Scroll 8 :The Birth of Two Destinies
What he saw first was the weight.
Not the sort of pressure that is poetic, but that which presses in on all sides and makes his bones, which he was just getting accustomed to possessing, feel as though they had been rolled up into balls. It was warm, and heavy and clammy, and wet silk clung to him. and the voices of women were somewhere out in the muffled red gloom, going up and down like the waves, and grunting and sharp commands between.
Ethan was at first completely unaware of what was going on.
Then pain, a twitching, a great yank and the world was spinning. He was run-over, smashed, crashed.
What the fuck…?
The silence world was yelling. It hurt too much, the odor was too intense--warm copper, herbal smoke, something acrid behind it. His head was a blur, yet some ancient instinct of survival said to him this was not merely pain -- this was transition.
A woman was chattering, in his ear, frantically.
"Push, madam, push! The head's crowning!"
Some other sounds were introduced and a market buzz. Where the clan doc?
"He's coming! It bit and was bitten.
"Get the heated towels! Quickly!"
It bit him, and held him by it.
"He's in the next room, preparing the spirit seal!"
It bit him, but kept it. He could hear movement about him--swift steps, the rustle of many-layered silk skirts, the splash of water into a basin.
Then with one push he was off.
Cold slammed into him like a slap. His tiny chest seized, then drew its first ragged breath. The air was sharp with incense smoke, undercut by the musk of sweat and blood. His skin screamed at the sudden change, and his eyes which could barely make sense of the light caught blurry shapes looming over him.
"By the heavens…" one of the women whispered, her voice trembling with awe. "Look at his eyes."
Eyes? Ethan thought, still half-drowning in sensation.
"Such clarity. And… that birthmark. Right on the brow. An omen if I've ever seen one," another muttered, the tone half-fear, half-reverence.
A rough cloth rubbed over him, scraping away warmth and replacing it with something scratchy. His body jolted in the midwife's hands. She murmured something soothing not to him, Ethan noted, but to herself.
They wrapped him in layers of soft silk, still warm from the brazier, and the muffled chaos outside shifted.
"Announce to the clan master the firstborn is here!"
The midwife carried him forward, and the blurs became shapes tall, robed figures, the gleam of jade ornaments at their belts, the soft glint of golden embroidery in firelight.
A man stepped close tall, broad-shouldered, with a face carved into stern lines. His gaze fell on Ethan, and something in the air thickened.
"This is the first son of the Xie clan," the man said. His voice was deep, deliberate, carrying weight. "From this day forth, he shall be named Xie Longyuan."
Longyuan? Ethan's still-forming brain filed the name away with the faint taste of iron in his mouth. It sounded like a sword stroke and a mountain peak had been shoved into two syllables. Not bad dramatic, even but it also reeked of expectations.
Someone else an older woman with a high, lacquered headdress leaned over to inspect him. "Strong lungs," she said dryly. "Good. The heavens favor those who arrive with noise."
Ethan wasn't sure if she was being literal or political.
The man the clan master, he guessed nodded to the wet nurse. "Keep him close. The second child must follow swiftly."
The moment the words left his mouth, Ethan felt a pulse not from himself, but from somewhere behind him. Warmth, thick and vibrant, poured through the air like invisible honey. The midwives gasped in unison.
"The second boy… his Qi is overflowing…"
Ethan's eyes, barely able to focus, flicked in the direction of the source. His newborn brain didn't have the words for it yet, but his mind did: that was power. Unrestrained, rich, destined.
And it wasn't his.
Oh, fantastic, Ethan thought. The moment I show up, I get a co-star who's the golden child.
A faint laugh bubbled inside him the kind he'd have made back in his old life when some street hustler rolled up with the flashiest new shoes, unaware the block would test them within the week. But the humor was edged with calculation. Even here, even like this, the rules hadn't changed: you survive by reading the room, and the "room" right now was a clan birthing chamber with politics baked into the air.
The midwives moved like a well-oiled machine now towels swapped, basins refreshed, talismans lit at the edges with spiritual flame. The older woman murmured prayers under her breath, her voice weaving between the frantic orders.
And then… nothing.
The warmth from the second child didn't swell again. The air in the chamber thickened, not from incense but from unease. The clan master's brows drew together.
"What's the delay?" His tone was calm, but the stillness in it made the air feel sharper.
The head midwife hesitated. Ethan could see it in her hands the way they stilled, clutched the edge of the silk blanket a heartbeat too long.
"My lord…" she began, but her eyes darted toward the bed.
Another woman, younger and paler, hurried to the doorway. Her steps were fast, her silk skirts hissing against the floor. She bowed low before the clan master.
"My lord… the second child will not come out."