He woke, confused to see shadows on the wrong sides of the room. "Good afternoon, Wei Ying."
"Why did you let me sleep so long? I missed classes?"
Lan Zhan nodded and settled on the edge of the bed. "I spoke with Shushu and XiongZhang early this morning. I said we were still sore from yesterday's bout and needed the day to recover.."
"Ah." Wei Ying sat up and rubbed the crusts from his eyes. "Sorry about that."
"Dress and eat. I have something to show you." Lan Zhan refused to elaborate, so a curious Wei Ying was left with no recourse but to do as directed.
The 'something to show' was in Caiyi. "A donkey? You want to buy a donkey?"
"You said 'someday'. I thought... why can't someday be today?"
Wei Ying patted a gray head. "Someday means someday, so I guess today is a someday."
Lan Zhan's ears pinked up. "I also was thinking about a little one. How little does it have to be?"
"What do you mean 'how little'?" Wei Ying's heart started pumping faster.
"I mean... does the little one have to be a baby? Or a toddler? Or... will an older child be good, too?"
"What older child are you referring to?"
Lan Zhan's ears were bright red. "You want a little one and a donkey. We have the donkey now. We just need the child. And A'Yuan needs a family.
"I wrote to Wen QiongLin and Wen Qing and Wen Popo formally asking permission to adopt Wen Yuan."
The return letter from Wen Qing was scathing: No. You may not adopt my nephew out from our family!
The one from Wen QiongLin was slightly more diplomatic: Right now, we do not have the ideal situation. But we are working on it. Wen Yuan will remain with us.
The letter from the boy's grandmother the following day was... different. Lan Er'Gongzi, Wen Gongzi. I have given your idea much thought. While my preference is for my grandson to remain in our family, the truth is that what I want is irrelevant. What is important is what A'Yuan wants and needs.
I spoke to him last night and again this morning. He wants a family of his own. He wants a mother and a father to call his own. He wants to be a son again. He would like to have siblings. A'Qing cannot be his mother. A'Ning cannot be his father. Not right now. Not, perhaps, for a few years. Perhaps never. I'm too old and ill to be the parent he needs. I may not live through the winter. I feel my husband is getting impatient for me to join him so we can enter the reincarnation cycle together.
This doesn't mean we don't love him or don't want him to stay with us. It just means that we cannot give him what he needs.
I will grant you time to spend with A'Yuan where you may make your wishes clear to him and prove to him, and to me, that you will be good parents. To that end, I ask that you make a guest house available to both A'Yuan and I in Cloud Recesses for a month or so. We will see how you all get along.
A'Qing and A'Ning are obviously not happy with my decision. However, since they are currently unable to give my grandson what he so dearly wants, and you are willing, I was able to talk them down.
Please respond if you agree to this trial so we may begin preparations for the journey.
~*~
The Weifengshi was cleaned and two women servants were assigned to take care of the elderly Wen. Wei WuXian sat down to write two lists: one of how to be a good parent and one of what not to do as a parent. He was able to fill an entire paper easily of the latter while the former stayed blank. "I have no idea how to be a good parent, Lan Zhan," he whined. "I know what makes a bad parent.... I'm going to mess up. I'm going to discover all new ways to be a bad father."
Lan Zhan shook his head fondly. "Wei Ying is an expert at treating children well. Wei Ying is a good teacher. Patient. Loving. Demanding that students strive to do their best at their level and reach for the next."
"That's different! I send my students home after class! Their parents care for them outside of the sichen I have them with me."
"No parent can know how to do it perfectly all the time. Even girls who helped their mothers with younger siblings must have times when they have no idea how to raise their own children. We have experience teaching. We will start there and make our way together, all three of us. A'Yuan can show us what he needs as we go along. You are an expert at being naughty and playing tricks. I am an expert at rigorously following the rules. We've learned together when the Rules must be adhered to and when they can, and should, be ignored."
"I can't fail at this, Lan Zhan.... I want it too much...."
"We won't fail, Wei Ying. I promise."
~*~
Being a parent, even under A'Yuan's grandmother's supervision, was... remarkably easy at times. A second bed was placed in the Jingshi with privacy screens set around it. Lan WangJi was responsible for waking the child for breakfast and sent him to morning lessons. Wei WuXian was responsible for putting A'Yuan to bed, making sure he washed properly, and was in bed at an appropriate hour. As the child was already used to being woken up for school and reminded to bathe daily and sent to bed at a reasonable time ( according to the adults at least), the new schedule was insufficiently different to cause problems.
The rest of the time... was a different story.
Wen Yuan liked to eat meat. Being restricted to a bland vegetarian diet was a change he did not want to make. He was quite vocal about wanting to eat meat and food with flavor, especially during the lunch break. Not being allowed to talk during meals was also something he did not appreciate. He was very loud about hating that rule, too. The elders who monitored the children's' lunches were swift to discourage Wen Yuan's rule breaking by forcing him to stand or kneel facing the wall after having removed his lunch portion.
He was placed in classes with children his own age. Which was good in that he made a few friends. And bad because his learning did not exactly match up with his peers and his teachers expectations. In a few classes, he was woefully unprepared while in others, he was significantly more advanced. His teachers punished him for not knowing something they had taught before he arrived and scolded him for having knowledge they hadn't taught yet.
It took only a few days for Wen Yuan's emotions to overflow. "I hate it here," the young boy's pout was almost as magnificent as it had been at his uncle's wedding.
"A'Yuan... what happened?" Lan WangJi asked.
"Everything I do is wrong! I know lots of math; Laoshi says I'm too proud. I don't know GusuLan history; that Laoshi says I'm stupid. I had to kneel at lunch again and I didn't even say anything! I was hungry and I was going to eat my food without talking but they made me kneel as soon as I got inside and I didn't get to eat anything and I'm hungry and my tummy hurts and it wants real food not rice and slimy vegetables and squishy tofu. I had to kneel in guqin class because my fingers started bleeding and that Laoshi said I ruined the instrument but I didn't! It already had the stains when I got it. I had to kneel during sword class because I held it like Shushu taught me. My knees hurt. My legs hurt. I'm hungry! I want meat buns! Spicy pork meat buns! I want to eat a chicken leg. I want fish head soup. I hate it here! I hate it! I want to go home!"
Lan WangJi stared in horror. "I had no idea." He didn't think Wei WuXian had any idea either.... Or the teachers would already be in the infirmary.... "Give me a few days to fix it. XianGege and I will talk to your teachers."
The conversations with the classroom teachers were handled by Wei WuXian. The former demonic cultivator interrupted lessons to sit on the teachers' desks. Twirling Chenqing, he reminded everyone that not knowing something because you were never taught it was nothing to be ashamed of. And possessing knowledge that other people hadn't yet acquired was also nothing to be ashamed of. And he should never again hear of students being punished for things beyond their control. Especially those students coming into class with a different knowledge base. He also reminded the Lan teachers that, if A'Yuan decided to stay, he would be staying with Lan WangJi and Wei WuXian.... And that meant the child would be spending approximately half the year in Lotus Pier learning from their teachers. So... the Lan teachers had better get used to Wen Yuan consistently having a different skill set than his Lan peers.
As far as threats made by the Yiling Laozu, these were considered rather mild. They were extremely effective, though.
For meals... Lan WangJi started taking his lunch at the same time as Wen Yuan. The first day, the child grimaced at his soup bowl before valiantly trying to drink it. An elder immediately took Wen Yuan's arm and started to pull him towards the wall. Lan WangJi calmly intruded, removed the elder's hand with a grip of his own hard enough to leave bruises, and assisted Wen Yuan back to his seat. His message was no less clear than Wei WuXian's even though no words were spoken. Give my son time to adjust. He's not used to eating our food. He's used to eating foods with flavor and texture. We made allowances for guest disciples in the lectures to make faces at the food we eat. Why are you stricter with a child than a teen?
As for meat... there were always a few disciples coming back from a village or town who liked Wei WuXian enough to smuggle in meat dishes (and wine) from an inn. It wasn't enough to have meat on the table every day. It made Wen Yuan's eyes light up in happiness every time he saw a dish with meat steaming on their dining table.
Lan Wangji spoke to the cooks about having dinners delivered to his room that had more flavor as well. "They are not used to bland food." Dinners began arriving that were tasty and had texture even though they were still vegetarian.
For Wen Yuan, the second week was much better than the first.
In the third week, he introduced his new best friend, Lan Tian, to his prospective fathers. "Lan Tian and I got in trouble in art class. We were supposed to be drawing flowers."
"I made the petals look like horses!" Lan Tian boasted.
"And we laughed and Laoshi said we were being disrespectful and disruptive and we had to stay back and clean up for everyone."
Lan Tian smiled at his new friend. "I liked cleaning up with you. It was the best sort of punishment!"
Dear readers.
Raising a child is not easy. And this is coming from someone who has a couple of my own in addition to being 2nd mom to my younger siblings. (I believe the term is parentification?) Every kid has a new set of problems to solve. Sometimes you can use work-arounds from one kid to help another. Sometimes.
Kids moving into new school districts? Especially during the school year? Such a hassle and headaches/heartaches for students who were thrust into the middle of lessons they had either never seen before or had learned months before.
Thank you for reading and commenting.
- Aitch.