Harker collapsed from this sudden pain. The other workers caught him, reprimanding him for not wearing equipment.
"Did you forget how deadly that girl's shrieks were? You idiot!"
"Hey, he's just a young lad so he must be new. Cut him some slack and bring him to the medic."
"Let's get out of here! The glass has broken! Everybody get down!"
Harker's vision was fuzzy and the ringing in his ear was twice as painful than when Xi Hua had him in her grasp and was crushing him in a cocoon of her hair. The workers tried their best to support him on their shoulders and drag him out of the room while being careful of the glass shards.
Harker's head lolled down and so he could see the water seeping into the soles of his shoes. The tank had exploded from a visceral shriek that sounded like a painful cry. He did his best to turn around and make sense of what was happening.
A quick flash of gold was zooming towards a steady deep green. This gold thing's movements were deliberate and precise, it wasn't wild either. Despite long black tendrils following it, it was able to dodge and travel across the room in insane amounts of speed.
"You've gotten better than before. Very good!" He heard the green one say. "But you do know it's pointless because you'll die if you stay out of the water for too long? Your underdeveloped lungs could only do so much…."
"Wo si le dou wusouwei! Ni hui he wo yiqi si!" The gold one screamed.
She was able to grab the gold one's neck for a moment and slashed at the throat, bringing some red on the lime green. But she had to move away again before the black tendrils caught her.
The green shape just laughed. "That won't do. I promised to protect you, so I won't let any more of you die."
His green eyes gleamed, and Harker's vision zoomed in on those eyes. That same discomforting feeling….
"WAWAAAAA!! WAWAAAAA!!!!!" The golden shape turned around to avoid the lime green.
But it was too late.
------------------------
The next thing Harker knew, he was on a stretcher.
He had cotton on his nose and ears. His mouth still tasted of iron because of his own blood. A medical team was taking care of him in another room, and he doesn't know what happened to that golden mermaid and that office of jade, gold and pearls.
"Is he alright?"
He jolted when he heard that voice.
Mr. Xi came with his neck in bandages. Still, he still wore that wide smile. Harker realized that the smile was discomforting because it was ever so slightly wider than any regular human could ever smile.
His forked tongue flitted freely in front of these people. His hands and face also revealed some scales. None of the medical team were perturbed about this.
"He's stable now, only that he may experience some hearing loss and vision loss. He would also find it difficult to breathe and speak for the next two weeks."
"Ah, that's not good at all. Poor fella…." Mr. Xi kneeled in front of him. "Would you leave us alone for a moment, please?"
The medical team did not waste any time and did leave as told. Soon, there was only Harker and this snake demon in this room.
Harker was nervous, but did well not to show it. However, his eyes kept on being magnetized towards that ring he was wearing. It looked almost like white jade, but it was uncut and remained in its jagged state contrasted with a beautiful golden band.
"Oh? Are you interested in my ring?" Mr. Xi said. "You can have it, if you want."
Harker did not expect this response. "No..... It's fine, Sir."
"Are you sure? I have no use for it anymore. After all, it's one-half of a pair, and the other half is missing." Mr. Xi told him. "You see, the other half belonged to my wife. I gave it to her as a gift. I could give it to you as a gift too. An apology gift."
"Is it easy for you to give away invaluable things as 'gifts', Sir?" Harker couldn't help but ask.
"Oh, it is. Material things mean nothing to me, even when they hold sentiments. What matters to me are connections." Mr. Xi told him. "Have you ever wondered why every gift box and container have strings?"
"To secure the box?" Harker thought. That's the logical answer after all.
"Haha, that may be true. But besides that, the strings are often where the sender of the gift leaves their mark. Sometimes it could even be stamps, it's the same thing. A signature that will be left on the person's heart when they receive the gift, connecting them to each other."
He sat on the stretcher's side. "I gave the other half of this Shard to my wife because I want her to always remember my promise to protect her. And now I have failed, and it was also lost."
"Your wife looked unhappy in that picture, Sir." Harker couldn't help but point out.
"Unhappiness….. It's inevitable. Whether she's with me or not, she will be unhappy at some point, right? But what's permanent are bonds that secure people. At least she is safe by my side" He gestured at the ring. "When I was a young boy, my father knew there would be many forces to strike me while I'm weak and vulnerable."
"So he kept me locked inside a deep, deep well for a very long time. I had no one by my side. I was only thrown food to eat and water to drink. I was unhappy."
Harker didn't raise his eyebrow. Is this guy trying to appear sympathetic to him?
Mr. Xi seemed to be able to read his mind just from looking at his eyes, and chuckled. "No, you mustn't pity me. That was the reason why I love my father very much. If not for that, I wouldn't learn the importance of keeping people safe."
"While I was stuck on that well, a tiny bird who wasn't able to fly fell. I caught it, and took care of it as much as I could. Then, I thought I could make it fly away when it was strong enough. And when it flew…."
"A hawk ate it right before my eyes. So the next time that I took care of another tiny bird ...."
He gestured at his hair. "I used my hair to tie down its wings. And it stayed with me, safe and sound."
He took off his ring.
"So how about this? Let me keep you safe too, Harker Jones. You can take my ring and never come here again."