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“Do you remember your mother?” Tianlang-jun asks the squirming, half-serpent thing he’s ninety-five percent sure is his nephew. The creature is far tinier than he thought it would be but that can perhaps be attributed to a lack of proper nutrition. He can’t imagine there is much for an infant to eat while crawling around the southern border. “It’s only been a year or so since you saw her but I don’t believe she kept you for long. It would not surprise me if your little brain discarded such memories.”
His nephew, as expected, does nothing other than continue to wiggle around in the mud.
“All that aside, I’m her older brother. She asked me to—oh, dear.” His nephew has begun to slither up his leg, dragging dirt and possibly poisonous secretions onto his elegant black clothes. Tianlang-jun lifts his foot, bending his leg at the knee; his nephew manages to cling to him despite a lack of limbs. Large yellow eyes peer out of a dirty, scale-dotted face. Tianlang-jun shakes his leg, testing his nephew’s resilience. The infant holds on, tail curled around Tianlang-jun’s ankle.
“Release me,” Tianlang-jun says. It’s a gentle order but his nephew almost certainly does not understand human speech yet. “This sort of behavior is quite unbecoming of a heavenly demon. Has nobody taught you manners?”
Tianlang-jun disentangles his nephew from around his leg and holds the child up to get a better look. Sickly pale skin, matted hair, a serpentine body that barely resembles anything human. “How ugly you are.”
The infant just looks at him. A small forked tongue flicks out.
Tianlang-jun sighs, glancing back at the army of mindless soldiers behind him. “The original plan was to give you these. Make you a lord.” He regards his nephew again, meeting those strangely intelligent eyes. “But as you are, I do not believe you have the capability to lead. You will have to be taught.” He shifts to hold his nephew like one might carry a ball meant for play, trapped under his arm. His nephew’s tail slaps against his back.
“Oh, right.” Tianlang-jun taps the child’s forehead with his other hand, sending a brief pulse of qi. In no time at all, there is a baby with four little limbs—no tail or scales in sight—caught in his grip. “That’s better, isn’t it?”
The baby blinks at him before tears well up. Hiccuping sobs force their way out of the tiny creature.
“Why are you crying?” Tianlang-jun brings his nephew to rest against his chest, awkwardly patting his back. Little hands fist in Tianlang-jun’s hair. “If this is your way of showing gratitude, it needs some work. I have a couple of suggestions—ah, let go of jiujiu’s hair.” Tianlang-jun carefully extricates his still-crying nephew’s remarkably strong hands from their undesirable goal of yanking out entire chunks of his hair. “There we go. Good child.”
His nephew sniffs, lip wobbling but tears beginning to slow. Tianlang-jun swipes a thumb across ruddy cheeks, drying the wetness that remains. His nephew clumsily grabs Tianlang-jun’s thumb and holds it.
“Excellent. It appears I don’t have to teach you how to be cute.” Tianlang-jun turns to leave the way he came, his new companion secure in his arms. “Now, as I was saying…”