Chapter Text
Like most of the good things in his life, Wei Ying’s daughter happens entirely by accident.
It starts with A-Yuan. Wei Ying’s heart aches for him sometimes, the only child in a mountain of ghosts and people who might as well be. He does what he can for the boy, buries him in the earth and promises him radish brothers and sisters, but he knows A-Yuan is lonely. Lonelier even than Wei Ying himself, who at least has the voices of the dead to keep him company.
He can’t give A-Yuan the jiejie he wants and deserves (can’t give him back the one he lost), but he can at least try to make up for it in other ways. He’s seen children with dolls in Yunmeng and other places, so on one of the brighter days he takes himself and a large pot off into the back hill to find a muddy patch and starts digging. The earth in the Burial Mounds is thick and black, and deeper it becomes the ruddy reddish-brown of clay and dried blood, studded with bone fragments that he sifts out as best he can while he fills his pot with building material.
When Wei Ying returns to Demon Subdue Palace Wen Qing scolds him for muddying one of their few cooking vessels, but when he tells her what the clay is for, she leaves him be to carry on to the next step: whittling a mold from the strange dark wood of the trees that grow here. With the dark earth still under his fingernails, he crafts the rough form of a baby, then shapes the clay around it, leaving gaps for him to put the pieces together later. He’s taken enough of them apart to know how a human body goes together, at least in theory; once the clay skin is fired he’ll use vine as tendon to string the doll together, so that she moves at least a little, and will be less stiff and unyielding in A-Yuan’s grasp.
He can’t build a proper kiln, he has neither the space nor the materials, so he constructs something makeshift out of stone and mud and draws the strongest fire talismans he can dream up, to try to get the heat he needs to bake the clay. Wei Ying places the clay parts inside and seals the little dome he built, then activates the talismans and feeds them resentment until the fire inside has set the stones to glowing.
Wei Ying sits and tends the fire for hours, almost a whole day—well, what passes for it in the Burial Mounds, where the clouds never really, fully disperse. Misty dawn fades into a dim grey noon which fades into the encroaching blackness of dusk, and he can sit no longer for fear of attracting the bolder things that live in the void of the night here. Some things live here that remember him, and have matched him before. He would prefer not to take the risk, as important as this task is.
Anyway, it’s enough. With a pair of unwieldy tongs fashioned from charred sticks, he draws the doll parts out from the coals of the kiln and brings them back into Demon Subdue Palace, to lay out carefully on the floor and let cool until morning.
When the light returns, Wei Ying rises. He hasn’t slept, not properly. He never really does these days, but this last night his mind has been whirling with thoughts of the doll, how he’s going to build her and at last have something to give with love to A-Yuan, something good, that he deserves. He gets up at dawn and goes out into the woods once more, whistling now and then to the fading spirits of the night to bid them a polite goodbye, because that’s how a person survives here. Anyway, nothing that lingers to the morning is that bad—they’re just curious.
From the trees he pulls down trailing vines, the stems of the trumpet creepers and the woody wisteria that grow but don’t bloom here. How it survives, Wei Ying isn’t entirely sure, but if people can manage, he supposes, so can plants. He pulls the vines down in long stretches and cuts them with a small knife, the only sort of blade he carries any more—well, a sword would be overkill for this task, even for him—and winds the threads around his arms to bring them back whole.
The rest of their tiny village has roused by the time Wei Ying gets back, and he waves cheerily at Wen Qing, who gives him a gimlet stare.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“The same as yesterday!” he says cheerfully, and offers his vine-wrapped arms for inspection. “I think I should finish the, uh,” he looks around, but A-Yuan is probably still sleeping, so he won’t ruin the surprise, “the doll today.”
“Right,” she says. “What’s your plan for all this?”
He explains, and she nods thoughtfully. “Well, let me know if you need another pair of hands. Or smaller fingers.”
“Yes, of course.” Wei Ying waves her off, back to whatever she was doing, and retreats to his cave. The cold of night has cooled the clay well when he touches it, and gentle brushes with his fingers flakes away the wood from the inside, reduced now to ash. The clay isn’t perfectly fired, a little soft still, and he has no way to seal it. He’ll have to remind A-Yuan to keep his meimei from getting wet. But it will do for his purposes, smooth and well-formed, and he sets to cutting lengths of vine and binding the doll together.
Feet connected to legs connected to a torso connected to arms and a small, round head—easy enough. It takes some fiddling to get the hands onto the ends of the arms, and to tighten the strings and then snug down the knots so that it stays together, but a few hours later, Wei Ying sits back from his labour and looks at the product of his work with satisfaction. She could use a face and some clothing, but her proportions aren’t too bad. All in all she’s a convincingly sweet doll. Mostly, anyway. He smiles, a little wry, down at the little figure resting on his worktable; she’s as uncanny as anything else that came out of the soil of the Burial Mounds, really. That just means she’ll fit right in.
Nothing for it. He fetches a brush and some ink and carefully marks out her features, gives her the suggestion of wispy infant’s hair, and then he tucks her into his robes and brings her over to Second Auntie, who’s doing some mending under the eaves of one of the huts. He shows her the doll and explains what he wants: a little robe, in whatever colours, but of course red and white would be appropriate.
She gives him a steady look and says, “Are you sure you wouldn’t prefer red and black, Wuxian?”
Wei Ying shakes his head, laughs a little. “She’s a meimei for A-Yuan, so she’d better be a Wen!”
Second Auntie just smiles, tolerant and a little amused. “Alright. If you say so.”
He doesn’t have anything better to be doing right now—well, he does , but he’s choosing to ignore it—so he sits down with her and chatters lightly about the weather and how his lotus pond is coming along while she pulls out a few scraps of fabric, one undyed and one russet-red, the closest they can get to the clean white and rich red of their clan colours, and makes short work of clothing the doll.
With a robe to cover her disconcerting joints and her facial features dry and set, she looks properly like a baby doll. Not bad for two days’ work, Wei Ying thinks with satisfaction, and cradles her gently in his arms once Second Auntie finishes stitching her clothing into place.
“Thank you,” he says to Second Auntie. “A-Yuan will love her.”
“I think so, too,” she replies, then waves him off brusquely to go back to her mending. Wei Ying goes, whistling, and heads for the edge of the lotus pond, where A-Yuan likes to play. Sure enough he’s there, making mud pies under the watchful eye of Wen-popo, and he looks up when Wei Ying approaches and grins.
“Xian-gege!” he cheers, hopping up from the mud and rushing over to cling to Wei Ying’s leg. “Hi!”
“Hello, A-Yuan,” Wei Ying says. He kneels down to give A-Yuan a one-armed hug rather than picking him up, his other arm still full of the doll. She’s only a little smaller than a real baby, really. “Guess what?”
“What?” A-Yuan says, and looks at the doll in Wei Ying’s arms. Smart boy.
“I have a present for you!”
“Wow!” A-Yuan grins again brightly, then reaches out to pat the doll with one of his small hands. “It’s this?”
“Yes, that’s right!” Carefully, Wei Ying transfers the doll into A-Yuan’s grasp. She suddenly seems a little hard, a little strange, especially compared to the soft, warm, living boy under Wei Ying’s other hand, but A-Yuan’s eyes are wide and he gasps with delight as he looks her over. “She’s a meimei for you, A-Yuan.”
“Wow,” A-Yuan says again, this time in a whisper. He wraps one of his arms around the doll to hold her secure against his chest, and with his other hand he strokes over the top of her head. “Just for me? For me to play with?”
“Yes, just for you to play with,” Wei Ying assures him. “I grew her in the radish patch. I know she’s not the jiejie you wanted, and she can’t talk or run, but I hope you like her.”
“I love her,” A-Yuan says fiercely, looking up at Wei Ying.
“That’s good.” Wei Ying strokes his hand over A-Yuan’s hair, much as A-Yuan had just done to the doll.
From the other side of the lotus pond, Wen-popo calls, “What do we say when someone gives a gift, A-Yuan?”
“Thank you, Xian-gege!” A-Yuan says promptly, and accepts a hug, then seems to lose interest in Wei Ying entirely and wanders away to go sit back down in the mud with his new meimei.
Wei Ying laughs, a little rueful, and says, “I suppose I should have expected that.”
“It’s a lovely gift,” Wen-popo says, stepping around the edge of the pond carefully to come pat his shoulder. He rises up off his knees once she’s done so and brushes some of the dirt from his robes.
“I hope he enjoys it,” Wei Ying says with a sigh. “She was quite a lot of work, you know!”
“A labor of love,” Wen-popo says, and then winks. “Making children always is, every part of it.”
“Popo!” Wei Ying cries, faux-scandalized, and then laughs. “And they call me shameless.”
“I am too old and tired for shame,” she says, then she waves him off as well, much as Second Auntie had earlier. “Go on, you skipped out of work in the fields yesterday. For a good reason, but A-Qing will have your head if she doesn’t see you today.”
“Aiyah, I know, I know.” Wei Ying bows, accepts another pat on the arm, then goes off to put himself to work. It feels strange, a little, to leave the doll with A-Yuan, when he’d spent a day and a night and a morning crafting her so meticulously; he always feels that way when he sets loose one of his creations, and he supposes she is that, for all that she has a much more innocuous purpose than talismans or cultivation tools.
Then again, he thinks as he joins Third Uncle and Fourth Uncle and Wen Minghui in the field, is bringing A-Yuan a little joy any less important than what those other creations might accomplish? He doesn’t think so, in the end.
As it happens, A-Yuan’s instant declaration of love for his doll, whom he refers to exclusively as “meimei”, holds true. He’s enraptured with her, bringing her everywhere with him and solemnly entrusting her into the arms of a nearby adult when he has to do something with his hands. A-Yuan is watchful over her even when she’s out of his hands, and once when Wei Ying is holding her while he washes up for dinner, he comes over with damp hands which he carefully wipes dry before adjusting the way she’s cradled in his arms.
“Like this ,” he says, poking Wei Ying’s elbow until he’s cradling her head properly, as if she were a real infant.
“How did you even learn how to hold a baby?” Wei Ying asks, amazed. “You’re only a baby yourself!” But the bemused delight falls away at the silent, solemn look that A-Yuan gives him.
Four and a half years old, and he’s lost so much already. What a doll might do to soothe that wound, Wei Ying doesn’t know, but A-Yuan clearly dotes on the odd thing, and that’s what matters.
His affection is contagious, too. Within days every adult in the Burial Mounds greets A-Yuan’s meimei in the same breath that they greet him, and he no longer needs to ask them to hold her carefully; they all just do it. Some are more sincere than others, of course; Wen Qing seems mostly exasperated, if fond, and many of the aunties and uncles are clearly just tolerating A-Yuan’s game. Wei Ying, though, can’t help but feel some genuine care for the doll he created.
He made it with his own hands, after all. He shaped her and warmed her and put her pieces together, and he gifted her to someone whose heart was instantly full of love. It brings a simple, sweet kind of joy to see how much A-Yuan loves his meimei, more than anything Wei Ying has had for months. For… many months indeed.
Wei Ying tries not to think about that too much. Instead, he allows himself to enjoy it, to hold meimei when he’s entrusted with her as carefully as he would hold a real infant, to tuck her in beside A-Yuan at night. He knows that Wen Qing and Wen-popo and the others think he’s being a little silly, but he’s fine with being a little silly if it makes A-Yuan so very happy. He’s allowed, he hopes, to be glad that for the moment, all is well.
He should have known better, Wei Ying thinks later, than to believe that anything he made would bring joy for long.
It’s late evening, barely two weeks after Wei Ying gave the doll to A-Yuan, when he hears screaming coming from outside. He leaps to his feet, work forgotten, and sprints out of his cave as fast as his feet will carry him, because that’s A-Yuan’s voice, and if A-Yuan is hurt, he’ll— He’ll—
He skids to a halt in front of the lotus pond, eyes darting, searching for the threat. Wen-popo is kneeling in front of the pond, holding onto A-Yuan, who is screaming and fighting against her hold, straining toward the edge of the pond, towards—
Towards the slowly dissolving doll drifting in the water.
“Meimei! Meimei!” A-Yuan’s cries ring through the air, his voice breaking on sobs and gasps. Wei Ying has never seen him this frantic, his body shaking with the force of his cries, as though his little heart is truly breaking inside his chest. “Meimei, I’m sorry, I save you—”
Wei Ying hurries over and drops to his knees next to Wen-popo. “A-Yuan, what happened?”
A-Yuan’s face is red and streaked with tears. “Meimei wanted to fly, like Rich-gege and his sword, so I was flying her but I tripped and she fell! Xian-gege, get meimei, she’s in the water, get her back!”
Wen-popo sighs. “I’m sorry, Wuxian, I tried to tell him to be careful.”
Wei Ying shakes his head, fighting down his own bitterness to give her a rueful smile. “It’s alright. It was an accident. I’ll make you a new doll, A-Yuan, don’t worry.”
“I don’t want a new doll, I want meimei! ” A-Yuan sobs, chest heaving. “Xian-gege, fix her! Fix her!”
“I can’t, A-Yuan,” Wei Ying says. He can see plainly that her clay was not fired well enough to hold up against the water, especially unsealed with glaze. She’s returned to the mud already, leaving only scraps of vine and dirtied fabric. He swallows around the rapidly forming lump in his throat. “I can’t fix it. I’m sorry.”
“No, no, no! I want meimei!”
A-Yuan is inconsolable for the rest of the evening. Nearly everyone in the camp takes a turn trying to calm him or cheer him up, but he resists every effort. Nothing works, not Wen Qing’s calm words or Wen Ning’s gentle hugs, not Fourth Uncle’s jokes or Wen-popo’s songs. Eventually, long past his usual bedtime, A-Yuan’s sorrow exhausts itself and he falls asleep, tears still wet on his cheeks.
“You should rest, too, you know.”
From his seat next to A-Yuan’s cot, We Ying looks up. Wen-popo stands in the door of the hut she shares with A-Yuan, her eyes tired. “He’s worn himself well out. He should sleep for a while.”
Wei Ying stands. “Good. That’s good.”
Wen-popo puts a hand on his shoulder. “I know it’s hard to see him upset like that.”
He swallows. “It’s just— it’s not fair.”
Wen-popo smiles sadly. “No,” she says. “It’s not.” She lifts her hand from his shoulder and pats his cheek. “Go to bed, Wuxian. You’ve got another doll to start work on tomorrow.”
He chuckles. “Yeah. Alright.”
But he doesn’t go to bed. He goes out to the lotus pond, instead, to see what he might be able to salvage. The mud is rich and sandy with the dissolved clay now, and the vine scraps are still there. Wei Ying kneels in the mud, uncaring of his robes, and sifts through for any remaining pieces. Here and there, he can feel some rough remaining shards, the pieces that had fired a little better, but all he manages to do is scrape his knuckles as he digs and add his own blood to the mess. After a while, he realizes that he’s weeping.
He understands how A-Yuan had felt. Meimei had been… not long in this world, no. But she’d been real to A-Yuan, and, if he can bear to admit it, to Wei Ying as well. He’d made her, and A-Yuan had given her his heart, and they’d both loved her. And now she’s gone, back into the mass grave with so many of her kin.
Wei Ying gives up, finally. There’s not enough there to salvage. He could use this mud, he supposes, but the clay has been diluted with water and black earth and he doesn’t think it’ll be of any use. The new doll, whatever it looks like, will have nothing of A-Yuan’s meimei in it. Better that she be allowed to rest.
He shakes his head to himself and sits back, staring up at the dark, cloudy sky. Maybe he really has begun to lose his mind, if he’s so distraught over a doll. She wasn’t alive, she wasn’t real . He needs to get over it.
Wei Ying wipes the tears from his face with muddy hands, then goes into his cave to wash his face. A little sleep, and he’ll be able to go on. He always is.
Wei Ying is jerked from turbulent dreams by a piercing shriek, unlike anything he’s ever heard, or at least that’s how it feels in the first moments of disorientation. It’s as though all the desperate misery of the Burial Mounds has been compressed into this one sound, a scream of fear and hurt— and then it cuts off briefly, then returns, more strangled. He flings himself out of his bed and races out of Demon Subdue Palace toward the source of the sound, hearing more distantly the Wens stirring in their huts. In seconds, he is once more at the edge of the lotus pond, staring uncomprehendingly down into the muddy water and the tiny shape that is even now sinking into the filth.
A baby. A real, moving, screaming, living baby is tangled in the stems of the lotuses, barely held afloat. As he watches, the baby’s head begins to slide under, its writhing not strong or directed enough to keep it above the surface, and the scream chokes off.
“Oh, shit,” Wei Ying gasps, and leaps into the pond, heedless of his robes--they’re filthy already anyway, it doesn’t matter. What matters is the infant, wherever they had come from, and he grabs for the baby desperately, snatching them up into his hands. They choke and cough, and he brings them close to his chest, patting desperately at their back, hoping against hope--and then the scream comes again, clear, if ragged from the force. They’re breathing, they haven’t inhaled too much water.
“Wei Wuxian!” Wen Qing shouts from the edge of the pond.
He looks over her way, his eyes wide, and shakes his head at the frantic question he sees on her face. “I don’t know!” he cries. “I just woke up too!”
“What did you do ?”
“Nothing! I swear!”
She groans and drags her hands down her face. She’s in her underrobe, same as him, clearly woken from a dead sleep. It’s only just barely dawn, or what passes for it in the Burial Mounds, the sky overhead beginning to lighten from pitch black to a bruised purple.
The other Wens, too, have gathered, some slower than others to get moving in the morning. All of them are staring, as shocked as Wei Ying himself.
“Where did it come from?” Wen Qing asks.
Wei Ying just shakes his head again and begins wading back out of the knee-deep mud toward her. “I really have no idea. I’m just glad I got to them in time.”
“Yes.” She reaches out her hands when he’s close enough, as if to take the baby from his arms. Before he can stop himself, he sways back, clutching the still-screaming infant closer. Wen Qing’s face softens. “I need to examine… him? Her?”
“Ah…” Wei Ying peels the baby away from his body slightly, mindful of his grip on their wet, naked skin, and checks. “Her, looks like. Sorry, here.”
They transfer the baby carefully, and Wen Qing uses her sleeves to carefully wipe away the mud from the baby’s face and body, looking her over for injuries. After a moment, she says, “At a glance, she seems alright, but I’d like to lay her down and take a proper look.”
“She’ll need swaddling, too,” adds Second Auntie from somewhere in the crowd. “I’ll go get some fabric.”
At that, the Wens seem to decide that the mysterious baby is in safe enough hands with Wen Qing and Wei Ying, and begin to disperse. Wen Qing hands the baby back to Wei Ying, and he sighs, tucking her close to his chest once more.
“Xian-gege?” comes A-Yuan’s small voice from near his knee. Wei Ying nearly jumps out of his skin; he hadn’t noticed the boy approaching, amongst all the panic.
“A-Yuan,” he says on a slow breath. “You startled me.”
“Sorry,” A-Yuan says. He has, unfortunately, learned by now that startling Wei Ying is usually not a good idea. “Did you get meimei?”
“Uh,” Wei Ying says, struck, and looks up to meet Wen Qing’s eyes. She looks just as taken aback. “I… oh, shit.”
“That’s a bad word,” says A-Yuan. “But did you, though?”
“Maybe I did,” Wei Ying murmurs. He kneels down to show A-Yuan the baby. She’s still muddy, but under the mud her skin is still fairly dark, closer to the colour that the doll had been than to Wei Ying’s own skin tone. “I think she’s still your meimei, but she’s a little different now, A-Yuan. I hope that’s okay.”
A-Yuan studies the baby, whose screaming has quieted slightly into miserably whining and the occasional discontent cry, then reaches out to touch her chest with his small hand. “She’s warm,” he observes, then looks at Wei Ying. “She’s different. Still good, though. I still love her.”
“Ah, A-Yuan.” Wei Ying shifts the baby carefully into the crook of one arm so that he can use the other to pull A-Yuan in and kiss his forehead. “You’re a good boy. Go with your grandmother now to get washed up for the day, and Qing-jie and I will look after meimei, alright? You can spend some time with her after breakfast.”
“Okay.” A-Yuan pats the baby lightly, then pats Wei Ying’s shoulder, then trots off to Wen-popo, who has been waiting patiently.
“What a good boy,” Wei Ying says, a little choked up, to Wen Qing. “How are we managing to raise such an obedient child?”
“What ‘we’,” she sighs. “You’ve clearly never met obedience a day in your life. Come on, up with you. I need to make sure that baby isn’t made of resentful energy, or some other impossibility.”
Wei Ying obeys, heaving himself back to his feet as carefully as he can, and thinks as he follows Wen Qing back into his cave that the baby is, perhaps, a little bit made of resentful energy. Most things that come out of the Burial Mounds are.
At Wen Qing’s direction, he spreads out his blanket and sets the baby down on the slab of stone he uses as a bed whenever he’s exhausted himself enough to sleep. She starts fussing as soon as he pulls away, her tiny hands clenching like she’s trying to grab hold of him. It makes his chest ache, even as he backs up to give Wen Qing room to work. He crosses his arms and watches her take the baby’s wrist in her fingers, sending out a pulse of spiritual energy. The baby calms a little at that, and her big brown eyes track Wen Qing’s movements as she manipulates the baby’s limbs, checking her range of motion, pressing a finger to each dantian and closing her eyes as she takes in the information her spiritual energy discovers. The baby protests when Wen Qing gently turns her onto her stomach, little arms and legs jerking. She lifts her head, grunting with effort, and turns it to the side, but apparently can’t turn it far enough to see either of the adults. Her little round face scrunches up, and she lets out a high-pitched wail.
Wei Ying squeezes his arms tighter around himself. “Are you almost done?”
Wen Qing watches the baby squirm for another moment then nods. “That’s enough.”
Wei Ying darts forward and scoops the baby up, pressing her to his chest. “I’ve got you, little one,” he says, bouncing gently the way he’s seen people do when they’re trying to calm fussy babies. “I’ve got you.”
He can’t read the look on Wen Qing’s face when he turns back to her. It’s gone as soon as he sees it, replaced by her usual cool neutrality. “She seems healthy, as far as I can tell,” she says, and Wei Ying releases a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “If I had to guess, I’d say she was just about two months old. Her organs and muscles are all developed as they should be, and her sight and hearing are fine. She’s going to need feeding soon.”
Wei Ying nods. “I’ll take her with me into town. Somebody’s got to be willing to trade some radishes for goat’s milk, or something.”
“Wei Ying.” Wen Qing’s voice is soft, and very, very tired. “It’s not just milk. A baby this young will need constant care. Feeding, washing, soothing. She’ll be more vulnerable to sickness, to hunger.” Wei Ying knows the expression on his face isn’t a good one, but still Wen Qing continues. “We are barely able to sustain ourselves as it is, and most of what we have is already going to A-Yuan. Adding another mouth to feed, especially one that will need this much feeding—”
“So what?” he snaps, clutching the baby closer. “We send her away? The other clans would kill her just for coming from the Burial Mounds, even before they find out how she was made.”
“We could take her to the village—”
He laughs, hoarse and cruel. “Stick her in a basket of radishes and hope whoever finds her will take care of her? That they won’t just toss her out into the cold again, sleeping in alleys and fighting dogs for scraps?” He shakes his head. “No. No, I can’t. She didn’t ask for this, it’s not her fault I’m a— a fuckup who brought a doll to life in the middle of a mountain of corpses. I can’t let anything happen to her, I won’t. I won’t do it, Wen Qing.” He realizes, in a distant corner of his mind, that he’s shaking. “I won’t leave her. I won’t.”
Wen Qing looks at him for a long moment. Then she sighs. “Come on, then. Let’s see if we can scrounge up something to use as a sling. You’d better head to the village quickly. The longer we wait, the hungrier she’ll get, and she doesn’t seem to be shy about letting us know when she’s upset.”
Wei Ying looks down at the warm bundle in his arms. The baby has settled, pressed up against him, and with his hand on her back to support her he can feel her heartbeat pulsing against his palm. “Alright,” he says. “Let’s go.”
When they emerge from the cave, Second Auntie is there waiting with two swaths of fabric, which she offers to Wen Qing. “One to swaddle, one for a sling,” she says. “Not near soft enough for an infant, I’m afraid, but at least it’s clean.”
“It’ll be good enough for now,” Wen Qing sighs. “Teach Wei Wuxian how to do it; I need to go get what coin we can spare.”
Second Auntie waves her off and then lays the first piece of fabric out on a dry patch of ground. “Here, Wuxian, set her down. I will show you the correct way.”
As soon as the baby is out of Wei Ying’s arms, she begins to fuss again, crying out to be held. Wei Ying’s fingers itch with the urge to reach for her, but Second Auntie shoos him back so that he can see clearly what she does as she wraps the fabric around the baby and under her, letting her own weight hold it in place. In a few smooth motions, all of the baby’s limbs are wrapped up and held against her body, captured by the blanket. She calms a little once she’s swaddled, blinking up at Second Auntie and Wei Ying where they hover over her. “There, there. Nice and held. Truthfully, it would be better if we had two,” Second Auntie sighs, “to keep her warm. But it’s not winter yet, so needs must. Just keep her near you, in the sling. Let me help with that, too.”
Second Auntie has Wei Ying hold the baby close against his chest and she ties the second piece of fabric around him so that the baby won’t go anywhere. Once she’s back with him, her face pressed against his shoulder, she goes completely quiet again.
“Ah,” Second Auntie says with a smile, stepping back. “She loves her a-die already, I think.”
“Oh, I--I’m not,” Wei Ying says. He hadn’t really realized, but--no, he’s not. “You shouldn’t say that.”
“Didn’t you make her, Wei Wuxian?” Second Auntie says. “Take responsibility.”
Wei Ying swallows hard. “I am.”
“Good.” Second Auntie pats him, then the baby, then says, “If you can bring me more fabric, I’ll make sure we can keep her warm and well no matter what, hm? But even if not, we will manage.”
“I… yes.” Wei Ying reaches up and places his hand across the baby’s back, still so warm even through several layers of wrapped fabric. “Of course. I’ll do my best, Second Auntie.”
He can’t really bow, even with the baby secured, but he does his best approximation, and as he’s rising again Wen Qing reappears with a pouch in hand. It clinks gently, and Wei Ying blinks at her. What she’s holding must be all of their funds, every bit of silver they’ve scraped together and managed to put away in the past few months, just in case.
“Aren’t we going to need that?” he asks tentatively.
“It’s for emergencies,” she says, and gestures at the baby. “If this isn’t an emergency, Wei Wuxian, what is?”
“Ah… yes, I suppose you’re right.” They’re going to need clothing and a means of feeding the baby and… who knows what else. It is an emergency, because if they can’t get those things, she’ll die, which is… no. Not happening. “Alright. Shall we go?”
Wen Qing just gestures for him to lead the way, which he does. They make their way down the mountain, and as they do the baby dozes off against Wei Ying’s chest, beginning to make small wheezy sleeping noises. He almost melts.
“Good to know she’ll sleep if you walk with her,” Wen Qing says in a quiet voice. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but it’s a good thing you’re already an insomniac.”
Wei Ying snorts. “Maybe she’ll be a good sleeper?”
Wen Qing just makes a skeptical face. “She’s your daughter.”
“Wen Qing--”
“Don’t start with me.”
He knows not to test that tone, so he doesn’t. Still, it’s strange and hard in a way he can’t put a finger on to hear from a second person that others will consider him this baby’s father. He’s not. He’s not cut out to be anyone ’s father, no matter how much he—no matter what. Any notions of domesticity he ever maintained, faint and ill-formed as they were, were something he gave up when he chose to help the Wens. It crosses a line that he has drawn inside himself to be called the father of this child. He wants to cross back, somehow, but knows he can’t. If even Wen Qing and Second Auntie, who know exactly the strange circumstances under which the baby was created, call her his daughter, what will the people in Yiling think, seeing a young man with an infant? There’s no other conclusion to come to, really.
He cannot reconcile it, not right now. He has to set it aside, or bury the complexity under something else, some other emotion, or else he’s going to lose his mind and probably have a very embarrassing public breakdown in the middle of the market. He can’t cut through this knot of hope and love and joy and fear and desperation right now; he has to just… hold the baby. Buy food. Return home.
Those are steps he can take. Still walking forward on his narrow path, yes: one foot forward, and then the other. He just has to keep walking, and it will all be fine.
They reach town faster than Wei Ying can believe. It seems impossible that the misty grey shroud of the Burial Mounds and its grave-dust air is parting around them already, baring them to the sunny sky above and the distant sounds of Yiling. The town has edged closer to the Burial Mounds over time, as cursed as it is, because people need space and spirits of the Mounds are possessive of their territory but not expansionist. So long as the boundary isn’t violated, they stay in, and so those who live nearer to the edge of the jagged cliffs and blackened trees are safe enough. The market is further, but the sounds of life greet them as they emerge.
Walking into town is always a little surreal, today more so even than usual, marked by the way that people turn to look at them and smile , rather than ignoring them or giving them mistrustful looks. Even Wen Ning, who has become something of a favourite in town for his sweet, earnest manner and shy politeness, is never so warmly received. Aunties and uncles come over to poke and prod at the baby, patting her back or her head and questioning Wei Ying incessantly about her: how old, is she warm, where’s her mother, what’s her name. Wen Qing keeps her distance and does their business while Wei Ying fends the townsfolk off: oh, she’s only a few months old, she’s warm enough in this weather, her mother isn’t here right now, her name is--her name.
He deflects as best he can on the last. He’s terrible at naming things. But the aunties questioning him are persistent, and finally he racks his brain and he says, “A-Jing.”
静 , for the way she lies quiet and calm against his chest, lulled by his warmth and his heartbeat and the protective curve of his hand against her back, shielding her from the touch of strangers.
“It’s a good name,” Wen Qing says from where she’s appeared out of nowhere beside him; he jumps slightly, and one of the uncles in the gathered crowd laughs at him.
“Is this her mother?” says the auntie who’d gotten Wei Ying to cough up a name.
“No, no,” Wen Qing says quickly. “No, her mother is… gone, unfortunately.”
“Ah,” say a few voices in the crowd. Civilians all, but even they had felt the effects of the war; no further explanation is needed.
“Good of you to take responsibility,” says the auntie to Wei Ying.
“It’s the least I could do,” he murmurs, which is, as it happens, the truth. He glances over at Wen Qing. “Are we done?”
“Yes,” she says, and raises a hand. In it she holds a rope tied around the neck of a nanny goat, and over the goat’s back is strapped a package of fabric and other things, wrapped up and tucked away. “We should go home.”
I wish we could , Wei Ying thinks. “Right. Before this one gets hungry.”
That draws another laugh from the crowd, and the aunties and uncles disperse, though not without delivering a few more pieces of child-rearing advice. But they slip away without explanation of where home is, and are soon enough on their way back to the Burial Mounds.
“That went well,” Wen Qing says, with a sigh.
“Did you have to spend all our coin?” Wei Ying asks.
She gives him a grim smile. “Only as much of it as I needed to.” Which means yes, or nearly so.
Well. It’s not like they weren’t poor already. And now A-Jing, newly named and stirring from her sleep to watch the trees go by, will be fed.
Wei Ying spent so much of his time up to this point wishing hopelessly that the Wens could be anywhere but here with him in the Burial Mounds. He almost feels guilty for how grateful he is to have them once A-Jing arrives.
Babies are hard. He thought A-Yuan took a lot of work and minding, and he does, but at least A-Yuan can tell him when he’s hungry or tired or upset over something. With A-Jing, he has to figure it out himself, usually while holding a screaming baby against his chest.
(The irony of her name is not lost on him.)
They quickly discover that if separated from her a-die (as everyone insists on calling him) for more than a few minutes, A-Jing will work herself into a crying fit so loud and piercing it could wake the dead, if there were any that had trouble waking in this place. The first and only time Wei Ying and Wen Ning go to the village without her to trade their crops, they return to find Wen Qing waiting for them at the edge of the barrier, holding a red-faced, screaming A-Jing in her arms. When Wei Ying rushes forward, Wen Qing merely thrusts the baby at him, glares, and says, “Never. Again,” before she walks away.
So. His time is spent with A-Jing. Within the first day of her being there, Wei Ying has crafted a talisman to help alter their goat’s milk to make it closer to what A-Jing would get if they had a person to nurse her. Getting her to drink from the tapered clay jar they bought for this purpose is… challenging, at first, but it’s not the worst thing Wei Ying’s ever gotten on his clothes. They both get the knack of it eventually, with some help from Second Auntie. “There we go,” she says, guiding Wei Ying’s hand to tip more milk into A-Jing’s mouth, “there we go, little one, drink up.”
Wei Ying breathes a sigh of relief. “Thank you.”
Second Auntie pats him on the shoulder. “You’re doing well.” She smiles, her eyes far away. “It’s been many years since my own children were this small.”
No child of Second Auntie’s lives with the Wens in the Burial Mounds. Wei Ying knows, by now, not to ask.
Before, Wei Ying would spend days working on the Burial Mounds’ defenses, minding A-Yuan, and going to the village to sell their meager wares. He’d stay up through the night tinkering on whatever project had his attention in the cave, and then he’d repeat the process, catching sleep here or there when his body absolutely stopped functioning without it. Working himself to exhaustion was the best method to keep the nightmares at bay, dark dreams filled with the wailing cries of the restless dead.
With A-Jing, Wei Ying almost misses when he had to work to be exhausted. Wen-popo tells him to try and sleep when the baby does, but she never sleeps for more than a single shí at a time, at most, and Wei Ying takes a while to fall asleep himself, which usually means he naps just long enough to wake up cranky and disoriented. After a few days of this, Wei Ying feels almost as wrung out as when he crawled out of the Burial Mounds the first time.
It’s in this state, hair a rats’ nest, wearing yesterday’s clothes, holding a shrieking A-Jing and close to tears himself, that Wen-Popo finds Wei Ying. She takes one look at him and shakes her head. “No. This won’t do.” When he meets her eyes, confused, she holds out her arms. “Give me the baby.”
Wei Ying shrinks back, clutching A-Jing closer. “But… she’ll cry.”
Popo raises her brows, unimpressed. “She’s crying now. And you’ll be no help to her if you collapse. Give A-Jing to me and go rest.” When he still hesitates, her face softens. “Wuxian. No one expects you to do this on your own.”
“She’s my responsibility.” He looks down at A-Jing’s round face, squished into wrinkles as she cries. “I’m the one who… brought her here. I should be the one taking care of her.”
“And how do you expect to take care of her if you won’t take care of yourself?” Wei Ying has no answer to that. Popo steps forward and gently lifts A-Jing from his hold. “Foolish boy.” She shifts to cradle the baby in one arm, and lifts the other hand to Wei Ying’s cheek. “Sleep. The little one and I will still be here when you wake.”
She pats his cheek and walks away, A-Jing’s cries fading as they leave the cave. After a moment, Wei Ying turns and collapses onto his bed, such as it is. He sleeps like—
Well. He sleeps.
It’s almost insulting how much better he feels when he wakes. Maybe the Lans really did have a point about sleeping on a schedule, he thinks idly. He stands, stretches his arms over his head and feels six or seven joints all crack at once. He feels rested enough that he’s certainly left Wen-popo with the baby for far too long. He starts toward the cave exit, intent on retaking his paternal duties, then stops. Looks down at the robes he’s worn for the past two days.
...Perhaps a quick wash, first.
When he emerges, clean as he can get with the Burial Mounds’ limited amenities, he almost turns right back around. Wen-popo sits on a rough bench next to the lotus pond, A-Jing propped carefully in her lap. In front of them is A-Yuan, singing some sort of child’s rhyming song. In his small, squishy hands he holds A-Jing’s even smaller ones, which he gently taps together in rhythm with his singing.
Wei Ying claps a hand to his chest and barely holds down a wail. How is he expected to handle this?! If he had a pillow on his bed, he would go scream into it. His poor heart!
When he’s got himself under control, he makes his way over. “A-Yuan! What are you teaching your Jing-meimei?”
As soon as he hears Wei Ying’s voice, A-Yuan hurls himself at him. “Xian-gege! Xian-gege! You took a big nap!”
Wei Ying swoops the boy up in his arms. “I did! Your poor Xian-gege was very sleepy.”
“Popo said Xian-gege works too hard! She said he’ll o-ver-ex-ert himself.” A-Yuan pronounces the long word solemnly, his little face screwed up in concentration.
“She did, ah?” Wei Ying turns to Wen-popo and bows, as best he can with a toddler on his hip. “This humble Wuxian thanks Wen-po for her wisdom.”
“Wuxian can thank Wen-po by taking back his daughter,” she says. “We did our best, but she misses you.”
“Ah, ah,” Wei Ying says, waving a hand helplessly. “I’m sure…” Well, he’s sure she was loud. But he slept through it, so it must not have been too terrible.
Gently, he moves A-Yuan off his lap and takes A-Jing from Wen-popo. She’s awake and looks up at him from the cradle of his arms, her eyes wide and dark. Now that he’s feeling a little more rested, he’s reminded of how perfect she really is. Her round cheeks, the smooth brown of her skin, the soft little bow of her mouth. He leans down and kisses her forehead and breathes in her sweet baby smell, and he sighs contentedly. She makes a little noise.
Wei Ying draws back, smiling, and says, “Is that so?”
“Did she talk?” A-Yuan says, sliding over to press against Wei Ying’s side and look at his meimei.
“Sort of,” Wei Ying says. “She won’t talk with words like we can for a while longer, but even babies this little can express their feelings.”
“Mhm,” A-Yuan says emphatically. “She’s loud.”
“She is ,” Wei Ying laughs, jogging her gently in his arms. “But we love her anyway, don’t we?”
“Yeah,” A-Yuan says. He gets up on his knees and leans over, holding onto Wei Ying’s shoulder for balance, to kiss A-Jing’s forehead just like Wei Ying had earlier. It makes Wei Ying’s heart absolutely melt in his chest, and he struggles not to coo out loud. “We love you, meimei.”
“She loves you too,” Wei Ying replies. He’s not sure it’s strictly true—not sure a baby as young as A-Jing is exactly capable of love, but he knows she will. He knows that he loves A-Yuan so, so much. He loves them both. “And so do I.”
A-Yuan gives him a big beaming smile and hugs Wei Ying around his shoulders, side-on so that he doesn’t disturb A-Jing. “I love you too, Xian-gege!”
Wei Ying can’t do anything but kiss the top of A-Yuan’s head, overcome.
“They’re good children,” Wen-popo says softly, watching the three of them. “You’re doing well, Wuxian.”
He offers her a smile too. “Thank you, Wen-popo.”
She just waves him away and gets up, moving a little slowly in deference to her creaky knees. She heads off to some other task, leaving Wei Ying with the kids—where he is, to be honest, happiest.
It’s not much, just a sliver of joy, but it’s more than he’s had in months. Enough to hold onto. If Wei Ying is good at anything, he is good at clinging onto slivers by his fingernails, keeping his chin up at all costs. The warmth of A-Jing in his arms and A-Yuan at his side makes that a little easier, and he will take whatever he can get and give back all of himself. They’re worth it.