Chapter 46: Let Me Tell You About My Childhood
As things were settled, dinner was served and after dinner, Xing as she had already planned decided to talk about her past to her father.
For now she had showed her willingness to stay with her father by agreeing to follow his rules. If her father cannot accept her after she reveals her past, she could always stay away from here and she would be excluded from her mother’s promise too.
"Father!", Xing spoke politely, " I know about how brother announced to the Imperial Court that you are going to make Lord Táng your Godchild. I told you that I had a complicated past and I would like to tell you about it. You can change your mind about anything and I won’t hold it against you as I myself find me weird"
"Ha ha ha! What an interesting child! Let’s hear it. It’s not fair only my son knows about you", Lord Feiye spoke.
Xing spoke softly sitting beside Shengli,
"Me and mother lived on the other side of the mountains in the water kingdom’s village until I was nearly five and a half years old. Back then I had no good opinion about humans because the people there looked at us weirdly and called mother names. But I always had my animal friends and also the gods"
"Gods as in the gods in legends. You sure?", Rijun interrupted.
"Yes, who else? Don’t interfere the flow", she feigned anger at Rijun and looked at her father and uncle with equally unbelieving faces. Only Shengli was looking at her with a loving gaze. She poured herself some wine and started drinking.
She continued supporting her hands under her chin, "There were many gods but usually one god was particularly fond of me and would often take me to his Palace. Time passes differently there and sometimes, even if I spent days there I would return back hours later the same day as I left here. Also that god did not have much people there, so I was pampered so much there. I will be given their clothes and their jewellery and I could do anything I wish there and no one would stop me. I had seen palaces entirely made of jade and furnished with gold and ivory. Also many other gods would be good to me too. May be because I looked different with black hair and eyes, humans didn’t like me much and considered me a demon. Back then we had food from the mountains and clothes from the heavens and we lacked nothing. I was practically raised by the Gods till I was six and I grew up speaking Guyu language. But then mother brought us to the other side to the village in the wind kingdom. I always couldn’t understand humans and that continued here too and because we were dressed differently and since my looks were different people were scared of us here too, so we mostly stayed in the forests.
It was then I met Shengli and he was the first human who smiled at me without being indifferent. Then later we met Haru and we three were a gang. Ever since I made human friends most gods stayed away from me except a couple of gods who I am still in contact with", she drank a mouthful of water and seeing them still interested she continued, " He taught me to write my first word", she smiled gently at Shengli which he returned, " But he had such a temper. I would not recommend him as a tutor for anyone",she laughed and Rijun and Feiye smiled with her while AoTian didn’t like the way his daughter was looking at Shengli.
"But then he left almost after a year too", she sighed, "After that until now it was me and Haru against the world". She looked down and Shengli patted her hands under the table.
"So Haru, that is Lord Ming Yushen is an important person in your life, huh?", Feiye fished for more details. Rijun was too curious to know more too and he was almost drunk.