Work Text:
It is nearly dusk when a woman approaches the temple. When she reaches the entrance, she hesitates there, swaying on tired feet. Light emanates from inside, cheerful and lovely and reaching.
She could never afford to make this journey in the past, could not afford to lose time traveling when there was work to be done. On this day, there is still work to be done, but she has forgone it.
Neither old nor ugly, the woman had (expertly, professionally) washed her best robes in order to look her best for the occasion. Then the dusty road rendered her efforts null and made her humble and dirty again. She is so deeply, achingly tired.
The woman uses what little savings she has to buy three sticks of incense, and then she goes to kneel. She breathes deeply.
Please, she prays. She is not the type to ask for much, but on this day, she asks that a miracle might be granted. She knows that the gods are capable of granting miracles; hadn’t she herself been blessed? Her sweet boy was brought to her on the back of the Luo River like something out of a story. My miracle, the washerwoman thinks, deserves a miracle of his own.
When she inhales, she notices that the incense she bought smells sweet and lovely. Like new things blossoming. The hopefulness of it clears her mind.
The spring god is popular and busy, his shrines frequented by bustling city folk and aristocrats who can afford to make more impressive offerings than a little washerwoman from a village town.
She turns her face up up up, as though to bathe in light. On the dais above her stands the spring god’s likeness. It’s hewn from stone but looks as though it might breathe at any given moment-- smile and blink slowly with malachite-painted eyes.
Luo Binghe’s mother is a lifeless statue upon her cot, and the bowl of congee never reaches her. Luo Binghe wishes he had coins to buy incense with. Wishes desperately that he could pray for her. Could do anything at all.
Some days later, his mother's death is discovered by the young masters of the estate, and Luo Binghe is kicked out onto the streets. Luo Binghe begins to wish for coins again, so that he could afford a warm place to stay. He wishes, and then he begs for coins.
It’s in this way that Luo Binghe spends some time growing up entirely unacknowledged by the gods, scraping for small kindnesses in a world where miracles can be granted on a whim.
(He isn’t resentful of it at the time, doesn't think himself entitled to any kind of divine favor, but perhaps if things had continued as they were, he would have grown to be. Perhaps a different Luo Binghe, somewhere, continued to go unnoticed until something within him darkened and festered, and when he came into his power, that Luo Binghe decided to rise to the heavens and smite the gods there.)
In this place, however, when Luo Binghe is accepted into Cang Qiong mountain sect and instructed to serve his newfound master a cup of tea, he feels something-- a small bit of heaven delivered unto him. He’d been patiently waiting for Shen Qingqiu to acknowledge him when a feeling like a warm breeze curls around his kneeling form, cradling his body sweetly.
Luo Binghe thinks: this must be the effect of the tea ceremony, it’s binding him magically, mystically, to the sect. No one had mentioned that there was a magical element to the ritual to Luo Binghe, but then who would have told him?
Luo Binghe feels so relieved to be claimed. He feels hot tears gather in his eyes. He lifts himself from the floor, wanting desperately to address his new Shizun-- his new family-- but then he looks up and his master isn’t drinking the proffered tea; he is standing over Luo Binghe and trying to pour it on his head.
By all rights, Luo Binghe ought to be burned with his hair dripping pitifully onto the floor. That is clearly what his master intended. Somehow, the tea never reaches him. The warm breeze that had held him was there, deflecting the tea and keeping Luo Binghe entirely dry.
It smells like flowers, thinks Luo Binghe.
Shen Qingqiu’s eyes are narrowed in a hateful, unflattering way when he begrudgingly explains to Luo Binghe that he is being protected, that this is some higher power showing their hand and granting Luo Binghe their favor.
Luo Binghe lets the breeze whisk away his tears and notices that it doesn’t stop blowing until Shen Qingqiu leaves. He dares to glance up and there-- a sigil, a symbol, inscribed in the air.
It looks like flowering vines intertwining; like a whorl of leaves suspended mid-flight; like a declaration; like hope for a poor boy.
Luo Binghe looks up at his miracle and is glad to have been claimed after all.