Six-Petaled Lotus

Kenneth's Home, Singapore, 2019

Immediately after reaching home, Kenneth ran to his room, the smallest one on the left side of the living room. The room has a bed in the middle, the right side of it is a small wardrobe, the left side of it is a shelf and a study table beside it facing the window. There is only a small U-shaped area around the bed to walk and the number of worksheets, textbooks and boxes filled with small trinkets on the study table makes the room look messy.

After entering his room, he quickly closes and locked the door, even though no one's home, he was still careful not to be found out by his parents and sister. His parents detest pets the house, they don't even let him keep the longkang fishes he caught with his friends, let alone a wild fox he randomly found in the park. He carefully places his bag on the bed, facing upwards, then he scrambled his room, searching through his shelf, study table and his wardrobe, making his room even messier than before. He's definitely going to get it from his mom now if she finds out, if not for the fox then absolutely for his room.

Scrambling through his stuff, he found a huge cardboard box that was used to store his old books. He poured his books out to the side then took a huge thick blanket he found in his wardrobe and folded it, till it fits in the box. The blanket fits perfectly on the bottom, like a snugly little bed for the fox and placed it on his bed right beside the bag.

He slowly and carefully fishes the fox out of the bag and places it on his bed. He removed the jacket the fox was wrapped it to check on its injuries. As he thought, the injury is gone, which did not surprise him as her injuries were already healing the last time he checked in the park, he was still amazed by it and everything he had encountered today.

"Now little one, let's get you to a more comfortable bed shall we?"

He placed transferred the fox to the box and it looked more comfortable than before. He continued to watch it sleep and stroke it for around ten minutes before he heard the sounds of keys outside the flat. He immediately panicked, as he has just realised the mess he has made in his room.

Kenneth quickly took the lid and cover the box, as there were holds on the sides of it, he was not worried that the fox will suffocate. He placed the box in an opened compartment of his shelf, which fits perfectly in it and quickly through a curtain over the wooden shelf, held together by drawing pins at the top of it. Next, he proceeded to clean up the mess he has made of his room while his mom entered the flat.

"Ah Ken, help me bring the groceries to the kitchen." Kenneth's mom shouted from the living room. She was carrying huge plastic bags filled with groceries on each hand that looks like they were about to explode.

Kenneth couldn't possibly refuse, knowing his mom would immediately destroy him if he did. Despite not finished his clean up, he quickly went out of his room to do as his mom ordered, while his mom proceeded to go to her room to change out of her clothes. But then she saw the mess in Kenneth's room, "KENNETH, WHY IS YOUR ROOM SO MESSY?" she demanded.

"Uh, I was just...cleaning up?" Kenneth answered awkwardly while running out of the kitchen. He was thinking up a bunch of excuses to tell his mom in order for her to not discover the fox he had hidden in his shelf. But she notices staring at the shelf, that was covered with a curtain. She was suspicious, why would he put a curtain over the shelf out of the blue?

"What's with the curtain?" She stared at her son with her arms crossed, waiting for a reply.

"To keep out the dust?" Kenneth answered as normal as he could. His mom was still sceptical but couldn't be bothered as she was really tired out from her work. She went back to her room as she said, "Remember to clean up the mess."

Kenneth breathes a sigh of relief while the door to his mom's bedroom went shut. He continues to clean up his room, glad that his mom didn't notice what he was hiding.

Singapore Bureau Of Magic, 2019

"So, the liquid in the vial, what is it? Uh, Gabriel?" William asked the researcher dressed in the lab coat and analysing the liquid in the vial.

"It's Gideon and it would take a while for me to find out what it is, so could you and your friend wait outside?" Gideon smiled and indicated for them to wait outside.

William grumpily complies while they walked out of the lab for Gideon to do his work. Immediately after they left, he picked up his phone and called his wife.

"Hello?"

"Lynn, you need to get back here immediately, something happened," Gideon said to his wife hurriedly.

"Why? What happened?" She was worried, Gideon rarely gets so flustered and hearing him like that, means something very bad has happened.

"You remember the potion you gave her before they left?"

"You mean..."

"YES, that potion. Apparently, two Venators found it in a park, here, in Singapore."

"What about her? Where is she?" Lynn was shocked and worried at the same time. She knew this day would come, but not this quick.

"No idea, she was gone when they found the vial," Gideon replied.

"Thank god." She was relieved to hear that. Who knows what could have happened to all of them should they found her. "Gideon, the federation will be suspicious if I left so suddenly, they already caught on to something since they sent the Venators here. We need to keep a low profile. I will come back when things blow over, for now just stay low."

"Fine, be careful."

"I will," Lynn said as she hangs up the phone.

Gideon could not believe that this day came so fast, they both knew it was gonna come but not this soon.

William could not stand all the waiting he had gone through up till now, so he stormed into the lab and demanded, "Are you done yet?" He made a very angry smiled trying his best to control his anger.

"Oh yes yes. The liquid is a healing potion, used for light wounds." Gideon lied, he knew that they definitely would not be able to tell the difference between an amnesiac and a healing potion.

"That's it? Just a healing potion?" Wilson chimed in, he was disappointed as what other clues can they pick up from a simple healing potion? That the fox was injured? But that doesn't help at all.

"If there's nothing else, you can be on your way," Gideon said, ignoring what Wilson had asked. He smiled at them, hoping they would leave soon.

Both of them can't do anything except leave after getting what they came for, albeit nothing promising. William's instincts tell him that Gideon is hiding something, but there's nothing he can do to the head of the research department after all.

"We need to go back there to check," William tells Wilson.

"Seriously?" Wilson whined. He dreaded going back and forth to different places like this, he was hoping for some action, chasing criminals and such, he never thought the job of a Venator could be so boring.

"Yes. Didn't you notice something back there before we leave?"

Wilson's eyes light up, finally, William was listening to him. His excitement was renewed. "YES, I mean, yes, I did."

William was a little amused at Wilson's reaction but did not show it, as to not give Wilson the satisfaction of being too proud. "There might have been someone else there, maybe we can pick up something from there. We'll find a hotel and rest up first, we'll go tomorrow, since its already so late."

Back at Kenneth's home, 2019

Su Yi awakens from her slumber and finds she was trapped in a box. She had no idea where she was happening, the last thing she remembered was on the plane with Ambrose. She stood up, only to knock her head against the top of the box, popping it open, it didn't hurt at all since it was all cardboard. She could not see anything, everything was pitched black around her, so she created a little flame, purplish blue in colour and the size of a grape. It hovered around her forehead and dimly illuminated the shelf she was in, it was small and in front of her was a strange curtain.

She walked out of the shelf, through the curtain and slowly transformed back to her human form. She stood in front of a bed, which lies a young boy sleeping. He looked an awful lot like Eira, his elegantly shaped face, long thin eyebrows, though it was dark, she could tell his hair would be a dark brown colour just like Eira's. She slowly walked around the room, then discovered a calendar on the desk, dated 2019.

She stared at it for a while, trying to remain calm, then she transmorphed out her tails, she has six of them, the last time she remembered, it was only five. Her memories of the last nineteen years gone. She continued to explore the house, she teleported out of the room so as to not wake the boy from the sound of the door opening.

She could sense magical energy emanating from his parents' room. She teleported in and slowly walks over to Kenneth's father, he and his wife were in deep sleep. Su Yi could sense the magic emanating from him but not his wife, the energy was quite strong, but not as strong as hers, it was familiar though, the magical signature resembles that of a Xiezhi, but why would it appear here? With a human wife?

She teleported out again and this time to their daughter's room. She slowly walked over to her while she slept, again she could sense magical energy from her, but it was extremely weak, which means she hasn't been awakened yet. But the magical signature is unique, half human, half Xiezhi. After exploring the flat for a while, she went back to Kenneth's room.

Though she hasn't noticed it at first, Kenneth was also emanating magical energy, though weak, it was extremely pure and powerful, he is part fairy. This may be Eira and Ambrose's child, she thought, but what happened? He should have been with Lynn and Gideon, not here. What exactly happened in the past nineteen years?

She couldn't remember anything.

Maybe I should stay with the child. I could find out more. She thought. So she decided to stay with Kenneth for a while.

She put her hands towards Kenneth's forehead, chanting a spell.

"我,青丘狐族,素祎,今时今日,契约,保护这孩子." (I, Su Yi, from the Qing Qiu fox clan, signs a contract to protect this child from today onwards.) After finishing the spell, a light shines from her hand, onto Kenneth's forehead. On his forehead, appeared a spirit mark, resembling a lotus with six petals, it shines a pale golden light in colour which briefly fills the room, then dies down. The mark slowly becomes transparent, then disappears like it was never even there.

Su Yi slowly shrinks back down eventually transforming back into a normal fox, she was exhausted from using her magic to form the contract, she slowly walks back to the box in the shelf, lying back down on the box and falls into a deep sleep.