”Alright, there we go. All clean again, my little man.” I said as I finished tying the new, fresh piece of cloth around my son’s waist. His eyes were still closed, and there was no real response other than a little croon, but that was perfectly fine by me.

Scooping my son up into my arms, I headed back to the couch where Meimei was sitting.

She smiled at me as I held our son in the crook of my arm. He was tiny enough that I could practically hold him in one hand. Across from us, Meihua was seated with Jinhai on her lap and Tingfeng beside her. The two of them had been giving us advice as we relaxed in a relative lull period… or at least until our son had to relieve himself.

Tingfeng seemed a bit amused. I was, after all, hitting the cultural “woman’s work” barrier, but quite frankly, I didn’t really care. “You know, I don't believe I’ve changed our son.” He said.

“What, never changed a diaper before?” I asked.

“No, our maid takes care of such things.” He stated… right, they were pretty wealthy, the Zhuge clan. “Your disciples were quite eager to be of aid, Brother Jin. Why not oblige them?”

I pondered the question for a moment. He was actually kind of right. If I asked, any number of people would drop what they were doing. But…

I shrugged. “I think a man should know how to do at least some of everything.” That and it wouldn't feel right to dump everything onto them. I had helped bring this life into the world, and damn it, I was going to take care of my son by any means necessary.

Even if Meimei had outright refused a 50-50 split of the chores around child rearing. Some cultural stuff dies hard, though it was kind of funny that we had a little argument about me doing too much as a father, instead of too little.

‘Your ‘Before people’ were very strange’ She had informed me, then demanded I go to sleep and leave our son to her. I’d only pouted a little and spied a lot. Mei was beautiful in the moonlight and so was my son.

Meihua leaned over, taking a better look at the sleepy, freckled face as our son fell asleep against Meimei’s chest.

“Awww, I can’t wait until he starts smiling. That's the best part, you know?” Meihua said. “The smiles. And the giggles.”

We were still a ways away from that, but it was something to look forward to.

The first week after the birth passed in a bit of a blur, I’ll be honest. The early days of being a parent were a bit unfair for us, compared to other people. For one thing, we were cultivators. Waking up every two hours? It was a cakewalk for both of us, and we could keep it up, probably, for months. Enhanced senses meant we could nearly instantly pinpoint if our son was hungry, just fussy, or needed to be changed.

I could never call it easy, really, but it cut out a lot of the unknowns, just being what we were. And that gave us time to enjoy ourselves.

I woke up every morning to my son sleeping on Meimei’s chest, Meimei awake before me with a radiant smile on her face. It was nice. She looked healthy, instead of having bags under her eyes like you would expect from a new mom.

It was utterly fantastic, although it was accompanied by a feeling I couldn’t describe. A paternal instinct? I don’t know, but whatever it was, I kind of liked it. The feeling was mixed with gratitude that I could be with Meimei every step of the way.

The other thing that made it pretty easy was my job.

Unlike a lot of people, I could afford to be present. I had no hour-long commute to the city and back to work, leaving me exhausted, with Meimei alone in the house to tackle everything on her own. That would have absolutely sucked. My job was right here at home, and I was kind of on vacation already. In the last days of winter there was nothing really to do. The ground was half frozen or a mud pit or like the General that Commands the Winter, just plain frozen, the towering snowman was still holding strong.

There was food and clothes and safety. I had done all that. I made a place for my family, which was a hell of an ego boost and made me feel like the king of the world.

Honestly? We were over prepared compared to most parents with their first child. I had already done some of this stuff in the Before. Never with a baby as… fresh, as this, but I knew how to change diapers and clean bare asses. Hells, I had done a stint in a wastewater plant for what felt like an eternity ago, so the smell didn’t even bother me.

Meimei though? Compared to her, even at my best she was an expert. At ten years older than her younger brother, she had been his mom, so this wasn’t her first rodeo… to say nothing of taking care of other people’s children—and ours wasn’t sick or vomiting everywhere.

Together, we could have handled everything. Together, we were more than enough.

But it wasn’t just the two of us.

As the saying went: It takes a village to raise a child… and our friends and family were all in.

Like really all in.

Meihua had offered to feed our son for the night if we needed to get some sleep. Which was a little strange to my modern sensibilities… but was apparently something of a common practice.

In this level of development? It paid to have a good friend who had given birth around the same time, to the point where some women apparently tried to plan their conception around other women... just so that they could have some uninterrupted sleep.

It also kind of made sense that Gou Ren, Yun Ren, Meiling and Meihua were so close when Hu Li mentioned that she had taken care of all of them at least once.

Other than another two mothers, ready and willing to help, we had a horde of aunties and uncles waiting in the wings in case one of us looked like we were flagging.

From the constant patrols to the barrage of people asking if we wanted them to change diapers, Tigu for one had practiced how to tie diapers until she could probably do it in her sleep. Hell, she had made it a contest… and then Xianghua had won. There was never a moment where we didn’t have an offer of help. It wasn’t just family either, a stream of well-wishers from Hong Yaowu had kept coming to congratulate us, bringing gifts and advice.

It was… well, humbling to know that so many people were willing to do so much to help us. Although not everyone had quite the same reaction. Bi De had been sitting on the little rocking crib I had made, keeping watch over him every night. Some of the apprehension I noticed after my son’s birth seemed to have faded from the rooster… but it was still something to talk about.

I took a breath and let it out as I listened with half an ear to Meimei and Meihua’s conversation. I glanced out the window, at the last days that we would have snow, and let a smile cross my face.

Another year had come and gone… and despite the pain and terror when I was first arrived on this world… I was… grateful.

I could safely say… I was enjoying my life.

Running away from the chance at unlimited power was probably the best decision I had ever made.

=====================================

Deep, deep under the ground, in a place that was, yet wasn’t, the blackened sky turned pink, with the soothing tones of the rising dawn.

The snow, save for the snowman, had all melted, exposing brown, flattened grass. The black, jagged rocks had lost some of their foreboding look in the new dawn light, reflecting the changing sky.

And within a little house on a hill, a little girl stirred. She tossed once, then turned, and then groaned, as awareness started to return to her.

First to come, as always, was the pain. It was always the first thing she felt, upon awareness. The old friend that had been with her for thousands of years.

But it felt… weaker. The ripping pain, like searing knives, was a duller ache instead of a sharp slice. Something she could almost ignore. An ever present constant in the back of her mind, rather than an impossible to ignore weight.

Her consciousness drifted in the stillness, for it was not yet entirely time for her to fully awake.

She took a deep breath in, expecting the acrid tang of impurities. The buildup that she would have to take care of. But her nose found only the scent of a merry fire.

Something told her that that wasn’t right. Perhaps something had gone wrong, and she hadn’t managed to expel the impurities within her. Her senses started to cast about. Like a man in the dark, stumbling forward.

Smell, touch—

And the taste of Qi on the wind.

Over a dozen different flavours. Over a dozen different little roads off into the distance. Meandering paths, rather than a massive, ripped open road.

Warmth. Affection.

Not pain and terror.

Her featherlight touches continued down golden links, and felt something new.

A tiny little spark of gold.

A tiny spark of gold, that was her connected ones.

Tinaln’s arms wrapped around something small, and in need of protection.

A little orb of golden light.

It was precious. It was beautiful, even with her half-consciousness.

She held it closer to her chest, in a protective embrace.

It was something she had longed to do for so long. She had never gotten to hold her two best friends’ child.

It was one of her most painful regrets. Even if they had betrayed her in the end.

As her consciousness began to fade again, however, she did have a thought. If it was a regret in the past… Well… Ruolan’s descendant was here…

=================================

“Jinx.” I immediately called before Xiulan could say anything, recovering as she was from her own sneeze.

“Ji—” she cut herself off and pouted as I rubbed my nose. Her sneeze was just about the only thing that wasn’t dainty about Xiulan. It was as loud as mine and I caused the glass in the greenhouse to rattle.

Xiulan kept grumbling as we tended to the stocks of spiritual herbs and checked on the beehive. While I spent most of my time with Mei, I did still do a few chores. The bees seemed to be doing well! After I had put them in the greenhouse I did have second thoughts after realizing that it could have had adverse consequences for the hive, but I managed to luck out. I could have accidentally killed the whole hive, which would have been bad.

Still, if they could be moved in and out with no consequences, that was pretty great!

I hummed as we worked, infusing my herbs. Xiulan’s much nicer voice flowed with mine, making a surprisingly good harmony.

We were expanding the plots, to keep producing medicine and to keep having them for seasoning. We had also managed to grow a cutting of the Ten Poison Resistance Herb, one of Xiulan’s wedding gifts, and I couldn’t wait to get more of them. Like the Lowly Spiritual Herbs they tasted pretty good. Sweet and sour, they would make a fine addition to my slowly growing collection of tasty seasonings.

It didn’t take too long with somebody helping me work. The pots were all finished fairly fast, the sprigs of herb growing big and strong.

I was on complete auto-pilot as I came to my last bucket. It looked like it had already been harvested, but that was wrong. It contained the weird root that I had found, almost two years ago now.

Honestly? I gave the thing Qi mostly out of habit, and a little bit out of curiosity. I still hadn’t found out what it was—

I paused, my hands on the soil. Squinting, I moved my finger through the dirt, until it bumped up against a slight deformation.

A small growth from the root, starting to poke out from the soil.

Huh.

“Took you a bit, huh? Well… you go at your own pace, little buddy.” I murmured.