Heavenly Child

On the bank of a river surrounded by beautiful golden fields, two men were dragging a beautiful maiden with pure white hair like freshly fallen snow.

The young woman did not struggle against her captors although tears fell from her beautiful crimson rubies-like eyes. Her tears were pure as crystal clear water from a spring, they fell in large drops that only accentuated the inhuman beauty of the maiden.

Behind them walked a rather ordinary looking woman, she had ordinary brown hair and eyes, the only thing that stood out about her appearance was the malice in her eyes and her arrogant smile.

"Damn bitch. You think you can seduce honest men without paying the consequences." She spat at the maiden once they reached a bridge.

"I-I d-didn't do such a s-thing." The maid stammered between tears.

The dark-haired woman slapped her hard across her face, splitting her lip and causing her blood to flow.

"Damn you Ning-Hue! Even when you cry and bleed-" The woman's eyes were full of anger and spite.

"Ming-Ming, what do we do now?" one of the men asked.

"Are you an idiot Shang-Li? Why do you think we brought this bitch to a bridge just when her husband is away from home?"

"Y-you mean w-we're going to-"

"Stop stuttering, stupid brother. We're obviously going to kill her."

Those words are received with much surprise by the three.

"N-no! Ming-Ming." Ning-Hue begs her kidnapper for mercy.

Ming-Ming grabs her chin and looks her straight in the eyes.

"It's your fault! If you weren't so beautiful! If you hadn't seduced my husband then-" Ming-Ming spits in her face and slaps her again. "If you weren't a bitch nothing would have happened to you!"

"I didn't seduce anyone." Ning-Hue mutters through tears. "Why does this have to happen to me?" She says looking at the sky, as if she can see something or someone that the others can't.

The two men throw the poor maiden off the bridge and watch as she sinks under the water.

***

"And she died-" Says a white cat with golden eyes.

"-again." Finish a golden canary with orange eyes.

"What are you looking at?" A pink rabbit appears out of nowhere startling the cat and the canary.

"Mei you almost gave me a heart attack!" The canary yells at her, placing a wing on his chest.

"Yes!" The cat nodded, his fur had stood on end as if he had been electrocuted.

"Stop exaggerating Bao, Dai. You are immortal spirits, you cannot suffer heart attacks." The rabbit, Mei, looks at them through her red eyes as if they are stupid.

"You don't know that!" Answer Bao, the cat spirit.

"Yes! We could be the first spirits to die of a heart attack!" Finish Dai, the canary spirit.

"Dramaqueens." Mei mumbles rolling her eyes. "Anyway, what were you looking at?" She asks again, looking at the sphere of light that was showing the mortal world. "A river?"

"Not just any river!" Dai answers.

"It's the river that killed the holy maiden!" Bao ends up in sync with his friend and partner.

"A river that killed who? How can a river kill someone? And who is the 'holy maiden'?" Mei asks, more and more confused.

"The river killed her by drowning her!" Dai and Bao respond in unison, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Damn murderer!"

"That doesn't make any sense! A river can't choose to kill someone! People die if they fall into the river and can't swim! The river doesn't choose to drown those people, so it can't be a murderer." Mei says annoyed.

"That can't be right, you see. It says it here." Dai pulls out a scroll out of nowhere.

"It's Ning-Hue's death record, it clearly says that the river is the cause of her death." Bao points his paw at the scroll.

"So-" Dai continues.

"The river is the murderer" Finish Bao.

"Ah, yes. That's why I've been avoiding you for a century." Remember exhausted Mei. "And what about this holy maiden, who or what is that?"

"She is the holy maiden."

"Duh."

Mei looks at the two spirits with enough intensity to set them on fire.

"Feng-Huang, give me patience." She murmurs looking at the sun. "And why were you watching this 'holy maiden' die?

"Because it's our job!" They respond proudly.

"You are not spirit servants of Zhao-Yun." Mei runs a paw across her face, trying to calm down.

"Obviously! We do not serve the Great Goddess of Death and Darkness. We serve the great Feng-Huang! The Great God of Life, Light, Rebirth, the-"

"I know who the Phoenix God is!" Mei interrupts them. "I don't need to hear all his titles or I'll spend half a century listening to your skit."

"Killjoy." Bao murmurs.

"Its ok my friend, she doesn't understand true art." Dai comforts him.

"Who exactly gave you the task of observing this 'holy maiden'?" Mei tries to understand what is going on here, which is very difficult given how difficult those two spirits in particular are to understand.

"The great Feng-Huang!" They respond in unison, beaming with pride.

"What?!" Mei yells in surprise. "Feng-Huang gave you two, YOU TWO, a task directly?!" She says as if it's the most unlikely thing of all, as if it's more likely that the Goddess of War, Bai-Hu, becomes a pacifist or the Guide of the Departed, Dizang-Wang, develops a fear of ghosts.

"Yup" The two spirits respond without understanding the reason for the rabbit's skepticism.

`Two centuries ago they were given the task of being the guardians of the favorite mortal of the God of Happiness, that poor mortal ended up with the worst case of depression seen in half a millennium. Before that they were given the task of guiding the most talented cultivator of the millennium on his way to the Celestia World, poor Gan-Yu ended up lost in the Underworld and not even the Great Goddess Zhao-Yun could find his soul until a century later.` Remembers the rabbit spirit.

"What were Feng-Huang's exact words?"

"He said `From that girl my Heavenly Child will be born, make sure Ning-Hua lives a good life`"

"His Heavenly Child?! Feng-Huang never had a Champion before! And he chose the most incompetent spirits in the Celestial World to-"

"Hey! We're not the most incompetent!" Bao interrupts her.

"Yes! That 's Zhu!"

"A god who can't even put his shoes on." Bao shakes his head, as if disappointed.

"What a god!" The canary laughs.

"You can't talk about others when your protégé has just died!" Mei rebukes them.

"Meh, it doesn't matter-"

"We'll just restart again!" Finish Bao.

"Restart?"

"Yes, when Ning-Hue died the first time, the Great Feng-Huang gave us the power to turn back time to make sure she doesn't die before her time!" Dai explains, taking out a golden hourglass, Mei feels a powerful divine energy coming from that artifact, clearly showing that it is an artifact belonging to one of the Great Gods.

"But our job is super difficult!"

"Yes! Every time we changed something, Ning-Hue died in a different way!"

"How many times did you use this artifact?" Mei asks with a lot of suspicion in her voice.

"Five times."

"Five times..." Mei repeats incredulously. "How can a mortal soul withstand the power of a divine artifact of the highest caliber 5 times?" The rabbit seems completely lost.

"Because she is the holy maiden!" Dai answers like it's obvious.

"She will be the ancestor of the great Feng-Huang's Heavenly Child!" Continue Bao.

"She clearly has to have a powerful bloodline!" They end up together.

"In that you are not wrong, if from her bloodline the champion of Phoenix God will be born, she must be someone special. But five times? How did she die?"

"I'm glad you asked!" Bao says as if he has been waiting for this moment. A pair of glasses appears on one puff, and a blackboard on another.

"First we will introduce our protagonist." Dai says, also wears glasses.

`Dramaqueens...` Mei sighs.

"Ning-Hue is the second daughter, and sixth child, of Baron Shen Jian-Zhang and his second wife, Concubine Lin." Bao draws the Shen family, the head of the family in the middle and a line connecting him with each of his concubines, and then the children he had with each one.

With his first and Main Wife, Jiao, he had a son and two daughters.

With his second wife, Concubine Lin, he only had Ning-Hue.

With his third wife, Concubine Rong, he had three sons and one daughter.

In order from oldest to youngest the children are: Luo (son of Jiao), Zihan (son of Rong), Tao (son of Rong), Huan (daughter of Jiao), Wei (son of Rong), Ning-Hue (daughter of Lin), Heng (Jiao's daughter), and Lan-Fen (Rong's daughter).

"Alas, her mother was never a favored concubine-"

"-and she unfortunately passed away when Ning-Hue was still a baby." Bao finishes with a handkerchief on his paw, wiping his tears.

"Our poor Ning-Hue was bullied by her entire family!" In Dai's eyes a fire appears showing his anger, the canary takes a sword out of nowhere and begins to move it in the air as if he wanted to cut into pieces the relatives of his protégé.

"Her father, Jian-Zhang, never paid attention to her and her stepmothers and siblings were mean to her." Two waterfalls fall from Bao's eyes.

"So our only hope for our little snowflake to live a happy life was to find her a good husband." Dai pulls out a sheaf of papers and throws them at Mei, each of the papers showing a suitor's resume.

"We searched and searched." Bao makes a gesture with his paw and all the papers start to fly in a circle around Mei.

"We took into account all the important factors of a good suitor: appearance, personality, wealth, power and reputation!"

`I'm surprised that they went to so much trouble to find a good husband for Ning-Hue, maybe I was wrong and these two aren't so incompetent after all` Mei thinks pleasantly surprised.

"The first suitor we chose was Chen Hao-Yu, the young Duke of the prestigious Chen family."

One of the papers floats in front of Mei. In the presentation image, the rabbit sees a young man with light blue eyes and hair, a mole under his right eye and a serene expression.

`By mortal standards he is indeed a very handsome man.` She has to admit

"Hao-Yu is only eight years older than Ning-Hua, he is the head of one of the most powerful families in the empire and has a great personality!" Dai pulls out a portrait of Hao-Yu out of nowhere and looks at it dreamily. "He is so kind and gentle."

"He is also rich and powerful, he is a Silver rank cultivator and commands an army of 50,000!" Bao also takes out a portrait of the duke and looks at it dreamily.

"If he's such a catch, how come Ning-Hue ended up dying being his wife?" Mei gets right to the point, although she has to admit that the antics of the two spirits are somewhat amusing, she still wants to know what happened to Ning-Hue.

"Alas, our snowflake has the cunning of a baby." Dai sighs and Bao places a paw on his friend's back encouraging him.

"Ning-Hue became Hao-Yu's second wife but since our protégé has a beauty that even Zhu-Nian would envy, the duke did not dart to make her his Main Wife." Bao draws a picture of Hao-Yu and Ning-Hue strolling through a garden lovingly gazing into each other's eyes, hearts floating around them.

"The former Main Wife did not accept defeat and plot against our little snowflake!" Dai draws his sword again and begins to hit a straw doll with a picture of a woman pasted on its head. "Damn you Ling!"

"That woman took advantage of Hao-Yu being away, fulfilling his duties to the emperor, and poisoned Ning-Hue." Bao drew Ning-Hue lying on her dining table with blood coming out of her mouth.

"At first we thought of going back in time and preventing Ling's plot." Dai uses his elemental power and burns the straw doll.

"But then we realized that our Ning-Hue wasn't meant to live in a harem, she's too delicate and gentle to deal with all that backstabbing and plotting." Bao drew his ward with a halo of light around her head.

"So we went back in time before her wedding and chose another suitor." Dai spins the papers around Mei again with a movement of his wing.

"This time we look for candidates who don't want more than one wife." Bao puts a paw on his chin thoughtfully.

"We searched and searched-"

"-and we finally chose the perfect candidate!" Bao moves his paw and the papers stop spinning around Mei, they fall to the ground and only one remains floating in front of the rabbit.

"Marquise Xu Pinyan!" They end up together.

The man in the image has black hair and green eyes.

`As handsome as the last`

"Pinyan is Ning-Hue's age and a childhood friend of hers." Dai nods, proud of himself.

"He is quite introverted on the outside, but with his loved ones he is very affectionate and doting." Bao draws Pinyan giving Ning-Hue a mountain of gifts.

"When he was young he saw how his father's concubines fought over him, he himself was almost killed by one of them. Which is why he swore not to take more than one wife, to avoid such conflicts." Dai looks at Pinyan's portrait approvingly.

"So how did Ning-Hue die this time?" Mei goes back to the heart of the matter.

"Pinyan's sister, she is the worst brocon I have seen in the last century." Bao sighs.

"That damn brat strangled my little Ning-Hue!" Dai pulls out another straw doll, this one with Xu An's image on it, and starts beating it.

"Getting rid of Pinyan's sister was not possible, since he adores her. So we had to go back to the beginning. This time the candidate had to not only want no more than a wife but not have crazy sisters either." Bao spins the candidate papers around Mei again.

"We searched and searched-"

"-and we finally found the perfect candidate!" Bao moves his paw and the papers fall to the ground, only one remains floating in front of Mei.

A man with dark brown hair and violet eyes.

`Another beauty`

"Yu Qi is a second-rank general, a talented cultivator, and a very wealthy man." Dai looks at Yu Qi's portrait approvingly.

"Her marriage to him was ideal, but then, after the war ended, Yu Qi confessed something to his wife-"

"-Yu Qi is actually the second son of the Emperor!" The two spirits scream.

"Wait! How come you didn't know that!" Mei looks at them in disbelief. "Right here, in the family section, it clearly states it!" The rabbit points at the paper.

"We just looked that he didn't have any sisters!" Dai crosses his wings.

"Yes! Who his parents are was never important."

"How did Ning-Yue die this time?" Mei rubs her temples, increasingly stressed.

"The wife of one of the Secret Prince's brothers." Bao draws a laughing woman with a fan in front of her face, at her feet is Ning-Hue with several arrows stuck in her body.

"That cockroach's husband was making his move to become emperor, weakening the family's most talented warrior was his first move." Dai takes out two straw dolls, one with the image of a woman glued on it and the other with a man.

"We learned our lesson. We knew that Ning-Hue's next husband has to be someone with a kind and loving family who isn't involved in politics. He, also, doesn't have to be very rich so as not to incite jealousy from others." Bao spins the papers around Mei again.

"We searched and searched-"

"-and we finally found the perfect candidate!" Dai makes all but one of the papers fall to the ground.

In front of Mei floats a paper with the image of a very handsome man, with dark gray hair and silver eyes.

"Mu Qing-Xiao is the heir to a family of former cultivators, currently they have several businesses in a port city and they are well off but not very rich. Qing-Xiao is an only child and has no siblings or cousins, his only living family It's his old grandfather who is very kind." Bao draws the suitor and his grandfather in front of a small manor.

"What went wrong this time?" Mei is curious, it seems that everything that could go wrong for Ning-Hue so far has gone wrong. `For someone protected by Feng-Huang this child sure has a horrible luck`

"An epidemic..." Dai slump to the ground.

"A horrible disease spread along the coast. Ning-Hue was one of the victims." Bao explains.

"The next candidate had to be someone who lives apart from society so that diseases do not reach Ning-Hue, someone without family or enemies." Dai makes the papers fly around Mei again.

"We searched and searched-"

"- and we finally found the perfect candidate!"

The paper floating in front of Mei once the others fell to the ground shows a man with dark violet hair and dark indigo eyes.

"Xuan Yuan-Che. A cultivator who lives secluded in a mansion in the countryside and is dedicated to his training, he inherited quite a fortune from his family but lives modestly." Bao draws Yuan-Che training bare-chested in front of a waterfall.

"That was the death in the river? How did that happen?"

"Although they lived far away from civilization, they still went to the neighboring town from time to time. During those visits, the beauty of Ning-Hue captured the hearts of many men. That witch Ming-Ming is a jealous and cruel woman." Dai summons a doll with the image of Ming-Ming and begins to hit it with his sword.

"Ning-Hue's next husband has to be a complete hermit." Bao starts looking through the papers.

"Wait!" Mei makes a gesture with her paw and all the papers disappear. "And if instead of changing the suitor we change the protagonist."

"You are crazy?" Dai looks at her with eyes bright with fury.

"Ning-Hue is Feng-Huang's chosen one!" Bao looks equally outraged.

"I didn't mean to find someone else, you idiots." Mei yells at them. "I wanted to say let's change the kind of person Ning-Hue is."

"Eh?" The two spirits look at her confused without fully understanding what she meant.

"All those deaths have one thing in common: Ning-Hue wasn't able to defend herself. Whether due to lack of willpower, of cunning or of strength. If we transform the holy maiden into someone cunning, strong and with great determination I am sure she will live a great life!"

"But we can't influence mortals like that!" Bao protested.

"Yes! Changing their personality is forbidden!"

"We're not going to change Ning-Hua's personality using our power! One's personality is the result of their circumstances, that's what we're going to change."

"Eh?"

"Ning-Hue grew up being abused by her family, being weak and manipulable is all she knew. If we change her childhood she will surely become someone different!"

"Wow!" The two spirits look at her with admiration.

"I never thought of something like that!" Bao takes off his glasses and they disappear with a puff.

"As expected of one of the wisest spirits in the Celestial World!" Dai also takes off his glasses.

Mei coughs and turns her head to hide her blush.

"Well, now we have to find someone suitable to raise Ning-Hue." Mei summons a very long scroll containing all the information she has about Ning-Hue. "It has to be someone from her mother's family, her father's family are the ones who abused her. Let's see- Wait!" Mei reads a paragraph over and over again.

"What's happening?" Bao and Dai float next to Mei and also look at the scroll.

"It says here that Ning-Hue's mother was poisoned by her husband for cheating on him with another man, and after that he suspected that Ning-Hue is not his daughter and that is why he ignored her!" Mei points her paw at the scroll.

"Huh, Lin was a naughty mortal." Dai comments rather nonchalantly.

"Can't you see?!" Mei looks annoyed at the two idiots who are looking at her in confusion. "If we prevent Lin's death then she will raise Ning-Hue! We just have to change Lin's punishment to be exiled to the countryside and for her to take-"

"Ning-Hue with her!" Finish Bao.

"That's brilliant! So Ning-Hue will grow up with a loving mother away from her mean family." Dai takes out the hourglass and activates it.

"Wait-!" Mei tries to stop him but it's too late. The two spirits use their powers to influence the events of the Mortal World's past and change events.

"Idiots first we had to see if Lin was a good person!" Mei yells at them.

"She's her mother, I'm sure Ning-Hue will be fine!" Bao dismissed her worries.

"The babies don't do anything so we can take a break until Ning-Hue is older. Bao, let's go visit Inari! I want sake!"

"Yes! Inari makes the best sake!" The two spirits disappear in a puff.

Mei sighs and turns her gaze to the mortal world. She watches as Lin, still pregnant with Ning-Hue, gets into a carriage headed for a Shen family manor in the countryside, far from the empire's capital.

"Looks like you'll have quite a different life this time, little one." Mei looks at Lin with narrowed eyes, the woman does not inspire much confidence. "Those idiots turned back time in the mortal world 18 years! That means-" Mei quickly disappears, teleporting into the Spirits Council room.

As soon as she arrives she sees a great commotion.

"-time went backwards-"

"Years of work thrown away-"

"-who is the bastard that-"

`As I expected, nobody likes the idea of ​​repeating two decades of work...`

What will become of little Ning-Hue this time?

What kind of person will she become?

Will Lin be a good mother?

***

NOTES: This will be a short novel (At the moment I plan it to have about 20-30K words, its main purpose is to start writing Original Novels)

-In the Chinese-like culture of this type of novels a noble man can have multiple wives, but only one Main Wife, that woman has the greatest power within the house, only surpassed by the widow of the late Lord.

The rank of the children go from eldest to youngest, and who is their mother. A child, even if he is the youngest, will have more power if his mother is the Main Wife.

The children of a family, brothers and cousins ​​included, are addressed as First Son/Brother, Second Son/Brother... same with girls.

Ning-Hue is the Second Daughter/sister of Shen Family, but she is the sixth child, having 4 older brothers and an older sister.

-Another note, the ranks of cultivators in this world are:

Cotton

Stone

Iron

Bronze

Silver

-Gold

Jadeite

Nephrite

Each rank has nine levels, being 1(highest) and 9 (lowest).

Cultivators are a background theme of the novel, it will not be a cultivation novel.

-A Heavenly Child is the champion of a god.