24. 'Winter Wonderland'

*Song Meng POV

All the secrets are out now. She knows everything. To be completely honest, I wasn't thinking when I was telling her about everyone and everything in Period One. But that is okay. Instead of being horrified and calling us freaks or something like that, Qin Shan is thoughtful. She seems to understand and even has questions for me that I don't anticipate at all. She treats me with respect instead of with extreme caution. She makes me feel like I am human sometimes.

"Thank you" Her quiet voice snaps me out of my reverie. I can't help but smile.

"In all honesty, I should be thanking you." I say. And it is true She continues to make me smile and really just bring some light into this dark, morbid world and I truly appreciate her for that. I want to let her know in every way possible so that someday, she will accept me.

After First class period ends, we seperate, she goes to her next class across campus and I go to Wu He at our dorm. I am smiling jubilantly because, she knows and she didn't degrade me for it. Wu He notices my expression

"Spill it." He says. His tone is amused and shows signs of joking. He already knows that I Qin Shan about me.

"What was her reaction?" He presses further, a smile is blooming on his face.

"She isn't afraid at all, in fact, her reaction was almost too good. She wasn't horrified for what we are and she even had questions about the shifter clans. Wu He's eyes widen.

"You told her about the shifter clans?!" He is surprised.

"Yeah. I slipped, I know." We aren't supposed to tell any human about the shifter clans, or the rivalry between them and us.

"You put her in danger now. If anybody finds out that you told a human..." Wu He's voice softens, we both know the consequences for telling humans about other members in the league. It's worse than death.

"I know. But I think that she will keep her silence." I am confident that she will trust me and keep her silence. 'I know that she will.'

"If you say so." Wu He sounds a little bit concerned still but calmer.

I can only nod.

After third class, I pick Qin Shan up as usual and we walk to the courtyard together. She is silent, thinking, and I have to ask.

"Is there something wrong?" She looks up at me, a little bit startled.

"No. I was just thinking of what to do for the winter themed art project. I don't have a partner in class so I have to think of everything." She sounds a bit distant, like she is talking to herself.

"Do you want me to help you?" I automatically ask and she raises her eyebrows.

"You? An artist??" She breaks into a smile. "Sure. If you want to drop by with some suggestions then I would love that."

I nod. I'm enthusiastic because I can spend more time with her and just learn more about who Qin Shan is.

After break we depart to our fourth period classes. The day passes rather quickly and my excitement to work with Qin Shan on her winter project is just building.

The next day during first class I ask her if today was a good day to get into doing the project and she nods.

"Of course!" her smile brightens the room up and I almost let out a sigh.

"Great, I'll be there!"I smile too

"Good. I'll be waiting for you. I'm really thankful that you decided to do this with me. I was really lacking on inspiration." She looks me in the eyes and I can tell that she is genuine. The purple cloud that we are in only gets denser.

Third class comes and I make my way over just 10 minutes after the period starts, as I walk to the back of the art roon where her canvas is, heads turn and whispers start. I ignore them. Let all these people have their assumptions.

Qin Shan is busy organizing so I sit in a stool right next to the canvas. When she turns around she almost drops the pencils she was holding. Her reaction is really cute and I unconciously smile at her.

"Wow. You are here really early."

"Mhmmm." I nod - if only she knew how much I anticipated that we would be working together right now.

"Lets get started then." She starts gathering her stuff into neat piles before taking out her laptop.

"Do you have any ideas for a theme?" She says.

"Hmm.. maybe something with like snowflakes or something." I imagine a winter wonderland in my reply.

"Hmm, yeah! Then we could do like winter flowers and stuff... but something needs to be like the centerpiece of our art." Her brows furrow as she thinks about this carefully. I chuckle.

"How about the gazebo?" Her eyes light up

"Okay! And we could like enlace it with flowers and vines. That would be so beautiful." Her face brightens up as she speaks.

"What type of flowers?" She asks

"Carnations and lavender for sure." I say. I think that lavender and purple are her favorite colors and red would just compliment the scene.

"Hmm I like it." Her face is just in a beautiful smile, prettier than any flower that we could ever draw together.

"Do you want to start sketching it?" I ask, I am eager to see her nimble hands dance across the canvas.

"Sure, sure but are you going to draw at all?" She counters with a mischevious smile.

"Of course, all in good time." I laugh a bit.

"I'm going to hold you to that." She says with a small chuckle.

As the class period continues, we continue to just have small talk. In the end we only have a rough outline but it is obvious that it is going to be beautiful in the end.

"It looks like I'm going to have to come back tomorrow." I say with mock dissappointment.

"I'm looking forward to it." She murmurs and then covers her mouth slightly, cheeks slightly pink.

As we walk outside, there are small powdery fluffs coming down. First snow of the year. Qin Shan's eyes are bright and large and I know, with her, this life and this whole year can really be a winter wonderland.