Qiuyue Meiyi held her son's hand securely as she lead him outside to their garden. Only a day had passed since her internal declaration, but she was more than eager to get started on her plans to keep her son safe. Though she knew that she would do her best to always be there for him, she also wanted her son to be able to protect himself. The first step to completing that process was 'Communication and Understanding'. Or at least as something somewhat similar to that. Overnight, she had managed to think of a way for A-cheng to learn about and understand the world around him as best as he could, even if he couldn't exactly talk or listen to her.

Qiuyue Meiyi knew her son was very intelligent, despite his disabilities. At just a mere few months old, A-cheng had taught himself how to laugh by (what she assumed to be) memorizing the feeling of the vibrations her voice box made whenever she laughed or talked, and how it was related to the inhalation and exhalation of air through her nose and mouth. She had always wondered why A-cheng had such a fascination with placing his hands on her mouth or nose whenever she spoke, sang or laughed. He also (somehow) taught himself to smile, as small and rare as those smiles may be, by memorizing the movement of the muscles in her face. She had been shocked when the boy began to giggle one late afternoon as he played with a forest rabbit. Wouldn't you be surprised if your blind and deaf son suddenly knew how to laugh and smile?

And all of that was just beginning to scratch the surface of what her son could do. A-cheng had fast reflexes and sharp instincts, and his potential for cultivation was practically limitless. He hadn't even formed a golden core as yet, but he was so in sync with the spiritual energy around him and within him that it was as if they were both one singular entity, and not separate beings as a human and life energy. Though, he had somehow taught himself how to meditate and was well on his way to forming one.

Qiuyue Meiyi sat A-cheng on the ground before picking up a nearby stick and sitting down next to him. She then used the stick to trace the characters making up his name, Qiuyue Cheng, into the dirt in front of him. Afterwards she placed the stick on the ground next to her and gently picked up her son's hand, using his index finger to trace the characters. Once she had done that, she took the same index finger used to trace the characters and pointed it at his chest, poking it lightly. She repeated the process.

"This," she spoke softly as she once again traced the characters written in the dirt with her son's finger, "Means you," she took A-cheng's finger and poked his chest with it.

Her son looked confused for a moment before interpreting what she was doing as a game. He used his finger and traced random patterns in the dirt. When he was satisfied he took her hand and traced over the lines of the pattern with one of her fingers, then took those same fingers and tapped her on the nose. He then turned to face her, a small smile on his face. Qiuyue Meiyi huffed out a breath that was partly a sigh and partly a laugh. She had known this wouldn't be easy but she was willing to be as patient as necessary.

A-cheng may be blind and deaf, but he could still touch and feel things. He wouldn't be able to read books and wouldn't be able to hear her music, but he could still learn how to write and understand said writing.

Two weeks passed like that, with Qiuyue Meiyi bringing her son outside and tracing characters in the dirt or writing the characters on pages when it was raining or too dark to go outside. Within those two weeks, she traced the characters for leaf, bunny, flower, grass, guqin, paper, table, chair, wall, door, dirt, food, rabbit, her son's name, her own name, characters for different kinds of leaves and the characters for different species of flowers. Other than her own name, for which she took her son's hand and pointed it to herself before giving it a small kiss, she had A-cheng hold and trace the object or plant. She let him feel the textures of the leaves, petals and materials so that he would be able to remember them by touch. She also let him do the same thing for the forest rabbits when she traced the character for bunny on the ground.

Even after that however, her son would simply trace random patterns and then cuddle up to her side as if asking for approval. He still seemed to think of it as a game.

At the end of the third week however, things began to change. Instead of tracing random patterns in the dirt, A-cheng began to retrace the characters she had drawn for him previously. They were out in the garden like normal, after having a lunch consisting of rice, fried fish and some fruit, when he began drawing the character for leaf. He then drew the character for door next to it. And next to door, he drew the character for grass. He gently felt the ground where he had traced the characters, making sure not to mess any of them up, before scooting backwards a bit and continuing to write characters in the empty dirt.

One by one, her son wrote over every single character she had been drawing for him and having him trace for the past three weeks. Qiuyue Meiyi watched her baby in awe. Once he had finished writing all of the characters, she didn't wait for him to tug at her robes, she immediately picked him up and spun him around, giving him a kiss on the cheek before cuddling him in her arms.

"Oh my baby, my beautiful baby boy, you did such a wonderful job! Mama loves you so much!" she cooed at her son.

A-cheng hugged her back and nuzzled against her neck. He didn't smile as he usually did, but the firmness of his grip on her clothes was enough to let Qiuyue Meiyi know how her baby was feeling. A-cheng had made a lot of progress, and while he didn't completely understand the purpose of what she was doing as yet, he had made progress none the less. That was something that filled Qiuyue Meiyi with joy.

Two more weeks passed by silently, without anything overly different happening. It was a partly cloudy morning, the sun's rays not feeling as hot as usual and a chilly wind flowing through the air. Qiuyue Meiyi was making breakfast for herself and A-cheng when she suddenly felt sharp, enthusiastic tugs on her dress. The tugs became more and more frantic as she carefully put down the knife in her hand and brushed the vegetables into a bowl. She quickly looked down to find her son looking at her with wide eyes and an extremely wide smile on his face.

When she tried to pick him up to see what was wrong, he dodged her hands and then began running outside, his rigid grip on her dress dragging her behind him. A smile spread over Qiuyue Meiyi's face as she let out an amused sigh. Her son let go of her skirt once they arrived at the garden. He then rushed off into the nearby forest and she sat herself in lotus position on the ground while waiting for him. He came back a few moments later with a bunny in his hands.

A-cheng handed her the bunny gently before frantically pointing at the small animal and gently petting it. Then he sat down on the ground and began drawing something in the dirt. He angled his body in a way so that she wouldn't be able to see what he was drawing. Once he was done, he moved away to let her see. Her eyes widened as she saw what he had written. It was the character for bunny!

A-cheng then began running around the garden, picking different flowers. He picked a plum flower, a lotus flower, a peony, a chrysanthemum, a lilac, a tulip, a sunflower and an orchid. These were all of the flowers she had shown him over the past few weeks. He then drew the characters for all of those flowers and, after prodding each flower for a few moments and tracing each character, placed each flower by their respective name.

Qiuyue Meiyi watched in shock as her son did all of this. Once he was down, he plopped himself down onto her lap, taking the bunny from her arms and cuddling it. She stared in awe at the writing before her. It was neatly presented too. She wrapped her hands around her son and pressed kisses all over his face. A-cheng smiled wider, showing his teeth, and kissed her back on her cheek before nuzzling into the crook between her neck and shoulder.

"Mama is so proud of you little one."

***

A-cheng had just turned six years old. By then, Qiuyue Meiyi had been able to teach son many new things. He now knew how to dress himself and was able to write a larger vocabulary of words. She had also taught him how to hold and wield a knife. A-cheng had just formed his golden core a few months prior so she had decided to teach him about weaponry and how to wield weaponry, though she was sticking with just a knife for now. She also wanted to teach her son how to play musical instruments but was unsure how to.

At the moment, Qiuyue Meiyi was packing bags for herself and her son. She had been writing letters to an old friend of hers who lived in Caiyi Town for a while now, and ended up telling them about A-cheng. Her friend was a master of manipulating spiritual energy and talismans, though they were terrible at wielding swords and any other weaponry. They had offered to try and teach her son some new things, but was unable to travel far distances due to being pregnant themself, so Qiuyue Meiyi had offered to instead travel to Caiyi Town so her friend could remain safe and healthy in her home.

That lead her to where she was now, packing bags for herself and her son. The sun was only just beginning to lower behind the mountain, signifying that it was around mid evening. A-cheng was napping due to tiring himself out from training. Qiuyue Meiyi had bathed and dressed her son, since he had fallen asleep as soon as he sat down in the bath, before laying him in her bed to sleep and going back to packing. In one qiankun bag she packed clothes and shoes, A-cheng's toys and a pouch of money, in another she stored food and water and in the third qiankun pouch she stored all of her weapons, except her sword and fan, along with her pipa and her guqin.

Once all the luggage was packed, she walked back to her room and changed her pink and white hanfu into a black and grey shirt and pants worn under navy blue robes sewn in a similar way to that of the robes worn by Yunmeng Jiang disciples. Afterwards, she attached her sword holster to her hip and attached her sword to it. She decided to hold her fan in her hands or place it in her robes.

Everything was ready so Qiuyue Meiyi headed to her room to wake up her son. She gently pulled open the door to see her six year old child sleeping peacefully on the bed with his stuffed bunny cuddled tightly to his chest. The scene was just so adorable that Qiuyue Meiyi wanted to just run up to A-cheng and hold him firmly in her arms forever to protect his innocence from the outside world. However, she knew she couldn't do that no matter how much she wanted to. They had to get moving on their journey to Caiyi Town. She wanted to put at least somewhat of a dent into their trip to Gusu before it got too late into the night.

She looked her son over one more time before deciding to not wake him up. A-cheng was a light sleeper and often woke up in the middle of the night from the slightest movements of things around him. It was rare for him to nap during the day at all, so she wanted to let him sleep for as long as possible. She gently picked him up, placing a hand under his bottom and curling the other hand over his back and head, which she leaned onto her shoulder. Surprisingly, the boy remained asleep. 

"He must have been really tired today," Qiuyue Meiyi thought to herself.

After ensuring that her son was stably resting in her arms, she ensured all the qiankun pouches were stored safely on her person before exiting the house. She walked out to the garden, breathing in the fresh forest air before continuing to walk. Once she exited their garden, she activated a protective barrier around their house meant to last at least six months. Only she could disable the talismans.

Once that was done, Qiuyue Meiyi called on her sword, using her spiritual energy to remove it from the sheath. The sword had flower and plant patterns decorating the hilt and was coloured with blues, whites and pinks, with a few touches of black in between, as if representing nature's transition from winter to spring. Ironic, considering she had named her sword 'Méihuā'. 

Because she was holding a child in her arms, Qiuyue Meiyi decided to sit on her sword instead of standing as she normally would. She carefully sat herself on the blade of her sword before taking off. She moved slower than normal due to not wanting to drop her son, but found that she had no issue with that. Her little one's safety was the most important after all. 

By the time night time fell upon the family of two, they had made their way from the border of Qishan Wen to Yiling. A-cheng had woken up just a mere half an hour ago and she knew that both her and her son were happy. They would need to find an inn soon. They flew for about fifteen minutes again before they came to a small town. Qiuyue Meiyi slowly lowered to the ground before dismounting her sword and sheathing it. She held her son securely in her arms as she asked a passing villager where the nearest inn was. Surprisingly, there was an inn just down the street that had good service and decent prices.

She entered the inn, calling out a greeting to the inn owner who stood near the entrance. Qiuyue Meiyi booked a single bed room on the upper floor before ordering one of the dinner specials for her and A-cheng to eat. A servant then lead them to the room, telling them to simply ring the room bell outside their door if he needed anything, before heading back downstairs. Room service arrived after ten minutes. The food honestly wasn't bad at all. It consisted of wanton soup, dumplings, chicken wings, steamed rice and steamed fish, and finally mooncakes and lotus seed buns. 

The prices were really good! Qiuyue Meiyi hadn't anticipated how much food it would actually be though. She ate her own dinner while sitting in front of her son, who was also eating, though much slower than her. When his chopsticks would periodically stop moving as though he was lost in thought, she would coax him along by feeding him with her own chopsticks. It didn't take long for A-cheng to become full, with Qiuyue Meiyi following not long after. They had managed to eat everything except the lotus buns, mooncakes and a few dumplings, so Qiuyue Meiyi stored the food away in boxes before placing talismans on the boxes to prevent the food from going stale.  

When the food was securely packed away in her food qiankun pouch, she looked up and realized that her son was not at the table. Panicking slightly, she rushed into the bedroom sighing in relief before realizing that her son was not looking at her. He was staring directly at the wall separating their room from the room on their right, not moving a single muscle. Before she could go over to him to see what was wrong however, a crash was heard from outside of their room. There was yelling and screaming as if someone was fighting and causing a ruckus. As if a flash of lightning struck through him, A-cheng's head whipped to the direction of the ruckus and he ran to the door and threw it open.

Qiuyue Meiyi followed right behind him and was shocked to see the door to the room on the right of theirs broken off its hinges and the servant that had lead them to their room roughly grabbing a child dressed in grey and black robes and dragging him down the corridor by his hair. Rage ignited with a bright spark in Qiuyue Meiyi's veins. 

"A-DIE!!! A-DIE!!! A-NIANG!! A-NIANG!! PLEASE HELP ME!!! A-DIE!!! A-NIANG!!! PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME!!!" the child screamed and cried, begging for his parents who were very obviously absent.

"Shut up you little brat!!!" the servant yelled back, a dark scowl on his face, "Your parents left you here over a week ago and haven't come back!!! We have no more resources to spare letting you stay in that room for free!!! Other customers need it, not you!! GET OUT!!!" 

The child was then thrown violently to the ground. Qiuyue Meiyi had had enough.

"WHAT IN HELL'S NAME IS FUCKING GOING ON HERE?!?!" she screamed.

The moment she spoke, everything happening in the corridor came to a complete stand still.

"M-M-Ma'am- !" the servant stuttered nervously, their previous attitude flying out the window. Qiuyue Meiyi would hear no excuses.

"How dare you treat a child like this???! Look at him!!! He's basically a toddler!!! How dare you do this?!?!" The boy looked only a bit older than her A-cheng, something that made sympathy spread even more through her chest. She spoke up once more, voice clear as day, allowing no room for arguement.

"This boy is my nephew! My sister's son! She ended up collapsing due to injuries on a night hunt so my brother in law asked me to come retrieve their son for him and ensure his safety! How dare you treat him like this!! The child will be staying with me from now on. If there is anyone here that has a problem with that, please inform me. I will pack my things and go to another inn."

"N-n-no miss, that is alright! Please head back to your room! We will send first aid for the boy and clean this mess right away!" Another servant who Qiuyue Meiyi had not seen before reassured her. She huffed irritatedly, before picking up the child and her own son and entering her booked room. The door slammed loudly behind them.

Sighing dejectedly, Qiuyue Meiyi lay her son down on the left side of the bed and patted his head before seating the boy in gray and black robes next to him. He looked scared out of his mind and was shaking, silent tears still pouring out of his eyes. Qiuyue Meiyi petted the boy gently, calming him down a bit before speaking to him softly.

"It's alright not young one. The scary people aren't here anymore. You're safe now."

More tears poured from the boy's eyes as he launched himself into her arms, silent tears turning to heart-wrenching sobs. She hushed the boy gently, telling him that everything would be alright. It took a while, but soon the boy calmed down. Qiuyue Meiy took out her own personal first aid kit and attended to the boy, bandaging the few scraped he had gained from the altercation. She also poured some spiritual energy through him to ease the pains. She then lay on the bed, hugging each child into her neck and whispering calming good nights to them. A-cheng fell asleep first despite having slept earlier. Just as the other boy was about to fall asleep, Qiuyue Meiyi asked him one last question.

"What is your name, young one?"

"Hmm? Ah. My name is Wei Ying miss," the boy replied, before drifting off into a deep sleep.

A/N: Meihua translates to plum blossom in chinese. Plum blossoms were the inspiration for Qiuyue Meiyi's sword. Plum blossoms symbolize hope, beauty, purity and perseverance. Also, in China, plum blossoms bloom from mid-March to mid-April, which is typically during the late winter into early spring (according to google).