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“Alright just… sit here, don’t move.” Uncle Wei says to A-Yuan as he puts him down on the floor.
He looks a bit like he wants to poop and a bit like he wants to cry.
A-Yuan gives him a little pat on the arm and a big smile, like the Qing Jing geges and jiejies do for him. It always makes him feel better.
“It’ll be okay, Uncle!” He doesn’t know why Uncle Wei looks like he wants to cry, but A-Yuan still wants to help.
Uncle Wei looks at him with a weird face and sighs, patting A-Yuan’s hand.
“You’re a good kid A-Yuan. Don’t become like your ass… –mazing A-die, okay?”
“Ass-ma-zing?” A-Yuan doesn’t know that word.
“No! Nonono, A-Yuan, A-ma-zing. Uncle Wei misspoke, okay? Don’t repeat that, Uncle will give you some nice candy!”
A-Yuan doesn’t really understand the difference, but at the word ‘candy’, his eyes light up and he nods quickly, extending his hands to Uncle Wei.
“A-Yuan won’t say it again! Can A-Yuan have candy now?”
Uncle Wei laughs and his face looks a bit wet – but he’s not crying and he’s not running – and he pats A-Yuan on the head again. He stands. Uncle Wei is really tall when he stands up! Not as tall as A-die, but way taller than A-Yuan. A-Yuan tries to keep his eyes on Uncle Wei’s face and he feels like his head is going to fall off because it’s so high!
“Yep, Uncle will go get some candy for A-Yuan, okay? Stay here and be good and I’ll be right back with candy.”
With one last pat to A-Yuan’s head, Uncle Wei leaves A-Yuan alone in the room.
A-Yuan is a good kid, A-die always says. So, he sits on the floor where Uncle Wei put him and looks around the room – with his eyes only, not his hands, like A-die taught him. Except the room is really boring. There’s nothing to do! Uncle Wei doesn’t have any pretty books or any pretty toys. Not even a fan that A-Yuan can wave around like A-die does.
A-Yuan waits a bit.
Then he stops waiting. A-Yuan is bored.
He gets up and walks to the door.
Pushing himself up onto his tippy-toes, he reaches for the door handle and pushes it open.
“Hehe!” He stands in the doorway, hands on his hips, chest puffed out. A-Yuan opened the door all by himself!
A-die is always saying A-Yuan is super smart. A-Yuan can’t wait to tell A-die he opened the door on his own! A-die is going to be super proud; he might even give A-Yuan a pat on the head!
With a wide grin he runs out the door, tiny robes flapping around him.
***
For a while, he runs everywhere, excited to see everything.
There’s trees on Wan Jian! Instead of bamboo! And the grass is taller, like the paintings of forests A-die showed him. There’s little bugs in the grass that he hasn’t seen on Qing Jing before. He follows a few all the way to their nests and kneels on the ground to watch them bring stuff back. He pokes at one just to see what it feels like and jumps back when it gets angry at him and bites his finger. But A-Yuan doesn’t cry because he’s a big boy and A-die says big boys don’t cry. So he just stares really hard at the bug, trying to do the same thing A-die does with his eyes where it feels like his eyes are going to shoot blasts of qi out of them! But the bugs don’t explode or anything so A-Yuan is pretty sure he’s doing it wrong.
He doesn’t try to poke any of the bugs again. His finger still hurts a bit – he can feel tears in his eyes and he puffs his cheeks really big, but he’s not crying. He’s not! He rubs his sleeve against his eyes really hard – that’s why his eyes are red, okay! – and wipes his nose. Then he stands up and goes back to walking.
A-Yuan is tired. And A-Yuan is bored. Again.
He kicks a rock down the path some and tries to follow it. But there’s a lot of rocks and he loses which rock was his rock. Then he kicks at the dirt and watches it woosh around. But a lot of dirt falls on his robes and now his robes are dirty and A-die doesn’t like when he makes his robes dirty. A-Yuan rubs his hands on his robes, but they just get dirtier. He rubs harder, but it doesn’t do anything.
There’s tears in his eyes again and maybe he is crying now. He doesn’t want A-die to be mad at him, A-die told him to be a good boy today.
He can just clean the robes. A-Yuan wipes his eyes again. He just needs to find water. A-Yuan has seen disciples wash clothes before so he knows they put the clothes in the water and they come out clean. So he just needs to find water and put his clothes in and they’ll be clean and A-die won’t know he got them dirty.
A-Yuan runs.
He doesn’t know where Wan Jian has water but he’s sure he can find it!
A-Yuan is a smart boy!
***
A-Yuan finds a really big building after running for a bit. There’s a lot of loud noises, like the ones when Uncle Brute fights with A-die and their swords go CLING CLANG together – A-die told A-Yuan to not call Uncle Brute uncle, but A-die also says you have to be respectful to people older than you, so A-Yuan still calls him that. A-die doesn’t get mad at him for it, he just looks at A-Yuan weird. And then sometimes he throws things at Uncle Brute and it’s kinda funny so A-Yuan keeps calling Uncle Brute uncle.
A-Yuan goes into the big building. It’s really hot in here. Now A-Yuan wants some water to drink too. Maybe someone can tell him where the water is? They probably wish they had water too, so A-Yuan thinks that someone has to know where it is.
There’s a lot of disciples using hammers to hit shiny red things. It looks all sticky and gooey, but every time they hit it, it makes that CLING CLANG sound. It’s really loud and A-Yuan kinda wants to cover his ears, but he has a question and he needs his ears open to hear.
He walks in a bit more. There’s a HUUUUGE fire on the other side and a HUUUUGE metal box. One of the disciples carries his red shiny thing with weird looking chopsticks over to the metal box and opens it – it gets even hotter in the room! The disciple puts the thing right into the HUUUUGE fire and closes the box back up. A-Yuan watches with big eyes. That looks so cool! He wants to put something in the fire too!
But he needs to make sure A-die won’t be mad at him first, so he needs to find water first. There’s a disciple really close to A-Yuan so A-Yuan walks over to her and pulls at her robes. The disciple jumps super high and then screams really high when she sees him. She drops her hammer on the ground and then grabs A-Yuan in her arms.
A-Yuan is a bit dizzy from being picked up so fast. He’s a big boy now, even A-die doesn’t carry him that much anymore! Only when A-Yuan really want to. Or gets tired. Or wants to sleep. Or really wants to give A-die a big hug! He wiggles around in the disciple’s arms. There’s more and more tears in his eyes and he wants to cry for her to put him down.
“Why is there a baby here?!” She screams again and this time someone comes to see what’s happening.
A-Yuan isn’t a baby! A-Yuan is a big boy, he can walk all on his own and get dressed all by himself and he can open doors now too!
But A-Yuan still wants to cry. He wants to get the dirt off his robes. And he doesn’t want this loud mean jiejie to carry him anymore. And he kinda wants A-die.
The other person sees A-Yuan and also screams and then there’s more screaming and A-Yuan really wants to cry now.
A-die said, if someone grabs him and he doesn’t want them to grab him, he should scream, cry, and bite to make them drop him and then run away as fast as he can and then find a place to hide until A-die can find him. And if they try to grab him again, he should hit them and fight them until they let go again!
He screams! Really loud! A-die said A-Yuan was really good at screaming when they practiced – it was really fun too! And then he cries – and only part of the crying is real because A-Yuan is a big boy. And then he bites the mean jiejie’s hand.
She drops him and starts saying bad words.
“That little shit bit me!”
A-die told him he was only allowed to use those words if A-die told him he could because people would think he was dumb if he used them all the time. Maybe mean jiejie is a bit dumb and that’s why she keeps screaming for no reason.
As soon as A-Yuan is on the floor, he starts running. A-die has him playing tag with Qing Jing disciples all the time and A-Yuan is really good at it. This is kind of the same thing except everyone is just standing there and staring and no one except the mean jiejie is chasing him so it’s a lot easier.
“Wait, Shijie, I think that’s Shen-shibo’s son!”
The mean jiejie stops running.
“Fuck! Seriously? Shit Shen-shibo is going to kill us if his son gets hurt.”
She sounds scared now. A-Yuan gets it, A-die can be scary sometimes, but A-Yuan knows that A-die loves him the most so he’s never really scared when A-die gets mad at him.
“What is he doing here? It’s dangerous!”
“Should… Should we get him back to Shen-shibo?”
“M-maybe we just bring him to Shizun and Shizun can bring him back to Shibo?”
They talk some more, but A-Yuan isn’t really listening. He keeps running between disciples. Most of them look at him weird but don’t do anything. And then the mean jiejie and her shidi yell at them and they jump in a really funny way and they start running too. But A-Yuan is really good at dodging and he’s really small so he knows how to go places where the big disciples can’t reach.
He won’t be small forever though! A-die said so! A-die said that A-Yuan is going to be just as tall as A-die some day and A-die is super tall.
A-Yuan finds a little hole at the back of the building and ducks in with a whole bunch of disciples yelling behind him. He laughs just a bit; they’re kind of funny trying to get him to come back. One of the disciples is even holding candy and shaking it in A-Yuan’s direction like A-Yuan is a pet or something. A-Yuan isn’t stupid, A-die told him that if anyone wants to give him candy, he should kick them real hard and then run away because people who give out candy are ‘perverts’. A-die said, especially if the one giving candy is ‘That Motherfucker’. A-die said A-Yuan should let him get close, then punch him in the dick, bite his hand, take the candy, and run. A-Yuan isn’t sure what a ‘dick’ is, but last time he just punched ‘That Motherfucker’ where he could reach and A-die was really proud of him so it’s probably fine. A-die also made a really weird face when A-Yuan called ‘That Motherfucker’ by that name, kind of like he wanted to laugh but also like he was mad and a bit like he wanted to hit something. But then A-die looked at ‘That Motherfucker’ and smiled in a really mean way and carried A-Yuan home and gave him lots of treats. And then A-die said A-Yuan wasn’t allowed to call anyone other than ‘That Motherfucker’ by that name.
A-Yuan is in a tunnel now. It’s really dark and pretty small, but A-Yuan is super brave and he’s not scared at all, even though he can’t see anything in front of him and he kinda wants to turn back. But he can still hear the disciples yelling and trying to give him candy, so he keeps going because A-die said you can’t trust anyone who gives candy.
The tunnels keep turning in circles and A-Yuan might be a little dizzy and a little lost and it’s really dark in here. He kinda wants A-die now even if A-die gets mad about the dirty robes because A-die will still give him a hug after he gets mad and A-Yuan knows that if he pouts and looks really sad, A-die won’t even get that mad.
But he doesn’t want to turn back, the mean jiejie is still there and all those loud screaming disciples. So, he keeps going. His hands and legs are getting tired, the tunnel is really small, even for A-Yuan. But he’s super brave, A-die said so! A-Yuan kicked Uncle Brute once and A-die gave him a pat on the head and a really yummy treat and told him he was the bravest boy ever and he should kick Uncle Brute more!
After forever in the tunnels, he sees some light ahead. He moves faster and soon he can see trees and grass and lots of weird round things with scales all over them. A-Yuan climbs out of the tunnel and he can finally stand up and it’s all bright and sunny here! He jumps a few times, excited to be out of the really boring tunnels.
One of the weird round things unrolls itself a bit and—Whoa! There’s a head! With a really long nose and tiny eyes! A-Yuan wants to run to it and touch it and play with it, but A-die told him he can’t just touch everything. Sometimes things are dangerous! And he should always ask before he touches! Unless it’s for kicking or punching, A-die says he doesn’t need to ask for that. If A-Yuan wants to kick or punch something, it’s because they deserve it and A-Yuan should just do it and if they get angry at A-Yuan, then A-Yuan should run and find A-die and A-die will take care of it.
So, A-Yuan walks a bit closer to the scaly round thing and asks, really politely, just like A-die taught him:
“Can A-Yuan pet you?” He bows a little too, even though he isn’t sure if the scaly round thing really cares. A-die taught him that it’s polite!
The scaly round thing unrolls even more and stands up. It’s so big! A-Yuan has to look up to look at its eyes and it has weird long claws that kind of look like fingers and a long tail with lots of scales, kind of like a dragon! Maybe it’s a dragon! Maybe A-Yuan found a dragon!
“So cool. Are you a dragon?” He asks and gets closer.
The dragon tilts its head a bit and leans down so its head is at the same level as A-Yuan’s. It sniffs at A-Yuan’s hair and it tickles! Which makes A-Yuan laugh because it’s kind of funny. And A-Yuan forgets that the dragon hasn’t told him if it’s okay to touch yet and reaches up to touch the scales because they’re so cool and shiny! And they’re so fun to touch! Like rocks, but shiny! The dragon doesn’t do anything, just keeps looking at A-Yuan and lets him touch, so A-Yuan thinks it’s okay, even if the dragon didn’t say it was okay. He touches some more and the dragon sniffs A-Yuan’s hair again.
The dragon curls up on the floor again, around A-Yuan, and A-Yuan giggles again when it keeps sniffing his hair. One of its paws is right next to A-Yuan’s face and A-Yuan can see the MASSIVE claws it has. His eyes go super big when he sees them, they’re so cool. A-Yuan is sure no one has ever seen claws that big, maybe not even A-die! He touches them and they feel so soft, even softer than the scales!
A-Yuan keeps patting the dragon all over – a dragon! It’s so cool! – and, after a while, the dragon puts its big head over A-Yuan and goes all round again, all around A-Yuan. And all wrapped up by the dragon like that, it’s dark, but not dark like it was in the tunnels, dark like when A-Yuan sleeps with A-die and A-die wraps his arms around A-Yuan and A-Yuan knows he can sleep because A-die is here and A-die won’t ever let anything happen to him.
And A-Yuan is tired. He yawns and also curls up with the dragon and closes his eyes. It’s comfy and warm and A-Yuan is really tired. He ran away from mean disciples and saw a whole bunch of Wan Jian Peak and even found dragons!
A-Yuan can’t wait to tell A-die he found dragons today! There’s no way A-die is gonna be mad about A-Yuan’s dirty robes when he finds out!
A-Yuan can’t wait to see A-die again.