Chapter 3

Amourora didn't know when she fell asleep exactly, but when she woke up again she was no longer in her room, or that dark room from earlier. Instead, she was in the middle of a dark place.

'Where am I? That same dark room? '

She padded to the center of the dark room, moving closer to the glowing light on a Boulder, her steps echoing in the large empty space.

'Gasp!' She stumbled a few steps back. 'no way! How could it be? Wasn't that...'

Her mother's pearl necklace!

She can't be mistaken, it's one of a kind. A chrysanthemum with dozens of petals, each narrow petal is a unique vibrant gemstone. Even it's golden string had pearls around it, four of which are black pearls, beaded in the shape of butterflies.

The most fascinating thing wasn't it's delicately crafted shape, nor the variety of valuable colorful gems, but the story behind it.

When she was a little girl, her mother told her, one of their first ancestors traveled the world collecting the most precious stones, then hired three talented craftsman with more than thirty years of experience in crafting this exotic shape. After that, he visited multiple temples to bless it. The process took more than five years, but his efforts have been proven fruitful when the final form had been shaped.

He then presented it to his beloved wife who had been sick at the time, to wish her health. Ever since then, this heirloom has been passed down to the first daughter of the family. What's more interesting is, there had never been more than one daughter borne in each generation, no matter how many sons there had been.

At that time Amourora had proclaimed, she would be the happiest lady in the world, if someone had loved her so much as to spend as much money, effort, time, and resources to present her such fine treasure.

But her mother disagreed saying, their ancestor's wife would've rather preferred her husband stay by her side when she needed it most, instead of traveling and wasting money.

She also said, the precious pendant would be hers one day, and Amourora couldn't be happier. Although the piece of jewelry was as small as her palm, she loved admiring its vibrant colors, and guessing what gem each petal held.

But... She forgot to take it with her to the Cloud kingdom. She saw Lady Victoria wearing it in the spring peace banquet, and fought her over it, which earned her a bad reputation.

But, how did it end up with Lady Victoria in the first place? And why is it here now?

Thump!

Her eyes shifted to the big stone book engraved on the boulder, next to the pearl necklace. Did... Did the stone book just flip open on its own?

She reached out to feel it's strangely smooth surface, and the strange inscriptions on the book seemed to glow a bright silver. Maybe because she was in a dream, the stone book seemed to move? It doesn't make sense for stone to move as swiftly as paper.

As her fingers glided over the inscriptions, something sharp pricked her finger. She quickly pulled back her hand, but a thread of blood smeared on the surface. Instead of dirting it, the blood melted into the stone. The pages of the book started flipping in a fast pace, it blew some wind on her face.

She pressed her cool palm to her forehead, to suppress the oncoming agonizing headache. Susurrus of whispering floated into her ear and squeezed into her brain. She panted as the headache finally subsided. Amourora knew dreams are normally strange, but they aren't as vivid as this.

When she looked up, her surroundings had changed again. Instead of endless darkness, she stood on a green meadow, stretching as far as the eyes could see, and on front of her, a chain of green mountains stretched from east to west, in the middle a great waterfall flowed into a river running further than her eyes could reach.

The twittering of birds flying above her head, as well as the splashing of fish in the waters gave the place a lively feeling to it. The lush green blades of grass tickled her tiny feet, and the fresh breeze seemed to clear her head.

'What is this magical place?' she wondered breathing in the beautiful scenery with a mesmerized smile.

She turned her gaze back to the boulder, still in its original place. The book was no longer there, but she could recall every word, letter, and dot in it perfectly, like it's engraved in her brain instead of the bolder.

'My Sunshine at Sunset'... That's the name of the novel.