The morning's light engulfing one side of the room and warming the room. The warmth and comfy feeling are really nice especially when it blend in with the cold fresh morning air of the woods. The sound of the stream also like the ASMR audios I have in my iPod but this is a LIVE version. I stretched up for few minutes. This is my fifth days here, I was not allowed to going back yet.
I was reading on the mysterious cases when Xian knocked on my door.
"Come in."
Xian entered with a smile. "Good morning, Ai. How's your study?"
He carried a thick book with him, in a glance it is look like a dictionary to me.
"Good morning. I found many interesting and attractive cases." I smiled back. I been asked to study on the mysterious cases that House of Oracles have been dealing with from decades ago and to recently.
"I come to inform you that you will be having a guests today. The VVIPs of our house and also Lilian will be coming this evening." Xian sit opposite of me.
"VVIP?" I been captivated by word "VVIP".
"A person that is funding our organisation in the secret. You will be meeting them on the evening. But I warn you in advance, the son of the VVIP is a bit narcissistic. So, please bear with it if something unpleasant happen later." Xian stand up, pats on my shoulders before he leave the room.
I still have something to asked but he was already disappearing behind the door. I sighed. I lost in my own thoughts for a while before continued on my reading and take down some notes for my novel. When I come to my sense it is already afternoon.
Mu Hua come in after knocks on my door. She brought the lunch with her. I do not see the twins tailgating their mother today, probably they are taking their afternoon's nap.
"Sister Hua, you no need to bring the lunch for me. I will be in the kitchen in a minute."
"The kitchen is full due to the preparation for the dinner for our VVIP tonight." Mu Hua sit on the couch after she put down the tray on the tea table. She looks exhausted.
"Oh my God. What a rude of me! I should be helping in the kitchen despite having my good time here." I put away the papers I was reading and Mu Hua stopped me.
"It's okay. Leave it to the experts. You're our guest somehow. We shouldn't let you work in the kitchen. And Xuan told me that your job is here, study the cases. So, I shouldn't bother you." Mu Hua smile sincerely.
I paused for a while and studied her face.
"Have you eaten, Sister Hua?"
She shook her head. "I was really busy since this morning. This is the only break time I have."
She pounded on her shoulders once a while.
"Then, have a lunch with me. It's a kind of lonely to eat alone." I grinned.
She seem to be hesitated but then agreed. We were having a conversation on many topics while enjoy our meals. Mu Hua was really excited when she talked about her children and her garden at the backyard near the stream.
In the dusk, Xian lead me to the backyard's garden. It is really vast and one beautiful Victorian style garden. I always saw it from my window but this is the first time I am here. The bright neon lights makes the garden seem to be more beautiful as usual.
"Aiiiiiii~" A familiar voice is calling my name and I feel a warm embrace from a very familiar figure.
"Lili..." I patted on Lilian's back, hugging her back.
"I'm glad that you're fine. Eden Xu said you need to practice with him for days. I was really worried when you didn't return my text." Lilian still hugged me tightly.
"Lili... You're choking me." Lilian quickly break her embrace and we laughed together.
"What are you doing here?" I look at Lilian in puzzle.
"Well... Eden Xu was sending me an invitation for a dinner tonight. I come with my family and you know, my papa's business partner also here tonight." Lilian pulled my hand after she whispered to me and I tumbles in my steps while following her.
She introduced me to her brother, Ryan and his wife, Sophia Waltz, a very elegant British woman. After I was greeting uncle and aunty, Xu Xuan excuse us and bring me to meet the VVIP at the side of the garden. The elders are also there.
Xu Xuan introduced me to the VVIP, Mr. Liu Hai Feng, his wife Mrs. Hu Er and his son, Liu Xi Han. I felt awkward when meet up the rich people like them. I stay silent and only listen to Xu Xuan and other elders' conversations with Mr. Liu. I also few times catch Liu Xi Han was staring at me, it is really uncomfortable.
Mrs. Hu Er suddenly poke on my forearm. "Don't you feeling stuffy here?"
I have no chance to answer when she said again, "Why don't we go to the place that suitable for both of us?"
Mrs. Hu Er pull my hand softly to the table where Lilian and her family are sitting at. She greeted Lilian's mother and they started to chitchatting about their daily life once they are sitting next to each other. Sometimes they turned to me and asked me few questions. Lilian and I also busy talking about various topics that are hot issues nowadays. The table was merrier with various topics of our conversations. I felt welcome there with them.
Our conversation was cut short when Mu Hua and the others are coming with foods. Everyone sat together for dinner and also having the casual conversations about their daily life. Among all the people there, I felt a pair of eyes are watching me again. I did my best to ignored the uneasiness from that eyes. Liu Xi Han keep on staring at me started from my introduction to them until we were having dinner on this long table. I do feel like wanted to dug out his eyes at this moment!!
Finally after the dinner and the chitchats, the elders invited me to the meeting room with them. I followed them like an obedient cow.
In the meeting room, I felt that all eyes are on me. Without anyone uttered a word, Liu Xi Han hustle forward and put an envelope in front of me. I opened it and there was a folder contained a passport and other identification materials. Curiosity arise, I flipped it and saw my photo on the passport but my name was different. The other identification materials are also the same.
"What is the meaning of this?" I was puzzled.
"Your new identity. You will be moving around with that identity now. And your real identity will be keep hidden." Liu Xi Han talked to me seriously.
I still have no idea with what is happening. I blinked many times while looking at the profile inside the folder.
"Ehem..." Mr. Liu Hai Feng cleared his throat before he further his speech.
"Miss Kim Ai, I'm sorry we didn't explained to you early on this matter. Well, let me briefly explain to you about us, the organisation and also the reason behind your new identity. As you are already well informed, I'm the one that is funding this organisation and my son is the one that running its operation as the active agent. This is the organisation that my family had been taking care of since many decades ago. We are investigating and solving the cases that our daily's authorities could not taking care of. And, we do have a few branches in the other countries called 'ROOTS'. Everyone under this organisation must move with a fake identity to protect their family and themselves from the Rasalhague's serpents." He stopped and take a sip on his tea.
"Well, I have heard a lot about you from Lilian but I never had an intention to have you involved until the recent incident. We need your ability. Although my son quite disagreed with me on this matter, I still do feel we need you in our organisation." Mr. Liu Hai Feng look straight into my eyes, I gulped on my saliva. The way that old man look at me like he was going to kill me if I declined his offer.
"Frankly speaking, we did have make a background check on you. You have the ability since your young age and although no one ever trained you on properly using your ability. Yet, you're able to improved it into the average level and protected yourself from any harms caused by evil spirit. It's really amazed me that you were never being possessed before." Liu Xi Han nodded at his own words, he seem to be really satisfied with his own hypothesis about me.
"While, the bracelet is another ground zero to your new ability. You are able to caused harm to any evil spirit that you hit or have a direct contact with." Master Yamagami Aoi spoke for the first time after a long time.
"Bracelet? What bracelet?" Liu Xi Han sound curious.
"Yes. The Tibetan bracelet she is wearing have a powerful spiritual energy that could repelled or harmed any evil spirit that coming near her or people around her in a certain range." Brother Xu Xuan explained on the bracelet.
"I never heard of the bracelet before... No one ever mentioned it to me." Liu Xi Han rise his eyebrows. His eyes were crawling on me and stopped at my left wrist.
"When I asked Lilian earlier, she indeed thought that bracelet was an ordinary Tibetan bracelet and she never pay attention to it. But after I witnessed its power at the temple, we found out it was not an ordinary one. It is also have two small bells attached to it." Xu Xian filled Liu Xi Han on the details about my bracelet.
I cursed Lilian for spied on me all this time. These people knew about me since long ago without I knew it. Lilian come closed to me to gather the informations on my ability. I should asked a ghost to haunt her for a year later as a reward for deceiving me.
"So, mind to fill me in more about your bracelet, Miss Kim?" Liu Xi Han words cut off my bad thoughts on the ways to punish Lilian.
"Emm... Actually, I don't know the origin of this bracelet as I found this bracelet under my seat during the examination's day when I was in my first year in college. I been wearing it since then. I know nothing about the ability or power it's hold." I look at the bracelet, I stroke on the two bells and they are jingling resonantly.
"So, you're just an idiot that picking up stuff on the street and wears them." Liu Xi Han snarled at me.
I am about to talked back to that ungrateful kid when his father, Mr. Liu Hai Feng's roared in that meeting room.
"Watch your words, Xi Han! Respect our guest!" Mr. Liu Hai Feng suddenly raised his voice. I almost jumped from my seat.
"I'm sorry on my son's behalf." Mr. Liu Hai Feng's voice lowered and he looked guilty.
"It's alright. It's true that I'm an idiot that picking up stuff and wearing them without thinking if it's possessed and might harm myself. I'm glad that Mr. Liu Xi Han do remind me on it." I snarled back at that bastard. I really hate the way he looked at me.
"I'm personally glad that you found it, Miss Kim. Because without it, your life maybe in danger more than we can imagine." Xu Xuan smiled at me while uttered his mind.
I looked at him curiously and before I speak up my puzzle mind, Liu Xi Han goes ahead of me.
"What do you mean by danger more than it could be?" He frowned.
"Miss Kim was born with a strong Yin energy. She is an underworld maiden in the living realm. Without that bracelet, she might become the target of every spirits to possessed as her power grow stronger day by day. All this time, her presence have been hiding by the bracelet's energy." Xu Xuan gaze meet mine.
"Underworld maiden? A maiden that rumour to be able to repelled evil spirit only by swinging her bell's wand. Some even said this maiden is predestined to marry the underworld emperor." Liu Xi Han sunk his back on his chair.
It is clearly shown on his face that he could not believe the things he was heard. While, I myself almost burst into laughters. I know spirit does exist but those underworld emperor, underworld maiden sound like a bluff to me. A very interesting idea to write about in my novel, maybe.
"If it is true. I'm not going to doubt it why the bracelet was choosing her as its master. I also think I understand why she was choose as the ghost bride by someone higher up in Antares Studio. This people must be have know more about Miss Kim that we do." Master Aoi frowned and a slight line of worry showed clearly on his face.
Everyone in the room stayed silent. When I do think back about how I involved with Antares Studio, it does suspicious that they were suddenly contacting me and offered me a job just after a few days I arrived in Beijing. It is make no sense for me now if it was a coincidence.
"Pardon my rudeness. But I'm sorry because I don't want to involve with any of this or change my identity. All I want is to writing my novel peacefully." I broke the silentness and I pushed away the envelop that contained a passport and my new identity.
"Miss Kim, I personally plead that you lend us your strength. To be honest, there is a case I want you to take in and it is probably may benefit you for your novel. You also will be get paid monthly by the organisation." Mr. Liu Hai Feng tried to lure me into his trap.
He seem to be knew that I am in a tight budget for a living expenses and a dried idea for my novel. Mr. Liu Hai Feng's bait make me in a deep dilemma. Now I am wondering what a decision should I make? And would I regret it later?