18 Teacher Mei Hua

One day, she was sitting on a floor pillow at the table, writing. She started keeping a diary after returning back to the mountains. This was partially because of Jin, who gave her something to write about, but also because she fancied she was following in Xuiying's footsteps.

Xuiying… the Blue Flower Empress. From the western town and the tales they'd passed down through the generations, Mei Hua had learned all about Empress Xuiying, Mother of the Fairies. She'd been a kind, somewhat mischievous, Fairy Empress who watched over the Blue Flower Village. Apparently she'd loved the people there. When the Emperor had been thrown into a fury, she'd risked her life—and eventually given up her home—to save the Villagers.

No wonder Ye was so bitter towards the Emperor. Not only was he heartbroken that Xuiying had left, he wasn't even allowed to talk about her. Mei Hua could tell, even if they couldn't speak of Xuiying directly, that Ye had loved and respected the Empress. Her absence had hit him hard, and even hundreds of years later, he still mourned for her.

As to the Emperor, Mei Hua had mixed feelings. She knew, based off the tales, that he'd hated the humans. But up until the day of the attack, he'd had nothing to do with them. Had a human done something to set him off? Even so, the Blue Flower Village had nothing to do with it! They'd been totally surprised by the attack.

His fury over whatever had happened, lasted for years and years afterward. The legends say a storm stayed right over the mountain where the fight occurred for at least fifty years. Once it cleared, people had thought he might have calmed down, but any time someone ventured onto the mountain, the fairies would kill them and then wolves would drag their corpse through the nearby town as a warning. After more time had passed, people who stupidly went inside the forests simply never returned again.

A vicious and cruel Blue Fairy King, indeed. It's no wonder the Mayor hadn't been willing to anger him. Who wanted their corpse dragged through a town by a pack of wolves?

Yet… Mei Hua had lived here for over ten years by that same King's grace. He'd even broken their deal to save her, but then acted as though it was still in effect. Doing so had protected her from harm. And then he'd guided over a hundred people safely through, accepting only songs in return. And now there was Jin, someone so special Ye had been forbidden of speaking of his origin.

The Emperor had changed.

She suspected time had cooled his temper and when it did, he'd realized he was all alone. There was only him and the Empress, after all. The fairies had been their creations, not their siblings or their children. The Emperor had chased away the one person in all the world who could truly understand him. The regret he'd been feeling must have been intense.

So intense he let a little girl on the mountain, just to keep him company.

That must be why he liked the songs. They reminded him he wasn't alone. Perhaps Jin had been brought on the mountain for a similar reason: to make him feel less lonely. Would he bring other humans on the mountain over time?

If she lived long enough, would the Blue Flower Village revive?

She liked the thought of that.

If that were the case, she must write down for future generations what had transpired after the Empress left. So she took up brush and ink, and began the task of filling in all the blank spots in the mountain's history (that she knew) and continued the recording.

As she did, naturally Jin was there. He watched her curiously for a bit, and then lay down and curled his body around her sitting form. He hummed to himself, pleased about something only he could understand.

After a while, he got restless and sat back up again, watching her hand move back and forth. He sat next to her and stretched out his upper body on the table, just keeping enough distance not to disturb her work. Two blue-gold, slightly glowing eyes followed her well-practiced brush strokes.

Finally she couldn't take it anymore and asked, "You seem very interested. I imagine you don't know how to write. Would you like to learn?"

He glanced up at her, brows crinkled. "MeiMei, what is 'write'?"

"Writing is putting words on paper."

Jin's eyes widened and sat up. He pointed at the paper. "Paper is this?"

She nodded.

"Paper is that?" He pointed at the scrolls.

She nodded again.

He began to shift around, apparently extremely excited about this new information. "If I open the paper, the words speak?"

"Uh… no, no. You need to read them. Reading lets you see the words on paper, and understand what they mean."

"Read… you teach, MeiMei?"

"Yes, of course. If you can't read, what's the point of writing?"

"MeiMei! Teach Jin to write, to read!" He grabbed her sleeve, tugging a bit too hard in his excitement.

"I will, but stop tugging. You're going to rip my sleeve!" He really might. She'd figured out quite some time ago that Jin was ridiculously strong for as thin as he was. She had no idea why, as he seemed completely ignorant of both martial and mystic arts. His body shouldn't be that strong without at least one of those, but it was.

Jin stopped tugging, instead balling up his hands into fist and moving them around like a happy child.

Mei Hua sighed, unsure of whether to think this a good thing.

"Jin, I will teach you reading and writing, but you should know it can be boring. You must sit still and you must concentrate on what's in front of you. To learn this skill, a lot of patience is required. Can you do that?"

Patting his chest, he said confidently, "Jin can sit for a very long time. MeiMei, don't worry. Jin will not spill the soup!"

Mei Hua covered her mouth and turned away, trying not to laugh at his honest enthusiasm. Ever since he'd burned his mouth on that first day, he'd always linked patience with drinking soup.

"Jin I do want to believe you, but your past behavior shows you like to move… a lot. So you're going to have to prove your words with actions." Mei Hua never coddled Jin, even when it would have made things easier for her.

The man nodded slowly, bowing his head respectfully as Mei Hua had shown him. "Jin will not disappoint you."

Ye, who'd been watching the whole time, said nothing. Usually he'd jump at the chance to mock or belittle Jin. But this time he'd remained quiet.

Instead, he was looking at Jin with a very odd expression on his face. It was something between astonishment and anger. Neither of them heard him as he muttered, "I suppose she'd be happy, but I'm not. Too little, too late."