The woman before him was not his mother.
Yi Jong knew it with certainty. Her face was unfamiliar- defined cheekbones, black hair, streaked with threads of gold and silver. Mature, but not old, she bore a grace that many women did not posses.
And yet…
Something in him recognized her.
It was a warmth in his chest. A tenderness, a softness as if something in him craved her, not in a man craving a woman way, but a more innocent, pure love of a child towards a mother.
His fingers twitched and he squeezed them. He wanted to embrace her, it was a tingling feeling that overwhelmed him, alongside longing and pain.
His throat tightened. The word hovered on his tongue, unbidden, dangerous:
Mother.
He swallowed it down.
She stepped closer, her embroidered slippers making no noise. Her eyes searched his face with worry.
"Are you hurt?" she asked, voice low and trembling slightly. "Did they attack you?"
Her hands hovered near his arms, as if afraid to touch him, yet desperate to.
Yi Jong recoiled.
"Who are you?"
She flinched, just slightly, but did not retreat.
Memories... no, dreams, surged forward like tide breaking through a dam.
A child's hand, small and sticky, clutching the hem of these very robes.
A high, piping voice calling, "Mother! Wait for me!"
Laughter echoing down a corridor lined with lanterns.
A shadow falling over him, then screams.
He staggered, gripping his head.
"What did you do to me?"
Her face crumpled, but she nodded.
"Not here," she whispered. "Come. Somewhere quieter. Somewhere… more private."
She turned, and despite his wariness, Yi Jong followed.
They stepped out into a ravaged scenery.
The courtyard was a graveyard of shattered stone and scorched earth. Crimson stained the ground, not paint but blood, thick and drying in the sun. Bodies lay half-covered. The air smelled of iron and ash.
She moved like a ghost among the dead, never faltering, never looking back, as if she had walked this path a hundred times before.
They passed through a crumbling archway, into a wilder place. A forest where trees bowed under the weight of moss and memory. A still pond lay ahead, its surface glassy, reflecting the sky.
She stopped at the water's edge.
"I am Meihua," she said, without turning.
Yi Jong said nothing. He waited.
She turned then, her eyes glistening.
"I was banished. For disobedience. For filiality. I was pregnant child when they cast me down into this broken realm," Her voice cracked. "A beautiful baby boy, he was so small when it happened. Barely walking, barely speaking when those creatures broke inside. I was too late. I watched his body being torn before my eyes, limb by limb. His tiny body..."
Yi Jong's stomach twisted. Meihua wailed. A hand squeezed over her bossom as she forced herself to calm to continue her tale.
"I gathered him," she whispered. "Every shard of his soul I could find. I used... something forbidden, to weave him back together. But there was no body left to house him. I could not let him go. In this realm where reincarnation isn't possible, where the dead get corrupted, I did not want my little boy to become one of them. So, I gathered him and when you fell..." Her gaze lifted. Locked onto his.
"I put him in you."
Yi Jong stumbled back.
"You have had dreams, right? Fragments of a life, some yours. Some… his. I placed him, my child, inside you. Not to replace you. But to save him. To give him a chance, a heartbeat, a possibility to grow and live."
She sank to her knees at the pond's edge.
"I am sorry," she wept. "I am so sorry. I stole your wholeness to give him life. I made you carry a ghost. I made you love me without knowing why. I made you ache for a mother you never had because part of you did have me. Once."
Yi Jong stared at her, this stranger.
The warmth in his chest burned now even more, not comfort, but conflict. Recognition warped by violation.
She was not his mother.
And yet…
She was.
He didn't know whether to embrace her or run.
The silence was thick. His hands trembled.
"You… put him in me," he repeated, voice hoarse, as if dragging the words through broken glass. "Without warning, you stitched him into me."
Meihua didn't flinch. She simply bowed her head lower, tears slipping silently down her cheeks.
"I had no choice," she whispered. "These creatures… they don't let souls rest. They twist them. Corrupt them. Turn love into hunger, innocence into rage. I watched them take my boy's body... I, I would not let them take his soul too."
"You were falling through the portal, bleeding, half-dead. A vessel given by fate. I saw you and saw a chance. To save both you and what was left of him."
Yi Jong turned away, pacing to the water's edge. He stared at his reflection his own face, sharp with youth, shadowed with confusion, hardened... but beneath it, he could see himtoo.
"Mother! Wait for me!"
The voice wasn't just memory. It was inside him.
He pressed his palms to his temples.
"He's still here, isn't he? Not gone. Not… absorbed. He's in me. Awake. Watching. Feeling."
Suddenly, he felt more then just his biological mother's hopes on him, more then the people that had died saving him, he felt an obligation towards the child that had become part of him, to live and strive.
Meihua rose slowly, unsteady.
"He is… entwined. Not separate. Not dominant. But not erased. You are Yi Jong, your will, your choices, your life. But he… he is the warmth in your chest when you see my face. I was all he had. This dome all he knew. I don't regret it."
Yi Jong whirled on her.
"And what if I don't want him? If there was a way to stitch him into me, there will be a way to tear him out."
Her face paled.
"You could try," she said softly. "And you might succeed. But soul-stitching is not thread and needle. It is blood and breath and bone-deep magic. To tear him free… you may tear yourself apart with him. I can't bear to lose my child a second time."
She took a step forward, hands open, empty.
"I do not ask for forgiveness. I do not deserve it. I ask only… that you understand. You are not alone. I might not have given birth to you, but if you'll let me, I can be your mentor, your guide in this world... A motherly
figure."
A breeze stirred the trees. A single petal, a plum blossom, silver-edged drifted down and landed on the water between them. It floated there, trembling.
Meihua watched it, then whispered, "His favorite flower. He used to chase them when they fell."
Yi Jong didn't move.
Didn't speak.
But he didn't walk away.
Slowly, hesitantly, walked towards her, not touching, but close enough to be within reach.
"…What was his name?"
Meihua's breath hitched.
"Lian," she said, the name blooming like a prayer on her lips. "My little lotus. Lian."
Yi Jong closed his eyes.
Somewhere inside him, deep, quiet, curled like a sleeping child something stirred.
And whispered back.
Mama.
The pond rippled.
The wind sighed.
He hugged her. If little Lian was craving his mother's embrace, if it'd soothe the pain in his little soul, then he would not leave him depraved of it.