The Demonic Clan of Yiling (MDZS Fanfic)

What He Will Never Forget (WTGA Pt.10)

(This entire chapter deals with sensitive topics that involve harming one's self and others. If you aren't able to deal with these topics, please do not read this chapter.)

Jingyi didn't remember much of his parents. Only that they fought a lot and never planned on having kids. They reminded him of this every chance they got. After every mistake he made. After every one of their fights. Whenever they came home from a night hunt. They would remind him that he was never supposed to exist. He never truly understood what they meant back then. He just knew that they hated him.

Whenever they left their house and walked together in the cloud recess they would act like everything was fine. Like they were a happy family. Jingyi used to think those moments were genuine. He used to look forward to them because they were the only times his family was ever happy, but it was fake.

His parents hated him. They never wanted kids...

---<~>---

From what he had heard his parents were the happiest couple in the Lan clan. His mother was the respectable younger cousin of Lan Xichen and his father was an extremely talented disciple. They were a match made in heaven. They were soulmates.

They got married after a few months of being together and made it clear that both of them planned to focus of cultivating instead of reproducing. They managed it for two years, despite everyone's pushing, but then it happened. The very thing they never wanted to happen.

They tried for the first year of Jingyi's life, but he was nothing like other Lan babies. He was loud. He would cry over everything and he did not give them a break. Other members would often point out of much of a chaos maker he was and his parents would laugh it off as a joke, but deep down they were angry.

Eventually they just stopped caring all together and kept Jingyi locked in their house so that people wouldn't point out of much of an embarrassment he was to the clan and the Lan family. They only took him out twice a week to show that he was still around and so that people wouldn't ask too many questions regarding where he was. During these outings they often tried to act like they were respectable disciples, but the minute Jingyi did something that made other people stare they went home.

His parents argued a lot and it was only in later years did Jingyi realise about what. His father would often suggest throwing Jingyi off a cliff or abandoning him in a far away town. His mother would refuse saying it was frowned upon and if anyone found out they would be exiled. She never argued that it was wrong or that they would be killing their own son. Only that they would lose their perfect image and life in the cloud recess.

These same arguments continued for years until one day Jingyi got into a lot of trouble. He didn't even mean to, but he was trying to help his father carry some of his scrolls and ended up dropping them in a puddle of water. The problem was that the scrolls he had dropped were ancient clan ones and not his father's personal ones. Both of them were punished by the clan elders and once they got home Jingyi's father snapped.

He kicked Jingyi so hard the boy coughed up blood and his mother just sat there and watched as he tried to fight back tears. He tried not to cry, because that would only make them more angry. However Jingyi's father didn't stop there and proceeded to scream at his mother for giving birth to such a worthless creature. She argued back saying it was just as much his fault as it was hers. Jingyi's father stormed out that same day saying he was going on a night hunt and that he would not be coming back.

He never did...

He died while on that night hunt and to this day Jingyi believes he let himself be killed by the demon he was fighting.  

When the news of his father's death made it back, Jingyi watched his mother die. She was still breathing, she was still moving, but she was barely alive. There was nothing behind her soft brown eyes. She became a shell of a person.

Despite all their arguments, Jingyi could tell they loved each other. He would watch them smile together in the garden from his window and notice the gentle way his father pushed his mother's hair out of her face when they momentarily forgot Jingyi was there. His mother always cooked her husband's favourite foods when he was having a bad day and she would fiddle with his headband when she was stressed. They might not have loved Jingyi, but they loved each other. They really were soulmates...

---<~>---

After that day they hardly left the house. Jingyi's mother locked herself up in her room most of the time and Jingyi eventually had to learn to take care of himself. It wasn't that different from how he had lived when his father was alive. The only big difference was how he fed himself. His mother no longer cooked, so at 4 years old Jingyi would climb into cupboards and eat whatever he could find. At first he ate everything decent in a week, but learned pretty quickly his mother wasn't going to get up to restock their food anytime soon. From then on he limited himself to one jar of food a day. He would go around filling it with little things from the cupboards and that was all he would eat.

They lived like that for a year, until the anniversary of his father's death. Lan Qiren came knocking on their door, which was odd because no one ever visited them. His mother stumbled out of her room and answered as Jingyi had been forbidden from opening the door and going outside.

When Lan Qiren saw the state of her, her son and their house, he got very angry and scolded her for mourning in excess. She only sat there with a blank expression the entire time and when he finished she gazed up at him and tried to smile.

"I agree with you shufu." She said faintly. It was the first time she had spoken in months, her voice no longer carried the twinkle it once had. Like every other part of her, it too had died. Lan Qiren stared at her for awhile before she spoke again. "I'll be going into seclusion for awhile and I'm taking Jingyi with me. A change of atmosphere will be good for him." She said and Lan Qiren shuffled awkwardly.

"A-yu that's not what I meant-"

"It will be good for both of us." She cut in with a broken smile.

It didn't take long after that for her to get Lan Qiren to leave and she went back into her room. Jingyi had been playing in the corner during their discussion. Occasionally he would go over to Lan Qiren and show him one of his toys. He was super excited to have a visitor over, but he knew not to interrupt too much because it would upset his mother. When Lan Qiren left and his mother shuffled back to her room, Jingyi felt tears well up in his eyes. He was alone again... 

That night, Jingyi's mother came out of her room again and cooked for the first time in a year. It was just a simple bowl of rice, but it Jingyi didn't care one bit. He hadn't had warm food in a long time. However just as he was about to take the first bite his mother snatched the bowl away. Jingyi stared up at her with big, innocent eyes as she frantically looked from him and then to the bowl. In the end she set it aside and gave him a new one.

Once they were finished with their meal, Jingyi's mother lead him to his room and waited for him to get settled into bed. She sat there while he began to doze, gazing out of the window with a distant expression. Jingyi was very tired. His tummy was full and his eyes were heavy. He couldn't understand what his mother was saying. Only that she was speaking to him again.

"I tried..." She mumbled softly, her low tone sending Jingyi to sleep. "I thought I felt something for you earlier, but watching you eat... You just reminded me of everything I lost. No matter how hard I try, I just can't love you. I can't feel anything but hatred. I regret having you. I regret raising you... but I just can't bring myself to kill you... No matter how shameful and useless you are... I miss him. I can't help but wonder what our lives would be like if we never made this mistake... God, I really miss him..." 

The woman covered her mouth to stop her sobs from waking the sleeping boy. She glanced down at his face still searching for that motherly instinct that was suppose to be there. It never came. She just felt fury when she looked at him. A dull ache in her chest when she realised how much he looked like her husband. That was why she couldn't do it... She couldn't kill him because he was his father's son. She couldn't see the look in his eyes that were so much like his father's. She couldn't kill him, again...