Chapter Text
“Xie Daozhang…” Jian Li took hold of his hand as tightly as she could, her finger shaking with all her force and strength.
To Xie Lian however it felt feather light no different than a small bug laying in his hand.
It made sense for her to have a hold so weak. She was dying after all.
“Tell me Meimei, whatever is in your mind. I'll listen.”
Xie Lian offered, it was all he could do really, bring a small hope of comfort for the woman's final moments, as blood kept pouring from her and her fever rose, as the distant cries of new life were hastily removed from the room and the silent pleas of the man next to them begged the heavens to not take his wife from him.
“Be there for my family Xie-ge… I know I speak out of selfishness but… my son needs a mother, my husband needs to be cared for…” The tears that had gathered up in her eyes finally broke free from the tension keeping them from falling and rolled down her sweat covered cheeks.
“Please Gege, don’t let my family be alone…”
Xie Lian took the words in, he brought her hand up to his temple and bowed until his forehead, covered by both his and Jian Li’s hands, touched the floor. After a deep breath he spoke.
“Trust me A-Jian, I'll do anything I can to not let that happen, I swear.”
It only took a few hours more for her eyes to fall shut, only a couple of minutes afterwards for her body to become cold, and as preparations were arranged for her funeral, it took weeks for her husband, Bei Huan, to stop crying at night.
💮
Xie Lian sat still as he watched the woman he’d become acquitted with for the last five years now, be laid to rest while her body burned to crisp, the couple’s immediate neighbors gathering around weeping for a woman they never really knew, covering their noses with handkerchiefs to dull the smell of burning flesh as a local priest lead prayers so her spirit would rest in peace.
Jian Li was a bright young woman, who had such a hunger for knowledge, that’s why Xie Lian met her in the first place. She had stumbled upon a cave where binu were sealed frozen in time for who knows how many years, much like Xie Lian, Jian Li felt fascinated when she stumbled into such a cave and even more when in said cave was someone just as interested.
Of course Xie Lian’s luck had to act up as it did more often than not, and both were sent into a panicked frenzy to get out, the pair fortunately did, Jian Li completely unscathed and Xie Lian… well not so much, a couple broken bones here or there but for the other party to be scratchless was already a big achievement.
Fortunately Jian Li was a kind soul, letting him stay at her home to get better, there he met Bei Huan, her then fiancé, who was surprisingly well educated in medicine to be a simple farmer.
Xie Lian’s life for the next weeks we’re him enjoying simple talks with the couple, surprisingly they had a lot to say, Bei Huan having been a child runaway from a village that had been pillaged, he found solace in Jian Li’s family when they took him in, Jian Li recounting stories of them traveling from town to town since then escaping the same group of invaders determined to eliminate everyone who had tried to escape their grasp. Finally after many years the family lost sight of them, allowing them to have a calm happy life, before Jian Li’s parents passed two years ago, giving the young couple their blessing before leaving.
Ever since then both have been doing the best they can, Bei Huan getting odd jobs for a couple of months until finally getting a stable enough income as a farming hand, Jian Li not wanting to sit back as see her lover work himself to death, became a scrap collector, wondering about collecting others unwanted possessions and giving them new life again, much like Xie Lian had done for the past eight hundred years.
Xie Lian and Jian Li became close in no time, he found himself mentoring the young woman in the art of turning the old new again, and eventually as his condition bettered the couple asked if he would like to stay with them, if only for just a couple of months more. They were really the only young folk around the small town so Xie Lian was really their only friend, at least the only one they thought was “their age”.
Even after Xie Lian had insisted his bad luck would catch up to them and curse them, they replied with a talisman hung up in the door and even playfully placed one in Xie Lian’s head for “extra protection”. Regardless of the warnings and of past experience Xie Lian let himself feel the small, enormously motivating sliver of hope.
For years the three of them had made a close bond. For the first time in so long, Xie Lian had found what he could properly call friends. When they cheered Xie Lian was there to cheer with them, when they bickered Xie Lian was there to mediate, when they fought Xie Lian was the one to initiate conversation, when times were rough Xie Lian was there to comfort.
Naturally when Jian Li shared the news with him she was pregnant Xie Lian felt an enormous urge to cry.
For five years Xie Lian had almost forgotten what eight hundred had taught him. Almost
Five months into the pregnancy Jian Li fainted. It had come out of nowhere, she was awake one second and on the ground the next, Xie Lian and Bei Huan hurriedly picked her up and laid her in the closet straw mat, but before they could even lay her properly she was already awake and confused as to what was happening and after several minutes of concerns and casual dismissals from Jian Li they had brushed incident as nothing more than the hot summer weather’s fault.
But Jian Li’s condition only worsened from then on, her skin burned, her appetite disappeared, her hold weakened, to a point when Bei Huan couldn’t stand to treat his wife anymore, not when no remedy he made for her took effect, or his massages for her sore muscles took away any of her pain, or his soothing words were never enough to give her the motivation to try and stand up on her now frail legs.
Every time the local physician arrived for a check up he recommended prayers so that at least the child survived this.
💮
Now four months after her death, Xie Lian stood with a baby boy in his arms, his face was soaked with tears from crying and thrashing in his fathers embrace.
“Bei Huan-” Xie Lian tried.
“Don’t!… just let him sleep with you, he prefers you anyway.”
Bei Huan said, his eyes tired a mix of red and dark both from the circles under his eyes and crying for days, he left them in the small commune area with the door to his room firmly shut, Xie Lian could only look down at the baby in his arms.
Bei Suo, was the child’s name, despite all odds he was born strong, his crying echoing from every wall, his hair was pitch dark as well as his eyes, those eyes which opened only a little later after his birth. He was so active and curious of this new world he’s been delivered to. Just like his mother.
Xie Lian couldn’t help but feel his heart squeeze a little when tiny hands reached up to him, no longer crying but with fat tears still clinging to his big eyes, it was enough to snap him out of the trance of memories he had lost himself in. He was so small, so small and had already lost his mother.
“It’s okay A-Suo, I’ll make good on my promise.”
With the small thing still secured on his arms Xie Lian commanded rouye to extinguish the only candle in the house as he made into his small room, laying down both himself and Bei Suo and singing a soft lullaby he has the faint memory of his mother singing to him once hundreds of years ago, until both fell asleep.