Let Me Tell You About My Childhood

As things were settled, dinner was served and after dinner, Xing as she had already planned decided to talk about her past to her father.

For now she had showed her willingness to stay with her father by agreeing to follow his rules. If her father cannot accept her after she reveals her past, she could always stay away from here and she would be excluded from her mother's promise too.

"Father!", Xing spoke politely, " I know about how brother announced to the Imperial Court that you are going to make Lord Táng your Godchild. I told you that I had a complicated past and I would like to tell you about it. You can change your mind about anything and I won't hold it against you as I myself find me weird"

"Ha ha ha! What an interesting child! Let's hear it. It's not fair only my son knows about you", Lord Feiye spoke.

Xing spoke softly sitting beside Shengli,

"Me and mother lived on the other side of the mountains in the water kingdom's village until I was nearly five and a half years old. Back then I had no good opinion about humans because the people there looked at us weirdly and called mother names. But I always had my animal friends and also the gods"

"Gods as in the gods in legends. You sure?", Rijun interrupted.

"Yes, who else? Don't interfere the flow", she feigned anger at Rijun and looked at her father and uncle with equally unbelieving faces. Only Shengli was looking at her with a loving gaze. She poured herself some wine and started drinking.

She continued supporting her hands under her chin, "There were many gods but usually one god was particularly fond of me and would often take me to his Palace. Time passes differently there and sometimes, even if I spent days there I would return back hours later the same day as I left here. Also that god did not have much people there, so I was pampered so much there. I will be given their clothes and their jewellery and I could do anything I wish there and no one would stop me. I had seen palaces entirely made of jade and furnished with gold and ivory. Also many other gods would be good to me too. May be because I looked different with black hair and eyes, humans didn't like me much and considered me a demon. Back then we had food from the mountains and clothes from the heavens and we lacked nothing. I was practically raised by the Gods till I was six and I grew up speaking Guyu language. But then mother brought us to the other side to the village in the wind kingdom. I always couldn't understand humans and that continued here too and because we were dressed differently and since my looks were different people were scared of us here too, so we mostly stayed in the forests.

It was then I met Shengli and he was the first human who smiled at me without being indifferent. Then later we met Haru and we three were a gang. Ever since I made human friends most gods stayed away from me except a couple of gods who I am still in contact with", she drank a mouthful of water and seeing them still interested she continued, " He taught me to write my first word", she smiled gently at Shengli which he returned, " But he had such a temper. I would not recommend him as a tutor for anyone",she laughed and Rijun and Feiye smiled with her while AoTian didn't like the way his daughter was looking at Shengli.

"But then he left almost after a year too", she sighed, "After that until now it was me and Haru against the world". She looked down and Shengli patted her hands under the table.

"So Haru, that is Lord Ming Yushen is an important person in your life, huh?", Feiye fished for more details. Rijun was too curious to know more too and he was almost drunk.

"Yes, he is", her face turned serious, "We grew up together; we lived through good and bad together. He was the one who stuck to me like a glue and the one who kept me grounded and suffered with me. All the times when I was about to lose myself, he brought me back. He made me interact with more humans and made me less awkward with them. He taught me there is good and bad in everyone. He taught me life", she sighed and gulped some more wine,

"Once a perverted man called me to his home with ill intentions even when I was dressed as a boy, baiting me with books. Of course I didn't realise his intentions and Haru was the one who stopped me with a sword in his hand. Honestly that was the only time I have ever lost a fight my entire life. The next thing he did was introduce me to Lady Shaoyao of the Heavenly Flowers Palace to make me know the various types of men. When Shengli left and when that old master asked me to learn from him, I dragged Haru with me too. Even though his interest was mostly with numbers and business, he accompanied me. Also whenever I started fights he would always join me. Once while we were still in training, as usual I started a fight with some assassins and didn't guard my back when someone charged from behind. Haru without thinking twice came in between and got hurt. Luckily it was not deep and from then on our master would tightly braid both our hair together and trained us so we could watch each others back. That's why we fight well back to back. I was always different from other humans and sometimes it gets to my head and at those times he would get me down from my high horse. Everytime he calls me names it made me feel I belong here too. Also he taught me not to speak about everything about gods and demons even if I am sure, since sometimes it would spook others. For me he is a very important person. ", she paused. A smile grew in her lips seeing Shengli's thumb gently rubbing the back of her hands as if saying everything is fine.

"I always wanted to ask, Why do you call him Haru?", her uncle questioned. Xing looked at her uncle who was hell bent on learning about Haru from her. Fine then, I'll tell you the bad with the good.

"When we met him, he didn't tell me his name so I started calling him Haru meaning 'spring' and it stuck. He had a bad childhood after his mother died and he would always be playing with us. After Shengli left, Haru took me sneakily to his home. It was then I learnt that for a child to have a good life, he should have a good family name to be treated well by others and a strong mother to be treated well in his own home. His family hated me too for always with him. They would have banquets often, showing off their wealth. We would be treated as bad as the servants in their home. They would provide him good clothes so it would appear that he was treated well. They would ask me to join saying that I am his playmate. After working us hard the whole day we would be really hungry when the food is served. But only our dishes will be salty.... so salty as if they added salt for an entire pot in one bowl and we could not even take a single bite and they would have the nerves to say that we are being rude not eating the dishes. I think that was the reason Haru hated anything related to salt and I don't like salt too. So we would go to bed filling our stomach with water since we didn't want to make mother feel bad, but we will still be hungry. Only big brother Donghai would sneak us food from the kitchen and will silently watch us eat. But he left in a couple of years too. After that a Mama from the kitchen would sneak us food. She later told us that it was Big brother Donghai's request to give us food",she smiled wryly when Shengli's grip on her hand tightened. By now Rijun had sobered up a little and his eyes showed a tint of tears.

"By Donghai you don't mean Fa Donghai, who was made the Salt Minister recently do you?", AoTian asked, hiding his various emotions of guilt, anger and worry.

"Yes, exactly father", she realised what he meant and continued, " I merely gave suggestions to the Emperor that day. The port too, it was Haru's mother's dowry and it should belong to him. His father used that port to stabilise his business back then but later neglected his son when his mother died. That's not fair is it?", she questioned.

"That's true. So you gave the salt business Lord Ming hated to the brother who helped you back then and helped Lord Ming get his mother's dowry back to him. That really is fair. So Ming Yushen hates salt, But why don't you eat pork?", Feiye asked sipping his wine. This neice of his is really interesting. Xing who was a bit drunk didn't stop talking.

"You noticed?", she raised her eyebrows in surprise and continued , "Back then me and Haru found an abandoned piglet and raised as a pet. We fed it well and soon it became a fat pig and followed us everywhere. And one banquet as usual there were salty dishes and only a pork dish was not salty. We were ecstatic they forgot to add salt in that dish and ate it well. But we could not find our pig anywhere after the banquet. Turns out.."

Before she finished Rijun interrupted , "Don't say it, Mingxia! Oh My! How much did you suffer? I should thank heavens I had a good family ", he sniffed his nose and started crying.

AoTian and Feiye had a dark expression and Xing could feel the coldness emitted from Shengli even though they were a couple feet apart. While he was sinking himself in darkness being in the gang those days, he had left her to suffer this much alone.

Seeing the situation turned too sad, Xing tried to turn it back,

"Anyway that's why I hate people who ruin good food and also both me and Haru don't eat pork anymore. Whoa! That day we both spilled our guts out and could not even hold water. But things weren't that hard always. It was then the master asked us for training and soon our life changed. Then there was the fire and my hair changed and we started helping people and the people helped us too. Haru just pretended to be home all the time to not alert their brothers and I stopped visiting his place but we had a secret passage and we were always together. He called my mother as mother too and spent most of his time with us too. We made many acquaintances and Haru started his own business. Honestly speaking, my life back in the village was fun and amazing just because he was with me and with our swords we were invincible! ",she sighed, "He really wanted to kill his family when we met, but he changed his thoughts after I told him I don't like those who would hurt their brothers. He was dragged by me everywhere and he always protected my back and was with me whenever I needed him even though he was not obliged to",she smiled closing her eyes, "He is an important part of my life. Although I don't understand why after all this time, he sent that letter about his brothers to the Emperor, even after he knew that I won't like it", she giggled, "Ah! I'm drunk" dropping her head on the table. Fortunately, Shengli held her forehead on time and placed her head gently on the table setting aside all the tableware.