Villain Path

Chapter 74. Night 3

"Uncle Shen! Uncle Shen!" shouted Ritu, shaking him by his shoulder.

Her shouting made Al rush into the secret room. As he saw Shen lying in the center of the seal, he darted toward him.

"What happened?" he growled at the girl sitting next to him.

Shen's eyes were tightly closed, and in his right hand he clutched the old notebook.

"I don't know! He touched the notebook and suddenly collapsed!" Ritu exclaimed heatedly.

Al glared at the notebook with a look of an enraged lion, ripped it from the teacher's hand and threw it away.

"No!" the girl shrieked. "You can't take it out of the seal!"

"Teacher!" ignoring her yelling Al leaned over Shen and touched his shoulder to carefully turn him over on the back. "Teacher!"

Shen slowly opened his eyes and turned his hazy gaze to Al. He needed some time to absorb everything he had just witnessed.

"Teacher?"

"What do you want?"

Al stared at him in shock. Shen realized that apparently he sounded pretty rude.

"I mean... I can hear you perfectly clear, there is no need to yell like this."

"You've just been lying there unconscious! No need to yell like this?!"

"No," Shen claimed calmly.

"No?"

"I was sleeping."

Al remained silent in indignation. He needed some time to form everything swirling in his mind into polite coherent sentences.

"Oh no! The notebook!" exclaimed Ritu.

"The notebook?" Shen sat up sharply and turned to her.

The girl was holding the notebook with its corners rapidly crumbling to ashes.

"Quickly! Return it to the seal!!"

Ritu threw the notebook at him before she could realize what she was doing.

Shen caught it, slapped a talisman on it and quickly drew the special symbols, turning it into strong protection against premature aging. Alas, the parts that had become ashes were beyond repair. Now, it was but a scrap of the notebook. Shen sighed sadly. Such a valuable item... Such a valuable item TO HIM...

"Sorry, teacher," apologized Al, seeing his reaction.

"It's not your fault," Shen grunted, not looking at him.

He turned to Ritu.

"What was in this diary? You've already read it. What was there about me?"

The girl looked at Shen, perplexed.

"There was... It said that my grandmother wanted to protect you. She saw shadows following after you, so she decided to protect you from them. For the most part there were descriptions of her experiments... I wrote out something for myself, there," she pointed to the notes on the table.

Shen stood up and quickly walked over to the table. Taking the notes, he flipped through the pages one by one. Some minor things. There was nothing that could shine a light on his past!

Without another word, Shen returned the notes to their place and went to the surface through a short passage. The sun was high, breaking through the dry vines. Shen parted the branches and came into the gazebo. With a fleeting glance at Annis, he made his way down the gallery leading from the gazebo.