... This is another book

cool summer fever

"Papa... it hurts" Yi Yue cries as she hugs Yi Rong's arm.

He wipes her sweat urgently. Yi Yue had been having fever since last week. Even Yi Hua's potion could not heal her. She had never been this sick before.

There was a day when it was too cold for her and there is a day like today, where everything is just too hot for Yi Yue. There were no in between.

The fact that she had been sick for a week was worrying as well. All that they can do is to reduce her body heat before it will rise again almost immediately. Even the elementals were afraid to come near her. Yi Rong could not even sense anything disrupt about her magic circuit. Yi Qi had been asked as well, but this was not a curse. Yi Yue was just simply inexplicably sick.

"Yi Rong, let me" Fuyuki said softly from his behind.

Fuyuki was worried about Yi Rong. He had been near her sickbed the entire time, neglecting his own health. All Fuyuki could manage was to feed both his husband and daughter with brown sugar and ginger soup.

"Yue'er said she is in pain... what should I do?" he asks Fuyuki "Fuukun, our daughter is in pain and I can't even heal her. I am useless" he said in with a rasp in his voice.

Fuyuki caress Yi Rong's long dark hair.

"Let me takes care of Yue'er. You need rest as well" he tries to coax Yi Rong.

"No, you haven't gotten better yourself. What if you harm-"

Fuyuki planted a kiss on his forehead.

"My dragon lord, please never forget that your Fuyuki is one of the great nature spirits" he said pulling Yi Rong up "When it's hot, shouldn't it naturally be cold that help reduce heat?"

As soon as he finishes saying this, the entire room immediately covered in frost icicle. Yi Yue's frown slowly disappear, her soft painful sobs even reducing.

"She is a child born of you and me Yi Rong" Fuyuki said and places his palm against Yi Yue's burning forehead "What if what she needs wasn't medicine but balance?"

Yi Rong looks at Fuyuki .

"You mean..."

"She has never gotten sick before I came hasn't she?" Fuyuki said sitting on the bed "Maybe her nature spirit side is triggered and after spending three years with you, the amount of heat is much more denser to the coldness that resides in her"

Yi Rong had never thought of it before. He had been negligent of the fact that he himself was a dragon and how it would affect Yi Yue.

"Go take a rest and tell the others to not worry. I'll take care of our daughter."

Yi Rong was a bit hesitant but as the temperature drops, he could feel his fighting instinct stimulated and fearing of harming the his two most beloved person, he decided to leave the room.

Fuyuki sees the hesitance in his husband's heavy step and couldn't help but sigh. He turns to his side and look at the little body all curled up.

"Papa..." she whimpers as her little hands pat around searching for the familiar warmth.

"Papa can't be here Yue'er" Fuyuki said in a low voice "Father is here" he caress softly his daughter's cheeks.

Her little stray hands caught hold of his fingers and bring it close in a hug. Her expression turns for better.

"Sleep Little Moon. When you wake up, you'll be all better" Fuyuki said patting her back with his other free hand.

In her feverish dreams, Yi Yue could hear soft humming that strangely sooth away the pain she felt from the heat. She was afraid of the harsh biting cold that would come after the heat goes down but it didn't come at all. It was definitely cold, but this was the soft gentle cold. This kind of cold was one that she could welcome happily. Colours began to form in this cold, a gentle blue light starts as a tiny spark and grows into a sphere before slowly enveloping her, keeping the fiery hot red heat outside it. A familiar minty scent was how the cold smells like. She recognises this scent. It was her father, her soft gentle father who always looks at her from afar.

She knows that her Father loves her but he had always this air of sadness around him whenever he looks at her. Yi Yue loves her Papa but she loves her Father too. She hopes that her Father would smile happily just like how her Papa does. If everyone could be happy, it would be better. Strangely, in that gentle cold, there was warmth as well. Yi Yue feels comfortable with it. There is nothing or anyone else that could make her feel this way. Yi Yue doesn't know from where she knows but this gentle coldness was her Father.

"Yue'er loves Father so much" she says to the blue light.

Fuyuki, who was slowly patting her small back while humming a lullaby that his mum used to sing to him once upon a time, hears her small voice. Hearing that, he kisses her forehead, wet with cold sweat, gently.

"Father loves Yue'er much more" he said hugging her closer to him.

That was how the ever verdant Garden became a cold winter land in the midst of Yi Yue's fourth summer.