“Nee-chan, wake up!”A girl wearing a school uniform entered a room decorated with lots of traditional Chinese objects. In the middle of it, a lump of bed sheets over a futon kept on sleeping. Carefully, the girl opened up the curtains to let in the sunlight and then looked around for something that would help her accomplish her goal. She walked in what little space she had and grabbed a gong mallet.
“If you don’t want to be late for school, this is your last chance.”
There was no reply. She then approached a medium-size golden gong.
“You know I’m doing this to help.”
With a determined smile, the girl struck the gong with the mallet.
“龙吃了我的裙子!” screamed Asuka while jumping out of the futon.
“Nee-chan, you shouldn’t sleep only in your underwear.”
The sunlight entered the big sister’s eyes, bringing her down before she could say anything.
“I’ll get going now because I want to get early to the entrance ceremony. I’ll see you there, nee-chan!”
Happy with her achievement, the younger sister left the room.
“Y… You didn’t have to do that, Tsukasa!”
With a weird feeling of defeat, Asuka got up and took a glance at her panda-shaped clock.
“Oh! I understand now! It’s almost late for school so you used the most awesome way to wake me up! That’s my little sister!
The girl laughed with pride having realized Tsukasa’s intentions. She kneeled in front of a cabinet and opened it, revealing a small altar with a toy sword resting on it.
“Dongbin-sama, today I begin another trial.”
She grabbed the sword and stood up in the middle of the room, closing her eyes. Not a sound could be heard. She took a deep breath and swung the sword, then turned around and her foot got caught on the bed sheets still on the floor.
“Woah!”
So she fell down. Lying once again on the futon, she laughed. The girl looked around. Lamps hanging from the ceiling, swords decorating the walls, figures over the furniture, most of them either gold or red, with panda motifs dominating over dragon’s. Speaking of pandas, there were small bamboo plants near the window. and a collection of panda plushes next to the door.
“Dongbin-sama, these are my treasures. It might be wrong for me to be attached to material things, but I just can’t help it.”
Asuka raised her right hand still holding the toy sword.
“Every single object in this room keeps an important memory. Clinging to memories is only human nature, so we hold on to them as long as we can. For as long as we can…”
Her hand trembled a little.
“Yet everything reaches its end. Every individual deserves to live, but we are not allowed to decide the time of our death. Humans have come to accept that as inevitable… I refuse.”
The trembling stopped. She clenched her hand.
“Even under Zhongli Quan’s laughter I’ll overcome every single trial I face. I’ll follow Dongbin-sama’s footsteps and I’ll…”
But the excitement was too much for her and a wide smile prevented her from finishing her speech. Joyfully, she rolled over the futon.
“That was so cool!”
She stood up once again.
“Just watch me, Dongbin-sama. I’ll definitely join you all.”
Asuka swung the sword in front of her. Its tip pointed to the panda-shaped clock. A cold drop of sweat slid through her back.
“... I forgot about school!”
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