CHAPTER 66: 66

"A Memory Inscription Spell!" I exclaimed.

"Correct," said Aunt Yeung. She sounded pleased.

"Our one in the Wishing Box is about this big, right?" you said, holding you hands out to about the size of the box.

"Right," I replied.

"Guess how big this one is," you said, nodding to your aunt and the glowing, moving figures.

"Uh..." I held out my hands out about a metre from each other.

"The whole mountain," you said with a smirk.

"The whole...?!"

"Here we are," interrupted Aunt Yeung. She looked stern, but there was a distinct air of pleasure in her countenance. She reached up a hand to the figures and made a complicated gesture. Immediately, one of the figures grew bigger until they were about life-size.

"That’s Zhan," I said. I’d recognise that kid anywhere... "He stole Bran’s sword."

"And destroyed it," added Aunt Yeung.

"What?!" I gasped then looked to you. "Really?"

You nodded. "It’s what caused my, uh, interest in blood that one time."

"Ohh..."

Aunt Yeung made the hand gesture again and the other figure also enlarged.

"And that’s Morgan," I confirmed.

"The handsome librarian," you whispered in my ear.

I shoved you in return.

"He appears somewhat familiar," said the snake-woman. "Sister Yeung, what do you think?"

"The pair are the same two that broke into the SSD’s headquarters recently," Yidi broke in instead. He had a tablet held up in front of him and I saw that there was a 3D computer model slowly spinning on the screen of Zhan’s face.

"What’s that?" I asked.

"Oh, Tuesday generated up some models to help identification. Here, you can have a look. Maybe you can check if there are any mistakes," Yidi said as he held out the tablet to me.

I took it and a spark went through my body as I slid my fingers over the screen, turning the model and selecting different options. I was touching technology. How long had it been? How had I survived? How had I been able to push back against that lovely hit of dopamine that every bit of reactive UI design sparked in my brain?

I rotated the model to a good, recognisable angle then held the tablet over to you to have a look. "Look! It’s so detail-"

You turned and your arm happened to brush against the edge of the device. I hadn’t meant for that to happen, and neither, I think, did you, but we were just sitting too close together...

The tablet’s screen winked into an eternal darkness and a faint smell of burning wafted upwards.

"Eh?"

We looked at each other. Uh oh...

"Oh, has the screen locked itself?" asked Yidi. "Here, I’ll unlock it. I usually keep it in power-saving mode just in case..."

"I think you might need to charge it," I said, quickly giving the slab of metal back to its rightful owner.

"Huh? But the power-saving mode said I still had ten hours..." Yidi pressed the power button but there was no sign of life.

You coughed. "Aunt Yeung..."

"Right, moving along..."

The slickness in which the woman swept away your accidental bricking of Yidi’s tablet amazed me and made me wonder just how many times this had happened before.

"What abilities do these two have?" the snake-woman asked, looking to you.

Instead, you turned to me. "You’ve seen more of them. Why don’t you describe them?"

"Ah, okay, well..." I recalled back to each time I’d crossed paths with the terror twins. "The boy, Zhan, he can sort of... use soundwaves, I think? He kinda does this," I made a punching motion with the palm out instead curled, "and then there’s this ringing sound. I think it’s from the bells around his wrist, but it’s really loud and it gets inside your head. It knocked me out one time."

"He was also the one who broke the glass in the hallway," you added.

The snake-woman and Ah-Boon exchanged a concerned look while Aunt Yeung remained calm and composed.

I went on. "That time we didn’t see Morgan, but he apparently broke into some crystal place...?" I looked to Yidi.

"The precious stone vault. They stole approximately five hundred pounds worth of stones and crystals and other things like that," said Yidi as he continued to try to turn on his tablet.

"Were they worth a lot or?" asked Ah-Boon.

"To us they’re worth a lot, but they’re basically the kind to use in spells. Industrial use, essentially."

"And this Morgan is proficient in spell crafting," said Aunt Yeung.

"Yes." It was you who replied this time. "We think he was the one who used a spell to infect a mundane girl’s mind by just having her look at it."

"Like a virus," I added.

"A virus? Have you studied medicine?" asked Yidi.

"No," I replied. "I’m more of a computer person..."

"A fellow nerd!" exclaimed Yidi. He clasped my hands. "I knew we were alike when we first met!"

I couldn’t help laughing and getting excited too. Discovering a fellow nerd is indeed an exciting event. Perhaps this was my chance to talk to someone tech savvy about the similarities between writing spell inscriptions and writing computer code... But then I felt a cold chill from my other side, the side where you were sitting.

Are you feeling jealous now? he mentally projected to Bran.

You cleared his throat. "The next time Zhan and Morgan appeared was in the forest..."

"Do you need some water?" asked Yidi. "I have a waterbottle..."

Which led to Cheungyi (a third Cheungyi to be exact) retrieving a mismatch set of cups and glasses from somewhere and pouring them all some tea from a teapot that was suspiciously small for how much liquid was coming out of it.

"Actually," I said after taking a sip of mine. It was warm and comforting and smelled of peaches. "It was Zhan and Morgan that attacked us at the flat before we came here-"

"What?!"

Both you and Aunt Yeung stared at me, completely aghast.

"Huh? Wait, you didn’t know...?"

"I thought I just collapsed and you brought me here," you said. I could see real panic in your eyes.

"You mean, you don’t remember Zhan asking you where the real sword is? Morgan using the chain spell thing on me? Then me flying around and camping on the mountains?"

"I remember the camping, but none of that earlier stuff..." You took my hand which, as usual, made my insides go fuzzy warm even with the serious situation.

"You’d better tell us more about this attack," said Aunt Yeung. "Is my... property in much disarray?"

I’d completely forgotten that the flat belongs to her. "No, it’s mostly okay," I said quickly. "I went back later and cleaned it up. Oh... but the window in Bran’s bedroom is a bit... missing. I had to break it when I escaped and uh... I don’t know how to fix it."

I felt your fingers tighten around mine and Aunt Yeung shook her head. "I am not holding you responsible," she said. She brought a fist down on the table with a thud. "But the gall to invade a space that belongs to me and hurt my charge and his person..."

"You said he used a ’chain’ on you? Is it the same one as the one Artemis used on you?" you asked.

"I think so? It felt the same, but I was able to wriggle out of it before it got too bad this time."

"Aunt Yeung," you said. "I think you need to check with your Xizang contacts if there’s anything strange going on."

"You think this ’chain spell’ is one of their secret arts?" said the snake-woman. "I don’t think that’s possible. Surely they wouldn’t think of breaking into the SSD or into Sister Yeung’s territory, it’s far too risky. They would upset all kinds of people."

"Perhaps it wasn’t one of them," came a voice from the door and in came Cheungyi, or at least, the first one. Her double gave a nod and left to go stand by the door again. "It is possible that they taught an outsider or one of theirs has secretly betrayed them."

"But-"

"I think it is neither," said Aunt Yeung. "Cheungyi, send message to my contacts to make inquiries, but I think it’s most likely that the art was stolen or at least emulated. Bran has described the attack on Misha in the cemetery to me and the fact that he was able to so easily sever the chains with a single slash means that no true master was using the skill. The same is true for the second time with Morgan."

Ah-Boon sighed. "I hope you’re right. I don’t want to think about what would happen if the Xizang masters decided to get involved with all this."

A thought occurred to me on hearing his words and I felt your fingers twitch against my tail. A single glance at you told me you were thinking the same thing as me.

"What’s all this?" I asked.

"Huh? Oh just..." Ah-Boon looked helplessly at his seniors.