Three months later, Mei Hua was tossing in her sleep. Her stomach had gotten larger and sleeping was becoming uncomfortable. Her lower back hurt and sometimes she’d wake up with her legs cramping, but she could feel her precious baby move now. Knowing that she’d have a blood relation again, a family like what she’d had when she was young, brought her joy.

She woke up suddenly, feeling groggy and in pain. The vague feeling of pain suddenly coalesced into a piercing cramp. After several minutes of terrified confusion and frantic breathing, she turned over and shook Jin’s shoulder.

“Jin, Jin wake up.”

Jin woke up instantly and knew in just a glance something was wrong.

He sat up and gently stroked her face.

“Shhh, I’m here, I’m here. I won’t let anything happen.”

As he said this, the pain squeezing at her stomach lessened. Relief washed over her as the cramps ebbed away and she let her head rest on his shoulder.

“Sleep, sleep my soul, my heart.” He spoke in a whisper and as he did, she nodded off.

But Ye, who’d been nearby, was wide awake and fearful, “This is too soon, isn’t it?”

“En.”

“But why?”

Jin stroked his wife’s stomach, brows pinched together anxiously.

“My control is slipping.”

“What? How could that even be possible?”

For a long time, the Lord of the Mountains didn’t speak.

“When she first conceived, the child was weak and I suspected it wouldn’t make it if left alone. I did not want… I did not want her first pregnancy to be a miscarriage.” His slightly glowing eyes looked sadly at his frail human wife. “So I’ve been strengthening that child with my own power for months. I was only able to stop a few weeks ago. It… It should have worked…”

“But…?”

“I.. I’ve never done this before.” Jin confessed anxiously. “This child, his growth… it’s not… not quite right. He is… I have somehow made him more like the Emperor, than like Mei.”

Ye looked at the stomach Jin was touching, a worried look in his eyes.

“Are you saying… MeiMei’s child is not… is not human?”

“For the most part.”

“..is he… is he perhaps like… like me then?”

Jin stopped stroking Mei’s stomach, stunned momentarily by the little fairy’s question. He hadn’t thought of what he’d been doing in those terms, but now that it was brought up, he could not deny it. After thinking on this for a while, Jin continued stroking his wife’s stomach again.

“He’s not quite like you, because there is still some of Mei in him. So there will always be a bit of him that is human. But his humanity is reduced unnaturally. I don’t know… I don’t know what he will be like. His power contends with mine. Today I could stop him, but soon I won’t be able to without adversely affecting Mei in the process. He desires to be born, to be free of the cage that is his mother. I… what have I created Ye? Will he love Mei? What if he rejects her?”

Ye tugged on his hair, not knowing what to say at first. If the Fairy Emperor didn’t know, how was he to know? He was just a little fairy, ah! A supremely intelligent and clever fairy, but still a fairy none-the-less! He couldn’t be smarter than what he was created from! Still, he wasn’t going to pass up an opportunity to be better than Jin, so after pondering seriously the problem, he finally said:

“If he’s like you, or like me, even in some small way, then surely he will love MeiMei as we do?” Ye paced about on the bed. “Perhaps his impatience to be born is because he wants to see MeiMei, rather than run from her? We can’t know for sure but… because we don’t know for sure, there’s no reason to be negative about it. He is… he is at least shaped like a baby, yes?”

Jin nodded.

“…then let’s not tell MeiMei of this. If she finds out he’s… he’s not really human, it might scare her. And she definitely won’t notice the difference if he at least looks human. Probably. Maybe. I think. So we just need to make sure he grows up more or less like a human should, and everything should be fine.”

There was a moment of silence.

“A secret then.”

“En, a secret.”

———————

Two weeks had passed since that night. The fairy baby decided he wouldn’t be coaxed into remaining in the womb any longer. Nothing Jin did could prevent Mei Hua from going into labor, so he gave up on it and just went with the flow.

“Push, MeiMei, push. Ah! I see the head—” Ye was calling out encouragement.

As there was only the two of them, and one fairy, Jin ended up being the midwife. He’d studied as much as he could on human birth and felt reasonably confident in his knowledge. But doing a thing and reading about it were two different things. He was filled with anxiety through the whole ordeal.

When Mei Hua had started to groan pitifully from the pain, he’d tried to lessen it with his power, only to find his fairy son actively blocking him. He was furious but he didn’t know what to do, so he silently cursed his yet-unborn child in his heart.

Brat! Hurting your mother for no good reason! Do you think easing her pain would harm you? Ay, ay, don’t think because you’re Mei’s son I’ll forgive you! We’ll have our reckoning, rest assured!

He was too worried to realize that, even if his son was more fairy than human, he was still a newborn. A baby quite obviously can’t differentiate between friend and foe while being birthed. Not to mention, labor causes suffering for the child too, so how could the babe be expected to make rational decisions?

So even though Jin had the whole force of the mountain on his side, his wife gave birth in the most ordinary, human manner. When the child was finally born, much smaller from an early birth, he was silent.

“Why is it so quiet? I—is my baby alright?” Mei cried out miserably. She’d gone into labor too early and her fear was great that something would go wrong.

Jin glared at his perfectly healthy son for making his wife worry needlessly, and then had a rather wicked thought that he immediately acted upon. He smacked the newborn’s backside, with more strength than was strictly necessary, causing the child in his arms to cry instantly from shock. It was a cry of anger more than anything, which instantly lightened Jin’s mood.

‘May that be a lesson to you, brat!’ Jin thought smugly, without the least bit of guilt for throttling a baby who’d just left the womb.

The baby in question, as if hearing Jin’s thoughts, scrunched his face up even more and wailed twice as loudly as before in an impotent rage.

Jin briskly cleaned up his child and brought him over to Mei Hua, who had relaxed noticeably at hearing her child cry.

“Mei, he’s a boy.” Jin told her, gently laying the newborn on her chest. The baby instantly stopped crying once he felt his mother’s warmth. It was hard to say if this was because he was happy to be close to his mother, or if he was happy to be released from his tyrant of a father.

“My son, my beautiful baby boy. How I love you, how I love you…” Tears began to pour down Mei’s sweaty face as she held her too tiny baby close to her heart. All her family by blood had died well over a decade ago, and she could barely remember anything about them now. Though she loved Jin and Ye dearly, this child in her arms was the first family she could claim was related by blood. He was special.

“Don’t cry Mei. Don’t be sad.” Jin said anxiously. He hadn’t expected her to cry.

Sniffling slightly, she gave a small laugh and then smiled radiantly.

“I’m not sad. These are tears of joy. What should we name him?”

Mei Hua had been going over names for boys and girls for the last few months excitedly. Since Jin had no naming skills what-so-ever he’d let her do all the name-planning. He was glad he’d let her, because if he’d been allowed to do it right then, he’d not have given his first born a decent name.

“Wife, I’ll leave it to you.”

“Hm…” She gazed off in the distance for a moment, before brightening. “What do you think of Shan Hui?”

Jin forced himself to smile, while thinking viciously, ‘Mountain’s splendor? In what way is he my “splendor”? Little brat didn’t even let me remove your pain, but look at the name you’re giving him!’

“It’s a fine name.” There was no point in objecting since he’d decided to let her pick what she liked to call him. He'd always be Brat in Jin's heart anyway.

Mei Hua hummed happily to herself. “Little Shan… my Little Shan…”

Ye had been respectfully quiet up until now, finally bounced his way over to his MeiMei and the new Little Shan.

“Ay! I forgot how ugly human babies are when they’re first born.”

“He’s not ugly, he’s beautiful!” Mei Hua objected, cuddling her baby defensively.

Ye stifled any further comment with a laugh. He’d witnessed many births, and some mothers found their baby’s ugly, but others were like MeiMei. Obviously, both groups loved their children equally, they just had different aesthetic sense.

So instead he praised his MeiMei for her hard work at giving birth and what a fine son she’d produced. This pleased Mei Hua immensely, causing Ye to laugh again. After a while, Mei Hua began to nod off feeling tired from her labor. Ye patted her cheek affectionately before going to get a closer look at the new born.

The little fairy lightly walked down MeiMei’s chest, careful not to wake her. The baby, who’d been quite and fairly still, suddenly moved his head and opened his eyes, staring directly at Ye. The fairy stiffened and then stumbled backward. The left eye was a bright glowing blue, but the right eye was a bright glowing gold. Both radiated a deep scorching power.

Jin placed his large hand on the child’s head, his thumb stroking Little Shan’s tiny brow. He then did something he hadn’t done in years; he spoke with his mind.

‘Brat, are you trying to kill this little fairy, whom your mother loves? If not, pull in that power of yours before you roast him.’

Even as Jin said this, the spirit portion of him seemed to curl up on itself by way of example.

Little Shan’s piercing eyes narrowed with an intelligence that should not have been possible for his size. There was clear resentment in his expression. He didn’t have any intention of obeying this old man.

‘What? You think you can bully me? You’re a thousand years too young for that. And whatever we think of each other, Mei, your mother, has people and things she loves. Will you destroy those things to satisfy yourself?’

Jin gazed never wavered from his son, but inside he worried. This was a test of Shan Hui’s humanity, and for Mei’s sake, he dearly hoped the being before him passed. Otherwise, he would kill this child here and now, rather than deal with the Devil he’d become later.

After a seemingly eternal moment, Jin saw the blazing spirit within that frail newborn body curl up on itself, just as Jin had showed him. The fierce glow dimmed and disappeared, leaving two odd mismatched colored eyes. The baby made a final glare at his father before turning his face away, as if to say “There, I’ve done it, now go away!”

Ye stood up shakily, breathing heavily in relief as he did. The whole exchange had taken almost no time at all. Mei Hua, exhausted from labor had been too tired to see what had happened below her very chin.

——

Little Shan was a remarkable baby. He never cried unless something was wrong or he felt ill (or if his detestable father held him). If he’d had teeth, he would have talked immediately. But he didn’t so he found an alternative: he could pitch his goos and gahs to give them meaning. Rather than his mother teaching him, he taught his mother to distinguish his noises.

He did everything early: raising his head, sitting up, crawling. Whatever he could do, he figured out how to do it as soon as possible. Being restricted in a baby’s body was extremely annoying so he did what he could to have more freedom.

Actually, he could have made himself grow quicker too, but his stupid Old Man talked him out of it. Even if Old Man had given him life, his Mommy loved him and he loved Mommy. If he grew too quickly, then that meant growing away from Mommy. This was the argument Jin used to convince him to keep his growth at a natural rate. It was a good one, so of course Little Shan was vexed silly while still ultimately following the old man’s words.

Because he loved his Mommy most of all, he was very careful to keep his body “natural” and not to meddle with it, no matter how tempting. It was hard to say whether this was good or bad, as he’d been born too early so his body was initially weak and prone to illness. But because his Mommy took extra special care of him when he was sick, Little Shan didn’t bother keeping himself overly healthy. In fact, if his Old Man wasn’t watching, he might have let himself get gravely ill more often just to have his Mommy worry over him.

Little Shan understood why the Old Man loved Mommy so much to the point of covetousness. Her love was pure and endless and washed over a spirit like a soothing balm on scorched skin. There was something wrong with this place, he’d felt it the moment he was born. It was too… dangerously exposed. Something was missing. But with Mommy nearby, that feeling of exposure was lessened.

If only the Old Man would share Mommy more so he could be completely safe! Why must the Old Man be so greedy!

———

Little Shan had no idea that he took after Jin: highly possessive and unreasonably greedy for attention. Mei Hua had, in fact, been giving the bulk of her attention to her newborn son. To the point of neglecting her sad, lonely husband in the process. If the Jin had “shared” his wife anymore, he’d have to leave his house and never come back!

It was fortunate that what little humanity was in Shan Hui, was at least very strong and hearty. It gave him just enough freedom to change and grow, and to avoid repeating the same mistake for eons. But before that, he was just a baby boy who took a little too much after his father.