The Alchemists

Aleksis felt uneasy in the penthouse. She could not believe her love story would experience two anticlimaxes on the same night.

First, she was told that Prince Siegfried or Alaric had died. Then she learned that Alaric was not dead... but he was a man in his 40's who had a disfigured face and he rejected her love confession.

She really didn't understand why.

After her tears ran out she then decided to call Lauriel to complain about her fate. At present, Lauriel was still in his conservation site in Kenya and it was still daytime there. Aleksis was certain that she wouldn't bother her godfather if she called him now.

Aleksis immediately pressed a button on her watch and put on the projector mode so that she could talk to Lauriel face to face.

"Hey, Sweetheart... Why are you calling me at this hour? How are you?" Lauriel asked as he appeared before Aleksis.

He was sitting on the veranda of his bungalow and seemed busy with several tiger cubs who were quick to snatch some goat meat from his hands.

"Uncle Roryyyy... I'm sad. May I go to Kenya to see you tomorrow?" Aleksis asked quickly.

Lauriel, who noticed how sad his goddaughter's eyes were, immediately stopped his work. He threw the remaining meat into the yard so that all the cubs would chase the meat and leave him alone.

"Hey... why are you sad? Who hurt you?" Lauriel asked quickly. He was staring right into the camera, and at that moment Aleksis felt as if she was being interrogated by an expert detective. "Did you find that Siegfried guy and did he hurt you?"

"Gosh, Uncle... how do you know that I went to Singapore to look for him? Was Terry snitching on me??" Aleksis asked in surprise. She kept her purpose of moving to Singapore a secret from her family; only Terry knew about it. But tonight, Lauriel nonchalantly discussed it.

"Aleksis, we know everything about you," Lauriel said with a smile. "So, what happened? Did you find him? Did he make you cry? If so, I'll kill him!"

Yikes...

Aleksis knew her two fathers, both her biological father and her godfather, were over-protective and would do anything to protect her. Aleksis could not bear to think about Lauriel killing Alaric.

Indeed, her love was rejected, but that was no reason to kill someone, she thought listlessly. In this case, Alaric actually acted like a gentleman by not giving her false hopes or making fun of her obsession.

"That's not it... I'm sad because I am missing you, Uncle Rory," Aleksis argued. "I don't like it here. I want to go back to Kenya to see you..."

"You've only been there two days. Didn't you say you wanted to find some female friends? Why change your mind now? I will be very happy if you came here. But you have made a commitment to go to a regular school for a year, I want you to learn to keep your commitments..." Lauriel looked at Aleksis attentively, "If you miss me, I will come to visit you next week. How about that?"

Aleksis could only nod. She suddenly thought of something.

"Uhm... Uncle, you're an expert on poisons and medicine..." Her voice turned cute, "Can you send me your miraculous wound healing remedy? I often fall and bump here and there and my skin now has many scars..."

"Gosh... Aleksis, you're still as careless as ever." Lauriel massaged his temple. "Where are you now? If you're in the penthouse, I kept a few bottles of that medicine in the wine cabinet. You can get them there."

"Whoaa... thank you, Uncle Rory, you're the best! Now I'm not sad anymore..."

Seeing Aleksis now smiling broadly, Lauriel nodded happily. They then chatted briefly and made plans for Lauriel to visit Aleksis in Singapore in a few days.

Seeing that Lauriel was actually busy taking care of some of his tiger cubs, Aleksis then ended the phone call. She did not want to bother him any longer.

Her heart felt a little relieved after talking with Lauriel.

Hmm... she also got the wound healing medicine from her godfather. Maybe, if Alaric used it, the scars on his face could still be cured or reduced, so he did not need to hide behind the mask anymore.

Although her love was rejected, Aleksis could not hate Alaric. The man did nothing wrong to her. Alaric was just being honest, even though his honesty was painful for her to hear.

Aleksis bit her lip thinking about what happened that night. The pain in her heart still hadn't subsided.

Finally, the girl decided to go out and get some fresh air. She put her dog on a leash and walked him out of the building.

Aleksis was not afraid to go out past midnight like this because Singapore is famous for being much safer than most other metropolitant cities. Especially since it was the weekend, the city center was quite crowded, and her two loyal bodyguards, Carl and Sascha, were always looking out for her discreetly.

As usual, so as not to attract attention, she wore some shabby clothes and large nerdy glasses to hide her beauty. Although she had Carl and Sascha, she was not interested in attracting men's attention at this time.

Once in New York, when she was walking home from a restaurant at night, a bunch of thugs came to bother her. Within seconds Carl arrived and beat them to pulp. At that time Sasha did not even need to intervene.

Since then Aleksis felt more comfortable if she looked as ugly as possible when walking around. After all, all this time she didn't feel the need to look pretty for anyone. In her heart there was only space for Prince Siegfried... Sadly, tonight her love story ended in an anticlimax...

Ugh...