Flower Fairy: The Guardian of Mandrake

Legend says the white mandrake is a flower that blooms in heaven, soft and white. Those who see it are cleansed of evil. But is that really true?

And if its petals turn black, can it still be called light?

“Hmph! I am the second prince of the Fairy Kingdom. Why would I stoop to stealing?”

“The witnesses and evidence are right here, and you still deny it!”

“This is clearly your...!”

“Enough! Not another word. Manqian Gabriel, I order you to accept your punishment!”

“But...!”

“That is an order!”

In the dead of night, candlelight flickered and wavered. The figure kneeling inside the shrine seemed as dark as the shadows, utterly at odds with the light.

“Who would have thought a prince would steal? And a member of the royal family, no less!”

“What a disgrace to His Highness, the Mandrake Prince!”

The whispers people thought they were keeping quiet, the rumors that could be heard everywhere, struck straight into a heart already being consumed by darkness...

The white-haired boy gritted his teeth and clenched his fists, but in the end, he could only let them fall open.

[I remember... I don't think I used to be alone...]

The boy stood in the shadows, at odds with the light. Even in the darkness, he was utterly alone...

“Ugh... I'm not a monster! Don't... don't hit me anymore!”

“Beat him to death! Beat him to death!!”

The pain grew worse and worse, and his heart filled with despair...

“Tch! You're so noisy!”

A white-haired boy leaped down from a tree. His mismatched light-purple and pale-gold eyes were full of malice. With a wave of his hand, black dead branches wreathed in purple energy burst from the ground. In the blink of an eye, they drained the life from the little flower fairies, leaving nothing behind.

The boy had already turned and walked away. No one knew that, at that moment, a ray of light had appeared in the heart of the little boy who'd been bullied.

And it only grew brighter...

“You're useless!”

“You're not fit to be part of the Ancient Fairy Clan! You're not fit to be a prince!”

Stop it. I'm a prince! I'm Kuku Lu, heir to the Ancient Fairy Clan!

I'm not useless!!

The gloom of the past and the criticism of those around you made you avoid facing it all, until...

“Kuku Lu is amazing! Just what you'd expect from a prince of the Ancient Fairy Clan! You're wonderful!”

The light swept away the dark clouds, and the world revealed its beauty...

At the very beginning, as he watched that closed flower bud, he nurtured it again and again with his own light...

But then darkness came...

The people around him tried to persuade him...

“There are signs that he's been tainted by darkness...”

“Your Highness, you must put the greater good first...”

His slender fingers clenched into a fist as he watched him in the darkness, unable to face him or say a word...

“Your Highness, the second prince is missing!”

When they met again years later, the reverence he had once held in his eyes was long gone.

“Manqian, come back with me.”

“...Your Highness, Golden Mandrake, we aren't close.”

Beneath the play of light and shadow, they went their separate ways...

A vast golden formation appeared, and everything fell back into place.

Those blood-red eyes in the sky, that familiar figure, and that hazy feeling. Memories flashed before him, and at last he understood...

He had never been alone...

[This book is under contract. Plagiarism is prohibited!]