A Phoenix Rising - An Untamed Story (Book 1 In Series)

Chapter 25

Lan WangJi sat at the desk to read. He had a clear view of the children lying on their pallets and they of him if they woke up during the night. After about an hour, the little boy started whimpering. A few moments later, he curled up in a ball. Then his hands and feet started lashing out as if he was fighting something. Lan WangJi could only look helplessly at the child; he had no experience in dealing with this kind of nightmare.... A'Yuan had always woken up from his, startled and panting, but a cup of water and a pat on the head was enough to soothe him enough to be able to sleep again. Wei WuXian's nightmares were soothed by sex.

He sighed and went over to the boy; if he didn't do something to help, the poor child was going to punch or kick Liu. Or start screaming. How do you help a child still caught in a nightmare? He felt like a bumbling oaf patting the child's back. And it wasn't helping; the child's whimpers were getting louder. And he was still fighting with his hands and feet whatever he was fighting in his dream. Rubbing XioaShu's back helped soothe the physical actions, but the whimpers were now full-on crying.

Liu sat up and rubbed her eyes. "You can wake him up." She yawned loudly, not covering her mouth at all. "That's what I do."

Lan WangJi was uncertain about that. "I once heard a grannie say to her daughter the one rule of sleeping babies is to not wake them up unless you have to."

Liu yawned again. "That's for infants. Didi is old enough." She yawned a few more times. "I suppose you shouldn't wake him up, though...."

"Why not?" Now he was really confused.

"That auntie... she gave him a kiss to protect him from nightmares. And now he has one. The kiss didn't work. He's little, so he doesn't understand why people lie. You gottta rub his back harder so he feels it in his sleep."

Lan WangJi increased the pressure on XiaoShu's back, and the boy's whimpers died down after a few minutes. "How do you know so much about this?"

"When I got big, I took care of the babies at night while the ladies worked. My mom said I needed to leave 'cause the guests started to ask when I would be old enough to work, too. Madame said I was old enough to start dance lessons and maybe teach me to play an instrument or sing." Lan WangJi felt his stomach drop at these casual admissions. It seemed the poor child had been raised in a pleasure house, where the courtesans were trained to be more than just prostitutes. "My mom found me a place in a rich home; I was the third nursemaid! Mostly I washed the babies' clothing and carried water for their baths. Fourth wife didn't like that I came from a whore house, and she was the favorite wife because she bore the first son.... So she kicked me out after a while. But I know all about how to take care of babies. How come you don't?"

"SiZhui didn't come into my home until he was six," he admitted after a pause. "He never had nightmares like this."

"You could tell me a bedtime story to help me sleep since I helped you get rid of Didi's nightmare," Liu hinted.

Lan WangJi felt the corner of his mouth twitch up in admiration of this child's bravery and shear gall. "I don't have any stories to tell."

"You never did anything exciting?" Liu's voice indicated that she clearly did not believe this. Lan WangJi shook his head at her. The stories that lived in his heart and soul were all about Wei Ying, and none of them were appropriate for children. "Then... tell me the story of why you adopted Gege," she pleaded. At his nod, Liu settled back into her blanket and waited.

"I was in Yiling City when I met SiZhu. A few months later his family died, so I adopted him."

Liu waited, as patiently as a six year old could, for a few minutes for the rest of the story. Finally, she pouted. "That's not a story."