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It didn't take long for it to grow inside her, and Shi Qingxuan wore the glow of pregnancy with such grace that it almost made He Xuan forget what exactly was growing there, nestled in her stomach in something that wasn't his, more self-inflicted punishment than child, like a parasite abandoned in the wrong nest.
But there was an undeniable softness in Shi Qingxuan's clear eyes, permanently a “woman” for now, at least until the child was born, being diligently nourished by the constant influx of yin energy, and He Xuan often found himself trying to convince himself that just the fact that it was hers was enough and not the last cruel twist of a knife in the stomach.
(Brown hair falling in wavy cascades down her back, the diaphanous clarity of a soft sleeping robe, highlighting the fullness of her hips, the rounded shape of her stomach. Gentle hands caressing her pronounced belly and a fond smile curving her lips, and she was beautiful and that was enough and if Shi Qingxuan could love that child, bless or curse, He Xuan could too.)
(But then…)
(The nights he woke from dreaming of the tangy taste of blood, the shallow breaths—tired from the weight in her lungs—against his neck, the warmth of her abdomen beneath He Xuan's cool palm, and he wondered if Shi Qingxuan would give birth to his revenge, if the unjust features of justice would tear the flesh from her guts into a hideous, half-dead thing.
It had ultimately been his choice, a thorn in the flesh to accompany him, and it was right for him to raise another man's child, and it was right for him to pray for a safe birth, it was right for him to love Shi Qingxuan as the little one grew and it would eventually be born, and was right for He Xuan to take on the offspring that was not his, and whether the child came into the world spitting venom with fangs instead of fingers, born under the same bad star as Crimson Rain, or even with the imperious calm of a fallen royalty like His Highness Xie Lian, it would be right for him to accept it.
It would be right for him to choke on humiliation and jealousy and shame.)
“A–Xuan, come here!” Shi Qingxuan trilled happily from where she was perched on the couch. “I think I felt them moving…”
Shi Qingxuan glowed in the evening sun, her inner robe loose around her slender shoulders, relaxed among soft pillows and blankets, as she spent most of her days, guarding herself for the birth with an unusual obedience that He Xuan knew would not accompany her much beyond the birth, but which for the moment was charming.
The woman guarded her thoughts with meticulous care, the books arranged around her being only sweet poetry—which He Xuan, a scholar at heart, had always had in abundance—never losing her malleable and docile temperament, the golden creature of the old midwife who had been chosen, a stern lady who had already brought into the world over a thousand children in her lifetime and did not seem to plan on stopping in the times of death, ghost that she was. Shi Qingxuan did not sit on crumpled mats or eat poorly cut meat, she abandoned vibrant colors for soft palette—woe betide her if she compromised the temperament of the future child—in loose clothing, sleeping obediently with a small pair of golden scissors under her pillow to scare away evil spirits as if there were even one who would dare to set foot in Black Water’s Lair.
(There was one, of course, but He Xuan felt bile rise in his throat at the mere idea and refrained from entertaining the thought. On the one hand, Xie Lian would not let his husband add insult to injury gratuitously, and on the other, Hua Cheng had as much interest in what was going on on the island as He Xuan did in Ghost City.)
He Xuan walked over, kneeling on the carpet at his wife's feet, letting Shi Qingxuan guide his hand around her swollen belly.
“Ayiah, it’s too early for kicks, but I can feel something stirring inside me,” Shi Qingxuan continued softly. “ Here, can you feel it?”
It was subtle, the slightest tremor like dragonfly wings fluttering above the water before falling still, motionless, but He Xuan felt it. Weak and helpless and not yet ready, shapeless.
“Yes,” He Xuan replied, because it was true, despite the bitterness on his tongue. He rubbed his thumb once, twice over the taut skin, mottled with silvery scars and there it was, the small movement again, right under his fingers and Shi Qingxuan hummed appreciatively “Yes, I can.”
*
He had wanted to be with Shi Qingxuan, but as soon as the labor pains had shortened enough, he was chased out of the room by the midwife, relegated to the halls of his own mansion to the sound of his wife's screams.
Her waters had broken during the night, waking them both up suddenly, and by the time the midwife arrived with the herbs and cloths and a million orders for the housemaids, Shi Qingxuan had already gone into active labor, pale and sweaty, with thin blood leaking between her thighs and whimpers on her tongue. He Xuan comforted her as best he could, wrapping her in his arms and whispering that “It’ll be okay, just take a deep breath, there’s a good girl here,” against her temple.
(A hand cradling the distended belly, low on the waist with a little head already fitted into the tight space of the pelvis.
“ You will not kill her to be born, the fair is the fair, and you will not kill her to be born. ”)
But husbands didn't belong in the birthing chambers, much in the same way that He Xuan didn't belong on the altar where the child was conceived, and Shi Qingxuan's screams were a twisted and distorted mirror of her gasps and whimpers as Crimson Rain and Xie Lian breeded her, and He Xuan had to bite his tongue to keep from thinking about how Shi Qingxuan had also screamed in pain when he had killed Shi Wudu, sticky bones exposed against pale skin.
He Xuan bit, bit and bit and tasted blood in his mouth as Shi Qingxuan screamed.
(The moments of silence were worse, when He Xuan couldn't hear her voice and was forced to imagine what was happening on the other side of the door, whether Shi Qingxuan was bleeding to death, whether she was slowly getting weak, dying in an impossible effort.)
(When Crimson Rain discovered that Shi Qingxuan had indeed held a child within her, he had called him into the matrix and there was no acidic mockery, so much as there was a disinterested indifference in his voice—Hua Cheng had only warmth for Xie Lian within him and there wasn’t much more towards the rest of the world now that he had him—and told that his own mother had died of an unhealed childbirth after giving birth to him just a few months after he stopped nursing.
“Why?” why now, why tell him, why tell him just now –
“I thought you should know.”
And ended the communication.
And the questions, a poisonous whirlwind, remained the same. Motionless.)
(When Crown Prince Xie Lian found out that Shi Qingxuan was pregnant, he arrived at Nether Mansion with gentle hugs and congratulations on his tongue, as if it were an achievement, more than that even, as if this were something entirely of them –He Xuan and Shi Qingxuan– as he kissed Shi Qingxuan's rosy cheeks and offered a collection of Golden Foil Palaces as a trousseau gift.
Before he left, however, he spoke to Shi Qingxuan in private, and He Xuan found her hours later with her hands trembling on her stomach and a haunted look in her eyes.
“A– Xuan” She murmured, soft and light “Your Highness never had any sibilings.”
He Xuan nodded, letting her curl up in his arms.
“A–Xuan,” she repeated, her voice silky as the lining of a coffin. “The queen of Xian Le, after the little prince, only gave birth to dead babies.”)
When it was over—a million years later, an entire eternity spent in that hallway—and he was summoned to the room, all the blood had been cleaned up, the sheets changed, and incense lit, driving away the smell of raw flesh and the remains of childbirth. “Lady Shi Qingxuan,” the midwife said with a brief measure, “had done well, and the master of the house was welcome to see her and acknowledge the fruit of her labors as his own.” and He Xuan would have laughed if he were the laughing type, before dismissing the woman and the servants in the room.
Alone, He Xuan approached the marriage bed and pretended not to notice the tremors in his own hands as he pulled aside the canopy curtains.
Shi Qingxuan had been bathed and dressed, the soft color of the robes doing little to disguise the exhausted pallor of her face, her shallow breath escaping from colorless lips still in the throes of labor pains. Her hair was spread out on the pillows like a brownish halo, and the pair of pale eyes that peered at him from beneath her lashes were clouded with weariness, wide open in stubbornness if nothing else.
The woman lay on her side, her body curled slightly protectively around two separate bundles of blankets.
“A–Xuan…” Shi Qingxuan muttered weakly, her voice hoarse, her throat sore from screaming. A small smile crept onto her lips nonetheless, “They’re both boys.”
Indeed they were.
Two red-faced newborns wrapped in white blankets, snoring softly as if being born had exhausted them beyond measure.
He Xuan felt his throat hitch with a nameless feeling.
(Twins are omens of good luck, he remembered reading many years ago, when he was still alive, when he still had a fiancée, when–)
They looked hopelessly fragile, as small as baby birds, with tiny bones and even smaller features. They were not identical, at least not any more than siblings usually are. The differences were subtle in such young creatures, but they were in the shape of their noses, the tracing of their cheeks and ears, the light brown down of one’s hair and the sparse dark strands of the other, and He Xuan did not allow himself to dwell on the futility of these details when he recognized the shape of Shi Qingxuan’s eyes in both of them, as well as the contours of his chin and cheekbones.
Shi Qingxuan cooed softly, touching her fingertips to one of the child’s faces, and the child let out a whining noise, wriggling for warmth without much coordination. The two of their eyes were still sealed shut, and their eyelids would loosen in a week or two, but for now, they would have to rely solely on other senses.
“This is the oldest one,” she said with an undeniable sweetness in her tone before relegating the youngest to the same weak affection, “And this is the youngest, he’s a little smaller, but Lin-Lin said it’s not a concern.”
He Xuan nodded in acquiescence, barely noticing when he himself caressed the eldest son's face shyly.
There were two of them and neither was his, but He Xuan found himself strangely delighted when the little one yawned deeply, wrinkling his button nose. Neither was from him, but Shi Qingxuan already fell in love with them and they were undeniably hers, and so it was easy to imagine himself loving them too, despite all the blood or the taste of tragedy and revenge.
Yes; the youngest sneezed as He Xuan traced the round cheek with his index finger; he could love them and then they would be his enough.
(They wouldn't be little forever, and when they grew up, perhaps they would be like Shi Qingxuan in everything that mattered: In their laughter or their chatter, in their gaze of a thousand suns or in their swarthy boyish smile. Perhaps they would have her eyes—that greenish blue like spring water, like the calm ocean—and her tendency toward mischief, perhaps they wouldn't even be boys all the time.)
He Xuan climbed into bed and lay down with Shi Qingxuan, the newborns nestled between them in a cocoon of warmth, Shi Qingxuan humming softly in a drowsy tone, lulling them to sleep, and He Xuan found himself equally poised between the knife-edge of sleep and wakefulness.
“They need a milk name,” He Xuan cut in before he and Shi Qingxuan drifted off to sleep for the first night of the rest of the twins’ lives. Ah! He already thought like this: The twins. He could get used to speaking like this, in everyday life “pick up the twins” or “feed the twins” or “where are the twins?”
(“Whose twins are they?”)
Shi Qingxuan hummed in agreement.
“Xiao Feng.” Shi Qingxuan patted the elder good-naturedly, before directing the same attention to the younger “Xiao Hei.”
He Xuan expressed the agreement in the same sleepy tone. After the first a hundread days, the twins would be given real names, names that would be better than word charms. They had already decided that the two of them would be named after him and baptized accordingly, as was good and proper.
(They had both decided against fortune-telling, for all the good that trying to circumvent fate might do. Let the stars remain as crossed as they wished, they might get right with them in due time, but never before it.)
For now “Little Wind” and “Blackie” would be more than enough.
*
“The moon is bright/ the wind is quiet…”
There was a carefully carved wooden crib, tiny carvings of waves and stars and fish in soft, smooth curves. The interior lined with soft blankets and covers held a small baby, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic rocking as He Xuan moved the crib: belly rising and falling with long breaths, cheeks flushed and expression relaxed as he slept through the night.
Unlike the youngest who, nestled in the arms of a humming Shi Qingxuan, refused to rest no matter how late it was.
The youngest was the more demanding of the two, with the worst temperament when it came to hunger and the greatest tendency to suffer from colic, and He Xuan would occasionally speculate in that sleep-deprived way that only first-time parents had, whether he had inherited his bad temper until he remembered that there was not a drop of him in that whining child who would not let them sleep and frightened his older brother with inconsolable screams.
He was exhausted, and Shi Qingxuan's dark circles rivaled his own, and sometimes He Xuan felt like he could do anything under the heavens for just a few more hours of sleep or a few minutes of silence.
“My little one/ close your eyes/ sleep, sleep/ dreaming sweet dreams…”
Shi Qingxuan continued singing, her sweet voice barely drowning out the dissatisfied grunts of the baby in her lap, nose buried in the swollen swell of a milk-swollen breast, lips locked around the nipple exposed at the opening of her robe, and still managing to express a few decibels of discontent despite being properly fed.
She played with the fine jet strands scattered over the baby's head with undisguised affection, irreverent to the exhaustion arching her back or the small sighs of discomfort as the fissures that had sprouted in her nipples were reopened whenever one of the little boys nursed.
Shi Qingxuan let out a humorless chuckle, interrupting her song to turn to He Xuan. Even though she was tired, her long hair tangled and her eyes heavy with the sleep accumulated from insomnia nights, she was still beautiful. The tender beauty of a mother who had recently given birth: the new curves drawn on her waist and hips, the softness of her belly and thighs with a weight she would not lose any time soon, her chest permanently swollen, heavy, her skin smelling of roses and breast milk.
“He has to sleep eventually, doesn’t he?” There was a familiar hysteria in her voice, even as she continued to rock her son, her hand protectively against his little head, unconsciously adjusting the position of his mouth on her breast. “He won’t stop crying, he has to be tired of it too, right?”
(He Xuan wondered how it was possible to be so attached to a living thing and yet sometimes wish, viscerally, that it did not exist.)
“He’s going to sleep, dear.” He Xuan pulled her into his lap, letting her snuggle against him. The baby spat out the nipple, whimpering softly, and Shi Qingxuan whimpered back, burying her face in his neck, pressing the baby against her sternum in a feeble attempt to comfort him. “Shhh, little one… The moon is bright/ the wind is quiet/ the cradle moves softly…”
He Haifeng continued to sleep, undisturbed.
He Haitao continued to cry, heartbroken.
*
“Diedie?” A cheerful little voice snapped him out of the immersion he had been cultivating surrounded by the comfort of a dozen ancient scrolls and a choice tray of treats—He Xuan shouldn’t be able to feel hunger, he felt it anyway, like the phantom pain of when he was alive “Diedie!”
He Haifeng trilled happily, little feet running to throw themselves into his father's lap, unconcerned. The childlike confidence that he would be caught, and so he did, curiously climbing onto his father's lap.
Feng-er had grown into a bubbly, cheerful little boy like his baba, with the same clear water-colored eyes—two kaleidoscopes of green, blue, and cyan—and the same easy smile despite the volatile temperament. Quick to frustration, but just as quick to love, with a disposition so gentle that He Xuan knew it wasn’t entirely Shi Qingxuan’s inheritance.
The little boy wore a pale blue shuhe with swirling embroidery of gold and white flowers, the sleeves stained with ink from a clumsy foray into calligraphy. He Xuan affectionately stroked the loosely braided hair, earning a high-pitched giggle.
(For a while, he imagined that Haifeng had gotten the brown hair from Shi Qingxuan’s female form, but no. There was a certain honeyed sheen to the silky locks in the same way there was a princely tilt to the little one’s jaw when he sulked or the indulgent softness when he played with his brother, none of it coming from Shi Qingxuan, female or not.)
(Divinity stained Haifeng's fingers like pomegranate juice, permeated his skin, was within his eyes, sewn into the marrow of his bones, and He Xuan was well-versed in history enough to recognize a king's son anywhere.
He didn't need to know the alignment of the stars at the exact time Shi Qingxuan pushed that boy into the world to know that Haifeng was kissed by greatness or that Fate had bent over his cradle and the little one would be Their soon enough.)
Feng-er grabbed the scroll with eager little hands, settling on his lap and demanding, “Diedie!! Read it to me?” imperiously, like the little prince that, for better or worse, he was.
(He Xuan wondered how long it would take him to ascend and pretended—the good actor he had always been—that the prospect didn't send chills down his spine.)
“Aiyah, Feng-er,” He Xuan scolded, bravely resisting the pout that followed, “Where is this one’s brother?”
Feng-er furrowed her brows in a small frown that was all Shi Qingxuan when he thought He Xuan was being purposefully obtuse and He Xuan had to hold back the giggle that threatened to escape.
“Didi,” Feng-er indicated with a brief tilt of his chin, letting go of the scroll in favor of clinging to his outer robe, but turning his gaze back to the door he had left ajar when he entered.
Sure enough, Tao-er was there, half-hidden behind the door and watching them timidly without having entered half a step into the office.
If Haifeng had been a whirlwind of nervous energy since he had learned to walk and talk, Haitao was a kind of unsolvable enigma.
From a temperamental newborn, he had grown into a wild-eyed, skittish little creature who rarely spoke, smaller than his older brother and tiny for his age, and almost always hiding behind Shi Qingxuan's skirts or following Haifeng's shadow a handful of steps behind. Shi Qingxuan seemed to understand him with an ease that eluded He Xuan, and Feng-er loved him with a world-shattering force.
(He Xuan didn't understand him, and Haitao didn't seem to understand him in return, and he didn't know if it was possible for love to exist where there was a lack of understanding.)
“Come here, didi!” Feng-er called to the youngest son sweetly, as if he were attracting a wild cat, and the little boy promptly obeyed, entering the room with silent steps.
Tao-er wore a hanfu similar to his brother's, the color only accentuating the paleness of his jade skin in contrast to the inky darkness of his hair that framed his face, untamed and disheveled, because only Shi Qingxuan was allowed to untangle and tie the little boy's strands and he apparently hadn't done so yet today.
(Tao-er had been biting the maids who dared to touch him ever since he had his first set of teeth, seemingly not caring at all about drawing blood, regardless of how much the maids and servants fawned and cooed at him.)
(One of the younger girls had said that the strong personality would certainly come from the master of the house. It is known that sometimes children carry the bad habits of their parents.
She was, of course, right, if only partly and not for the reasons she imagined.)
“Say ‘hello, diedie’,” Fen-er instructed, looking very serious. “Then diedie will read to us, didi.”
A blue-green eye peered at him from behind a curtain of raven-black hair, and He Xuan smiled patiently—he never thought he would be able to have so much patience for anything that wouldn't end in revenge eventually, but compassion had grown in him like a parasite, twisting him from the inside until it blossomed painfully into something that wasn't his.
“Hello, diedie,” Tao-er repeated meekly, but without any warmth or affection in his voice. He had a limited supply of it, the stocks being reserved exclusively for Shi Qingxuan and Haifeng, He Xuan being graced with only what was left on the best of days and with sober apathy on most of them.
He Xuan hummed in acknowledgment and reached out, picking him up and settling him on his brother’s side. Tao-er didn’t resist, content to let himself be maneuvered for now, and didn’t even snarl when He Xuan brushed the boy’s black hair away from his face, tucking the stray strands behind his pointy ears and revealing an eye as red as arterial blood.
It only made sense that one was half a blessing if the other was half a curse too. There was meaning in that.
(When Haitao first opened his eyes, any affection He Xuan had thought he had for him soured and died inside his chest, and he felt the taste of blood rise in his throat and thought about drowning him in the bath or smothering him with a pillow as one would do to a defective puppy in a promising litter.
He could have easily accepted the yoke of raising His Highness Xie Lian's son, but something primal and savage twisted in revolt at the idea of raising another predator's child within his family.
He Xuan remembered daydreaming about the idea of slamming the newborn's head against the clean bathroom tile as he watched him suckle at his wife's breast.
But what use is there in a punishment that you find easy to bear?)
(And it would have broken Shi Qingxuan)
(It was less that he did not think himself capable of killing that child, of pressing a dagger to the throat of a sleeping baby snuggled up against his brother or in his mother's arms. He would have killed him while he was still in the womb if he could, that Shi Qingxuan would have a coffin birth if necessary, that she would have given birth stillborn.)
(But he had already taken enough from Shi Qingxuan.)
(He swallowed the bile. It went down burning.)
(What is the point of a punishment that you find easy to bear?)
(He had let him live, as if he were his own.
And there was meaning in that too.)
He Xuan unrolled a scroll—one more suitable and interesting for children's ears—and began to read aloud.