Chapter Text
Shen Jiu spat blood into the dirt and swore under his breath.
“Of-fucking-course they’d shove this on me.” he muttered, voice sharp with venom.
The arm which was holding Xiu Ya trembled, slick with blood from the gash across his shoulder. The beast he had just cut down lay twitching in the shadows, its corrupted qi still contaminating the air.
The mission was supposed to be routine: a stupid Bone-Crushing Hound terrorizing the people of Qing Shui Village. Too troublesome for his ‘beloved’ martial siblings.
Shen Jiu staggered forward, his boot catching on a vine. The forest here was wrong - damp, cloying, as though it breathed with him, He pressed his hand against the wound, trying to force his qi into stabilizing it, but the effort only made his vision blur.
He eventually got to a small clearing in the forest, if he had stumbled here under other circumstances he would’ve used this as a meditation spot.
He sat against a small tree, breathe slowly evening out as he started to circulate his own qi to try to heal his wounds.
When he woke up it was to the odd sound of crying.
“What the-” he tried to say, the taste of blood still thick in his mouth. His body ached, his vision was blurry, every muscle protested at his weak attempt to slowly standing up.
When he finally managed to pull himself up from the dirt, he decided to investigate the sound.
This is a child crying, had he miscalculated the power of the beast? Was it still attacking the people nearby? But no, he was too far from the village to be able to hear the sound of children crying.
Further investigation brought him to a weird flower - a very beautiful one - with pink and purple petals, from which the wailing sound was coming.
Resting on the bud of the flower a child was resting, small, red-faced, and wailing, as if the world had already wronged it.
Shen Jiu stared, unable to move. His first thought was that this was some sort of hallucination born from blood loss. His second thought was that it was a curse - some spiritual parasite wearing human skin.
He crouched over the bundle, heart pounding like a drum in his ears.
Slowly, he extended a thread of spiritual energy. The qi that responded was faint, fragile - but familiar. Too familiar.
Shen Jiu’s breath caught. It was his. Not just his sect’s techniques, not a resemblance born of coincidence. No — the child’s very core carried the same sharp, thorn-edged qi as his own.
His stomach lurched. “Impossible…” The word scraped out of his throat. “You shouldn’t exist.”
Yet when the infant stirred, tiny fingers curling in the air before finding his sleeve, the flow of qi between them resonated — a recognition, a claim.
Shen Jiu exhaled slowly, forcing his pulse to steady.
“If they find you,” he muttered, voice flat, “they’ll kill you”.
The baby gurgled, utterly unconcerned
Shen Jiu clicked his tongue in irritation and shuffled out of his outer robe, wrapping the child in it.
“This is temporary” he didn’t know if he was saying this to the child or to reassure himself, anyway, the decision had been made, he will take it- him to the sect.