Scions of Heaven - Calamity

Chapter 17

He had heard that the universe's master had once helmed the six realms with an iron fist. - Pillow Book 2, Chapter 7

Wordcount: 4,773

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Heavenly Realm - Jiuchongtian - early morning

Third day since Fengjiu died.

Gungun ---------------------------------

The day his mother died had been frantic, bizarre and time had passed far too quickly.

The next day when they returned to Xiwu Palace, it had been dreamlike, fuzzy and unreal.

Today was the third day since his mother had passed, and there was a strange stillness in the air. As if the entire world was waiting for something momentous to happen. But that might just be Gungun's own fatigue bearing down on him, he had not really slept the past few days.

Gungun's great uncle-in-law Ye Hua had been very busy.

Uncle Ye Hua had left Xiwu Palace a few minutes ago and had brought A-li with him. Star Lord Tian Shu had asked for his help with a matter of a confused and panicked heavenly patrol coming across a 'giant monster' at the banks of Ruoshui, the border between the Heavenly Realm and the Ghost Realm.

Gungun's aunt Bai Qian had also just requested Nai Nai go leave on an errand.

This meant Gungun was currently helping his aunt Bai Qian take care of the two babies. One of these was his aunt's youngest son, Bai Fuzan; who at only three years old was practically newborn in immortal terms. Having just been fed Fuzan had fallen asleep a few minutes ago and was contentedly sleeping in his crib.

The other baby was Gungun's very tiny, and very much still awake little sister Bai Xueyu.

The evening before they'd returned to Jiuchongtian Xueyu had been awake and crying, never sleeping for more than half an hour at a time unless in someone's arms. If he placed her in a crib, within half an hour she would wake up wailing and crying, as if from nightmares. He knew from his research this was not very good for newborn babies to be waking up so frequently, or sleeping so little.

Due to Mi Gu's barrier, they had needed to exit the Fox Den in order to teleport back to Xiwu Palace. When he had stepped outside, dusk was settling, and the stars of Qing Qiu were making their appearance. This was when Xueyu had stopped crying and after only a minute of blurrily looking at the stars, she'd fallen asleep.

So Gungun had been focusing his attention on trying to solve this problem. He had spent the day yesterday trying every non-magical means of attempting to help Xueyu settle, to no avail. It was honestly upsetting, he'd never really failed at anything before. This wasn't something he was doing just to sate his curiosity or test his mind or skill, this was important.

He'd come to the conclusion that although the research he'd compiled was accurate, he'd focused on learning and understanding the wrong things. He'd catalogued and researched what babies did, their development milestones, sleep cycles, nutrition, genetics, the nature of souls and other things, but he'd not considered what was actually required to take care of one.

This caused him no small amount of mild panic because he had to face the fact he was utterly unprepared to care for a baby; especially not one as tiny and fragile as his little sister Xueyu. He'd been so proud and confident only a few days ago, this was a truly humbling experience.

He was immensely grateful his uncle Ye Hua, aunt Bai Qian and her personal maidservant Nai Nai had experience of such things, and were taking care of Xueyu perfectly while he scrambled to learn.