119 The Snake Twins (1/2)

”And why do you think I'll do a stupid thing like that?” she asked, her mouth twitching.

”Amazon, you can't mean to abandon us?” the girl asked, alarmed.

”It's your duty,” her brother reiterated.

”No, it's not.I don't have to do anything at all. I don't owe you anything.You said you knew grandmama but you could be lying, right?She's not here to validate your word so, no, I don't think so.”

The twins looked at her, horrified.

”But we could help you find the people who did this to us.Don't you realize how important it is that they must be found?They have the book of the Divine Words from Father which has been a guarded secret for centuries,” the little girl argued.

”I don't care,” An Ning shrugged.”That book or you or this cult had nothing to do with me.I just want them found because they killed our friends and are holding captive the young girl you impersonated,” she stopped and her eyes sharpened.”What did you do to that girl anyway?Where is she? And don't lie to me.You wouldn't like me when someone is lying to me.”

”Ning Ning may be we should...” Nian Zhen said tactfully.

”We were not lying,” the boy again interrupted in a rush.”We saw her and copied her because she looked very non-threatening and someone to be trusted.So we used her appearance to fool this guy who were beating up this other guy and we killed him.The other guy who was beaten up was barely alive.Well, we were hungry as we said and decided to eat them.That's when you arrived.”

”You wanted to eat me?” Tsai Po was enraged.”Just because you were hungry you wanted to eat people?”

”We didn't want to,” the girl said, suddenly provoked into showing her anger.”We don't like eating humans either but we thought you were already dead so we thought why not eat you.You wouldn't care anyway since you were dead and we were hungry!”

Tsai Po looked like he wanted to say another word but caught An Ning's amused gaze.He controlled himself but his expression still showed his disgust when he asked, ”You said you saw this girl? Where did you see her?”

”Someone with the guy we killed took her away before we got to her,” the boy said. ”She seemed to have been crying when we saw her though.”

”Crying? She was crying?” was Tsai Po's alarmed voice.”Where did you see her? Show me.”

”We killed the man inside this room with a huge window.We saw the girl outside as she was being dragged away,” the girl said. ”Maybe that's why we chose to impersonate her.Because she made an impression on us.She didn't want to go with those people and maybe that was the reason why she was crying.”

”Where were they going when you met them?Come, tell me!” Tsai Po commanded.

”The forest,” the boy said.

”There was a fog last night,” Nian Zhen suddenly

”So?” the boy asked, obviously perplexed.

”The fog was so thick and cold it practically covered everything on the island.Yet you said you saw the girl as you were looking out the window.But how can you have seen her as you said when visibility was poor because of the fog?”

Everyone seemed to understand what he was getting at because they suddenly looked at the twins with hostile eyes.An Ning perceptibly moved the strips of gauze so that it surrounded the group in a half circle while keeping the twins outside.

The twins looked at each other dumbfounded. The boy swallowed hard and looked beseechingly at An Ning, who returned his gaze without an expression on her face.The girl hesitated, sneaking a look at Nian Zhen who smiled coldly at her.The girl sighed then and nodded at her brother.