Meanwhile, Xander had walked into the mansion to be greeted by chaos. He knew that the Liu household was a mess and that Lumina was very pissed off, but he did not expect this.
"Fucking hell, Jiali Liu, what have you done this time?" Xander muttered under his breath, as he stepped around the soldiers that were currently knocked out. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, "I swear, if I have to bail you out of jail for the third time, I'm going to be seriously annoyed," Xander said quietly, and then paused, "Wait, I've only bailed her out twice though?" He recounted his memories to find an incident that didn't quite line up and shook his head, "You know what, I'm simply not dealing with this now," He said as he walked into the meeting room.
Chaos. Chaos was all he could see.
"They're all batshit crazy. Jesus Christ, I make fun of Mina's and Kaedan's family so much I completely forgot about mine," Xander said to himself before dodging a wine glass tossed outside the door. He took a deep breath before walking inside, "Alright, all of you, put your hands where I can see them," He pulled out a handgun and aimed it at the people who were meant to be his mother and father.
His cousin turned to see him, "Oh, hey. I didn't realize you were coming here as well," Lumina smiled as if she hadn't caused the majority of the damage in the room.
"Jiali, I meant that for you, too. Don't move. We're going to settle this like civilized people," Xander said, glaring at all of them.
Lumi—Jiali rolled her eyes and put down the decorative axe that was originally on the wall, "If they hadn't tried to attack me, this could have gone a lot smoother."
"Jiali Liu, you are a fugitive. Of course, we were going to attack you!" The older woman in the room yelled at her but quickly flinched when Jiali turned to her with a glare.
"What did you say, you backstabbing bitch?" She growled.
"Jiali, we're being civilized, remember? Now, let's see how many fingers we'll have to cut off for them to listen to us," Xander glared at them.
"You….You ...We thought you were dead!" Xander's mother yelled.
"That much was obvious since you guys didn't even bother to help after the Sector 1 Royal Family threw me in jail when they found out that Kaedan and I were in a relationship. Which honestly, is a bullshit move since even if I was with my client, the appropriate move would have been to get him a new lawyer, not throwing me in jail," Xander deadpanned.
"You were in a relationship with who?" His father asked.
Xander let out a scoff of disbelief, "You didn't even know. Brilliant. Yeah, they put me in jail because I was dating the crown prince of Sector 1. Although he made the right call leaving Sector 1, look at how it's doing without him. Kaedan has been my partner for years now," Xander grinned, "So, have fun knowing that your future son-in-law used to be a crown prince and is insanely wealthy since money is all you really care about. If only you two had been decent people, then maybe you could have had a share of that…"
Jiali sat back and watched the devastation unfold on the older couple's faces. This was obviously a satisfying show for her. Her aunt and uncle treated her like shit.
"Now, Jiali is here because she wants this house back. The house you stole from her parents before you basically forced them out of here using blackmail," Xander said calmly.
"No!" The older man finally yelled, "After everything we did to get this house, we refuse to leave. We are not going to live in the dirt again!"
"Including making your own sister and brother-in-law disappear, but hey, karma's a bitch, isn't it?" Jiali muttered, "And also for lying to your so-called 'son' for basically all of his life."
Xander turned to her at this. "What are you talking about?"
Jiali held up the papers in her hands, and Xander recognized them to be birth certificates. More precisely, two copies of Xander's birth certificate, except that the names of the parents were different for each one.
"This was what really pissed me off," Jiali said, glaring at the older couple as Xander grabbed the birth certificate and stared at it, "All this time, you never told him the truth. You were never planning on telling me and him that we're actually siblings, were you? Let me guess, after being unable to have your own children, you chose to take the one from your sister and brother-in-law that you thought would be the most successful. And then, you treated the other one as leftovers. Hi, that's me, by the way."
"Wait, we can explain—" Xander's mother—No, his aunt tried to talk, but Xander cut her off with a cold laugh.
"Oh, now you definitely owe us the house. Firstly, you basically blackmailed the original owners of the house and made them disappear, I have proof of that. Secondly, you forged your name illegally onto their heir's birth certificate and made false copies of it. Thirdly, according to my parents' will that you two forged, in the absence of a son of legal age, the property goes to the parents or sibling of the property owner. With this recent revelation, it's clear that there is, in fact, a son of legal age. Now, I suggest you sign these legal documents saying you're handing the house over to new owners. Mention our real names and I will kill you instantly," Xander said with no emotion in his voice.
"But—" They tried to fight back but they knew it was a lost cause. One could not simply defeat Xander in a battle of words. Or weapons for that matter.
"Don't bother trying to argue. I can and will take this to court. And I'm sure both of you are aware that I'm very good at faking identities, no? Even if my identity changes, my strategy won't. You two do know what I used to be known as before I turned on the White Lotus, right?" Xander smirked.
The man and woman didn't bother arguing. Every person in the Stronghold knew his name.
Mr. Alexander Guocheng Liu. The lawyer who defeated Death too many times to count, regardless of which Sector he was in.
"I'm giving you twenty-four hours to get out of here. We arrive in the morning. Any word of you ratting us out, I will personally make sure to end your life before you even begin to start a new one."
And the Assassin that dethroned a full monarchy in a matter of days.
The two nodded rapidly, not wanting to make him angrier. Xander turned to Jiali and handed her the papers. She put them back into her briefcase and closed it. She nodded and Xander turned and walked out the door. She followed, not saying anything.
"It doesn't change anything, you know," Xander muttered quietly.
"What?" Jiali asked as they both got into the older man's car.
"That we're actually siblings. We've always treated each other like it," He said as he started the car up.
"That's true. I just...I don't know why but for some reason I kept hearing myself calling you my brother, like my full-blooded brother. Some part of me wanted to check. Cousins...It felt right, but it also felt like it was just missing the mark," Jiali said, leaning back and sighing.
"It's because of what's happening." Xander had one hand steering the car and the other running through his hair. "Something's changing but we don't know what it really means. It's like…Not everything is what we thought it was," He said softly.
"Mina told me about Apocalypse, what she said. What the hell are we going to do about that? The girl's straight up getting possessed occasionally? And all of a sudden, someone who was supposed to be an urban legend is telling us that the only person who can understand something that's literally making us lose our minds is a nineteen-year-old boy. What the fuck is this?" Lumina said, looking at him
Xander clenched the steering wheel tighter, "I don't know, A'Li, I don't know. But is this—Is this really new information? Leon has always seemed to know a little more than he's supposed to. We thought it was because he was a fully functional cyborg and scientist but after meeting Risále, it just doesn't feel the same. And he was the one who mentioned that she was like him, or at least, supposed to be like him. Leon's always known something we didn't."
"All we can do is trust him," Lumina said softly.