My Four Miraculous Treasures

The darkness in Jasper's eyes threatened to freeze her solid. Through clenched teeth, he growled, "You've developed anorexia, now? Truly, you have all the talents of a woman."

His tone was sarcastic. His aura was cold, sharp, menacing...

Willow held her ground, her face scrunched up in defiance against him. "Release me. You can't keep me here forever."

She needed to get home. She missed her children. Her children missed her.

"And why can't I, exactly? You don't want to eat? Fine! No more food for you, then." Steering her by the neck, he marched her out of the bedroom, through the halls, and into the backyard.

There was a large shed in the yard. Seeing them approach, the housekeeper immediately opened the door for them. Jasper hurled Willow inside and snarled, "You'll stay in here from now on, and you won't get a bite to eat without my say- so!"

Then he turned and stalked away, back towards his mansion, while barking orders to Leon Freeman: "Seal the backyard! If anyone allows her inside to have some food on the sly, they'll be severely punished!"

"Yes, sir..." Leon answered uncertainly-but he locked the door, as instructed.

Willow spent a moment massaging her neck, which was sore from abuse. When she finally looked around, she realized that she was surrounded by vases and urns, while yellowing paintings hung upon the walls.

The urns were made of the finest porcelain, some of them spiderwebbed with scars of age. The paintings were all classics, the works of renowned masters.

With a jolt, Willow realized that these were all antique treasures! She was in a private museum! She turned around in a full circle: All the walls were adorned with those paintings. Upon a table in the middle of the room sat an assortment of smaller vases, as well as various jewelry items.

This was a veritable treasure trove! How much was all this stuff worth?

Willow examined the paintings curiously, peered closely at the vases and jewelry...

A jade disk caught her eye. It was tiny, barely an inch in diameter. There was something very familiar about it... where had she seen it before?

She picked it up for a closer look-and then suddenly, it came back to her:

Once, when she was shopping at a she

mall with her kids, Lilith had chanced upon a pendant like this on the floor of a toy store. She wouldn't let go of it, so Willow ultimately had to pay a hundred bucks for that little chunk of imitation jadestone.

In fact, this pendant looked exactly like that children's toy...

Surely all the stuff in Jasper's collection was genuine, so this jade disk here was probably the original inspiration for Lilith's toy pendant, which was made of imitation jade.

Children's toys were made to look like all sorts of things, these days. Perfectly ordinary.

Having seen all the stuff on open display, Willow began rifling through the drawers next, and found that they were similarly crammed with priceless antiques.

So this was Jasper's hobby: collecting old things.

Small wonder that the trinket he'd randomly given her, five years ago, had been an age-old antique jade pendant. He'd handed it to her. without a moment's hesitation, like it was nothing.

It turned out, that had only been but one among countless treasures he owned Ancient relics which had borne witness to the passage of eons, comprising masterworks of ink ceramic, jade, bronze.

After spending quite a while appreciating the magnificent collection, Willow realized that the door to the shed was still ajar, and so she ventured outside.

She walked up to the mansion, and tried the back door-but the handle wouldn't budge.

She'd been locked out.

With a flash of comprehension, Willow realized that she'd been imprisoned in Jasper's backyard. Scowling, she returned to the shed.

Her next discovery was that there was neither bed nor blanket anywhere in this gallery-only tables and chairs, and priceless antiques.

It was already fully dark outside. Was she really going to have to spend the night in here?noveldrama