Family Portrait

1

WanYin helped his eldest with his homework while feeding the baby. After that he bathed and put baby lotus to bed. When Wanyin opened the door to A-Yi's room he found him crying on the floor holding something tightly to his chest.

He was concerned but after seeing what he was holding he asked. - 'Why is A-Yi crying?'

A-Yi looked at him with puffy red eyes and a pout. To Wanyin that pout was very cute.

'W-why is is A-Yi not not h-here? W-why da-ge here and not A-Yi?'

This was not the first time A-Yi has asked this. There have been times before where he asked why baba and a-die married and did not invite A-Yi. WanYin took A-Yi enveloping him in a tight hug while taking him to his bed.

They lay there while Wanyin hummed a lullaby and massaged his back until A-Yi stopped crying. It wasn't something that came fast or easy, but he was able to calm A-Yi down.

'You know? You were there. - He said when noticing A-Yi has calmed down. - Here -he pointed- inside a-die. It's just that da-gé is bigger than you. Do you remember what I told you last time?'

JingYi shook his head letting his baba know that he forgot about what they talk last time when he cried for the same reason.

WanYin decided that tonight's bedtime story was about how he and XiChen formed their family. He took the wedding portrait out of Jingyi's arms and put it on the nightstand.

'Well, when baba and a-die met they were naive teenagers and didn't knew much about life...

That's how baba found himself pregnant at a very young age. We didn't even know it was possible for men to get pregnant since we have never seen or heard of this before.'

JingYi was intensively looking at his baba. Even if he now vaguely remembers they have talked about this in the past... He deeply loves bedtime stories with his parent's. So, no way he was going to cut baba's story short.

'When I found I was pregnant with your da-ge I was very surprised of this. After talking with the Lan and Jiang elders they have explained to us that it was rare but not uncommon. Cultivators with a strong core can get pregnant with dual cultivation. In some cases, it could take them years and that is why it is not very common and in some cases it never happens. Even if our cores were strong, they were not strong enough as we were both teenagers, so the elders put that theory aside. - WanYin took a pause to see if A-Yi was asleep, but his eyes are wide open. - Then while doing more research, they found a very old scroll on the Lan forbidden section of the library. In this scroll they mention how once a Sect Leader got pregnant at a very young age also. In this case they talked about him and his cultivation partner being soulmates. How their souls and core become one when they were together. So, the Lan elders have concluded that a-die and I were soulmates. After da-ge was born and the cultivation world became aware of this a clan was not happy with the news- '

'The Wens...' Said JingYi in a low voice.

'Yes, Sect Leader Wen was very mad about a Jiang-Lan alliance. Since there was already a Jin & Jiang wedding being prepared. He also found out that your uncle, HuiSang and I were really close and had talked about being sworn brothers in the future. He was mad because he was being left out. His anger was so big that he declared war against our sects and that is how the war started. We lost so much during that time. That I thought happiness was not achievable after everything we have lost. But in the end, we won. After many years of war, losing family and friends, we won. When we finished rebuilding our sect's our elders told us it was time to get married as it was supposed to have happened years ago, but it didn't. So, we began planning our wedding and in the middle of doing so a-die found out he was expecting you. We were really happy about having another child, so the elders rushed the wedding a little, so you were born into a marriage.'