A/N Suggested a look at the cabin built for Shen.

Xinye's view continued.

Harjol had been gone two weeks, and I was satisfied that this house had finally become a home.

The lovely lass, Ying, took care of the cooking and cleaning. I taught her how to cook some more western style dishes, and I did not let her cook any meat apart from fish or chicken. She cooked the vegetables and eggs in their traditional way, and everyone enjoyed them. I was starting to feel healthy, going on long walks to build strength, as I was still too weak to help with anything. I guess the poisonings had taken their toll somehow, just not the way that was expected.

Xin had been gone for about two months when my sickness hit. It seemed one day I was okay. The next, I was not.

My symptoms got increasingly worse each day. My head pounded all the time, and if I sat up, I saw stars, and the room would spin. My feet were red and swollen, I needed to pee every other second, and I had diarrhea and vomiting. The pain in my stomach was horrendous. I thought I was dying. I was sure I was dying.

I was absolutely positive I was dying when my stomach started to swell with a hard lump. Fergus was the first to be beside himself with worry, "Mum, what can we do? It looks like you have cancer like your mother. Can we do anything? I do not want you to die yet. We just got things here back to normal. We are fed and safe...Shall we tell Xin?"

"We can't tell Xin," I replied, lying back with my hand on my head, trying to ease the pounding, "He will be here as soon as he can be. I have to trust Maelgwyn's ability to learn."

"Well, why do you not tell Maelgwyn and Bryce? Surely, they would want to know you are dying?"

"No, they have their own lives to live. Bryce has not contacted me at all, and he could have, and Maelgwyn is busy learning his new role. The worst thing I could do is distract him by telling him I might be dying now."

It killed me to argue this, but I did not want to be a bother to my children. They had their own lives now. Had they wanted to contact me, they would have, but they had not. I had done my job; they were successful men in what they were doing. Admittedly Bryce and his wife had literally swapped roles, but that suited them. It was not conventional, but they were happy, and that was what was important to me.

"Ok, I will hold off on telling them, but I think they should know at some point," Fergus huffed, rubbing my belly to ease the pain.

"When I am sure I have no time left, I will get you to write then," I promised him, so he ceased nagging for a while.

As time passed, I grew weaker and weaker, Fergus was now having to help me move around, and Jing bathed me, chasing out the ever-flapping with worry Fergus. Fergus himself lost a lot of weight during this time. He ate just as much as ever. I guess worrying about me was taking a toll on him. He also grew and was now taller than me, his shoulders broad and strong. I could tell the girls in the village were starting to pay him attention by the way he would come home flustered from shopping with Ying.

"Mum," he eventually said one day, "Can you arrange me a marriage before you die? I do not want to continue being alone, not with the way these girls chase me."

"Well, what is wrong with marrying Ying?" I said, as Ying had become like a daughter to me, she was pleasant company and somewhat pleasing to the eye, but not so outstanding that men would chase her.

"Ying?" he questioned me and went bright red, "Isn't she married already? Every time we go to town, she sees a man and disappears for half the day."

"That is her brother, Wang," I informed him, "She goes to be with her family and give them the money she earnt here."

"But if I marry her, how will her family be?" he worried.

"If you married her, she no longer is seen as a burden on her family," I informed him of the custom that Jing had been telling me of. Ying herself was worried about how she was a burden on her family, despite living with us and giving them her paycheck. I did not understand how as a working member of her family, she was considered a burden.

"How can they say that?" Fergus fumed, "How can they say she is a burden!" His face set with determination, "Then that is what I will do! I will marry Ying, but I think I better wait for Xin to return as I know nothing of how to marry someone."

After this decision, Fergus started courting Ying in our ways, giving gifts and spending time with her, complimenting her for looking after me so well. I think in this time, Jing thought of us as her family, more so than her own family, as she took excellent care of us all.

Shen expanded our livestock and grew vegetables and rice, using the water from our baths to grow them as water was precious. He initially was resistant to bathing, but once he realised that Fergus, who bathed every day, was never sick, he started taking a bath after us all.

I would be bathed first, followed by Ying, Fergus, and finally Shen. Shen was never exceptionally clean, but he was the cleanest he had ever been in his life. So much so that on the nights he went drinking with his mates, he ended up with a regular girlfriend.

When the carpenter and blacksmith had installed the water tank, pipes, and sink, it rained until the tank was full, and it would rain each time our tank was nearly empty, and we were starting to worry. It was strange, though, our land was the only one that rain fell on, and the rest of the land was in drought.

Each Saturday, I ensured that everyone rested, and we ate leftovers. I would tell stories I remembered from the bible, not having a bible here. Ying would listen, and eventually, she started to understand my speech without Fergus interpreting it. Fergus did not believe, but he could not deny the miraculous things that kept happening around me - the non-poisonings, the ability to understand a language I had never learned, the healing of the injured men through prayer alone. I guess the reason he could not believe was because I was dying before his eyes, his second mother, the one that had saved him by marrying the General.

I would say, "Thank you, God for the rain, this lovely day, or this food," for everything that was a blessing. To me, everything that we had was a blessing. Each day was a blessing. Fergus, Ying, and Shen were blessings."

We grew so many crops and herbs. We fed the villagers and sold the vegetables to the surrounding areas. The villagers, in turn, gave us pickled food ready for winter, saving Ying from doing so much, for which Ying was thankful as looking after me was becoming a full-time job between her and Fergus.

One of the days I was well enough, I called for the carpenter again and organised a good room for Shen. I made it a bit different, though, and the carpenter was puzzled by how I wished to build it. It had never been done in China beforehand. He worked with a mason to build the walls and seal the gaps so that very little cold air would get in winter and hot air in summer. The roof they made the traditional way, but a wooden porch out the front so he did not have to be inside all the time.

The windows were done with traditional Chinese paper, and the door was solid wood. The carpenter did the door that way only at my insistence, as it was done like a split barn door, where you could open the top half if you wanted to. The reason I had the cabin made the way I did was to use a lot of the troublesome rocks that had been obstructing Shen's gardening efforts near the house. He did not wish to move them for some Fung Shui reason. I figured if they went to the house, they still provided the same thing, just differently. As we were blessed, Shen did not argue.

Each day seemed to merge together: pain, sickness, pain, sickness. Only rarely was I well, and I sat out the front enjoying the sunlight and breeze on those days. Xin had been gone six months now, and I had not heard any news of or from him. So when a group of men on horseback started towards the house, I was concerned. I did not recognise anyone in the group.

One man separated from the group and galloped ahead, yelling something...

Shen and Fergus, on hearing this, ran back to the house, and Ying came out. They were back in time to see the man jump off the horse, throw his helmet towards the gate where we had some tools standing, and he ran to me. Fergus freaked and ran to stop him, "Stop! What do you think you are doing?"

Fergus grabbed his arm and spun the man to face him. He must have recognised him as he said, "Sorry, I did not recognise you." and let him go.

The man turned to me and studied me and I him. Eventually, I saw who it was and broke out in a smile, opening my arms up for a welcome hug, "Xin!"

"Xinye!" tears fell down his face as he covered the remaining distance in the blink of an eye and picked me up as if I was a feather, carting me back inside, stopping only to receive directions on where to go, as the inside had changed a lot since he had last been home.

My room, no, our room was to the right and thankfully was screened as Xin placed me on our bed, and stripped down to his underclothes, and then joined me, hugging me like there was no tomorrow. He may have wanted more, but I think he could smell the sickness on me that I had been suffering.

"Xinye, I missed you so much," he said, stroking my face as he lay beside me, hugging me, " I could not stop thinking of you. Training Maelgwyn only made it worse as he often would have your expressions on his face when he was learning everything.

"I missed you too," I said, smiling at him and hugging him back.

"Are you ok?" he asked, looking concerned.

"Today I am, but most days I am thinking I am dying lately," I informed him. There was no use in hiding it.

"Dying?" he sat up alarmed, still keeping our eye contact, "What do you mean dying? Why did you not tell us?"

"I trusted you would be back in time. There was no need to alarm you," I spoke gently to him, seeing his alarm, "you said you would be home; we still have time. I am very sick, and although I feel like I am dying, I do not feel death approaching yet."

"Well, it is good, Maelgwyn, and my brothers came," he said, "You did not get to meet them as they were fighting with Dorgon to take the area you know as Korea. They were sent to me by Dorgon as he thought they were Taiji's spies. In reality, they were trying to give him sound council."

"How many brothers do you have?" I wondered.

"Eight, not that you would know by how my mother carries on," he said, pulling a face, "You would think I was the only son my father had. When I am, in reality, her only son, my father had three wives. I am to his first wife, and they are to his second and third wives."

I nodded, and my head started to ache, "Sorry, Xin, I need to rest now. I feel my sickness coming back. You're welcome to stay or go. It is up to you. Fergus should be able to catch you up."

"I will stay until you fall asleep then. I really missed you," he said and hugged me tight from behind as I turned away from him to close my eyes.

I did not feel him leave.

🍀A/N If you enjoyed this chapter, please take the time to vote by pressing the star. Please let me know if you see any errors, as this is unedited.