Close to Me

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The idea of getting a total makeover made Alan nervous, but he slowly got over it as he distracted himself with the documents Daniel gave him access to. There were so many to read and immerse himself with. But there was one thing that he kept noticing the further along he shifted through documents. A particular image, along with different variations of a statement all appeared in multiple documents.

"Daniel... I have a question." Alan asked, his eyes quickly scanning the documents as he spoke.

"Sure, what's up?" Daniel replied, peeking his head out from his closet.

"Why do... I keep seeing the image of a butterfly and the same quote over and over again?" Alan stated, continuing to sort through documents on the screen.

"What's the quote?" Daniel asked, intrigued.

"The remedy you seek to the curse on your head will appear when you no longer yearn to create in your own image." Alan recited, a puzzled look on his face.

"Ah, that quote... apparently the woman who placed the curse on my family spoke this to my distant male relative. He wrote it down immediately and it's been archived in my family history since." Daniel replied, carrying several items out of the closet.

"A woman placed this curse on your family? Like, a witch or something?" Alan asked. "I'm guessing that's what this butterfly symbol relates to..."

"Good guess. Butterfly is húdié in Mandarin. So, if you see this in Pinyin, that's what it means..." Daniel then proceeded to grab a notebook as well as a pen and wrote the characters for "butterfly" in pinyin for Alan (蝴蝶).

"I'm SO not gonna remember that." Alan teased, only to hear Daniel laugh. "I can barely speak English."

"Yeah... I had to take Saturday classes growing up to learn Mandarin, so it's pretty much embedded in me." Daniel spoke, before returning to the closet.

"So, what was this lady's deal, anyway? Why'd she curse you guys?" Alan asked, curious.

"Well... apparently, she was a rather famous Guzheng player and often played for wealthy and royal members of society during that time period. I'm still a bit rusty on my Chinese history... But apparently, one of my distant male relatives caught her attention. He wasn't anything incredibly special, just a scholar, honestly. But I guess he was very polite and charming."

"So, she had a crush on him, basically." Alan stated with a smirk, only to hear Daniel laugh.

"Yeah, pretty much. However, he was into someone else; a local weaver that created robes for the imperial family, I think. That's what I was told. The Guzheng player was not very happy about that and tried to have the weaver murdered. He apparently found out and scrutinized her to the public. She was outcast by society and stripped of her status. But I guess no one knew she was also a witch of some kind and before she was exiled, she placed a curse on the scholar in front of everyone. The scholar, rather surprised, wrote down that exact quote that you told me. For weeks, nothing happened. When he and the weaver married, they spent time alone after their ceremony and then out of nowhere, he changed into a frog."

"That must've sucked for him on their honeymoon night." Alan chuckled.

"Right! Of course, after a while, he changed back, with no help from his new wife. She almost killed him with a large vase, apparently. He wrote this all down in a journal afterwards." Daniel mentioned with a laugh. "So, we have records dating back years from males in my family who have experienced the curse."

"Man, was she bitter." Alan stated. "No one knows what her name was?"

"Not from what I can recall." Daniel stated. "For some reason, there is no record of her name in any of our documents. Just the butterfly symbol."

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