“Well - that was a nice barbeque fish.” somewhere deep inside the realm beneath the garden at the back of the inn, Jason’s parents along with Mack expressed their gratitude towards Kane: “I’ve never had this kind of fresh fish before.”

“No problem. But it’s mostly the fish. I just used some salt and pepper from the kitchen.” Kane smiled while helping his son Alex pick up a piece of shiny white rock at the bottom of the creek: “Now, where to next?”

“I feel like I could still eat, how about we fish some more?” Jason’s younger brother Mack laughed out loud and said: “And boy, what do I have to do to get a cold root beer around here? Do I call it out? Do I yell some Latin spell?”

“Stop drinking fancy sugar water.” Jason’s father said while shaking his head: “Why not just drink tea? The tea here is wonderful.”

“Okay, do you prefer I drink ACTUAL beer then?” Mack shrugged.

“Little Yan, don’t talk back to your father like that.” Jason’s mother sighed.

“No, I’m serious.” Mack chuckled: “My big brother quit engineering school, started doing art instead as an online content creator and took a job as a waiter slash caretaker at a local inn and ended up becoming a cultivator. I wanna try this rebellious phase thing and see how it works out for me.”

“I don’t know how it will work in the future, but right now what you’re gonna get is a good beating from me.” Jason’s father pretended to raise his hand with a stern face.

“Your father’s kidding.” Jason’s mother immediately grabbed the arm of Jason’s father.

“Dad?” Alex pointed at the sky and said to Kane: “Someone’s coming.”

Everyone near the creek looked up at the sky, and saw that a portal made of slowly spinning clouds appeared in the sky, and two figures descended from the sky. Their descent was fast but they still landed on the ground without creating any impact to the ground.

“Caroline.” “Jie!”

“How was school?” Kane and Jason’s parents asked them the same question, just in different languages.

“Well, it’s a lot like engineering school.” Jason nodded and chuckled: “A lot of experiments, a lot of very technical lectures, and a lot of research projects and late night crunches. The difference now is that I was one of the kids who actually does the work.”

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“Oh, wow, finally huh?” Mack patted Jason on the arm and said.

“Hey, I started being that kid when I joined that channel.” Jason pointed his finger at Mack and laughed: “I was very much that kid, until the cultivation business forced me to pivot.”

“I can tell you it’s not like high school, or college, the first year of it any way.” Caroline shrugged and gave Kane a very simple answer, then she gently caressed Alex’s head: “But, you know Alex, DO think about it.”

“Auntie Caroline, is this place yours?” Alex asked.

“My master’s.” Caroline smiled: “But I’ve got a farm here. I haven’t done anything with it, but it’s worth mentioning I guess.”

“Well, at least you’ve got a piece of serious real estate in San Jose, that’s something.” Kane chuckled: “But I thought you wouldn’t come back till a month later? What happened?”

------------------------------------

“Dad?” inside of a very luxurious suite, a former sergeant of LAPD, Liam Chaver was drinking a glass of champagne by the window and looking at the unrealistically beautiful view outside, when he suddenly heard the doors open behind him and in came a familiar voice.

“Aimee! Thomas!” Liam Chaver turned around and found that his daughter and son were at the door, and he rushed to them with a limp: “What - what are you doing here? What did they do to you!? Please tell me you are not kidnapped here as well - ”

“Dad, calm down.” Thomas and Aimee hugged their father, both were slightly shaking with the nerves.

“Did no one bring you in? Who are these people?” Liam Chaver looked to the space behind Thomas and Aimee: “Did the SJPD bring you here? What’s going on?”

“Dad, a lot’s happened.” Aimee sighed and held Liam’s arms: “And we need to talk.”

“Talk?” Liam let out a long exhale: “Okay - okay, I’ll talk, but let’s get outta here first.”

“Sure - sure.” Thomas showed his father out of the suite and said: “We’ll talk, and not in this incredibly sweet room you’ve got here.”

“Ain’t no room sweet enough when you’re kidnapped here.” Liam walked alongside his children with a limp: “I don’t know how you got here - but for me, a group of people just came to my door and said that you might be in danger and I need to come with them. And when I refused, I think they used some kind of instant roofie on me and then when I woke up I was already locked in this room.”

“How long have you been in there?” Aimee asked.

“About a few hours.” Liam shrugged: “The room, the champagne, and the food all seemed expensive, but no one would talk to me. So I figured it could only be because of you.”

“Yeah indeed.” Aimee said: “And we were indeed in danger. Those people that brought you here - they are the ones that saved us and brought us here as well. And I can assure you they meant no harm.”

“But why the stonewall? They gave me the champagne, the newspapers, phones and internet, and a very costly tasting steak.” Liam scoffed: “But none of them would tell me anything - for a bunch of anonymous kidnappers, they’ve really given me a lot of mixed signals.”

“That’s because they were showing respect for us.” Thomas sighed.

“Respect? What do you mean?”

“Dad?” Aimee extended her hands at the walls of the corridor in which they were walking: “Have you found this place … unusual?”

“Unusual?” Liam thought for a brief moment: “Yeah, for starters, I don’t think the view outside of the window back there was real. And the temperature was way too cozy for a room without any air conditioning - ”

“Yeah, that would make sense. I would expect nothing less.” Thomas smiled but was still scratching his face and neck: “A great place huh Dad?”

“Why don’t you just get to the chase here?” Liam sighed and asked: “Are you working for some kind of criminal organization? Or are you just friends with some really wealthy but dangerous people? Just tell me, okay? I can take it.”

“Well - ” Aimee still tried to sugarcoat what she was about to say: “The second guess is kinda true - ”

“Dad.” Thomas, on the other hand, just decided to ask the core question: “Do you believe in magic?”