Was a dream really just a dream?

It was on my mind as I stared out across my property, waiting for breakfast. The world was clad in a thin blanket of pure white.

I was… content. It was almost an irrational feeling, but the dream had been very nice. Even as it faded, I remembered us all working together.

I turned to my wife, who also had a smile on her face.

“When I was little, my aim was so bad that instead of throwing snowballs, I had to run right up to people and try to smush it on them.” I said to my wife. She smiled at the admission.

“I once set a pit trap for Meihua and blamed it on Gou and Yun. She drop-kicked both of them into the river, and still brings it up from time to time, not knowing it was me.” Meiling returned, completing our morning ritual.

I snorted, and we both got up, Meimei marching straight for the outhouse. She had complained about needing to go more often, recently, due to the pregnancy.

I, on the other hand, had little to do, as I wasn’t in charge of anything this morning. Instead, my attention drifted to everybody else.

Maybe it was the winter wonderland that had greeted us in the morning. Snow covering the farm, turning it into a picturesque scene. Chunky certainly enjoyed it all. He was dashing around already, rolling happily in the snow, with Peppa breaking her usual prim attitude to follow him in the snowy landscape. He hadn’t had any nightmares last night, and it showed.

He looked as happy as I felt.

Xiulan came down from her room with Tigu still half asleep on her back. Both had small smiles on their faces.

“You two have good dreams last night?” I joked.

Xiulan just nodded. “Yes, it was a wonderful dream.” She said, as she tapped at Tigu, fully waking her up. Tigu grumbled for a moment, before perking up and grabbing onto Xiulan, and then Bowu’s arms, the boy up before Xianghua and Gou. She pulled them along, charging out into the snow.

A dream, huh? I frowned at it. The dream last night had been… well, it had been so real, despite most of it being kind of a blur. Real and familiar.

That little girl had felt like an old friend.

Honestly, I’d thought the dreams of her had been happening because I was going to be a dad. You dreamed of your kid, right?

But now… now I wasn’t so sure. The normally fleeting memories of my dreams were a bit clearer this time. I could see her. The damage on her body. The golden cracks that wound through her body. Just like the cracks that had appeared on my arm and the one on Xiulan’s chest.

And the energy that I felt. The same energy I felt every time I pulled on my own Qi.

I didn’t know what she was and I wanted answers. But the look in her eyes had stopped me.

The exhaustion and hope. But most of all… the trust. She trusted us.

We’d have a talk when she woke up in the spring. I wasn’t going to wake her up right now, and demand answers. We would talk, eventually, get everything sorted out and on the table.

For now, I wished her sweet dreams.

I couldn’t help but smile and shook my head— and then noticed Tigu carting out some of the sculptures she had made last year. The very same sculptures of me that were near universally naked.

She planted the one she was carrying, the one of me flipping over a boar, along the walkway to the house and grinned. Xiulan and Bowu were with her, each carrying a sculpture of their own. Bowu looked quite embarrassed, while Xiulan just seemed amused.

“There! Now we can see how much I’ve improved this year!” Tigu declared as she stared at them with pride.

Three sculptures were placed down beside the walkway and then Tigu skipped away with her helpers, going to get the rest of them out.

I sighed and shook my head. Well, I had kept them. I shouldn’t have been surprised that Tigu was getting them out...and arranging them around the house.

About a minute later, Xianghua and Gou Ren, who were walking arm in arm, came from their own house. Both paused. Xianghua glanced down at the crotch area of the sculptures.

She blinked at them twice. She tilted her head to the side, and then whispered something to Gou Ren.

My friend gained a beatific smile and nodded his head.

Xianghua looked stunned as they walked past them and into the house. Xianghua found Meiling, who was just setting some food out, and planted a hand on her shoulder.

“Lady Meiling, my deepest condolences.” She stated.

Meimei just looked confused while I sidled up behind the man who was trying not to laugh.

I slung an arm around his shoulder, in a friendly way. Gou Ren paled, realising I knew what he had done, and immediately started to struggle. He had gotten pretty strong…

But not strong enough, as he went face-first into the snow.

The first day of snow was heralded by a snowball fight of epic proportions— where cultivators used all their strength and skill to topple each other.

In the end, we were all sopping wet. But that was half the fun, sitting around the fire afterwards, drinking tea and laughing.

=========================

The rest of the day wasn’t very busy. Sure, there were some checks I had to do. Inspecting each building, looking for holes, or anything to patch up that had been revealed by the cold.

Many hands made for light work though and we had a whole lot of hands. It made it easier that we had built everything so well, so there were minimal repairs.

We ended up just going for a walk into the back of the property, across another river and into the trees, our breaths steaming out before us in the chill.

It was a quiet contented silence that surrounded us for the most part. The snow dampened the sound, and there was barely any wind. What remained was the crunching of our boots, and Gou and Xiulan’s happy chattering voices as they explained what hockey was to Xianghua. The woman looked intrigued.

Yun Ren was heckling Chunky about something, and the others were all talking amongst themselves. I hadn’t even really noticed that I had walked in the lead. At the head, forging the path onward, with everybody else falling into place behind me.

It honestly felt a bit strange, to look over everybody. It was a bit strange that I was the guy in charge.

Neither me nor Rou had ever really had so many people in our lives, not like this. Sure, I had played babysitter to a host of cousins. But the bonds here were more… Intense than that. Or so I felt.

It felt different to look at Big D, Rizzo and Yin sitting together on a tree branch, staring up into the sky. Yun Ren pulling open a sack of nuts that Chunky and Washy had unearthed, sharing some of their bouty with them. To Tigu packing snow together with Meiling, making their own little snowman.

Whenever they saw me, or looked at me, they all brightened up in their own little way. Xiulan’s soft smile. Gou Ren’s grin. Yun Ren’s smirk, and Big D’s nod. Chunky’s pleased oink and Washy’s searching eyes, seeing if I had any snacks.

When they looked back at me, what hit me the most was their…trust in me.

It wasn’t something that needed to be said, or discussed. It was something deeper than that. A feeling.

It was absolutely and utterly humbling. And after that dream. After that girl, and the feeling I got in my chest… I could finally see it.

==========================

That night, I was in the greenhouse.

The planters had been moved in, and seeded, next to the beehive. The creatures within were probably a bit confused at the moment, but at least I wouldn’t have to deal with my best producers freezing to death.

“Quite the day, wasn't it?” My wife asked from where she was curled up in my lap. Mei loved this place. She had a smug grin plastered on her face. She was practicing her knitting, while I was strumming my banjo idly.

“Quiet you.” I grumped back, and tugged at my clothing.

What had started as another game of Go against Xiulan had got both Meimei and Xianghua heckling us to make it Strip Go—and Xiulan had agreed.

Mostly because she knew she would kick my ass, the ass. I ended up stripped down to my skivvies while Xiulan went undefeated.

I mean, I knew that it was going to happen, but couldn’t she have thrown one game or something?! Then she booked it when Meiling challenged her, out the door and dragging a confused Tigu by her collar along for “training”.

My wife giggled, again, at my misfortune and leaned into me. She took a deep breath of the earthy scented air— and then she suddenly started, her hand flying to her stomach. Her eyes widened, and I felt a wave of panic suddenly come over me. I could feel every alarm going off in my entire being.

Her breath came out shallowly as she turned to look at me.

“That was a strong one.” she muttered, breathing deeply. She looked ok. Immediately, I calmed, slumping down in relief. “It’s been kicking for a while now, but nothing like this—ah!”

My hand shot to her stomach and I felt the little tremor, the little bulge where a foot stuck out for but a moment.

Her stomach getting big was one thing. But this… this was complete proof. It was real. The feeling of my child moving.

I swallowed thickly.

“How…. how does it feel?” I asked, and Meimei waved me off.

“It tickles… a little—geh!” She suddenly winced.

“Are you okay?!”

“Right in the bladder. I nearly pissed myself.” My wife harrumphed, glancing at her empty cup of tea.

I snorted, slumping in my seat, then I couldn’t help myself as I started to laugh and Meimei soon joined me.

“It's… not too far off now, isn’t it?” I asked, and my wife nodded.

“Three months and… eight days?” she hazarded after thinking it over for a moment.

Three months. Three months and eight days. Into the new year. A baby born in the last few weeks of winter just before spring.

My arms tightened around my wife.

Would… Would I be a good father?

I had no idea.

I felt the weight of the question when I looked down at Meimei, how happy she was. How much she trusted me.

We settled back down, just sitting together, basking in the warmth.

“Hey… Jin?”

“Mmm?”

“Where did you learn about all this stuff, anyway?” She asked idly. “What you say sometimes… well, a lot of it doesn’t use Qi. Are the doctors in Raging Waterfall Gorge just that much more advanced?”

She caught me off guard with that. It was clearly a question of idle curiosity. I hadn’t exactly been frugal, in sharing knowledge that came from a more technologically advanced society. It was only natural that she would be curious. Meiling was smart. She was smarter than I was, that’s for sure. She could put the pieces together that something just didn’t quite add up.

I took a second to think about it. I had two options here. I could deflect, like I had been doing all these months. Say it was the knowledge of a far-off land.

Or I could trust her.

I mulled it over, as Meimei looked at me curiously at my sudden silence. She was calm, waiting for my answer… there was no judgment on her face.

She trusted me.

And trust is a two-way street. I took a breath.

“Have you ever heard any stories about reincarnation?” I asked, quietly. My heart slowly started to beat faster. It was an odd thing, to tell somebody that you had memories of another world. It sounded crazy. “About suddenly waking up, after death in a new body?”

Meimei looked at me again, at first amused, and with a look that said “get serious” on it. I could see the gears turn, as she fully processed what I was saying. She was smart though my Mei, she didn’t need me to say much more.

Her face changed. From shock, to confusion, to realization.

Then, her lips quirked into a smile.

“Well, it would explain why you’re so weird.”

I snorted out a laugh, as we lapsed into silence. That, well… It wasn’t the exact reaction that I had been expecting really. These reveals always felt so dramatic in stories.

Instead, my wife just nodded, like everything suddenly made sense.

“....do you… want to hear about it?” I asked slowly, haltingly. Her eyes softened. Her hand came up, and rested on the side of my face.

“The heavens know talking about my mother is hard enough.” She whispered. “If you don’t want to talk too much about it tonight… It's fine.”

I leaned into her touch. Her quiet support.

She was right. Remembering the Before was sometimes painful. Remembering my family.

I didn’t remember how I died. If I had at all. All I knew was that I was here now.

And that was what mattered.

So I told her a story. A story of a foolish young man, who built snowmen every year with his mother, his father, and his sister, in a country defined by a maple leaf.

The snow fell outside. The smell of dirt, and the faint buzzing of bees were the backdrop to my tale.

I told my wife about a life in the Before.

She listened quietly, holding my hand the entire time.