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Xie Lian goes to bed as usual, having been bathed and dressed by his servants before collapsing into his silk sheets. He dozes off quickly after a long day of training.
But tonight, his dreams feel different.
It is bright, but the scenery around is misty and hard to make out.
There is no sound in his dream, but all is peaceful. Xie Lian looks around to see he’s sitting within the branches of a great cherry tree that has yet to bloom. Thousands of tiny pink buds surround him. He laughs, but nothing comes out of his mouth.
He’s content enough to lounge in this beautiful tree, but then a beam of light breaks through the clouds.
A figure descends, but his face is obscured even when Xie Lian stares right at it. And yet, he knows this person means him no harm. Xie Lian feels warm and safe, like he too is a flower bud all curled up upon itself.
The man lands gently on one of the branches near Xie Lian. It seems like he says something, but once again there are no sounds for Xie Lian to discern. But the man holds up his hand, where he holds a beautiful, bright red pomegranate. Unlike the blurriness of the rest of the dream’s setting, there’s something more real about the fruit before him, the shadows darker and the light reflecting off of it brighter than any of their surroundings. It’s so enticing that Xie Lian reaches out immediately to grab it, but the man pulls back.
Xie Lian pouts- why is he being denied? But the figure proceeds to crack the pomegranate open in two and plucks a few seeds from the rind. When offered them, Xie Lian happily opens his mouth to accept the sweet seeds, swallowing one after the other straight from the stranger’s hand. Red juices flow down the side of his cheek in his eagerness, but the more he eats the warmer he becomes. Xie Lian desires that warmth.
They continue until the pomegranate is finished and Xie Lian feels sated. Even within his dream, his body feels heavy and dazed.
The glowing figure places a palm across Xie Lian’s stomach, pressing there. Xie Lian feels the warmth pulse and gasps from the strange feeling, but it’s not a bad one. He leans into the touch, placing his own palm over the man’s.
The cherry blossoms around them all open up suddenly, their petals falling in the breeze.
When Xie Lian looks up, he can see the corner of a small smile on the man’s face- and then he wakes with a start.
Xie Lian sits up, looking around for any signs of oddities, but his room appears normal. He then moves to hold his stomach, analyzing the flow of his qi. There is something different in his lower dantian, where Xie Lian’s skin still buzzes from his dream visitor’s touch.
He rushes out his bedroom door calling for his guoshi, which startles Feng Xin and Mu Qing.
“You’re barefoot- and still in your night clothes. Get back here, Dianxia!” They call for him.
Feng Xin does end up dragging him back to his bedroom, but he sends out Mu Qing to grab the imperial preceptor. Xie Lian is impatient as he gets dressed, and he’s buzzing the entire walk through the hallways to meet with Mu Qing.
His guoshi is there, too, looking displeased- he was probably pulled away from another round of gambling, so no harm no foul.
“Guoshi, feel, can’t you sense it?” Xie Lian reaches out for his teacher’s hand, pressing it to his stomach.
“What in the world are you going on about- what?” His guoshi stares in shock.
Feng Xin looks between them, “What- what’s going on? Are you sick? Is there something wrong with your cultivation?”
Xie Lian smiles cheekily, “Nothing's wrong. I’m just pregnant.”
The three people with Xie Lian scream at him, but he continues to smile. The warmth of his dream lingers in his stomach, where his little gift remains in him.
“How could this happen?” Mu Qing says in horror.
His guoshi responds, sounding perplexed, “Taizi Dianxia’s meridians showed no signs of change. His cultivation is as strong as ever- if not more so. He didn’t break his vows.”
Of course he didn’t break his vows! How could they think otherwise?
Xie Lian recalls the light in his dream, the breaking of the clouds like a heavenly blessing. Yes, that’s what this is.
“It’s the heavenly emperor’s,” Xie Lian says with full confidence. Though he remembers little of his strange dream, he knows this to be true. He holds his stomach gently, thankful for the emperor’s favor to him.
The three people around scream again, louder this time.