Chapter 7: A Mother's Love (dream)

Chapter 7: A Mother's Love (dream)

A long time ago, in the Xin family, a boy was about to be born.

"Come on, one more push, Ying Yue!" a large woman who served as the midwife exclaimed.

On that day, a perfect delivery occurred, but the midwife still wore an unsightly expression. An unbearable feeling washed over her whenever she came close to the baby. Still, she was a professional. She cut the umbilical cord, cleaned the newborn, wrapped him gently, and passed him back to his mother.

His cries echoed through the hall, sharp and clear, as his mother hush him calmly with emotions in her eyes.

Looking at her child, Ying Yue, felt a strange fear rise within her the moment she held her child which she dismissed as stress from the delivery, but the joy of seeing her baby alive and breathing smothered any discomfort she felt. The newborn eyes were closed tightly as he wail.

Not long a man with a short blonde beard and matching short hair entered the room. It was Xin Feng.

"Ying Yi, are you okay? How are you feeling? I will ask the maid to help you for a while and also get some herbs to help you regain some blood and your health, okay?" Xin Feng quickly said the moment he enter and saw the tired woman, with a worried expression.

"Yes, yes. But, you should be more worried about our son! You didn't even ask of him." she said, scolding him softly with a small smile on her face.

Xin Feng bit his lower lip. It was clear from his expression that the situation was not ideal for him.

"He does not mean as much to me as you do, Yi Ying." Xin Feng replied indifferently making Yi Ying feel hurt and frown.

"He's yours now, and I want you to please treat him the way you do to me. Whatever grudge you hold against me should be on me and not the innocent child." Ying Yue replied, her voice soft, eyes fixed on Ryuk with a smile as she watches him doze off.

....

The Xin household had four wives.

Ying Yue was the fourth, the least favored. As she was just a maid whom Xin Feng forced himself in and ended up in such a situation.

Because of this, the elder wives made her bow before them and treat her harshly as they felt like she was here to disrupt the balance between the three of them and take the man's wealth. They called her the used thing behind her back and sometimes to her face and even made their maids never respect her.

But she always smiled and said nothing, she bowed so Ryuk could eat. She scrubbed floors so he could have old clothes. She stitched holes in worn shoes under candlelight, she took leftover food from the servants' quarters and blew on it gently, whispering, "Pretend it's from a royal banquet, my star."

Each night, after Ryuk drifted to sleep, Ying Yue sat by the window with a cracked bowl of rice wine and stared into the sky, speaking softly so only the stars and gods could hear her.

"Please, just let him live. Just let him survive."

Sometimes she cried so quietly that Ryuk wakes up innocently and stare at her.

---

When Ryuk was five, he suddenly asked her, "Why do the others not like me and you mom? Why do big brother always beat me without me causing problems?"

"Ryuk." Yi Ying mutters as she looks at her son who was growing up with healthy look, due to her always giving him half her own food, it was natural for him to look a bit healthy, "Maybe because we were never meant to be with them."

He tilted his head. "But... Am I not their sibling, mummy?"

"You are..."

---

There were nights she read him stories to him she half-remembered from her youth.

"Pangu," she said as they lay on their hay bed, "split the sky from the earth with an axe… every drop of his sweat made rivers, every breath made wind… it was said that he fuse with the heavens and becomes the heavens itself and he was the reason we are here."

Ryuk would blink and stare at her face, not the storybook.

"Do you think he was lonely after being in the heavens for this long without anyone to talk to?" he asked innocently.

She paused, then nodded. "Very."

"Then I will be as strong as Pangu to talk with him everyday!"

"Hahaha, I'm sure you will. Okay now, go to sleep."

---

When Ryuk was four, the servants discovered a pile of bones and mangled skins near his room, stacked within a shabbily built hole. He had killed over a hundred rabbits, two hundred rats, and other small pests. The event itself might have been brushed aside, but the gruesomeness of the scene even frightened professional hunters within the Xin family.

Later that same year, Ryuk's mother fell ill. She was expected to recover quickly.

Ying Yue, still smiling, washed his bloodied hands herself.

"Ryuk, my darling, you should not kill if they didn't strike you first. Those pests are living things too. You are the most excellent and brilliant star in this village. Do not ruin your shine with blood," Ying Yue said gently, stroking Ryuk's short black hair.

"Mother, it is just that... if I do not kill, I feel like i can't breathe, something suffocating me. If I hold it in for too long, it feels like hunger or thirst," Ryuk confessed before falling deeper into his mother's warm embrace.

She touched his cheek. "Then learn how to control it and don't let it control you. You don't want to wake up one day and see that you hurt your mom right?"

He stared at her and frown before replying. "I would never hurt you."

She smiled, then whispered, "Even if you did… I'd still love you. But don't, you should be the master of your will and not the hunger."

She then began to hum a melody. Though the words were joyful, her expression revealed pain.

"Mother, why does Father call you Ying Yi, and why does he not love me?" Ryuk asked awkwardly.

"Ying Yi was my sister. Your aunt. She died many years before you were born, and your father fell into a deep depression. Your grandmother forced my family to offer me in marriage to him. But I was already pregnant, and even though I joined the family, your grandmother declared that you would never be accepted as a true member. Your father, who mistook me for my sister, agreed. I then said firmly that I would not marry your father unless he accepted you. But your grandmother was a woman who never made deals. She sold my family, beat me for three months, and was ready to kill you. So I surrendered," she said, her eyes absent and her voice distant.

"Mother..." Ryuk whispered, tears streaming down his face as the weight of her suffering sank in. Fury bubbled within him.

"Your real father was a soldier. He died in the very first battle he fought and I've never seen his corpse," she added, looking weaker and more delirious by the second.

---

Ying Yue's health began to slip during the final frost of winter.

At first, no one noticed. The elder wives mocked her slow steps and accused her of faking weakness just to avoid chores. Xin Feng didn't even glance her way—he simply stepped over her when she collapsed while sweeping the hall.

Ryuk noticed.

He saw how her fingers trembled even when holding a spoon. He heard her dry coughs at night, hidden under the thin blanket. And most of all, he saw her force a smile every time she looked at him, just to pretend everything was fine.

But it wasn't.

Ryuk tried to help. He fetched water from the courtyard well, slipping and scraping his knees on the icy tiles. When he brought the bowl to her, one of the servant boys snatched it from his hand and threw it on the ground.

"You think you're allowed to act noble?" the boy sneered, pushing him. "Know your place, freak."

Later that night, Ryuk's legs were covered in bruises. He was beaten for stealing firewood to keep his mother warm.

Ying Yue cried silently as she held him. "You're my star," she whispered through cracked lips. "Stars don't cry."

But Ryuk cried anyway, hiding under the bed, biting his sleeve to silence the sound.

---

On the third week of her illness, Ryuk found her coughing into her pillow—this time with blood.

His heart dropped.

"Mother!" he shouted, rushing to her side. Her skin was cold, damp with sweat, and her eyes—sunken and weak—still tried to focus on him.

"I'm fine, darling," she said, barely audible. "Did you eat today?"

He clenched his fists. "I stole bread," he muttered. "A boy laughed at me… so I hit him."

Her face dimmed. "Ryuk… no."

"What was I supposed to do?" His voice cracked. "They call me a monster! They spit in our food! They said you're nothing, that I'm nothing—!"

Her pale hand reached up and gently touched his cheek.

"You mustn't lose yourself," she whispered. "Even if the whole world turns to beasts, you… stay human. Promise me."

He looked away, ashamed. "I don't know if I can."

Ying Yue smiled faintly, then turned to face the wall. "Then I'll believe for you… Just let me rest. I think… I'll sleep now…"

Ryuk sat beside her bed all night, holding her cold fingers.

By morning, she was still.