SLAVE

CHAPTER 6: FIRST LOVE AGAIN

It was a day later when the priser came to the Wang mansion. The two grandmothers were sitting by their grandsons sides and not taking their eyes off of them not even for a second. They would switch places while the other goes out to eat and freshen up, the other had to look after the two young men who were still laying unconscious on the bed.

The gardener was also there to wipe their bodies and check the changes in their bodies. He would check their pulse frequently as well as enchant mantras of the ancient times Buddhas and doing so with absolute precision. It was then that granny Mary understood why her family always insisted on keeping the gardener for so long. He wasn't like any typical gardener which meant that her family must have known something like this would happen.

Mary didn't understand anything, she knew the man was there for a long time now cause she remembered how she always liked to play in the garden, chasing butterflies while his grandfather spoke to the Buttler. She remembered how his grandfather would always send him out for some errands and at that time it didn't meant much. It was then she also remembered how her parents and grandparents always took her to a temple in the mountains and they would recite some prayers with the help of a priest.

The priest who looked after that temple would always give her something to drink, like herbs or something and after she drank it she would suddenly feel sick for at least two whole days. During those two days, she and his family were to live at the back quarters of the temple while the priest came twice check up on her. This happened every year until she became older and when the priest stopped giving her the that drink when she got married. At that time, her grandparents had already passed away and her parents were the ones who foresaw that she went there every year after.

She didn't understand until she became pregnant with Yibo's father and the priest told her she didn't need to drink the herbs anymore. As time went by and her parents became old, they told her to take her child to the temple every year just like they had been doing for her. She did that even though she didn't understand why, she still took Yibo's father from the day he was born to visit the temple. The priest bathed him in the water he had prayed for and applied a red substance on his body.

Even though he didn't have to drink it like she did, he still got sick and had to stay there for two days as well just like she did when she was little. It was when he got older, got married and his wife got pregnant with Yibo that things started to change. The priest started to gain interest in the unborn baby more than he ever did with Mary and her son, Yibo's father. He was always hesitant to say things and he when this time, Yibo was to spend the whole week in the temple and not just two days.

Mary would ask what was going on and she was told by the priest that it was better if she didn't know anything and that she will find out when the time was right. It felt like no time was right and the two families, the Wang family and Lan family would quarrel over beliefs. The Lan wasn't in support of how the Wang family always had to take their grandson to spend a week at a temple up in the mountains when they weren't even informed.

They reached some kind of an understanding when Yibo was just six months old. At that time, he had started showing off strange signs which no one could explain, getting sick to a point where the doctors would send them back without any help. It wasn't that they didn't want to help them, but the doctors didn't know how to help him. His fevers were always difficult to control until his maternal grandparents decided to allow Yibo's paternal grandparents to take over.

After that, Yibo stopped having those fevers and strange illnesses. But it was when he was three years old when his father was delayed from a business trip due to the weather where a snow storm made it impossible for the planes to take off that they had to delay taking Yibo up in the temple did they see how serious things were. The date was always on the thirteenth of every months and they had to go on the fourteenth due to the unforseen delay. They drove without Yibo's father who was to come to the temple a few hours later after he was informed about Yibo's condition.