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She’d known it was cursed before she touched it, of course. The curse was the appeal , really. When was the last time she’d done something Just For Her? It was all eldest daughter this, surrogate mother that, Poor Jiang Yanli something else.
Today, she was going to do something a little reckless. A little foolish, even.
There hadn’t been much information available in the archives. Minimal spiritual energy required. Non-fatal. Self-reversing after 3 sunsets. Importantly, it had been stuck right up the back, in a dim corner. Once she touched it and got out of the treasure room, it would take them forever to find it.
The door was still cracked open, letting in a sliver of late evening sun. No point being stuck in a room after being cursed. This was her chance to get out and explore. She was hoping to be a water-snake or something similar. Commonplace enough to be ignored, not too obviously prey for other animals.
The light finally settled into darkness. She’d pleaded feeling too sick to attend family dinner so she could be here, waiting for dark to fall. What point in transforming mid-afternoon and wasting a whole cycle? Did the time of day affect the transformation? She could become a bat! Or an owl!! Fly under the stars all night, before anyone noticed she had gone.
Bliss.
She was full from the rice and lightly-sauced vegetables a servant had brought to her door. Well-hydrated. All her jewellery was taken off and carefully returned to their boxes, leaving her hair loose around her shoulders. The windows of her room were open to the night air, just in case things didn’t go as expected.
Fully prepared, as the eldest daughter of the Jiang Sect should be.
It was time.
She sat, cradling the little carved figure in her hands, she traced her thumb over its curves one last time. It wasn’t clear what it was. No defining features on its spherical head(?), a chunky body area, and vaguely defined lumps which could be arms and legs. No fine details.
It warmed under her hands. She pushed her qi towards it, and —
Tiny.
Tiny baby hands.
Her robes and zongyi fell off to pool around her, leaving her naked. Yanli laughed. A toddler’s tiny giggle sounded in the silent room. She could see her bean-like toes, on the end of fat little feet.
It wasn’t an owl, or a lizard, but it was still good . She was incapable of doing anything useful at this size! She would have to be coddled and looked after.
She was going to cause so much chaos . It was almost inevitable that she would end up in the care of her brothers. Extremely unlikely that a-die would bother himself with her. A-Niang might , but there was a slightly better than even chance that she’d be too angry at Yanli’s actions, or too busy to devote the time to manage her.
Her brothers would be ideal. Gleefully, she patted her hands together.
Now, the big question. Was she old enough to walk?
Pushing herself forward and over her feet was a smidge harder than she’d anticipated, but doable. She took a moment, once she was balanced on hands and feet, then bent her legs and heaved upright with all her might…
Wobbly. Wobbly, but still standing on her feet.
The door suddenly seemed an awfully long way away. Eyeing it with determination, she took a step, immediately tripping over her forgotten robes.
The slap of her tender hands on the floor was sharp and shocking. She fought back the instinct to burst into tears. She needed to put the figurine on the low shelf, get out from the middle of her clothes, and drag them away from the corner, just a little.
*****
“Where’s shijie?”
“In her room, she’s sick. Don’t you remember anything?”
“She’s not!” Wei Ying’s voice was defensive. “I checked, and she’s not there! Her window is open, so I looked through.”
Jiang Cheng snapped his teeth closed over the sarcastic perhaps she just didn’t want to deal with your nonsense that Wei Ying had talked over.
“That’s… strange.” He didn’t like it, not one bit. He grabbed Sandu from its stand. “Let’s go look for her.”
“I hoped you’d say that!”
“ Quietly,” Jiang Cheng hissed. “If we wake the whole household up and she’s just gone for a walk or something A-Niang will…”
It didn’t need to be finished.
Wei Ying sobered; as much as he ever did. “Shijie doesn’t just ‘go for walks’, A-Cheng.”
“Shut up and look down there.”
As they turned to part ways, a small, naked child darted across the walkway, giggling merrily as it vanished into the shadows of the night.
“Did you just see that?” Wei Ying asked.
“Yes, I definitely did just see a naked toddler streaking towards the pier.”
“Babies shouldn’t be out of their house heading towards the pier at this time of the night, should they…”
As one, they started striding after the toddler. The safety of children in Lotus Pier was paramount to the whole sect. Strange enough that the toddler was out of their house, but particularly odd that it was completely undressed, even in summer. Not even a toileting cloth.
“It can’t have gotten far, but there are too many options!” The maze of streets branching out, each swallowed in darkness brought them to a halt. “We could go onto the roofs?”
Jiang Cheng shook his head firmly. “And wake the neighbourhood if we land incorrectly? Neither of our qinggong is good enough yet.”
“Mine is,” Wei Ying sulked, but he stayed on the ground, peering intently into the shadows.
A splash, and a giggle.
“That way!” Jiang Cheng hissed, and took off, Wei Ying at his heels.
It was exhilarating, running near-silently in the darkness. They’d be sent to Cloud Recesses soon, expected to act properly and in accordance with their every rule, but here, in Yunmeng and the night, they could be free and easy. There were a few citizens out at this hour, but their speed made it clear they were cultivators — and the only cultivators in Yunmeng were Jiang — so only silent bows marked their passing. They found the baby at the edge of a lake, splashing in the shallows.
“What are you doing, little baby!”
Wei Ying stood in the shallows — in his boots, A’Niang was going to pitch a fit — and picked up the toddler.
“A-Ying!” it crowed, patting his face with its — her — hands.
“Ah! Are you an A-Ying as well? A-Ying’s are the best kind of people.”
“Honestly, you’re ridiculous,” Jiang Cheng scoffed. “Give the kid to me, and squeeze out your footwear before it’s unsalvageable.”
“Didi!”
The baby launched itself into Jiang Cheng’s arms as Wei Ying held it up.
“Didi? You mean gege,” Wei Ying corrected, but Jiang Cheng shushed him. Something about this kid was… familiar. He sniffed.
A-jie’s room was empty. The window was open. This baby smelt like a-jie’s lotions…
“I need a lamp, or a torch or something, so I can see this baby’s face. We’re going back to my room.” He strode off, leaving Wei Ying hopping behind, one shoe off and in his hand, the other squelching with each step.
“A-Cheng, what’s going on, aren’t we going to find the baby’s parents?”
“Just shut up and follow me. Quietly!”
*****
“What are we going to do?” wailed Wei Ying, at his most dramatic. It felt good to let it out after being most cruelly shushed the whole way back from the lake to Jiang Cheng’s rooms. “We can’t just let shijie be a baby!”
Across the room, shijie was dragging pillows and blankets off Jiang Cheng’s bed with great enthusiasm. A-Cheng was leaning against the doorframe, scowling.
“Do you know how to decurse people, then? If not, shut up and let me think!”
“You’re just going to say that we’ll have to let Madame Yu know, that’s your answer to everything.”
Frustrated, Wei Ying threw himself backwards onto the bed. He didn’t know how to decurse people — yet — but if he could get access to the Jiang library, he could figure it out! Only, he was banned from going into the library after a small incident last winter, and there was no way they’d let him borrow a book that had decursing information in it.
“We have to tell a-Niang; a-jie is supposed to be at the delegations coming tomorrow.”
An entirely reasonable and true statement, but it doesn’t stop Wei Ying from feeling petulant. Is it so wrong to just want to keep shijie to himself? She’s so cute and small! And reaching for Suibian —
Wei Ying lunged across the room and put Suibian up on a window ledge, out of her reach.
“No! Naughty shijie!” Cackling, shijie toddled off, intent on pulling out every item from every possible chest, drawer or cupboard.
“As soon as the sun comes up, you can take a-jie to the healers, see if any of them know how to decurse her. I will inform a-niang,” both of them cringed, “so she can make arrangements for the delegation. Then we’ll just have to take care of her until we get an answer.”
Wei Ying yawned. If he was tired, then Jiang Cheng must be exhausted.
“Well, since shijie doesn’t show any signs of being tired, I will baby watch until dawn, while you sleep, and you can take her later on while I nap. Come on, shijie, let’s go pull my room to pieces so your didi can rest.”
*****
A-Niang had been furious, sweeping imperiously across Lotus Pier to the healer’s quarters, nostrils flaring with every breath.
The younger healers scattered at her arrival, startled hens fleeing the fox. The principal healer bowed low and retreated calmly to the side of the room.
A-Niang’s survey of the now-dressed toddler had been brief. “It’s definitely her, she looks no different to when she was a baby. At least she’ll be placid and well-behaved. You can handle her between you, I’m sure. In the meantime, I have an entire plan of management to reconfigure.”
“Placid and well-behaved?” Wei Ying screeched as soon as she was out of hearing distance. “I spent all night stopping her trying to climb things! She drew all over one of my theories when I dozed off for a moment or two!”
“Serves you right for having wet ink lying around,” Jiang Cheng responded automatically. He peered at a-jie’s face. “Has she slept yet?”
“For a little while, just before dawn, but I would have barely classified it as a nap.”
“The young mistress is showing signs of overtiredness,” the healer said. “It is well known that the more active they are, past a certain point, the more in need of a sleep they are. Feed her first, though, or she won’t sleep long enough and will wake up cranky.”
Jiang Cheng exhaled loudly through his nose. Clearly, he was going to have to take charge of this situation.
“You,” he barked, pointing at Wei Ying, “Go and get some sleep or you’ll be useless for the rest of the day.” Just like a toddler, really, a voice from the back of his brain remarked. “I’ll feed a-jie and take her for a rest in my room. We’ll work out the rest of the day later.”
Turning to the healer, he bowed. “Thank you, daifu, for your help. Would you please send any information regarding a-jie’s decursing to me.”
“Of course, Jiang-gongzi.”
Jiang Cheng didn’t expect feeding a toddler to be so complicated. He shouldn’t have refused the kitchen servant’s help, but they were in the process of preparing what was needed to entertain the delegation, on top of what would keep the disciples and families fed, and he didn’t want to take their time away from that. He knew how to boil rice, broil a little meat and vegetables until they were soft.
What he didn’t know how to do was cook with a toddler on his hip. He had set a-jie down for a whole three breaths before scooping her back up as she headed straight for the firepit under the stove.
“For such a sensible person, you are a disaster child,” he groused, pulling her hand away from the nearly-boiling water. Turning around, he toppled some pre-cut vegetables he’d snagged from the preparation area into the pan and started stirring. There wasn’t going to be any meat, it wasn’t chopped yet and there was no way he was going to be able to — A-jie lurched halfway out of his arm. Whipping his head around so fast his neck cracked, he saw both her hands on the handle of the cleaver, left on the board ready for use.
Forgetting he had a utensil in his other hand, he whipped it around to grab her as he jerked himself backwards out of reach of the cleaver, smacking his sister in the face with the spoon.
She screamed.
The eyes of everyone in the kitchen snapped to him in concert, judgement in all of their gazes.
He fled.
Someone tracked him down not long after, bearing a tray.
“For the child,” they said, barely concealing a sniff behind their polite bow.
Wearily, Jiang Cheng watched a-jie eat, too emotionally exhausted to care that she was getting as much on her face and chest as in her mouth. She was enjoying herself, that was the main thing, smacking her little lips as she chewed on the fried fish bits someone had added to her meal.
“Jiang-gongzi, for you.”
A letter was deposited in front of him.
We believe we have identified the cause of the curse. It is non-fatal and self-reversing after 3 sunsets. While we could attempt an earlier decursing, the consensus is that it would be safer to simply let the curse run its course. The object that contains the curse has been moved to a more secure area.
“Why were you looking at cursed objects, a-jie?” Jiang Cheng demanded. She simply looked up at him, wide-eyed, and yawned.
“Didi,” she cooed, and climbed into his lap, heedless of food-covered hands. She nestled into his chest with a sigh and promptly passed out.
He was stuck now, until she woke up.
Being a kid seemed like a nice life.
“Three sunsets. We’ve fought water spirits. Surely keeping you alive for three days is manageable?”
*****
It was the best three days of her life, exercising every mischievous intent she’d ever suppressed in her life.
Laughing without admonishment.
Being coddled and cuddled.
Waking up in her own bed, fully restored was a huge disappointment. At least now she had some happy memories to see her through whatever was to come. Knowledge of how to recreate the joy of simply being childish with however many children she would bear.
A knock on her door. “Shijie?”
“Just a moment.”
Folding the joy up, she tucked it into the back of her mind like a precious object. Time to face the world as sweet, placid Jiang Yanli once again.
Mask firmly in place, she opened the doors to see them both waiting.
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