Ling Ling let go her held on Deathstalker's hand and ran toward the man.
"Gàn dé hǎo... Gàn dé hǎo... (Good job... good job...)," The man praised her and patted her head. He then gave her something out from his packet. The girl received it joyfully before ran to enter the building.
"Huānyíng, wǒ de péngyǒumen (Welcome, My friends," The man's greet attracked Deathstalker and Bruno's attentions back to him. "Qǐng jìnlái (Please, come in," He added, invired both men to the building that looked like his house.
Deatstalker and Bruno looked at each other first before finally decided to welcome the man's invitation. They didn't know what was the man's plan on them, but at least he helped them from those guards at the port.
Inside the building, they were amazed and cringed. The interior of the building was verty high-tech and yet ethnical at the same time. There wa a big carpet that was flown all over the room. There was also a set of tea set, perhaps, that were made from copper. It was obvious that the tea set from Hindi. that was of course not strange. The strange thing was, the jug was pouring some king of liquid into two cups on the table.
"Huush.. Bholu, behave!" The man spoke with an ordering tone. Then the carpet suddenly stopped flying around. It rolled itself and landed on a corner of the room.
"You can speak English!" Bruno exlaimed, noticing the man spoke in English.
"You can, too ?" The man asked bacl. Bruno nodded. "Your master can speak English, too ?" The man asked agaon, refering to Deathstalker.
"Fliently," Deathstalker answered.
"Thank God!!" The man exclaimed in joy. His face became red out of the sudden happiness and excitement he felt. "I finally can speak with other than this stupid language!" He then grinned in shy, realizing he was cursing a language that might be Deathstalker's culture.
"Forgive me," he said, placing his two hanhs in front of his chest with praying-like position, "I didn't curse at the Eastern language. Estern language is nice. But these people, they use Eastern but in ruined grammar. It drives me crazy," he explained. His head was shaking and wiggling as he talked.
"That's okay," Deathstalker said. "I hate it alse"
"So, you are human ?" Bruno asked the man.
"He is," Deathstalker was the one who answered.
"How could you know ?" The man asked him back.
"Simple. You have philtrum. None of the guards has it," Deathstalker answered.
The man smiled hearing the answer. "You're right. I am a human. My name is Sukraj," he then introduced himself.
"I am Ming Huo. I came here looking for my wife," Deathstalker 'introduced' himself.
"And you are ?" Sukraj asked toward Bruno.
"I... I am Master Ming's slave. My name is whatever Master Ming calls me," Bruno said meekly.
"Common.. there aren't any slavery nowadays on earth," sukraj said in disbelieve.
Brino communicated with Deathstalker via gaze. They didn't know much about Sukraj to decide whether he could be trusted or not. But sukraj was definitely a smart man.
"He is Ferdinand, my friend, not my slave" Finally Deathstalker answered him.
"And I supposed your name is not Ming Huo ?" Sukraj asked again.
"I am Jan Yung Bin," Deathstalker said after a defeated sigh. "We were looking for his girlfriend who happened to be an Eastern also. the information we gathered said that people here ddn't accept any other skin color than yellow, except for slave. That's why, he asked me to help him and pretending to be my slave."
Sukraj nodded. "That's true."
"But... how can you accepted here ?" Bruno asked him. "I mean... I mean... your skin is not yellow."
Sukraj shrugged. "I can be yellow whenever I wanted to." He then laughed. "Come... have a sit and a drink first."
Once again, Bruno and Deathstalker glared at each other before they both sat on some kind of couch in the middle of the room.
Sukraj handed the cups that had been filled by the magic jug before toward in front of them. "These creatures here are more depending themselves on their smelling ability. They can see, but not as sharp as their nose to identify things. That's why at night light this, they need almost no light."
Deathstalker nodded. Now he understood why this house has the most light among other buildings in this area. But there was something he still didn't understand.
"Why did you tell Ling Ling to help us ?" Deathstalker asked Sukraj.
"I didn't tell her to spcifically help you," Sukraj answered. "I told her to stand by near the port gate to help humans that are being captured by the guards."
"Why ?" Bruno asked.
"Because I still have a heart, that's why. Al though I have lived here for more than eight years, I am still human. I couldn't bear to know other humans being repest."
"Repest ?" Again, Bruno asked.
Sukraj nodded. "You noticed we are inside the arth, right ? We don't have sun here. Thus, we don't have any real vegetable nor meat. No plant nor animal could live here. So all food here are artificial, thanks to their technology and power. The only real food they can have is human flesh. It is their top notch cuisine."
Sukraj's explanation brought goosebumps, even to Deathstalker who actually had guessed that the reason they were being bitten by the leader's pet was to poison them so they woouldn't be preys.
Bruno turned his head toward Deathstalker. His eyes were swollen as he tried to hold back his tears while his lips trembly whispered toward Deathstalkere, "Lily..."
"Did Ling Ling safe a woman... few months ago ?" Deathstalker asked Sukraj.
"Few months ago... no," Sukraj said. "But she did saved a woman maybe four days ago."
Deathstalker patted Bruno's shoulder as he dropped down his head in despair. Lily came her four months ago, not days. so this woman could not be her.
"You said... they prey humans. How could you survive ?" Deathstalker asked him again.
"Like I said, they are counting on their smelling ability. So, simple. I just trick them by having no human's odor," Sukraj answered.
"You can do that ?" Deathstalker asked in disbelieve.
Sukraj laughed. "Back in the days when I was still on earth, I am a quite well-kown scientist. I invented many things. One day, I met this woman. Her name was Jolline. She was not only beautiful but also really powerful. She was captured by my government, and being object of research of the lab where I worked on. Long story short, we fell in love to each other. She then told me her secret, that she was not human. She was from under here and she would die if she didn't come back here."
"You believed her ?"
"I did. But I'm not a fool, and I didn't want to loose her. So I told her that I would release her if she allowed me to go with her. She then said that I would't survive at her place because I am human and her people ate humans. I said I would find a way to conceal my human identiy. She then gave me information of the place where I could enter into this place, so whenever my research was succeed, I could catch up and join her here. Twenty years later, I finally found the solution. So I went to this place. I thought what I would find was the old version of Jolline. It had been 20 years, you know. But tirned out, twenty years on earth is only eight months here.. Thus, Jolline was still as beautiful as when she was on eath, but I was already old. Yet, she loved me the same...," Sukraj chuckled a little recalling the memory he had.
"Wait... so a day here is a month on earht ?" Bruno asked in excitement.
"It is," sukraj answered.
"So.. so...." Bruno halted his words after receiving a nudge on his outer thigh by Deathstalker's knee.
"The thing.. your creation that made you survive living here.... what is it? And more importantly... do you still have it ?" Deathstalker bombarded Sukraj with questions.
Sukraj smiled. It was so wide that almost like a grin. "It is a potion. The one I made only able to camouflage me for a day. But with the help of my late wife..." Sukraj stopped for a minute. His face became sad as he recalled his memory of his wife. He then exhaled heavily before continued his words, "With her help, I was able to develop more stronger potion. Not only it is now able to camouflage me for three days, it also helps me a lot with the gravitation."
"So... you still produces the potion now ?" Deathstalker asked.
"Yes," Sukraj answered.
"Can we.,, buy it ?" Deathstalker asked again.
Sukraj sighed, pretended to think hard. "It is very prcey. I mean... the ingredients are rare here..."
Bruno dragged the suitcase from his side onto his front and opened it. "We have these..." He showed all the golds to Sukraj, "How many bottles you can give us ?"
Sukraj growned while checking all gold bars inside the suitcase. "Actually, this is not enough. I mean.... gold is currency here, but,,, my potion is way more precious."
Deathstalker and Bruno sunk in disappointment. Sukraj saw it and sighed again. "But... you two seems like a nice person. So I will give you a bottle for those gold bars."
"What ?"
"Only a bottle ?"
Sukraj shrugged. "That's all I can do."
"A bottle for two of us... then we oly have one and a half day. What if we haven't found our friend then ?" Bruno murmured with a pleading face.
"Or... you can work for me as payment. Labor is expensive here," sukraj suggested.
"But if we work for you, how could we find our friend ?" Bruno asked again.
Sukraj shrugged. "It's your call."
Deathstalker sighed. "Let's just buy a bottle first with what we got and try to find her with time we got," he said heavily.
Bruno nodded. He bent down to close the suitcase when accidentally an orange fell off from the bundle of cloth he carried and rolled on the floor toward Sukraj.
Sukraj took it and the change of his face expression... it was indescribable. "Is this... is this..." He couldn't even complete his words, even with his shaking voice. He brought the orange onto his nose to sniff it, and when he was assure that it was a real orange, his hand was trembling. Not only that, he even got teary eyes.
"It's merely an orange," Deathstalker said calmly after observing the reaction of Sukraj.
"Merely ?!?! Do you know how many years I haven't taste it ?!?!? Eight years !! EIGHT!!!"
Bruno smirked. "I still have one more..."
Before Bruni could finish his sentece, a female voice called Sukraj with spoilt yet aluring tone, "Sukraj.. Qīn'ài... Wèishéme zhème jiǔ cái huílái? Wǒ yǐjīng gěi nǐ nuǎn bèiwōle… (Sukraj... Dear... why it took you so long to return ? I have warm the bed for you...)"
Then there was sound of feet stepping down from staris. "Lái ba...wǒ děng bùjíle... (Come on... I can't wait to...)"
The woman finished her words with a sharp gasp as both Deathstalker and Bruno excalimed in surprise, "Viper!!"
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