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Cages lined the walls of the dilapidated building. They were large enough to hold a big dog or in this case, enough to cram a girl into. There are many girls trapped in different cages. All of them with high yin energy and virgins.
Some of them were even cultivators, talented ones from prestigious sects. It had been difficult to capture them but the village girls all died too easily.
Chu Feilong was proud of his accomplishment. The latest captures; two of Huan Hua’s brats that had an especially high yin energy. They would be most suited for the purpose. The last one was from Tian Yi Overlook’s nunnery, and she had showed exceptional progress until the end.
Now which one to choose, he thought as he observed the two beautiful young girls. One of them was barely fourteen; she might be a good enough candidate because of her higher Yin energy but the other one was older, mature and stronger, consequently the older one would have a higher chance of survival.
Su Xiyan, controlled the shake of her limbs besides her, her He-shijie kept an uncaring, aloof expression. Su Xiyan didn’t know how, He Yueling kept calm under circumstances like this.
Both of them were bound by Immortal Binding Cables and trapped with no way of escape. The rest of their team; including their teacher, were dead. He Yueling had not got a chance to send for help.
They hadn’t been prepared for demonic cultivators during a routine night hunt. Most of their team, including Su Xiyan; had been juniors out for their first night hunt with only a teacher and He Yueling; an older shijie.
He Yueling moved a little closer and Su Xiyan leaned into her shijie for comfort.
“Keep calm.” Shijie said.
How can she keep calm? Su Xiyan’s lips trembled.
“The more you panic, the lesser are our chances of survival.”
Su Xiyan knew that too. But it didn’t really help. Su Xiyan could only stare at the other cages in which woman with swollen bellies and pained expression lied sobbing and feel the same desperation and fear crawling along her vein.
He Yueling was looking at Su Xiyan; watching the fear in the younger girl’s face.
And when the demonic cultivators came, He Yueling offered herself in place of Su Xiyan.
Su Xiyan cried until He Yueling came back; clothes askew, sullied, bruised and shaking but still with that impenetrable mask in place.
Su Xiyan could only cry.
Days passed and Su Xiyan watched as her shijie grew paler and her midsection gained size.
Why didn’t someone come for them? Wasn’t the palace master a great cultivator?
Su Xiyan never got a chance to meet the man in person; only the senior disciples got the chance for that but she still hoped the man would come. Someone would come.
But nobody did.
The cracks in He Yueling’s mask became fissures. It has been months.
There is not much time, Su Xiyan thought, until that mask crumbles.
Then what will be left of He Yueling?
Su Xiyan cried the last of her tears that day.
The nun from Tian Yi Overlook lost what she carried. Blood stained the ground she laid upon and she kept crying and screaming.
They took her away, then came back saying that she was good for ‘one more’. When they dragged her back in, her belly was flat.
Su Xiyan would have puked had she not been desensitized.
Only she is left untouched and Su Xiyan knows it’s her shijie’s doing.
Their rescue came, not in the form of their master but in the form of two men; one in verdant green robes and another in mournful white.
Su Xiyan watched as they laid waste to the demonic cultivators.
The Peak Lords of Qing Jing and Bai Zhan... Cang Qiong Mountain Sect.
Su Xiyan watched with wary hope but beside her He Yueling just watched with a blank gaze.
When they were free, finally, after everything was said and done, only then did her sect come.
Why? Why come now? She wanted to scream.
She watched the Huan Hua elder argue with a Tian Yi Overlook elder about authority and jurisdiction and whatever.
Why?
Away from the commotion, Peak Lord Shen Anwei came to them. He looked at He Yueling and his expression gentled like a father consoling a grieving daughter. He Yueling cracked and fell apart like a broken vase.
Su Xiyan watched, no more tears left, as her shijie cried in the arms of the man. He Yueling’s loud sobs echoed, the other cultivators stopped their argument and fell silent.
Su Xiyan saw the disgust in the Huan Hua elder's face when he saw He-shijie's belly. The proof of what happened to her in this wretched place. The proof of what she suffered in Su Xiyan’s place.
Su Xiyan’s fists curled and jaws clenched.
Never will she wait for someone to save her. Never again. She had waited and He Yueling had suffered.
The argument that followed was worse.
“Abort it!” The Huan Hua elder shouted. “What else is there to do? Did all of you forget what the demonic cultivators were trying to do?”
“Who knows what they are carrying? It could be a demon!”
Someone scoffed. “The cult was trying to create a child with high spiritual capacity to be used as a vessel for their deity. Elder Zhen should I remind you that the child she is carrying is entirely without blame for what the cult did.”
“And it is a child. An ordinary human child, with a strong spirit root, but a human child nonetheless.”
Shen Anwei sighed, “The techniques they used and while their end purpose was summoning a dark deity; the fetus would be untainted until after birth when the deity would possess it. As long as the ritual is destroyed the child is no threat. And we already destroyed the ritual. Now I should believe we should leave the choice to the mothers.”
Shen Anwei looked at the three women. The victims of the cult; all in varying stages of pregnancy.
“I don’t want it.” One said immediately, eyes haunted. While the monks from Zhao Hua gasped and muttered, Shen Anwei gave her a comforting look that settled the girl.
The other girl, even younger than Su Xiyan, muttered and fidgeted looking unhinged but she had kept her arms firmly wound around her belly and shook her head frantically. Tears spilling down her shrunken cheeks. She was the nun from Tian Yi Overlook who had lost her first. This would be the end of her life at the convent but she couldn’t.
Su Xiyan still remembered their captors saying ‘she would be good for one more’.
Surprisingly the Abess of the Tian Yi Overlook’s nunnery had been there. The older woman walked towards the shaking girl. Then surprising them all the Abess said.
“You nor your child are tainted by the cruelties committed upon you. The nunnery is your home, it will be your child’s home as well.”
The girl cried and shook in the elder's arms.
Everyone’s eyes turned to He Yueling. He Yueling, who up until that moment had been a complete wreck, changed like a flipped switch. Her eyes focused and her spine straightened.
“I am keeping him.”
Much to the Huan Hua elder’s outrage, He Yueling didn’t change her mind. Shen Anwei nodded at her and He Yueling released the last bit of her tension.
Only later did Su Xiyan wonder.
‘Him’ He Yueling had said. ‘Keeping Him...’
When they were back in Huan Hua; the Palace Master requested their presence. It was the first time Su Xiyan was meeting the man, so she gathered her courage and the steel edge she gained with the last few months and donned it like metal armor.
The Palace Master’s eyes lingered in a way she didn’t expect.
He Yueling had to leave Huan Hua. Her engagement with the son of the Fang family was canceled. She was disgraced but she kept her head up.
Sent back to her father’s clan; the Lin clan, she was prepared.
She took their scorn and fueled her fire. Her son, she just knew it would be a son, will show them all.
During the months leading to the delivery, her happiness in life had been found in Su Xiyan’s occasional visits and the alive and well babe in her womb.
Her father named him Nianzhen. It was her Lord Father’s right as clan elder and the tradition of her mother’s family; the He family.
Lord Father didn’t allow the ‘bastard’ child to keep his clan name of ‘Lin’ and He Yueling was much okay with that. She herself had kept her dead mother’s clan name of ‘He’.
Nianzhen was an incredibly intelligent child. He looked at the world in wonder with his olive-green eyes and He Yueling broke down her walls for him.
It was like a blessing that He Nianzhen had the beautiful features of her mother. He was the most beautiful babe ever, Su Xiyan agreed.
He Yueling loved him and promised to do the best for her son. With the promise in mind, she gives him the name of He.
He Nianzhen; her Xiao He.
Her son was special. His dreams were proof of that. She kept her son’s secrets and she made him promise to look beyond face value.
This world was a twisted one and it always the winners who wrote history.
Her health waned with each year after her son’s birth. Her father’s family showed no care. She feared what would become of her son if something happened to her.
They were cruel to him. Taking their anger at her on her son’s skin. She submitted to their scorn so that they would spare Xiao He. They never did.
Su Xiyan was getting more and more restricted by the Palace master. And it would be wrong to burden the unmarried woman with her son no matter how much Su Xiyan loved Xiao He.
It is with this thought in mind that she crafts the letter for the Qing Jing Peak Lord.
Xiao He is only five now but he has amazing spiritual potential and he was incredibly talented in the four arts. His level of intelligence often like an adult’s instead of a child’s. She had taught him all the instruments she knew, asked one of the more sympathetic family members to teach him the flute. His tiny hands crafted calligraphy that was mediocre for an adult but coming from a child barely five years of age; was extraordinary.
He Yueling thinks she has a few more years with her son. The healers she visited assured her.
But she still worries.
He Yueling dies in the autumn before Xiao He turns six.
He Nianzhen knows he’s not a normal child.
He remembers too much. In fact, he remembers everything from the moment of his birth. He understands things far easier than a child should.
His first memory is blinding lights and a voice announcing;
“It’s a boy!”
He knows; he understands, what they are saying but he could never say anything back.
There is a rough hand on his forehead and a derisive scoff. He feels afraid because he knows that whoever this is, doesn’t like him. No one here likes him.
They are saying things; bad things.
“We should just drown it before Miss He wakes up.”
“At least it's not a girl.”
“What good is that! This wretched thing ruined out clan’s future.”
“Miss He and Lord Fang were such a perfect match... If it wasn’t for this little parasite.”
“They say it was created using some demonic techniques. Do you think it’s a demon?”
The hands are holding him too tight and they hurt and words hurt even more. He whimpers but nobody cares. He doesn’t know what to do, everyone hates him.
So, he does the only thing he can do, he cries louder.
And then he hears her.
“Give me my son.”
His breath catches and he stops crying because he wants to hear more of her.
There are different hands on him now, sword calloused hands and a gentle grip. He loves it.
“And stay away from him.” She’s angry and for a moment he stills afraid.
But then he feels something soft on his forehead and her voice, gentle and loving.
“Shh... It’s okay baby... Mother loves you. My beautiful little boy.”
He is happy.
His name is Nianzhen. He doesn’t like that name.
His grandfather doesn’t like him. The man holds him once and speaks.
“This elder,” elder not grandfather, “names him Nianzhen. He will not carry the Lin family name. Do with him what you will.”
Then he is back in his mother’s arms.
“Such a pretentious name your grand-” she cuts herself off, “the clan elder gave you. So what if you don’t carry the Lin family name, this mother of yours doesn’t carry the name either.”
He agrees with his mother. He always agrees with his mother because his mother is strong and smart and loves him.
“You will carry the He family name. He Nianzhen.”
He still doesn’t like Nianzhen but he likes the smile on his mother’s face when she gives him the name so he smiles back.
“My beautiful little lotus.”
Whenever there are people around his mother calls him He Nianzhen but when it’s just the two of them she calls him ‘Xiao He’. He likes that more.
Xiao He is a very active child. He babbles at his mother all the time but when there are others around, he falls silent. Mother would look at him proudly when he behaves in public and she would look at him with love and wonder when he’s being silly in front of just her.
He wants to tell her he understands her but Xiao He is still too young to speak the words.
He hugs and cuddles his mother when the others are especially mean.
Xiao He hates them for making mother sad.
Xiao He has been practicing for a while now. He hides it from his mother because it would be a surprise.
Mother drops her porcelain teacup in shock and Xiao He falls back on his little butt from where he had managed to stand on his feet for the first time.
Did he do something wrong?
Was he not supposed to stand?
But it was a surprise for mother.
Xiao He can’t keep his tears back. He just wanted to make mother happy and now she’s crying.
He wails, keeps his voice low because he knows that others yell at his mother when Xiao He is too loud. But he can’t stop crying.
Mother runs to him and scoops him up.
“Oh no, Xiao He. Don’t cry, don’t cry. Are you hurt? Let mother see.”
But Xiao He is not hurt! Mother is.
He dabs at her wet cheeks and she finally stops patting at him for injuries.
She looks at him, eyes wide in shock.
“Did you cry because mother was crying?”
Xiao He manages a tiny whimper and nod.
Oh no, he did it again. Mother is crying even more now.
But she’s smiling too.
“Oh, my Xiao He. Mother’s happy.” She chokes out through her tears. “Mother’s so happy. These are happy tears.”
Xiao He still doesn’t like them.
“Mother so proud of Xiao He. My little lotus is growing up so fast. My beautiful little boy.”
She cries harder.
She keeps telling him she’s happy.
He wows not to make her too happy again in the future. Xiao He doesn’t want his mother to cry.
But he manages to do it again, all the time.
She cries when he surprises her next time too.
“Mother!” Xiao He yells proudly. He has been practicing this too.
And then he is dismayed to find her crying again.
He joins in and wows not to surprise her again.
But she still cries when Xiao He gives her the little lotus he picked.
She cries when Xiao He draws her a pretty charcoal picture of the two of them.
Finally, Xiao He is old enough to understand that his A’niang isn’t really hurt but just really weird. He keeps trying to not make her cry anyway.
Every year on Xiao He’s special day, Mother takes Xiao He to the Lotus pier. The He family used to live there.
Mother tells him it used to be a big clan but now it’s just Mother and Xiao He.
They spent the entire day at the pier and Mother and ignore Clan elder’s mean words when they are back home and tucks Xiao He into bed with a story of the Lotus flower then cultivated to become human.
Xiao He falls asleep to his Mother’s soft voice.
The dreams start when Xiao He is four.
It makes everything confusing.
Whose Shen Yuan?
When Xiao He tells her about the dreams, Mother is worried. She takes him to a weird old woman.
The weird old woman (The Abess, He Nianzhen) tells them that due to the ‘special circumstances’ during him conception, He Nianzhen must have retained the memories of a life past.
Xiao He understands only one thing.
‘Oh so, Xiao He used to be Shen Yuan.’
Mother makes him tell her everything he dreams. And she helps make him understand what are memories and what is reality.
Xiao He loves his Mother lots.
“Do you...” Mother hesitates, “Do you want to be called Shen Yuan?”
Xiao He looks at her and thinks.
“I don’t like Nianzhen,” she becomes sad when she hears that so he hesitates before continuing, he doesn’t want to make her sad again. “But I want to be Mother’s Xiao He.
“Oh!”
Mother looks at him with a small, happy smile.
“He Yuan.”
She tells him and it fits like a glove.
As more and more memories come, it becomes easier.
Mother laments that Xiao He’s growing up too fast.
But she still teaches him musical instruments when he asks her to.
Shen Yuan knew the violin, qin, and piano. Mother only knows what the qin is. So, she teaches him and then teaches him the pipa and erhu too. One of the uncles who hate him a little less teaches him the flute.
Uncle says Xiao He is a genius. Xiao He just shrugs, hiding his giggle because only Mother and Xiao He knows the secret.
Mother teaches him calligraphy. Xiao He teaches her English and it becomes their secret language.
Su Xiyan visits from time to time. Xiao He calls her Aunt Su. Aunt Su brings lots of gifts with her and most of them are books.
Mother and Aunt Su would watch smiling as Xiao He dives into the new bestiary Aunt Su brings.
Aunt Su wants Xiao He to join Huan Hua when he’s older but Mother disagrees. Xiao He thinks they fight but he’s not sure. They move out of the room before he could hear.
Xiao He doesn’t see Aunt Su for a long time after that.
Mother has been sick lately. She tells him its fine and he acts like he believes her.
“Do you want to learn cultivation?”
“Of course,” Xiao He puffs up eagerly.
Mother chuckles.
“Cang Qiong.” She speaks. “When you’re older I want you to join Cang Qiong. Stay away from Huan Hua.”
She’s serious so Xiao He nods and doesn’t question her.
“The Qing Jing Peak Lord is a very wise man. It would be a blessing if you got into Qing Jing. I know you’ll get into Cang Qiong easily.”
Xiao He nods.
He tells her about his latest dream memory. The one about the shitty book and the hack author. She whacks him for using bad words but then grows shocked when he tells her the story.
She asks him to leave her alone to think and Xiao He leaves worried.
His ‘cousins’ find him after he left Mother’s room. They say they want to spar with him. He tries telling them he doesn’t know how to fight.
“We’ll teach you.” One of them smiles.
It hurts.
Mother is furious.
“He’s just a child!” She’s yelling at the clan elder.
“They are all just children, Yueling. No need to overreact.” The clan elder says blasé.
When her arguments get more vicious, the clan elder sneers.
“He’s five, isn’t he? Maybe it's time to start his training.”
Xiao He barely sees his Mother’s horrified face before Clan elder drags him off.
Five-year-old's, Xiao He thinks, are not supposed to do this.
After that, Clan elder drags him off to ‘train’ daily. His cousins want to ‘spar’. Suddenly it's like open season.
Everyone wants him to do something.
Mother cries when she thinks he doesn’t see.
One day, Mother is yelling at one of the aunts who whipped Xiao He for messing up her garden, no one believed him when he said it was his cousins.
Mother suddenly collapses.
Mother has lots of visits from the healer now. She tries to keep Xiao He with her at all times but the healers would want him outside and then someone would drag him off for something.
His cousins always manage to blame him for whatever happens and the punishments leave vivid marks on his skin.
One day, Mother calls Xiao He to her room. He tries to hide the bruises but she still sees them. She no longer cries happy tears.
“Xiao He, you remember that book you dreamt about...”
Xiao He nods.
“There is a lake in the Hui region. It’s called the Lake of the Thousand Blooms.”
Xiao He perks up, “Like the one where Luo Binghe fought the Blood Feasting Demon Eels?”
She smiles thinly and nods. “Exactly like that.”
“So, the book is real?” Xiao He asks with wonder. “Will I get to meet Luo Binghe? Ooh does that mean the nasty villains are real too?”
“Xiao He,” Mother chides, “things are not always the way they seem. It’s like the Lake of the Thousand Blooms. It is said to be so beautiful, it's like heaven. The water is filled with spiritual energy and the flowers are used for many special occasions. But that’s all the surface.
Under the lake there are a thousand species of carnivorous monsters.
Your book, while I think there is a high chance of it being real, do not take anything from it at face value.”
‘Benevolent and wise’ that’s what the book called the palace master.
He Yueling remembers another face.
‘Due to the special circumstances of its consumption, there is a high chance that the fetus can be a viable cauldron to harvest spiritual energy.’
She had fled Huan Hua the next morning.
Clan elder interrupts whatever she wants to say next.
That is the last time he sees his Mother alive.
He misses her every day, every moment.
‘Is this how my; Shen Yuan’s, family must have felt?’
At her funeral he catches a glimpse of Su Xiyan and he remembers his mother’s words.
He Yuan walks towards her with a blank gaze. The palace master is beside her. The man’s eyes fasten on him with the focus of a shark smelling blood.
“Aunt Su...”
“Xiao-”
“No. Don’t call me that.” It’s his Mother’s nickname for him. He can’t bear to hear it anymore.
“He Yuan,” he says, “Call me He Yuan.”
“Alright, A’Yuan.” She hugs him and he catches the narrowed stare from the palace master.
Stay away from Huan Hua.
Mother’s memory says, loud and clear.
He declines Su Xiyan’s offer of a ‘home’ at Huan Hua.
He never sees her at the Lin Estate after that.
No one but He Yuan remembers his seventh birthday. Too young to venture out towards Lotus Pier, he spends the morning at the tiny lotus pond in his mother’s garden.
He Yuan is the only one who looks after the garden and it is hard to find time to maintain his mother’s garden when he has other chores and punishments to look forward to. Clan elder had stopped calling it ‘training’ after his mother’s death. The lack of care shows in the overgrown weed and the dying plants. The lotus pond remains the only thing undamaged.
It feels like something is chipping away at the remnants of his mother and it hurts.
It hurts so bad.
He sits at the edge of the lotus pond and talks to Mother, imagining her warmth and her smiles. It lessens the pain somewhat, like a butterfly bandage over a stab wound.
Then he goes do what is expected of him for the day.
His memories of Shen Yuan are clear and sharp now. Even things he had forgotten in his last life as time had passed comes clear to him.
He remembers the time his xiao-mei lost her tooth and cried hugging him. There was blood and snot and tears all over his shirt and he had cried along with her.
He remembers the frog that er-ge gifted him on his third birthday. The one er-ge had convinced him was an alien species.
He remembers his mom’s various attempts at baking.
He remembers dad’s business trips that never ended and the apologies. The video calls and how his dad cried the first time he saw xiao-mei.
He remembers his life as Shen Yuan with the same startling clarity he remembers He Nianzhen’s.
It is easier to play the role when he tries to think of this as a novel. It dehumanizes everything and makes the impact less.
But then he’d remember Mother.
It wouldn’t be fair to her to think of this world as mere fiction.
She is as real as her love for him and the world is as real as her. He Yuan measures everything with his mother as a scale and everything seems just a bit more real.
He Yuan is twenty-eight years old. Twenty years he spent as Shen Yuan and the remaining eight in this world. There are no seams between his memories anymore.
He can’t stay here any longer.
Life in the Lin estate only gets worse as days pass. Whatever reprieve he manages to find becomes increasingly shorter and rarer.
He’s no longer a family member if he ever was.
He’s pretty sure that the newest family member; some fifth cousin’s new wife or something, thinks he is just a household servant.
His mother, both mothers, wouldn’t want this for him.
‘Qing Jing Peak, Cang Qiong sect.’ That was the escape his Mother had planned for him.
It is frightening, knowing what will come of the sect in the future but if he wants to be as far from Huan Hua as possible, Cang Qiong is the only sect that won’t bow to Huan Hua.
The ideal age for starting cultivation is between ten and fourteen. He already knows the basics of cultivation. But he’s, his body is, too young to join any sect, let alone the most prestigious of them all.
He survived two years in this household without his mother, he can survive two more.
In the town near the Chihua lake, there is some kind of disturbance. He had known that the Lin Clan was a small family-based sect as well but it was his first time seeing them go on an actual night hunt.
It’s also the first time that they decide to bring him along, for ‘experience’. Dread is all he can feel.
The elder accompanying them tries to keep as much of the details from He Yuan as possible but he’s not the child they think he is and he finds out in the end.
The targets of the suspected water ghost are all little boys.
He’s not here for the experience; he’s here as bait.
Even knowing this, he doesn’t expect them to slip a drug into his food.
The next time he wakes up, he alone and lying near the Chihua lakeshore. Night has fallen and there’s an eerie chill in the air.
He Yuan stands up; the cold wind ruffles his clothes and leaves him shaking but he perseveres and starts walking.
He can’t wait for two more years because at this rate, they’ll kill him.
His little legs, too short, picks up speed and he’s running.
How funny is it that he’s running from his ‘family’ rather than the monster?
Then there’s a tug on his leg and he goes over the steep ledge and falls into the water with a loud splash.
It scratches his arm, leaving blood diffusing into the water but he can’t see it. He struggles and panics when more arms wind around him.
There’s a loud explosion and the water sprays up with blood and viscera. He Yuan is thrown back and down, into the depths rather than the shallows. His limbs are aching and he tries to swim upward.
Another explosion of light and force; his body is thrown again.
I am going to drown, he thinks hysterically.
There are more and more explosions. By the time silence falls and the lake water calms, He Yuan is too far down and far too tired.
His lungs burn at first and then everything starts going numb.
A tug on his injured arm, a sharp ache of pain and then, air.
He Yuan gasps and cries as he is pulled on to the surface.
“Thank you, thank you, thank you.” He mutters frantically through hiccupping sobs and wracking shivers.
The fisherman who had saved him looked at him sadly.
“This one already lost his boy. This one only wanted to spare your parents the same pain of loss.”
Hysteria is the only thing He Yuan feels. He laughs and cries and shakes.
“This He Yuan no longer has someone who would feel pain on his death.”
And isn’t that a knife to the heart?
He Yuan remembers being part of two different families, and he lost both of them.
His cousins are celebrating a job well done while He Yuan contemplates the point of even living anymore.
Hunt after hunt; he is either bait or errand boy or eye candy plus distraction. While the first option is the most dangerous, the third is the most hated.
If he could run, he would have run a long time ago.
One more year and he’ll find a way.
Ever since the death of his head disciple four years ago, Peak Lord Shen had been in isolation.
The day he came out of it, was an auspicious day on Qing Jing.
After giving appropriate replies to his students and his fellow Peak Lords Shen Anwei stepped inside his home.
He first goes to his study; he had appointed a disciple to the task of managing the mundane paper work in his absence. The truly important ones would have gone to the sect leader.
There are some papers and letters left on his desk; he opens the letters first.
There is one letter; the oldest, send three years ago, he reads it first.
The night hunt goes as usual. This time he is bait again.
Young master Lin tells him to wander the street, there’s a flare charm and a location charm in his sleeves. He is supposed to act like he is lost.
He Yuan gives young master Lin a blank stare and the older boy pushes him roughly in the direction of the streets.
He Yuan doesn’t even bother to sigh, just starts wandering.
He has often wondered if transmigrating (or is it reincarnation?) into this world had made him a trouble magnet. Because in every night hunt that he is used as bait, he is always; without failure, captured.
This time is no different except in a way it is. Because the ones who capture him are not the monster of the week but slavers.
He struggles in vain, and hopes wildly that young master Lin and his team will come. But he knows they won’t. They’ll wait a few more hours at least. By the gleam on the disgusting man’s eyes, a few more hours are enough.
“A pretty child, this one.”
“We can sell him to the Madam. E’ll fetch a fine price.”
He Yuan struggles. He hates humans, monsters with claws and fangs he can deal with even when they’re trying to tear him to pieces, but humans like this.
There are hands where he doesn’t want any hands to be.
He hates it, he hates everyone.
He knows he has been on the edge for a long time now. Despair warring with blind fury at the whole world.
Why don’t they all just die!
There is something wild inside him, insidious in its whisperings and gleeful in its logics. It’s simple, they’re hurting him and so they must die.
The pain that brews in his meridians is sharp and acidic. It spreads through his spiritual veins spreading its acrid taint.
He wants them all DEAD!!!
He Yuan should have known that this world and whatever twisted God there is, has a dramatic sense of timing.
The weight on his back has him staggering forward. The hands unlike any he felt before; are gentle, soothing like how he remembers his mother’s touches to be.
“Mother?” He calls weakly, trying to grasp at the figure crouching over him. He can’t see clearly but he hears rough words, male, not mother. But when it echoes in his mind, it sounds more like his mother.
“Rest child.” That’s all mother says.
“Mother!” He Yuan sobs clutching at his mother’s green robes.
“Don’t-” He tries again, “Leave me... Don’ leave Xiao He.”
His mother pauses, “Rest, Xiao He.”
Peak Lord Shen gives Lord Lin the letter sent by He Yueling.
“Don’t you think the boy is too young, Peak Lord Shen?”
Shen Anwei smiles, “Talent such as his should be nurtured young.”
Lord Lin leans back, “But I am afraid that we already have decided that the best place for him is at Huan Hua.”
“But Lord Lin, as he is from, He family and his only living acknowledged relative had been He Yueling, her wishes as his mother should be what is taken into consideration.”
Lord Lin grimaces. Unless they claim He Yuan as a servant or slave, they really had no hold over the boy.
Then suddenly, the child that had been sleeping, wakes up with a start.
“No!” He Nianzhen shouts still on edge from his qi deviation. “I won’t go anywhere near Huan Hua.”
“He Nian-” The clan elder begins.
He Nianzhen cuts him off rudely, “You have no right over me. You are not my clan elder nor my family. My mother wanted me to join Cang Qiong. If there is any sect I will accept, it is only Cang Qiong.”
It might sound ambitious to make such a claim on the famous sect but Shen Anwei can see that the boy isn’t joking.
It takes a few more futile tries on Lord Lin’s part but when Shen Anwei leaves; He Yuan is tucked safely in his carriage. The child falls unconscious once he’s in the carriage.
Cheng Anshuo takes care to make sure that none of the boy’s meridians are misaligned.
A qi deviation of that scale, and the boy hadn’t even properly started cultivating yet. He looks at the frail body that had too many distressing signs and meridians that had taken too much damage.
He doesn’t want to think about the state of the boy’s mind.
He Yuan wakes only three weeks later. He is at first, dazed and confused, kept asking for his mother in hysterics. For some reason, the child had associated Shen Anwei with the memories of his mother. Whatever hallucinations he was experiencing, no doubt leftover damage from the qi deviation, He Yuan only calmed when the Qing Jing Peak Lord was nearby.
Shen Anwei, in turn, got attached to the clingy child.
When the boy was healthy once more, he was given a choice. Unsurprisingly, He Yuan chose Qing Jing.
Qing Jing’s newest and youngest disciple was talented and strange. The boy’s cultivation was shaky. With a spirit root like his, he should have thrived yet his heart demons were so strong.
He flinched when humans (with one obvious exception of Shen Anwei and another less obvious exception of Qi Chunhua) came too close. But even when faced with the more dangerous of the Ling You beasts throwing a tantrum the boy barely startled or scared. The beasts also seemed to calm down a great deal around He Yuan, much to the envy of the Ling You disciples.
“It’s because he’s not afraid. They look at him and see a cub who knows they can hurt him but still choose to stay close and not be afraid. Most of the beasts think of him as a cub too stupid to have a survival instinct. He won’t be a good tamer but the tamed beasts find him... likable.” Wu Anmin; the Ling You peak lord had explained when Xiu Anran of Xian shu had made a comment.
“Ironic isn’t it? That the boy is completely okay with dangerous beasts but falters when faced with human interaction?”
Cheng Anshuo who had treated the child kept a pensive frown.
“Your skills are all progressing smoothly at remarkable speed, all except your cultivation.”
He Yuan swallows heavily. It shouldn’t be this hard, he is an adult, he should be able to deal with it. But the fact is that he can’t.
Not without help.
His memory of PDIW aids him once more.
“Shizun, this disciple would like to go in search for the Black Ringed Moon Blossoms.”
Shen Anwei looked at the boy incredulously. “You would rather go on a pointless hunt rather than try and deal with it the usual way?”
He Yuan looks up, “If you can achieve the same result with different paths, would it really matter which path you take?”
“Black Ringed Moon Blossoms are notoriously rare. Even texts have only vague mentions of it. Are you sure? You might be wasting your time.”
Not if you know exactly where the flower is and during which lunar day it blooms along with an accurate description of its looks and smell.
“I am, shizun.”
Shen Anwei weighs the thought before acquiescing.
But he insists He Yuan take someone else with him. Obviously, the candidate is Qi Chunhua.
Shen Anwei is stunned when He Yuan comes back with the flower in a mere one month.
The truth is that it took only a week to collect the flower, the rest of the month had been spent on a shopping spree courtesy of Qi Chunhua.
It’s not a solution but it’s an aid in finding a solution. The Black Ringed Moon Blossoms give him the distance and clarity he needs to overcome his heart demons. There are many of them he realizes.
He Yuan has yet to deal with Shen Yuan’s death.
He Yuan had yet to let go of Shen Yuan’s family. Before this, he had believed that the best choice would be to forget about them but now, with mother gone and all alone. He Yuan knows he will never relinquish their memories.
He will cherish them.
He will be the son to two mothers and one father, he will be a sibling to two older brothers and a little sister. He will be He Yuan; not Shen Yuan, not He Nianzhen.
Dealing with trauma is not easy. There are bad days but he made sure that the good days prevail. It’s hard but it’s life.
At Qing Jing he finds peace and Cang Qiong gives him the family he needs.
And everything is good.
Until he remembers there’s a plot waiting to happen. It not a hard decision to make.
No matter what happens, he will not let Cang Qiong fall.
He will not lose one more family.