time-travelling xichen is king of the babies
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She is very tired and very weak, particularly compared to how she remembers herself. Lihua isn't used to moving around this much anymore even without expending spiritual energy. Fearful tension crawls all over her; the muscles in her legs and arms have cramped just from that. She breathes shallowly but not enough so to be concerning.

There does not appear to be any permanent defect or injury.

"I'm just tired," she murmurs. "'m fine, sweetheart." Tries to sit up and -- nope, okay, too dizzy. Fine. Instead she will just - lay down and curl herself around A-Zhan for a bit.

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He kisses her on the forehead and sits down beside her and hugs both of them. 

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Hugs hugs.

She gives herself ten minutes. Then takes a drink of water (she makes A-Huan and A-Zhan drink too) and rises successfully from the ground. Her legs are still a bit stiff; she already knows she's going to be incredibly sore tomorrow. That's fine.

"Alright, A-Huan, do you want to lead us?" She is not sure exactly how she'll do this once they find the place. She definitely does not want to bring her tiny children inside a brothel, but she also does not want to leave her tiny children unattended outside of a brothel. She'll figure something out.

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He nods. 

This part of town is noticeably worse than it would be in the future, but he can still find his way around easily enough. He multitasks between this and worrying about his mom overexerting herself. 

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Here's a brothel, wedged between two other equally shabby buildings. There are a few prostitutes hanging around outside.

And here's a little boy with a little hat, drawing in the dirt with a stick.

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OH NO HE'S SO TINY. 

The little boy is sufficiently out of the way that people aren't going to start associating him with any of the women who are trying to entice people into exchanging money for sexual favors; Xichen can squeeze his mom's hand reassuringly and walk up to him. 

"Are you Meng Yao?"

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The little boy looks up. He has very big eyes and his hair is brushed back very neatly under the dusty grey hat. He looks maybe three years old.

He bows and his hat tips forwards a bit, oops. He tries to fix it and only makes it a bit more lopsided in a different direction. "Yes. Can I help you?" He speaks slowly, carefully articulating each word. It's a valiant effort but he still sounds very baby.

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"I'm not a Jin, but I'm here to rescue you and your mom. Can you take me to her so I can convince her I'm telling the truth?"

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"Are you telling the truth?"

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"Yes. But there are parts of my story that will be hard to believe anyway." 

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"Did Daddy send you?" Stranger boy said he wasn't a Jin, but A-Yao doesn't think he knows any other people.

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"No. ...I'm from the future." 

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His eyes widen, which makes them Very Wide. "Wowww. Why did you come back?"

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"It wasn't on purpose. Someone else decided to go back in time, but the spell they came up with broke time, so the future wouldn't exist anymore. I stopped him from using it but I didn't realize how unstable it was and I was in the middle of it when it went off anyway. Since I'm back now anyway, I'm fixing everything I can, and that includes you. I don't want what happened in the future to happen again." 

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Trying to fix everything sounds very scary. A-Yao is impressed.

"Okay. Please wait a moment gong-zi."

He hops over to one of the prostitutes. "Sisi-jie, can we take that boy to see Mama?"

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She glances over, sees that A-Yao seems to have a friend, just a little older, and nods, patting him on the head. "I'm busy right now, but you can take him."

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A-Yao bounces back to report this.

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"Thank you," he says, offering his hand to hold. 

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!!!!

That's so very nice of him! A-Yao has never held another kid's hand before; he doesn't have any friends his age. Handholding turns out to be pretty nice.

They can go inside and run upstairs to find Mama.

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Xichen tries real hard not to think about how things wound up for future Sisi. 

He takes a deep breath, and looks at Meng Shi with an expression too serious for his five-year-old face. 

"Hello, Meng-guniang. It is an honor to meet you. I have a very unbelievable story to tell you, but I hope you will believe me." 

And then he closes his eyes and hums a tune A-Yao taught him decades in the future. 

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WHAT.

 

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WHAT.

 

"A-Yao, who is this? Did you just teach him that?"

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"A-Yao did not! He's a magic friend from the future."

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"Thirty years from now, a magic accident I failed to stop destroyed all the time between now and then. Because I was at the center of it, I can remember what happened. That future doesn't exist anymore; even if I tried not to change anything, things would inevitably go differently just by chance. So I'm fixing everything I can, and one of the things I can fix is getting you two out of here." 

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Blinkblinkblink. 

 

"Are you sure that you can get us out and away from Yunping? We highly appreciate you visiting us and bestowing your help, gongzi, but there's a reason that girls don't just run off..."

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