WangXian Forever Book 9: The Flower Demon

Chapter 62 Mother

Wei Ying tenderly held Lan Zhan's face. In this position, he was slightly higher and had to bend slightly, to kiss his beautiful forehead.

"Of course I'll help, my love. Is that even a question?" He admonishes Lan Zhan gently.

"How do we start?"

"Like this." Wei Ying hugs him tightly.

He smiles when Lan Zhan's arms come around his body, too. Gradually, he relaxes.

"We can take it slow." Wei Ying reassures him.

"Mn."

"Why don't you start by telling me about her. What do you remember?" He coaxes, wanting Lan Zhan to be comfortable with what they were going to do.

More than anything else, he doesn't want Lan Zhan to be unprepared when he meets her, to inadvertently lash out and then lose himself to regret.

If they spent time exploring how he felt then, and how he feels now about his relationship with his mother, Wei Ying thinks that would be beneficial to both.

Plus, there is unresolved anger towards Uncle Qiren, and Wei Ying would like to address that as well.

"My mother…was the kindest person. The only one other than XiongZhang, who liked to hug me." Lan Zhan says that so matter-of-factly, as if it's the most normal thing, for a child not to receive hugs on a regular basis.

Wei Ying promises himself that he's going to make up for all the hugs that Lan Zhan missed, while growing up. And he's going to rope the kids into it as well, just so that Lan Zhan never feels the lack of them again.

"She never had to ask me if anything was wrong. She just knew. And she would pick me up and cuddle. She liked poking my cheeks." He admits, his ears reddening by themselves. "Mother enjoyed…teasing me."

But despite this, they were obviously close.

"When she passed…it was not explained properly. I thought…I thought I had done something…that she was upset with me. I hoped that if I continued to wait outside for her, one day she would open those doors and hold me again."

Both of them are crying now.

Wei Ying feels an unbearable weight in his chest at the thought of baby Lan Zhan, sitting in the snow, sitting when it was raining, or in the heat of the sun, waiting for something that wasn't going to happen. All because it hadn't been explained clearly, the topic of death being a difficult one.

Obviously not something anyone would want to discuss with a six-year-old.

But they still should have tried, Wei Ying thinks, angrily.

Uncle Qiren should have said something, being the closest living relative, not in seclusion.

"Why do you want Uncle Qiren to say sorry?" Wei Ying asked him.

He thought back to when Lan Zhan had forbidden him to use that word. That one and 'Thank you'.

In Lan Zhan's mind, those two words were literal barriers, a dividing point between people.

So, if he required an apology, that meant he saw Uncle Qiren as someone distant to himself, where debts existed. A service in return for another.

"I believe my mother was treated unfairly. From what I remember, my memories of her lead me to believe that her gentle nature would not allow her to kill someone for no reason. If she murdered my father's teacher, she must have had a good reason to, and yet no one ever bothered to investigate it." Lan Zhan sniffed.

"The Cultivation world often makes mistakes." Wei Ying said, wryly.

His own experience was all too familiar.

"Maybe what happened to her, and to you…I was so unwilling to let it happen again. I was too young to understand the situation with my mother…but then…what they did to you…" Lan Zhan's tears are free falling, his eyes unseeing.

"Sweetheart…I get it, about your mother. But all the other things…that's in the past now. And I came back. It's a clean slate, because you did stand up for me, especially when it mattered." Wei Ying is hugging him close and rubbing his back in soothing circles.

"The single log bridge…" Lan Zhan murmurs, remembering. "But my mother never had a chance."

"She might not be feeling that way." Wei Ying says, quietly. "I'm not saying you're wrong. In this situation, there's neither right nor wrong." He insists. "What we should try to do is find out why she's still here. What's keeping her here? She might not want to talk about the past." Wei Ying sighed.

What else he had to say was harder, and there was no way to say it without sounding awful. But he was going to try.

"Sometimes, when something terrible has happened, and we feel helpless, like we could have done more…it makes us feel frustrated…enough to not see the other person's side of things. It could be that we want to resolve the situation because it suits us…more than the one we care about. That's all I'm saying."

Lan Zhan listened to him.

There was no one he trusted more than Wei Ying, and if he was saying something like that, then it made sense to listen to him.

"Then, what does Wei Ying suggest?"

"How about we wait?" Wei Ying said gently. "I kind of sprung it on you without any warning. It's a lot to think about…so I reckon we should sleep on it. Tomorrow will bring a different set of answers and maybe…maybe we can find a solution that suits everyone."

Lan Zhan nodded.

He felt so tired, suddenly. He just wanted to close his eyes, and not think.

"Shall I play something for you, my love?" Wei Ying asks him, standing up.

"Mn. I would like that." Lan Zhan admits.

He takes Wei Ying’s hand and is pulled up. Wei Ying leads him to their bed, and helps Lan Zhan take off his outer robes. Next, he helped Lan Zhan remove the intricate guan atop his head, and then came the socks.

Once Lan Zhan was lying down, Wei Ying shrugged off his own robes and sat next to him in a cross-legged position. Chenqing came to hands and he caressed the dizi with a love that came from suffering hardship together.

At both ends, there were the tiniest marks, little indents of A-Yuan when he was teething, and needed a chew toy…Chenqing had looked after their son then, too.

Wei Ying smiles at his husband as Lan Zhan closes his eyes, and begins to play.

This is their song.

Made from love, by love.