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Mobei-Jun had an egg.
“Woah!” Sha Hualing said. “For real?”
Mobei-Jun nodded proudly. “Yes,” he said.
The egg was the size of a watermelon, with a textured, blue shell. Mobei-Jun had wrapped it protectively in a cloth harness that looped around his chest. He looked like a peasant about to walk to market with their swaddled babe.
Mobei-Jun gave the egg a gentle pat with his right hand, then looked at Luo Binghe expectantly.
“What is it?” Luo Binghe asked.
Sha Hualing’s mouth fell open.
“Wow,” She said.
Mobei-Jun had a sad expression on his face. Mobei-Jun didn’t have expressions. He hadn’t even smiled at his own wedding.
“Stop looking at me like that!” Luo Binghe cried.
“ Wow !” Sha Hualing replied.
Mobei-Jun wrapped his arms protectively around the egg. “I had thought we were well acquainted enough that Lord Luo would show hospitality toward my firstborn.”
Firstborn?
“Asshole move, Binghe,” Sha Hualing said, very disapprovingly. And impolitely. No one ever seemed to remember that he was their supreme leader.
“I didn’t know!” Luo Binghe said. “Humans don’t lay eggs.”
Sha Hualing and Mobei-Jun visibly relaxed and made a simultaneous ooohhh sound.
“I forgot, you spawn like fish,” Sha Hualing replied, sagely.
Mobei-Jun nodded in agreement.
Luo Binghe took in a deep breath through his nose and exhaled slowly through his mouth. He regretted a great many things about his life, including every decision he’d made prior to the age of twenty-five, but being half demon had to be the worst of them. Every day he learned something new and horrible about his heritage. Eggs were for chickens, not people, and where had Mobei-Jun been keeping it?
But Mobei-Jun still looked sad, so Luo Binghe decided to let it go.
“Congratulations on your egg, Mobei-Jun,” Luo Binghe said.
“Yeah! It’s a great looking egg. How far along is it?” Sha Hualing asked.
Mobei-Jun’s lips turned up, almost imperceptibly.
“About a month to go,” Mobei-Jun patted the egg again. “Time for it to be socialised.”
Sha Hualing held out her hand but stopped far short of the egg. Mobei-Jun nodded encouragingly, and she let her palm rest gently against the shell. A bright smile bloomed on her face. It was the least murderous she had ever looked.
“It’s so chill,” she said.
Mobei-Jun seemed to puff up a little. “Yes, cold and calm. Qinghua and I are very pleased.”
“Hey little guy! It’s Auntie Hualing! I can’t wait to meet you,” she cooed.
“I am sure the baby would say the same,” Mobei-Jun said. “If it understood language and could speak.”
Luo Binghe didn’t really like children, but he suspected that was because he didn’t know any. Cultivators accounted for the vast majority of his friends and acquaintances, and they tended not to marry or form romantic relationships. Even clans had few children. A family could inflate very quickly if all its members were immortal.
“Should I touch the egg too?” Luo Binghe asked, to show willing.
“That would be good,” Mobei-Jun replied.
Luo Binghe placed his hand on the egg. It felt like a chicken egg, only bigger. He moved his hand away quickly, afraid that he might crack it accidentally.
“Oh, you need to give the egg some energy as well,” Sha Hualing said.
Mobei-Jun nodded.
That sounded like a terrible idea. Luo Binghe had only ever used his demonic energy as an intimidation tactic. Whenever he did, he did so with prejudice. He didn’t think that was the best way to greet an unborn baby.
“I don’t know how to do that,” Luo Binghe said, diplomatically.
“You just use a little bit, I’ll show you!” Sha Hualing said.
She put her hand on his arm and Luo Binghe felt a little puff of energy against his skin. Barely more than a breath of air. Sha Hualing took her hand away and held up her forearm.
“You can try with me, first,” she added, magnanimously.
“Thank you,” Luo Binghe replied.
Sha Hualing held out her arm. Luo Binghe touched her with his fingertips and sent out the smallest breath of demonic energy.
Sha Hualing went straight through the wall and landed in Shizun’s reflecting pool.
“I am glad we tested that first,” Sha Hualing said, voice raw.
Her hair was still smoking faintly. Luo Binghe had wrapped her in a towel and laid her down on the fainting couch he kept in his sitting room. He’d tried to give her tea, but her hands had shaken too much to hold a cup, and even half-fried, she had too much pride to be hand fed.
Mobei-Jun, for his part, had contrived to move to the space that was furthest from Luo Binghe at all times, without leaving the room. Luo Binghe had heard him mutter, do not worry, Bàba will protect you , more than once.
“I’m sorry,” Luo Binghe said. “I’m not… adept at moderating my demonic energy.”
“I guess it makes sense, you didn’t grow up using it,” Sha Hualing replied.
She coughed and a small spurt of green flame burst from her mouth. Mobei-Jun wrapped his arms a little more tightly around his egg.
“You’re being very forgiving about this,” Luo Binghe said.
“It’s hard to be angry when you’ve caused property damage,” Sha Hualing replied.
Luo Binghe closed his eyes and took his second ‘safety’ breath of the evening. When he opened his eyes again, Sha Hualing was looking very pleased with herself. It made Luo Binghe want to put her through another wall.
“This baby will be half human too,” Mobei-Jun said, pensively. “I have not thought overmuch of how that will affect its development.”
Mobei-Jun brushed his hand gently over the shell of his egg. He was a picture of parental concern. Luo Binghe could remember how it felt to be on the receiving end of that, if distantly. At least, in this area, Luo Binghe could reassure him.
“I seemed to grow up the same speed as human children did, but I was raised in the human world and I wasn’t born—” he almost said from an egg— “the demonic way. I began to cultivate at the right age for humans, and once I had the right training, I was good at it. There’s no reason to think that your child won’t grow up as easily as that.”
Mobei-Jun nodded and looked reassured.
“Hey, that’s a point,” Sha Hualing said, prior to another incendiary cough.
“Are you sure I can’t get you to drink something?” Luo Binghe asked.
Sha Hualing waved him off. “You learned human cultivation first. Maybe you need to exchange human energy?”
“Hm,” Mobei-Jun said, thoughtfully.
It wasn’t a bad idea.
“You’re better at human stuff, right?” Sha Hualing asked. “Like, you’d have to be.”
Luo Binghe glared at her.
“You couldn’t possibly be worse,” she added.
“... I imagine not,” Luo Binghe replied, through gritted teeth.
Luo Binghe wasn’t willing to perform any more exploratory testing on Sha Hualing, and Mobei-Jun was too busy caring for his child to risk any harm. So he practiced on a pillow. He sent a small pulse of energy against the fabric. Nothing happened.
The pillow had lived.
Sha Hualing picked it up. She sniffed it to confirm that no harm had come to the feathers inside. After a moment, she nodded approvingly.
“Just slightly warm. That’s okay,” she confirmed.
Mobei-Jun finally allowed himself to go within two metres of Luo Binghe, his body language still cagey. Luo Binghe was surprised he was still willing to try this exchange of energies. It must have been important to him.
Luo Binghe had been meeting with Sha Hualing and Mobei-Jun to play ‘poker’ for months, but he still thought of their weekly bouts as something of an obligation. Perhaps Mobei-Jun and Sha Hualing had not felt the same.
“I promise to be very, very careful,” Luo Binghe said, as he held out his hand.
“I am gratified by your reassurance,” Mobei-Jun replied.
Luo Binghe waited for a violent warning to be presented as well, but there wasn’t one. He gently pressed his hand against the egg and held it there. The egg was still pleasantly cool. This time he could feel a subtle movement behind the shell, like the child inside had woken up. A small pulse of demonic energy brushed against his palm and it felt like a greeting.
Luo Binghe was, in fact, much better at human cultivation than its demonic counterpart. He sent a light wave of his energy into the egg. The baby stilled. There was a moment of questioning silence, then the baby moved, and Luo Binghe could feel the slightest pressure of its hand against the inside of the shell.
Then a very, very small answering pulse of qi. Human qi.
“Your child is exceptional,” Luo Binghe said, awed.
“This is so,” Mobei-Jun replied.
“Feels nice, hey?” Sha Hualing said.
“Yes,” Luo Binghe nodded, still distracted. “I’m surprised it was able to use the energies that humans do.”
“As expected of one with a human parent,” Mobei-Jun said, thinly-veiled reproach present in his voice.
Luo Binghe didn’t know what that was about. He looked to Sha Hualing and found her giving him yet another unimpressed look. He saw her mouth the words ‘come on, dude’.
Oh. Oh .
“I don’t mean- you wouldn’t know, but humans don’t even start to harness their qi until after they turn eight or so. They physically can’t.”
Mobei-Jun blinked, once. Then a wonderful, horrible, beautiful smile bloomed on his face. When Luo Binghe looked towards Sha Hualing to see if he was hallucinating this, he saw that her jaw had dropped and she seemed too dazed to correct herself. Mobei-Jun did not notice them. His eyes were lovingly directed at the egg in his arms.
“Bàba is so proud of baobei,” Mobei-Jun said. “Continue to work hard.”
“He hasn’t even been born yet, Mobei,” Sha Hualing replied.
Mobei-Jun shook his head primly. “Qinghua says it is important to focus on the importance of effort, even at a young age.”
Luo Binghe saw Sha Hualing take a deep breath in through her nose, before she slowly exhaled through her mouth.
“You’re right,” she said.
He’d never felt closer to her.
Mobei-Jun’s child was born on a mild day in winter. In keeping with demonic tradition, he was named Snowball, because when he was born, he resembled a precious little snowball. Mobei-Jun told Luo Binghe and Sha Hualing proudly that he had chosen the name himself, and to Luo Binghe’s surprise, Shang Qinghua had agreed to it.
“An excellent name,” Sha Hualing had said, with all evidence of approval.
“Correct,” Mobei-Jun had replied.
Luo Binghe had decided not to comment on it or otherwise think about it in any way.
One month after his birth, Mobei-Jun brought his son to Fight Night.
“Doesn’t Shang Qinghua know we’re not playing poker anymore?” Luo Binghe asked.
Mobei-Jun nodded. “It is an opportunity for Snowball to learn how to play properly with others.”
Across the courtyard, Sha Hualing roared at a child friendly volume ( Raaaa! ) and held her hands out like claws as she slowly stomped towards Snowball. He was far more developed than any human child would be at his age, perhaps because he’d been born in the way demons were. He couldn’t talk, but he toddled around at the speed of a small wildland pony galloping freely across the plains. Shizun had told him that Shang Qinghua was developing an ulcer because of it.
Snowball tottered over to Sha Hualing and wrapped his arms around her leg with a little roar of his own ( ra!) . Sha Hualing clasped her hands over her heart and with a noisy gasp, fell to the ground, careful not to land on her opponent. Snowball raised his pudgy little hands in victory and growled triumphantly ( gr! ).
Then he laughed and patted his hands gently against Sha Hualing’s knee. She lay sprawled, motionless, with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. Snowball made a sound of concern and shuffled up closer to her body. Sha Hualing’s slack mouth snapped into a grin.
“I’ve got you!” she cried, as she sprung up and wrapped Snowball in her arms.
He screamed in delight as she pressed a loud zerbert to his unprotected belly.
“That’s very cute,” Luo Binghe said, reluctantly.
“Sha Hualing has always been good with children,” Mobei-Jun replied.
“Really?” Luo Binghe asked.
“She has seventeen younger siblings.”
That sounded exhausting. Who even had the time?
“I think this bout ends with a draw,” Sha Hualing said, as she brought Snowball back.
She held him with one hand, dangling by the ankle. He was giggling madly, seemingly content with this situation. Mobei-Jun clapped his hands together.
“Then it is time for Lord Luo and I to have a match,” Mobei-Jun said.
Sha Hualing swung Snowball back up into her arms and sat down on the far end of the bench Luo Binghe and Mobei-Jun had been enjoying. Snowball wiggled happily, until he was settled in her lap. Mobei-Jun brushed his hand over his son’s messy, black hair.
Snowball was a strange combination of his parent’s features, with the inquisitiveness of Shang Qinghua and the confidence of Mobei-Jun. Mobei-Jun’s blue-black hair set in Shang Qinghua’s loose waves, with wide eyes the colour of ocean ice. Most unusual of all was his smile, identical to Mobei-Jun’s, with none of his reluctance to use it. He shone with the love that was given to him.
“Pay attention, my child,” Mobei-Jun said.
“Buh!” Snowball replied.
“Very good,” Mobei-Jun said.
Luo Binghe followed Mobei-Jun across the courtyard and held his fists up in a loose, opening stance. Mobei-Jun stood straight as a pin.
“So, I suppose we just have an easy round, if the kid is watching?” Luo Binghe asked.
“Indeed,” Mobei-Jun replied.
Luo Binghe had never had a play-fight. When he was younger, sparring was never for fun, and even if it had been, he hadn’t had any friends to play with. To be able to do so spoke to a nostalgia that Luo Binghe could not claim as his own, but wanted to.
“I’ll let you have the first shot,” Luo Binghe said, feeling generous.
“Thank you,” Mobei-Jun replied.
Luo Binghe glanced to the side, to see Snowball waving his arms jubilantly, while Sha Hualing held him safe. He couldn’t help but smile.
He looked back to Mobei-Jun just in time to catch a haymaker to the face. He soared backwards through the topiary and into the courtyard wall. And from there, into the next courtyard.
He lay stunned on his back in the eastern zen garden and coughed up a cloud of masonry dust.
“Go, Daddy!” Sha Hualing cried, as she and Snowball clapped their hands together.
Luo Binghe told himself that he’d fight the baby, next time.
