Chapter 12: Chapter 12

When William arrived home, Melisenna was in the middle of cooking several of his favorite dishes while crabs were being steamed. After a while, Mia also made it back from school. The moment she stepped through the door, she happily cried out, “William, guess what I scored for the math practice exam?” He blinked as he hazarded a guess, “140?” High school mathematics was challenging. For example, 130 was already considered quite a high score, while scoring 140 would make the student a genius. She giggled and corrected him, “140 is nothing. I scored 146 this time!” He was shocked by her answer. “146? That high?!” She nodded. “I was shocked as well. I was the only one to solve the last question on the paper correctly.” “You’re amazing, Mia!” he exclaimed, giving her a thumbs-up. Naturally, he was happy to hear her scores and kept heaping praise after praise on her. As the sun began to set, someone knocked on the door. When he answered the door, he found several middle-aged men standing outside. He knew all of them; they were Dominic’s brothers. Why were they here? The person leading the group was Darren Reynolds, Dominic’s oldest brother. He was very tanned and smelled very strongly of cigarettes. He looked around before shooting William a smile and asking, “William, where’s your mother?” “She’s busy. You can tell me what you want,” he politely replied but did not move to let them in. Darren cleared his throat. “William, Dominic, and Diego are both still in the hospital, and the doctors can’t cure them at all. I hear your spruce tree is sentient now. Can you ask the spruce dryad to forgive Dominic and Diego?” While William pretended to think about his answer, he was practically rolling around in laughter inwardly. So, it took him a while before he could swallow his laughter, and he replied, “They tried to dig up the tree and climbed over the wall. Of course, the spruce dryad would be furious.” “Yes, yes,” Darren hurriedly said. “Don’t worry. This won’t happen again. I’ll have Dominic wrap up your home’s paperwork. It will be completely legal.” “I’ll try. Maybe the dryad might listen to me,” William said. “I’ll let you know when the dryad deigns to respond to me.” “Very well. Thank you. We truly appreciate this,” the group politely said in unison as they all expressed their sincere gratitude. After the Reynolds Family left, William closed the door and returned to dinner. After dinner, he continued treatment for Melisenna until she fell asleep. Then, he used the Force to open up Mia’s meridians. That was not something an average person could do because one tiny mistake would make the patient go starkly raving mad. However, the effects of having the meridians on one’s head opened were highly significant. As time went on, Mia would be able to achieve greater heights academically. By the time she fell asleep as well, it was already past ten. So, he got on his bicycle and cycled to the Halivaara State Hospital. The Halivaara State Hospital was the best in Halivaara District. It was classified as a 3A hospital with more than a thousand beds available, and they even boast several advanced medical equipments. William soon arrived at the wing for hospital wards and asked the nurse where Dominic’s and Diego’s beds were. When he pushed the door open to their ward, he found only two beds inside with Dominic and Diego lying on them. They both looked ghastly pale, with faces contorted in pain as their bodies occasionally trembled in agony. Dominic seemed worse off. Every slight tremble would have him shrieking as excruciating pain rippled through his body. Dominic’s wife, a woman in her fifties, was caring for the two men. Her eyes were bloodshot as if she had been up all night taking care of the men. When she saw William walk into the room, she shot to her feet in fear. “Why are you here, William?” “I’m just here to take a look,” he answered. She began crying. “Why did these two stupid men have to climb over your wall to dig up your tree? Look what has happened. They’ve offended the spruce dryad, and now they’re suffering.” “Darren and the others talked to me this afternoon, asking me to plead with the spruce dryad for mercy. I did as I was asked,” he said. Her entire face lit up. “What did the dryad say, William?” He donned a shocked expression as he replied, “When I took a nap earlier this evening, the dryad came to me in my dreams. It said that Dominic deserved to be heavily punished as he had done too many bad deeds. However, because I was asking for mercy on his behalf, it decided to forgive him.” “Really?” she exclaimed in joy. “Will the spruce dryad stop punishing him?” “The spruce dryad said that he will be spared from death but not from punishment, though,” he solemnly continued. “Once they wake up, they have to kneel before the great spruce tree for one day and one night while kowtowing every minute.” “Yes, alright,” she quickly said. “As long as they’re safe, we will do anything, even if they are asked to kneel for two days.” He nodded at her. Then, he stood beside the beds to observe the men and sneakily took out the Golden Needles. The moment the needles were out of their bodies, their agonized whimpering quietened. When Dominic’s wife saw that, she thought it was the doing of the spruce dryad, so she hastily placed her hands together and chanted a prayer. He left her to it and quietly departed from the ward. If nothing went wrong, Dominic and Diego would have recovered by tomorrow morning. William was still furious, though, so he demanded they kneel before the spruce tree for one day and one night. After he walked out of the room, William headed back to the nurses’ station to ask about Salazar. Salazar’s family was rich, so he stayed in an ICU ward which cost a few thousand dollars per day. William strode over to the room and looked into it through the glass door. As expected, Salazar was on the brink of death. There were a group of men standing guard by the door while a middle-aged couple stared at Salazar with red eyes. An old woman was sitting beside them and staring straight at the door with a stern look on her face. William’s appearance attracted their attention. The middle-aged man glanced over before getting to his feet. “You’re William Barrett?” Naturally, he recognized William. After all, his son, Salazar, drove into and killed William’s father, Bryan Barrett. When William found out the truth of Bryan’s death, Salazar’s father instructed his men to beat William up. William ended up losing control and was thrown in jail for assault and battery. Of course, William knew who this middle-aged man was as well. He was Shane Salisbury, Salazar’s father and the second-generation patriarch of the Salisbury Family. They held a lot of power in the Halivaara District. When the family held a birthday party, even the head of the district had to attend to congratulate them. “That’s me,” William calmly replied. Shane walked toward William. A few of the burly bodyguards followed right behind him. Shane scanned William up and down. “You’re actually out of prison! I remember you were sentenced to seven years.” “I was let out on good behavior due to helping the authorities,” William calmly responded. “Why are you here?” Shane frowned. How did William know something terrible had happened to Salazar? William smiled. “I hear Salazar is going to die soon, so I came to see him off.” “You…” Shane’s face almost went purple at his insinuation. “Utter nonsense! Salazar is doing fine!” “Really? Is the man on the ICU bed not him?” William smirked cruelly. “That darned man killed my father, yet he walked free. However, what goes around comes around. Finally, he is being punished! I thank the gods for that!” “Enough with your nonsense, brat!” Shane was trembling with fury as he gestured for the bodyguards to attack William with a wave of his hand. Two men charged at William, intending to subdue him. He retreated instead of fighting them as he coldly barked out, “You are an even greater scumbag than your son, Shane! I curse you for being forever plagued by nightmares that will make you wish you were dead!” After that, he didn’t stay as he turned and walked away. Shane was so furious that he kicked a nearby rubbish bin over and roared at the bodyguards, “After him! Beat him up!” By the time the bodyguards heeded the order, William was already long gone. He was actually standing not far away at the top of the stairs. His gaze pierced through the ground and bore right into Shane. “If you had not raised Salazar to be so rotten, my father would not be dead! Prepare yourself for endless suffering, Shane Salisbury.” He shot the despicable man with a cold glare as he slowly sat down on the floor with crossed legs and started an ancient curseThe Great Mare Curse. Its victims would be plagued by nightmares so terrible that they would eventually lose the ability to differentiate their dreams from reality. Hence, they were doomed to a life worse than death the instant they were cursed. A series of odd sounds drifted from his mouth. While the average man could not hear his chanting, they still strangely managed to cause an echo loud enough to pierce through the floor and affect Shane. Shane, who was still incandescent with fury, suddenly felt a chill run down his spine. Regardless, he thought it was just due to the air conditioning as he shivered and let out a sneeze.