Grunts of pain echoed softly through the closed doors of the healing quarters in Lotus Pier, as the Madam of the Jiang Sect, Yu Ziyuan, gave birth to her second child. Outside, the wind blew gently and the moon shined brightly in the cloudless sky onto the sparkling clear waters of the lakes surrounding the pier. Inside the room, a woman lay in a tub half filled with room temperatured water, with maids around her, rushing around the room with towels, water and rags, holding her hands and assisting with the birth.

"You're almost there Madam Yu! I can see the head! Just push a little more!" The head healer encouraged her lightly.

Yu Ziyuan cried out sharply in pain a moment later.

"I am pushing you damn imbecile!!! What the fuck else could I be doing?!?!?!" she yelled.

She pushed harder than before, spewing insults at her husband, the maids and even the sect elders and ancestors. Soon though, with a last hard push, she finally felt the last of her baby's body fully exit her own tired body. Yu Ziyuan panted softly in relief at the sound of the baby, her body collapsing in the tub and exhaustion finally taking over her. 

The pregnancy had been long and hard. Her first pregnancy with her daughter Yanli, while exhausting had not been anywhere near as difficult as her second one. Numerous complications had come up, almost resulting in her having to either abort the baby or continue on with a 75% risk of a miscarriage that would likely kill both her and her child. Fortunately, neither of those things had come to pass.

She waited for the loud cries of her baby to echo through the room as she lay in the tub catching her breath but they never came. Fear and anxiety immediately rushed through her. Had something happened to her baby?

"What's wrong?" she asked the nurse maids who were scurrying around her quietly, cleaning the room and wiping her body down with damps rags, soap and new warm water to clean away the blood and sweat. 

The maids glanced at each other silently, none wanting to speak with the Madam of Lotus Pier first, before the head healer re-entered the room from where she had exited to clean the newborn child of blood and gunk. In her arms she carried a bundle of thick, warm cloth containing the newborn baby. She walked over to Yu Ziyuan with a small smile that held a light aura of sorrow, before speaking.

"Congratulations Madam Yu. You have given birth to a beautiful baby boy."

The other maids congratulated her as well, before bowing and exiting the room. They knew that the rest of the conversation would not be for their ears to hear and they'd rather not be at the end of their Madam's sharp tongue, even if she was exhausted from child birth. The head healer, Liang Liu gently rocked the child in her arms as she came to stand right next to Yu Ziyuan on the bed she had been placed to lay down on after her body had been thoroughly cleaned by the maids.

"What's wrong Liang Liu? Why is he not crying?" Yu Ziyuan asked her, voice hoarse and filled with anxiety.

Liang Liu sighed softly before speaking again.

"Madam Yu, please accept my condolences for this bad news that I must inform you of. It is with great sorrow that I tell you that the young heir, even with all the precautions taken to ensure he would be born as healthy as possible, seems to have been born both blind and deaf."

Yu Ziyuan's eyes widened in shock, a cold feeling of dread and numbness spreading over her, as the head healer continued speaking. 

"When my main assistant, Liang Yanhua finished washing and dressing the young master, I laid him down on top of the blankets rested on the table and began my usual checkup to confirm the health of the newborn. As the baby had not made a single sound, I was extremely worried, but when I checked, he was breathing just fine. I moved him around and gently spoke to him, to try to get a reaction, but he only shifted uncomfortably from being moved and then settled down again once I began cradling him gently in my arms. He did not respond to my coos or voice. When he opened his eyes, they slowly moved all over the room but never looked directly at me, even when I spoke a little louder to him. I brushed my finger gently against his cheek softly and he reached for it with his hands but when I moved my hand away he began waving his arms wildly and looking around as if searching for it, even though I kept it in his line of eyesight. I once again spoke to him softly and gently leaned his head in the direction of my hand but he just moved his head away to where it had been before and continued waving his arms around. After a few moments, he gradually stilled and fell asleep soundly before I could feed him. With these observations, I came to the conclusion that the boy is both blind and deaf," Liang Liu finished.

Yu Ziyuan couldn't think. She couldn't. How could this happen? Why would this happen? Why?

Her first pregnancy had been fairly normal, with no hiccups and no larger than normal risks. All the signs had said that the baby would come out healthy and strong, so the only thing to hope for would have been for the baby's gender to be male. - As much as Ziyuan would have liked a daughter, the girl would likely only be a political porn for her husband to sell off in an arranged marriage - . Instead, she had given birth to a weak and sickly little girl. The doctors had informed her that it would be unlikely for the girl to form a golden core, and even if she did, it would likely not be very strong. Therefore, she'd need to give birth to a second child who would become heir. 

She and her husband Jiang Fengmian had waited until their daughter, who they had named Yanli, to grow a little older before trying for another child. She had successfully gotten pregnant within their second month of trying. Compared to her second pregnancy though, her first was a calm walk in the park. Numerous complications had come up, almost resulting in her having to either abort the baby or continue on with an incredibly large risk of a miscarriage that would likely kill both her and her child. Due to the difficulties, many assumed her second child would be much stronger than her first, no matter what gender they turned out to be. 

Unfortunately, while she had been blessed with a male child, a child that would have been the perfect heir, it seemed that the pregnancy struggles they had both gone through had worn down the child and made him even weaker than her first child, by leaving him disabled and essentially useless.

As she continued sinking into the depths of her mind, Yu Ziyuan wondered if the Gods truly hated her so much, to gift her with two equally useless children, one weak and sickly and the other disabled for life. Or maybe the two children were a reflection of her. 

Meishan Yu, while being one of the largest minor sects, was no where near the size or influence of Yunmeng Jiang, one of the five major sects. When she married into the Jiang sect, Yu Ziyuan had been constantly made fun of and pitied by other cultivators for needing to enter a loveless marriage. They said she was too hot tempered and violent to ever be useful or have someone as gentle as Jiang Fengmian pay her any attention. They were quickly shut up by the crackling of zidian, but never truly stopped speaking of her behind her back in the private of their homes. Of course, when her first pregnancy ended in the birth of a weak, sickly daughter, people immediately blamed her and her 'weak' Yu genes and her 'weak' Yu body, for sabotaging the Jiang Sect's chances of a formidable heir. Because of course the Jiang bloodline, as one of the main bloodlines in the five major sects, held no impurities. Therefore, the fault of having such a weak and useless child, and a daughter no less, fell completely on her. 

Now she had given birth to her second child, and though the baby turned out male, was even more useless and weak than her daughter. Had the heavens truly forsaken her? Or were her children really just a representation of how weak and pathetic she was? Of how incompetent she was? Of how much of a disappointment she was? Had she truly tainted the Jiang bloodline? If news of her second child's health got out, both the Jiang sect and the Yu sect's reputations would be tarnished. 

"Get rid of him then," a voice echoed through the room, pulling Yu Ziyuan out of the depths of her mind.

She turned in the direction of the voice and found her husband standing in the doorway. With the attention of the two women fully on him, Jiang Fengmian stepped completely into the room and closed the door behind him before continuing to speak. 

"We cannot keep the boy. His birth will bring shame onto the Jiang sect, as well as the Yu sect, even more so than his sister's birth already has. It is clear that his birth is a mistake we cannot compensate for. He would be a burden to our family and this sect, and it would also be a waste of both time and resources to keep and try to tend to him as he will not be able to serve us any purpose, either politically or physically as a disciple.  Much less as a sect heir."

So he had heard everything then. Yu Ziyuan did not know whether to laugh or cry at that realization. In the end, she agreed with everything het husband said, though she would never admit it out loud, and could find no faults in his logic. She lightly gestured for the head healer to hand her her baby and leave to summon the handmaid who would be tasked with discarding her second child. She loosely held her baby in her arms as Liang Liu exited the room to complete her task. She couldn't help but look at her son in blatant disappointment as he slept soundly, unaware of the world around him and the people making decisions about the ending of his life.

Liang Liu returned soon after with a servant who looked to be in her late forties. The servant was given a thorough rundown of her assigned task by Jiang Fengmian. Yu Ziyuan felt numb as she watched her husband converse with the maid. Once more, she asked Liang Liu to bring her a small box from her room. The head healer quickly and silently left, returning in the same manner, before handing Yu Ziyuan the box she had asked for.

Yu Ziyuan rested her fingers softly on the cover of the box momentarily, before opening it. Inside of the box, was the clarity bell that she had had carved by the best blacksmith in the entirely of Yunmeng, to be gifted to her son when he grew old enough to know what it meant and the significance it carried. Removing the bell from the box, she carefully placed it securely into the folds of the thick swaddles of cloth wrapped around her son. 

"My Lady," Jiang Fengmian called to her, "It is time."

Yu Ziyuan looked up at her husband for a moment, before handing her baby to the maid who had come to stand next to her. The maid bowed to her before leaving the room with her newborn baby, wrapped securely in thick swaddles of fabric, held safely to her chest. Yu Ziyuan prayed for the best for her child's soul.

***

Lin Ju was a simple woman. She worked as a servant for the Jiang sect, had three beautiful children and a loving husband who worked as a blacksmith for the Jiang sect also. She loved her husband and children dearly and would do anything to keep them safe and unharmed. She usually worked with cleaning, laundry and occasionally cooking, if the cooking staff was overworked and needed extra hands. 

So colour her surprised when she was called to the healing quarters, in the middle of the night no less, and told to kill the newborn heir of the Jiang sect, just because he had turned out to be blind and deaf. She had been shocked out of her mind at the news and couldn't help but feel deep sorrow at the child's unfortunate situation. 

Because she had been told to dispose of the child by the Jiang sect leader himself, she could not refuse, so she swore willingly herself to secrecy so that the sect leader would have no reason to threaten her family. Gently picking up the baby in her arms, she walked slowly, in the silence of the night, to Lotus Pier's main lake. She had decided to drown the baby in the lake, as a body would be less likely to be found then. Just as she was settling the baby into the water, an image flashed through her mind and she hesitated.

What if this baby had been one of her children instead? What if it had been one of her nieces or nephews or one of her best friends' children? Would she be so willing to kill the child just because of his disabilities then? Determination flowed through Lin Ju as she lifted the baby higher into her arms and away from the lake water she had been about to rest him in. She quickly trekked to the docks at the mouth of the main river leading out of Lotus Pier, winding through Yunmeng territory, until it eventually exited Yunmeng territory. She placed the bundled baby into a small boat, untied the rope from the docks and pushed it out until it caught a river current and began floating away.

As Lin Ju watched the boat drift into the distance until she was no longer able to see it, a lone tear dripped down her face. She dropped to her knees soon after, clasping her hands together tightly as more tears followed, and prayed fervently for the baby's safety.

***

The boat floated aimlessly for hours, catching current after current until if reached the edge of Yunmeng territory. The baby inside slept peacefully through it all, only awakening when the boat hit a river bank and its incessant but calm rocking stilled. Moments later, the sharp cries of a baby filled the air. However, there were no villages close enough to the boat for people to hear the newborn's loud cries. The villagers were likely sleeping as well, if they even did hear the cries. After a few minutes, a young woman in white and red robes heard the cries of the baby. She seemed to be in her late twenties and had been tuning her pipa when the cries hit her ears.

She got up and followed the echoing noise, soon coming across the boat at the riverside, carrying a bundle of cloth. She parted the folds of cloth and was surprised to see a baby, and one that looked to have just been born as well. The baby's skin was pale and despite being wrapped in thick cloth, actually felt fairly cold. She let some spiritual energy flow to her hands to warm the child as she walked back to her little cottage in the woods.

At the warmth, the child's cries quieted a bit, though not completely. As she did not have any baby clothes, and the newborn seemed to have been thoroughly cleaned already, the woman did not bother with clothes for the baby. She warmed some goats milk with a heating talisman for the child, poured it into a small bottle and gently coaxed the child to drink. It did not take much coaxing since as soon as the baby realized what was being poured into his mouth was edible and tasty, immediately began to suckle strongly on the nib of the bottle, cries finally going completely silent. 

The woman rocked the child slowly as he fed from the bottle until he was full, burping him afterwards to get rid of any excess air the baby may have swallowed while feeding. The newborn spat up before yawning again. She smiled softly at the child and laid him down on her soft bed, surrounded by pillowed to ensure he didn't roll off the bed and then got to work on sewing clothes for the child. 

Over the next week, the woman diligently worked to take care of the child. As the baby slept, she sewed him clothes, built him a crib and even handmade some toys for him. As she had found him on November 5th, the woman decided that that would be his birthday. She also decided to name him 'Cheng' meaning 'clear' as both the night sky and the river where she had found him that day, were crystal clear. 

"A-cheng," she softly called to the child at night.

Within that week, it also didn't take long for the woman to realize that the child was both blind and deaf, which was likely the reason she had found him discarded in a boat near the end of Yunmeng territory. The child was also likely from Yunmeng as the boat had been facing away from inner Yunmeng territory and because the currents that day had been flowing out of Yunmeng. He was probably the child of a high ranking disciple as well, since a clarity bell had been neatly tucked into the swaddles of cloth surrounding him.

None of this really mattered to the woman though and as time went by, she found herself becoming more and more attached to the baby. 

Though, she had begun to notice something strange occurring with A-cheng. He was not able to see her or hear her physically, yet he always seemed to know the general direction she was in and always looked directly in her direction whenever she was using her spiritual energy or training her golden core. It took her another entire week to figure out what was going on, but when she did, she couldn't help the grin of happiness that spread over her face.

She picked up A-cheng and gently spoke to him, though she knew he couldn't hear her.

"It seems that fate has decided to give you a gift in exchange for taking so much from you, A-cheng."

For despite being born both blind and deaf, the child had been gifted with the ability to intimately see and sense spiritual energy.

And with this revelation, came the feeling that the disabled child she had found in a boat on the river in the middle of the night, would bring a great light to the entire world.

The breeze flowed softly and the moon shone peacefully on the woman and the tiny baby.