“Ah! Shit! How the hell did you escape?!”

Oliver opened his eyes to that angry face again in the morning, with a marble finger tip almost touching the back of that bald gray head…

“Wait, I’m definitely not hallucinating! You’re not bald anymore!”

Although the tiny hairs were very short and difficult to notice last night, today was different. He reached out and poked his finger on the little bristles, “Ow! That was so dumb… Mmmn!”

A bit of blood tripped down those tiny black hairs and stained the back of the stone flesh with bright red, that got darker as it soaked into the rock. Oliver watched that and opened his mouth for a while, eventually he didn’t say anything. First he locked the haunted marble statue in the basement. Then he got a wet rag with soap and started struggling to wash the blood off the back of the statue’s head. The rag was ripped apart by those hairs, but some of them also broke off, leaving a few awkward bald spots.

“Umm, sorry Sis, I… Hahaha, I’m sure it’ll grow back again, so don’t worry?”

He put the girl face-down onto the bed again. Otherwise he was afraid her hairs might destroy his pillow. After yawning and looking out the window, he noticed that the shed was left wide open!

“Klein! Klein! What happened?! Did we get robbed?! Did bandits attack in the night?!”

“Stop yelling! Klein is sleeping!” Emerald came out of the house and rubbed the boy’s short, messy white hair violently, “We didn’t get robbed. I already made a deal with the Greenstone Mining Company a few hours ago. Nothing special happened.”

“Nothing happened?! Then what about the gold?! How much did they give me?!”

“They didn’t give ‘you’ anything, you greedy brat! They gave ‘us’, as in, our Verde Village, about ten thousand gold… In credit.”

“Credit, what the hell is credit?! Also, I’m not greedy! Where do you think most of my gold goes every month?!”

“I said shush!” Emerald rubbed even harder to get the little brat to calm down a bit, “Credit is credit. It’s like money, but we can only use it on Greenstone Mining Company and their affiliates-”

“A gift card?! You sold them a million dollar, one of a kind Greenstone Crystal for a ten thousand dollar gift card?!”

“Uh, when you say it that way, it sounds kind of bad…” Emerald snickered and then whispered to the boy, “Think of it this way… If we sold it for ten thousand ‘gold’, we’d have to pay at least four thousand in taxes. Even if we got the gold, we’d still need to use it to buy stuff. Then we’d have to pay taxes on those purchases. On the other hand, we don’t need to pay any taxes if we trade credits for all the items and supplies we would normally need to buy from the company every month. Get it yet?”

“Uh… Doesn’t that sound kinda like tax evasion? Is this legal?”

“Shhh! Shut up!” She quickly covered his mouth with her pale hand and complained, “How is this illegal? We’re just trading… Even if we aren’t the ones paying the taxes, the company still has to, so it’s fine. Companies do this kind of thing all the time. It’s perfectly normal and legal, so don’t go blabbering about it to your friends, okay?”

“Mmmmnmmmnmmmm~!” After her hand was removed Oliver rolled his eyes, “Whatever. It has nothing to do with me anymore, it’s your fake money now. Are Verna and her parents back yet? I need to sell some of the creepy haunted statues in my house.”

“Haunted statues? What do you mean by ‘haunted’?”

“Like they keep moving around while I’m not paying attention. It’s pretty annoying. I’m gonna go see if I can get a better price this time.”

“Who the hell would pay money for that?!” Emerald stepped back and shivered while holding her arms across her chest, “Go! Get out of here and don’t bring your ghosts near my house!”

Oliver snickered and ran away as she wished. Less than a hundred meters away was a two-story green-brick building, not that different from most of the houses. However, the front door was made of glowing green glass and unlocked. He casually opened the door with a ‘jingling’ sound from the silver bell above his head, then before he could say anything, he was almost knocked to the ground by a huge figure!

*Woof~! Woof~! Woof~!*

“Ew, stop, don’t lick me!” He easily pushed away the massive fluffy brown bear-like Greenstone Massif, then was immediately attacked by another, more troublesome beast.

“Ollie~! I love you so much~! Muahahahahah~!” She didn’t even care about the doggy saliva on his face and started kissing his cheek violently, “You made me so much money~! Hahahaha~!”

“I’m sure I did!” Oliver frowned, but he was afraid to push the little girl off his body, because she was much more fragile than the giant dog.

“What about Orna? Did she get into the College before you guys left Kale Town?”

“Of course! She even got into the school with a Scholarship! It turns out that Grandpa Greenstone actually applied for one a while ago and you gave her all that gold for nothing, hahahah~!”

“It’s not meaningless.” Oliver smiled and shook his head as the girl hopped down off his body, though she was actually taller than him anyway.

“Yeah.” Verna calmed down a bit, “Living in Kale Town is a lot more expensive than Verde Village. The Scholarship only helps with the actual tuition and doesn’t include boarding, food or other expenses…”

“Oliver~! I heard you found dozens of other sculptures while we were gone!”

A tall and plump woman shouted in a deafening voice from across the room. She walked over wearing a lime-green and white striped dress, along with fancy green glow-stone hoop earrings, a huge jade ball necklace and glowing green high heels. Although she was only in her thirties at most, she already had gray hair, close to white. If her hair wasn’t so thick and curly, she might not have been able to hide the balding and thinning areas so easily… She did have bright blue eyes though.

“Awww~! You two always look so adorable together~! Why don’t you consider getting married? You’re already getting close to that age…”

“Mama!”

“Umm, I’m only twelve-”

“And I’m only ten! I don’t wanna settle down at ten years old!”

“Hahaha~! Well, do whatever makes you happy. As long as you can afford it!”

Oliver rolled his eyes at their ‘family motto’ and asked, “By the way, did those statues happen to… Uh, well, did they move around when you were transporting and selling them?”

“Like did they get damaged on the ride over?” Verna looked at him in confusion.

“No, no, I mean… Well, the statues in my house have been… Moving.” Oliver shrugged his shoulders, “They probably haunted? I don’t really know. But that should make them more valuable, right?”

“What?! Haunted?!” The little girl screamed in shock.

On the other hand, her mother smiled and narrowed her eyes, “Oliver… Are you sure those sculptures are haunted? Maybe you’re close to your first Word Change?”