"About a month before her father rushed her to Beijing." Harper responded.
"Who is her father?" Hannah asked.
Harper tilted his head, "That's not something you can ask others, little lady. Asking for their parentage is no different from asking for their weakness and strength. It can sound as though someone is trying to take advantage of them."
"There's such a thing?" Hannah looked to Rain and Lia in bewilderment.
Lia shook his head, "Don't look at me. I don't know anything about that. Just that we're attracted to other demigods by blood. We mostly know those in America, not many in other countries."
Harper flapped as he readjusted his position for sleep before saying, "If you want to know, then go ask her yourself."
"I have." Belen responded, "Even when she figured out who I am, she won't tell me and wants me to guess."
Harper stretched his wings once more and responded, "Yup. Sounds like something she'd do."
"So..." Mitra called out, "Who are you?"
Harper puffed up his chest feathers and responded, "Me? I'm a messenger for milady and her father."
"What?!" Lia looked to Belen.
Belen nodded, "That's exactly what he told us."
"Then, you should know why her father is pushing her?" Rain questioned with a frown.
"He's already mad that he lost his other children." Harper responded bluntly, "He's attention has always been on mistress and, lately, they're not having a pleasant time with all the chaos Hades has been brewing up, so he did the craziest thing nobody in the Jade palace would dare do."
"Craziest thing?" Hannah raised a brow, "Which is?"
"Save Willow from the dead." Harper responded, "Just so you know, reviving a soul or interfereing with death is a taboo. Breaking it is equalavent to losing their position. One will need an extensive support of permission to be allowed to break it. In this case, it wasn't just her father. The Jade emperor, the King of Yellow Springs and a greek goddess took part. Amongst all the dead, it was said that a handful was randomly grabbed and saved before their passing."
"But isn't breaking it a taboo?" Mitra frowned, "Aren't they going a little too far?"
Harper sighed, "Do you have any idea how annoyed everyone in the heavens are? There was a time that mistress started shattering boulders and needed Willow's father to console her. I'd know because I was there. Something about Hades probably testing everyone's patience."
Grin grunted, "Ah. Those guys are in a very big trouble, then..."
Lia growled, "Yeah? Then, why didn't they just give everyone a hand to stop Hades?"
Harper scowled, "You think we can interfere with the business of the human realm, much less other gods and goddesses?! Impudent! If they could've done something, they've already be thinking of a way to obliterate the greek god of the Underworld by now! They simply can't because he's still sealed and the greek gods doesn't want outside interference."
Grin shuddered, "That's a strong hate. And, Willow has that much responsibility on her?"
Harper shrugged again, "I don't know. I wasn't there when that happened. All I know is that Willow is doing all this for her own goals too."
"She mentioned that she has important people out of this country." Mitra responded, "Maybe she isn't native here?"
Harper shrugged, "She is and she isn't."
"Huh?" They turned to the bird to which Harper just began to cuddle up into a feathery ball.
"Well," He finished, "I'm going to sleep first. Night, guys..."
Seeing that the bird no longer wants to respond, Lia was annoyed but didn't touch the bird further after hearing that he served under a god. Hannah turned to Belen, "Were you able to find any clues about her, Belen?"
Belen shook his head, "She's rather cunning. With just a few information, she's already grasped onto my dad's identity. She also has Aki with her."
Mitra sighed, "Can we really trust her though?"
Rain frowned, "At this point, I doubt we can do anything else. But, I know she doesn't want us to follow her all day."
Grin spoke up with a frown, "What should we do now? It's too dangerous to do everything on our own. We could get caught too."
Hannah looked to the others and frowned, "What if we tried to find another demigod? Willow said that there was two other demigods."
"Yeah, but we don't know if they're going to join us or they're against us." Mitra responded with a sigh. Sometimes, she felt as though Hannah could be a little bit naive sometimes.
Rain nodded, "If we're going to approach them, we need to be on our guards. They could choose to attack us."
Hannah nodded back in understanding. Ying Wei's yawn surprised them as Belen shook his head, "Do what you guys want. I'm gonna stay with these kids."
"You're going to stay with Li Yun and the kids?" Rain raised a brow, "Don't you have people back in America?"
Belen frowned, "If I go back now, those guys will come after them. I also can't leave on my own if there was so many of those people to begin with."
He then grabbed his medical mask and the child's before saying, "I'll be turning in, then."
Stunned, the group looked to one another as the little boy said in English good night to them before sleeping next to the big brother. After a while, they soon got over it and talked a little more before the other two girls left for their room where they found Willow already fallen asleep and the mother and child sleeping on the other bed. Thankfully, the two beds were large so they were able to squeeze in without much problems.
The next morning, Willow had bought Li Yan and her children a fresh set of clothing to change into before bringing them to the tiny apartment room she had rented in the rural parts. It was a ten minutes walk from her place to her teacher's home too. After doing so, Willow went back to the apartment where she found Hannah and the others talking in the boys' room again. It wasn't appropriate for the girls, but Willow had told them to manage it for now.
"Find a place to settle down for now." Rain responded much to everyone's surprise as he reasoned, "I get it. It takes too long and people are getting hurt, but, if we're gone, the people will continue to get hurt."
Hannah frowned but nodded, "I don't like it, but I agree that'd be the best action right now."
Mitra nodded, "If we move again, they'll catch onto us. Instead, we should settle down and gather more information. But, we have a limited budget so we can't stay for long."
Grin sighed, "I'll go find a job, then. Maybe a cashier or something."
"You'll have to be really good with numbers, then." Willow responded with an exasperated sigh, "And, in case you've forgotten, you would have to be able to speak Chinese."
"Seriously?!" Grin's eyes widen in shock, "I forgot!"
Lia sighed, "I'll manage."
"Me too." Hannah responded, "I can even treat this as a form of overseas internship or volunteer."
Hearing this, Willow looked to Hannah, "You go to college too?"
"Yeah." Hannah responded, "What about you?"
"I started attending college recently in Beijing, but something went on and I left before all of this took a turn for the worst." Willow responded.
"Then, what are you doing now?" she asked in confusion.
Willow raised a brow, "I'm afraid that would be my own business, but I appreciate your concern?"
Willow had to put it into a questioning tone since she wasn't certain if this girl was really being sincere to her or was a wolf in disguise. Hearing this, Mitra looked to Willow with a disapproving frown. Hannah raised a brow, "Then..."
She thought for a bit before shaking her head, "Never mind. I apologies for being nosy."
Willow shook her head letting it go easily. The fact that the woman apologized was all that mattered anyway. If she hadn't, Willow would've assumed that she must've been rather spoiled rotten growing up.
After they had finished talking it out that day, Willow took careful procedures to hide her tracks as she made her way back to her teacher's place. The walls was the same bleach stone structure while the wooden gates still stood with a little bit of cracked black paint and the feeling of her teacher's invisible barrier continued to come down on her as it usually does. Willow saw that Teacher Xia wasn't anywhere to be found so she knocked on the wooden gates. It was then that she heard a call.
"I'm coming! I'm coming!"
It was the familiar old voice of the old man. It was then that the door opened that she saw the wrinkly old man in his old cotton and silk clothing looking to her with furrowed brows as he questioned in bewilderment, "You're back already?"
Willow nodded with a sigh, "The old man only told me to start moving, so I did. Now I'm back to look up some more stuff before I go back again."
Hearing her words, Teacher Xia couldn't tell if she was telling the truth or not. After all, she had only been gone for a little over a week! It hadn't even reached the month time he had set for her. Regardless, seeing the girl back in one piece, the teacher could only let her in.
After she finished talking about the situation with her teacher, the old man, once again, smacked her led with his cane.
"Foolish girl! Do you know what reckless means?" The man scolded her, "Want to contact the guards of Yellow Springs? Are you trying to bring yourself closer to death than last time?!"
Wincing at the pain, Willow frowned, "I wasn't planning to contact them directly, though."
She quickly received another smack as the man scolded her, "Don't talk back to your elders!"
"Got it..." Willow grumbled slightly in pain as she bit back a sigh.
It was then that the old man rested his eyes on the black cat with a raised brow as he grumbled, "So this is the familiar that you spoke of?"
Willow nodded with a sigh, "That's right. He's Aki."
The teacher raised a brow quietly in thought as he's rarely seen a cat familiar. He had thought that she'd tamed the cats that tried to stalk her in the cities, but this one was a little unusual.
Noticing his gaze, the cat smirked. With a swish of his tail, another appeared surprising the old man as the guy shouted, "A Nekomata!"
Knowing this guy was up to his antics again, Willow sighed and shook her head, "No, Teacher Xia. Aki, quit it and show yourself before my teacher gets a stroke."
It was then that thin black tail grew thick and fluffy as his face grew long and his ears pointer. the thin and weak limbs grew longer along with his body.
Seeing that the cat had turned into another form, the old man's jaw nearly dropped. It was only after seeing the fox run around with a wide smirk on his face that the elderly found his voice back, "A Kitsune fox!"
He quickly grabbed a hold of his student's arm and scolded, "You silly child! What did you do to get a Kitsune as a familiar?!"
Seeing his surprised reaction, Willow raised a brow, "Um, is something wrong?"