Aster woke to sit straight up like a fish flipping her body, looked around and checked herself all over with two hands.

Five minutes later, she got to her feet and dusted herself off, "that was close, lucky for me... didn’t get... well, still alive, anyway..."

Standing there, Aster found her clothes were dry now and the building was so familiar. She leaned forward and peeped inside. What she saw got her run for her life. It was where the wolf rested for the night.

Maybe after the wolf howled of rage at her and she blacked out, he himself went to bed in spite of her.

Having thought of this, she felt both sad and mad.

He surely was not a gentleman, which she saw it clearly now. He had no interest at all in her!

"damn!"

After a long sigh, Aster’s head slumped and intended to get out through this picturesque path. Dense bamboos were grown on both sides, the leaves were whispering in the cool breeze. Aster couldn’t help but wonder why there were so many bamboos, it must be eerie at night.

But it was just a careless thought. A casual glance at the bamboo shoots under the leaves changed her mind totally.

"They are just bamboos! Real bamboos! The shoots are just edible!" Aster thought of the aphrodisiac thing with the appearance of sweet potatoes earlier and got the chill. She turned and and ran for the bamboos, her mouth watering, "stewed meat with bamboos, stewed meat with bamboos, bamboos are great, what a fantastic idea of the plantation of bamboos!"

Just when she’d dug the third shoot out, the little monsters on duty nearby crowded the path, "why are you digging these, my lady?"

"Eat them, you are all very welcome to my place for dinner! Wait! These are edible right?"

"Sure, but taste not good, ewww..."

One little monster spat out some raw shoot and scratched at his tongue.

"..."

Aster rested assured anyway. She welcomed all of them to her house for dinner with great hospitality, on only one condition of bringing some salt.

The little monsters still remembered the delicious skewers and naturally nodded their acceptance. They all helped her digging and promised to help carry the shoots to her place.

Aster was free then. Now she took to her legs as fast as she can without any gibberish because the little monsters just told her that the king went to the morning meeting earlier and it was almost time for his returning.

But as fast as Aster could run, she still, at the exit of bamboo forest, ran into Adalwolf, who walked at a vigorous pace.

"Your... your majesty, I great you, you must have had a busy morning!"

"..."

Huh? Why was he not talking? What should she do?

Aster’s heart was pounding, cold sweat all over.

"Yesterday..."

Well? What of yesterday?"

"Leave me! You’ll keep your life for a few more days as long as you do less things I detest."

Aster shivered and answered, "Yes, your majesty!"

Aster ran off as fast as she can, she didn’t think she’d put as much efforts as in the PE class during her high school. She ran all the way back to her house, but at the gate she was stopped by red-haired Herald.

"Rumor has it that you slept at his majesty’s bedroom, tell me what happened, will you?"

"It was alright, I slept on the bench in the corridor all through the night."

Herald was caught off guard by the news and went mad, "is he a real man? That jerk! I’d heard that you ate the Love Fruit by mistake! Did he...help you with it?"

Love Fruit! That aphrodisiac roots looked like sweet potatoes!

The thought of it aroused her anger, "no! And I’m lucky that he didn’t. I healed all by myself! I overheard that he said I ate one of the twin ones or something like that! Anyway, in my opinion, it is so not appropriate to have these prohibited plants planted everywhere! It is... not safe, I just dug them from my backyard!"

"The twin ones, who did you have them with?" Herald contemplated.

"some little monster doing cleaning with me."

"My god! Is it a he or she? Is he in love with you? Tell me! Who the hell is he? Had his eye on the king’s woman? I’ll kill him!" Herald exploded instantly, he pulled up his sleeves and his hair was like burning flames.

Aster was distracted for one moment and thought of the snake named Fair, then she waved no at once, " impossible! Never would that one have his eye on me, calm down and rest yourself. He surely didn’t know that was Love Fruit. Now tell me, what does twin fruits mean?"

"If the Twin Love Fruits are eaten by two, they will feel the sexual desire for each other, and some torrid love affair would happen indeed! If one of them did it with someone else, the other would be good as well."

" Oh I see! Then the snake monster must have had it with someone else?!"

" Why do you have that disappointed look?"

Aster couldn’t help but remembered that face, and pitied the snake man, "god knows he did it with a man or a woman?!"

"...???"

"Herald, I don’t think your king will ever like me." After she sighed at Fair, Aster couldn’t help but sigh to Herald woefully, " he’s always wanted me dead. Just because I refused his kindness of helping me doesn’t justify his kicking me out and and leaving me sleep in the corridor. It was so not like what a man in our world would do. Now he doesn’t even want to see me anymore, and every time he sees me, he yells at me to leave...no..."

It saddened Herald to hearing about it. "well, girl, as long as you are still alive, you still have the chance."

"I feel blue..." Aster raised her head to the far off blued sky, and cried with no tears.

In the meanwhile, the little monsters who were busy digging bamboo shoots lifted their heads to find the approaching king, who seemed to be upset and want to vent his anger by killing any monster. They dropped the fresh shoots on the ground in terror, and dropped their knees onto the ground like bang.

"Ye... your... your majesty, we greet your majesty."

Adalwolf gave a glance at the bamboo shoots on the ground, and said in a voice with defaulted cooling function, "what matter is this?"

"the... the lady said... they are edible... and she wants to eat them."

Edible? This? She wants this?

Adalwolf frowned, "did you bring meat to her everyday?"

"She said... eating meat all the time is giving her nutritional imbalance, she wants vegetables."

"Huh?"

He sneered, and the little monsters were scared the crap out. Generally, when the king made this sound, it meant that someone would be unlucky today!

"Then bring her vegetables."

"!!!"

The trembling monsters watched the king went far, phewed and slumped onto the ground, "well, the king surely treats the lady differently."

One of the little monster nodded hard, "yes he does. This morning when I was on my way to perform my duty of watering the plants in his majesty’s bedroom, I saw he picked her up from his bed and laid her in the corridor before he went for the morning meeting."

"..."

Is there something wrong with their king?