Archive of Our Own

Xingmao skipped around the yard, dragging her small wooden sword through the dirt. She stopped to watch the ducks waddling around their pen. One small adventurous duckling escaped, heading straight to her mother’s open greenhouse. Looking over her shoulder at her big brother and cousins—all busy practicing sword fighting and archery—she decided it was up to her to capture the little runaway.

Strictly speaking, Xingmao knew she wasn’t allowed in her mother’s greenhouse by herself. But then again, if a big girl like her, (four-years-old, almost three by western standards) wasn’t supposed to go in, then the duckling certainly wouldn’t be allowed in either, right?

Following behind, she kept trying to bend and scoop it up as her Auntie Lishu taught her, but the little ball of fluff kept dodging away. Over and over she tried as it ducked between pots and under racks of shelves. She attempted to shoo it out the door with her sword but it evaded that, too.

Finally, she had it cornered under one of the shelves. All she had to do was crawl under and get it. Slowly, carefully, she crept closer. Getting lower to the ground to avoid hitting her head on the shelf and—

———————

“Have at you, Yingmei!” Yue cried out, brandishing his sword at his younger cousin.  The hot, summer sun chased them into the shadow of the house where they were sparring.

“Have at you? What are you talking about?” Without breaking her stance, Yingmei questioned her cousin with her eyes as much as she did with her words.

Yue groaned dramatically, “Come on, you remember… the western play we went to. Every time they were about to fight, they yelled something like that.”

“Oh right.” Yingmei took a swipe at Yue who jumped back to avoid it. “Why did they do that? Why wouldn’t they just fight?”

Yue parried another hit. “Obviously because it sounds cooler that way!”

Yingmei smirked as she drove him back a couple feet. “So naturally if it sounds cooler, then you’re going to say it.”

Yue stopped to pose with his sword over his head, parallel to the ground. With a broad, smarmy grin he responded, “Naturally,” then narrowly avoided getting hit in the thigh by his opportunistic cousin.

They continued to spar in the vast courtyard of the Ma clan household while Yingmei’s sisters practiced archery on the other side of the yard. Her little brother, Bakai, was watching from the side. He tried to imitate the older kids by hacking up a straw dummy.

“Hold up,” Yue held out a hand, palm towards Yingmei, “Did you hear something?”

“Yeah, sounded like a clay pot breaking.” Yingmei scanned the area, trying to tell which way the sound came from.

Yue spun in a circle, looking all around. “Where’s Xing? You were supposed to keep an eye on her.”

“Me?! Why am I supposed to watch your little sister? I’m watching my little brother.” Yingmei gestured to the little boy stomping the straw dummy into the dirt.

“No, I’m watching him, because he’s a boy and I’m a boy. You were supposed to watch her because you’re both girls.” Yue replied logically.

“That’s stupid! What difference does that make? I watch my sibling and you watch yours!”

“What if they have to go to the bathroom? You don’t want to go with a boy, and I definitely don’t want to help Xing. You better go find her before you get in trouble.”

“Before I…?!” Yingmei growled at Yue before chucking her wooden sword at him.

“Bad form!” Yue shouted.

Yingmei put her hands on her hips, glaring at her cousin. “I suppose that’s the western way of whining?”

Yue struck a more regal pose, leveling his sword at his cousin. “No, that’s the western way of saying you have no honor!”

“Says the guy who lost his little sister and is trying to blame me!” Yingmei looked around, spotting the open greenhouse, she could guess what happened. “Fine, you watch Kai. I’ll look for your little sister.”

Yingmei trotted over to the greenhouse and peered inside. Xing was sitting on the floor next to a broken pot. A fluffy duckling was peeping loudly from her cupped hand. Dirt was all around the broken shards as well as her hair and clothes. The remains of one of her Auntie Maomao’s herbs was also among the wreckage.

“Xing, you know we’re not allowed to play in here. What’s your mother going to say?”

“Uh oh. I can e’plain. It’s ducky’s fault.” She held up the little duckling.

Yingmei looked at the sad little plant. “No, it’s Yue’s fault. He was supposed to be watching you.”

Xing pet the head of the little bird and nodded. “Ok, it’s Yue’s fault.”

Yingmei looked at Xing in surprise, pleased by how quickly her little co-conspirator agreed on who to blame. “That’s right! It’s Yue’s fault!” she exclaimed happily. She looked around and spotted some empty pots on the top back row of the stepped rack of shelves. “Even though it is his fault, we should probably try to save this plant.”

———————

Yue stared wide-eyed into the greenhouse, he felt his blood go cold. “What did you do?!”

“I can explain!” Yingmei spoke frantically, “See, Xing accidentally broke a pot trying to catch the duckling. I just wanted to get one of the empty pots to replant it. It was an accident!”

Yue rubbed his forehead, groaning loudly. “Oh man, this is bad. This is so bad.”

Xing nodded. “Uh oh, ducky.”

Yingmei desperately started picking up pieces of debris. “Maybe if we just get rid of the broken stuff, she won’t notice.”

“Won’t notice?!!” Yue exclaimed. “Have you met my mother?!!”

Xing continued to cuddle the duckling, shaking her head sadly. “Yue’s fault.”

Yue’s head snapped to his little sister. “What?! How’s it my fault?!”

“You should have watched your own sister!” Yingmei cried out.

Yue pulled on his hair while groaning and pacing. He abruptly stopped in his tracks, taking a deep cleansing breath. “Alright, everyone stay calm. The important thing is to not panic. We just need to save the plants and mom will forgive us. Maybe if we can just transplant these in a pot with the same type of plant. They’ll just share until we can get more pots. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to plant them outside somewhere. Help me—KAI, NO!”

———————

Jinshi was frozen in place, too stunned to do more than make incoherent noises and gesture weakly at the sight before him. Yingmei’s older sisters, Yimei and Yamei, flanked him on either side, not daring to take a step closer. His wife’s precious greenhouse… “How?” he meekly stammered out.

Yue spoke quickly, “I can explain. See it all started with the duckling and—”

“EXPLAIN? How can you possibly explain?! There’s shit everywhere!”

Xingmao looked up at her father curiously. “Shit? I didn’t know it was shit. Yue, did you know it was shit? Daddy’s right, there’s shit everywhere. Shit on the floor and shit on the shelves and shit on my clothes and shit in my hair and shit on Yue—”

“XINGMAO!” Jinshi spoke sharply, he felt a spasm between his eye and his temple . He took a deep breath, forcing his voice to soften. “Xingmao, sweetie. That’s not a nice word. Daddy shouldn’t have said it. Could you please stop repeating it?”

“Ok, daddy.” Xingmao said innocently.

Jinshi turned his attention back to his son. “Forget explaining. We don’t have time. Your mother will be home soon, we need to salvage as much as we can before she sees. We won’t be able to fix everything, but we can at least make it less… catastrophic. Xingmao, Kai, step outside. Yimei, Yamei, watch those two. Yue, Yingmei start moving the plants that can be saved outside with a clump of dirt around their roots until we get enough cleaned up to replant them. I’ll see if I can get these shelves upright and reattached so we have a place to put the pots once—”

———————

Maomao shifted Bashan on her hip as she walked around the outside of the house, he was fascinated by the small potted plant in her hand and kept trying to grab it from her. “No no, that’s not for you. I need to teach you not to touch mommy’s plants until you know how to be gentle, just like I did with your siblings. It’s important—”

A loud crash broke the serene calm. Maomao froze in her tracks, even the birds around her went quiet. Her eyes darted in the direction of the ensuing shout from her husband, “SHIT!”

“Daddy, shit isn’t a nice word.”

“Yes, thank you, Xingmao.”

Maomao’s jaw fell open at the sight of a board sticking through the side of her greenhouse. Glass glittered on the ground underneath. Maomao drifted quickly across the yard in a trance-like state to the open door of the building.

Yamei spotted her first, the color quickly draining from her face. “Auntie! Yimei and I had nothing to do with it! We never went inside!”

Maomao stopped between them. She barely comprehended her own daughter’s warning to Jinshi, “Uh oh, daddy. Mommy sees the shit.”

Jinshi was desperately trying to hide the board that was recently protruding out of the side of her greenhouse behind his back. He chuckled nervously, “Oh, Maomao, you’re home. How was work?”

Her entire facial structure twisted. A vein throbbed in her temple and she could feel her eye twitching. As her face contorted into a terrifying mask of rage, everyone in her field of vision reflexively took a step back. Bashan began to cry.

Her greenhouse. Her beautiful, orderly greenhouse. Her one true sanctuary away from the chaos of their lives where she could wile away for hours finding inner peace. Chaos found it.

At least half the potted plants were shattered on the ground, the plants buried under dirt or trampled underfoot. Shelves were tipped over. Straw from Kai’s practice dummy was strewn everywhere. The two children inside were covered in dirt, as well as the two youngest outside. Yue was holding a ball of dirt with a plant sticking out of it in his hands. Yingmei had an armful of broken ceramics. Both frozen in place, horror-stricken.

“Yimei, could you take Bashan to the wet nurse in the house. Yamei, keep an eye on Xing and Kai. Jinshi—”

“I can explain,” Jinshi said quickly. A long stretch of silence followed this pronouncement before he let out a whoosh of air and his shoulders slumped. “Well, actually… I can’t.”

Maomao’s eye twitched again, her voice dropped to a dangerously soft tone, “Someone had better.”

“Yue’s fault.” Xing said confidently, pointing at her brother.

“What?! No! I swear, mom. Not my fault! Well, it’s not all my fault. It’s definitely, mostly, not my fault. See, first Xing followed the duckling in here. She tried to catch it and accidentally knocked one of the pots off the shelf onto herself. Then Yingmei came to get her, saw the broken pot and tried to get an empty pot off the top shelf.”

Yingmei looked beseechingly at Maomao. “I didn’t know the board was loose! I stepped on it and the whole thing tipped, knocking all those pots off.”

“Right,” Yue interjected. “So I came to see what happened and we were about to start saving the plants when Kai… well, you know how Kai is,” he finished solemnly.

“He turned the whole place into an obstacle course.” Yingmei’s dejected gaze traveled the room, recalling events she wished she hadn’t witnessed.

“That’s when dad showed up and tried to help.” Yue’s eyes went straight to the broken pane of glass.

“Uh huh,” Maomao spoke through a clenched jaw, “Who was supposed to be watching Xing?”

In unison Yingmei and Yue said, “He/She was. I mean I was. No you were watching Kai!”

“I see.” Maomao turned the full wrath of her scowl toward her husband. “And who was supposed to be watching Yue and Yingmei?”

Jinshi flinched, otherwise he remained absolutely still. A primitive survival instinct kicked in. A desperate hope he would be overlooked by the predator if he didn't move. A bead of sweat ran past his bulging eyes and strained, nervous smile.

“Heyyyy, that’s right,” Yue spoke as though seeing a ray of hope glistening on the horizon, “Dad went inside to take a nap. So really, this is all his fault. And he definitely broke the window.”

Jinshi glared at his oldest while speaking through gritted teeth, “Thank you, son. How about you start salvaging those plants now.”

“Good idea,” Maomao growled. “While you’re at it Yue, make a list of everything that was destroyed so your father can get it all replaced… quickly. Yamei, take Kai to your mother, I’ll take Xing, they both need cleaned up.”

———————

Once the toddlers were bathed, Lishu took both to join Bashan in the nursery and read them a story while Maomao went back to her bed chamber in search of some headache medicine. She grumbled to herself while retrieving the key to the trunk where she secured her personal medicines. A safeguard to prevent any Ma children from accidentally poisoning themselves.

“One simple rule, stay out of my greenhouse while I’m at work. They have the entire yard to play. Keep an eye on the kids. They are, after all, swinging training swords and shooting arrows. Who leaves a bunch of kids with weapons to play with and goes to take a nap?!”

Maomao crammed the key into the lock and turned it sharply. “We need to have a long talk about respecting other people’s things and taking responsibility.” She pushed on the trunk lid, but it didn’t budge. Putting all her rage into shoving against it, the heavy trunk tilted but the the lid stubbornly stayed closed. “Dammit! Humidity has this thing sealed tight. I need something to pry it open with.”

———————

Jinshi stood outside the door to his bed chamber. Taking a deep breath, he put all his hopes into the small pouch he held in his hand. The ox bezoar he had hidden away for just such an emergency.

It was only supposed to be a quick thirty minute nap. Even if it did run over into an hour, how could so much have possibly gone wrong in such a short amount of time? Yue estimates at least twenty plants weren’t salvageable. More may die in the coming days. Thirty or forty pots broken, and the window… Ugghh, how could I have been so careless?

He reached out to the door handle, seeing the way his hand trembled, he wiped his sweaty palm against his robe. Another deep breath, a silent pep talk, a quick kiss on the ox bezoar pouch for luck. Slowly, he opened the door. “Maomao?” he murmured.

“Jinshi!” Hearing the shrill tension at the way she said his name startled him as much as his appearance seemed to startle her. Maomao was kneeling on the floor in front of her medicine trunk. She jumped a mile when he spoke her name. Spinning on her knees quickly to face him, she smiled up at him.

Smiling? Why is she smiling? Wait… that’s her guilty smile. Jinshi took in the scene. His wife, who should still be furious with him, had a maniacal, guilty grin on her face. Both her hands were behind her back. She was frozen in place, not saying a word. Her eyes were as wide as saucers and her cheeks were red, too. He could easily imagine she now looked exactly the same way he looked when she came in the greenhouse and he tried to hide a seven foot shelf behind his back. Casually, he tucked the ox bezoar pouch into his robes.

Approaching calmly, he looked over her shoulder to see what she was trying to hide. My… sword? Why does she have my—His eyes landed on the tip. The broken tip. How in the hell did she break the tip off my sword?!! The Emperor gave me that sword!!! “My—you—how? HOW?!”

Maomao smiled sheepishly up at him, “I can explain.”