Chapter Text
“Mother?” Wen Chao stumbles from his bed and catches himself by bunching up the layers of silk blankets. “You—Why are you here so late?”
There is no response, but his mother comes closer nonetheless.
“Mother?” Wen Chao asks again, blinking sleep back as he fights a yawn. “It’s too late! Whatever you want can wait. Father won’t like it if I’m too tired again! I’ll tell him that—”
“A-Chao…” His mother finally sighs. “Your mother isn’t tired today. Come with me for a walk.”
“But I—” He stutters, a red flush already descending on his face. “I just told you why I can’t! Are you going to tell Father why I’m too tired to talk? I don’t want to make him mad!”
The woman in front of him lets out a breath and grabs his arm, ignoring his panicked huffs and the way he’s trying to wrench it back from her ironclad grip.
She drags him with her, the imprints of those metal digits leaving faint trails of blue and black, a clear sign of his weak golden core.
“Mom!” Wen Chao protests again. “Unhand me now! I demand—”
“Demand?” She scoffs, unusually pale in this light. Even as she answers, she doesn’t slow down and continues her stride out of their rooms, making her way down the corridor. “I am your mother, A-Chao. I ask, and you do not question. I ask, and you are meant to answer.”
Wen Chao swallows insults he would have spat at anyone else and resigns himself to going with her. “Fine. But I’m telling Father about this in the morning!”
“You can try.” She retorts. “But I doubt he will listen. Have I not already told you that I am the only one who cares about you? There is no one else who can truthfully claim to have carried you with them for nine months, to endure themselves being ripped apart for your sake.”
A beat passes, and Wen Chao flinches as the strange feeling in his chest throbs again. He thinks his eyes are a bit misty now. Strange.
“…Yes, Mother.”
His mother finally nods at him, pleased at his deference. “Good child.”
The praise makes him relax and he sighs in relief as she slows down just a bit for his sake. The burn in his calves subsides by half as they reach what he supposes has to be their destination: the flower garden.
It’s there that drowsiness takes over him again. He feels ill.
“Mother?” He dares ask. “I—I don’t feel well. I want to go.”
His mother sighs again in disappointment. “A-Chao, how will you ever go through life so weak? You must do what is necessary for what you want. Now just—just be silent.”
“But I want—”
His mother clasps a hand on his mouth and holds it there tight, even as his eyes widen and he tries desperately to get it off. He can’t breathe, there is no air in his lungs, there is only pure, unadulterated fear.
“A-Chao. Let me work.” She releases him and sneers as he gasps and slumps over.
Wen Chao is too scared to talk back this time. He follows her.
The flowers mock him with their color. They are…red, like her rouge, gold, like her rings, black, like her eyes. They are his mother and his mother paces in front of him in a garden of herself, built entirely for her.
“He has gone too far.” She mutters to herself. “No, no, I—I cannot let him be this time. Not for all the flowers in the world.”
Wen Chao is about to ask what she means when he remembers the struggle of drowning. He silences himself without a question.
“A-Chao?” She suddenly turns to him, her voice syrupy sweet. “I’m sorry I was so mad at you. Won’t you let me take a proper look at you?”
He tiptoes closer without making a sound, flinching as her nails rake across his chin. It’s only when she pets his head that he relaxes slightly.
“Just like your father,” She murmurs. “I can only see him.”
Wen Chao smiles in pride. It’s then that she grabs his neck and makes strides toward the edge of the flower garden. It is only when he scrabbles for breath and pulls at her fingers, he remembers the hidden strength in those palms.
His mother was a cultivator. A dangerous one. If it weren’t for that, his father says he would have never bedded her at all.
She drags him around like a doll with ease and dangles him over the edge of a cliff he never knew was there. Where is he? It’s only been moments. His eyes, through their squinted line of sight, see nothing but fences and rocks.
“Let them have you now.” Her teeth suddenly seem sharp now, like razors that can break his skin and leave him here, bloodied and broken. Where is his mother, that kind but impatient figure who endured his sadness and vulnerability?
He wants her back, Wen Chao cries. He wants a mother who will pet his hair, not drag him by it and leave him dangling by a cliff.
By some bizarre coincidence, there is a patrol of guards passing by. This is Qishan, and more than that, this is Wen Ruohan’s grounds.
They strike his mother down where she stands and rescue him from that fearful position.
When the sun comes up again, his father is already conducting meetings about his next bride. The medicine is cooling on his throat as a healer coos over him.
Wen Chao likes her. More than his mother. All women should be like this, he thinks. They should not have minds of their own, else they may go insane and try to kill one of his father’s heirs.
He’s too young to realise the propaganda he’s being fed, and by the time he grows up and could understand the truth, Wen Chao is too spiteful to think of his mother’s kindness. He only remembers that cold hand raking his face and never stopping.
This is how hatred begins. Started by privilege and spurred by fear.
This is how a monster is formed.