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The way San talked about his family? He loved them. He adored them. They sounded so great, so warm, so welcoming.

She was terrified of them hating her. Of denying their relationship. She knew San would marry her anyway, his family’s opinion be damned, but she… she didn’t want him to lose that warm look, whenever he spoke about them.

They were waiting at the entrance to the tiny village for them. It seemed everybody was waiting to meet her and Bao.

Liling thought she was going to pass out, as she stopped in front of the people who looked so much like San, her head dipping into a formal bow—

When she was instantly scooped up into the arms of San’s mother, the woman burying her face into Liling’s shoulder and wailing.

“My Daughter! My Son has bought me a Daughter! Oh, you’re so cute! And you saved him! Oh heavens, thank you! Do you need food? Do you need anything?!”

Liling had no idea how to respond to the barrage of questions the woman was dumping on her, but the embrace was so wonderfully warm.

The older man who could only be San’s father smiled and shook his head. “Stop smothering her, dear,” the man gently scolded, pulling his wife off of Liling with his one arm, the other one sleeve fluttering empty. The woman immediately sighted Bao… and the waterfalls miraculously began to flow again as the other boy was grabbed and pulled into a loving embrace. Bao seemed to find the whole thing hilarious, as he hugged the woman back… and then started to list out all the different food he wanted to try, San’s mom nodding along.

She snapped her attention back to the scrutinizing gaze of the Patriarch of the family. He looked her up and down, then San up and down, and nodded. “Welcome to our village and our home, Liling,” the man stated simply, and most of the tension unwound itself from her chest.

There was one last person however.

“Hey.” San’s older brother was looking at her, his face carefully neutral.

“Yes, Elder Brother?” Liling asked nervously.

“You want to learn how to turn somebody’s skin blue?”

“Fuck yes.” The answer was out of Liling’s mouth before she realised what she was saying.

San’s brother broke out into a beatific smile. “We’re going to get along fine, you and I.” Hong Xian declared, then turned to San. “Look at that, married before me, you sly dog! And what did I say, to a city girl as well!”

“Come on, come on! You must be so tired! We have tea, and I’ll get started right away on dumplings! Call me Mother, or Auntie!” San’s mom demanded.

Liling and Bao were pulled into the home of the Hong family like they belonged there. Like they were already family.

Liling smiled as San took hold of her hand.

Maybe this was home after all.

Liling was, after a few hours, formally introduced to the rest of the village women by San’s mom, Fu.

“It\'s very nice to meet you, Liling.” Tang Mei. The soft, pretty woman who wouldn’t look out of place on a noble’s arm, one of the prettiest girls Liling had ever seen. Liling felt a bit tongue tied just being in her presence, stopping herself from immediately resorting to groveling deference.

Liling was getting a feel for these people, and one and all, they were… well, they were like San. Just a bit too honest, just a bit too nice… but Liling decided she liked it. Especially Mei’s pretty smile as she went with Fu to go and brew them all some tea so they could talk more and Liling could tell them stories about the city.

However, there was one girl that wasn’t as nice or as polite. The girl in furs and leathers, sporting tribal clothes.

Liling felt an instant dislike for the way the tribal girl was looking at her. It was condescending and superior, like the nobles back home looking at someone beneath them.

The tribal girl snorted, and Liling felt a vein pulse in her forehead.

“Ya got a problem, horsefucker?” Liling asked the barbarian bitch with a smile on her face. The other ladies gasped at Liling’s sudden aggression… but made no move to interfere. In that way, Liling guessed, humans were pretty much the same no matter where they had come from.

Squinty’s eyes opened up slightly, exposing predatory amber irises. “Oh, no, of course I don’t, sewer rat. Just wondering if a soft city wench can handle life beyond your cushy walls. Ya can’t just lay on your back and open your legs here, eh?”

Soft?! Oh this bitch.

“Well, there\'s one way to see about that, ain’t there?” Liling asked, her smile still firmly on her face. The savage smirked, and jerked her head at one of the outer buildings.

Liling obliged her as the rest of the women folk watched, not daring to say anything.

They walked side by side, neither letting the other have their back. To Liling’s surprise, the woman began by divesting herself of her knife and axe, tossing them onto a passing table. The terms of the fight set, Liling grimaced and pulled out her own shivs and a throwing knife, the blades thunking into wood where she threw them.

The tribal girl actually nodded at that, and Liling felt a bit of grudging respect for the squinty eyed woman.

As soon as they turned the corner, both of them went for it. There was no boasting, no words. What Liling had learned from hard experience was that you struck fast and hard and ambushed when you could. Fighting fair was stupid.

The obvious hunter and tribal evidently thought the same.

Some men thought fights between women were funny. Maybe between soft prostitutes or noble ladies who knew fuck all about living, the hair pulling and slapping was amusing…

This, however, was between a vicious street rat from the slums and a savage tribal hunter from the wild places. Both of them knew how to throw punches at locations that hurt. And while Tribe Girl was slightly faster and stronger and tough as hell, Liling had the slight advantage in low blows.

A knee in between Squinty’s leg got her staggering even as her own fist crashed into Liling’s solar plexus (a word she learned from San!) so hard Liling nearly vomited.

Both women went down, gagging. Liling laid there with her face in the dirt, trying to draw in air so she could get up and back into it, ready to roll if Squinty recovered faster than she thought and tried kicking her when she was down.

Liling was a little unprepared for when the woman started laughing. She glared up at the other woman who was collapsed against the wall.

“Youze a mean little fucker aint’cha?” the woman asked with a thick accent, respect in her voice, and Liling snorted.

“You could survive in the Fish Guts,” Liling gasped back, grudgingly. Damn tribal bitch hit like a runaway carriage.

“The name is Hu Li. Nezin Hu Li,” The woman said after a moment of silence. “Welcome to Hong Yaowu.”

“Liling. No surname. Happy to be here.”

Hu Li grunted and smiled, pushing herself up. Liling watched the other woman warily as she staggered over to where Liling was still laying in the dirt, ready for treachery.

Hu Li held out her hand with a smile. “Sorry for calling you soft, city girl.”

Liling took it after a moment, still a little confused, but she guessed it was similar to street rules. They had kicked the shit out of each other, so now they were good. And Hu Li was probably the Boss lady here, so that meant Liling was now co-boss lady. Or at least that\'s how it worked in the city, until one of them backstabbed the other, but Liling got the feeling that Hu Li wouldn’t do that.

“It’s fine, I guess,” Liling replied. “We good now?”

“We’re good now. I’ll show you the ropes, from one outsider to another, eh?”

Liling nodded as they leaned on each other, when another voice cut in.

“Hu Li? Liling?!” a soft, airy voice gasped.

Hu Li paled. “First lesson: Mei is the Boss.”

Liling stared as Tang Mei appeared before them, pouting. She looked so impossibly disappointed as she looked at the two of them.

“I leave for seconds to get tea and the two of you do this.” The woman sighed in a tone that somehow made Liling’s guts clench. “I hope you’ve worked it all out, and there won’t be any of this again.”

Liling shuffled her feet uncomfortably. She was making Liling feel guilty. Somehow. What the hells was this woman?! “No. we just had a bit of a disagreement, we’re good friends now!” Liling managed to say, pulling Hu Li into a half hug.

“Yeah, Mei. We weren’t trying to muck things up, I promise,” Hu Li stammered beside her.

Tang Mei’s cloudy countenance slowly shifted, and it was like the sun coming out. “That’s very good! I’m glad you were able to become friends.” Her smile was radiant, and Liling felt her face flush slightly as the woman walked up and took Liling’s hands in hers. “And Liling, will you be my friend too?”

“Ah, yes, Senior Sister. I’ll be in your care?” Liling managed to stammer out.

“Oh, wonderful! We’ll have to weave a blanket together, all of us! It will be grand!” Tang Mei said, as she ushered them with gentle touches back into the village.

Liling grimaced slightly. She thought she had left the stupid magically convincing noble ladies back in the capital, damn it! This woman was exactly like them.

“I can see why she\'s the boss,” Liling grumbled to Hu Li.

“This… and she could kick the shit out of both of us if she really wanted to,” Hu Li replied.

Liling considered the woman before them. “Is she some kind of Spirit Beast?”

“No, but I’m glad she thinks violence should be a last resort. The Heavens know I woulda got my ass beat way more if she didn’t.”

For the first time… Liling could say that she truly enjoyed life.

The wedding was held barely a month after they came into the village, and she and San were officially married.

Then, they moved back to Verdant Hill. Liling much preferred that, as the countryside always made her feel a bit strange, having spent most of her life in a city. They would visit Hong Yaowu once a month, for a week and a half every month, as San took his work back with him to his home; and Bao generally came with them.

The Lord Magistrate was surprisingly permissive with both of them, but Liling knew both her boys did good work. So she got to spend a lot of time with her new family. With the people who had welcomed her into their lives without hesitation. And with Hu Li, who, despite their rocky start, had… well, she ended up becoming one of Liling’s best friends, that rough talking woman. Tang Mei was a part of that list too, the soft-spoken lady teaching Liling everything she needed to know, and soon Liling started calling her Senior Sister without hesitation or sarcasm.

Xian was an absolute riot to be around. The man was a chaotic prankster who took entirely too much joy in teaching her how to cause havoc, and the people of Hong Yaowu just sighed and rolled their eyes fondly.

It was a good life. A fulfilling life. She got to watch Verdant Hill start to transform, building up and replacing worn down edges. She got to listen to both San and Bao talk about their work, chipping in when she could.

She watched both Hu Li and Mei swell with children; Yun Ren and Meihua, whom Liling instantly fell in love with.

And in no time at all, it seemed, her own belly started to show signs.

“We’ll have a bet. See who gets bigger faster,” she joked to Bao, who laughed brightly at her words, and slapped his own growing stomach.

“I’m afraid you’re hopelessly outclassed, Liling!” Bao retorted. His smile was bright, happy, and fulfilled, as he helped Verdant Hill recover.

It was a good look on him.

As for the Magistrate? Well, she didn’t really see him too much. Neither him nor his wife, the woman reeking of bad Qi. Liling could barely stand to be in the same room as her. But her boys seemed to like working for him. Bao especially, though he seemed amused by the stoic man.

Liling shrugged, and leaned back into her seat. This… this was life. And for the first time, she loved it.

In time, her labours began, and twenty hours later, a screaming squalling girl took her first breaths. Liling felt absolutely exhausted and utterly drained by the experience, like something inside her had been sucked out.

Liling fell in love instantly, as she held her daughter in her arms, absently brushing her thumb along her daughter’s nose.

She presented her to San, who smiled, uncaring that his firstborn was a girl. A week later, the babe would get her first freckles, and blue eyes would turn purple.

“Ha! I win! That means I get to name her!” Mei cheered, as Hu Li slumped before the Go board.

Hu Li and Mei had been challenging each other for the right since the beginning, and if Liling was honest, she was rather glad Mei had won.

Huling would have been a shitty name. Meiling was much better.

It was paradise. Even if she was a new mother. Even if Meiling squalled, she had Mei and Hu Li for support, and they had hers. She had never imagined that she would be taking care of other children like they were her own.

Meimei learned to walk. She learned to read and write, proving herself every bit as smart as Liling’s beloved San. She learned how to turn people’s skin blue from her uncle, who still hadn’t managed to find a girl.

She played in the rivers with Meihua, Yun Ren, and Gou Ren, never knowing hunger, and never knowing Liling’s own hardship. She was a bright, lovely child, whom Liling loved with all her heart.

It was beautiful. It was perfect.

It couldn’t last forever.

It started off like any other cold, Liling had been told later. A single patient. The Hongs had always been exceedingly careful, and they examined the patient with face masks. Not recognizing the affliction, they had employed all the proper isolation and quarantine procedures..

Quarantine procedures that had somehow failed, as mere days after the patient was admitted, Xian began to cough too. Then Xian the Elder, and then Fu.

And then others, people outside the quarantine, started getting sick.

Xian tried to go alone back into Hong Yaowu to face the pandemic. Liling and Bao would not be denied, with Meiling left in the Care of the Lord Magistrate.

It was just like the old days, in a murder mystery.

The cold, in the end, was not a cold at all, but a virulent parasite in the dirt. Ugly, hooked worms that feasted on men’s organs, filling them full of holes.

It would have wiped out the village entirely, if not for the efforts of the Hong Family. Father Xian was vomiting blood every hour. Elder Brother had lost complete control of his legs. Mother Fu wasted away like her entire body was sucked out. But still they toiled without cease, even as they died by inches and San started coughing too.

But… they managed a cure. All of them, working together. They managed to save the village, as the parasites were purged with lore from the family of Hong. Every single one of the disgusting things were killed, and even most of the infected made a full recovery.

All… all except the earliest infected. Who even dying, gave their lives to slay the monster that had hidden beneath their skin.

The funeral for three heroes was held on a sunny day.

Liling and Bao clung to her shaking husband, tears pouring down her beloved’s face.

Big Yao Che was raging as Mei tried to calm him down. Xian had been his best friend. They had been milk brothers, sworn to die on the same day. The Blacksmith was shattering rocks into gravel with each titanic swing of his hammer, howling and cursing the heavens.

Ten Ren was on his knees, curled up in a ball. Hu Li’s voice was a piercing dirge of grief, for those who had welcomed a tribal girl so warmly into their homes.

The pyres burned, and something in her husband died. His father had charged him to return, full time, and lead the village.

Meimei was in tears at both losing her uncle and grandfather, as well as having to move away from her beloved Uncle Bao, and the lovely library he had made. But San did his duty. Hong San became Hong Xian

. As tradition dictated.

Life was never quite the same, after the parasite.

It recovered, in bits and places, as San grew into his duties. She never could refer to him by that other name in her head, even as she supported the change out loud. He would always be San to her in her heart. Her San.

Bao came around a bit less. The journey was rather long. But every time they were in town they visited their sworn brother, who was now bald and fat, but still jolly.

Once, San had to go to Pale Moon Lake City, and took their daughter. Meimei came back distraught, sobbing about evil cultivators.

But things… things did settle. They became peaceful again. Liling made them peaceful again. For her, and her husband’s sakes. And as the village mourned and recovered, Liling\'s belly swelled again with a child.

But again, the heavens could not leave them alone. A year after the birth of her son, Liling still hadn\'t fully recovered. It had been a hard birth, and it had nearly killed her. It had felt like her soul had been sucked out afterwards. But she acted like everything was fine.

It was then that the famine hit. The crops all failed. Disease ran rampant. A Devil Storm blew in and slaughtered everything in its path.

Hong Yaowu went from a hundred people to fifty.

Friends and families. Mei. Oh, Sister Mei. Seeing her face had nearly broken Liling. The friendly woman would never laugh again. The only one who had any strength any more was Hu Li, the fox-faced woman trying her best for all their families. Liling saw the agony on her face every day as she brought game for the village to eat.

Liling cursed the heavens for giving her paradise and then ripping it away from her as she lay useless in her bed.

They had tried everything. Even those stupid “protective talismans” they had been rewarded with long ago—the things were absolutely useless. The cheap paper had turned brown and ragged, and the ink had bled. Liling knew she was dying. She knew she was dying and she hated it. She raged against it. She gnashed her teeth and nearly tore her blankets.

The strong little girl from Pale Moon Lake City was dying. Leaving her family behind like she swore to never do. Like her stupid mother, may she rot in all the hells.

She swam in and out of consciousness, until a weight settling on her bed gained her sharp focus.

The instinct of a mother identified the weight immediately.

Meiling. Liling struggled up, barely able to move her head. Barely able to look at her daughter, collapsed on Liling’s bed.

She was light. She was thin. Her daughter. Her beloved daughter, who had been giving food to others like the stupid fool she was, was too thin. Meiling was weak. As weak as she was.

Liling couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t bear to see her daughter so small and thin. Nor her husband. Not Hu Li, nor any of the people of her village.

Something shifted within Liling. A part of a legacy older than the Azure Hill’s recorded history. A woman, on death’s door, ignited like the constellations above.

A soft, golden glow connected the freckles on Liling’s nose into something that resembled a constellation. Weak limbs moved as she picked up and cradled her daughter, and she felt something inside herself shatter. It, or what it had held, flowed out of her and into her daughter, and she knew in her heart that Meimei, her little Meimei, would live.

More of it flowed from her to the village. The last dregs of her life, she held on to. Clutched long enough to see San one last time. To see her son. To hold all of them.

Just one last time.

She had regrets. She regretted that she would never see her daughter married. Never see her son grow into a man. Never grow old with San. But she believed in them. She believed that they would all live.

Would live, and have a good life.

That chance, Liling could give them.

The world kept turning after the Year of Sorrow, as it would come to be called. The little village of Hong Yaowu rallied as best they could. Some houses were torn down. Some fields were abandoned.

But they persevered, as they always had. They banded together, like they always had. They saved what they could, and cut what they couldn’t.

Unaware of a tiny spark of protection that was a mother’s last act.

Meiling didn’t notice her ability to smell Qi getting stronger every day. She had a family to help. She didn’t notice that she was a bit luckier, as every matchmaking session failed.

She didn’t notice when fate stood at a crossroads.

One path lead to a world drowned in twenty eight heavenly poisons.

In the other…

A man walked into the village, looking exhausted and harried. He was a big lad. Bigger than most, with brown hair and green eyes.

Meiling didn’t pay him much attention at first. But half a year and a whirlwind romance later…

The spark faded with a contented sigh.

Was it fate? Or was it a defiance of it?

It was not a grand story, the story of Liling. A woman who lived and died as a mortal. She never really accomplished anything a man of power and ambition would call grand in her life.

Liling of Pale Moon Lake City. Street rat. Maid. Wife, mother, healer. Inheritor of a legacy she knew nothing about, and even if she had known what kind of power she could have wielded…

If she had a thousand lifetimes, every one she would choose to end up in Hong Yaowu.

There were three things left of her: Ashes in an urn. A funerary tablet.

And a family who would never forget her.