The Demon King's Cowardly Vessel 63 Bayfront Coast 5

Mr. Smithson waved a hand nonchalantly as he made himself a cup of tea with some milk and a cube of sugar. When he sat back down, he asked calmly, "So, why are you here uninvited and unannounced today? Don't give me lies."

Juin thought for a moment before saying, "I'm here to find out more about Ashton's death. My memories are all fuzzy and almost nonexistent, and I'm having trouble dealing with something because of the incident… So…"

He hesitated for a moment before continuing, "I hope that by coming here, I would be able to find out the truth and settle the confusion in my mind."

"I have told your social worker everything, as well as the cops. I don't know what else I can tell you…" Mr. Smithson said calmly. "By the time I arrived at the cliff, you were barely conscious, and Ashton was gone. I told everyone that Ashton fell off the cliff because you kept looking at the edge with the tears in your eyes… And we found a piece of Ashton's pajamas on some rocks near the cliff."

"Did I say anything then?"

"You kept crying even though you were extremely weak and pale," Mr. Smithson said as he recalled about the day. When he carried Juin up, Juin barely had the energy to raise a finger. Even so, he kept mumbling Ashton's name over and over again, along with "I'm sorry, I'm sorry".

"Do you remember that?" Mr. Smithson asked as he glanced at Juin.

Juin frowned as he tried to think, but after a while, he sighed angrily and shook his head. "Nothing…"

"Guess you won't know anything about Jim Mack then…" Mr. Smithson said. "I have always wondered if he was responsible for everything, but there was no real clue. He just up and disappeared on the day of Ashton's death."

He said "death" instead of "disappearance" because Ashton was legally declared dead, and Mr. Smithson was not the type to hide the truth with pretty words.

"Jim Mack…? I remember him. Ashton called Director Wu about him, but I don't know why. In my memory, Jim Mack was a nice guy..."

"You… don't know?" Mr. Smithson's eyes opened wide upon hearing that. He put his cup of tea down and asked with a serious tone, "Didn't anyone tell you? Director Wu? Oh, I heard that you moved to a home. Your caretaker didn't tell you?"

"Tell me what?"

"Jim Mack was stalking you…" Mr. Smithson said with a serious expression. "The cops found your photos all over a room, and in the room, there was a shrine that seemed to be dedicated to…" He looked at Juin with a weird expression as he said, "You."

Juin pointed to himself, aghast. "Me?"

In his vague memory, Jim Mack was a friendly neighbor, but that was about it.

"Ashton and David were in some of the photos, but the main focus was you," Mr. Smithson said as he nodded slowly. He thought for a while before standing up and signaling Juin to follow him. "I've got some photos that the police took which aren't released to the media.���

Mr. Smithson had some contacts among the high ranking officers of their city, and in order to protect his son's privacy, he paid them off so that they would not keep certain photos as evidence. After all, he wasn't harming anyone with his conduct.

Juin and Lucifer exchanged glances when they saw Mr. Smithson's signal. When Lucifer gave him the thumbs-up, Juin got up and followed behind Mr. Smithson. He walked a step behind the man as they moved to his study room.

When they were in the study room, Mr. Smithson told Juin to lock the door and take a seat at the desk.

"I don't want David to accidentally see anything," Mr. Smithson said as he went behind his desk. He pulled out a drawer and reached underneath it to pull a lock, upon which a secret compartment popped out from underneath the drawer.

Inside the secret compartment was a brown file. Mr. Smithson took out and handed it to Juin before sitting down at his leather chair. "It's not really a secret, but I don't want anyone else to find it, especially Mrs. Smithson and David. They aren't--"

Juin nodded before he could finish his words. "I understand, Mr. Smithson."

He then opened the file and looked at the documents inside. There were several photos that were held together with black paperclips, and these photos caught Juin's attention.

As he carefully looked at the photos, he realized that Mr. Smithson was right. In each and every one of the photos, he was the focal point, while Ashton and David only appeared in the background. Given that he was wearing different thickness of clothes in those photos, it was clear that whoever took the photos had been stalking him for a long time.

Most of the photos were pretty inconspicuous and seemed to be taken from a distance away. They were mostly of him doing his everyday business, such as drawing in the front yard with Ashton and David, them playing with Lego bricks, sunbathing, and generally, just mucking about like other kids their age.

"Is that…�� Lucifer pointed at a photo of Juin, Ashton, and David playing with water guns.

"Why?" Juin mumbled. He had forgotten that he was not alone in the room at the moment.

"What why?" Mr. Smithson asked as he watched the boy before him going through the file.

"Nothing," Juin replied with a fake smile. He then looked down at the photo that Lucifer pointed out to him. In the photo, Juin was smiling brightly as he and Ashton shot David with their water guns. He couldn't understand what he was supposed to be looking at.

"This…" Lucifer lay his finger on a point below Juin's chest. "The scar on your chest…"

Juin picked up the photo and took a closer look. He recalled now that he used to have a scar… No, wait. That was a birthmark, not a scar.

"This was on the shrine in the room…" Mr. Smithson said as he pushed aside some of the photos gently and pulled a photo out from the pile and gave it to Juin.

Still holding the photo of him with the "birthmark", Juin looked at the photo that Mr. Smithson just gave him.

"This…" Juin was looking at a photo of a baby that appeared to be around one or two months of age. The baby was held in the hand of a person in a red cloak. "I don't understand…"

"Me neither," Mr. Smithson admitted. "But that photo was found next to a photo of you."

He then pointed to a photo that was lay on the table. It was a photo of Juin, and someone's arm was around his shoulders, but that person was cut out from the photo so that Juin was the only one in it.

"These two photos were on the shrine…" Mr. Smithson said with a grim expression. No one could tell whether these two photos were of the same person. The baby in the photo did not have the "birthmark" that Juin had on his chest. "And traces of your blood was found on the floor in the room. A Sigil of Lucifer was drawn on the ground with your blood."

Chapter end