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Yin Yu ran a hand through his hair as he finally stepped into the hall towards his quarters. He’d stayed up far too late, late enough he knew his shizun wouldn’t approve. It wasn’t a good look for a head disciple to be out past curfew, or to put adequate rest below most other things. But really, how else could he be expected to manage everything? He’d been stalling as of late. It made him anxious.
Yin Yu paused in his step as a muffled sound echoed against the wooden flooring. His socked feet made little sound even when he wasn’t trying to walk quietly, he knew it hadn’t been from himself.
The hall fell silent again. He held his breath, listening intently for signs that one of his shidi was out and about. Sure enough, just as he thought he might have been hearing things, his ears pricked up at another muffled sound. A voice, or…maybe just an animal outside. He waited for a third time before determining someone was definitely awake.
Part of him felt aggrieved when he realized which room it was coming from—of course, it would be one of the youngest and most…difficult shidi. Had he only just missed him creeping back into his room? Had he been out again and just not been caught?
Ignoring that he himself was out when he shouldn’t be, Yin Yu stepped forward and rapped a soft knock on the door, waiting for a reply he knew wouldn’t come before gently pushing the door open. It wasn’t the first time he’d visited this particular room in the middle of the night.
The child on the bed looked up at him with wide eyes, rimmed red from crying and momentarily filled with panic.
Yin Yu paused, his brain running at a sluggish pace after reading for so many hours. “Yizhen,” he said softly, moving to close the door behind him. “What are you doing awake so late?”
The boy didn’t respond, only moving to sloppily rub the remnants of tears from his cheeks with the edge of his blanket. Yin Yu sighed and stepped over to the bed, reaching out to help.
Quan Yizhen startled again and leaned away from him, looking wary.
Yin Yu wavered and slowly retracted the hand. He’d almost forgotten how strange Yizhen was when it came to comfort. At times he really didn’t like to be touched, as much as he enjoyed wrestling around and fighting. Still, he felt a small pang in his chest at the reaction. Yizhen was usually so trusting of him.
Instead Yin Yu turned and smoothed his robes, sitting at the end of the bed as quietly as he could. “It’s alright,” he said gently. “You haven’t done anything wrong. Did you have another bad dream?”
Quan Yizhen loosened up a bit and nodded his head, eyeing his shixiong at the edge of the cot.
As far as Yin Yu had experienced, there wasn’t all that much that Yizhen was afraid of, or at least unwilling to face head-on. He couldn’t fathom what sorts of things the kid had experienced prior to being taken into the sect that would lead to such frequent nightmares.
He let out a soft exhale. “You really can’t sleep?” he asked.
Quan Yizhen slowly shook his head, lowering the blanket as it became clear Yin Yu wouldn’t be scolding him.
“Then I’ll tell you a secret,” he said quietly. “I’ve figured out a method to keep the bad dreams away.”
Quan Yizhen’s eyes widened, shining from the dim moonlight streaming in the window. “Really?”
“Mn,” Yin Yu hummed. “So you needn’t worry anymore.”
His shidi finally seemed to loosen up, letting the blanket fall away as he peered up at him with adoration. “Shixiong…will you stay a while, then?”
He was tired, and he didn’t want to sit awake any longer. But he couldn’t say no. “I will. But only if you promise to go back to sleep.”
Quan Yizhen nodded quickly and scooted his way back down, pulling the blanket up to his neck. Yin Yu was acutely aware of the shining pair of eyes still trained on him, but he tried to ignore them, hoping if he was quiet long enough that Yizhen would drift off.
His luck had never been quite that good.
“Shixiong…”
Yin Yu sighed. “Yizhen.”
“How come you’re awake too?”
He paused. He didn’t have the face to explain his anxieties, and he didn’t want to encourage similar behavior by telling the truth. “I’ve been finishing some writings for Shizun,” he lied.
Quan Yizhen furrowed his brow, but then nodded, shifting around to get comfortable under the blanket. “Does Shixiong have nightmares?”
“Sometimes. Not often.”
“Then who protects you from nightmares?”
Yin Yu blinked down at him. Was it really so important? He just wanted Yizhen to go to bed…
“I protect myself,” he finally answered, giving him an awkward smile. Clearly the child had a skewed view of how nightmares came about, but he wasn’t about to remedy that when it was working in his favor.
Quan Yizhen frowned. “But…”
“Yizhen, go to sleep,” he sighed, exasperated. “If you want to speak more about it in the morning, we can.”
Of course, they never did, even if Yin Yu sat in several times afterwards to ‘protect from nightmares’. But the white lie, like many others Yin Yu had made to protect his own face and avoid upsetting his shidi, went undiscovered and unquestioned.
_____
The little girl gripped her basket tight, steeling herself as she stepped into the temple. There were dozens of other people bustling about, the ornate hall abuzz with lay people and officials alike. Rather than stepping forward across the tile floor, she was instantly caught up in the hustle and bustle. It was overwhelming.
She stared upwards at the large gilded statue of General Qi Ying, feeling extremely small beneath it. It was hard to imagine such a towering heavenly official would answer her prayer, let alone hear her voice among the cacophony.
But there ended her doubts. Dozens of people bustled past with their own prayers, their own baskets.
Unbeknownst to her, she was being watched. Quan Yizhen spotted her as soon as she entered, if only because there were no other children present. He didn’t much care for what else was going on, but he was curious just what was in that basket.
He never quite liked using clones when interacting with his followers. Even if most other gods might think it was silly to descend just for something as small as this, he wanted to be there in the flesh. If they cared enough to pray to him, however genuine or misguided, the least he could do was reflect the same level of energy.
The girl startled as she became aware of the man approaching her, and stared up at him in mild terror. Would he tell her to leave?
Quan Yizhen was unfazed by her start, instead tilting his head to get a better view inside her basket. “What do you have?” he asked bluntly.
The girl looked down at the basket in her arms, wavering. After a long pause she uncovered it and tilted it in his direction. “P…peaches,” she mumbled, still unsure whether he was friend or foe.
He seemed surprised by that. There were indeed several ripe peaches gathered inside. Although food was a common offering in temples, peaches weren’t exactly the usual gift given to martial deities, especially peaches that were so ordinary looking.
His lack of readable expression did nothing to quell the young girl’s anxiety. She shrunk back. “I picked them this morning…D-do you think it’s enough?”
Quan Yizhen blinked, finally looking up at her face. He had no idea what a child her age could be asking for in one of his temples, and it would no doubt be something impossible to solve. Telling a child to their face that their offering was not enough also came with a measure of guilt, something he wasn’t immune to despite his poor reputation.
In the end his curiosity got the best of him. He crouched down to her level, reaching out to tip the basket towards himself with a finger in order to get a better look. “It’s enough,” he answered honestly. “What do you want?”
Though less apprehensive now, she seemed fidgety again, her cheeks flushed. “I thought he might…” she mumbled, the rest of her sentence lost in the noise of the busy temple.
Quan Yizhen’s brows furrowed and he leaned a little closer. “Hm?”
“I-I thought…Qi Ying Junshang might…protect my dreams,” she managed, her little face growing redder.
He blinked. That certainly wasn’t his wheelhouse. But he couldn’t help feeling bad for the kid, and she’d tried to come with an offering in earnest. As someone who had also suffered bad dreams as a child, he couldn’t help but empathize. Children felt more genuine in their prayers than most adults.
He crouched down next to her, eyeing the basket of peaches. “He won’t,” he answered bluntly. The child likely only needed reassurance, but no martial god could cure nightmares, he wouldn’t lie. He could, however, offer her some source of hope, one that someone at least might be watching.
“But there is someone who might.”
_
Yin Yu glared up at the ceiling, exasperated and tired. He wasn’t sure what time it was, nor why he was trying to sleep in the first place. Had he dozed off on accident?
The prayer echoed in his ears, keeping him from remembering. It was stubborn, persistent in a way that reminded him too much of the incessant chattering from little shidi when he was younger.
Back then, it had been understandable, he was a head disciple and their shixiong. Now…he was neither a shixiong nor a god, and hadn’t been awoken by a prayer in decades. It felt misguided. Had there been some sort of mix up?
He sighed. Even back then, he’d dealt with it with as much patience as he could muster.
Yin Yu didn’t find it very difficult to locate the source of the little voice. A young girl crouched next to a roadside shrine, faced away as she continued to, apparently, pray to him.
He approached in as normal an appearance as he could, which unfortunately was his default. He didn’t want to scare her and kept a healthy distance, only to find himself drawn in by curiosity. The shrine was old and falling apart, long left abandoned. Its new visitor had cleared the broken half of a slab of stone, perhaps the remnants of an offering bench, and placed a basket of what looked to be fresh peaches. A dish with what appeared to be sand and dirt sat nearby.
“Excuse me,” he called out gently. “Who are you praying to?”
The young girl startled and turned around. It was bright and sunny, but the road was less traveled, and until now not one person but the nearby farmer had come by. Once she collected herself she turned around. “Um…the Waning Moon Spirit,” she answered honestly.
Yin Yu didn’t know how to feel. Where had she heard that name? Surely if the citizens of Ghost City had gone around calling him the Waning Moon Spirit he ought to have had more trouble before now. He thought carefully before responding.
“I see…might I ask what it is he’s supposed to help with?”
“I want him to help me with my dreams,” she answered, looking back at the ‘shrine’. “I heard he can protect from dream demons.”
“And who did you hear that from?” he asked, before biting his tongue. There was no use in grilling a child over this. But really, what was he supposed to do about dreams? This kid likely had no dream demons, just usual night terrors. He’d seen as much himself in others.
The little girl shrugged, not taking his question too seriously. “But…I don’t have any incense yet. I gave these peaches, and I’m gonna try to get some money selling some of my gege’s carvings. I can buy some then.”
Yin Yu’s shoulders slumped, listening to her speak as she tidied the little stone slab. Peaches…it really was so strange. His favorite fruit, perfectly ripe from what he could see. What a strange coincidence.
All he could think was that this poor child would become disappointed in this ‘Waning Moon Spirit’ down the line. He hoped she wouldn’t be too crushed her efforts were in vain.
“I’m…sure he’s heard you, then. A good offering goes a long way.”
She smiled up at him brightly and stood up, and the cloud overhead drifted and gave way for more rays of sunlight. “Gongzi, do you want to buy one of my bracelets then? My gege carves the beads from peach pits, we have a whole load of peaches this year.”
Yin Yu couldn’t help but think that he’d been tricked, but he smiled. It had been a long time since he’d interacted with anyone so young. “Bracelets?”
“Mhm,” she hummed, digging around in her pockets. After a moment she produced a bracelet and placed it in his hand.
Yin Yu took it and studied the little work of art. While it wasn’t a master craft, it was cute. Each bead was a roughly hewn fish, lightly polished and strung along on what he could only imagine was an extra few pieces of sewing thread braided together. One bead in particular stood out, its shape a bit lumpy and less recognizable.
“What is this?”
The girl leaned her head in, peeking at the carved bead he was referring to. “Oh, that’s a sun. Or…a star?”
“A sun…and fish,” Yin Yu mused.
The girl looked mildly embarrassed. “I told my gege to carve something for Qi Ying Jiangjun, but we couldn't figure anything out, and…” She trailed off and looked away, as if her true intentions for making the bracelet were revealed—it hadn’t been meant to be sold at all.
Yin Yu’s brows raised and then furrowed, suddenly feeling that he was missing something again. This situation was strange enough. What was a young girl like her doing trying to create offerings for Yizhen? He was a powerful martial god.
He peered down at the clunky looking ‘sun’. He supposed if he had to choose some sort of symbol to identify his…
Yin Yu let out a short sigh and reached down to his waist to pull open the small coin purse hanging from his belt. It didn’t matter in the end.
The girl grinned and looked as if she might take off into space, her heels only barely held down onto the earth as she watched him produce three copper coins. “Buy yourself some incense,” he said softly, placing them into her palm.