Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 83: Welcome, Son of Andrew Storm

At five hundred meters to the south, outside the Kang Clan, dual-colored birds—white and pink—wheeled above a vast, ordered farmland.

The morning sun’s first rays stretched across the neat, fifty-row lines of pineapples to the left, painting the dew on their spiky leaves in gold.

A sharp, frantic sound cut through the cool and clean, ripe fruit air as boots pounded hard on the soil.

A lady with a curvy form sprinted across the field, her breath coming in ragged gasps, while her breasts jiggled like rubber.

She skidded to a halt, bent forward, braced her hands on her knees, and screamed. "He’s awake!"

From every corner of the field—between rows of crops, from the already open doors of tool sheds, and from the shaded porch of the main farmhouse—people erupted.

Men, women, and children who wore soil-dusted cloths dropped hoes and baskets and ran after the grey-haired lady.

They converged on a large, walled compound and crowded around a large ground-floor window, and jostled for a view.

Straining onto tiptoes, a low murmur of excitement buzzed among them as they peeked past the slightly fogged glass.

"I can’t see inside, Dad," a little girl of about six years, whose face was smudged with dirt, tugged at the leg of her father’s worn trousers.

"Come here, then," the man said in a gentle voice. He bent and hoisted her up onto his broad shoulders.

The little girl steadied herself. "Dad," she whispered, leaning down close to his ear. "Who is that?"

"Shhh," the father tried making her quiet, but instead caught everyone’s attention by his single sound.

Inside the room, a man dressed in finely tailored, dark cloth tilted his head slightly toward the window. He stretched his arm and tapped on the shoulder of the brown-haired guy beside him.

"Did you hear that?" he asked in a low and curious voice. As he was about to say more, a throat-clearing sound shot up from the direction of the bed.

Ahem.

The guy’s attention turned as he shut his mouth.

Zoe stood by the king-sized bed, a faint smile touching her lips.

She leaned closer to the boy lying on the bed and placed the blue crystal gripped tightly under her palm onto the center of the boy’s chest.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then, as murmurs stirred among the guys standing behind the white-haired man, the crystal liquefied and seeped into the fabric.

It vanished into the boy’s skin without leaving a trace.

The boy jolted as if being struck by lightning.

Cough. Cough. Cough.

Three consecutive barks of air exploded from his lungs while his back arched off the soft mattress. His eyes cracked open but could only see blurry shapes and swirling colors.

Panic surged through him as he saw figures looming around him like indistinct ghosts in a bright haze.

The memory of the devouring gold light, the heat, and the beam of light that erupted from his face and blasted the sky reeled in his mind.

He moved his right arm upward, fingers clawing at the air as if blocking an invisible wall from swallowing him.

"Leon," Zoe said in a soft tone that erased the memory from the boy’s mind instantly.

She wrapped her arms around the boy’s flailing wrist and gently forced it back down to the bed.

Slowly, the blurry figures solidified into shapes as his vision cleared, separating the colors into distinct forms.

He blinked once, twice, then saw the silver-grey eyes.

"Zoe? Is that you?" A wave of overwhelming relief crashed over him as he pushed himself up, ignoring the protest of his stiff muscles.

He wrapped his arms around her in a desperate hug, buried his face in the crook of her neck, and breathed in her sweet scent of vanilla.

Zoe stiffened for a second, then wrapped her arms around him, returning the embrace. They held each other for a long moment, without saying a word, just letting the time take its moment.

Seeing the heavy stares, Leon slowly loosened his grip and pulled back. He shifted his gaze from Zoe’s face to the figures standing silently around the bed and behind the window.

There, he saw several young men with brown hair and ladies that had the same silver-grey hair as Zoe’s.

Leon looked down at his own arm, then at the linen sheet he lay on. He turned his gaze back to Zoe. "Where am I?" he asked in a voice that seemed stripped of warmth.

Zoe smiled faintly, took a step back, letting a little gap come between her and the bed, then gestured with an open hand toward the older man standing behind her.

"This," she paused, "...is my father, Hu Qing." "And," she moved her finger to the white-haired and bearded man, "my mother, Elara. My sisters, Kira and Liana."

The two young ladies stood there smiling, but one had a softer smile compared to the one having Zoe’s eyes and features.

"My brothers, Corin, Darian, Ewan, and Finn."

Leon swallowed hard as he shifted his gaze from the four tall and powerful young men, each looking like they could wrestle a bull. 𝒻𝓇𝑒𝘦𝘸𝑒𝒷𝓃ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝒸ℴ𝘮

Zoe closed the gap and wrapped her fingers around Leon’s. She squeezed the grip once, then exhaled softly.

She tilted her gaze from Leon to her father, her lips parting as if wanting to form another word.

The white-bearded man stepped forward and went down fully, lowering himself onto one knee on the stone floor.

As if it was an assigned signal, Zoe’s brothers, her sisters, and her mother all sank to one knee in perfect unison.

From the corner of Leon’s eyes, through the window, he saw those outside all dropping to one knee in the dirt.

Although he couldn’t see their knees touching the dirt, he could hear the soil screaming.

Leon’s breath hitched as confusion struck him in the gut. His mouth opened slightly as his eyes darted from one kneeling figure to another, then finally back to Zoe.

Surprisingly, she remained the only one still standing, yet she never let go of her grip.

Hu Qing lifted his head. "This," he said in a voice that filled the now quiet room, "...is your home, son of Andrew Storm."

A single bead of sweat traced down Leon’s brow to his cheek as he stared at the pale blue eyes of Zoe’s father.