you will never need another lover

by pennydaniels

Summary:

Yu Ziyuan has already been married to Jiang Fengmian for more than a decade before things begin to shift.

On their wedding night, his new wife had bled very much. Yu Ziyuan had not noticed just how bad it was until the morning after as Fengmian, placid and passive as she was, did not say a single word to signify her discomfort. 

 

It was only the next morning with the light of dawn stealing into the room and creeping across the floor that Yu Ziyuan found himself faced by sheets rather bloodier than he had ever been prepared to expect. 

 

“It does not hurt very much.” Jiang Fengmian had assured him. 

 

Looking back, Yu Ziyuan thinks that he should have pushed more at that initial deflection.  Should have established very early on that his wife should not pacify. But of course, back then he didn’t have the gift of hindsight and with only his own Yu Sect as model he was firmly entrenched in his belief that people were liable to speak up when hurt.

 

So he didn’t push. 

 

The confirmation that his wife had been untouched was an unexpected balm to the swirling rumours of her affair and affection for her servant Wei Cangze which had raged before and even later during their engagement. Yu Ziyuan was not prepared to marry a woman who held another man in her heart but during the wedding negotiations his family had been assured assiduously and at length that the rumours were only that, cruel fabrications with no truth behind them and that Wei Cangze had already left the Sect and married another. 

 

During the courting Jiang Fengmian was the picture of everything a noble woman should be, demure and accepting. Always with eyes lowered and a soft smile on her lips. Yu Ziyuan tried to imagine the woman he accompanied on walks around the lotus ponds falling into bed in a swirl of passion with another man and couldn’t quite put those pieces together. 

 

Besides, he had found himself rather taken with her. Unwittingly even. Jiang Fengmian was beautiful with a whole great sect to her name and a powerful lineage spanning back centuries. She was a good woman through and through, genial and gentle. Even the ever-critical Yu Ziyuan could find no outward fault in her. 

 

And so they were engaged. Yu Ziyuan had candidly asked his own mother during the negotiations why her Sect’s elders were not aiming for a more advantageous match, with a spare heir to one of the Great Sect’s perhaps. Jiang Fengmian was the sole heir and a woman besides; she was no doubt an appealing prospect. 

 

His mother had answered that the Great Sects likely did not want to muddy the water of succession by inter-marrying their heirs. No matter which way the knot was cut it could not be denied that the Jiang Sect Heir being a woman would create difficulty if she bore children with a man who had a strong claim to another major sect that may have a less than friendly interest in slowly subsuming more territory and power. Yu Ziyuan of the Yu sect was an excellent choice from all political angles, it would not be the first marriage between their families and being from Yunmeng, Yu Ziyuan’s marrying in would not be such a culture shock for him. 

 

The other, more candid, reason his mother gave was that with the majority of the cultivation world trading bets on how early the Jiang Sect heir had given her maidenhood to her servant it may be the case that a “better” match was simply not possible. Not without throwing Jiang Fengmian to the wolves. The Yu sect was powerful, but not more so than the Jiangs and with Yu Ziyuan having to marry in Jiang Fengmian still retained a level of protection. 

 

Even with that protection, it didn’t prevent Jiang Fengmian from bleeding on her wedding night, bleeding enough to leave a large stain on the bedsheets. A stain perhaps the size of a pomelo and a deep rusty red, not the few drops of blood Yu Ziyuan had been prepared for. 

 

“It does not hurt very much.” Jiang Fengmian had assured him, and he hadn’t pushed but he’d still ushered her to see her sect’s healer if only because it seemed appropriate for the morning after a woman’s first bedding. 

 

He’d then taken the soiled sheet off the bed and folded it up to be kept. His Sect wouldn’t demand it and Yu Ziyuan thought it beyond gauche for anyone else to even ask but still… it would be nice to have that proof just for himself that no one else had been there before him. He was a proud man after all and knew it to be a fault of his. But not one he ever put any effort into curbing. 

 

In the present moment, watching his wife cradle Wei Cangze’s recently recovered child like it was her own flesh and blood, all he could do was remind himself fiercely of the blood the morning after and the stained sheet kept in a box in his closet. 

 

“Wei Ying will be staying in Lotus Pier.” His wife told him firmly, with more steel than she had ever previously displayed in the almost thirteen years they had spent together. 

 

The servants and disciples around them were beginning to whisper and for the first time Yu Ziyuan wanted badly to slap his wife, if only because she didn’t seem to understand how thoroughly she was ruining her own reputation and by extension his reputation and the reputations of their children. 

 

“Let’s discuss this inside.” He responded with as much evenness as he could. 

 

His wife opened her mouth to respond and that was the moment A-Cheng ran in followed by his dogs. 

 

The child, Wei Cangze’s child, shrieked with fear and trembled in his wife’s embrace. She was soothing the child with more fervour than she had ever soothed her own children. Zidian sparked around Yu Ziyuan’s hand. 

 

“Fengmian.” His voice came out icy, “We are going inside.”

 

But his wife was too busy comforting the wailing child in her arms and half-scolding A-Cheng, for what? For acting normally in his own home? Yu Ziyuan could not stand to see his own child treated this way, even if it was by their mother. 

 

“A-Cheng, go inside and take Princess, Love and Jasmine.” He commanded his son. Then without leaving any room for discussion he walked up to Fengmian and wrapped an arm around her waist. Maybe it was too bold for public or too possessive for comfort but with her arms full of the child he hardly had any choice, “We are going inside.” He repeated. He then looked around at their onlookers, “Everyone should go back to their duties.” There was more than a little threat in his tone. 

 

Everyone dispersed. 

 

Once inside he flagged down a servant, “Take the child.” He commanded her. 

 

“My Lord-“ Fengmian started. 

 

“We need to speak alone.” 

 

The servant ducked her head at the same time that Fengmian capitulated and handed over the child with a soft smile, “I will see you soon Wei Ying, go with Popo for now okay?”

 

The child blinked at his wife but nodded good naturedly and willingly took the servants hand to toddle away. 

 

Yu Ziyuan didn’t speak until they were in his wife’s chambers with all the doors and windows firmly shut and everyone gone. Unlike his wife he did not plan on humiliating them publicly. 

 

“My Lord,” Fengmian started as soon as he turned to her, “Wei Ying will be living in Lotus Pier, I will accept nothing else.”

 

Yu Ziyuan reminded himself of the bloody sheet. 

 

“You do realise that bringing that child here and treating it so well will only exacerbate all the rumours.” Ziyuan’s voice came out very cold, not even purely through his own feeling. 

 

Fengmian didn’t seem bothered, “Rumours are simply that, I have lived with them my entire life.”

 

“It’s because you never did more to combat them that it is in this state.” Ziyuan couldn’t help but hissing back. “If you were more mindful of your reputation when you were younger, we would not be having this discussion.”

 

“That is Wei-xiong’s child.” Is all Fengmian responds with, “I will not abandon him.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t know if she means the child or Wei Cangze when she says him. 

 

“I will not be made a cuckold to a ghost.”

 

“That’s not-“

 

“That’s exactly what everyone will say and what they will think when they see the way you treat that child, treat them better than your own flesh and blood.”

 

“I wouldn’t-“

 

“You’re my wife.” Is all Ziyuan responds with, “Wei Cangze and his own wild wife are dead. I will not have you chasing ghosts.”

 

Fengmian has finally looked away, retreating into passivity the way that she does when he pushes too hard and says the wrong thing. Yu Ziyuan is never sure just how far is too far with her and when he stumbles in the dark she has created like this he finds he hates both himself and also her. 

 

“Fengmian.” He says, far more harshly than he means to, “What do you intend to do?”

 

“Wei Ying will stay and be raised alongside A-Li and A-Cheng.” Is his stupid wife’s response, “And he is afraid of A-Cheng’s dogs so they will need to be sent away-“

 

“Absolutely not.” Ziyuan interrupts, “You will not punish our own children for the sake of Wei Cangze’s son.”

 

“It’s not a punishment, Wei Ying was terrified earlier, you saw him. It’s the right thing-“

 

“That child will not grow into an adult without never again encountering another dog. It does him no credit by sending them away and what will A-Cheng think but that he is being punished, I won’t allow it.” 

 

“I won’t let the dogs stay.”

 

Ziyuan presses his lips so tightly together they lose feeling. 

 

“If the dogs are to be sent away you will promise me the boy will not be adopted into our family. They will be trained as a Jiang disciple and allowed to stay, but they are not our son.”

 

Fengmian nods in agreement as though this is nothing more than expected and not Ziyuan digging for compromise. He hates her and her entitled passivity fiercely. 

 

“Fine.” He spits, “I will go speak to A-Cheng.” 

 

And with that he turns and leaves. 

 

*

 

That night he invites himself to his wife’s chambers. She never requests him; it’s been that way since the beginning. If he wants to see her, he must insert himself into her space and he hates that he’s this needy begging creature. 

 

“My Lord.” She greets. 

 

He waves a hand to send away the last of the servants. 

 

Only once they’re gone does he respond. 

 

“Fengmian.”

 

She’s sitting at her low desk in her nightrobes, likely just finishing with Sect correspondence. They’ve worked out a good system over the years with Ziyuan handling most of the day-to-day Sect duties and disciple training while Fengmian deals with inter-sect conferences and diplomatic ventures. 

 

Ziyuan looks at her, so soft and pretty in her lilac silks, and suddenly aches in a way he often does when faced with his wife. He wants to bridge the gap but feels the impossibility of it. Fengmian is a wall of a woman, she remains closed off even in their worst arguments, perpetually calm when Ziyuan rages, aloof and out of reach no matter what he does. 

 

“Does My Lord have anything he wishes to discuss?” 

 

Gods he hates the formality in moments like this. 

 

“Let’s go to bed.” 

 

She doesn’t protest. She never protests. She always lets him touch even if she doesn’t welcome it. At least she’s not so cold in bed. 

 

Once he has her inside the bed curtains, she finally flushes a delicate pink and by the time he has her naked, she’s finally making noise. She’s not noisy, she’s never been, and he wonders if she even has the ability to be, but at least she’s reacting. 

 

He fucks her steadily in smooth strokes with her on her back the way they always lie together. They’re face to face like this and occasionally their lips will brush. His hands are placed on either side of her head, arms holding himself up as he thrusts between her spread legs. This is perhaps the closest he’s ever felt to her apart from those brief moments after the birth of their children when he’d hold her with the baby in her arms. 

 

“Fengmian.” He murmurs, catching her lips again as he rolls his hips. 

 

“My Lord.” She gasps in response. 

 

He bites her neck harshly when he finishes inside of her, and she accepts it as she accepts everything. 

 

Later they lie in bed, naked, side by side and he wonders if he could take her into his arms. He feels worn thin suddenly and as though the previous closeness he believed they shared when he was physically inside of her was nothing more than an illusion, a dream. 

 

“My Lord.” Shockingly Fengmian is the one who speaks first, she almost never speaks in these moments, “Do you… truly believe that I and Wei-Xiong…” She doesn’t finish but Ziyuan understands even so. 

 

There is an angry petty part of him that immediately wants to say yes, if only to show her how real her misconduct in this area is. 

 

But he knows that would be too far. He’s not blind nor stupid. If he says that now then it will be the end for them. 

 

“No.” He answers, “But I am not everyone.”

 

“It’s alright. As long as you believe me.”

 

He rolls over then to face her. This foolish woman…

 

“Stupid.” He murmurs but reaches for her and is gratified by the way she willingly comes into his arms, “The world is not so kind, you can’t act this way. You’ll disadvantage our own children.”

 

“A-Li is already betrothed, and A-Cheng will inherit Lotus Pier.”

 

“The rumours will hurt them, to know that we stand in opposition is not good for them. And A-Li’s position as the next Madam Jin is not without its tests on her respectability, the Jins are ruthless; she needs every advantage she can have.”

 

Fengmian is quiet at that. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t bother to ask what she’s thinking. 

 

“Good night My Lord.” She finally says.

 

“Good night.” Ziyuan responds, keeping his wife held close through the night. 

 

*

 

If there is one rule Yu Ziyuan steadily follows it’s to never express displeasure with his wife in public. Their positions hinge on each other; power divided strangely equally between them by virtue of their respective birth rights, cultivational ability and sexes. Ziyuan must be smart about this. Right now, unlike the other Sect leaders who are all stupid men, he is the lucky one. One with a demure wife and a harmonious marriage who married into Sect Leadership

 

So he needs to be careful. Displeasure cannot be openly displayed no matter how much he may wish to, how much he may want to grab his wife sometimes and shake some emotion out of her and sense into her. 

 

Today though, it’s proving to be very difficult. 

 

“Wei Ying should go with Jiang Cheng to Gusu.” His wife suggests, openly at dinner while the servants bustle around listening and remembering and likely ready to gossip later. 

 

The boy in question perks up and nudges A-Cheng with his elbow, “Jiang Cheng Jiang Cheng! Won’t that be fun! Gusu is too stuffy! You’d be bored stiff if you had to do it alone!”

 

“Shut up!” His son retorts, “As if I want to spend any more time with you.”

 

“Jiang Cheeeng.” Wei Wuxian whines. 

 

Yu Ziyuan hates this childish display as much as he hates the way his wife has backed him into a corner. If they speak now publicly it will be an argument and an embarrassing one at that because what reason does he have for Wei Wuxian not going than the fact that this boy, Wei Cangze’s son, upstages his own child at every turn. If Wei Wuxian goes to Gusu alongside Jiang Cheng all anyone will see is all the ways his heir is lacking. 

 

Jiang Fengmian is smiling indulgently as she watches the two boys argue, as if she truly doesn’t understand what she’s done. Yu Ziyuan vacillates between believing her to be a cunning manipulator or a true fool. Right now, he believes that this was a manipulation and he hates her for it. 

 

“Fengmian.” When he speaks the table predictably goes quiet, “We should speak.”

 

Fengmian doesn’t look surprised and with the children mostly done with their meals they’re all sent away quickly enough. 

 

Once the doors are closed and they’re alone Ziyuan speaks, in a hissed whisper in case of eavesdroppers, but openly even so, “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“My Lord?”

 

“Don’t look so clueless, you know I don’t want that Wei Wuxian to go with A-Cheng. What do you think you’re doing ambushing me like this?”

 

Fengmian keeps her eyes lowered, “I do not know what My Lord means.”

 

Ziyuan’s fist clenches and zidian sparks. Is she truly playing at ignorance? He can’t believe her. Jiang Fengmian is not a stupid woman, he refuses to believe she truly does not know what she’s done. 

 

“Now the boy will have to go since you’ve announced it so publicly.”

 

“I suggested it to our own family at dinner.”

 

“You never learn do you.” Ziyuan says lowly, “Everyone is always listening, when will you realise that?”

 

“This is are home-”

 

“And gossip doesn’t have to be maliciously intended to cause harm.” Ziyuan looks at her, “I refuse to believe you are this stupid.”

 

There’s a long pregnant pause then. 

 

“It would be good for Jiang Cheng to have someone with him in Cloud Recesses.” Fengmian says. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, he can’t help the action, “The Cloud Recesses will be stuffed full of every half-way significant sect heir and second son from here to the Northern deserts. When I went we hardly lacked for company.”

 

“I had forgotten you went.”

 

Ziyuan had forgotten that she had never gone. 

 

“Wei Wuxian is too talented.” He says, “He’ll upstage A-Cheng at every turn and the Cloud Recesses is more a diplomatic opportunity than one truly for learning. A-Cheng will be meeting the other sect heirs, his contemporaries, and forming connections.”

 

“He can do that with A-Ying with him.”

 

“Wei Wuxian is more charismatic than A-Cheng, it will disadvantage our son to stand beside him.” Ziyuan can’t help his next barb, “You do remember who your real son is, don’t you?”

 

Fengmian doesn’t say anything. 

 

Like so many of these conversations they have, it’s an entirely useless endeavour. 

 

“Well you’ve left none of us any choice.” He finally says, “Wei Wuxian will have to go with A-Cheng lest some terrible accident befall the boy before they leave for Gusu. That’s if you don’t change your mind.”

 

“What are you saying?” Suddenly Fengmian comes alive with emotion, “You- A-Ying is a good boy. He does not deserve-”

 

Ziyuan stares at her as unwilling comprehension slowly dawns on him. 

 

“You think I really would. Cause some awful accident for the boy?”

 

Fengmian doesn’t say anything, she just ducks her eyes once more. 

 

Gods, Ziyuan hates hates hates her. 

 

“If I wanted that boy dead, he already would be.” 

 

Then he gets up and leaves.

 

*

 

Ziyuan doesn’t want to go to his wife’s chambers that night. He doesn’t want to look at her let alone touch her. 

 

But he also wants to… hurt her. 

 

Perhaps that’s not the right way to put it. Something that Ziyuan will never admit is that he’s been struck by the impulse to hit his wife over the years more than he could have ever imagined during their engagement. Maybe it’s frustration or hatred or all those usual reasons but sometimes he thinks… Ziyuan imagined what it would be like if he hit her. If he just backhanded her when she acted in incomprehensible damaging ways. The follow on to the hit would be her crying. And if she cried he would be able to apologise and hold her and make up for his actions. 

 

But Jiang Fengmian wouldn’t cry. She would remain quiet and out of reach no matter what he did and that’s the truth. If he hit her he still wouldn’t get what he wanted which is… he’s not sure. He’s not sure exactly what it is. 

 

He will go to her chambers later but for now he stalls, as if to outrun his own emotions. 

 

He goes to A-Cheng’s room. 

 

“A-Die!” Jiang Cheng seems pleased to see him as he always does. It soothes something inside of Ziyuan who just raises an eyebrow in response to the way the boy is hurriedly trying to hide his sword behind his back. 

 

“You know you’re not meant to train your sword in your chambers.”

 

“I know.” Jiang Cheng looks a little shame faced, “But I want to be good when I go to Gusu.”

 

Ziyuan approves of that sentiment, “If you’re already doing it then show me.”

 

Jiang Cheng immediately brightens and settles into a stance, flowing through his Yunmeng style movements smoothly, if a little lacking in character. 

 

“Bend your knees more.” Ziyuan commands, stepping forward to correct Jiang Cheng’s arm positioning in a more hands on way, “Your wrist should be loose.”

 

“Mm.” Jiang Cheng nods with determination and corrects himself. 

 

Ziyuan loves his son very very much, but most of all appreciates the way Jiang Cheng strives for improvement. He takes instruction easily and doesn’t uselessly argue against authority when Ziyuan just needs someone to listen to him. 

 

Later when Jiang Cheng has been worked into something approaching exhaustion though his son would never admit it, he finally lets him sit down. 

 

“A-Die…” Jiang Cheng starts and then trails off. 

 

Ziyuan gives his son an arch look, “If you have something to say then you better commit to it. Do you think when you’re the Sect Leader you’ll be able to pull back on your words like that?”

 

Jiang Cheng nods resolutely but still talks very slowly. 

 

“Are you and A-Niang… fighting? Wei Wuxian doesn’t have to come to Gusu! I don’t mind and he won’t mind either if it’s a problem.” Jiang Cheng doesn’t look at him as he says it. Lack of eye-contact has always been something Ziyuan hates. 

 

“Look at me if you want to speak seriously.” He critiques and is gratified by the way Jiang Cheng immediately meets his eyes though he still looks uncertain. 

 

“Your mother and I are not fighting.” Ziyuan says very clearly, “Wei Wuxian will accompany you to Gusu.”

 

“Oh good.” Jiang Cheng looks rather relieved, “I would rather him be there.”

 

“Oh?”

 

Jiang Cheng makes an anxious little gesture, twisting his hands together. 

 

“Don’t do that.” Ziyuan barks, “Are you the Sect Heir or not? You’re my son, don’t wilt.”

 

Jiang Cheng immediately puts his hands by his sides and straightens his posture. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t know what to say exactly. He knows what he wants to say, a bad first instinct that he’s mostly trained himself out of after being Jiang Fengmian’s husband for all these years. 

 

“That Wei Wuxian is not your brother. Don’t forget that.” Is what he ends up saying. 

 

Jiang Cheng nods, “I know.” He says quickly, “I-” He then stops again. “A-Die.” His voice comes out very hesitant , “Did mother really like Wei Wuxian’s father-”

 

“Speaking words like that out loud only gives them power.” Ziyuan cuts his son off harshly, “I will not have you spreading that dogshit yourself. That is your mother you are talking about, watch your mouth. Who did you hear that from? Tell me.”

 

Jiang Cheng shakes his head rapidly, “I don’t believe it. No one believes it and it was before you and mother married anyway, that’s what I heard-”

 

“Who. Told. You.” 

 

Jiang Cheng ducks his eyes, “I heard it from some Jin disciples the last time I was in Lanling. They laughed as they said it.”

 

Yu Ziyuan feels his natural fury roar ever higher. 

 

“Don’t listen to those useless words. Your mother is a good woman and the only female Great Sect Leader, people will say whatever it takes to drag her, and by extension you, down. Wei Wuxian is the son of her most trusted servant, your mother is kind so of course she treats the boy well. Ignore whoever says otherwise.”

 

Somehow by the time he’s finished speaking Jiang Cheng looks rather more relaxed, “I know.” He assures his father, “I never believed it, I promise.”

 

Ziyuan can’t help but smack him upside the head, not too hard but enough that his son will remember his next words, “Then why did you ask? Be careful with your words, once spoken out loud you can’t take them back.”

 

Jiang Cheng nods seriously, “I’ll remember.”

 

His son is so… soft. Spiky but yet untested. 

 

Ziyuan stands, “Get some sleep.”

 

“Okay A-Die.” Jiang Cheng smiles at him, bright and guileless. 

 

Ziyuan gives his son another nod before he leaves. 

 

He can never lie to himself as convincingly as he seems to be able to others. Does he believe Fengmian let Wei Cangze fuck her? No. But does he believe she has or had lingering feelings for the man? Ziyuan doesn’t answer that question, even at his lowest moments. Giving words to an idea makes it real. 

 

He makes his way to his wife’s chambers, greeted by the usual servants along the way, though when he enters he finds it emptier than usual. The front rooms where he always finds her are devoid of her presence. 

 

He goes deeper into her inner chambers, right to her bedroom and only then does he find his wife. 

 

She’s sitting on the bed in her night robes, already unusual. But what makes his breath catch is the fact that her outer sleep robes, a thin full length thing, has been untied and left to slide down her shoulders. 

 

“Who were you waiting for?” He finds himself asking, the first impulse impossible to ignore. 

 

“My Lord.” Fengmian greets, both answering his question and not. 

 

She wants me. Ziyuan puzzles through that thought, mind working quickly. She was waiting for me, she wants me. Something like a tentative elation bonfires in his chest. 

 

“Were you waiting for me?” He steps closer, shedding his outer robes as he walks to drape them over the changing screen. 

 

She nods in response and this is it. Ziyuan doesn’t know why it’s happening now, but finally finally. 

 

“I’m sorry to have kept my wife waiting.” He cups her cheek in his palm and tilts her head to kiss her. Happiness, satisfaction, the victory of knowing that perhaps it took many years but they’ve finally landed at their final destination; all of it fills him up. 

 

When they break apart Fengmian looks a little pink in the way that he likes. 

 

“You usually come to my rooms the night after we disagree.” 

 

Those words douse his flames with frigid water. 

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Fengmian has once again ducked her gaze and just as quickly as he had her… he’s lost her once more. 

 

“You like to have me after we argue. I knew you would come tonight.”

 

Yu Ziyuan is a proud man, a very proud man with good reason for that pride. 

 

He’s the first born son of the Yu Sect matriarch and the strongest cultivator within his Sect by the time he left. He’s a handsome man and had been a sought after prospect when younger. What wrong had he done Jiang Fengmian? Had he not cared for their children? Tended to their sect? Shouldered responsibilities alongside her and made sure to protect her and their family at every turn? He had given her everything a man is meant to give his wife, honest feeling included, and had found himself spurned at every turn. He had married her despite the rumours, defended her from outsiders for years despite the way she venerated another man’s child over their own. He had never left her side, never done anything but be respectful, never so much as looked at another woman and still…

 

“Do you enjoy it when I come to your bed?” Yu Ziyuan finally asks because he’s been blind for so many years and won’t be any longer. Because he’s many things but a coward is not one of them. 

 

Fengmian ducks her eyes and doesn’t answer. 

 

Ziyuan goes cold. 

 

“Then if that’s how it is this husband sees no reason to impose himself any longer.” He hisses, almost stumbling back in his haste to get away, to leave and put physical distance between this and himself before he did something he knew he would severely regret. 

 

He makes it out the door and then out of her chambers without her calling after him. And why would she? All these years and she despised him even now, likely wished for another in his place, likely pictured another in his place. Gods gods gods. 

 

Yu Ziyuan flees back to his chambers, uncaring of the servants who witness the way he runs from his wife’s chambers missing his outer robes. There will be rumours and speculation but he can’t care right now. Not right now. 

 

Once in his rooms only once the door is closed does he allow himself to curse. 

 

He topples over several pieces of furniture and by the time his raging is over his chambers are in tatters and the faint scorch marks for Zidian blacken the light wood walls. He can’t even find it in himself to be ashamed. 

 

Lost and still too deeply upset to think or sit still or fight any longer he leaves his own chambers. 

 

It’s dark at this point. Late night and quiet, even the servants have gone to bed. The dark water that surrounds Lotus Pier glistens back at him and he used to love it. When he was visiting Lotus Pier during the engagement he would stare at the picturesque landscape, humid and heavy even in winter, and he imagined that it was a nice place to live. The lakes haven’t changed but he feels far colder than he ever has before, even when visiting Gusu as a teen. Everything feels foreign and unwelcoming now. 

 

Did I make the right choice? He wonders suddenly. Should I have really married out? Did I do the right thing? 

 

Yu Ziyuan keeps walking, down the hallways, unaware of where his feet are even taking him until he finds himself in his children’s wing. He stops outside A-Li’s door. It’s quiet but he thinks he’ll simply check quickly to make sure she’s alright and sleeping well. 

 

He slides the door openly quietly and looks inside to see his daughter fast asleep on her own bed. He can hear her breathing and see the steady rise and fall of her chest. He closes his eyes for a second. Good. 

 

He goes to slide the door shut. 

 

“A-Die?” Comes the sleepy voice then, “Is there something wrong?”

 

When he next looks up he sees that A-Li is now awake, having raised her head off her pillow to look at him with eyes squinted with sleep. She looks so young suddenly. 

 

“Nothing. Go back to sleep.” He says gruffly, sliding the door even more firmly shut. 

 

“A-Die, wait.” A-Li has climbed out of bed in her thin sleep robes to try and cross the room. 

 

Ziyuan sighs explosively, “Put on a robe.” He scolds, “Don’t stand there in the cold, it’s late, you should be asleep.” He enters the room if only to try and force A-Li, who can be surprisingly stubborn at times, back into bed. 

 

A-Li is lighting the candles to his consternation.

 

“What did I just say?” He continues to scold, grabbing her arm to guide her back to her bed, “Listen to your father!”

 

“A-Die, are you alright?” His daughter is so caring. He often finds it hard to connect properly with her, to bridge a distance when he finds it difficult to understand the way she thinks. 

 

“Of course.” He snaps back in reply, finally managing to force her back into her bed. 

 

Once he does, a sense of exhaustion overtakes him and he finds himself sitting on her bed, near her feet and resisting the urge to put his head in his hands. 

 

“Are you happy in your engagement?” He finally finds himself asking, knowing it's a stupid thing to ask.

 

“Yes.” A-Li answers, perfectly demure in her response and it frightens Ziyuan for a second to imagine his own daughter married away in Jilintai, wearing the same placid smile that Fengmian does. 

 

“A-Li, if you are ever unhappy you must tell me. I will not allow my daughter to be unhappy for no good cause, we are not so bowed a Sect to have to beg the Jin for an alliance through marriage. If you do not wish to be married to Jin Zixuan then only let me know, we can find you a match much closer to home or if you wish to wait a while longer before marrying we can wait.”

 

There’s a long pause. 

 

“I am not unhappy.” A-Li says, voice finally showing some emotion, “Jin Zixuan is, I believe, not like his father. I do not mind the engagement.” There’s a pause and then she broaches her own fair question, “A-Die, are you alright? Did something happen?”

 

“Nothing happened.” Ziyuan immediately retorts, “Is it so wrong for me to want to look out for my daughter’s best interests? And stop peeling lotus seeds for your brother and Wei Wuxian,” He can’t help but scold, “You are not a servant, it’s not your job to be completing these menial tasks. If they want lotus seeds they can peel them themselves or they can ask a servant to do it. You will not make yourself used to doing those things for them, for anyone. Do you understand? I will not have anyone presuming my daughter is willing to serve them.”

 

He gives A-Li a hard look and though she bites her lip she does nod. “I understand.” She says, “But I don’t mind doing these things, I like doing things for others.”

 

Ziyuan shakes his head, “People will take advantage.” He warns, “They will always take advantage.”

 

A-Li nods though he gets the sense that she’s not taking his words quite as seriously as he would hope. That’s always the way it is, until children experience things for themselves they will never fully understand the lessons their elders try to impart on them. It’s a form of arrogance isn’t it, to believe that things for you would be different. 

 

“Go to sleep.” He repeats, “It’s late.”

 

“Mm.” A-Li hums in assent, “Good night A-Die, thank you for checking on me.” 

 

It warms something in Ziyuan that was previously frigid. 

 

“Good night A-Li.” He closes the door behind him. 

 

He walks down the corridor down to A-Cheng’s room and pauses when he hears muffled noises and whispered voices from that direction. 

 

“Jiang Cheng!” It’s very clearly Wei Wuxian, “What do you think the girls in Gusu are like? I bet they’re beautiful, though not as beautiful as the fairies in Yunmeng.”

 

“Why do you always say such useless things?” Jiang Cheng shoots back, “Who cares about the girls, as if you’d actually do anything about it!”

 

“Oi!” And then there’s the sound of quiet roughhousing. 

 

Yu Ziyuan turns silently and walks back to his own chambers. 

 

As he stands in them he realises he forgot for a second, just a second, and now faced with the destruction it all comes back in angry vivid detail. He’d had two maids in Meishan, trained cultivators that were loyal to only him, and he hadn’t brought them out of respect to his wife. 

 

He hadn’t brought them and now… he wishes he had if only because he’d have someone to clean up his chambers who wouldn’t ask questions. 

 

*

 

The next day Ziyuan leaves for Meishan. He can’t stay. Anytime he looks at Fengmian he wants to do something. 

 

He barely announces his intentions and doesn’t explain himself.  He tells his children goodbye and takes his sword with all the selfishness he had denied himself for so many years of matrimony. A partnership is about working together. Previously Yu Ziyuan would not leave before sorting out the disciple’s schedules, without at least completing the rest of his duties to make sure in his absence everything still ran smoothly. 

 

This time he truly doesn’t care. Let things fall apart without him. Spitefully he hopes that the proof of just how useful he is will seer itself into Fengmian’s mind. He hopes everything becomes unbearable without him and she falls to pieces. 

 

It’s wishful thinking, he knows this. 

 

Once he reaches Meishan the doubts set in. What man flees his own home to return to his mother? What man is so pathetic as this? Ziyuan has never once thought of himself as pathetic and he fiercely hates the feeling in this moment. He’s a grown man with children of his own and he’s fleeing his home because of what? A disagreement with his wife? Ziyuan hates himself and hates her in equal measure. 

 

Everyone is staring and for good reason, they weren’t alerted of his arrival and likely are thinking the same as he is. Why is this grown man returning to his mother’s house? Why is Yu Ziyuan back without his children for an unscheduled visit? 

 

By the time he makes it past the entrance of the Sect compound he fiercely regrets his decision to come and the loss of face that he’d caused himself through his own bad decisions. He doesn’t know what he can say or do to possibly recover. 

 

“My son.” And then his mother is there, “Thank you for coming on such short notice.”

 

And then his mother is there and she saves him. 

 

Ziyuan feels his throat become a little tight. 

 

“It is no problem.” He says, it comes out rather too gruff. 

 

“Come, we have much to discuss.” And his mother takes his arm and leads him to her own study, away from the prying gazes and low whispers. 

 

*

 

“I always said you should never have married that woman.” His mother says viciously as Ziyuan is too exhausted to protest otherwise. Usually he would at least put up some token protest, that is the mother of his children and the other half of his adult partnership, but today… today he lets his mother say whatever she wants. 

 

As if instinctively knowing that he won’t argue back his mother continues, “No good woman has that many people saying the same thing, all rumours come from truth and you were always far too good for some run-through Jiang whore.”

 

Ziyuan never usually lets it go this far. 

 

“Who does that bitch think she is, disrespecting you at all turns the way she does.” 

 

Fengmian has never publicly disrespected him, in all ways she is the perfect nobleman’s wife, demure and quiet and non-confrontational. Is it Fengmian’s fault that it’s become apparent that that isn’t what Ziyuan wants?

 

“You could have had any woman and you did her the favour of accepting her despite her past indiscretions, if it wasn’t for my son’s generosity who’s to say she wouldn’t have been married off to some insignificant noble from her own family, the best her elders could find for her. Certainly she wouldn’t be afforded the privilege of having my son as the father of her children.” 

 

“I did not make the wrong decision by marrying her.” Ziyuan finally says, “If I hadn’t I wouldn’t have A-Cheng nor A-Li.”

 

His mother softens briefly at the thought of her grandchildren before scowling once more. 

 

“But accepting that bastard into the household! Forcing you to live with another man’s child! Truly it’s beyond comprehension, does she have no brains nor sense? Is she too muddle-headed to see how glaringly inappropriate that is in every sense? When I heard of it, I almost fainted from anger! My own son treated so poorly! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing!”

 

Ziyuan has nothing to say here. With every insult his mother spews he feels equally upset and validated, a confusing mix of emotions he’s not sure how to parse. If his mother is saying it that just means others are already thinking it and he… gods how has his life come to this? 

 

“A-Cheng will be in Gusu for the next year.” He manages to say during a break in his mother’s rapid fire speech.

 

“Then you shall stay here for as long as you wish, send for A-Li as well, my grand-daughter deserves better than to languish alone with only that-”

 

“Jiang Fengmian is still the mother to my children.” Ziyuan finally says, “I cannot hear criticism of her without hearing criticism of A-Li and A-Cheng.”

 

He’s said the same to his mother in different iterations over the years and has found that when he does so reliably she will quieten for a while, pull back on her rancour and focus instead on praising her grandchildren. Ziyuan loves his mother deeply, she has protected him at every turn and does everything she can to see him succeed. She is the model of a parent that he wishes to emulate if only because he wants his own children to feel as safe with him as he does with her. 

 

But his mother is also a vicious woman who does not pull back on her words and makes her displeasure known loudly and clearly when she feels it. Sometimes he will wish desperately for her to be quiet and hate the ungratefulness because he appreciates so much, so deeply, how she is always always always on his side. 

 

It’s later as they’re having dinner that his mother finally asks.

 

“What did she do?”

 

“Nothing.” That’s the depressing reality that has only become clearer the more distance there is between them.

 

His mother sniffs, “My son does not leave for nothing.”

 

“I will go back.” Ziyuan says and knows it’s the truth. He’ll go back and be miserable and nothing will change. But he will go back. He always goes back. He’s too stubborn and too proud to ever admit defeat. 

 

“Hmph, send for A-Li.” His mother commands, “She should spend some time with her father’s Sect, it’s been a while since I last saw my granddaughter.”

 

If Ziyuan sends for A-Li Fengmian won’t protest. She’ll accept and allow it. Allow her husband to leave and take their daughter with him. Allow everyone to whisper about what she could have possibly done for Ziyuan to have done this. Allow the gossip and disrespect and everything else. 

 

“It’s alright. As long as you believe me.”

 

Ziyuan really does think she’s the most foolish woman to ever live. But no matter what, she’s still his. Willingly or unwilling they still belong to each other. 

 

“If you hadn’t insisted on marrying her I would never have allowed it.” His mother predictably says, “When the Jiang Sect approached us I was prepared to allow you two to meet to give them the face they deserve as one of our allies, but I was already of a mind to turn them. down. If you hadn’t insisted quite so strongly I certainly would have chased them away. That woman bewitched you and here you are, suffering for it.”

 

Ziyuan can’t be angry on his own behalf. Jiang Fengmian had never bewitched him. His feelings had never been encouraged by her, never nurtured by her own actions. It was ultimately his arrogance that led him to this point. He looked at her and imagined something that wasn’t there, imagined that he was special enough, better, stronger, more impressive than whoever she could possibly have stored away in her heart. Yu Ziyuan had always been used to getting what he wanted and he assumed easily that by marrying her he would automatically be given the one thing one cannot take willingly, the one thing he’s now realised he likely will never have; her true feelings. 

 

He married her, prepared for a fight he could easily win, and found that she hadn’t even bothered to show up to the battlefield. Jiang Fengmian never wanted to like him and that’s the fact of it. All along… what was the use? What was the use in even trying? 

 

Ziyuan thinks all this but there’s a smaller part of him that knows, knows that no matter what, he will never be able to truly be indifferent the way he may play as. He wishes there was a switch inside of him he could turn that would allow his feelings to crumble away and set him free but he’s never been an unfeeling man. He’s someone built for extremes of emotions, it’s only unfortunate that he’s chosen the wrong path. 

 

*

 

Ziyuan does not send for A-Li. It would be too much, would signal the complete death of their relationship to outsiders and as much as he wants to punish Fengmian (for what? For not loving him?) he wants others talking about them even less. 

 

He stays at Meishan for far too long. Whiling away the days in something like a nostalgic return to childhood that doesn’t fit correctly. His mother still pretends there are important matters she has called him for but he knows it’s flimsy and only held up by their Sect’s respect for her. 

 

So he stays at Meishan and runs away to hide. 

 

It is six months before he receives word from Fengmian. Word about Wei Wuxian of all people. Word about Wei Wuxian being expelled from Cloud Recesses, bringing shame to their Sect, and breaking A-Li’s engagement. Bring shame to his daughter. 

 

Yu Ziyuan returns to Lotus Pier if only to beat Wei Wuxian into a bloody pulp for everything he has done, unknowing and not, to ruin their family. 

 

*

 

“What,” Yu Ziyuan doesn’t try to pull back on his volume as he storms into the main hall of Lotus Pier after all these months away, “Happened?” 

 

Wei Wuxian sits there, with his wife on one side and his daughter on the other and Ziyuan wonders if his place is really so easy to replace. 

 

“Get out.” He commands the servants and they quickly depart, leaving only Wei Wuxian, Fengmian and A-Li in the hall. 

 

Once they’re alone does he let himself drop all courtesies, “You damn brat!” He snarls at Wei Wuxian, “What the hell do you think you’re doing! You dare look so comfortable after everything you’ve done!” 

 

“My Lord, it was my decision to break the engagement.” Fengmian speaks up to say because the only time she speaks up is to defend Wei Wuxian, not their own children, never their own children. 

 

“Oh? Speaking up for that man’s son? I should have known that this would be the first thing you say to me after six months apart.” 

 

Looking at Fengmian hurts, speaking to her hurts, distance has done nothing to create indifference, he’s falling apart at the seams and he can feel it. He has never, not once, given voice to the rumours in front of either of his children. He’s been careful, respectful, cautious but he… he’s too angry right now to hold back. 

 

“Jin Zixuan said unkind things about our daughter.” Is what Fengmian says in response, her eyes are ducked, “I will not have my daughter marrying a man that thinks unkind things about her and is not afraid to say them out loud.”

 

Ziyuan stops. 

 

“Is that true?” This time he rounds on Wei Wuxian, “What did Jin Zixuan say?”

 

Wei Wuxian blinks, put on the spot, before his eyes dart to Jiang Yanli quickly, “Nothing specific.” He hedges. 

 

“Tell me.” Ziyuan commands, “Or I’ll beat it out of you.”

 

“Tell him A-Ying.” His wife commands and of course the child listens to her and not him. 

 

“He said her cultivation and looks were poor.” Wei Wuxian speaks very falteringly and darts increasingly dire looks at A-Li all the while. “He said he wasn’t happy to be engaged to her.”

 

“Speak clearly.” Ziyuan snaps, “A-Li is not so delicate she’ll wither at a few unkind words.”

 

“I can’t remember the exact words he used.” Wei Wuxian hastens to say, “But that was his meaning. Everyone heard.”

 

Ziyuan nods coldly, “And what did you say in response?”

 

“I hit him.” Wei Wuxian admits. 

 

Yu Ziyuan is angry but the anger is now mostly directed at Madam Jin, a childhood friend who he stopped spending as much time with once they grew old enough that unrelated men and women were kept apart, who approached him once she’d had her son to ask for an engagement. He should have known she had no real affection for A-Li, only wanted a known quantity as a daughter-in-law to prevent her own power from being diminished.

 

“I see.” Ziyuan’s face is dark with rage and he knows it. He wants to hit Wei Wuxian, he wants to hit Jin Zixuan. He may also want to hit Fengmian but he always does. “Why did you not wait to discuss it with me?” He asks Fengmian. 

 

She finally looks at him, “Jin Guangshan was called as a result of the trouble. It was more expedient and would cause less upset to simply agree in person rather than wait and send an official missive once we had returned home and had an opportunity to discuss.”

 

Ziyuan hates her presumption. But she’s not wrong. He hates that she’s not wrong. 

 

“My Lord,” Fengmian is still looking at him, “Should we retire to speak further?”

 

Ziyuan nods, “Fine.” He’s still angry but he would rather not be angry around A-Li. 

 

They leave together and surprisingly Fengmian leads the way back to his own chambers rather than her own. 

 

“I had wanted to send letters.” Fengmian says when they’re alone, “But I didn’t know what to say.”

 

The honesty is… strange. Unfamiliar and foreign. 

 

“What made you so hesitant?” Ziyuan asks, arms crossed keeping distance between them. He knows Fengmian to be reticent, not hesitant. He’d never thought she didn’t speak because she didn’t know what to say, only that she didn’t want to. 

 

Fengmian doesn’t answer that question directly. 

 

“I thought that with the news of A-Ying and the engagement, it would certainly mean you would come home if you heard.”

 

Ziyuan thinks it’s an embarrassment that he’s so predictable. 

 

Then he realises what she’s said. 

 

“You wanted me to come back to Lotus Pier?”

 

“Yes.”

 

His anger abates and some of the hurt is lanced from the wound. 

 

“Fengmian,” He is a proud man who does not lower himself to ask for favours but if she can say this much then he won’t hold himself back excessively. There’s no use in trying to keep face in front of her any longer, “What do you want from me?”

 

Again, she doesn’t answer the question properly. 

 

“I apologise if I offended you and caused you to leave. That was never my intention.”

 

Ziyuan’s remembered anger sparks back to life, “What else did you expect the reaction to be when you said you did not enjoy sharing a bed with your husband and knew him a predictable fool who would use you to vent his frustrations after arguments?”

 

“That was not my meaning.” Fengmian swallows, “I always thought you would come after disagreements to give me face, so others wouldn’t see we were discordant.”

 

Ziyuan can’t help his shock, “So you do understand things, I knew all these years you were only pretending to be a fool.”

 

Fengmian steps closer to him, “You can hit me.” She says, she tilts her cheek towards him and he hates her so much he feels sick and dizzy with it. “If you’re angry with me and it would help.”

 

Ziyuan sneers, “I am not the type of man who strikes his wife to vent his own frustrations. I have never hit you before, you speak very lowly of my character to believe I will do so now at your own request. Who do you think I am?” It’s of no consequence that he’s imagined hitting Fengmian before, thoughts are thoughts and the fact that she could look at him and read them or… or more sinisterly simply thinks of him that way… 

 

Fengmian stays in place, “I am sorry for offending you-”

 

“What are you apologising so readily for? Do you even know how you’ve offended me? Do you even understand what you’re saying or suggesting?”

 

Fengmian swallows, “Then… what can I do? My Lord need only tell me and I will do my utmost not to disappoint.”

 

“Why do you always address me that way? I am not your Lord, if anything you, as the mistress of Lotus Pier, are my Lord. What do you mean by this honorific?”

 

Fengmian looks confused and predictably, frustratingly, ducks her gaze. 

 

He doesn’t give her the easy option of speaking first. Instead he waits. Waits until it's uncomfortable. 

 

Finally Fengmian resumes speaking. 

 

“After we married the elders started considering my words with more weight. With you gone the past months, they have been more combative towards me.”

 

“So that’s why you wanted me back? So everyone would take you seriously when you have a man by your side willing to look in the other direction and give you face enough to ignore the way you despise him.”

 

“I don’t despise you.” Fengmian tries.

 

“Liar.” He feels the bitterness creep into his voice, “You never wanted to marry me, you wanted to marry someone else.”

 

Fengmian doesn’t say anything which he takes as an admission. 

 

“We’ve been married for a long time.” Fengmian finally says, “I have not despised you nor our life together all these years. You have always supported me in my position. Thank you.”

 

“I will go back to Meishan.” Ziyuan warns sick with rage and nothing else, sick sick sick sick, “I will take A-Li and A-Cheng with me. I won’t be made a fool any longer.”

 

“I have never betrayed you.” Fengmian says steadily. 

 

Ziyuan remembers the bloody sheet. 

 

“The body is the easier thing. Your feelings are another. What do you say then?”

 

Fengmian looks away, “Do you really want to talk about this?” She sounds exhausted. 

 

Ziyuan is never exhausted enough to stop. 

 

“Yes.” Maybe he’s a masochist, maybe he’s selfish for dragging this corpse out and flaying it but his pride demands payment.

 

Fengmian nods, “If we speak now, will you stay?”

 

Ziyuan finds himself surprised by that. 

 

“It depends on what you say.” He counters, knowing it’s unfair and hating himself in that moment. It feels the same as hating her. “I cannot guarantee.”

 

Fengmian nods again, slowly and tiredly. 

 

“I have never betrayed you.” She repeats, “Not physically, my feelings… I do not believe I have betrayed you, you may think differently.” She is still looking away. 

 

“Look me in the eye.” Ziyuan commands, “I hate it when you look away when speaking to me.”

 

That makes Fengmian look at him in surprise. But at least she’s looking at him. 

 

“My feelings,” She starts, she stops and swallows, “Wei Cangze was a brother to me.” She says steadily, meeting his eyes all the while, “The rumours of our relationship were only a fabrication. I was always grateful that you acted as though you didn’t care in public.” She swallows again.

 

“You swear on our children’s lives?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Then what do you want to say? If that was it then how have we dragged it out to this stage? Why did you never fight back?” Ziyuan would have. If anyone tried to spread lies like that about Ziyuan he would have fought until his mouth was bloody with the truth. If it was the truth he was fighting… he would have fought anyway. Perhaps with less fervour. He’s not honourable though he likes to imagine himself as, he has enough self-awareness to admit that to himself. He can’t imagine why Fengmian never fought back. 

 

Fengmian swallows again, “Cangse Sanren. I admired her very much.”

 

That’s all she says. 

 

Ziyuan’s eyes widen in shock, “You- you’re a cutsleeve? It was Cangse Sanren, you-”

 

Fengmian actually interrupts him. Strangely it makes him aware of just how many times he’s interrupted her over the years. 

 

“She was very impressive. And she was free, able to go wherever she wanted and do whatever she wanted.”

 

Ziyuan looks at her as if with new eyes, “Then all these years, I never had a chance because I was a man.”

 

Fengmian shakes her head, “I don’t know if I’m a cutsleeve.” Finally she is showing proper emotion, words coming out quickly. 

 

So. She didn’t fight because… it was true. Not Wei Cagze but… it was true in some way. Fengmian is moral. Fengmian feels guilt. Fengmian didn’t fight because she didn’t feel able to. 

 

Ziyuan sits down heavily, drained of all emotion after finding out that the person he believed was his competition all these years was in fact nothing more than superfluous. A cover for something more damaging to a highborn Sect heir who must carry and birth the next generation. 

 

“Was Wei Cangze simply a deflection then? Was I?”

 

“No.” Fengmian comes closer and sits down next to him. 

 

“Then why?” Ziyuan can’t help but ask, “Why were you so cold to me all these years? I always thought it was because you held another in your heart that you refused to accept me. If you say that’s not true, that you had feeling for Cangse Sanren but that did not make you despise marriage with me then why?” His pride roils the second the words come out and he wants immediately to take them back. 

 

Fengmian is now making a conscious effort to look him in the eye. He can’t help but notice the way it discomforts her, causing her to break and look away, before her gaze once more flicks back to his. 

 

He wants to stop but he can’t, words and questions and condemnation spilling out rapidly as he finally loses all filter and displays in all ways that Fengmian really should have regretted marrying him. 

 

“If my competition was not Wei Cangze, why did you let everyone speak of you that way? Why didn’t you try and stop me more judiciously? Why weren’t you simply honest. I wouldn’t have hated you for admiring Cangse Sanren.” Now that Ziyuan knows his competition isn’t male suddenly everything seems far clearer and far easier. 

 

Fengmian shakes her head, “Wouldn’t you have disliked my feelings for anyone else?”

 

Ziyuan shrugs, “Cangse Sanren was a woman, it’s not the same.”

 

“Why not?”

 

“You would never have been allowed to marry a woman. You can’t have children with a woman. My children’s inheritance is not in danger from a woman.” The competition isn’t real. 

 

But her feelings… her feelings are what you were truly jealous of. Then… doesn’t that mean nothing has changed? 

 

Ziyuan ignores that thought. 

 

“Ah.” Fengmian stops making the effort and instead looks away. 

 

Ziyuan is struck with the queer sensation that he’s misstepped somehow. 

 

“Do you still have feelings for her?” He finds himself asking. 

 

“She’s been gone for almost a decade and married to my closest friend for years more before that.”

 

“That’s not what I asked.”

 

“No.” Fengmian finally answers, “I don’t.”

 

“Good.” That’s all Ziyuan needs. 

 

“Then will you stay?” Fengmian asks, uncharacteristically pushy. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t hesitate, “I do not plan on leaving again.”

 

Fengmian nods and shockingly, before Ziyuan can get up and think of attending to the hundreds of tasks that likely need his attention, she leans forward and kisses him. She kisses him herself, of her own initiative. In the middle of the day with the sun streaming through the windows. 

 

Ziyuan stays still in shock and when she finally pulls back Fengmian’s face is a little pink. 

 

“Do you… has My Lord lost interest?”

 

“Don’t call me that.”

 

Ziyuan kissed her back, harder, and his wife acquiesced easily. Maybe she would be just as easy for anyone else but they certainly didn’t get to have her. 

 

“Did you want to marry me?” He asks, Fengmian is even more flushed when they separate.

 

She nods and despite his scepticism this time he doesn’t push it. No matter what his wife wished for she would never be able to have Cangse Sanren even if the woman wanted her back. He remembers the girl now as she was during their time in Cloud Recesses, loud and unrestrained with enough strength to back herself up and an immortal’s approval to her name, that it didn’t matter how wild she was. They hadn’t interacted much because he had taken one look at her and knew he wouldn’t like her. 

 

He didn’t like women like Cangse Sanren anyway. 

 

“You’re my wife.” He said to her, again more harshly than was perhaps appropriate, “There’s no one else you could have, certainly no one that would treat you as well as me.”

 

Fengmian nodded in response. 

 

“Speak up.” He commanded, “I hate when you stay quiet.”

 

Again Fengmian looked confused, a little surprised perhaps, by his vehemence but she agreed with an affirmative noise anyhow. 

 

“When we first met I thought you were everything I wanted in a future wife, everything that is good for a woman to be.” Ziyuan pauses for a second as he orders these thoughts. 

 

He’s not sure how to phrase it in a way that stops him from sounding like a terrible person. Though… he’s not actually all that concerned about being perceived as bad by Jiang Fengmian. They’ve reached a point, almost like an ending, a death perhaps, of the facades that they used to keep their relationship sweet though it never really was. How could he have shared this woman’s bed, bowed in red with her, raised children together and still find himself at a loss of who she actually is? Is she very good at hiding or is he just bad at looking?

 

Ziyuan gives up on trying to sweeten his words. 

 

“I was wrong.” He says, “Everything I had been told about women, everything I had been taught that marriage would be is wrong. I look at you and I have no idea what you’re thinking, I don’t know you at all and everything you’ve allowed me to think about you for all these years is also wrong. You allowed me to misunderstand everything and you never once spoke up to correct me.” Ziyuan feels angry even as he feels hollow but it’s a more clarifying kind of anger than the cloying rage that usually paralyses him, leaving him impotent. “I wanted a soft quiet wife who would never argue back with me and would be easy to live with but that’s a lie in and of itself isn’t it? No two people that live as closely together as we do could ever live a life without a single argument, if we don’t argue it’s not because we get along so well there’s no need, it’s that we’re thinking the arguments but not saying them out loud. How many times have you thought that you hated me? I’ve certainly thought it time and time again over the years.”

 

Fengmian looks askance, “I have never hated you-”

“Don’t lie. I hate that about you the most, now that we’re at this point why still lie? You’re human aren’t you? You’re human so you have the ability to hate, even if you tell me you don’t I won’t believe you, so don’t lie. Just be honest with me for once in our fucking lives.”

 

Fengmian seems shocked by his coarse language and he revels in that, in the ability to cause some reaction. 

 

“I have never hated you.” Fengmian says again, and gods Ziyuan despises her. “I… did not realise how much I liked you until you left.”

 

“So absence has softened your heart towards me? Don’t make me laugh.” Ziyuan sneers, “You came into this marriage with no intention of committing fully. I wonder if it was truly Cangse Sanren or perhaps if she’s only an excuse and you’re simply that cold.” 

 

Ziyuan’s blow lands and he regrets it as soon as it does. He wants to hurt Fengmian but he hates doing it because she doesn’t fight back, there’s no payoff to fighting, and her pain like this isn’t quite what he wants. Not like this. He wants her to hit back, to dirty herself alongside him, to scream in his face and hit him so he can drag her down and kiss her and bite her lips bloody.

 

She won’t. That’s not who she is in any respect. 

 

So Ziyuan regrets, but he’s still too proud to pull back and apologise. 

 

Fengmain is looking away again and he can’t even blame her for it. 

 

“If you truly dislike our marriage then perhaps it would be better for us to separate.” Are her next words and they drive Ziyuan out of his mind, “A-Cheng is still the heir to Lotus Pier and he will inherit regardless. If you wish to take A-Li to Meishan then I-”

 

Ziyuan cuts her off harshly, fisting a hand in the front of her robes to drag her forward so he can kiss her if only to force her to stop talking. He hates her hates her hates her and hates that this is what his marriage is when it would be so easy, could be so easy, for them to live together. He had liked Fengmian so much, likely still does under more complicated emotions, and if only if only. It would have been so easy. 

 

“I hate you.” He repeats when he pulls away, “But you don’t get to have anyone else and neither do I. Separating is a disgusting thought, never say it again.” He glares hard at her, “Why do you always only say the wrong things?”

 

Fengmian stares at him, slightly pink. “I never know what the right thing to say with you is.” She admits, finally finally honest, “You say you liked me because of the way I was when we first met but I haven’t changed, you just seemed to like me less and less.” 

 

“The way you were when we met can’t be the way you are for the rest of our lives.” Ziyuan retorts, still holding her so they’re close enough that he can feel her breath on his face, “We were strangers, are we going to be strangers forever? You never let me see anything beyond surface level. Is it because you don’t trust me? Because you don’t like me? Because I’m not Cangse Sanren. As if she would ever think of you the way I do.” Ziyuan means it in all senses, no one would think about Jiang Fengmian as much nor as deeply as he does. It’s simply not possible. No matter what she says there’s a part of him, impossible to ignore, that’s simply obsessed with her. 

 

Fengmian doesn’t speak but her gaze darts to his lips and it’s enough for Ziyuan. He kisses her again, harder and she kisses back. 

 

“You give up so easily.” He bites at her neck, puts a hand in her hair to pull it, “How can you be a sect leader that lacks any amount of tenacity? You gave up on our marriage, on our children, on-” And he finds himself choking up, showing more emotion than he ever intended to. 

 

“My Lord-”

 

“Don’t call me that!” He rips himself away and stands up to pace back, “My name is Yu Ziyuan! I am your husband. I am the father to our children! I am the man who has shared your bed for the past twenty years! Stop treating me like a stranger!” 

 

“I apologise-”

 

Ziyuan laughs bitterly, “I don’t want apologies.”

 

“Then what can I do? Whatever you want, I will do my best.” 

 

Ziyuan frowns as a slight sensation of deja vu comes over him. Had she said those words before? Had she asked before? She had, hadn’t she? 

 

“What do you think I want?”

 

Fengmian looks lost, as though she has no idea what he could want. If Ziyuan was more charitable he would give her the benefit of the doubt because he barely knows what he himself wants. 

 

Still looking lost, Fengmain stands and comes towards him. He lets her. 

 

She reaches out and places her hand in the centre of his chest, her eyes are cast down demurely but when she speaks it’s with her usual strength. 

 

“I never regretted marrying you. I was very happy to have you as my husband. I always,” Fengmain swallows thickly, “Forgive me.” She says, “I am not used to speaking about my feelings.”

 

Ironically, Ziyuan is somehow far more able to articulate himself. He’s an emotional person and knows this about himself. He’s an emotional person from an emotional family who grew up hearing others screaming about their feelings and he expected the same kind of forthrightness from Fengmian. 

 

“You have always helped me to feel safe.” Fengmian continues, “From the rest of the cultivation world, from the gossip, from the elders of my own Sect. You have always stood by my side and supported me even when I know you disagreed because you were always better at seeing the bigger picture than I was.”

 

That makes Ziyuan laugh again because if there’s one thing no one has ever praised him for, it’s for seeing the bigger picture. 

 

“Even if we hate each other,” Ziyuan looks at her, forcing her to look at him too, “We only have each other and our children. Our weaknesses become their vulnerabilities, if we want them to be safe and live well it’s our responsibility.” 

 

Fengmian nods, “I never wanted children.” She suddenly says, sounding hoarse. “My parents passed before they had other children so I was the only option to lead the Sect though I knew I wasn’t the preferred one. There was no choice for anyone, not me nor anyone else.”

 

Ziyuan presses his lips together before he answers, “You’re wrong, I chose you. I wanted you so against the better wishes of my family I chose you.”

 

There’s a moment of pause before Ziyuan continues because he’s always the one to drag them forward, even when they both wish he wouldn’t. 

 

“Did you never want children so you could be rootless and fancy free like your precious Cangse Sanren-”

 

“Yes.” Fengmian answers quickly and doesn’t continue. 

 

Ziyuan… doesn’t understand that. Their children are the best part of his life, the part he treasures the most. It was never a question that he would have children and he had in fact looked forward to it from a young age. 

 

Moreover, the hard truth when it comes to them having children is that even if she had expressed a wish to wait for children they wouldn’t have been able to. The Sect needed an heir and when A-Li’s weakness and unsuitability was exposed they didn’t have a choice but to try for another. 

 

“Then what are you saying? That you want to leave now? I won’t let you so don’t even think to try.”

 

Fengmian shakes her head. 

 

“Then what do you want?” 

 

“I want to feel- I want you to- I want-” Fengmian can’t seem to answer. 

 

Ziyuan waits. 

 

“Have me.” Fengmian finally says, in a rush, “You should have me.”

 

When Ziyuan looks at her he can never be sure if he’s doing the wrong thing. He listens to what she says but she never speaks honestly. He does what she lets him but is it what she wants?

 

She asks him to have her so he pushes her down on their bed and has her. Rougher than usual and this time she even hooks her legs around his waist like she’s taking just as much pleasure in this as he is. 

 

Later they lie together, in each other's arms, as though they’re both afraid to lose the closeness they just experienced, as though it could really fade away into nothing the way it has so many times before. 

 

“You were never like that before.” Fengmian says suddenly. She’s referencing his previous passion. 

 

“I take care not to use you roughly. You are my wife, not some brothel whore.”

 

There’s a period of silence. 

 

“Have you had many… brothel workers before?”

 

Ziyuan isn’t in the mood to fight, not even with himself. 

 

“When I was in my teens my family assigned me a bed servant who had some basic cultivation ability.  It was primarily so I could use her as a cauldron while I developed my own cultivation. I didn’t like her so I had her dismissed. Later my cousin took me to a brothel to see a different woman. That was just for… fun.”

 

“Did you… like that woman?”

 

“No.” 

 

“I see.”

 

“I didn’t like any of the women they showed me. I don’t like women like that anyhow, disreputable and loud or faking shyness.”

 

Fengmian is still quiet. 

 

“What is it?” He finally asks. 

 

“Would you have disrespected me the same way if I had been one of those women?”

 

“Excuse me?”

 

“You say… you say you like me but if I hadn’t been the heir to the Jiang clan then would you have disliked me as well?”

 

“You mean, would I have disliked you if you were a brothel worker? I doubt it.” He’s being honest. Fengmian is different, to him at least she’s always been different. 

 

“Then what do you like about me? Is it my position or my bloodline, or something like-”

 

“No.” Ziyuan frowns, “When we first met, chaperoned by our elders, I liked you then. I had never particularly liked any woman before but you looked like the kind of woman I would like and later when we spoke I did like you.”

 

“Then why do you dislike me now? I don’t understand what changed.”

 

“Nothing changed. I don’t dislike you now.”

 

Despite his answer Fengmian continues, it strikes Ziyuan suddenly that it’s perhaps not only him that’s trying to pull an answer that won’t come. 

 

“I feel as though all those qualities that you initially liked me for, my propriety and even-temper, have become things for you to dislike.”

 

“I would never dislike you for acting properly.” Ziyuan insists, “I only-” He stops then because his next statement is certainly… wrong. And yet it’s the way he feels. “Stop acting so properly with me. Speak honestly. I want us to get along, I want you and when I say you I mean not only the parts that everyone else is allowed.”

 

Fengmian is frowning now, very slightly, a little wrinkle to her brow, and Ziyuan knows he’s being unreasonable. Maybe he often is and rarely thinks it but right now he knows with certainty that he’s being unreasonable. Fengmian cannot give him things she’s not capable of. She’s the perfect woman but he doesn’t want that. He wants a marriage unlike what is normal for people like them. He wants a peasant’s marriage where the two people share a room and talk about everything and-

 

“Do you love me?” He finds himself asking, stupid and vulnerable and sick with all of it. 

 

Fengmian nods. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t waste time, not when it feels like he’s running a race against his own better judgement, his own sense of propriety, his own pride. 

 

He kisses her again, harder like before, harder than he usually would. He bullies her mouth open and they’ve never lain together twice in such quick succession but he pulls her closer so they can lie side by side and kiss. Eventually he sits up and pulls her up as well and out of her own initiative she climbs into his lap to straddle him. 

 

If we can’t speak then this is fine. Ziyuan thinks with something like rising hysteria. If she says she likes this all can be forgotten, we can start again. 

 

“Fengmian.” He tries, biting her neck, “Do you like this?”

 

“Yes.”

 

That’s it. That’s enough. Ziyuan won’t ask for any more, not now at least. Later. Later he will because he can never leave well enough alone, not even for his own sake. 

 

But now. Now. 

 

That’s all Ziyuan wanted. He wanted her to want this too, to want everything with the same fervour as he does and maybe that’s impossible because when Ziyuan wants it’s endless and uncouth and uncomfortable. Ungentlemanly and rude. Not at all indicative of his station and privileges. 

 

Ziyuan goes to lead her onto her back and shockingly she shakes her head. 

 

“Let’s do it like this.” Fengmian isn’t flushed any darker than she usually is and Ziyuan wonders if she’s always this bold and just normally holding herself back. He waits to see what she will do. 

 

What she will do is apparently grab his cock in her own hand and before he can think, sink herself down onto him in one smooth move. 

 

“Gods.” Ziyuan hisses, taken by the sensation and boldness, “Fengmian, what the hell are you doing?”

 

“Do you not like it?” She’s moving now, little hitches of her hips that feel incredible. 

 

“How long did you want it like this?” He finds himself asking, content to sit back and let her do what she wants. 

 

Fengmian shakes her head, “I don’t know.”

 

“You never know anything.” But it comes out somehow more familiar and fond than condemning. 

 

“When you visited the brothel with your cousin, what did the women look like?” 

 

Ziyuan barks a laugh, “Are you jealous?”

 

“No, just curious.”

 

“I would be jealous.” He finds himself saying, hands migrating to her bare hips.

 

“What about the servant?”

 

Ziyuan has a mean impulse that he follows, “Are you asking out of concern for your place in your husband’s heart or because it would be easier for you to think of a woman right now?”

 

Fengmian looks away at this, suddenly becoming a little stuff, “If My Lord-”

 

“Ziyuan.” He corrects, seeing the edge of danger, “And I was being rude.” He admits, vulnerability somehow easier now, “She was beautiful but not the kind of person I like. She was annoying.”

 

“What happened to her?”

 

“I don’t know.” Ziyuan admits, “When I said I didn’t want her I never saw her again.”

 

Fengmian buries her face in his neck and Ziyuan reaches up to hold her. He can feel that she’s become emotional but he can’t understand why or how, or what he can do to help. 

 

“What is it?” He asks, trying to hold her in a somewhat comforting way. 

 

“Why do you value me?” Fengmian asks, voice a little thin, “Why am I different?”

 

“You’re my wife.”

 

Fengmian shakes her head but doesn’t say anything else. 

 

“Make love to me.” She requests and Ziyuan does just that, he leads her onto her back and makes love to her the way they usually do. The same position as they had been in just a shichen before though it feels remarkably different. 

 

This time they kiss continuously through it, a thin line of connection that keeps them tethered to each other. He moves slowly and she takes his own hand to palm her breast. It’s soft. Too soft for comfort and somehow not the more respectful for it. 

 

“You’re not a whore.” Ziyuan murmurs to her, “You could never be. Even if you weren’t a Jiang.”

 

“You don’t know that.” Fengmian responds, breath punched out by the sex.

 

“No.” He agrees, “But why think so much of the what ifs?” He pulls her closer to him with one arm, causing her back to arch off their bed, “We have our own lives, are we not able to live them?”

 

“I feel so badly.” Fengmian admits, “To be lucky and still not… content.”

 

“Stop thinking.” Ziyuan hisses as he rolls his hips harder, punching a gasp out of her, “Stay here now, with me.”

 

Fengmian looks up at him and there’s something in her gaze he can’t parse, but in the next moment she’s arching up to kiss him again. 

 

They make love for a long time that lazy afternoon that fades into evening, enough so that even Ziyuan feels sated. 

 

“Do you think we’ll have another one?” He wonders, pressing a hand to Fengmian’s stomach as they lie side by side in the low evening light. 

 

“Maybe.” Fengmian allows. 

 

Ziyuan remembers what she said earlier, “If you would prefer not to, there's no pressing need. A-Cheng is a good heir, we don’t need more.”

 

“Pregnancy scares me.” Fengmian admits then, facing away where he’s holding her from behind, “It’s always scared me.”

 

“We have good doctors, nothing bad would happen to you or the child-”

 

“It’s not that. It’s- it scares me to feel my body changing. I feel so out of place and everything feels so… wrong.”

 

Ziyuan has never heard anything but women being ecstatically joyous over their pregnancies. He could never have imagined his own wife would feel this way. 

 

“I was so upset after I gave birth.” Fengmian continues, “I found it so hard to be around A-Li and A-Cheng. I don’t think I was ever meant to be a mother.”

 

“I don’t… I didn’t know.” Ziyuan feels stunningly out of his depth suddenly. 

 

“I didn’t think I could tell you, or tell anyone.” Fengmian curls up a little in his arms, “I was glad you kept visiting me after I healed.”

 

“I wouldn’t have been angry if you told me.”

 

“Disappointed?”

 

“No. You should have told me.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian sighs and it shakes her body a little, “I like this.” She goes on to say, “We should do it more.”

 

Ziyuan snorts, “Shirk our duties to lie together?”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian seems to agree.

 

Ziyuan can’t help but laugh properly, he feels light and buoyant suddenly, “We’ll be the laughing stocks of Yunmeng.” But he’s not truly being serious, “A-Li and A-Cheng will have to take over our duties in our place.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian agrees again and she shifts in his arms, a gesture that has him pulling away slightly so she can face him. 

 

Ziyuan traces a finger over her brow, down her nose and then over her lips. 

 

“I don’t want things to go back to normal.” Fengmian is shockingly the one who confesses.

 

“Then it won’t.” He tries to assure, “I’m not angry about A-Li’s engagement. Our daughter should have better than some disrespectful son of a whore.”

 

“I thought you were friends with Madam Jin.”

 

“I meant her husband.”

 

That makes Fengmian laugh. It feels hard won and yet infinitely easy. 

 

“You’ve always been funny.” Fengmian says, smiling, “I like that about you.”

 

“I’m mean.” Ziyuan corrects, “The fact that you laugh at it means you’re mean too.” 

 

“Mm.” Fengmian is still smiling, “I don’t mind it. You’re honest.”

 

“I’m mean to you.” Ziyuan feels a sudden pang of regret.

 

Fengmian is still smiling, “You’ve never lied to me.”

 

“It’s not in my character to lie, unless it’s necessary. But why would I need to lie to you?”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian looks very pleased. 

 

“Do others often lie to you?”

 

Fengmian nods, “Everyone lies.” She says, “Everyone has their own motives and they’ll twist the truth for their own aims or word something to serve their own purposes. You don’t do that with me. You… you want the same things as me.”

 

“And what would that be?”

 

“Our children to do well, our Sect to flourish.”

 

“Anything else?”

 

Fengmian looks at him. 

 

Ziyuan gives her an arch look, “Our children, our sect. What about simply us? Don’t you want the same things as me when it comes to us.”

 

Fengmian once again pinkens slightly, “I want us.” She agrees. 

 

“Then if we both want the same thing why have we never been able to achieve it for all these years?”

 

Fengmian looks away, “I-”

 

“I’m not criticising you.” Ziyuan feels the need to stay, he cups her cheek, “It was a thought but not important now. We’re here now, we just have to make sure we don’t go back.”

 

Fengmian nods, “I still don’t know what you want.” She hedges, “You want me to be… less proper?”

 

“With me. Talk to me. If you’re thinking something then tell me, even if you think my reaction will be bad I will do my best to temper myself.” Ziyuan isn’t good at schooling himself but he’s not so useless that he can’t try to hold himself back for this. 

 

“Alright.” Fengmian is soft and pliant in his arms and there’s an openness to her face that has never been there before.

 

Ziyuan lets the first seeds of hope germinate in his heart, allows the green shoots to peek out beyond the surface. 

 

Gods, if tomorrow she turns to him with that solid wall once more up between them he’ll kill her. He doesn’t think he can survive any other way. 

 

*

 

“Quiet.” Ziyuan admonishes but he’s smiling and when he could press a hand over Fengmian’s mouth to muffle the sounds she’s making he instead only uses that hand to hitch her thigh higher around his waist where he has her pressed to the wall. 

 

Fengmian kisses him, something desperate in it that he relishes in. 

 

“Ah, Ziyuan,” Her voice is soft but not contained like it usually is, “Someone’s going to see us.”

 

“Mm, maybe.” Ziyuan allows. He grins, wide and unrestrained, and Fengmian pinkens further, “But you kissed me first.”

 

Fengmian smiles back, very slightly but a smile. 

 

Ziyuan kisses her again but he can, because they can, because this is better. Better like this where the two of them can live in their bubble and trust each other not to pop it.

 

“A-Cheng will be back soon-”

 

“Not for at least a shichen.” Ziyuan mouths at her neck, “Maybe half a shichen now. Do you want to stop? Do you not like this?”

 

Fengmian wraps her arms around his neck, “What will you say if someone sees?”

 

“Who can criticise us? Isn’t this our Lotus Pier, there is never any danger in enjoying each other more. If we are considered to buck propriety at least we’re not like those other couples that can’t bear to touch one another.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian nods and accepts his next kiss. 

 

Ziyuan thrusts hard and Fengmian gasps as she’s forced onto tiptoes on her right leg, “Oh.” She closes her eyes and tips her head back. 

 

“There?” Ziyuan thrusts again and Fengmian nods.

 

“There.” She confirms in a high breathy voice, like the kind of loose woman she certainly is not. 

 

“How fast can you finish?” Ziyuan asks, a competitive edge beginning to creep into his voice, “Faster than last time?”

 

Fengmian and him… it feels like they’ve leapt into intimacy in the past few months. Suddenly they’re acting like untested children, touching each other near constantly, unable to stop from pushing and pulling to test the limits of their new accords. Maybe it’s the uncertainty, Ziyuan can… he can admit to himself that a few words do not erase twenty years. His feelings for Fengmian are deep and the conversations they’re having only make them deeper, but all the same he can’t say he trusts her completely. Only time will help that and for now… they have it. They have time. 

 

Ziyuan didn’t know how he had lived so long with such pedestrian intimacy. The sex they previously had, the feeling that accompanied it, feels now like only skimming the well. 

 

“Harder.” Fengmian half-whispers, quiet as a concession to their relative lack of privacy. They’re in her study and while the doors are closed these rooms aren’t like their bed chambers where no one would dare venture if they were sent away. Any disciple or servant or elder could theoretically knock on the door and if bold could enter before receiving a reply. 

 

Ziyuan cares but only in a tangential way, the position they’re in would afford them privacy, or at least afford Fengmian as much privacy as she needs to protect her modesty and they’re mostly clothed besides. Ziyuan cares but not enough to stop. He never thought he was this hedonistic. 

 

Fengmian makes that predictable noise that she does when she’s close, a recent discovery for him, and soon she’s clenching down as she finishes. 

 

Ziyuan likes this part the most because of the feeling of accomplishment that sweeps over him. When he follows not long after he can’t help the amorous way he searches for her lips. Fengmian’s leg is still hitched around his waist and she’s still on tiptoes on her other foot but she doesn’t complain. Her arms around his neck circle tighter and draw fingers into his hair and he likes that too. It’s nice to touch another person. It’s nice to touch and be touched and feel safe while doing so. He wonders who touches Fengmian but him. She’s far less hands-on with their children and he often feels as though maybe he’s the only person who would press into her space like this. 

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian kisses him again, “That was nice.” She says it so gently it’s actually funny. 

 

He laughs, “I would hope.” His fingers wander down to where they’re joined and Fengmian makes an aborted little gasp as he traces a lone finger over the area. 

 

“Don’t touch it.” She tries to protest, “It’s not clean.”

 

Ziyuan would find touching anyone else like this disgusting but he’s had decades and now months to acclimate himself to Fengmian’s body. 

 

“I don’t care.” He kisses her again.

 

Fengmian kisses back and it’s good. 

 

So of course it has to be interrupted. 

 

“A-Die? A-Niang? Im home!” Jiang Cheng barely knocks on the door before he bursts inside.

 

When he sees them he screams rather dramatically and starts spluttering, turning red and then white. 

 

“GET OUT!” Ziyuan commands and Jiang Cheng doesn’t need to be told twice, all but falling out the door and slamming it shut behind him. 

 

Fengmian sighs and closes her eyes as if in pain, “I had a feeling that would happen.” She says softly. 

 

“He’s growing older, how does he think he came to be? He needs to calm down, so dramatic and noisy.” Ziyuan says dismissively, though he feels his own personal twinge of embarrassment. 

 

He helps Fengmian’s leg down at this point and she steps into balancing her weight slightly shakily. 

 

“I’ll go tell him to stop being so annoying.” Ziyuan mutters as he tucks himself back into his clothing. 

 

“I’ll come too.” Fengmian readjusts her robes. “It’s been such a long time since he’s been home.”

 

“Likely why he rushed to get back, he needs to stop being so childish.” Ziyuan sighs, “But I am glad he’s back safely.” He holds out his hand for Fengmian to take. 

 

Fengmian takes it and though her touch is gentle it’s also firm. 

 

“He also needs to be told why it’s important to wait for a response after knocking.” Ziyuan continues, both for his own and Fengmian’s benefit, “When did he get into such a terrible habit of barging in places? Didn’t we do our best to teach him some manners over the years?”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian smiles that same smile she always does but it’s alright because there are other expressions of hers’ he gets to himself now. 

 

Ziyuan huffs and leads Fengmian out of her study. 

 

“JIANG WANYIN!” He calls out as he tracks down their wayward son to wherever he’s run off to, “COME HERE AND GREET YOUR PARENTS.”

 

When Jiang Cheng finally appears (dragging his feet) he looks to be in a rictus of agony. 

 

“A-Die, A-Niang.” He mumbles as he stares at the floor, then the wall, then their feet, and then the wall again. 

 

“You need to grow up.” Ziyuan reprimands, “How old are you now? You think you’re allowed to act like a child forever? How do you think you came into this world, have some respect!”

 

Jiang Cheng swallows visibly and his eyes once more do their quick little shift around the room. He nods in assent though it’s reluctant. 

 

“We’re very happy to see you home safe.” Fengmian smiles, “You should tell us all about Gusu over dinner.”

 

Jiang Cheng mumbles something else before Ziyuan sighs explosively and waves their stupid son away. 

 

“What’s wrong with him?” He questions once Jiang Cheng has walked off, “Who gave him permission to act this way?”

 

Fengmian hums, “He’s getting older.” 

 

“So? When I was getting older I didn’t stop showing my parents the appropriate amount of respect.”

 

Ah,” Fengmian smiles a little awkwardly, “In this case I do think that perhaps we were at fault.”

 

“Even if we were, where is it his place to decide that?” Ziyuan sniffs superciliously.

 

Fengmian laughs, covering her mouth with her hand as she does, eyes crinkling up. 

 

And because they’re alone and he can and he wants to, Ziyuan leans down at that moment and presses a hard kiss to her lips. 

 

At least when words fail them they have this language they can speak instead. 

 

*

 

“Ziyuan, have some more rice.” Fengmian spooned some straight into his bowl.

 

“You have a little,” In response Ziyuan brushes a thumb over her bottom lip, “There, it’s gone now.”

 

Fengmian looked a little pink but she smiled in response before turning back to her bowl. 

 

“A-Cheng,” Ziyuan turned away from his wife to address his son, “How was Gusu after Wei Wuxian was expelled? Did you meet anyone halfway decent?”

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian nudged him gently. 

 

Ziyuan rolled his eyes, “You’re disagreeing?”

 

Fengmian was still smiling, “I’m sure A-Cheng made good friends.” She looked at A-Cheng who looked rather like a baby rabbit caught in a trap. 

 

“Well? Who did you spend the majority of your time with?”

 

“Nie Huaisang.” Jiang Cheng said slightly falteringly, “Mostly.”

 

“Ha!” Wei Wuxian elbowed him, grinning wildly, “Did you skive off class with him?”

 

“Of course not!” Jiang Cheng darted a furtive look at his parents. 

 

Fengmian leaned against Ziyuan very slightly and when he looked at her she smiled at him, “What about your time at the Cloud Recesses?”

 

Ziyuan couldn’t help but laugh as he remembered, “I counted down the days until I could go back to Meishan. The food was bland, the company unbearable, every Lan lecturer we had was so dry I felt I was watching them crumble to dust before my eyes. My Sect sister was forced to stay in the female section of the Cloud Recesses so we were essentially separated for the year, it made the whole thing horrendously boring. The most interesting thing that happened was that one of Jin Guangshan’s cousins also tried to spy on the women bathing in the cold pools and Cangse Sanren beat him near to death for it.” 

 

Wei Wuxian jerked at the mention of his mother, he could see the movement out of the corner of his eye. 

 

Fengmian was smiling at him still and her hand was resting on his arm so he continued. 

 

“She then shaved off Lan Qiren’s beard while he slept which everyone was relieved for, his attempt at growing it looked disgusting in the first place, and was expelled.” Ziyuan remembers the way Cangse Sanren had laughed uproariously as she was told to get out and the way she had winked, picked up her sword and left before anyone could say another word. 

 

“Old man Lan was our teacher.” Wei Wuxian says suddenly, “He mentioned my mother.” His voice is faltering. 

 

“He hated her.” Ziyuan says dismissively, “Or maybe he was in love with her, that kind of fervour has to come from somewhere.”

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian is smiling wider now. 

 

“Oh? Does that disturb you? I’ve always felt rather sorry for Lan Qiren in truth,” Ziyuan continues. 

 

“Mm, because of Qingheng-jun?” She asks. 

 

“He was the second son, he was never meant to be Sect Leader even in an interim fashion. The older one has taken the mantle now but he’s far too young for comfort.”

 

“Lan Xichen?” Jiang Cheng pipes up then, “He seemed very confident.”

 

“He’s a child.” Ziyuan dismisses, “And Nie Mingjue isn’t much older.”

 

“He’s a good boy.” Is Fengmian’s only comment.

 

“Soft.” Ziyuan retorts even though Nie Mingjue looks anything but. 

 

“Mm.” Fengmian is still pink and it creates an answering response from him, causing his own face to likely become disgustingly soft. 

 

“Jin Zixuan.” He turns to his son then, “What about him?”

 

Jiang Cheng blinks, “What do you mean?”

 

Ziyuan makes an impatient gesture, “What do you think I mean! Don’t look so stupid.”

 

“Uh..” Jiang Cheng darts a look at Wei Wuxian and then A-Li, “He tried to speak to me but I mostly ignored him.” The end of that turns up as though it’s a question after which Jiang Cheng immediately follows with, “Not that I was impolite! I tried to be uh… diplomatic?” This part really sounds like a question.

 

Before Ziyuan can respond (likely with something scathing about Jiang Cheng’s apparent inability to express himself) Fengmian steps in. 

 

“Your father and I have discussed what happened.” She doesn’t look at Ziyuan but her hand is still on his arm, “We both deeply deplore Jin Zixuan’s behaviour and were extremely disappointed. You will not be at fault for preferring not to interact with him.”

 

Ziyuan nods in agreement. 

 

“Your father sent a strongly worded letter to Madam Jin about her son’s behaviour.” Fengmian continues. 

 

A-Li looks shocked but Jiang Cheng looks very pleased. 

 

“He was awful!” His son goes on to say, apparently buoyed by his parents tacit approval, “He’s so arrogant! He only ever hung around the other Jin disciples and his attitude about our Sect!” Jiang Cheng seems to be working himself up into a bit of a rage, “He’s a bad person! Good thing A-Jie doesn’t have to marry him.”

 

“If Wei Wuxian hadn’t hit him would you have?” Ziyuan finds himself asking. 

 

Jiang Cheng scowls, “I wanted to.” He says with certainty.

Ziyuan finds himself laughing, it’s a mean impulse but not one that he tries to suppress. He can’t help but approve. Even with the political ramifications. 

 

“I remember,” Fengmian starts, she darts a look at him, “At that gathering in the unclean realm when Nie Zhongliu made that comment about your sect sister-”

 

“Is that what he said? That he made a comment?” Ziyuan makes a sound of disgust, “He did far more than make a comment.”

 

“You almost whipped him half to death during the one on one spars.”

 

“And I was supposed to do what? Take that insult on my back? The Meishan Yu-”

 

“Sect has been standing for over a thousand years.” Fengmian finishes. She smiles, “I remember that’s what you said to Ouyang Shao when he congratulated you. You made it sound like he’d insulted you rather than praised you.”

 

“Didn’t he? In what world would I be unable to best some insignificant Nie worm?”

 

“A-Die, you almost killed someone in a spar?” Jiang Cheng seems delighted by the story.

 

“Was your Sect sister alright?” Is A-Li’s question. 

 

“She was fine.” Ziyuan answers, “Just because the Nie fancy themselves a Great Sect, does that mean that we have to roll over for them? I would rather die.”

 

Fengmian is still smiling, “I remember watching that spar.”

 

“What did you think?”

 

“You were very good.” Fengmian is still looking at him and it’s with… interest. 

 

“Oh gods.” He hears Wei Wuxian say, very quietly but with something like despair. 

 

“Shut up.” He doesn’t bother looking at the stupid boy as he says it, “And all of you can go. Tell everyone else we’re not to be disturbed.”

 

His children practically run from the room.

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian is still smiling, “Everyone will know.”

 

“What did I say before?” Ziyuan asks and this time Fengmian kisses him first. 

 

“You were so impressive.” She says as they scrabble for each other’s clothing like green newlyweds. “I thought so, you looked so cold and so mean.”

 

“You like that do you? Cold and mean?”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian tugs ineffectively at his belt, “Our children are so embarrassed.” She sounds slightly embarrassed herself, but likely not enough to stop.

 

“They have to get over themselves.” Ziyuan condemns as he finally stoops to helping Fengmian get him out of his clothing, “Aren’t they going to get married and have children of their own one day?”

 

Fengmian smiles against his neck, he can feel it, “They’re still young. They should be embarrassed for a while longer.”

 

“If that’s how you feel then how can I argue?” Ziyuan tips her back onto the dining table, sweeping a few dishes out of the way onto the floor.

 

“Ziyuan!” Fengmian gasps but he doesn’t let her say anything else in disapproval, not for a long while.

 

*

 

“A-Die, you don’t have to come.” Jiang Cheng shares a rather frantic look with A-Li and Wei Wuxian, “It’s just a discussion conference, you never liked them before.”

 

“Yeah and-” Wei Wuxian stops because he’s not indelicate enough to try and contradict Yu Ziyuan to his face but Jiang Cheng finishes the thought for him. 

 

“Who will look after Lotus Pier with you gone?”

 

Ziyuan gives his son a rather unimpressed look, “Are you trying to prevent me from coming?”

 

“No!” Jiang Cheng immediately disagrees, “It’s just… with A-Ninag already coming… doesn’t it make more sense for you to stay here?” He trails off slowly, sounding deeply uncertain and shoots Wei Wuxian an entirely panicked look. 

 

“A-Li will be here.” Fengmian says, she looks at Ziyuan and he smiles back. Isn’t it so much better when they work as a team? “We have full confidence in her ability to manage things.”

 

In reality Ziyuan doesn’t have all that much faith. He loves his daughter but she’s soft and untested, terrible with conflict and far too kind. However Fengmian has faith and if nothing else no one in Lotus Pier would dare cross their daughter while they drew breath. 

 

A-Cheng is still fidgeting and occasionally shooting dire looks at Wei Wuxian. 

 

“Unfilial brat.” Ziyuan scolds, hitting his son (lightly) upside the head, “You would disrespect your own parents this way by questioning their decisions?”

 

“I’m not.” Jiang Cheng immediately attempts to protest, “But A-Niang and you…” He trails off. 

 

“Your mother and I what?”

 

Jiang Cheng gives up entirely, “Nothing.” He says. He stares defeated at the ground. 

 

Ziyuan sniffs and turns to Fengmian, “Look at these children.” He complains to her, “Useless, all of them.”

 

Fengmian is smiling and Ziyuan’s lips naturally make the same expression in response. 

 

“Gods.” He hears Jiang Cheng say in a vaguely despairing tone. 

 

Without looking at his son, Ziyuan hits him for the impudence. 

 

*

 

“Qishan only becomes more and more depressing as the years go on.” Ziyuan complains (quietly) to Fengmian as they lie in their fairly luxurious bed together. 

 

“Mm, it’s hot but far dryer than Yunmeng.” Fengmian agrees, wriggling closer under the gaudy covers. 

 

 “I now remember why I don’t go to discussion conferences.” Ziyuan mutters. 

 

Fengmian just smiles, “I’m glad you came this time.” 

 

“I’ll come to all of them from now on.” Ziyuan assures though he wonders why he sounds so threatening. 

 

Fengmian doesn’t seem threatened, “It’s been far more enjoyable with you here.”

 

“Someone for you to laugh at Jin Guangshan with?”

 

“I don’t laugh.” Fengmian says, but she’s smiling. 

 

“I can laugh enough for the both of us.” Ziyuan scoffs, “Did you see the way he was pawing that servant through dinner? That man has no sense of decorum, he could at least wait until we had retired to whore around so we wouldn’t have to see it.”

 

Fengmian nods but she suddenly seems a little diminished. 

 

“What is it?”

 

“Nothing important.”

 

“What is it?” He insists.

Fengmian darts a look at him, shifting closer but looking away and Ziyuan wraps his arm more securely around her. 

 

“It’s sad, isn’t it?” Fengmian finally says, “That he can treat that serving girl that way.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t know if he would call it sad. 

 

“It’s embarrassing for him.”

 

“I mean,” Fengmian looks away, staring at something over his shoulder, “Don’t mind me.” She suddenly says, “It’s not important.”

 

Ziyuan has had enough of that to last a lifetime, so he pushes. 

 

“Tell me.” He repeats strongly. 

 

“It’s sad that the serving girl can’t protest.” Fengmian says, “It scares me a little.”

 

“You think Jin Guangshan would try anything with you?” Ziyuan immediately flips into incredulous rage, “As if he would dare. Has he ever said anything?”

 

“No, but… the server and I are both women. The only thing that separates us is family background. In another life… it could have been A-Li.”

 

Ziyuan finds this thought rather ridiculous. 

 

“It’s not.” He says, “And besides, that girl chose to work in the palace and serve at this dinner. Likely she has no problem with Jin Guangshan’s actions as long as they could give her a better life.”

 

Fengmian suddenly begins to pull away, still looking away and Ziyuan knows he’s misstepped with her but has no idea what he’s said wrong. 

 

“Fengmian,” He catches her wrist, “What is it?”

 

“I’m thirsty.” Fengmian is still not looking at him, “Would you also like some water?”

 

Ziyuan grits his teeth in frustration, unable to explode nor even speak too loudly since they’re not in their own home and anyone is likely listening. 

 

“Forget the water, don’t lie to me. If I said something you take issue with, tell me.”

 

Fengmian shakes her head, “You haven’t said anything unusual.”

 

“But you still don’t like it, tell me.”

 

Fengmian is silent for long enough that Ziyuan thinks she might not say anything, but then she finally speaks. 

 

“It scares me to hear you talk that way.” She finally says, “I know you say that to you I’m different, but I don’t know why or how and I feel as though… I could lose it. Whatever makes me different, and then I’ll simply be any other woman to you.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t understand what she’s saying at all. 

 

“You are different.” He tries to insist, “You’re Jiang Fengmian. You’re my wife. You could never be some ordinary woman.”

 

Fengmian still looks upset.

 

“Come here.” Ziyuan coaxes, wondering why she’s suddenly so emotional. He’s the emotional one between them, Fengmian is the one who’s placid and not easily ruffled. 

 

“Don’t talk about the servant girls like that, please.” She requests, very quietly. 

 

Ziyuan still doesn’t know what he’s said that’s so disturbing to her but it’s easier to agree and it’s hardly a hardship to stop remarking on the servants at all, it’s not as though he actually cares about them.

 

“Fine, I won’t.” He keeps holding her close, feeling disquieted but glad that they’re still touching amicably. 

 

“Only another five days until we can go home.” Fengmian murmurs and on this sentiment Ziyuan is fully in agreement. 

 

“Gods, it’s been torture staying here so long already.” Ziyuan complains in response, “And why on earth is Wen Ruohan so eager to talk to you when he ignores everyone else?”

 

Fengmian shakes her head that she doesn’t know. “I’m a woman?” She suggests and Ziyuan immediately disagrees. 

 

“It’s likely that you’re the most agreeable one. Everyone else is awful.” And Ziyuan isn’t even saying that so strongly because he’s particularly difficult, look at all the other sect leaders. Nightmares. All of them. 

 

“You seem to enjoy their company well enough.”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes. He’s known all the other Sect Leaders since they were in the teens, even if they’re not at all close there’s still a familiarity built over decades of nighthunts and discussion conferences. 

 

“Let’s just go to sleep.” He suggests, “It’s important to be well-rested when dealing with these people.”

 

Fengmian hums in response and like that they fall asleep together.

 

*

 

“This is lacking Guangshan, even for you.” Ziyuan says with a spectacular eye-roll. He waves away the whore trying to pour him a drink.

 

Jin Guangshan practically pouted in faux upset, “Every gathering needs a little entertainment, it would be in poorer taste not to organise for everyone.” He made a gesture and one of the pretty girls walking around promptly walked over and planted herself in his lap. 

 

Ziyuan rolled his eyes again, “This is tiresome.” The woman were all uninteresting to him, boring and base. Besides, they were being paid. There was something almost insulting in having to pay a woman to be in your company, especially when they’d had so many other men before. 

 

“You were always boring.” Jin Guangshan criticised, “Even when we were teenagers, you were too stuck up to enjoy yourself.”

 

“And you were loose enough to take any company.” Ziyuan retorts dryly. 

 

“You and your wife seem far closer.” Wen Ruohan chose that moment to speak, lounging in the corner as one did when they knew they were the most powerful one in the room. He was also the reason Ziyuan hadn’t just left. Everyone was here, everyone important anyhow, and it would do his and Fengmian’s Sect no favours to leave.

 

“Fengmian and I have always been close.” Ziyuan says and it’s not even a lie, compared to all the other Sect Leaders and their wives even at his and Fengmian’s worst, they were “close”. 

 

“People have been talking, saying you can barely keep your hands off her.” Web Ruohan doesn’t leer, he hadn’t even when they were youths and he was less crazed than he is now and Guangshan was pulling all the same schemes. Instead when he speaks it always sounds like a threat though if there’s one thing Ziyuan knows it’s that it’s not personal. With Wen Ruohan it never is. The other man sees everyone as insignificant, the whole world spread out like ants below him. Ziyuan doesn’t admire him for that. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “People always talk. Have I committed any crime?” He scoffs, “People can be so narrow minded.” He had perfected this way of speaking to these men, his peers, when they were still all teens and often feels like he’s almost playing a caricature of himself in the course of it. Someone meaner and harsher and colder and more dismissive and less human for it. He wonders, a little distantly, if they’re all doing the same or if it’s just him. 

 

“If only my wife was halfway as put together as yours I wouldn’t be so unsatisfied with her.” Guangshan chooses that moment to pipe up, another woman having draped herself over his back. “You’re lucky Yu-xiong.” He has a sleazy little smile on his face that indicates he thinks he’s being less complimentary than his words would suggest. Fucking idiot. 

 

“Don’t call me that.” Ziyuan snapped back but not with as much heat as he likely should have.

 

“You are lucky with that woman.” Wen Ruohan said then, almost lazily, “All the perks of Sect Leadership with only half the work. My late wife could barely string a sentence together let alone attend any kind of meeting without me.”

 

Guangshan laughs then, “Isn’t that true? My wife is all but useless when it comes to running the sect. I let her have some pet projects to keep her busy but really I have to do almost everything myself.”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes again, “You and your council of elders.” He snarks. 

 

“The Jiang have their own council of elders.” Guangshan tries to retort as he begins to openly grope at the woman on his lap. 

 

“Gods.” Ziyuan looks away in disgust, “None of us want to see that filth, shameless exhibitionist that you are.”

 

Gungashan shrugs and pushes the woman off his lap to land in a heap on the floor, “Go get more drinks.” 

 

The other smaller Sect leaders are sitting around, having their own quiet conversations but Ziyuan knows they’re listening and watching and hoping to have a seat at the table. Nie Mingjue had flat-out refused to come but he’s still a child in most ways, Ziyuan isn’t surprised. Lan Qiren, no one thought he would come anyway and everyone is used to it after all these years. 

 

“Whoever Qingheng-jun married is really the worst offender.” Jin Guangshan goes on to say, “Not only is she useless at Sect business, she’s now made him entirely impotent as well.”

 

Ziyuan can’t help but laugh at that, a little meanly but he’s a mean person anyway. 

 

“I feel sorry for Lan Qiren.” Wen Ruohan says lazily, “He was never cut out for Sect Leadership.” The way he speaks is slightly unnerving as though this marker of incompetence means deeper things than plain criticism. 

 

Wen Ruohan is a predator, Ziyuan had been told this sternly by his mother before he first met the man and he’s never forgotten it. It influences the way he even acts now. Influenced his judgement and reaction when the man was rumoured to have killed the late Nie-zhongzhu, another one of their contemporaries. 

 

Ziyuan was called the violet spider in youth and also had a reputation as a predator, he often thinks it was a little darker than who he truly was. The reverse is true for Wen Ruohan, if it would suit him Ziyuan thinks he might kill everyone in the room right now and laugh when doing it. This is something he always feels when the man in question is in front of him and always forgets the immediacy of with the cover of distance. 

 

He wonders if anyone else can sense it. 

 

“It’s technically his nephew now.” Guangshan corrects as he drains his cup, disrespectful and relishing in it, “But I have to admit, I forgot and didn’t invite him.”

 

“You’re awful.” Ziyuan says with no pull back as he waves away the second woman trying to fill his cup, “I said no,” He glares at her, “Are you mentally deficient somehow so as not to understand that?”

 

The girl stutters and leaves quickly. 

 

Gunagshan laughs, “You don’t change Yu-xiong.” He says, raising his cup in  mock salute, “How’s your mother?”

 

“Well.” 

 

“How long has it been since your father passed? If she ever gets lonely-” 

 

Ziyuan has Zidian out before Guangshan can finish his sentence. 

 

“I’ll fry you alive.” He snarls, “Talk about my mother one more time.”

 

“Now this does bring back memories.” Ruohan says dryly, “He’s right, Yu Ziyuan does not change.” It sounds both like a compliment and not. Ziyuan is suddenly scared of being so predictable. Then again, aren’t they all?

 

Guangshan puts up his hands good naturedly, “That was in bad taste.”

 

Ziyuan scoffs and sits back down, calling Zidian back as he does so, “You haven’t changed either.”

 

Guangshan smiles that disgusting little half smile and unexpectedly changes the subject,he gestures at Sect Leader Ouyang, “You have a child now too? More than one?”

 

Sect Leader Ouyang looks at Ziyuan briefly before answering which is expected, he’s allied most closely to Yunmeng Jiang which means Ziyuan is his closest protection in this room. 

 

“Oh yes.” The man in question quickly esponds, moving closer as he speaks, “Two sons.”

 

“Prodigious.” Guangshan takes another drink, “Thankfully it only took me one try for a son. Two tries for you Ziyuan?” He smiles

 

Yu Ziyuan rolls his eyes, he isn’t even offended but such an inane attempt at a jab, “What a cheap comment.”

 

“Ah, it’s not an insult. Some men do like having girls over boys.” Guangshan goes on to say grandly as the rest of the room listens and tries to pretend they aren’t, “I always saw that for you Ziyuan. But you’re lucky, with your relationship with your wife you would be able to have as many children as you’d like. It would take Heaven’s intervention for me to have another official child.” He sighs almost in self-mockery though everyone knows it’s false. 

 

“Legitimise one of your bastards.” Wen Ruohan makes the comment, “Surely at least one will be suitable.” 

 

As always in these back and forths Ziyuan can’t miss his own opportunity, “I heard you kicked one of them down the steps of Koi tower.” Ziyuan raises an eyebrow, “So public, it’s embarrassing.”

 

“You were always the most proper of us all.” Ruohan says lazily. Proper is stretched out in emphasis. Ziyuan would prefer they think him a prude than think him the same as them. Since his marriage he’s never once stepped away and he despises the thought of anyone thinking he even wants to. He despises the thought of any of them thinking Fengmian isn’t worthy. 

 

“You have to discourage the others from doing the same Yu-xiong.” Guangshan speaks as though he’s imparting wisdom, “Or you’ll find yourself overrun.” His expression then becomes slightly sly and Ziyuan knows exactly what he’s going to say before he does. It’s fine, he’d prepared himself for this. He knew the second he stepped foot in hostile waters this is what he’d have to face and he’s ready. “After all,” Guangshan leans forward, “You’ve found yourself a little overrun with that Wei Wuxian haven’t you?”

 

Ziyuan raises an eyebrow, “Be careful with what you say next.” But he keeps his voice bored. 

 

“Everyone knows he’s not Fengmian’s son, she wouldn’t have been able to hide it at the time if he was.” Guangshan says carelessly. It’s funny that people say that as though it means anything. 

 

“Don’t call my wife so familiarly. She is Jiang-zhongzhu to you.” Ziyuan snaps. 

 

Guangshan laughs, Ziyuan’s apparent jealousy enough for him to chew on that the idea of Wei Wuxian is abandoned. “Fine fine fine, so touchy. You’ve always been so possessive Yu-xiong. I’m shocked you even let the poor woman leave Lotus Pier without you for so many years.” On this front Yu Ziyuan’s conscience is clear. He would never consider possessiveness a bad quality for a man to have in regard to his wife. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes then, “Are you making a point? If you are then get on with it, I’m already tired of your face. I want to leave.”

 

Guangshan just laughs, “No real point, just that you’re a better man than me.”

 

If Ziyuan cared at all about Jin Guangshan’s opinion then that might have stung. As it is, it’s a convenient cue for him to get up and leave. Every watches and no one says anything which is predictable. Ziyuan knows that out of all his contemporaries he’s (ironic considering their cohort) the hardest get along with and with him out of the room a neat little power vacuum for someone else to attempt to assert their influence into has opened up. 

 

“Enjoy your whores.” He says as he leaves, looking down his nose at Guangshan who is still lounging insolently, reaching for that woman he had previously rejected to come back now that Ziyuan is leaving. 

 

“Enjoy your wife.” Guangshan calls back with a laugh as Ziyuan rolls his eyes once more. 

 

He makes the walk across Wen Ruohan’s disgustingly ostentatious little palace from where Guangshan had organised his ambush of debauchery thankfully unmolested. Gods, Guangshan really doesn’t change at all, he’d been exactly the same at fifteen as he was now and infinitely dangerous for it. He needs to warn his son, one day it’ll be him in that room with Jin Zixuan and Wen Xu. Even the thought is tiresome. 

 

Surprisingly when he gets back to his and Fengmian’s suite she isn’t alone. 

 

“And then Lan Zhan stole my target!” Wei Wuxian is narrating with excitement as Jiang Cheng shoved him. 

 

“Idiot! Why are you so obsessed with him anyway?”

 

“I’m not, I just-”

 

“Ziyuan, you’re back.” Fengmian is the first to notice him and she smiles, “How were they?”

 

“I remember why I hate coming to these.” Ziyuan retorts, sitting down on the cushion next to Fengmian that she pats in invitation. 

 

Fengmian makes a sympathetic noise, “As bad as before?”

 

“Guangshan was molesting at least two women in plain sight while Wen Ruohan made his usual comments from the corner.”

 

Fengmian smiles, “Careful.” She says lightly, likely recognising that they’re still in Qishan and have to be careful. Ziyuan feels a little gratified to know she’s still paying attention and has stopped playing the fool around him. 

 

Ziyuan scoffs, “I do think he enjoys it, if only because he doesn’t prevent Guangshan from organising these things at every opportunity.” He looks at his son then, “Never take a whore any Jin offers, I don’t care if she’s a legendary beauty. She’ll either pass you a disguting disease, have your child to blackmail you or, and this is the best option, tell the Jin everything you enjoy in bed so they can ridicule you with it.”

 

Jiang Cheng looks rather queasy, “I won’t.” He sounds rather ill as well. 

 

“Gods you’re so soft, how will you survive.” Ziyuan mutters to himself. Fengmian places a hand on his back in comfort. 

 

“We’ll be taking that burden for a while longer.” Fengmian says, “Jiang Cheng has time.”

 

“And by that point it’ll be the next generation.” Ziyuan sighs, “One can only hope.” He wants to hit something, “I pulled Zidian on Guangshan, the pig, and barely felt satisfied.”

 

“A-Die you did?!” A-Cheng’s eyes are wide.

 

Ziyuan waves a hand, “Not the first time.”

 

“Though it has been a while.” Fengmian says, she smiles at him, “I remember when we were engaged.”

 

“He hasn’t changed at all, to that man nothing is sacred. And besides, I wasn’t the only one to pull a sword on him for your honour.” Ziyuan lets his eyes flick to Wei Wuxian and he really has mellowed a lot in recent years because remembering this barely feels like anything, “Though Wei Cangze did more harm than good that time.” The man’s low status combined with the rumours didn’t let any defence land the way it was meant to. Often when it comes to their lives it’s not about being defended, it’s a lot more to do with who is doing the defending. 

 

In the aftermath of that his mother had tried to convince him to break the engagement and one of the Jiang elders had personally visited Meishan to explain and apologise. Though looking back now… Ziyuan can finally say without jealousy that he would have preferred for Fengmian to have some defence, even from Wei Cangze, than none at all. 

 

“Mm.” Fengmian agrees though she doesn’t look as pleased as she did a moment ago, likely because the memories must be unpleasant. Ziyuan decides he needs to voice this thought for the first time, now that he can. 

 

“Though you should have been defended, it would have been more disgraceful without it.” Ziyuan speaks with certainty, he then levels a stern look at A-Cheng and Wei Wuxian, “If anyone, anyone, speaks badly on your sister, defend her. Politics and sect relations are one thing but we can only look so weak in front of others. Her value in the eyes of others is tied to how much others value her, especially if those others have power of their own. Do you understand?”

 

Jiang Cheng is frowning but he nods. Ziyuan doesn’t bother to check Wei Wuxian’s reaction. 

 

“A-Cheng, A-Ying,” Fengmian addresses both of them, “It’s late, why don’t you go back to your own rooms.”

 

Both the boys seemed more than happy to leave.

 

“It’s a… strange thing, those gatherings.” Fengmian says later when they’re getting ready for bed. “I’ve never been invited.”

 

Ziyuan makes an amused sound as he wraps an arm around her waist and pulls her to him, “For the best, it’s disgusting.”

 

“You are all closer because of it.” Fengmian gives him a look that he understands. There’s tension in the cultivation world currently and it may blow over quickly or it may be a precursor to worse things. 

 

“For better or worse.” Ziyuan replies dryly as he and Fengmian get into bed, “But you know what my priority is? What everything I do is for, right?”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian rests her head on his chest and he likes that very much. Likes her being soft and needy for him, likes her being a woman for him. 

 

“They all think I have the best wife anyway.” He tells her, meaning it as a clear compliment, “All of them lament that their wives aren’t half as good as you.”

 

Fengmian shifts a little, “Do you think so?”

 

“Yes.” Ziyuan says with certainty, “I always thought you were the best match for me.”

 

“Really?”

 

“Your character is undoubtedly the best.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian sighs and the little puff of air stirs across his collarbone, “As long as you like me.”

 

“I do. I also like that others recognise how you’re the best.”

 

“If others didn’t… would you still like me as much?”

 

“Of course.” Ziyuan says, again with certainty and he means it. Fengmian is a good wife in every respect, even if others couldn’t see it he would. After all, everyone else thinks it’s too possessive and it’s strange he’s never had a mistress. Everyone else is stupid. 

 

“Mm.” Fengmian seems satisfied so Ziyaun can be assured he’s said the correct thing to her. 

 

They lie there for a long while, not speaking, and Ziyuan is tired but not yet asleep when Fengmian breaks the silence. 

 

“It’s hard isn’t it?” She suddenly says.

 

“What is?”

 

“Marrying like we did, like most do, without knowing each other that well beforehand. We always had chaperones with us and we didn’t have the opportunity to meet many times before our wedding.”

 

“Twelve times.” Ziyuan supplies. 

 

“Mm, and then once we get married we’re expected to simply… get on with things. To have children and work together when we don’t know each other that well.”

 

Ziyuan can agree with that. Even now he feels like he doesn’t completely know Fengmian but understands that to be the natural opacity of women rather than something more grievous. He certainly hadn’t known Fengmian at all when they were married. 

 

“Did you want to know me when we married?”

 

Fengmian nods against his chest, “I wanted to be someone that you would like, the kind of woman you could be proud to stand next to despite everything.”

 

“You were successful, always.”

 

“I remember before… you were frustrated by my courtesies because they prevented real closeness between us-”

 

“That was unfair.” Ziyuan admits, “You always acted exactly as you should, it was unfair of me to begrudge you for acting as befits your station.”

 

Fengmian sighs again but it’s not the patronising sound it used to be, instead it’s soft and showcases real emotion.

“When I grew older, after my parents passed, I was always very grateful to the rules because as long as I followed them I would be safe. No matter what happened, what everyone said, propriety could shield me.”

 

Ziyuan, for perhaps the first time, actually understands what she’s saying and holds her closer in what he hopes is comfort.

 

“As long as I could be the spare and there existed the possibility of another heir my life was… simple. But after my parents passed I was suddenly the Sect Leader and everything I did mattered very much in a way it hadn’t before. I had to send away Wei-xiong then because the elders pressured me to either marry him or publicly distance myself and they weren’t all that keen on my marrying him in all honesty. He also didn’t want to marry me, he had already met Cangse Sanren by that point. She stayed for a few months at Lotus Pier and when she left he left with her and I… barely saw them ever again.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t care. It sounds bad but he doesn’t care about these two people. What he does care about is the image of Fengmian, left behind and abandoned by everyone close to her and at the mercy of the world at that tender age. This may be the first time he’s felt so much sympathy for Fengmian. He just wants her to be well. 

 

“It must have been hard.” He says, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. 

 

“Mm. But then we began courting not long after. After we married we had A-Li quickly and soon… life was far easier.”

 

That fills Ziyuan with satisfaction. 

 

So he draws her up to kiss him and she kisses back. 

 

“Are you happy then? Pleased with the way your life has turned out?”

 

Fengmian nods, “Let’s stay like this.” She requests, “The way we’ve been recently since you came back from Meishan, let’s stay like this.”

 

“Yes.” Ziyuan kisses her, “We should.”

 

And he’s sure they will.

 

*

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian gives him and a look that is entirely too disapproving for all that it still looks pleasant and genial, “Surely he’s been punished enough?”

 

“If we don’t receive any declarations of war from Gusu then he can stop running laps.” Ziyuan retorted before looking to where Wei Wuxian was finally working up a sweat, “RUN FASTER.” He barked and gratifyingly the boy sped up. 

 

“It’s so hot.” 

 

“He’s a teenage boy, this is good for him.” Ziyuan turned to her fully, “He deserves worse after what he did.”

 

Fengmian winces, “He didn’t know what it meant, isn’t this a little unfair?”

 

Ziyuan raised an eyebrow and picked a plum off the plate of fruits sitting on the side table, he then threw it at Wei Wuxian. It hit the boy right in the head, likely he hadn’t tried to dodge, and rebounded off. 

 

“Ow!” The boy whined for all that it likely hadn’t hurt that much. 

 

“Ziyuan!” 

 

“Oh no, I had no idea what I was doing.” Ziyuan said dryly. 

 

Fengmian couldn't stop herself from smiling slightly. 

 

“They had the right to demand something much more strenuous from us if that Lan Wangji hadn’t insisted on it not being a problem, even with him saying that I swear I could see Lan Qiren all but chomping at the bit.”

 

“Lan Qiren wasn’t even there.” 

 

“Thank the gods for small mercies. And thank the gods Lan Wangji is a man and Wei Wuxian is not thought of as a cutsleeve. Could you imagine if it was a female disciple’s ribbon? Or if anyone, for a moment, believed Wei Wuxian was preying on Lan Wangji?”

 

“I don’t think anyone would believe that A-Ying was preying on Lan Wangji in any context.” 

 

“I would say the same but A-Cheng wasn’t wrong, Wei Wuxian talks about that boy far too frequently for comfort. Tell him to stop.”

 

“He’ll likely listen better if you tell him.” Fengmian comes back to say. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “He doesn’t listen to anyone.” Is his final comment, “Keep running.” He commands Wei Wuxian who dutifully keeps pace before turning back to his wife, “It’s too hot out here, let’s go inside.”

 

Fengmian nods but before they go she calls out as well, “A-Ying, are you well? Would you like a break?”

 

“I’m great!” Is Wei Wuxian’s immediate response, “Better than great, wonderful! I could run for at least ten shichen more!”

 

“Then run faster for eleven shichen.” Is Ziyuan’s merciless comment, “Or I’ll beat you to death.”

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian reprimands but she’s smiling. Likely because she knows Ziyuan won’t do it. Likely because she knows that if she distracts him well enough he’ll forget completely about Wei Wuxian and how he’s supposed to be running laps. She puts a hand on his arm.

 

Ziyuan looks at her. A side effect, if you will, of their changing relationship is that Fengmian has begun to exercise her power over him a little more. It’s slightly exhilarating. It seems that for the first time his wife has realised that she is a woman and therefore it isn’t hard to lead Ziyuan the way she wants. Ziyuan doesn’t even mind being led, as long as it’s not in a direction he doesn’t want to go. 

 

“I like your hair ornaments today.” He raises his hand to flick at one of the dangling purple gems, “You look nice.”

 

Fengmian blushes, and perhaps it’s not only her that revels a little in exercising the power they have over each other. 

 

“Do you recognise them?” Fengmian raises her hand as well to pat at the hairstick, “It was one that-”

 

“That I gifted you when we were courting, I recognise it.” Ziyuan confirms. “You should wear it more.”

 

“Mm, I will.”

 

What happens next is not a surprise to anyone. 

 

*

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian’s voice was more hesitant than it had been in a very long time, more hesitant than he had perhaps ever heard her. 

 

Ziyuan looked up from his desk to his wife who had entered his study. She was standing strangely, body almost shifted to the side as if something felt awkward with standing too straight. 

 

“What is it?” He frowned and beckoned her closer, “Are you in pain?” She didn’t look like she was in pain but she certainly didn’t look comfortable. 

 

Fengmian stepped inside. Slowly. Hesitantly. The steps of someone who is a little afraid. Like the way A-Cheng steps into his office when he knows Ziyuan is going to scold him. 

 

She walks up to his desk and then around it at his prompting though she doesn’t try to sit in his lap the way he had hoped she would. He might have even asked her too if the mood hadn’t been so… strange. 

 

“Ziyuan.” She paused and then darted a look at the door, “Do you think anyone is listening?” She asked, uncharacteristic in the question and all the more worrying for it. 

 

“No one should be.” Ziyuan stood, “Let me close the windows.” He did so and double checked the privacy talismans he had carved into the wood of the walls and window frames. “What is it?” 

 

Fengmian stood by his desk and for once she was fidgeting, hands coming to bunch at her robes and worrying at the fabric. “I-” She started and then stopped before taking another deep breath and continuing, “I’m pregnant.” Her hands clenched harder in her robes. Her shoulders were hunched forward. 

 

“Pregnant?” Ziyuan blinked at her, truly shocked, “You’re pregnant? Have you seen a  doctor?”

 

Fengmian shook her head, “I can tell.” She says, still quiet, “I have not told anyone yet.”

 

Ziyuan wanted to smile. That was his first instinct. To smile and walk over and pull Fengmian into his arms and kiss her. Another child! Especially at their age. Physical proof of their feelings for each other that the world could see. Truly a blessing and in no way an unwelcome one in his mind. He wanted to spin Fengmian around the way he hadn’t been able to when she was pregnant with A-Li or A-Cheng and express his fierce joy the way he hadn’t been able to back then when they were still strangers to each other.

 

Fengmian was still twisting her robes in her hands and she looked… unhappy. 

 

“Are you in pain?” Ziyuan marched forward and put a hand on her back and the other on her lower stomach over where their child would be growing.

 

Fengmian shook her head, “It’s very early yet. I don’t think more than a few weeks.” She swallowed thickly. 

 

Ziyuan rubbed a hand steadily back and forth over where her lower stomach was covered by her thick robes. “When did you have a feeling?”

 

“This morning I felt very ill.” Fengmian swallowed and took the hand that was on her stomach, lacing their fingers together, “That was the first indication. I felt the same with A-Cheng and A-Li.”

 

“Mm.” Will this baby be a boy or a girl? Will they favour him or her? Ziyuan finds himself excited at the prospect. 

 

“Ziyuan.” She turns and buries herself in his arms, “I’m scared.”

 

That one sentence is enough to rouse Ziyuan. 

 

Fengmian… Fengmian has said that pregnancy scared her. That she didn’t enjoy it. That she didn’t want any more. He had forgotten. In the haze of their feelings and the hedonism that came with it he had forgotten. 

 

“You don’t want to have the child.” He surmises. 

 

Fengmian doesn’t respond. Just holds him and hides. 

 

“If you want the child very badly then we could.” She finally says. 

 

“But you don’t want to.”

 

There is nothing from Fengmian. 

 

“Fengmian.” He pulls her away from him so they can meet eyes, “You don’t want to.”

 

Fengmian looks the closest to tears he’s ever seen her though her voice is still very even. 

 

“If my lord wants to have the child then-”

 

“Stop.” Ziyuan physically puts his hand over her mouth, “Stop it. Tell me what you want or say nothing.”

 

Fengmian swallows thickly under his hand. When he takes it away she’s silent so he waits. 

 

Finally she speaks. 

 

“I don’t want it.” She says. Her voice is very quiet. 

 

It… it’s not a shock although there’s a part of Ziyuan that instinctively baulks. What woman does not want her own baby? 

 

Next is a certain wistfulness. A chimerical pain that he knows is altogether useless. This is likely their last chance to have a child. Even if cultivators age slowly and they still have years ahead of them if she says no now then it will likely be the last chance. 

 

As always because he is who he is, Ziyuan’s mind is already moving. “You spoke to no one else? No one else knows or has any inkling?” 

 

Fengmian shakes her head. “I came to you when I knew.”

 

Something foolish in Ziyuan is soothed by that. 

 

“Alright.” Ziyuan swallows, he is a pragmatic man first and foremost and it is too much to risk Fengmain and him degrading to where they were before if he forces her to carry this child to term. He wants the child, a hazy and not quite formed thought, but he will not push Fengmian for it. He’ll step back and swallow what he wants the same way he has so many times over the years and in return he’ll be allowed to keep what he has. 

 

Gods. It’s so pathetic. 

 

“Do not tell anyone.” Ziyuan says sternly, “There’s no greater taboo than a woman killing her own child. Leave it to me, I’ll get you an abortifacient. We won’t speak of this ever again and no one will ever know. We have to be careful from now on, we can’t let this happen again, we-”

 

He has to cut off because Fengmian has thrown herself at his feet with a sob. 

 

“Fengmian?!” 

 

“Ziyuan.” She kneels before him, holding his robes in her fists, “Ziyuan.” She’s sobbing. 

 

He tries to kneel with her but she wraps her arms around her knees like a supplicant. “Ziyuan.” She’s crying in earnest now and he doesn’t understand. 

 

“What are you doin? Get up. Don’t kneel! Stop kneeling!” He tries to tug her up but she resists, struggling against him, still crying. 

 

Has pregnancy, even this early, made her so emotional? He knows it can affect women seriously but Fengmian had always been so placid. Had she been like this in private? The thought alarms him. 

 

“Fengmian get up!”

 

But she won’t. She’s still kneeling at his feet, holding on to him. 

 

“I’m a bad mother.” She sobs into his clothing.

 

Ziyuan stands there and feels… too much to put into words. This is the most vulnerable, the most emotional, the most anything he’s ever seen Fengmian and it’s abruptly terrifying. He realises he doesn’t know what to do if she’s not the calm one between them. 

 

He tears her arms away from his knees and she just cries harder, face screwed up and eyes closed. He drops to his own knees and pulls her closer, unable to do anything but clutch her and hope it helps. 

 

“I’m sorry.” She keeps sobbing.

 

“What are you apologising for?” Ziyuan frowns even as he feels the answering tightness to his throat at the way she looks, at her pain. Somehow seeing Fengmian so upset has affected him deeply enough that he feels an answering upset in himself. Of course aborting a child isn’t done but it doesn’t require this level of self-recrimination. He presses his lips to the top of Fengmian’s head and she shudders and holds him harder. 

 

“Ziyuan.” She calls. 

 

“I’m here.” He answers. 

 

She shudders again and clutches him all the harder, “Don’t leave. Please. Ziyuan.”

 

“I wouldn’t leave.” Ziyuan is almost insulted at the thought. 

 

Fengmian stays burrowed into him. 

 

“Ziyuan. I love you.”

 

The words are plain and Yu Ziyuan is unprepared for the rush of power he feels at them. 

 

“Of course you do.” The desire to bind Fengmian to him forever never recedes, even when she’s like this. “Who else would care for you as I do? Who else would stand by you the way I do? I am the only person who would do anything for you and our children.”

 

Fengmian doesn’t stop crying. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t stop holding her. 

 

He should enjoy it less than he does.

 

*

 

“Your mother is feeling sick.” He tells his children sternly, “No one must disturb her. I will be caring for her so A-Cheng, it will be up to you to handle the majority of work alongside A-Li.” He looks at his daughter and then finally at Wei Wuxian, “You will handle the disciple’s training in my absence.”

 

Of course they immediately begin asking questions that Ziyuan cuts off tightly, “She will be fine.” He says shortly, “Don’t make so much noise.”

 

They quieten, scolded, and he takes the opportunity to leave back to his chambers where Fengmian has decided she wanted to be. 

 

When he enters the rooms are quiet and dark from all the closed curtains. Fengmian is still in bed. She had taken the herbs that Ziyuan had procured as quietly as he could and is currently curled on her side. 

 

“Does it hurt?” Ziyuan asks as he sits down on the bed and rests a hand on her shoulder so he can try and pass her some spiritual energy. Their systems aren’t the most naturally compatible so it’s slow going. 

 

“It’s not bad.” Fengmian replies and he’s suddenly brought back to their wedding night. 

 

“I don’t only mean physically.”

 

Fengmian lets out a deep shuddering breath, “I’m afraid you will regret this in the future.” She finally says on an exhale, far more candid than she ever usually would be, “I am afraid you’ll hate me for this.”

 

“I won’t.” Ziyuan promises although promises are impossibilities. 

 

“I feel like this is the wrong thing.” Fengmain suddenly says, “I don’t think I’m doing the right thing.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t know either. But there’s one thing for certain that he does know. 

 

“If you didn’t want the child then this is the right decision.”

 

“But-”

 

“If you didn’t want the child this is the right decision.” And Ziyuan is mean so he continues, “A child will be able to feel if they are unwanted, even when they are still growing inside their parent a child will be able to sense it. If you didn’t want them then you shouldn't have had them.”

 

Fengmian stays still under the blanket. 

 

“You’re a good father.” She finally says, “They wouldn’t have needed me.”

 

“Is that what you think now with A-Cheng and A-Li?”

 

Fengmian doesn’t answer. 

 

Ziyuan feels that familiar frustration but he doesn’t want to hurt Fengmian, not at all. He wants to help her, somehow. 

 

“I don’t understand why we praise people for having children anyway. Children shouldn’t be had in every circumstance. They’re not always blessings. You see mothers begging on the street with their starving offspring and you just think that they should never have had them in the first place. Why bring children into the world to suffer? I think those people are very selfish.”

 

Fengmian shifts, “Our child would live a good life.” 

 

Ziyuan can’t help but sigh. He doesn’t understand her fear. Just decide and let that be that. They’ve made their choice and they can’t take it back now even if they wanted to. 

 

At that moment her body spasms and she lets out a quiet “oh”. 

 

Ziyuan immediately starts transferring her spiritual energy, “Does it hurt?” 

 

Fengmian shakes her head. Then she nods. 

 

Ziyuan lies down next to her, though he’s above the sheets while she’s under them, and tugs her body into his arms, transferring her spiritual energy all the while. 

 

“Tell me if it keeps hurting.” He says as evenly as he can. His mind is filled with images of their child bleeding its way out between Fengmian’s legs and he’s filled with such incredible sadness that suddenly he doesn’t know what to do. He buries his face in Fengmian’s long unbound hair and breathes in her scent. She’s hurting him but it’s not her fault, it’s no one’s fault. It’s maybe even his fault for not being careful enough when they were fucking. 

 

If he had known Fengmian didn’t want children, if he knew Fengmian never wanted children would he still have married her? If he knew pregnancy scared her and she felt so uncomfortable and she would rather do this than have another one of their babies together would he still have married her?

 

Ziyuan hasn’t cried in years. Decades even. Ziyuan hasn’t cried since he was a child and even then he was reprimanded harshly enough that he never even felt more than the prickle of tears in his nose ever again. He’s always had too much pride to cry. 

 

Now as a grown man and father of two children, husband to Jiang Fengmian and a joint Sect Leader of a Great Sect, he feels that burn. This time… just once he doesn’t try to suppress it. 

 

His sobs are silent but they shake his body and Fengmian’s as well since he’s still holding her. 

 

Fengmain doesn’t say anything to his tears but she curls up even more tightly, clutching at his arm where it brackets her. 

 

Ziyuan holds Fengmian and cries and promises himself this will be the last time and he will never think of this moment ever again. 

 

Never again. 

 

*

 

“YOU DARE!” Ziyuan pulls the maid up from where she had been kowtowing on the ground by her hair only to throw her back down, “WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?!”

 

The maid is sobbing and when released she once more begins to knock her forehead against the ground, “This lowly one is sorry. This one did not realise-”

 

“Spreading gossip about your masters. About your betters.” Ziyuan hisses. His rage has consumed him so fully he thinks he might flay the maid alive, the first person he’s killed in cold blood though his whole body feels fit to boil up. 

 

The maid is not the only servant begging for mercy in the Sect’s main courtyard. Ziyuan has traced the source of the betrayal, all the way from the conciliatory letter and gift from Madam Jin all the way to the maid at his feet. 

 

I am very grieved to hear of the loss of your child, so early too, and I can only hope Fengmian is well. Please pass on all my well-wishes and be assured Carp Tower’s doors are always open. 

 

The maid keeps her head to the ground as she should, as she should if she doesn’t want to die because Ziyuan wants to kill her and still might. 

 

This maid had told someone about the bloody sheet and they had told someone else and the news had trickled and travelled with damning accuracy all the way to Jilintai which means it’s surely made its way to every corner of cultivation society by now. By now everyone will know that Jiang Fengmian was pregnant and they will all repeat the kinder lie that she miscarried because the truth is unfathomable and unbelievable. 

 

But it’s the truth. The truth that Fengmian will have to constantly be reminded of now all because of this worm’s loose mouth. 

 

The maid attempts to reach for his trousers in supplication and he kicks her away before she can make contact. 

 

“Be grateful you still have your life.” He snarls, the rage still great, so great and greater still now that it has a clear target. “Don’t you dare raise your eyes above the ground.” He turns his gaze to the rest of the unfortunate figures in the courtyard. Everyone this maid has admitted speaking to. Everyone that had spread what they believed to be a titillating piece of gossip one step further. 

 

“That applies to the rest of you.” He threatens, “If anyone tries to plead for mercy I certainly won’t listen.”

 

The courtyard is pindrop quiet. 

 

If Ziyuan had his way he would execute them all to make an example even though he knows that’s a stupid idea and that he’s thinking in anger and no substance. He can’t kill so many people so publically, there would be dissent, there would be push back. He may be Lord of Yunmeng but he’s not a god. If he kills everyone here what will happen to his children? How will this reflect back on them? 

 

Gods gods gods. He wants to. He wants to for Fengmian’s honour and for the way they’ve forced him to think of that day when he never wanted to go back ever again. 

 

“Ziyuan.”

 

Fengmian has arrived. 

 

“My lady.” He reaches out a hand for her and she takes it, glancing at the rows of people kneeling before her. He knows it makes her uncomfortable but for once she’s not saying anything. For once she’s ignoring them completely, as if there’s no one there but the two of them. 

 

“Come inside.” She requests, voice low and soft.

 

Ziyuan looks out at the people behind him and how little they all matter. 

 

“Everyone will keep kneeling until I say otherwise.” Ziyuan says it while he’s looking at Fengmian and he leaves without a second look back. 

 

“I’m sorry.” Fengmian says when they’re back in his rooms and he hates it because this is everything he didn’t want. 

 

“Don’t.” He cups her cheek, “I said we should never speak of it again.”

 

Fengmian looks away. 

 

If only… Ziyuan wishes suddenly there was somewhere he could take Fengmian. Somewhere far away where they could just be together, just the two of them, and forget everything else properly. He’s felt the strain of what happened even as he tried to clutch Fengmian to him all the tighter. She’s clutched back but it’s not so easy to melt back into their lives and act as though nothing happened. 

 

And now they won’t be able to act anymore. 

 

If his family liked her he would suggest they go to Meishan but he can recognise that’s a terrible idea. He loves his family but he knows how they feel about Fengmian and no matter what he does he won’t be able to change their minds. He never really cared before but he does now, he does care very much now and that’s how he recognises that he hadn’t loved Fengmian before. Not properly. 

 

“Fengmian, I-”

 

“A-Die, A-Niang.” A-Cheng calls as he walks down the hall towards their rooms. This time he knocks and waits for a reply instead of just barging in. 

 

Ziyuan looks to his wife and she’s the one to call for Jiang Cheng to come in. 

 

“Why are there people kneeling in the courtyard?” Jiang Cheng asks, A-Li and Wei Wuxian following because somehow these three are joined at the hip and unable to be apart from each other for even a moment. 

 

They all tumble into the room like the children they are, full of questions and opinions and all the rest of it. Ziyuan can see the way his wife starts to fade into herself. 

 

So Ziyuan reverts back to his first instinct which is anger. 

 

“You’re very brave aren’t you? Barging in here and asking such questions from your elders?” Parents. He and Fengmian are their parents but it hardly feels like anything right now. “Do none of you possess even the barest modicum of observational abilities? Jiang Wanyin!” His voice is like a whip crack, “You will be master of Lotus Pier one day, I despair for that time if you lack the ability to find things out for yourself without coming whining to your parents!” He’s being unfair, he knows it, but he won’t stop. “Yanli.” He barks, “How do you think you will fare amongst whatever family you marry into if this is your attitude? I am so disappointed! Both of you lack such-”

 

“We apologise.” Wei Wuxian somehow slides in, pushing his children behind him and also ushering them out of the door. He even bows. “We disturbed, we’ll go.”

 

Ziyuan can’t even say anything, the boy has the door shut and Fengmian and him alone so quickly.

 

“He-” He manages before he realises that Fengmain isn’t silent next to him. 

 

She’s crying. 

 

“Fengmian!” He cups her face, feeling that he’s seen her tears more than he would have ever wanted to, even when he believed her tears were what he wanted, “What do I do?” He asks, furious and impotent with it. He’s unsure and personally aggrieved and he doesn’t know what to do but throw himself into her and hope that can be good enough for the both of them to recover. 

 

“I made the wrong decision.” She says and she sounds choked up, “Never before in my life have I chosen and that was correct. I should never have been allowed to choose. The elders were correct, the world was correct, when I choose I simply choose wrong.”

 

Ziyuan can’t answer. He doesn’t know what to say. 

 

“Ziyuan.” She clutches at him, “Don’t go.”

 

“Where did you ever get the impression I would leave from?” Ziyuan tries to keep his tone even but it wavers awfully, “Didn’t I say before, in this life it’s only us together? And this is simply one more thing. Don’t speak on it again. I’ll have every servant’s tongue ripped out and you’ll never have to hear of it again.”

 

Fengmian doesn’t say anything to that. 

 

“I’ll look after you.” Ziyuan promises, sick and reckless with it, “I’ll make sure you’ll alright, you just need to keep trusting me. I promise. I promise.”

 

Fengmain holds him and life doesn’t get any better in that moment, but it doesn’t get worse. 

 

Later Ziyuan will dismiss all the servants and threaten to have their tongue ripped out and hands cut off. Later he’ll put the blackest parts of his reputation to good use and receive enough sly missives from others with more condolences and titters at the news of his heavy handed retribution. 

 

Yu Ziyuan doesn’t change.

 

No. No he doesn’t. 

 

*

 

Ziyuan is falling asleep over Sect missives by the time his son finds him. 

 

He’s doing a valiant attempt to plough through what needs to be done with as much efficiency as he can but he’s not practised the way Fengmian is in this area and he’s finding it more challenging than he would have expected. 

 

However, Fengmian is currently not in a state to be doing much strenuous work and that is a fact. So the burden has fallen on Ziyuan and he is… struggling. 

 

“A-Die.” A-Cheng reaches forward hesitantly and touches his shoulder to rouse him. 

 

“A-Cheng.” Ziyuan wakes at once, snapped into alertness, “What is it?”

 

“Do you need help?” A-Cheng asked. He was already wincing instinctively as he finished speaking as though preparing for his father’s anger. 

 

Ziyuan unfortunately knows his son is valid in his response. Fengmian has been mostly absent for the past weeks and without her he was snappier and quicker to anger than usual. He knew he was being mean, belligerent, overly critical, but his children had taken everything in stride. He had assumed they learnt what happened fairly quickly, or at least learnt what everyone else did fairly quickly and had explained their parent’s behaviour as a result. 

 

Ziyuan was tired. He was tired of hating everything and feeling so out of control. He was tired of mourning and anger. But somehow he couldn’t stop. 

 

Right now, as he looked up at A-Cheng who stared determinedly back, he felt something in him soften. 

 

“Come here.” He gestured to his side and sorted the correspondence into two even piles, “Take this stack, these are all requests for aid from local communities. Look through them and decide which are urgent and need to be addressed quickly.”

 

A-Cheng nods seriously and does just that, sitting himself down and beginning to read with admirable concentration. 

 

Ziyuan watches him for several long moments and, unable to stop himself, reaches out and rests a hand on his son’s head. 

 

A-Cheng stops reading and looks at him, “A-Die?” He seems a little confused but not unwelcoming. 

 

Ziyuan sighs and closes his eyes, “I have been unfair to you in past weeks.”

 

“It’s okay!” A-Cheng’s response is immediate and earnest, “I… with A-Niang and everything I…” He looks down at the letters on the desk, “I’m sorry A-Die.” He sounds grievously upset. 

 

Ziyuan sighs, “All of this could have been avoided.” He says with great tiredness, “If some people could have kept their mouths shut. What happened could have been moved on from, was moved on from until everyone found out.”

 

A-Cheng fidgets, “You mean the servants?”

 

“I mean all of this.” Ziyuan reaches into his desk drawer and retrieves a thick stack of correspondence from every halfway important Sect Leader or Second they had ever vaguely interacted with. All condolences. All taunts or attempts to insert influence. All cheap. All reminders. 

 

Jiang Cheng’s expression as he picks up the first letter and begins to read just shows how young he is. 

 

“I don’t-”

 

“With who we are, nothing is private information, nothing is sacred. Jiang Cheng, listen to me and listen well; there is no such thing as baseless gossip or family matters when it comes to people of our calibre. Because of our positions we will always be important and as a result we will always be of interest. It is not something we choose but it is something we have to pay for the power we have.” He puts his hand on his son’s shoulder, “We influence people’s lives, we control people’s lives. Yunmeng and its people survive on the back of our protection, do you understand?”

 

“Mm.” Jiang Cheng nods. 

 

“That means that the things we do are never inconsequential. Even something like this.” Ziyuan gestures at the letters, “Such a private intimate detail becomes this. People will use this for years to come. They will bring it up to me, to your mother, in honest sympathy maybe but rarely. More likely to gain a reaction, anything to try and claw a little more power off our backs. Your mother is the Sect Leader of Yunmeng Jiang, a position that gives her a seat at the same table as every other great sect leader. A table a level above the minor sects. She is not just any woman and therefore what happens to her is not just anything.” Ziyuan sighs heavily, “Even so, if only I had run a tighter staff, if I had been more careful, then this would never have happened and your mother would not be forced to relive a painful memory again and again and again every time she looks at another person and sees it on their face.”

 

Jiang Cheng is quiet again and when he speaks his voice is small but Ziyuan can tell he has listened. His son is nowhere near as belligerent as he puts on, in actuality when it comes to serious topics he listens very well. 

 

“A-Die… is A-Niang alright?”

 

Ziyuan thinks of Fengmian and how this seems to be the worst blow she has had to take, this loss of confidence is her ability to make her own decisions now that she has finally decided to try. Fengmian broke the rules the world had imposed on her, the rules she had embraced willingly for her safety, and thinks herself punished for it. Ziyuan doesn’t know what to say to disagree. 

 

“She will be fine.” He says with certainty. 

 

Jiang Cheng nods and then with great gravitas to his expression he nudges his father, “You should go to her, go to bed A-Die. I can finish this tonight.”

 

“Who is your father?” Ziyuan challenges but A-Cheng stands firm. 

 

“Please get some rest A-Die.” His son requests and Ziyuan can’t argue well enough so he simply sighs and gets up, proof of how tired he is in how easily he acquiesces. 

 

How easily he passes a burden to his son. His son who is still a child. 

 

But when Ziyuan turns back at the door he sees that his son has settled himself into his father’s seat with admirable ease, brow slightly furrowed as he begins to read. He looks just as comfortable as Ziyuan had always hoped he would. 

 

*

 

Ziyuan refills Fengmain’s cup and presses it into her hands, “You’re so cold.” He half-scolds as he feels her icy fingers, “Drink quickly, let me call the servants for some broth.”

 

“It’s alright.” Fengmian, still beautiful and maybe even more so now that she looks so vulnerable and within reach. Ziyuan must have something sick in him though he would never admit it nor even examine it too closely, because somehow he enjoys just how reliant Fengmian has become on him in the aftermath. 

 

Ziyuan huffs and reaches out to pull her closer. They’re in public now but that means nothing to the way Ziyuan touches her. He wants to show everyone, to make it blindingly obvious, that nothing can reduce Fengmian’s value in his eyes. She may be the Sect Leader but she’s a woman and sometimes the two matter as much as each other no matter that they shouldn’t. 

 

But politics are only one thing. In reality he just wants to touch her, this woman who he has only learnt to love more recently than he would have thought. Fengmian is no longer a figure to admire but one to hold and see from all angles now that she’s let him. She’s just as human as he is, just as flawed and imperfect and he likes that. They’re partners. 

 

“You should have some too.” Fengmian’s graceful hand comes out to pour his own cup, the low evening light reflecting off the water and onto her skin where they sit in one of Ziyuan’s favoured pavilions. 

 

The lean against each other, looking out at nothing in particular and silent in their own thoughts. The world thinks them in mourning for a lost child and Ziyuan lets them. It’s easier and it’s not a whole lie. He thinks that may be most of what he’s mourning. 

 

“Our children are very capable.” Fengmian suddenly says, she smiles at him, “You’ve done very well.”

 

“We’ve done well.” Ziyuan corrects, “They try and model themselves after you, I’m sure.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian doesn’t say much more. 

 

They sit there and sip their tea, lost in thought and comfortable in the silence until that silence is broken by their son. 

 

“A-Die, A-Niang.” Jiang Cheng walks up with admirable poise. He’s grown up very much the past few weeks. 

 

“A-Cheng.” Fengmian smiles, “Please sit down.”

 

Jiang Cheng does so. 

 

Even with his recently gained control their son has predictable tells and when his fingers begin to fidget Ziyuan knows he’s come to them for some clear purpose.

 

“Well?” He asks, giving his son an arch look, “What is it?”

 

Jiang Cheng seems startled and all at once he’s once again young and untested. Ziyuan feels more fondly amused by it than anything else. 

 

“There’s a nighthunt.” A-Cheng suddenly says, “Here.” And he produces one of the missives he’s taken over sorting through as one of his jobs, “I think it would be… it would suit the two of you to go together.”

 

Ziyuan and Fengmian share a look. He reaches for the missive. 

 

“You think we should go together?” He questions as he scans through. 

 

“Mm, like… a holiday. But a useful one.” Jiang Cheng hastens to assure. 

 

“A useful holiday.” Ziyuan muses. He thinks of how badly he had wanted to take Fengmian away before. 

 

“Ziyuan?” Fengmian looks at him. 

 

Ziyuan thinks it over and decides rather quickly, “Alright. Do you think you and your sister can really keep things running smoothly in our absence?”

 

Jiang Cheng nods enthusiastically. 

 

“It’ll only be two weeks at most.” Fengmian is reading over the missive now. 

 

The fact that she’s entertaining it no questions asked says very much. 

 

“Fine.” Ziyuan says, “But we’re taking a week to make sure when we leave everything won’t fall apart.”

 

Jiang Cheng nods enthusiastically and without prompting gets up and all but runs off, presumably to tell his sister and Wei Wuxian that his idea was accepted. 

 

“We’ve never been on holiday before.” Fengmian says, rather softly, once he’s gone. 

 

Ziyuan realises that the same moment she does. 

 

“We’ve never been alone.” Ziyuan suddenly thinks, “With no one we know nearby beyond the door.”

 

Fengmian seems to understand in that moment as well. 

 

“We’ve never nighthunted before.” She says, speaking slowly, “I haven’t nighthunted in years.”

 

“That’s true.” Ziyuan frowns to himself. But how can it be true? Aren’t they cultivators first and Sect leaders second? How… 

 

“Do you still want to?” Fengmian asks, obviously unsure. 

 

“Of course.” Ziyuan kisses her fleetingly just to press that idea out of her mind.

 

“Alright, then we’ll go.” Fengmian now seems pleased. “Just the two of us.”

 

Just the two of them. What a novel concept. 

 

*

 

“Ziyuan! There- ah!” Fengmian falls forward on her elbows as Ziyuan thrusts hard enough to knock her off-balance, “Ziyuan!”

 

“Fuck!” Ziyuan’s voice comes out arousal-roughened. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so hard in his entire life. Fengmian’s fingers clench down on the leaf litter under them as she arches her back, robes hiked up enough to just allow Ziyuan entrance and nothing more. “Gods you’re so tight.” He and Fengmian have never lain together in this position before and he feels like he’s so deep. He can’t even see her face like this and she’s making far more noise than usual, moving back against his thrusts. 

 

He’s fucking her like they’re animals, with their own clothes barely pulled apart to allow the penetration as though they were too impatient to wait which they were. Fengmian is on her hands and knees like a whore and Ziyuan thinks it’s the sexiest thing he’s ever seen. 

 

He and Fengmian hadn’t slept together in a while. It was a sudden and understandable drought that only grew longer as they both found the distance impossible to bridge no matter that they were both trying. He and Fengmian had slept in the same bed every night, clutching each other as though to clutch their closeness, hold it tight to prevent it from getting lost in the turbulence that they were experiencing. But no matter how hard they both held on they both knew that they were holding each other like drowning victims rather than lovers. 

 

On the first night of this nighthunt in some insignificant inn room he and Fengmian had finally reconnected. Softly. The way they were used to with the candles trimmed and her on her back, thighs spread. The familiarity was both safe and comforting. 

 

This time, here in the high of their victory with the last vestiges of the guai they bested fading from the clearing, they tangle together on the hard ground. Desperate and messy and rough and uncouth with propriety gone and all barriers fallen. Fengmian lets him, lets him push her down and make her a bitch. Make her his. 

 

Fengmian arches back like a woman, not a Sect Leader, not the mother of his children who he has to respect and honour. Not the person he bowed to in front of Heaven and Earth and their families. She’s a vessel and he’s a predator and together they’re just human. 

 

It feels good. 

 

It feels simple the way nothing else is. 

 

*

 

They’ve only been away a little more than two weeks when they hear Lotus Pier has fallen. 

 

*

 

“A-Cheng.” Ziyuan grabs his son and clutches him close the moment he’s within reach. His son looks shell shocked, a little dazed and obviously upset but he holds back and soon begins to sob. 

 

A-Li is being fussed over by Fengmian and Ziyuan doesn’t need to look at his mother to tell her to be quiet. Even she wouldn’t say anything now. Especially not now. 

 

“Gods A-Cheng. You’re alright? You’re alright?” He pulls back to cup his son’s face and look him over properly, “You’re unhurt?”

 

Jiang Cheng nods though he’s still crying. Ziyuan doesn’t say a word against it. Let his son cry. He’d been so brave. He’d done such a good job already, just surviving. If their children had died Ziyuan doesn’t know what he would have done, who he would be. 

 

“I’m alright, but A-Die they-” Jiang Cheng breaks off and Ziyuan’s heart breaks a little. 

 

“They knew you would be away.” His mother continues to say, looking steely eyed, “They went to Lotus Pier when they knew you were away. A-Cheng, tell your father what they said.”

 

Jiang Cheng swallows thickly and Fengmian brings A-Li over so they can stand together, Wei Wuxian is next to her and Ziyuan really doesn’t care. 

 

“Wen Chao and his mistress came.” Jiang Cheng’s voice starts a little hollow but quickly gathers speed and ferocity as he speaks, “A-Jie and I received them and the woman said something about us disrespecting the Wen Sect and I didn’t- I didn’t know what to do and-”

 

A-Li is the one who continues then, “They only came the two of them at first to confirm that you both weren’t there. That’s what I believe. They set off some kind of flare outside and then-” His daughter puts a hand to her mouth. 

 

Wei Wuxian is the one who finishes, “They were prepared. They came with enough men and ships to besieged Lotus Pier for days if needed.” Wei Wuxian somehow looks the angriest, fists clenched. “We managed to get the barrier up and before they broke it retreat with as many of the disciples as we could.” He keeps his eyes on the ground as though he expects reprimand for this. 

 

“We heard the Wens had taken Lotus Pier.” Fengmian’s voice is very hoarse, “And that there were no survivors.” She’s shaking slightly. Ziyuan takes her hand while still holding his son. 

 

“We can take back Lotus Pier and rebuild.” Ziyuan is furious but Fengmian looks ready to fall apart so he speaks with as much certainty as he can, “You were right to come to Meishan.” He looks at his mother and she nods. 

 

“This is an act of war.” She says bluntly, “One that I am surprised no one had any indications of.”

 

“That’s why.” Ziyuan suddenly realises, “Wen Ruohan. He knew that we were distracted and then he knew that we were gone. So he took the opportunity.”

 

“You should have flayed every single one of those loose mouthed servants to death.” His mother says harshly, “A slave that cannot serve its master is useless, better dead than alive.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t have the energy nor time to defend himself. 

 

“If Ziyuan had killed all of them we may have had a rebellion in Lotus Pier on our hands.” Fengmian is the one who speaks, voice even and placid, “Most servants have been serving my family for many generations and are deeply embedded in the community. We have been lucky to live in times of peace, they didn’t understand the danger.”

 

His mother sneers but before she can open his mouth to say something insulting to his wife in front of their children Ziyuan steps in. 

 

“We need to plan and we need to regroup.” Ziyuan says, already feeling exhausted and furious at the prospect. At the fact that nothing could ever be easy. At how just as he and Fengmian had recovered they were forced to take another blow. 

 

“Ziyuan.” Fengmian looks pale but resolute, “We should speak.”

 

“Yes. We should.”

 

*

 

War is hard. It was always going to be hard. Ziyuan is ruthless but he feels deeply, a mistake in war times. Everytime he has to send his son onto the battlefield he feels like he might throw up even with Wei Wuxian by A-Cheng’s side. 

 

But he does it. He does it because if they lose then his son will even be worse off than an honourable battlefield death. That’s what he tells himself but it doesn’t get easier and he doesn’t numb himself to it. Honour or no honour is insignificant in the face of A-Cheng dying and whatever would happen to A-Li if they lost. He’s promised himself if it comes to that he’ll kill his daughter himself lest anything worse happen. 

 

The only blessing is that the Wens hadn’t only acted against their Sect. Wen Xu had burnt the Cloud Recesses, killing Qingheng-jun in the process, and Ziyuan is pragmatic enough to be grateful. 

 

It would be worse if this was a war only they were fighting. A war that no one else wanted to fight. After all, there is one Great Sect that is not fighting. 

 

“Guangshan.” Ziyuan greets as dryly as he has the ability to, “So nice of you to finally join us.”

 

“Yu-xiong.” Guangshan smiles as though he’s truly gracious, Ziyuan thinks its a miracle the man is here to begin with. And that he brought his heir. Though of course Guangshan is shrewder than he looks, he will always weigh up every option as thoroughly as he can, especially with the stakes as they are. “After all your frantic summons how could I not visit one of my oldest friends?”

 

Neither of them are friends and here in Ziyuan and Ferngmian’s tent on the Heijan front Ziyuan is struck with the need to correct him. 

 

He doesn’t.

 

Fengmian sits at the table in front of him and Jiang Cheng takes the seat next to her as her heir, Wei Wuxian behind him as his second. 

 

“Don’t you have a chair Yu-xiong?” Guangshan asks, all faux innocence. 

 

“Jiang-zhongzhu has her seat.” Yu Ziyuan fixes Guangshan with a look, “What do you think you’re doing?”

 

“I can’t possibly know what you-”

 

“Trying to play both sides of the board is impossible at this point.” Ziyuan says bluntly and he knows his words are too much but the stakes are too high to play coy. Guangshan’s son takes the seat next to him, looking extremely uncomfortable. “Especially with Wen Ruohan.”

 

“I’m simply trying to keep my sect safe.” Guangshan has the nerve to sound unconcerned. But Ziyuan knows he’s not. Ziyuan knows Jin Guangshan and he knows just how clever he is, how clever his council of elders and how clever Guangshan’s own parents were to have solidified his power so utterly in a place as rotten as Jilintai. “War is an awful thing Yu-xiong. I am, of course, fully supportive of your efforts. I cannot abide by what has happened to your Sect or the Cloud Recesses.” He gives Fengmian a look that Ziyuan supposes is meant to look sympathetic but is anything but. “But I have my own people to think of.”

 

“Of course.” Ziyuan twists Zidian around his finger and knows that Guangshan tracks the motion, “But I hope you understand that you must pick a side. After all, we may lose and Wen Ruohan may kill us all at which point I think he will want to expand his territory a little further… or we will win and when we do… save to say no standing engagement exists between my daughter and your son any longer.” Ziyuan keeps twisting Zidian as he very much does not even glance at Jin Zixuan, “Think on that.”

 

It’s a threat but of the type that Guangshan will understand. Ziyuan could be trickier but he’s tired and has had to watch Jiang Cheng cheat death enough times that all he wants to do is grab the back of Guangshan’s head and slam it against the table until his skull cracks like an egg. 

 

Guangshan’s eyes do not narrow but he does laugh an insincere sound, “Well, I would have thought that perhaps with recent… personal losses for you and your wife that you wouldn’t be so eager to court danger.”

 

Jiang Cheng stiffens and Wei Wuxian jerks a little but Ziyuan doesn’t react. 

 

“That was a cheap comment.” Ziyuan puts his hand on Fengmian’s shoulder, “If you have chosen then nothing more remains to be said. Go back to Carp Tower and let that be the end of it.”

 

Here Guangshan’s smile becomes a little brittle, “Ah Yu-xiong, no need to be so final.” Slippery. 

 

“I’m hardly being curt.” Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Considering the stakes I’m being very kind.” His eyes fix on Jin Zixuan, “You only have one son and lack the… ability to make any more. What did Ruohan say last time? That you should legitimise one of your bastards?” Ziyuan looks at him, “That’s an idea.” 

 

Guangshan’s expression doesn’t change but the other is obviously angry. Ziyuan revels in it. He had dealt as many blows as he received and finds himself feeling as though they were really quite even. He likes the sensation. 

 

“Think about it.” Ziyuan squeezes Fengmian’s shoulder. 

 

Guangshan gives another insincere smile, “Still a charmer Yu-xiong, you really don’t change.”

 

“Neither do you.”

 

Guangshan gets up presumably to leave but his son doesn’t get up alongside him. Instead he stays seated. 

 

“Father.” He suddenly says, looking flushed and… awkward for lack of a better word, “I think I will stay.”

 

That does give Guangshan pause, “Stay? A-Xuan, don’t be ridiculous.” He laughs. 

 

Jin Zixuan swallows, “I think the threat is very real and I think it would be best for our Sect to stand against it.”

 

Too honest. Too candid. Guangshan really neglected to train his heir so thoroughly? Ziyuan gives his contemporary an entirely unimpressed look. 

 

Guangshan smiles, it’s very insincere. “A-Xuan, that’s very admirable. But I do have to caution against it.”

 

Jin Zixuan, in as ballsy a show as Ziyuan thinks he’s ever seen, just stays seated, “I’m staying.” He says. As if it’s final. 

 

Guangshan doesn’t seem to think so and Ziyuan has to agree with the man when he just laughs again and says indulgently, and likely to save face, “Alright, take the long way home.” 

 

Jin Zixuan just stays glued to his seat. Awkward and unwieldy even after Guangshan leaves. 

 

Ziyuan snorts and walks up to where he’s sitting looking rather like he regrets his own daring. 

 

“How many men do you have under your command?” He asks. 

 

Jin Zixuan blinks up at him, “What?”

 

“Your mother is many things, an idiot is not one of them, she’s likely been shoring as much support for you as she can in Carp Tower. How many men follow you personally?”

 

“I have around twenty disciples under my command.” Jin Zixuan says, sounding as though he doesn’t quite understand the question. 

 

“How many came with you?”

 

“Ten.”

 

“Send for the other ten and tell them to bring supplies. Tell them to recruit who they can as well, war will make heroes of beggars if you’re in the right place at the right time. Enough in Jilintai will jump at that.” Ziyuan turns to his son, “Jiang Cheng, take him and get him settled. Congratulations,” Ziyuan likes the look on Jin Zixuan’s face, as if it’s suddenly dawned on him just what he’s gotten himself into, “You’re now the commander of the Jin’s forces in the Sunshot Campaign. This will be your reckoning and will leave your legacy for generations to come, or you may die tomorrow in which case it all ends here.” 

 

Jin Zixuan now looks rather queasy. 

 

Ziyuan fixes the boy with as piercing a look as he can, “One more thing, if you so much as look at my daughter the wrong way I’ll flay you alive and leave you for the birds.”

 

Jin Zixuan has turned a startling shade of white. 

 

“Fengmian let’s go, we have a meeting with Nie Mingjue.” Ziyuan reaches out to take his wife’s hand and satisfied that Jin Zixuan has been sufficiently cowed he leaves him to the tender mercies of his son and Wei Wuxian. 

 

Stupid boy. Ziyuan actually likes him less for doing this. 

 

*

 

“Fengmian?” Ziyuan points to the proposed gathering spot on the map. 

 

She considers it carefully, “The terrain is marshy.” She says thoughtfully, “It could create problems.”

 

Nie Mingjue leans in with a frown, “How about here?” He stabs another point of the map, a few li to the west, “It’s hilly but that could provide cover.” He looks to Fengmian for approval. 

 

Fengmian doesn’t frown when she thinks. Her face is smooth and passive as it ever is, steady and strong. Ziyuan has always liked her and respected her abilities as Sect Leader but right now he finds her so impressive. Fengmian is an excellent cultivator, a fair fighter, calm under pressure and currently the person Nie Mingjue asks for guidance on near anything. Which he should. All these other sect leader are so green it’s almost embarrassing. Fengmian is their elder by decades. Their children are closer in age to Nie Minghue and Lan Xichen than they are. 

 

“It could work as long as the wind that day is not against us.” Fengmian looks at Ziyuan. 

 

“It’s better than our other options and if the intel is right this might be our only chance to catch them off guard.” 

 

Fengmian nods decisively, “Then we are decided. Now, our next order of business is overarching, there have been increasing reports of Wen Ruohan’s use of human puppets in the battles.”

 

“Yes,” Sect leader Ouyang inserts himself and the conversation continues in useless loops that Ziyuan can’t be bothered to pay attention to. When it comes to this kind of demonic cultivation it always goes the same: condemn it, condemn how hard it is to fight against, lament that Wen Ruohan lacks principles, praise for them still having theirs. On and on in endless cycles. 

 

“Fengmian, I’ll go check on our cultivators.” He drops a kiss on Fengmian’s cheek, a showy offhand thing that’s meant to look natural and mostly feels that way. Ziyuan had begun touching her in public like this once they entered the army encampments. Mostly as a way to put a claim on her, to put his power behind her and also to assuage his own disquiet at the way the world was changing. He would clutch Fengmian close whenever he could and kiss his children’s foreheads and wonder if this was the last time. Truly, the possibility of death had done much to unbind him. 

 

Ziyuan makes his way through the camp, past the bedraggled tents and crowds of wounded or simply tired cultivators. He has a mind to find his son and then check on their Jiang cultivators when, of all people, he finds himself stopped by the sound of Wei Wuxian’s voice. He frowns.

 

“That’s madness!” Jiang Cheng is hissing, “You’re crazy!”

 

“Well what are we going to do?” Wei Wuxian challenges, “You’ve seen the battlefield same as me.”

 

“A-Xian, this is not something to be taken lightly.” His daughter cautions. 

 

“I don’t think it’s without merit.” A slightly hesitant Jin Zixuan inserts himself. 

 

Ziyuan takes that moment to round the tent all of them are gathered behind, “You’re all so loud.” He reprimands, “If you want to talk, do it somewhere private. People are always listening.”

 

Jiang Cheng scrambles himself into better posture, “A-Die! We were just uh…”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Follow me.” He commands and leads the way to his and Fengmian’s own personal tent. The privacy talismans here are stronger. 

 

The children follow like a row of ducklings with Jin Zixuan awkwardly bringing up the rear like he’s not sure if he’s meant to be there. 

 

Once they’re all in the tent and the flaps have been closed and sealed Ziyuan leans back and fixes his children with a look, “What’s your terrible plan?”

 

Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian share a look. 

 

“It’s not-” Jiang Cheng starts.

 

“Demonic cultivation.” Wei Wuxian finishes. 

 

Ziyuan gives Jiang Cheng a rather arch look, “If you are going to lie to me you can get out.”

 

Jiang Cheng flushes with upset, “It’s a stupid plan.” He says. 

 

“I agree.” His daughter puts a hand on her brother’s arm, “It is not a viable plan A-Die, we were only talking generally.”

 

Ziyuan’s eyes dart between all of them. Demonic cultivation? 

 

“You can manipulate resentful energy?” He asks Wei Wuxian who hesitates but then nods. 

 

“Maybe. I’ve done it once before, in the Cloud Recesses.” He picks up confidence as he speaks, “And I’ve been thinking about the theory of it, resentful energy is just energy. It can be manipulated the same way spiritual energy, the difference is that spiritual energy is internal.” Wei Wuxian gestures to his dantian, “Whereas in theory resentful energy can be so much stronger because it doesn’t depend on how strong the user is, only how much energy that can absorb from their external environment.”

 

Ziyuan frowns, considering. 

 

He looks to his son, then his daughter, then Jin Zixuan. 

 

Jin Zixuan said that it wasn’t without merit. His daughter and son both say it’s a terrible idea. But of course they’re not objective. Ziyuan isn’t objective either. 

“Show me.” He commands.

 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes become wide, “Show you?”

 

“Is there not enough resentful energy here?” The tent does have purification talismans sewn into its material, “Fine, we’ll go elsewhere and you’ll show me what you propose you can do. Then I’ll decide if it’s truly a terrible plan or not.”

 

“A-Die-” A-Li tries to start but Ziyuan cuts her off.

 

“None of you need to come. Wei Wuxian, follow me.” And when he leaves his tent the boy does indeed follow, also ignoring the protests behind them. 

 

“Come on.” Ziyuan hops onto his sword, waving away the Jiang sentinel that looks at them, “Scouting.” He tells them though he didn’t need to give an explanation.

 

Wei Wuxian follows without question and Ziyuan leads him to the site of an ambush of cultivators from a minor clan. They hadn’t had the manpower to collect the bodies though the site had been marked to come back to later so their families could perform the proper rites. 

 

Ziyuan ignores the bodies of their comrades and instead gestures to the few Wen corpses, “Show me.”

 

Wei Wuxian looks a little nervous for a second but it’s an expression that passes quickly before he settles, “I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to gather the energy and use it.” He warns. 

 

“Fine. I can wait.” Ziyuan leans back against a tree and waits. 

 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes are closed and he’s very still, fingers not even twitching. 

 

When his eyes finally open they’re tinged red and there’s something dark to them that Ziyuan was and wasn’t expecting. It’s resentful energy of course so it’s likely to be emotionally charged and he had never thought Wei Wuxian as sweet and fancy-free as the bot had acted and yet… he’s never seen him look so angry before. 

 

Wei Wuxian crooks a finger and suddenly one of the Wen corpses is struggling to its feet and lurching forward. Ziyuan is unnerved but conceals it well enough. 

 

“Good.” He says, not praise but maybe something like it as he watches the corpse. He manifests Zidian, “Make it fight me.” 

 

The corpse, controlled by Wei Wuxian, doesn’t fight skillfully and it easy for Ziyuan to rend into enough pieces that it can no longer move let alone attack but that’s not the point. Corpse puppets are not skilled, they’re relentless. 

 

“How many could you control at once?”

 

Wei Wuxian’s eyes are their usual colour again and he looks a pale, “More.” He says, “If I practise and if there’s enough resentful energy it could be a lot more. It doesn’t depend on my own strength, it just depends on the resentful energy.”

 

“Wen Ruohan can do this. That’s how he believes he’ll win this war. His forces will never diminish, his army will only get larger even as he loses more and more men.” Ziyuan clenches his fist around zidian, “If we lose the war we’re dead of course,” He speaks conversationally, “But it’s not that easy. He’ll let his men kill who they want and fuck who they want.” Wei Wuxian jerks at that and Ziyuan doesn’t laugh but he does dig into that a little meanly, “Winners in war time do not allow for easy deaths. They’ll draw it out and Wen Ruohan was always one of the more sadistic of our generation. He’s funny actually because he would be so much worse if he actually could be bothered.”

 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t fidget the way his son does but Ziyuan can sense his discomfort. 

 

“So we can’t lose.” Ziyuan says simply, “If you can do this, if you can win then,” Ziyuan looks this boy over. A constant presence in his life, a thorn in his side, someone he could never escape no matter how deeply he wanted to just toss him into the lotus lake to sink to the bottom and never be seen again. Wei Wuxian looks so familiar but Ziyuan had also never taken the time to ever look properly before. He’s grown up, tall with sharper edges and enough expression on his face to tell Ziyuan he has as much capacity for hatred as anyone else. Somehow it’s that fact that endears him to Ziyuan, “You will always have a place at Lotus Pier if you want it.”

 

Wei Wuxian looks at him. Maybe he knows that regardless of what Ziyuan says that place is already there for him, through A-Cheng and A-Li and Fengmian. Through the hundreds of other people in the pier that love him. So maybe it really means nothing for Ziyuan to say this except to Ziyuan himself. If they win the war he’ll put down his gauntlet. He’ll finally let Wei Cangze and Cangse Sanren’s ghosts go and stop seeing them reaching for Fengmian at every turn. He’s a jealous, petty, unreasonable man but he’s made no efforts to curb those qualities and he doesn’t much care. 

 

“Lord Yu.” Wei Wuxian suddenly says, “My parents… do you know why they left Lotus Pier?”

 

Ziyuan finds himself surprised by the question but why is it so unexpected? Wei Wuxian never asks about his parents but why would he? Fengmain never mentions them and he’s hardly a friendly receptacle of information. 

 

“They left because they wanted to nighthunt and travel.” Ziyuan crosses his arms, “The real reason is likely because they knew how much trouble they would, were already, causing Fengmian if they stayed. When Fengmian’s parents passed she was thrust into Sect Leadership and suddenly everything she did was scrutinised. She’s a woman and her closest companion was a man, it wouldn’t have mattered so much if she had never inherited but then she did. Either she married Wei Cangze or continued to deny she was ruined and married someone else quickly. If he had stayed, even with both of them married, people are cruel enough that they could never escape the insinuation. So he married your mother and left.”

 

Wei Wuxian nods, he’s looking at the ground. 

 

“Does that answer your question?”

 

“Why did you let me stay at Lotus Pier?” He asks next, not answering Ziyuan’s question, “If everyone used to… say those things.”

 

“I know the truth.” Ziyuan says though that of course hadn’t mattered at all to him when Fengmian had appeared with Wei Wuxian. “Fengmian also wanted you to stay.”

 

That last sentence seems to have cheered Wei Wuxian, “I really will try my best.” He promises Ziyuan though he needn’t have. Their lives hang in the balance and he doesn’t think Wei Wuxian is stupid enough to take things lightly now. 

 

“See that you do.” Ziyuan flicks a hand towards a different corpse, “Now show me again.”

 

Wei Wuxian nods, closes his eyes, and throw himself into hell again. 

 

*

 

When Wei Wuxian faints in the aftermath of the battle Ziyuan picks him up. Mostly because everyone else is still uselessly buzzing around, making accusations and useless noise. 

 

Fengmian more so than anyone else. 

 

Her face looks almost green as they look at where Wei Wuxian lies on a bed in the medical tent being fussed over. Ziyuan is sure he’s just tired. He only needs some rest and he’ll be alright. He better be alright so he can do what he did again. 

 

“Where did he get the idea to do that?” Fengmian takes Wei Wuxian’s limp hand and squeezes it, “How did he think…” She trails off. 

 

“Not here. We’ll talk elsewhere.” Ziyuan says to her, quietly.

 

Fengmian looks at him and some recognition passes over her face. When she next speaks her voice is steely. “A-Cheng, A-Li, you watch over A-Ying.” She fixes Ziyuan with a look, “We should speak.”

 

Fengmian rounds on him in a way he’s entirely unused to once they’re in their tent. He’s used to himself being the accusatory one but Fengmian’s eyes are narrowed and she lifts a hand to point at the entrance of their tent, towards where the rest of the world and the battle and Wei Wuxian are. 

 

“You knew.” She says, her voice isn’t anywhere near even, “You’ve been encouraging him, you’ve been encouraging this!”

 

“Yes.” Ziyuan has no shame for doing this so he answers evenly. 

 

“How could you!” Fengmian’s hand drops and she doesn’t look any less angry, “I thought you were accepting him, helping him all these weeks you spent together.”

 

“I was helping him.” Ziyuan counters, “We need demonic cultivation, you saw how he was on the battlefield. He decimated Wen Ruohan’s forces. We need him to win.”

 

“And win at what cost?” Fengmian asks, voice rising, “You’re making him ruin himself! Demonic energy corrupts the mind and body, no one will ever look at him the same ever again! He will always be this.”

 

“It’s more than worth it.” Ziyuan argues back with far less emotion than Fengmian, “It’s worth it to win. What do you think will happen if we lose? Even if we’re lucky enough not to die we’ll never be able to live freely ever again.”

 

“The world is wide. Wider than the cultivation realm.” Fengmian answers, “If we lose, our children will still be able to live even if it’s not the life they imagined.”

 

“Even if that’s the case which you can’t guarantee you’ll have them lose their legacy? They are the heirs to Lotus Pier! To Yunmeng! You want them to live without it?” Ziyuan is finally starting to raise his voice, “You’d ruin our lives all for one boy?”

 

Fengmian is silent for one moment and then in as cold a voice as Ziyuan has ever heard from her she speaks. 

 

“Kneel.”

 

“Excuse me-”

 

“I am your Sect Leader.” Fengmian looks him straight in the eye, “Kneel.”

 

Ziyuan could refuse. He doesn’t. 

 

He gets on his knees on the floor of their tent, looking up at Fengmian. 

 

“So you want to punish me for my actions? You know I’m right, you know-”

 

“You wouldn’t allow it if it was A-Cheng or A-Li as demonic cultivators.”

 

That doesn’t even need to be said. 

 

“You are happy for Wei Wuxian to do it because you don’t care if he ruins himself, you may even want it.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t answer in words. It’s too obvious. 

 

Fengmian’s mouth thins. “You went behind my back to do this without informing me. I am your Sect Leader and you did not breathe a word to me because you knew I would not approve so you felt it better to keep me in the dark.”

 

That’s the truth. Ziyuan could argue but he doesn’t. He digs his grave deeper the way he’s always been most adept at. 

 

“I don’t care about that boy. Who is he to me? He’s just some servant’s son. A servant that ran off and abandoned Lotus Pier anyway. I don’t care about anything but my own children and their legacy. I don’t care if Wei Wuxian is ruined in the process of saving them. You might be the only one that does.”

 

Fengmian looks white faced with anger now. More so than he’s ever seen her before. She raises her hand and he wonders if she wants to hit him, if she’s going to hit him. If she wants to beat him like she has the right to do to any one of her subordinates. Technically he married in, Fengmian is his lord and she would be in her rights to punish him. 

 

The thought is like lightning, like zidian’s spark against his blood-slick innards. 

 

“You never change.”

 

Ziyuan has heard that phrase so many times in his life as to render its meaning almost superfluous. Compliment or condemnation? Maybe both, maybe neither. 

 

“You’re stuck with me anyway.” He tells Fengmian, soft and smooth as an unnatural calm has settled over him, still looking up at her. 

 

Fengmian looks down at him, resplendent off the battlefield with smudges of dirt on her robes and a swipe of blood across her cheek. She swallows and the movement is conspicuous. 

 

She turns and goes to sit down on a short stool by their bed. She then reaches and undoes her trousers, slipping them off under her robes. Her hands are trembling, he notes a little distantly, as he watches her undress herself from the waist down. 

 

Once done she motions to him, “Come here.” Her voice trembles a little. Likely with uncertainty but if she’s going to do this Ziyuan won’t abandon her to it alone. He gets up and walks over to her only to sink back down on his knees in front of her. 

 

Fengmain’s legs spread slightly and that’s more than enough for Ziyuan to understand what she wants. 

 

It’s so perverse Ziyuan wants to recoil on instinct but another part of him, petty and angry and childish as he always is, wants to dig his fingers into her and make her cry. 

 

“As my Sect Leader commands.” Ziyuan leans forward and kisses her there, somewhere he’s barely touched with fingers before and certainly would never have thought to put his mouth. Whores sucked cock but Fengmian was not a whore. Did this make Ziyuan her whore? Was this the equivalent?

 

He licked up the seam of her, strange and sticky and salty and was rewarded by Fengmian’s small exhale. 

 

He wanted more. More reaction than that. 

 

He licked harder, digging his tongue into her entrance and feeling it give way slightly as she pushed her hips out towards him. With Ziyuan on his knees before her chair the angle wasn’t quite right so he moved forward, catching her legs and putting them over his shoulders so she was presented more fully. 

 

“Ziyuan you-” Fengmian cut off as he lowered his head to her and once more began to lick. He sucked as well, nibbled lightly if it would get him a reaction, and above dragged Fengmian into his space as she had asked for. 

 

“Ziyuan!” Her hand shot forward, one gripping the back of the stool for balance and the other burying itself in his hair as he sucked at a certain spot. He wanted to make it so good it would hurt and his next movements were brutal in their torment of that particular spot, holding Fengmian in place even as she squirmed. 

 

“Ziyuan, it’s too- Ziyuan!” 

 

He didn’t stop even as her breathing got harder and her thighs trembled. Her first climax came hard but he didn’t stop throughout even as she pushed at his head with weak hands and protested in a weak voice. 

 

Her second climax seemed to sap the life out of her. She slumped completely and he had to catch her to prevent her from falling off the stool. 

 

“Did I please my Sect Leader?” He asked as she looked at him with hazy eyes. 

 

Under her gaze he licked his lips, reaching up to thumb at the lingering wetness. It was distasteful and disgusting but Fengmian… she was looking at him in satisfaction and awe. Like he was a god, the sun, the father of her children.

 

“Promise me.” She said in a slightly hoarse voice, “That you’ll stand by A-Ying now that you’ve set him down this path.”

 

“As long as it does not lead to the ruin of my own children he has my support.” Ziyuan says with certainty. 

 

Fengmian’s eyes close, “I don’t want to make any more mistakes.”

 

“You won’t. As long as we win, nothing is a mistake.”

 

“And what happens after that? We have a whole life to live after victory.”

 

“When we come to that we can discuss it. For now we can only focus on this.”

 

“Gods.” Fengmian laughs a little wetly, “How has it come to this?”

 

Ziyuan has been turning something over in his mind all these months and now he presses a hand to Fengmian’s stomach. 

 

“You made the right decision.” He says, speaking of the thing they swore they would never speak of again, “To have a child right now would be madness. You ended up making the right decision.”

 

Fengmian looks at him, wide-eyed, before she nods though slowly. 

 

“You’re right.”

 

And that chapter finally closes.

 

*

 

Wei Wuxian and Yu Ziyuan stalk and kill Wen Chao together. 

 

It’s a strange partnership but Ziyuan would never have A-Cheng with him for this kind of activity. For all that they are in war time A-Cheng remains as innocent as one can be and Ziyuan will shield him as much as he can while also berating him for being so naive. That’s the irony of it all. 

 

Wei Wuxian on the other hand has a dark capacity for violence in him that Ziyuan recognises in himself. Whether it was always there or if the boy has only manifested it during the war is of no consequence. Ziyuan will use it. 

 

One of Wen Ruohan’s sons is already dead. That only leaves one more. The one that ran his children out of their home. 

 

Wei Wuxian finishes drawing the last of those unsettling talismans, the ones that attract resentful energy instead of repelling it, and heaves a deep breath once he’s done. 

 

“Ready?” Ziyuan asks. 

 

Wei Wuxian nods and he looks pale but determined, maybe a little bloodthirsty. Ziyuan approves. 

 

“He’s been moving steadily East, back to Qishan.” Ziyuan remarks as he and Wei Wuxian climb onto their swords, “But that worm is too afraid to travel at night. Good for us. The mistress is still with him?”

 

“Yes. I saw them together when I scouted the next outpost.” 

 

“Good, then let’s go.” Ziyuan crouches low on his sword and the next moment they’re off. 

 

It’s nothing to kill their way through the Wen soldiers manning the outpost. Ziyuan may not be the strongest cultivator of his generation but he’s more than sufficient and stronger than most. The talismans take care of most of the work anyway. 

 

Wen Zhuiliu takes Wen Chao and runs. Ziyuan stops Wei Wuxian from chasing him down. 

 

“Wen Zhuiliu is one man.” He says simply, “And besides,” He kicks at Wen Chao’s mistress where she is lying snivelling on the floor, “I want to take my time with each of them.”

 

The mistress scrambles back but Ziyuan just picks her up by her hair so she has nowhere to run. “You thought you were good enough to take Yunmeng from my wife, my children.” 

 

The maid scrambles against his hold, nails scratching and Ziyuan takes pleasure in backhanding her hard enough that her head snaps to the side. 

 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t even try to defend her. That says everything it needs too. 

 

Ziyuan throws her down and unfurls zidian. “You threatened my daughter.” He says, remembering with dark fury what A-Cheng had told him, “You tried to suggest she become Wen Chao’s concubine.” Zidian wraps itself around the woman’s body as she struggles and cries, “Your snivelling lord has abandoned you and we will kill him next. Slower than I’ll kill you even. Your family will be torn to shreds, every last legacy of yours erased off the face of this earth because you couldn’t respect your betters.” Ziyuan clenches his fist, “And now I’m going to fry you alive.”

 

Death through being shocked by zidian is not something Ziyuan has ever tried before, he’s used zidian’s lightning to shock and incapacitate but never to kill. 

 

The maid dies slowly and it makes Ziyuan smile in a way he’s glad Fengmian isn’t here to see. 

 

Later as he and Wei Wuxian leave the burning outpost to return to Wen Chao’s trail the boy actually asks a question, a random one that has no bearing on their journey. As much as the boy is a chatterbox usually, he’s quiet around Ziyuan which is a relief. Ziyuan has no patience to listen to insignificant babble. 

 

“Where did you get zidian?” Wei Wuxian asks with genuine curiosity as they make camp. There are deep purple shadows under the boy’s eyes that show this war is taking its toll from him as much as he may try to act otherwise. 

 

“It was first my great great great grandmother’s spiritual weapon.” Ziyuan responds easily, “She crafted it with the partnership of a great beast of old, a purple eel that lived in the waters near Meishan and was large enough for a grown man to ride. The eel and her fought a deadly battle against a sea dragon together and though they were victorious the eel was fatally wounded. As it died it gave my great grandmother its lightning, imbuing it into the silver ring she was wearing at the time, and that is how zidian was born.”

 

“Wow.” Wei Wuxian seems suitably impressed. Zidian doesn’t know how true the story is but that’s because he’s naturally cynical and obviously doubts the validity of a story passed down by word of mouth through many generations. 

 

“Zidian is passed down from mother to child, through the generations. The Meishan Yu have a habit of having daughters and those daughters would inherit Zidian. I was my mother’s first and only child so I received Zidian despite being male and marrying out. Jiang Cheng will inherit it when the time is right and then it will become a Jiang family heirloom.” Ziyuan has thought about this before but either way he’s a Jiang now. People may call him Lord Yu but he’s Lord Jiang. His children are Jiangs. He had wondered about passing zidian to A-Li but she would have been a Jin and leaving zidian in their hands is an intolerable thought. 

 

Wei Wuxian surprisingly laughs, “Jiang Cheng is going to be insufferable with zidian.” He says, eyes curving as he smiles, “He already thinks it’s so cool, he’s going to have it out all the time.”

 

Ziyuan snorts before he can help it, “It’ll be his, he should have it out whenever he wishes.”

 

Wei Wuxian smiles and stares into their fire. It reflects in his eyes and Ziyuan suddenly wonders… does he think about his parents? Does he wish they had left him things? Does he wish he wasn’t so untethered in the world? 

 

If he had parents he certainly wouldn’t be here with Ziyuan hunting Wen Chao with sadistic intent. 

 

If he had parents they would likely fight Ziyuan for the very fact that he had led their son down this narrow road. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t wonder if it says anything about him that he doesn’t care. 

 

“Get some rest.” He commands Wei Wuxian, “Tomorrow, we kill Wen Ruohan’s last heir.”

 

Wei Wuxian nods at that and does lie down to get some, if not sleep, then rest. 

 

Ziyuan stares into the fire until dawn begins to lighten the edges of the sky. 

 

*

 

“WEN ZHUILIU.” Ziyuan snarls as he strikes with zidian, “You’re nothing but a dog, barking for your madman of a master. How dare you attack my children, my home.”

 

Zhuiliu dodges out of reach, trying to get back to Wen Chao who is being tormented by Wei Wuxian. “I have a debt to pay, I owe him my loyalty.” He responds, barely escaping the edge of zidian’s crackle. The man is exhausted and not just physically. He had always been a strange kettle of fish even as a child. Ziyuan had thought him a friend even. 

 

Then his family had been killed and he had never seen him again until he had reappeared at Wen Ruohan’s side as his loyal bloodhound. 

 

Ziyuan bares his teeth, “As do I.” He strikes with his sword and uses Zhuiliu’s stumble to put him in the path of zidian. 

 

To the side Wen Chao starts to scream. 

 

It takes Wen Zhuiliu’s attention enough that Ziyuan can trap him. 

 

“For you, you’ll face punishment enough in death.” Ziyuan says before he cuts his head clean off. It’s not that he was feeling merciful. He just wanted it to be done quickly so he could turn back to Wen Chao. 

 

Wen Chao who is being eaten alive by the corpses of his own men. 

 

It’s gory and disgusting and Wei Wuxian looks crazed as Wen Chao screams and screams, past the point of begging even. 

 

Ziyuan stands there and watches. He doesn’t look away even as Wen Chao finally dies and is buried under the onslaught. 

 

“Enough.” He puts a hand on Wei Wuxian’s shoulder, “It’s done. A fitting death for that waste of air.”

 

Wei Wuxian nods but there’s still something crazed in his expression, something dark and haunted. Ziyuan wonders how it must feel to use that resentful energy. How it must feel to channel that much hatred and still be expected to go back to your loved ones and smile like a normal human. 

 

“That was well done.” Ziyuan praises, “Take your pleasure in it. Because of what you did we’re a step further away from death.”

 

“Yes.” Wei Wuxian’s voice is tired now but no longer that unnerving echoing thing that it can become when he’s in the throes of demonic cultivation. 

 

“In life you will have to do terrible things for whatever reason. As long as my family is safe I don’t care what I have to do.” Ziyuan says, staring at what’s left of Wen Chao’s body. 

 

“I think… I feel the same.” Wei Wuxian’s voice is hoarse, “But I don’t… I don’t feel human anymore.”

 

“What is more human than doing things for people you love?”

 

Wei Wuxian nods. 

 

“You really love Jiang-ayi.” It’s not a question. There’s maybe even something wistful in it. It’s funny, Wei Wuxian. Without envy. The boy certainly lives up to that name. But at that moment Ziyuan thought he detected something almost like longing in the boy’s countenance. Longing for what Ziyuan has, what he’s built with Fengmian. It brings him far too much joy. 

 

“Yes.” 

 

Wei Wuxian nods, “I’m glad it’s done.”

 

“As am I.”

 

They finally return to the main camp that night. 

 

*

 

“I missed you.” Ziyuan half-gasped as he drove between Fengmian’s thighs. They had run out of contraceptive herbs and here on the war front it was too much of a risk for him to spill inside her. Fengmian’s thighs weren’t as tight nor as warm as her cunt but Ziyuan felt a familiar pleasure roll over him anyway. He could smell Fengmian around him, hear the cadence of her voice, palm at her breasts. 

 

Fengmian pushes back against his thrusts, “I missed you too.” She sounded winded, “I missed you very very much.”

 

“I’m back.” Ziyuan thrust harder, reaching down to rub at her inelegantly to speed up her finishing, “And next we take Lotus Pier back.”

 

The thought, the thought of the future, is so sweet for once that it’s what partly pushes Ziyuan to completion as he finishes in a messy rush that Fengmian immediately begins to wipe up with a spare cloth. 

 

“A-Cheng is a little upset you went to to hunt Wen Chao with Wei Wuxian.” Fengmian says as they lie next to each other for sleep, the dark always being the best space for conversation.

 

“I had thought it would be so. He already thinks you favour the boy, at least he never thought that of me previously.”

 

Fengmian doesn’t try to argue, “You should speak to him.” She suggests. 

 

“I will.” Ziyuan pulls her closer, “But he should know I never would have taken him for that kind of mission. We weren’t clean nor honourable. A-Cheng shouldn’t have to see that.”

 

“See that from you?”

 

“See that at all.” Ziyuan responds though he knows that Fengmian has hit the majority of the point. He doesn’t want A-Cheng to see the depths to which Ziyuan will go, a man without principle nor honour is not one to be admired and yet Ziyuan wants very badly for his son to keep admiring him as he always has. 

 

Fengmian doesn’t try to say anything at that point which is fair, what would she say? Condemnation for his careless handling of Wei Wuxian or for his own bloodthirsty impulses? Either way nothing productive can be said on these subjects, all they can do is keep moving forward. 

 

Fengmian will hold her tongue on this and he’ll go to his knees when she commands and they’ll find some kind of compromise. 

 

Together. As long and it’s together.

 

*

 

All that’s left is Nightless City. 

 

“Eat.” Ziyuan commands, shoving Wei Wuxian into a seat, “You may say that the strength of demonic cultivation is not affected by the strength of the cultivator but the weaker you are the sloppier you become and the more carless when it comes to the difference between an enemy and an ally.” He bullies a bowl of food into Wei Wuxian’s hands.

 

Wei Wuxian’s fingers are trembling where he picks up the spoon but then again the boy does look bad. His dark circles have only become more prominent and he looks thinner than ever, bones prominent and stretching his somehow paper thin skin. 

 

“Ah thank you.” He gives Ziyuan a smile that stretches at his face in a way that looks vaguely unnatural. 

 

Ziyuan sighs internally and sits himself down opposite the boy. 

 

“If Lan Wangji is unduly bothering you let me know.”

 

“No it’s alright.” Wei Wuxian’s head is ducked, his limp ponytail falling over one shoulder, “I don’t mind.”

 

Ziyuan turns something over in his mind, frowning as he does so. Jiang Cheng is off somewhere with Jin Zixuan discussing strategy and Fengmian is meeting with the other Sect Leaders. Somehow, he and Wei Wuxian have found themselves alone often. If only because Ziyuan feels Fengmian’s intention for Wei Wuxian to have a protector and who better than Ziyuan? Ziyuan understands Wei Wuxian’s new powers intimately, he’s had the most exposure to them after all, and he understands them as the key to winning the war. Wei Wuxian is emotionally unstable and had voluntarily taken a path that will make him a pariah. 

 

At least when Ziyuan sits by him or walks with him no one dares point and whisper. 

 

“Are you a cutsleeve?” He asks Wei Wuxian who immediately chokes and splutters, spraying bits of his food in the process as denials begin to pour out of his mouth. His cheeks are flushed pink now and he looks closer to the boy he is than the weapon he’s been for months. 

 

“No.” Wei Wuxian says, half a croak half a gasp, “I’m not!”

 

Ziyuan shrugs, “It’s no issue if you are, I personally have no problem with cutsleeves. I may even prefer them to the men that pant after women.” Ziyuan makes a gesture meant to indicate something he can’t quite put into words. 

 

Wei Wuxian is gaping at him, “I’m not a cutsleeve.” He says in a high voice. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “No need to take such offence, it was only a question.” He regards Wei Wuxian and an urge to cruelly tease becomes impossible to ignore, “After all, I heard all those years of you flirting with every woman in Yunmeng who would look your way and yet not a single young lady not her family came to Lotus Pier to petition for your hand in marriage nor reparations for their daughter’s deflowering. These things are entirely expected when you’re a Lord with virile young sons. Of course I would be furious at that kind of irresponsibility, but for a boy that claims to like women so much you certainly haven’t bedded any.”

 

Wei Wuxian is now bright red. “Jiang Cheng hasn’t either.”

 

“My son knows better, I’ve instructed him extensively on this subject. He knows not to step outside the bounds of propriety and besides,” Ziyuan scoffs, “You think my son is smooth enough to tempt a girl into bed with anything other than his name and cheap enough to use just that?”

 

Wei Wuxian’s colour has faded slightly, “I wouldn’t do that,” He protests slowly, “I wouldn’t just take any girl to bed. Especially if I didn’t know or like them very much.”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Most men will tell you that it’s very easy to know and like a girl.”

 

Wei Wuxian rubs the back of his neck with his hand, “I don’t- that’s all just talk right? I mean I don’t, I’ve never.” He’s started to look very awkward but Ziyuan isn’t going to save him, “I just think… it should be fun right? And if it’s fun it should be with someone you feel good with, comfortable.” He trailed off. 

 

Ziyuan shrugs, “So you only play at being the lothario?”

 

“I guess so? I mean… everyone talks right?”

 

“Often that’s all people want to do.”

 

“You don’t.” Wei Wuxian suddenly darts him a look, as if recognising the danger but like the boy so often does (more and more often now) he keeps speaking. “You never talk about Jiang-ayi like that.”

 

Ziyuan frowns, “Fengmian is my wife. My Sect Leader.”

 

“Did you ever like someone when you were younger before you married Jiang-ayi? The way you were saying before.”

 

“Preusmpteous wretch.” Ziyuan scolds. But he ends up answering anyway. “My mother would have beaten me to death if I had caused her so many problems by getting some village girl pregnant.”

 

Wei Wuxian shakes his head, “It’s not right.” He says with sudden conviction, “Why should someone like me be able to sleep with a girl and leave her ruined and pregnant and then just leave? Leave and force her or her family to come and beg for reparation? Why should I have that power? It’s wrong.”

 

He speaks with such vehemence it leaves Ziyuan slightly surprised. 

 

“I didn’t realise you had such deep thoughts beyond all that bragging.” He settles on saying. 

 

Wei Wuxian seems to deflate at that, “I just… don’t you think it’s wrong?”

 

The response that almost trips off Ziyuan’s tongue is “who are you to question me this way? Ask after my morals?”

 

Ziyuan just shrugs, “It’s the way of our world. Everyone is clawing for advantage. Don’t trust what other people say on face value. You could ruin the village girl but she could ruin you too, in having your child she had created a link to you for the rest of your mortal life.”

 

“But men ignore their bastards.” Wei Wuxian has finished his food and set the bowl aside, “Like Jin Guangshan.”

 

Ziyuan snorts, “Guangshan is a whore and he’s been once since we were all boys. But he and his sect, their power is too tightly intertwined to separate, are too strong for something like a few bastards to chip away at. The most people do is whisper behind his back, laugh a little about how careless he is, but Guangshan is Jinlintai. He’s not a man who can ever be taken down by rumours alone and the people he cares for care very little for his procilivites.”

 

“He doesn’t care for his wife? What about Jin Zixuan?”

 

“He and Xuli were arranged, you can’t hope for fidelity or true feeling especially from a man like that. As long as they had their son they are free to do whatever they want. If she was of the mind to and was discreet she could have her own lovers, Guangshan is a lot of things but jealous over her affections is not one of them. If she’s miserable she is choosing to be for wanting things that she will never be able to have.”

 

“Jin Zixuan?”

 

“Boys and their fathers,” Ziyuan tilts his head, “A son’s relationship with his father is not built on the way that man treats his wife.”

 

Wei Wuxian is biting his lip. “It should be.” He says, “I think… I want to think I would hate my father if he treated my mother poorly.”

 

Ziyuan laughs, a little meanly, “Wei Cangze would never have thought to disrespect Cangse Sanren, she was worth too much for that and far more than him. And she was not the kind of woman he could get away with treating ill, when he left Lotus Pier he had nothing except her.”

 

Wei Wuxian fidgets, “Do you think… it’s stupid. Don’t worry about it.”

 

“I did not know them well apart from through their connection to Fengmian. She has always said that they were happy with each other.” 

 

“I have some memories of them.” Wei Wuxian says which surprises Ziyuan, “I remember my mother singing to me and… riding on a donkey between my parents, riding on my father’s shoulders.”

 

Ziyuan has nothing to say to that.

 

“Eat more even if you’re not hungry.” He ends up saying, “And don’t go on patrol tonight. We have one final push and if you’re useless we’re all dead. After the war is over we go back to Lotus Pier and rebuild, if you want to forgo food and sleep and sulk at that point I’ll have less to say.” 

 

“You don’t have to stay with me.” Wei Wuxian then says, “I’ll just stay in my tent then.” He looks as though he wants to be alone. 

 

Ziyuan nods and stands to leave. He doesn’t bother to look back to see if the boy actually has lain down for sleep. He somehow doesn’t think he will. 

 

*

 

Ziyuan is very very drunk. Maybe even dangerously drunk which he recognises easily though in his drunken mind he can’t see why it’s such a problem. 

 

The victory banquet in the gutted remains of Nightless City is in full swing. It’s funny, this is a place Ziyuan has been numerous times in his life, he’s been to many banquets in this very hall even, but it’ll never host him ever again. Nightless city will fall to ruin, to scavengers and opportunists and anyone else who thinks there might still be something left to loot in this old crypt. The Wens have been decimated, the Sect will be lost to the annals of history and Ziyuan can’t quite believe they really did it. 

 

He’s not the drunkest in the room but this is certainly the drunkest he’s ever been in company. He always takes care to regulate himself in public and he’s not a heavy drinker anyway, but this kind of event always calls for toasts on toasts on toasts and he’d hardly let anyone force Fengmian to drink so here he is. 

 

Drunk.

 

Drunk enough that the flickering candles are beginning to waver slightly. 

 

Where A-Cheng and A-Li are sitting amongst the Jiang disciples just behind them there’s a lot of laughter and Ziyuan feels warm with desblieving relief. He can’t… they’ve done it. More than saved his children and Sect they’ve ensured their legacy for a thousand years to come. All he wants in that moment is to pull Fengmian to her and kiss her softly, the best way he can think to express his joy. 

 

“Fengmian.” He puts his mouth to her ear, keeps his voice low amongst the boisterous crowd so no one can listen, “You’re so beautiful.”

 

Fengmian’s ear goes pink and Ziyuan wants to bite it. Before he can she turns to him and takes his hand in hers, “Ziyuan, we’re in public.” She also keeps her voice low but she’s smiling so how upset can she be?

 

“They all know anyway.” Ziyuan suddenly sees no reason to adhere to propriety so strictly. Doesn’t everyone know he and Fengmian love each other? Belong to each other? What’s so shocking if he was to kiss her now? 

 

“Later.” Fengmian promises, still pink. Her fingers squeeze his, “You’re drunk.”

 

Ziyuan leans as close to her as he can, mouth right to her ear so she can feel the way his lips move, “I’m drunk.” He confirms, “I’d say it sober.”

 

“You spoil me.” Fengmian is maybe a little drunk herself, pink and pretty and powerful. Ziyuan loves her very very much in a way far simpler than he could ever imagine it being. 

 

“Stay with me and I’ll ensure you’re never left wanting.”

 

Fengmian turns a deeper shade of rose and her fingers clench around his hand almost painfully, “Ziyuan, later.”

 

Ziyuan could take offence but he knows she wants it too. He knows she’s not truly put off, only playing at proprietary the way her strict rules ensure. Fengmian… she’s really suffered hasn’t she?

 

“Yu-xiong!” Guangshan’s voice is the same smarmy thing it always is but at his words the whole hall quietens. Ziyuan deeply resents how this man is suddenly the most powerful man in the room by virtue of his Sect’s untouched wealth. 

 

“What?” Ziyuan gives Guangshan his most unimpressed look, “You’re interrupting.”

 

Guangshan laughs, “You’re in public Yu-xiong, or should I have to remind you?”

 

The familiar back and forth as though nothing has changed and honestly, nothing really has. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Just try it.” He twists zidian around his finger and it sparks. He doesn’t miss the way everyone’s eyes go to it, “Unless of course you would like to congratulate Fengmian, in that case go ahead.”

 

“That was my primary aim,” Guangshan lifts his cup to Fengmian, “It is all down to you Jiang-zhongzhu that we are saved, you have mine and my Sect’s eternal gratitude.”

 

Fengmian shakes her head demurely and stands. Ziyuan stands with her. 

 

“It is through the efforts of everyone in this room, everyone that assisted the Sunshot campaign, that we were able to claim victory.” Fengmian’s voice is clear and strong and everything about her countenance projects power. She’s one of, if not the most, influential person in the room currently and Ziyuan wonders if she understands that intimately. “Congratulations are in order for all of us.” And she raises her cup. 

 

A chorus of agreements follow and many stand to agree and toast loudly. Fengmian takes a sip from her cup and then turns to Ziyuan with a smile, “It’s rather strong.”

 

Ziyuan smiles back, “Let me then.” And Fengmian raises the cup to his lips so he can drink. 

 

After all, it’s the least he can do.

 

“Ruohan you’ve really gone mad.” Ziyuan dodged the fierce corpse the man sent his way and used Zidian to steal a few cun forward.

 

Wei Wuxian’s flute playing was constant and eerie, the power play on the battlefield an impossible tug of war between two pillars with the rest of them players in the middle. Ziyuan was determined to be more than a player. 

 

“Where did you find the boy?” Ruohan asked, almost conversationally as he dodged Lan Xichen’s strike. “If I had known that you had that in your Sect I would have tried to poach him.”

 

Ziyuan bared his teeth, “You could have tried.” He flung another corpse out of the way as Nie Mingjue lunged for Ruohan with a war cry. “Unlike your Sect, my men are loyal to my Sect Leader.”

 

Ruohan flung him away with enviable ease, still continuing to speak with Ziyuan as though this was nothing more than one of their normal conversations. 

 

“Ah yes, your Sect Leader. That wife you love so much.” Ruohan smiled, “Maybe if I kill you in front of her it’ll satisfy my son in the afterlife.”

 

Ziyuan stopped speaking as the other fighters were dispersed, only leaving him and Ruohan. Ziyuan was a fair fighter, made better by the constant training of war, but he wasn’t that good. Not good enough to win this fight. 

 

And maybe it was madness or maybe it was arrogance or maybe it was just because he had no choice, but he didn’t back down even now. 

 

“So angry Yu-xiong.” Ruohan had never called him that before and he did so now with aggravating affect, “You were always so angry, even when we were children. Married out like you were… were you angry you could never be more than a Sect Leader’s whore?”

 

That barely stings. Ziyuan almost wants to laugh but the fight is too hard to think let along acknowledge what Wen Ruohan is saying. 

 

He’s not strong enough. He’s always known this. He’s always known but he thought that maybe maybe maybe… 

 

“A-DIE!” He thinks he hears Jiang Cheng scream from behind him as Ruohan catches him around the throat and lifts him up like a prize. Wei Wuxian’s flute playing stutters and the tide of the battle turns. 

 

“You may not be strong enough.” Ruohan says almost conversationally as he chokes Ziyuan to near unconsciousness, “But your death will mean enough to those stronger.”

 

And then there’s a slick sound and a gasp and Ziyuan has been dropped. 

 

His hand goes to his bruised windpipe and when he says Fengmian’s name he can’t even sound it, just shape the words with his lips.

 

Fengmian stands behind Wen Ruohan’s crumpling body, pulling her sword loose fand shaking the man’s blood off because he’s still a man isn’t he? After everything he’s still a man. The corpses crumple and the flute music stops. She looks out over the battlefield and then she looks at Ziyuan. 

 

“Ziyuan.” He sees her mouth move and his eyes close in a long tired blink as he tries to heft himself off the ground. 

 

She reaches for him and he reaches back and she pulls him up. There’s blood on her hand and her eyes are wide and wild. 

 

“Ziyuan.” 

 

“Fengmian.” 

 

“It’s over.”

 

“Yes. It’s over.”

 

She laces their fingers together and that’s all they manage before their bubble bursts and the rest of the battlefield comes back to life. 

 

Ziyuan cups her cheek, he can’t help himself, he wants to eat her whole. 

 

Fengmian smiles and sits back down, pulling him with her and subtly taking away that hand to lace their fingers together, “Wait until later.” She says, quiet still, and the words sound innocuous but the sentiment of them is so bold that Ziyuan finds himself a little taken aback. 

 

And then very taken by it. 

 

“I want you to sit on my lap.” He murmurs into her ear, knowing in some vague sense that he will be humiliated at saying all of this later (in public) when he’s sober.

 

Fengmian doesn’t dismiss him, she keeps smiling that little smile, “Like one of Jin Guangshan’s women?” They’re essentially whispering to each other like two children sharing secrets. It’s unbearably intimate and somehow the setting only makes it more so. 

 

Ziyuan scoffs, he wants to say that she’s not a whore or some worthless maid like they are. But something on Fengmian’s face gives him pause. A distant memory, “don’t talk about other women like that” echoes and he holds his tongue. Instead he gets that mean, uncouth impulse to dig a little deeper and follows it.

 

“Is that what you want me to treat you like? The hero of the Sunshot campaign, the Sect Leader of Yunmeng Jiang, do you just want to be one of my women?”

 

Fengmian pinches him, not very hard and only on his palm where their hands are still tangled together, “I’m your only woman.” She says, very lowly and there’s something infinitely possessive in her gaze that lights Ziyuan on fire. 

 

Yes yes yes. This was all I wanted. This is everything I want. 

 

He feels all of a sudden dizzyingly, unbelievably, incredibly smug. 

 

“Of course.” Ziyuan assures her, sure that the satisfied tone of his voice is easily audible, “I’m not an idiot.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian then finally turns back to her picked at plate. She doesn’t seem very taken by the food left. To be honest it’s rather plain but they’re still technically on a battlefield. Soon they can go back to Lotus Pier. Soon they can go home and eat like they used to, live like they used to. Gods, it feels like a whole lifetime. 

 

“Here.” Ziyuan scoops the (badly done) stewed vegetables from his own plate onto Fengmian’s, “These were halfway adequate.”

 

“Mm.” Fengmian, under his watchful gaze, begins to eat. “They’re really not bad.”

 

“Compared to army rations or inedia?”

 

“There are worse things.” Fengmian says with a smile. 

 

Later, once the banquet has begun to calm down, Guangshan of course raises his cup and comes across to Ziyuan and Fengmian’s table, “Yu-xiong.” He smiles, his son trailing behind him, “Should we?”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “ You only have the energy because you haven’t actually been fighting these past weeks.”

 

“For shame Yu-xiong, my own son was on the front lines!”

 

Ziyuan is already standing. He’s a little more sober now and recognises the benefits in keeping it sweet with Jin Guangshan as much as he wants to rip the man open 

 

“Fine, I assumed you’ve organised something?” He turns behind him to gesture for A-Cheng, “If you’re bringing your son then I’m bringing mine.”

 

A-Cheng gets up and comes over, not at all hesitant and the nod he gives Jin Zixuan actually looks rather genial. Ziyuan looks at Fengmian, “Want to come?”

 

“Ah, Yu-xiong I was thinking this would be one of our usual gatherings-”

 

“Fengmian?”

 

She smiles and shakes her head, “Go, have fun.”

 

Ziyuan knows it’ll be anything but. As he falls into step with Guangshan he feels the need to ask, “You did actually invite Lan Xichen this time?”

 

“Of course! He’d even said he would come, same as Nie Mingjue, I was very surprised.” 

 

Ziyuan makes a face, “There better be no whores. Where would you even find them here.”

 

“There are enough war camp opportunists.” Guangshan gives Ziyuan a sleazy smile, “Though of course I understand you’re far too refined for any woman that doesn’t have a lineage traced back at least a few hundred years.”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “I don’t do women who have already had a thousand other men, you’re disgusting for preferring them.”

 

“I prefer a woman who knows what to do when I ask. Besides, I’m sure we could find you some wilting virgin to bully.”

 

“I’d rather bed you and the thought of that makes me physically ill.”

 

Guangshan actually laughs at that. 

 

These “men’s gatherings” are really quite boring and useless. Ziyuan has always thought so. The only silver lining in this case is that it’s not just him, Guangshan and Ruohan orbited by other insignificant minor sects. Instead he has A-Cheng by his side and Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue have deigned to join them. It’s a larger yet somehow smaller gathering than before, the web of connections between all of them taut and shallow. 

 

Ziyuan leans back and watches as Guangshan bullies the other minor Sect Leaders into drinking and subtly insults both their wives and daughters at the same time. 

 

He rolls his eyes. 

 

“A-Die?” 

 

“Mm.” 

 

“Is it… is this what it was like before?”

 

“Oh yes, just imagine Wen Ruohan over there.” Ziyuan sips at a cup of substandard baijiu.

 

“Oh.”

 

“Ah Yu-xiong, do you remember that time in that brothel in the Unclean Realm?” Guangshan laughs, “I always thought you were sick not because of the drink but because of the woman you were offered, I’d never seen someone look so grievously disgusted.”

 

Ziyuan makes a dismissive noise, “What do you expect, pushing some ran-through whore at me?”

 

“Funnily enough, I’d always thought you were a bit of a prude.” Guangshan says like he’s sharing some big secret. Ziyuan rolls his eyes so hard it hurts, “But seeing you with your wife has been… illuminating. No wonder you preferred not to attend Sect Gatherings together all these years, how could she get any work done with you pawing at her?”

 

A-Cheng makes an affronted little noise by his side and Ziyuan thinks Lan Xichen maybe gasps like a maiden but this is just the way Jin Guangshan is. 

 

“Compared to you whoring around with anyone that has a working pulse I must look like a true celibate.” Ziyuan smiles meanly, “And that’s Jiang Fengmian you’re talking about,” He leans forward and twists zidian around his finger, “Say another word and I’ll show you just how I killed Wen Chao’s whore.”

“I really think it’s very commendable, your devotion that is.” Guangshan puts a hand over his heart, “The fact that you’re never even tempted, you’re a better man than me.” 

 

“Oh you didn’t need to say that for me to know it’s true.” Ziyuan leans back, “Keep Fengmian’s name out of your mouth.”

 

The conversation fades back into petty chatter for a little longer. 

 

“The green horn.” Guangshan suddenly says, “That was the name of the brothel you desecrated.” He looks at Ziyuan then calls over to Sect Leader Qin, “You were there weren’t you?”

 

“Oh yes.” Sect Leader Qin uses the opportunity to move closer, “Yu Ziyuan really did look very disgusted.”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “It was a terrible brothel.”

 

Guangshan gives Nie Mingjue what is likely meant to be a conspiratorial look, “I suppose then it’s not one of your favourites, certainly shouldn’t be if the way Yu-xiong is slandering it is any indication.”

 

Nie Mingjue has his arms crossed and a scowl on his face, “I don’t make a habit of frequenting brothels.”

 

“So serious! You’re worse than Yu-xiong! I have heard that your younger brother knows how to have fun at least.”

 

Nie Mingjue keeps scowling. 

 

“Huaisang’s talents lie in the arts.” Lan Xichen feels the need to add very diplomatically. 

 

Ziyuan is already bored and that’s why he knows Guangshan isn’t done. The man is being more outrageous than usual tonight, mostly as a dominance tactic, a way to prove his power to the wider room at this essential junction. There’s a power vacuum currently and Guangshan wants to fill it. 

 

Ziyuan thinks the man is being overly optimistic if he thinks it’ll be that easy. 

 

Lan Xichen does his best when Jin Guangshan turns his full attention to him but both he and Nie Mingjue are a few decades too young and untested to survive the man when he’s in a mood to be difficult. 

 

“Yu-xiong.” Ziyuan is getting fucking sick of that address but he forces himself to look away from the frankly mind-numbing conversation he was having with Sect Leader Ouyang.

 

“What now?”

 

“I was thinking about our children’s broken engagement, such a shame isn’t it? After everything that happened… how can we keep the younger generation apart?”

 

Ziyuan raises an eyebrow as the room abruptly goes quiet. Now this he was prepared for, maybe not so quickly, but either way he was waiting for it.

 

He gives Jin Zixuan an arch look and the boy colours bright red and looks away. 

 

“If you think I would ever abide by my only daughter marrying out to a man who felt comfortable enough to insult her publicly then you really don’t know me at all.” 

 

“That was all childish nonsense, A-Xuan has apologised for that old mistake.”

 

“Oh has he?” Ziyuan looks at Jin Zixuan who barely meets his gaze, “I don’t remember witnessing any apology.”

 

“Oh Yu-xiong, children work things out between themselves. As a parent it’s unseemly to hover too long.”

 

Ziyuan snorts, “I’d never treat my own daughter so carelessly.”

 

“You’ve always been more sentimental than most.”

 

“Until my daughter comes to me and convinces me at length of her deep need to marry your son I’m not revisiting this issue. Drop it.”

 

Guangshan recognises the end of Ziyuan’s limits and thankfully does drop it, though he moves on to another point quickly enough. 

 

Ziyuan does have to appreciate how much better and worse these personal informal negotiations are. In many ways they’re worse because they hinge entirely on power and who has the necessary measure of it to ensure these casual promises are upheld. But they’re also better as an exercise of that same power. Ziyuan supposes he’s biassed for always having lived with the scales weighted in his favour. 

 

“Then what about that disciple of yours, Wei Wuxian.”

 

A-Cheng stiffens next to him and the room is now far too quiet. 

 

Ziyuan has been dealing with Guangshan for longer than he’s been married to Fengmian. He raises an eyebrow, “You really are desperate for your son to get married.”

 

That prompts a few chuckles, one from Nie Mingjue. 

 

“Oh Yu-xiong, you’re such a jokester.”

 

No one has ever called Ziyuan that before in his entire life. 

 

“What I’m suggesting is we could do a disciple swap now that the war is over, to improve Sect relations.”

 

Ziyuan snorts, “And how many disciples would you have to give in exchange for Wei Wuxian’s worth to be realised? I’m afraid your Sect wouldn’t be able to handle it.”

 

Ziyuan sees Sect Leader Yao open his mouth and then seem to think better of it and stay silent. 

 

“He’s very impressive.” Guangshan smiles. 

 

“He’s my son’s second.” Ziyuan levels Guangshan with a flat look, “I’m not loaning him out like an old cultivation manual to waste away in your sect for a few useless months while I get nothing but headaches in return.”

 

“What about for Meng Yao? The one that spied on Wen Ruohan for our benefit. He’s certainly impressive, a worthy swap.” Guangshan knows he’s not winning this fight so he’s settling for being difficult. 

 

Ziyuan understands the implication of “worthy” swap even if his son doesn’t and has to grit his teeth before he answers. 

 

“I wasn’t aware you had any authority over him. He’s not a Jin Sect member is he?”

 

“I’m sure he’d be happy to go where bid.”

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Presumptuous.” And unfortunately not likely untrue. The boy doesn’t have many options now that the war is over. No Sect will be jumping to take a spy after all. 

 

“The Lan Sect is very happy for him to join our Sect.” Lan Xichen suddenly and shockingly says. He smiles brightly when all attention goes to him, “I consider Meng Yao a valued friend and a true comrade.”

 

There’s quiet at that point and Ziyuan has to hold himself back from laughing. Maybe Lan Xichen isn’t quite as green as he’d thought. 

 

“Then if he’s truly so impressive do the Lans want to exchange him for Wei Wuxian for a month?” He asks, mostly in jest.

 

Lan Xichen keeps smiling, “We would be more than happy to discuss this at a later date, of course Meng Yao will have the final say.”

 

Interesting interesting. This is not at all the way these gatherings usually go. 

 

Jin Guangshan doesn’t look pleased but there’s not much more he can say at this point. 

 

So Ziyuan takes that as his cue to leave. 

 

“A-Cheng and I are leaving.” He stands, followed by his son, “We’ll see you all at tomorrow’s meeting.”

 

There’s a chorus of goodbyes and Ziyuan has never been gladder to leave a place in his entire life.

 

“It’s been like that since you were all young?” Jiang Cheng asks as they walk away back towards the section of the palace the Jiang have claimed for themselves. 

 

“Unfortunately.” Feeling uncommonly affectionate, Ziyuan puts an arm around his son’s shoulders. Jiang Cheng immediately leans into it. “Though judging by Lan Xichen and Nie Mingjue I have a feeling your generation may be a little different. Thank the heavens.”

 

“Mm.”

 

“And Jin Zixuan is nowhere near Jin Guangshan.”

 

“No, he’s not. He’s not that bad.”

 

“He’s rather awkward.”

 

“That’s the least of it A-Die, he-”

 

“Lord Yu, Jiang Wanyin, wait.” Suddenly the man himself appears. Looking a little pink for presumably having to run to chase them down. 

 

Once they stop and he sees he has their attention he abruptly bows, his ponytail flopping over his shoulder limply, “I apologise deeply for everything I said about Jiang-guniang, I was wrong and regret it.”

 

There’s a long suspended silence where he keeps bowing and Ziyuan shares a look with A-Cheng.

 

“Have you apologised to my daughter?”

 

“Yes. Kind of.” Jin Zixuan looks awkward, “I don’t think… I don’t think I said it the right way.”

 

A-Cheng winces a little, “Was this with the whole soup thing?”

 

Jin Zixuan goes bright red. 

 

“Soup thing?” Ziyuan’s voice is very sharp. 

 

“During the war A-Jie would make soup sometimes for our Sect members and to be kind she occasionally left some for Zixuan. Mostly because we all worked together quite often and she would always make it for me and Wei Wuxian, so it was no trouble to give him an extra bowl.”

 

“And?”

 

“And for some incredible reason Jin Zixuan didn’t realise it was her making the soup.”

 

“I didn’t know she could cook.” Zixuan says in his awkward way. He looks very embarrassed but Ziyuan thinks it makes sense. After all, what noble woman can cook like a common servant? “And I wanted to help her… so I ordered a servant to make some better soup to gift to her so I could...” He trails off, looking both like he never wants to speak again and also like he's unfortunately determined to continue. 

 

Ziyuan has an idea he already knows where this story will go. 

 

“Forget it.” He waves a hand to stop Jin Zixuan from continuing to humiliate himself, “You conducted yourself adequately during the war though I certainly expect better if you’re interested in marrying my daughter.”

 

“That was my father.” Jin Zixuan manages to say, “I wouldn’t push Jiang-guniang into marrying me if she didn’t want to.” 

 

“No, I didn’t think so. You better give my daughter a proper apology.” Ziyuan looks between Jiang Cheng and Jin Zixuan, and thinks it over, “Now that you two have escaped that nightmare go have a drink, after everything you certainly deserve it.”

 

A-Cheng blinks, “Go have a drink?”

 

“There’s wine in the main storeroom off the kitchens, if it’s still untouched it’ll be good. Go.”

 

Jin Zixuan shrugs a little awkwardly, the way he apparently does everything, “I could have a drink.”

 

Jiang Cheng rolls his eyes, “Your tolerance is terrible. Let’s go. Bye A-Die.” And with that they leave together with an unfamiliar but not altogether false camaraderie between them. 

 

Jiang Cheng is going to need it. His son won’t inherit the Sect with it at anything less than full strength, Ziyuan will ensure that, but that doesn’t mean alliances and rapport aren’t important. 

 

Gods, he’s still a little drunk and exhausted enough that he wants to drop. 

 

“Fengmian.” He calls as he enters the Jiang quarters. 

 

“Ziyuan, you’re back.” She smiles, “I was just making arrangements for A-Li and Wei Wuxian to return to Lotus alongside the bulk of the disciples tomorrow.”

 

“Good idea. The boy already has a target on his head, Guangshan was sniffing around earlier. Where is he?”

 

“Inside,” Fengmian leads him into their personal chambers, “A-Li has already gone to bed. A-Ying said that he wasn’t tired. He asked when you would be back.”

 

Wei Wuxian is sitting at the tea table. He looks rather lost but is also tapping his fingers incessantly against the table in an unceasing and frankly unnerving rhythm. 

 

Ziyuan has no idea why he would ask after him but for Fengmian, who is looking at him with a plea in her eyes, he’ll do the boy the courtesy of at least asking. 

 

“Fengmian, go to bed. I’ll come around later. Do we have any wine?”

 

“There’s some in that chest.” Fengmian gives him a look, “Haven’t you had enough?” She doesn’t sound accusing though, Ziyuan has always been good with his limits. The fact that she’s asking at all is already something. 

 

Ziyuan raises an eyebrow, “Questioning me?”

 

Fengmian smiles a little half-smile, “Never.” She presses a kiss to Ziyuan’s cheek, long and lingering, “Come to bed soon.”

 

Ziyuan watches her go and when he finally turns towards Wei Wuxian he finds the boy has stopped tapping, he’s watching Ziyuan with almost unnerving fervour. Ziyuan wonders if he was watching the whole conversation. 

 

“What is it?” Ziyuan asks as he strides across the room to the chest and pulls out a sealed jar of wine. It’s not great wine but what was he expecting? Better that it’s not, he’ll hardly be able to appreciate drinking it in these circumstances. “You look half-dead.”

 

“Ah, nothing serious. Just can’t sleep.” Wei Wuxian smiles thinly. “Is that wine?”

 

“It’s not for you.” Ziyuan sits himself down, “I plan on being so drunk when I go to bed that I’ll have the pleasure to be greeted by three of my wife.” 

 

Wei Wuxian’s mouth falls open, “Was that a joke?” He sounds deeply uncertain but also vaguely delighted. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Here.” He pushes a full cup over at Wei Wuxian, “Drink.”

 

Wei Wuxian picks it up slightly gingerly but drinks all the same. 

 

Ziyuan drinks alongside him. 

 

“If you can’t sleep find something else to occupy your time than sitting around your Sect Leader’s chambers looking sorry for yourself. What about Lan Wangji? He seemed determined to speak to you.”

 

Wei Wuxian pours himself more wine and tops up Ziyuan’s cup as he goes. “We spoke. A little.”

 

“I’m shocked you managed to get more than a word out of that walking plank of wood.”

 

Wei Wuxian laughs a shocked little laugh around his next cup of wine. “He’s actually very… cool.” 

 

Ziyuan thinks Wei Wuxian is insane. And also likely a cutsleeve. 

 

“The Lan Sect aren’t in a bad position but they suffered heavily during the war. Qingheng-jun’s death isn’t so easy for them to brush off.”

 

“But he was in seclusion for… all our lives almost. I’ve never even seen him.”

 

“The man was monstrously powerful. His reputation is one of the reasons the Lan sect managed to keep their position despite losing their best asset so suddenly and in such strange circumstances. The threat of him was enough to buoy Lan Qiren through years of discussion conferences.”

 

“Huh… that’s Lan Zhan’s father?”

 

“Why do you call him Lan Zhan? It’s disgustingly familiar. “

 

“I’ve always called him by his name.” Wei Wuxian fiddles with his wine cup. “I… it doesn’t bother him. Well okay it used to, but it doesn’t anymore. He barely even blinks when I say it now.”

 

“That just sounds like you’ve managed to move his irritation on to worse things.”

 

“Lan Zhan is definitely determined enough to keep being annoyed at me for that even if I was doing more annoying things!”

 

“Like ripping off his forehead ribbon and all but publicly declaring your intention to bed him.”

 

Wei Wuxian once again began choking.

 

Ziyuan continued mercilessly, “Though considering the fact that he didn’t try to eviscerate you afterwards proves that he’s amenable to the idea.”

 

“Amenable to bedding me?!” Wei Wuxian sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. 

 

Ziyuan declines to say that Wei Wuxian is diving headfirst into the idea that he’ll be the one bedded when Ziyuan suggested the opposite. 

 

Ziyuan rolls his eyes, “Calm down. No one’s asking you to go to his rooms and roll over for him right now, stop being so dramatic. Either way tomorrow you’ll go back to Lotus Pier and begin rebuilding, out of sight out of mind and perhaps everyone can forget just how you won us the war.”

 

“I’ll stay out of trouble.” Wei Wuxian doesn’t sound completely recovered but the change in topic has done wonders for him. 

 

“See that you do. I want everyone to forget you exist, it’ll take less time than you think, until your demonic cultivation is nothing more than a minor footnote, barely mentioned in the history books that will be written about this war.”

 

“Do you really… do you really think everyone will forget?”

 

Yes and no. Ziyuan answers the easy way. 

 

“You were a person before this war weren’t you? Why does the person you were for the past year mean anything?”

 

Wei Wuxian nods slowly. “Do you ever..” He shrugs gracelessly and looks down at his cup, swirling the liquid, “During the war… after Wen Chao you… do you remember you said to me that there’s nothing more human than doing things for the people you love.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t specifically remember saying that and is surprised that Wei Wuxian, with his famously terrible memory, recalls it at all. 

 

“Do you have a point?”

 

Wei Wuxian traces a finger around the rim of his cup, “I… at first I regretted things but then I hated so much that it overtook any regret I had… but I don’t want to become the kind of person that doesn’t feel anything when I hurt people. Aren’t we all human? The civilian Wens… they’re just normal people. They don’t get a decision if Wen Ruohan wants to start a war.”

 

Ziyuan shakes his head, “They had a choice when they saw the tide turning to leave everything behind and run as far as they could. The world is wide.” Deja Vu. “And if what they cared about was their lives then there are places they could go that the arm of the cultivation world doesn’t extend. The ones that are left are either too stubborn or too stupid to go.”

 

Wei Wuxian bites his lip, “What about the cultivators that didn’t agree with Wen Ruohan?”

 

“They should have defected to our side if they truly had a moral stand, though they would have to accept lives as second class citizens from now on.” Ziyuan sighs and drains his cup, “This is what war is, you’ve never fought in it and neither had I on this scale but there are a thousand tiny sects that rise and fall with the tides of opinion. Wars are fought every day, they just don’t involve us.”

 

“What about the children then? It’s not their choice what their parents do.”

 

Ziyuan shrugs, “They’ll either become slaves or they’ll be killed. No one wants to take in a child whose parents you either killed or had a hand in killing. It’s like inviting a tiger to live in your midst, revenge would inevitably come up. I wouldn’t even take them in as the lowest slave, in fact I wouldn’t have slaves at all. They have nothing to lose except their own lives and those are the most dangerous people. You can only control a human with violence for so long.”

 

Wei Wuxian knocks back his next cup quickly and doesn’t say anything. 

 

Ziyuan shrugs, “The victors write history, in a generation the Wen Sect will be known as evil overlords who deserved to be overthrown and killed without mercy. A few more generations after will add nuance, but for the next hundred years at least expect the name Wen to be synonymous with death.”

 

Wei Wuxian grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes, “It’s not right.” He says, “I know… they burned Lotus Pier. I hate them. I do. But it’s not right.”

 

Ziyuan doesn’t have much sentiment to share, “If we lost it would be us in that position. The men killed, the women used to breed the next generation of half-Wen children who will forever be tied to their Sect by blood. War does not allow for mercy, it’ll come back to bite you. Always.”

 

Wei Wuxian doesn’t release his eyes, “I don’t think I’m a particularly kind person.” He starts. 

 

Ziyuan doesn’t interrupt whatever soul searching he’s doing, he’s starting to feel the effects of the alcohol and lack of sleep keenly. It’s resulting in the desire to drink more. He refills his cup and manages not to spill anything  by some miracle. 

 

“But I don’t… I can’t live with myself and feel comfortable if I can be… alright with that.”

 

Ziyuan drinks his cup in one. It barely burns anymore. He’s very drunk. 

 

“Why did you want to speak to me?” Ziyuan asks mercilessly, “How do you think I would help?” He longs to go to bed with Fengmian, to breathe in the scent of her skin and hair, to get her naked and not even fuck her, just touch her all over, rub her smooth skin and love love love her. Wei Wuxian is preventing him from this. Ziyuan hates him. 

 

Wei Wuxian shrugs, “I feel like… you don’t… you’re easy to talk to?” It comes out sounding like a question. 

 

Ziyuan has never felt so offended. He doesn’t even like Wei Wuxian. 

 

“Get out.” He points at the door, “Get out right now.”

 

Wei Wuxian hops to his feet with something like an exhausted laugh, “Thank you Lord Yu.” He does a showy little bow and Ziyuan wonders if he knows the depths to which Ziyuan had encouraged him to damn himself. Likely not because he’s a child still and only understands power wielded bluntly and not reputation. The war was one thing, everyone was willing to make concessions they likely shouldn’ have, but now that it’s over the rules will change. 

 

“Wei Wuxian.” His voice is sharper than it should be for how much he’s drunk and it stops Wei Wuxian easily. The lights in the edge of the room are bleeding into each other but he keeps his gaze even. “Be careful. As long as you are a Jiang we can protect you and you will need it.”

 

Wei Wuxian nods and smiles. Is it sincere? Yu Ziyuan doesn’t know and doesn’t care. The boy is soon gone anyway. 

 

And once he’s gone Ziyuan is free to get up and go to his wife. The room spins slightly as he walks. Ziyuan doesn’t think he’s ever been this drunk before, maybe as a youth when it took a lot less to incapacitate him but even then he didn’t feel so loose.

 

“Fengmian.” He slurs, iron control falling away as he reaches the door to the bedroom. When he comes to open it he all but falls through to land on the floor, “Fuck.” He mutters. 

 

“Ziyuan?” Fengmian hurries forward to help him up from where she had been lying on the bed, “Are you alright-” She gasps as he (in another drunken impulse) grabs her arm where she’s crouched and pulls her down onto him. 

 

“Ziyuan!” Fengmian protests and he wraps himself around her and nuzzles into her neck. 

 

“Fuck Wei Wuxian.” Ziyuan mutters, “I wanted to come to you but he wouldn’t stop talking.”

 

Fengmian hums and her hands go to his head, taking down his hair and unravelling his braids before scratching at his scalp soothingly. 

 

“What did you talk about?”

 

“Nothing really. He’s worried that winning a war makes him a bad person.”

 

“Is he alright?”

 

“He’ll be fine. Better once he beds Lan Wangji. Or the other way around.”

 

“Ziyuan!”

 

“He’s a cutsleeve. I’m sure of it.”

 

“Ziyuan you’re drunk.”

 

“You’re a cutsleeve.” Ziyuan points out, “Almost. Half. You liked Cangse Sanren.”

 

Fengmian trembles a little in his arms. 

 

“It’s fine.” Ziyuan assures her drunkenly, “I’m nothing like Cangse Sanren so I don’t care.”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“If we were similar I would be her replacement but we’re nothing alike and you like me so it’s fine.”

 

“You’re nothing alike.” Fengmian confirms. 

 

“Mm.” Ziyuan bites at Fengmian’s neck. He both wants to have sex with her but also is too tired for it. “You should touch yourself for me.”

 

“Excuse me?” Fengmian’s voice is high. 

 

“Touch yourself.” Ziyuan leans back and pushes her under him, splaying her legs out by shoving himself between them. “Here.” He grabs her hand and pulls it to the juncture between her legs, covered by her sleep robes. 

 

Fengmian is very red. 

 

“It’s hardly the most debauched thing we’ve ever done.” Ziyuan argues, “In a way it’s rather chaste isn’t it?” He pushes Fengmian’s sleeping robes apart until they’ve fallen open, exposing her like a fancy sweet in a pretty box. “Just touch yourself here.” His own finger skims up the seam of her, “I want to watch.”

 

Fengmian is still red, “I’ve never done that before.”

 

“Alright.” Ziyuan sits back on his heels, keeping his eyes fixed on where Fengmian is spread out. 

 

“Ziyuan, I don’t know how.”

 

“You know how I touch you.”

 

“Yes but… not with your fingers.”

 

Ziyuan concedes to that, “Just touch yourself, you’ll see what feels good.”

 

There’s a moment and then Fengmian is reaching down with her slim fingers. She’s lying on her back, legs splayed out almost carelessly and naked. So naked. Ziyuan can see all of her from the clean line of her neck to her breasts to her bare stomach and lower still down her legs. 

 

She touches herself hesitantly but with growing confidence as she probes the area before settling on that spot Ziyuan had sucked until she almost cried. She rubs it very lightly with the pads of two fingers. 

 

“Good?” Ziyuan asks, he can see just how wet she’s becoming with her movements. He can see the sheen appear and the way her stomach tenses. 

 

“It’s good.” Fengmian confirms breathily, “But it’s not… it’s not enough.”

 

“To finish?”

 

“Mm.”

 

Ziyuan palms his cock through his trousers like some lowborn vagrant though the urge doesn’t go further than that.

 

Fengmian switches from rubbing to grinding against her palm. It’s astonishingly lewd. 

 

“Good?”

 

“Yes.” Her eyes have closed. 

 

“Look at me.” 

 

Her eyes once more open, “Ziyuan.”

 

“You’re so wet.” He can see it. He can see just how affected she is. How drunk is he? Too drunk probably but it’s so good. It feels incredible to be drunk. It feels amazing to watch Fengmian. 

 

Fengmian twists her head to the side, “I want another position.”

 

“Then do it.”

 

“Help me?” 

 

Ziyuan is already reaching for her, Fengmian folds into his arms easily and he rearranges her to her liking which is apparently leaning back against him with her back to his chest. Her legs stay splayed so she can reach between them. 

 

“You smell like wine.” She murmurs as she goes back to rubbing herself. 

 

“Bad?”

 

“No.” With this position he can put his nose in her hair. She smells good, not fresh but still good. 

 

“Then I smell good?”

 

She doesn’t answer. 

 

He pinches her side in retaliation and then cups her breast. The flesh is so soft. Her nipple is a hard nub that he rolls through his fingers, almost absentmindedly, the way he sometimes fidgets with zidian. 

 

“Keep doing that.” Fengmian has switches to tapping against that spot, leaning harder into Ziyuan, “Don’t stop, touch here.” And her other hand directs him to her other breast. 

 

“Are you close?”

 

“Keep talking.” She commands, voice breathy.

 

“You smell good,” kisses her neck, “Your skin is so soft. You’re so good. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me.” His mouth speaks without his full consent, does he truly believe everything he’s saying or is it simply saying it to say it? Because it feels natural, like the right thing, like the correct thing to say in a time like this. Ziyuan just wants to be good to her, he wants to make her happy and is this the kind of thing that will make her happy? 

 

“I love you. I love our children. I love living with you. I’m so happy we’re alive. I’m so happy we’re married.” 

 

Fengmian keeps tapping, rhythm becoming frantic and she pressed back against him even more firmly. 

 

Finally she stiffens and gasps. He grasps her face with his hand and tugs it to the side so they can kiss. 

 

They kiss and Fengmian wraps her arms around his neck. They kiss and kiss and kiss and at some point they relocate to the bed and then her spiritual energy is in his veins, clearing out the worst of the drunkenness so once more he’s lucid enough to blink and see her face clearly. 

 

“Ziyuan.” She’s smiling, wide and unrestrained, “You were very drunk.”

 

Ziyuan closes his eyes and puts his face in her neck, “And now I’m just tired.”

 

“Then let’s sleep. Tomorrow will only be more meetings.”

 

Ziyuan groaned, “I can think of nothing more tiresome.”

 

“It’s good experience for A-Cheng at least. He’s grown up very much.”

 

“I sent him to have a drink with Jin Zixuan.”

 

Fengmian laughs, covering her mouth with her hand. 

 

Ziyuan laughs too. 

 

The things they need to do are endless. The meetings and negotiations and concessions stretch out unerringly before them but Ziyuan feels strangely buoyant. Somehow he and Fengmian are still here with their sect and lives intact. Somehow they’re still here together. Somehow they can laugh together.

 

The future is endless and there’re no guarantees it’ll be good but Ziyuan is almost optimistic.

Though maybe that’s just the lingering alcohol and the smell of Fengmian’s hair. And perhaps the promise of sex.

 

After all. He’s just a man.

Notes:

I think I said previously that I couldn't see myself writing anymore MDZS genderswaps and I was in a little bit of a writing drought through the fall before all of a sudden I had the idea for this fic and it all came pouring out! I think there's something about writing from the perspective of a problematic character that can be so compelling, at least in my opinion. Yu Ziyuan is not a great person but they're also not a bad person. They're just a person with terrible thoughts and toxic impulses and the influence of a damaging society and all the rest. This is a bit of a strange fic, I'm not going to try to deny it! It honestly could have been even longer but I really decided to cut it off because I wasn't looking to rewrite a canon-divergent MDZS from this angle haha.

Plus I think I wanted to have the adults solve something for one!

As I was writing I thought it was really interesting how gender swapping (for me at least) changed the characters in some ways and didn't change them at all in others. Jiang Fengmian became far more sympathetic for one and in some ways things become rather more tragic (what's her perspective on everything? what is she really thinking???) But by evening the power dynamics and giving Yu Ziyuan more power conversations are had that I don't believe would be had in canon and there's the added fact that Jiang Fengmian needs him in a material way they didn't in canon. I just thought it was interesting!

As always I really hope you enjoyed! Thank you so much for reading!!!

(The title is from the Drunk in Love Remix by Beyonce!)

Series this work belongs to:

• Part 5 of Genderbend MXTX