Work Text:
“Shishu, shifu sent me to find you because he says we can’t eat mooncakes without a poem and Cao-dage keeps messing up the ones that he knows.”
“How is it that that cabbage pilferer manages to botch a moon poem so that even a-Xu notices? And why is he reciting existing poems when the whole point is to be so moved by the beauty of the moon that the only way to express it is by composing a poem?”
“…Shishu? You seem upset, do you want me to go get shifu for you?”
“I’m fine, Chengling. I’m just remembering the last Mid Autumn Festival I spent with my parents. My die recited so many poems comparing my niang to the moon that she sent us both out to gather herbs for her latest experiment. I don’t know why that particular day was her last straw, because my die loved poetry almost as much as he loved helping people. Maybe he just used poetry as revenge for all the times we had to flee a village because my niang’s ‘experiments’ went wrong. Or perhaps she actually meant to poison those people, it’s been so many years that I no longer remember. Well, little idiot, let’s go rescue your shifu and a-Xiang from butchered poetry.”