Yu Ziyuan was standing at the side of the training grounds and supervising the junior disciples who were running through their forms. They were quite young and cutely clumsy, their moves were full of enthusiasm but they still had a long way to go before they would be anywhere near the level of being called the Yunmeng Jiang sect style.
As she was watching the children try their best, she felt sad. She remembered another child who she had been training just like this, standing sternly above him and reprimanding him for his every mistake. How much must have Wei Wuxian disliked her and feared her when he had been younger? She had always pushed him to his limits and sometimes beyond only for him to become strong enough to take care of her own children. It was only now that she realized that she had been way too harsh with him in this regard as well.
She had been quite strict with everyone, but mostly with the Yunmeng Jiang sect head disciple. She thought she had been preparing him for his duties in this way, but it was only now that she knew that she had in fact failed him. She had berated him and pushed him only forward, she never let him rest until he went through the forms correctly. Looking at the junior disciples with sweat covering their small foreheads, this was not the correct way, she would only hurt them, just like she had already done with her son.
True, Wei Wuxian grew up to be one of the strongest and most prominent cultivators of his generation, but at what cost? Now he was laying in his room, just barely escaping death. Yu Ziyuan knew that that was all her fault for pushing the boy too much and completely disregarding his personal feelings, only ever drilling his duty to him.
Just as she was now doing with the junior disciples. She remembered how quick their progress had been when Wei Wuxian had been teaching them and how happy their faces were when he would come to them and gently point out any mistakes in forms, helping to correct them with patience. That was not something Yu Ziyuan was used to doing. She had always just stood on the side, watching the children with eagle eyes and reprimanding them if they did something wrong. She never walked up to them and explained, she only ever expected them to be able to learn everything after just a single explanation, completely omitting the fact that not everyone was a genius like Wei Wuxian.
And perhaps even the boy had not appreciated her ways. Perhaps he had just been too scared of her this whole time and he had pushed himself to be perfect, just as she had demanded of him. During his first year in Lotus Pier, Wei Wuxian would go train even outside of the assigned curriculum regularly. At that time, Yu Ziyuan had assumed that he wanted to catch up to the rest of the disciples who had been learning cultivation for several years already and she was glad for it. The harder he trained, the faster he would be able to take upon him more duties.
However, now she wondered if it was not because he was scared of her expectations and though it necessary to live up to them. Had he even had any free time at all? Well, that was dumb, of course he had. If not, he would not have been caught causing trouble and playing pranks on everyone. But still, she could not shake off the feeling that she had maybe stripped his childhood away from him, or at least part of it.
She had to change her ways. Not only when it came to Wei Wuxian, she had already decided that she would be the best mother figure from now on if he would let her, despite the fact that she would have to learn everything from scratch. No, she had to also change her attitude towards the disciples. Since Wei Wuxian was still unconscious and Jiang Cheng and her husband were not back in Lotus Pier yet, she was the only one who could supervise the training. And she knew she was not doing it the right way.
She had already thought about the necessity of choosing another head disciple now that Wei Wuxian was not able to carry on with his duties because of his lack of his golden core. But she could simply not do that, it would be too cruel to her son. She was sure that Wei Wuxian would just accept it but would be very sad in fact, perhaps even feeling left out or punished for all she could guess. And she could not have that!
Even without a golden core, surely the boy could still do what he wanted, at least to some extent. Yu Ziyuan had seen his face while teaching and she knew he loved it. She would not take this away from him. She did not want to hurt him anymore; he could do whatever he wanted and she would just stand there, watching him and catch him and help him if ever he could not do something anymore. After all, it had been her education and disregard of him which had caused him to lose his golden core and struggle to still protect her family in the first place. At least partially.
No, she would definitely not make the same mistake again. She took a deep breath and approached a tentative step in the direction of the panting and clearly exhausted junior disciples. Her heart hurt when she saw that a few of them were looking scared or nervous when she came closer. She tried to smile and look like she was not angry. The gentle way did not come easy to her but she was trying her very best. It did not do much, although some of the tension still disappeared from the disciples' shoulders.
They continued their forms while she was walking between them, their mouths opened slightly in surprise when she would stop and correct their mistakes, gently offering help and explanations. She knew only a few of the young disciples, not many had come back after the fall of Lotus Pier and even less came back to the Yunmeng Jiang sect after it had been re-established. Those she had trained before were looking at her in utter bewilderment, this was not how they remembered her.
It did not matter though; she had already decided to change her ways. The only ones who deserved her wrath and harsh words were her enemies, not the disciples and definitely not her family. She would never again make the same mistake; she would make sure that Wei Wuxian would understand it as soon as he would wake up.
After some time when she saw that some of the disciples were starting to falter in their movements, she stopped the training and let them go for the day. The war was already over and although there may be another one starting soon, it would not be helping anyone if the Yunmeng Jiang sect disciples would be exhausted and on a brink of collapse after each training session.
The children looked at her with a bit of suspicion as they were leaving the training grounds quietly and orderly, so much unlike when Wei Wuxian's lessons finished and they would all run out to have fun. For now, it did not matter, she would just go slowly and would hope that the disciples would warm up to her at least a bit. She would make sure that whenever Wei Wuxian would decide to come back to the teaching, the children would be prepared and looking forward to it just like she herself would.