goldfish memory and all, but when that Young Master Li first came here, Little Xu was quite the sensation among the seniors. There was that big graduation project they had, the one where Xu Jinli first played a female role and got the whole university to drool at his feet... Well, after it was over, I went backstage to congratulate the children, and what do you think?"

"W-what?!" Zhao Feng asked in a trembling voice.

"Well, Young Master Li was also there, caught in a heated, private conversation with Little Xu. However, the atmosphere between them didn't look quite right, so you know..."

"After that, people started gossiping about how Xu Jinli lied to everyone, how he deceived countless young men, and how his morals were loose... Who knows? Maybe Young Master Li was also deceived by him, feeling that his pure feelings were being fed to dogs. And with Little Xu graduating right at the end of the year, maybe those things remained unresolved, festering throughout the years."

"Then what do we do?!" Zhao Feng asked, anxious enough to start pulling at the few remaining strands of hair from his head. "Do you think Young Master Li knows Xu Jinli is also here?!"

"Don't do that," his friend answered calmly as she patted his cold and wet forehead with the corner of the shawl she was holding. "What can we do? This could be a blessing in disguise for us."

"...You think so?"

"Yes, the children are a bit older now, so whatever feud they had before is probably long forgotten. Who knows, maybe they'll even be happy to reconnect after so many years..." Reaching this point, Shen Yan stopped to take a deep breath of air. However, when she continued talking, her usually calm and disinterested voice gained a slick quality to it, whispering like a little demoness who only wanted to see the world burn. "Maybe we could play around a little bit, what do you think? It's a story as old as time, with misunderstandings, a new beginning, and not to mention, two devastatingly handsome main leads..."

"Maybe we could even stage a little scandal..." she leaned in, eyes glittering. "Have you seen their faces? People would line up to read anything about them, especially if we include high-quality pictures".

"Hehe..." Maybe the reason Zhao Feng and Shen Yan had been friends for so many decades was precisely their mutual ability to wreak havoc upon everything they put their minds to. The more he thought about it, the more Dean Zhao liked his friend's idea, thinking he might kill all of those annoying birds with one stone. Wouldn't that be perfect? It was good PR for their university, since it was the type of romantic story people liked to inhale like it was fresh air... Not to mention that he could catch Young Master Li, making it impossible to separate that golden Li surname of his from their university... They could even become the young couple's benefactors, aiding in their reconciliation and blessing them with a marriage that would last one hundred years!

As for Xu Jinli... 

Who cared?!

He already had countless scandals linked to his name anyway! It's not like one more would ruin his already crumbling reputation, right?!

But at the end of the day, Zhao Feng and Shen Yan weren't horrible people. Their intentions were not to hurt the children, and both of them loved their students like family. However, loving someone and being willing to use them for benefits weren't mutually exclusive, and, as long as things didn't get too out of control, Dean Zhao was confident in his ability to pull just the right strings from the shadows.

Sometimes, he even liked to fantasise under the cover of night, painting himself as the hero in his own story. Occasionally, his life was an entertainment novel, and he was the ruthless and powerful CEO who could decide everyone's futures without even lifting a finger. Othertimes, he imagined himself as the patriarch of a powerful family, and all his students were children he needed to care for.

However, lately, Dean Zhao started imagining his life was a cultivation novel, one where he was a powerful and merciful Sect Leader. In his fantasy, all the students were disciples he was guiding, and Shen Yan was his right hand, the Sect's almighty healer. Together, they looked after the young disciples, teaching them and sharing various successful techniques, and when the children were ready to venture into the mortal world, they would be right there, continuing to silently protect them from behind. 

And yet, there was one little detail he overlooked...

...There were no normal people inside an Art University. 

Despite his vast experience and all the storms he survived, all the intrigues, schemes, and so-called little "accidents", everything pointed to one, single truth:

Indeed, he might have been the Sect Leader and everyone else had to bow their heads to his wisdom, but all of them...

...From the freshmen to the seniors, from the doomed adjunct teachers to every last soul inside the faculty room... Every single one of them...

...Were demonic cultivators. 

..............................

As night fell over the campus like a heavy blanket, the lights inside the classrooms blinked out one by one. Only a single, trembling glow still stubbornly held on, coming from the closed window of the little room next to the life performance studio. Amid discarded pieces of clothing, wigs, and other weird accessories, a crooked candle burned fast, casting the warped silhouette of a woman over the peeling wall. Her back was slightly hunched, frozen in a strange, mournful posture. 

On a closer look, she was dressed in a totally inappropriate fashion, not just for the hour, but for the world itself. Her long, crimson gown dragged across the dusty linoleum, trailing behind her like spilled ink, as two slender hands covered in silk opera gloves moved around her body restlessly... Fidgeting, tugging, pulling at invisible threads, seemingly trying to fix something broken inside her. As for the woman herself, she was just as out of place as the clothes she wore, with impossibly long black hair gently glazing the curve of her slender hips and hiding most of her features.

"This is not right..." A slightly low and cracked voice came out of her pale lips, betraying a hint of unnaturalness. "It shouldn't be like this..."

"...But then again, how should it be?" The woman panicked for a second, only to slap her face twice to calm down, her gloved hands landing as lightly as feathers on her marble skin. Then, her arms continued to move downwards, smoothing invisible creases on her dress. Straightening her waist, she continued: "Maybe like this?"

"...Who do you think you are?! What gives you the right to treat me like one of your toys?!" 

Who... who...

Her suddenly strong voice reverberated between the four walls of the small room, hitting every corner before returning to her ears. Standing in the middle of the room, the woman now looked regal, with not a single trace of the anxiety she had shown before. However, as if a switch had been pressed, she suddenly started crying bitterly, once again bending her waist like a willow tree collapsing under the weight of cold snow. 

Big teardrops fell over her cheeks like pearls rolling amid the waves, and the woman fell to the ground, looking less like a human and more like a doll with its strings cut. Around her, the wide hem of her red dress spread on the floor, covering most of the little room.

If one were to watch her from above, she looked just like a wilted flower or...

...Like a big pool of blood. 

Still on the floor, the woman slowly turned her head, looking toward the candle. Her features were finally visible, with plump, perfectly round lips and amorous eyes, as the warm candlelight painted shadows over her fair cheeks. However, no matter how beautiful her eyes might have been, they were still dark and completely devoid of life, lacking even the slightest wisp of soul inside.

"Ah..." A hollow and tired sigh left her throat, accompanied by the rhythmic sound of her feet hitting the floor underneath her dress. 

Tap... tap... tap.

Feeling restless once again, the woman started thrashing around, not at all caring about preserving her appearance. Finally, she ended up completely on her back, sprawled on the cold floor, and looking up at the ceiling streaked with mildew.

One moment later, she started humming an eerie tune as the candle burned its last. It guttered once, twice... Then it died...

Plunging the entire room into darkness. 

.................................................

Hello everyone, this is my first novel ever, I hope you don't hate it too much :(( From next week, it will be updated twice a week, on Wednesdays and Fridays. Hope all goes well, and thank you for stopping by in my corner of the Internet. Have a lovely week!