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Yu Ziyuan was angry. No, that was not right, she was enraged, positively furious and full of red hot anger. And the cause of it was kneeling right in front of her.
Wei Wuxian was on his knees, trembling slightly and not looking at her. She had already known that taking him in would be more trouble that it warranted but this was the last drop. Now he was simply making fun of her. She had been so right when she had refused to let him in in the beginning; she had warned her husband that taking this unruly and uneducated thing in would disrupt their family, hinder their children’s education and in the end, be a dirty stain of the reputation of the Yunmeng Jiang sect. But would her husband in name only ever listen to her? No, of course not. And here they were, again.
She crumbled the letter that the boy’s teacher had send her. After she had understood that Jiang Fengmian was adamant on having the boy live with them, even making him one of their inner disciples, she had resigned and did everything she could so that Wei Wuxian would at least be able to represent their household in the future.
She got him a private teacher to catch up on his education and on her husband’s insistence allowed him to take classes together with Jiang Cheng and Jiang Yanli in addition to his private ones. Still, the boy insisted on not taking it seriously and continued fooling around and make trouble even two months after being brought in.
In the beginning, she could, albeit begrudgingly, ignore it because he had been new to the environment, too wild from living on the streets. But after those two months when nothing changed, she had had enough. How dare he make fun of the teacher and say that he did not want to participate in the lesson? How dare he not turn in most of the assignments, always finding less and less believable excuses?
Was he perhaps stupid not to understand what had been said in the classroom? No, that could not be it. The boy did not strike Yu Ziyuan as a particularly stupid child. He was bright and intelligent in everything else beside his classes. Although when it came to learning, he was slow and apparently unwilling. The only thing he excelled in were sword arts. And she had told him to not be a burden too!
“Wei Wuxian,” she started and the boy flinched, still not looking at her, “do you know what is written in this letter?” The boy only shook his head but remained silent. He was making it harder for himself with his stubbornness and pretence. Well then, she would just have to spell it out for him: “Your teacher is complaining about your behaviour in the classroom.”
Wei Wuxian seemed to have shrunken into himself, ma king himself even smaller than before. Like this, he did not look like a child of almost nine that he in fact was but more like a five years old. Thought, Yu Ziyuan would not be fooled by his acting. He should have known better before being sent directly to her with the letter from his teacher.
She waited for him to start defending himself or at least to explain his behaviour but to no avail. He still remained silent. Her patience was running dangerously thin. She had to do her best to rein in her anger, she did not want to start screaming at the child or hit him, she was not that petty.
“Well, what do you have to say for yourself?” she asked, her voice only slightly betraying her anger. She was doing her very best.
Still, the boy flinched again and started to tremble before whispering with tears audible in his voice: “Madame Yu, I am sorry. Please, I did not want to cause trouble…”
That was it, Yu Ziyuan could truly not stand this anymore. She had never been one to be patient with children and this particular child was not even her own. She had already heard his apologies plenty of times but it did not seem like he meant them because he would do the same thing again just the day after. What an incorrigible brat!
She scoffed and ordered: “Enough, come with me.” More to herself than to the boy she murmured in exasperation: “I already told you not to be a burden and look at you, incorrigible, just like your mother.”
Without looking back to check that he was following her, she headed for the Ancestral hall. Quiet sniffling gave it away that he was indeed walking just a few steps behind her. Good, at least in this aspect he was actually obedient. They arrived soon enough and she stopped just behind the door, pointing to the altar in front of her.
“Kneel here and think about your behaviour.”
The boy did as he was told while still sniffling quietly. Yu Ziyuan could see tears glistering in his eyes and was taken aback for a second. She had never seen the child cry before save for one time that he had been chased around by dogs and ended up scared out of his mind, ducking behind Jiang Fengmian. It seemed very out of place on his usually smiling face. Still, he would have to do more than just look pitiful if he wanted to appease her anger.
She spent the rest of her day going about her duties as per usual. She completely forgot about Wei Wuxian until dinner time.
She and her family were already sitting around the table and the boy was nowhere to be seen. Yu Ziyuan’s anger flared again but she reined it in, she should not be this annoyed with a child. It was unbecoming of a First lady of Lotus Pier. She called one of her maids and told her to bring the boy immediately. She could feel her husband’s eyes on her and she read his unsaid question and accusation clearly. She opted to not explain herself.
Not even five minutes later, her maids returned with the boy between them. He still had his head lowered and was making himself small. Did he want to appease to her and show that he had already taken his lesson to heart and was now going to behave or did he want to turn Jiang Fengmian against her for punishing him?
“Where have you been?” she asked impatient. “We have been waiting for you!”
The reaction was the same as this afternoon; the boy only flinched but remained silent, his eyes drilling holes into the wooden ground. It was one of her maids who answered her question: “Madame, we found him kneeling in the Ancestral hall.”
There was a sudden spike of guilt piercing Yu Ziyuan’s heart. When the boy had come to her with the letter, it had been just shortly after lunch. He must have been kneeling all this while! She should have told him how long his punishment was supposed to last, not just assume that he would go back to his room after two hours, the time she usually let him kneel down. Looking closely now, she could see his legs shaking under him.
She turned away in shame because she could not stand to look at him right now. Her eyes crossed with her husband’s and there was clear reproach in them and also disappointment which made her heart hurt even more.
“A-Ying, come eat with us,” invited Jiang Fengmian, none of his emotions aside for kindness showing in his tone.
The boy seemed to have finally relaxed as he looked up with a smile and came to the table. “Yes, Uncle Jiang.”
Wei Wuxian did not look at her throughout the whole dinner and Yu Ziyuan was for once glad. It was perhaps better that he was back to his previous high spirits and trying to ignore her.
***
It happened the very next day, very unexpectedly at that. Yu Ziyuan was just training senior disciples in the training field when a distressed looking servant run right towards her. She rose an eyebrow, the Yunmeng Jiang sect servants were not trained to be this impolite to not even bow to her and wait for her to give them permission to speak. Yet the servant was already relaying her message:
“Madame, please come quickly. Your children and their teacher are looking for you, it seems very urgent. Young Master and Young Mistresses looked very upset. And…”
There was a short pause as the servant was hesitating. Yu Ziyuan sighed; if the girl had already started without waiting for permission, why would she want one now?
“Well, what it is? Speak clearly!”
The next words were spoken in a quieter but even more urgent tone. The servant looked like she was relaying a secret but also as if she was afraid of the consequences. Was Yu Ziyuan really that scary when it came to Wei Wuxian being mentioned?
“And Young Master Wei,” Yi Ziyuan cringed at the addressing but remained quiet, letting the servant girl continue, “I had seen him run to the Ancestral hall just moments before that. He had been quite upset as well.”
What did that child do this time? Yu Ziyuan’s first thoughts were that Wei Wuxian had once again done something unbecoming during the classes and had run off to hide somewhere from a punishment. But she quickly realized that that was probably not the case for the boy had been seen running into the Ancestral hall instead of into his room or any other place where he would be able to hide from her. She did not know what to make of all of this.
So she did the only thing she could. She ordered the senior disciples to continue with their regimen on their own and headed inside the main compound, fully intending to check what Wei Wuxian was doing in the Ancestral hall. She felt her irritation grow with her every step.
She had not made it that far because she first run into her children – as the servant had mentioned, they were visibly upset – accompanied by their teacher. It was a man in his late forties and his usually accommodating and gentle face was now adorned with worry.
When the trio had noticed her, Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng immediately run towards her. Her son was looking very distressed and took hold of her robes to hide his face in them. Jiang Yanli was older and would not do such a thing anymore, nevertheless, Yu Ziyuan saw it in her eyes that she actually craved reassurance and soothing just as much as her brother. The teacher on his part bowed to her politely.
Both her children were now talking at once and she could not tell what they wanted to say, it had in no way been a coherent and informative speech. She turned towards the teacher, asking him instead: “What happened?”
The man looked somewhat bothered and bowed to her again before actually explaining the situation: “Madame, I am sorry for the commotion. Today, we were doing reading exercise with the young masters and young mistress. But Wei Wuxian refused to participate as usual. When I tried to challenge him and reminded him that it was part of his education and that you would not be happy if he did not master reading, he seemed upset and left.”
Jiang Yanli tugged at Yu Ziyuan’s robes now and the First Lady of Lotus Pier looked down at her scrunched up face: “Mother, A-Xian was very upset when teacher told him that he should go to your office again and deliver his letter. He started crying and was saying something about being a burden and that he did not want to be thrown back onto the streets. When teacher tried to tell him that he should deliver a letter to you, he just run away. We are looking for him ever since. I am worried about him…”
Yu Ziyuan suddenly understood what had happened. It seemed like her yesterday’s punishment had influenced the boy more than she had intended. So much in fact that he was probably too scared to even come in front of her again and just run to the Ancestral hall to kneel on his own. She should have never threatened him, even as something she did not really mean and would never actually do, that she would kick him out of the family and let him strive for himself on the streets again.
Her train of thoughts was interrupted by Jiang Cheng basically wailing into her robes: “Mother, where is Wei Wuxian? Will he have to go away?”
Yu Ziyuan patted her son’s head in reassurance just as the teacher spoke again, even more worried this time: “Madame, I did not want to upset Young Master Wei like this. The letter I wanted him to deliver today was a suggestion for a different curriculum for I have come to suspect that he does not know how to read or write. He does well in all of his other assignments so it is the only logical conclusion I could come up with when he did not want to read from the book. He always managed to find an excuse but it is quite clear to me now.”
The teacher presented her a letter and one look at it confirmed to Yu Ziyuan that what he had just said was the truth. But, she supposed, Wei Wuxian had not stayed in the classroom long enough to be informed about this. He must have just assumed that he would be punished again for being a burned.
And what kind of burden was he? Yu Ziyuan should have known better than to say anything like that in the first place, to a young child no less! She had thought that he was only acting up because of lacking in education and was harsh on him, pushing him to catch up to everyone too quickly. It did not even occur to her that the boy would not know how to read or write. And her husband had informed her about him spending several years alone, living on the streets too!
He surely did not have anyone to teach him. His parents had died too soon for him to start any education in this field and surely there was no one who would teach anything to a street urchin, to a beggar child. And he would of course not seek out to learn by himself either seeing how he had had his hands full with just trying to survive on his own in his harsh world. She should have known better than to chastise him for something he had literally no control over.
But why would he not say anything earlier? Why pretend for almost two months, always coming up with excuses and accepting punishment that should have never been given for there was nothing to punish? Had he perhaps been ashamed of his lack of proficiency in these basic skills? No, that could not have been it.
Yu Ziyuan’s heart sank as she realized that it must have been because of her own words. She had repeatedly told the boy that he should not be a burden and it seemed like he had taken it quite literally. He was now probably afraid of asking any questions and to inconvenience his teachers more than necessary which included admitting that he was illiterate and needed special attention.
Yes, this one was completely on her and she felt bad now, only when it was too late and she could only try to heal the already caused damage.
“I see,” she nodded her head in the teacher’s direction and took the letter he had presented her from his hands, “I will go speak with him. Please suggest a special curriculum for him, assuming that he does not know anything at all and that he needs time to adjust to studying as well. Submit it to me once it is done, I would like to go over it with you.”
She patted her children’s heads and reassured them: “Do not worry, I know where Wei Wuxian is right now. I will go talk to him and see if he is alright. You two go back to your lessons. And A-Cheng, do not worry, A-Ying will not go away, he is your brother after all.”
She let Jiang Cheng slowly disentangle his fingers from her robes and nod. Then she turned on her heel and went to the Ancestral Hall, perhaps a little faster than was her normal walking speed. She was holding the letter from the teacher in her hands and still berating herself for not realizing that anything had been amiss sooner.
She stopped in front of the door to the Ancestral hall and tried to gather herself before opening it. Even from where she was standing, she could hear muffled sniffling and sobs and once again, she lamented what she had done to one of her children. She had just been blinded by her hatred of Cangse Sanren and she could not see the boy for whom he really was. Just an innocent child who had lost his parents and went through many hardships, just a child who needed love of a family and support in his recovery from the trauma.
She felt ashamed that she had not listened to her husband telling her this when the boy had been brought in front of her. Although Jiang Fengmian had not spoken them aloud, she should have read them from his actions and gestures. She should have known that he had not stopped loving their children because of the newcomer but that he had been showing him affection instead of his real parents and the family Wei Wuxian could not even remember anymore. She should have known that every praise the boy had been given had been to make up for all those horrible years of him living in the streets, not in order to overlook her other children. She should have known that Jiang Fengmian now had three children while she only had two.
But that was about to change. She was about to change this and right her wrongs. From now on, she would care for Wei Wuxian just as she cared for Jiang Yanli and Jiang Cheng. She was not such a small woman that she could not afford to have enough affection for everyone that needed it. And there was no question that Wei Wuxian – no, she would call him A-Ying from now on, just as his real mother would have, just as her husband had already been doing – needed it dearly. He needed to learn what family meant and that he now truly had one.
Resolute and with her determination found, she finally opened the door.
Her heart almost broke at the sight that greeted her. Just as she had assumed, A-Ying was kneeling in the same spot she had showed him yesterday. His shoulders were trembling and desperate sobs were whacking his small body. It seemed like he did not even realize that he was not alone here anymore.
Yu Ziyuan did her best to speak calmly so that she would not frighten him even more. However, she had never been one for gentle words or for showing affection and her words came out apparently harsher than she had intended: “A-Ying, stand up.”
Wei Wuxian completely froze for a second before he turned his upper body around and looked at her, his face wet with tears and snot. When he seemed to have realized just who was standing behind him, he immediately shot to his feet, his head held down, trembling even more than before. Tears were still coming out of his eyes but he was now silent, his sobs could not be heard anymore as he was keeping them in, possibly in order not to annoy her.
Yu Ziyuan scrunched down so that she would not be so imposing and would be at the same height with the boy. As gently as she possibly could, she coaxed the boy to come closer. Even though she already pretty much believed that Wei Wuxian was illiterate, there was still a small doubt deep inside her. She felt ashamed to admit that she needed more reassurance that the boy was not the carbon copy of his mother and that he was just not playing some kind of an elaborate prank on her. It seemed she was a small woman after all if she needed the reassurance from a child.
Still, she could not help it, she wanted this matter to be closed once and for all. At least for her. She extended her hand, the letter in it.
“A-Ying, your teacher came to talk to me.” She had to cringe when the boy flinched at her words. This was not going well; she had scared him even more despite her best intentions. Still, she pushed on, hoping to explain the situation soon and soothe her child. “He gave me a letter he wanted you to deliver to me. Can you read it for me?”
A-Ying finally looked at her in earnest, a mixture of horror and surprise in his eyes. It only lasted a fleeting moment bur it cut Yu Ziyuan deep in her very soul. In the next second, the eye contact was gone and A-Ying was clutching his fists into his robes until his knuckles were becoming pure white. He lowered his head again and she could see him crumbling.
He started sobbing again, this time audibly as he was struggling to form words: “Madame Yu, I am sorry… I cannot… I will do better, I will study hard so please… I do not want to be a burden… Please… Do not send me away…”
This was it, Yu Ziyuan had done it now. Because of her pettiness, the child was crying again, inconsolably. She did not wait for anything anymore and she scooped the boy into her embrace, holding him tightly and rubbing his back soothingly, just as she would to Jiang Yanli or Jiang Cheng. Jiang Fengmian had been right all along, the boy needed much more care and affection than her two other children. And it was not wrong, it was just what had to be done to welcome him into the family properly and to disperse his worries.
“Silly boy,” she whispered into his ear just as she felt tears forming in her eyes as well, “of course I am not going to send you away. No one will. Every child deserves a warm home and a roof over their head. You are not a burden for not being able to read or write. You can learn, you will learn when given opportunity.”
A-Ying was still trembling in her arms, crying even harder now. But it was not desperate anymore, it sounded more like a relief to Yu Ziyuan’s ears. He hugged her back, his small hands clenched into her robes as if he was afraid that she would disappear in the next second.
She did not know how long she was kneeling there like that. She could not even feel her legs anymore but it was fine because the boy in her arms was slowly calming down, he was only hiccupping now, his small hands still holding tightly onto her. She felt his frantic and scared heartbeat slowing down and she was glad that she had been able to offer at least some comfort after the breakdown she had cause.
The boy was still hiding his face on her chest so she almost did not hear his words when he whispered, unsure but full of conviction: “Madame Yu, thank you. I will try my best.”
Yu Ziyuan patted his head this time and gave him a kiss on the crown of his hair. The boy giggled in surprise and one of his hands went up to touch the place where he could feel the lingering heat.
“I know you will. We will both do our best. What do you say, should we just start over? You can call me Auntie if you want.”
Yu Ziyuan wanted to suggest that the boy could call her ‘mother’ if he wanted but she did not in the end. She had done him much harm and she should not presume she was forgiven this quickly; she did not even know if the scars she had caused in just the short two months would ever heal or if A-Ying would always feel like a burden when he would not be able to do something right. There was also another reason, she should not claim the place of his mother for he had already had one, even if he could not quite remember her.
Yu Ziyuan’s heart melted when the boy unglued his face from her damp robes, his cheeks still wet with tears but a wide smile on his lips. His eyes were sparkling happily when he cheered: “Thank you, Auntie Jiang!”