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Chapter Text

A firstborn son with the personality of a second one, Jiang Fengmian's designation as 'future sect leader' has been one hanging over his head, like a blade ready to drop.

His fate has been decided for many years, but that doesn't mean he hasn't tried to escape it—finding a right hand man in Wei Changze and living the careless youth he yearned for, finding a destined love in Cangse Sanren and her mischevious grin, losing both of them at once.

The rule of the universe is for one to suffer, one in every generation. His wife mutters lowly that it must be her son in the next, and Jiang Fengmian wonders if he is to blame for it, his own lowly luck passing onto his son.

(Jiang Cheng is a boy who resembles his wife too much for Jiang Fengmian to look at him and find overflowing affection. His strengths lie in his responsibilities, but his heart is fickle and weak. It will be his saving grace that he is resilient, but it is his downfall that he cares so intensely)

In the end, Jiang Fengmian's lowly luck meant he had to watch his son cry because of him, had to watch his wife bleed out for a home that never accepted her, had to die in the flames of invaders instead of sinking into the waters of his home.

They burnt away his hopes, his dreams, yet could not burn away his quiet wish.

("If I could do it all, I'd do it different.")

"Wishes are strange things," his father remarks, arms crossed behind his back in a manner Jiang Fengmian learnt to emulate at a young age. His smile is crooked, like how Jiang Yanli's looks like when she's doing her best to suppress a smile, and it hurts when it's aimed at Jiang Fengmian. "People wish for things in life all the time, but you've used all of your wishes already, Fengmian."

"A-Die," he calls out quietly, plaintively, eyes burning at the sight of a father who doomed him to a short-lived youth, but who he couldn't help but love and yearn for all in equal measures.

"You've used all of your wishes, Fengmian." His father places his weathered hands on his shoulders, smiling warmly. "Let me use mine on you."

Waking up the sight of Yunmeng Jiang as he had known it in his teenage years is a surprise. It's a shock, his amber eyes blinking up at the slanted ceiling and his fingers curling around his heart, where he distinctively remembers a sword cutting through.

A wish, he recalls hazily. He made a wish to do it all again.

His father spoiled him in his youth in monetary things. He could not run around with Jiang Fengmian as a child when the healers expressively forbade him from doing such strenuous activities, or help fix kites for the son who was accustomed to roaming around with servants to fill the swelling noise of solitude, but he could buy him things—the newest tassels spelled with protection for his sword, robes cut with the richest fabric and embroidery, tutors who would help him grow to have an amicable personality and a fresh smile.

His father used his wish to fulfil the one Jiang Fengmian had, and his return to his youth is a bittersweet thing.

Cangse Sanren is as beautiful she is as the last day Jiang Fengmian had seen her, before she had chosen to elope with the man he considered to be his best friend, making him lose the two of his greatest loves in one go.

In the shadows and snatches of her face, all Jiang Fengmian can see is Wei Wuxian. He was thirty-seven when he died, a contrast to the sixteen year old he is, and now he can only feel the sorrow of the past catching up with him.

The letter that spelled out their deaths in crude writing from an innkeeper who they had been staying with had cracked its characters into his heart. He had crept into the pavilion where he found himself finding reliving the memories of their shared past, leaning into the comfort of his wife's lap when she found him and soundlessly let him seek to curb his grief in her.

All Jiang Fengmian can see is A-Xian: his wide smile, the infectious laughter that was carried by the wind, his wild hair that flung itself in every direction until either child of his was wrangling it under control with a flimsy red ribbon.

Wei Changze is as solid as ever, and Jiang Fengmian wonders if it's destined for Yunmeng Jiang to always have three frolicking amongst its lands. It once had Jiang Fengmian, Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren. In the future, it would have Jiang Cheng, Jiang Yanli and Wei Wuxian.

In his trio of children, he saw the youth he so desperately yearned for, the in the last, the one he wished to have most.

The Lotus Pier of his youth was different. His father is long gone, his uncle ruling as regent until Jiang Fengmian reaches his twentieth birthday, and his mother's smiles are as gentle as her granddaughter's. There is no electricity crackling as the disciples try to uphold the standard his wife expects of them, nor the yelling of his son as he chases after his shixiong, or the scent of lotus roots stewing in a soup that will be shared eagerly by the disciples when his daughter comes walking out of the kitchens.

He finds himself missing the Lotus Pier he managed to carve out so clumsily, but finds a certain kind of peace with the cousins he surrounds himself with, his smiles weary at their antics but indulging in them nonetheless.

He's more patient, their gongzi, the disciples will quickly find, and akin to a sect leader like his Shufu is acting as.

"Maybe he's been replaced with a face-shifting yao," Cangse Saren wonders, eyes alit with wicked humour as she looms over the younger disciples.

"No! Jiang-gongzi wouldn't be replaced so easily!" A disciples protests, but his voice is weak. Their gongzi is amicable and has a silver-tongue rather than a cultivation to be proud of, but can one talk their way out of an interaction with a yao?

"No? He might have been eaten up before he even noticed the yao!"

"Cangse," Wei Changze's sigh is familiar and exasperated, and she spins around to face him with a grin that turns sheepish when she sees the raised eyebrow of the man next to him.

"I'd be concerned about how close our friendship is if you're so indifferent about me getting eaten by a yao, Cangse Sanren," Jiang Fengmian says, and Cangse Saren is immediately booed by the disciples behind her.

"Traitors! You were all starting to think it was true, weren't you?" she accuses, gaping when they all turn their noses up at her and march away at the call of their Shifu. "They've got some nerve, your disciples! Maybe they're getting all hoity and toity because of your future wife." Her voice is sly, her words heavy with teasing, and Wei Changze smiles faintly at her stirring the pot yet again.

"She's not my future wife," Jiang Fengmian corrects absentmindedly, eyes moving past her. Before, his gaze was as light as a feather as it stroked over her features, but now it moves away, except when it clings in moments of melancholy. Cangse Sanren can't quite make out the nature of the changes in the man, but she's quietly relieved, her own inclinations starting to tug towards the direction of the quietly solid man who stands beside the young gongzi's side.

"No? I've heard a lot about her already!" Cangse Sanren skips, her boots screeching against the ground as she stands in front of him at the edge of the pier. Clearing her throat, she continues in a voice that's sweet and cloying. "Yu-san-guniang is one of the most accomplished female cultivators, holding the title of 'Violet Spider' after her prowess with her famed spiritual weapon, Zidian, and is known for her beauty—as sharp as her gaze."

"You know quite a lot about her, Sanren," Wei Changze notes, ears pinkening when she winks at him.

"Of course I do! I can't wait to tell her all about the embarrassing things Jiang Fengmian did!" It'd never come to fruition. The rumours of Jiang Fengmian's yearning affection meant that Cangse Saren's visits were sparse, and her smiles faltering whenever she was faced with the 'sharp gaze' as she mentioned herself.

The famed Violet Spider could sometimes quell even the cheer of Cangse Sanren, long before her son came into the picture.

"She's not my future wife," Jiang Fengmian corrects again, watching the boats rock against the waves of the river that stretches forward and towards the mainland. "Shufu has been thinking that it would be better for me to be engaged in the future instead of now."

"Sure, but everyone knows that Meishan Yu has an interest in Yunmeng Jiang, and there's only one young lady to marry off." Cangse Sanren pauses, head tilting as she looks at him. "Unless you're interested in any other young lady? Perhaps one of her many cousins, or Ouyang-zongzhu's daughter?"

Jiang Fengmian shakes his head, subdued. "Marriage," he starts and then frowns faintly. "Marriage is best in the future when one is established." If not for the shaky foundations of their marriage, would everything have crumbled so quickly? Jiang Fengmian owes his wife much for the scorn she felt at the words of others, the Violet Spider made into a spectacle because of her failed marriage, something that stretched to their children and wounded their weak hearts.

If Jiang Fengmian was surer on his feet, if they never married in the first place, would they be happier off?

The Cloud Recesses has been an academic institute for longer than Jiang Fengmian's existence, opening its doors to hone and polish the talents and knowledge of many cultivators.

His mother once offhandedly remarked that it was more so a place where cultivators could finally meet one another, with earlier gatherings so tightly restrained. "My Fengmian might get up to mischief there too, won't he?" she teased, pinching his cheek like he was still six years old instead of sixteen. Her countenance was only slightly stronger than her husband's, and her hands were soft, only the tips hardened from years of embroidering. Her dark hair was streaked with grey for she did not practise much of the cultivation characteristics.

She had approved of Jiang Fengmian's wife, nodding and commenting that one must be paired with someone who could bolster them. Jiang Fengmian's tongue was too light, so his wife's would be sharp. She would be a disciplinarian, and he would be the one to spoil his children.

(That did not come true. His mother would have disapproved heavily of the way his children were raised, and Jiang Fengmian thinks that he might have faced her disappointed looks more in his adult years if she ever witnessed the way Jiang Cheng looked at him)

Qingheng-jun and his younger brother stand at the top of the sprawling stairs that lead to the 'prison', as Cangse Sanren so politely put it. Lan Qiren's beard is not the same polished thing it was in his later years, yet he already has the sharp glint of 'Grandmaster' in his eyes as he watches them approach. Jiang Fengmian's smile is sincere as he bows in the direction of the man who is going to become his friend, and eyes Qingheng-jun with more curiosity.

The man's quick marriage and subsequent seclusion were things of much gossip, and Jiang Fengmian has wondered privately which of the many rumours may have some grains of truth in them.

'You're a bigger fan of gossip than you pretend to be, Fengmian,' an amused voice whispers in his mind, and he curbs it as he rises from his bow.

He can see the mingling robes as the cultivators gather in the large courtyard meant to house the retinue of guests from different sects, and the richness of golden robes points out the Lanling Jin cultivators, headed by a handsome yet arrogant cultivator whose eyes are already fixing on the female disciples from other sects.

Forest green indicates the presence of Qinghe Nie, already in conversation with someone from Gusu Lan, and Jiang Fengmian's breath catches as a figure cuts through the crowd.

Robes in the shade of the pale pink of lotuses, gathered around a trim figure with white panelling highlighting the way the sheer layers cling to one another to form curved petals of a flower. Painted lips pursed in a thin line and red staining below phoenix-shaped eyes, dark hair swinging down a back and strands loosened around a pale, oval-shaped face.

Those eyes flick upwards, and pin Jiang Fengmian in place. He feels strangely breathless as the figure strides towards him, head ducked in a short bow before rising again. "Greetings to Yunmeng Jiang. This one is Yu Ziyuan of Meishan Yu."

Classes at the Cloud Recesses are harder to concentrate on with the gossip that goes around, mainly that Jiang Fengmian looked quite struck by the maiden many whisper is to be future wife.

Yu Ziyuan is one of the most striking maiden of the guest disciples, and it doesn't help that her sworn sister, Lei Qiao, is as pretty as the art of the beautiful gardens of Lanling Jin—fitting since she is to marry Jin-gongzi. Unperturbed by the gazes sent her way, she sits in the class and dutifully takes notes, back straight and dark hair falling across her face in a wave whenever she ducks her head to frown pensively at her writing.

It reminds Jiang Fengmian of their son, who had the same habit of frowning in concentration whenever he was thinking about something. Jiang Cheng had inherited much of their beauty, and Jiang Fengmian recalls a prank Wei Wuxian had played on his son, swapping his robes for those of a maiden and laughing himself sick until he grew protective at the looks other people were sending Jiang Cheng.

'Is it not strange?' a disciple whispers. 'That Yu-san-guniang doesn't even look in Jiang-gongzi's way?'

'It is, isn't it? I thought they were going to be engaged!' A contemptuous snort follows the words.

'Well, surely Yu-san-guniang can do better than Jiang-gongzi. His nature might be better, but Yu-san-guniang is better than him in cultivation and battle.'

Maybe the gossip Jiang Fengmian overheard is why he's moping around, Cangse Sanren thinks, and feels defensive over her friend. Shouting at those disciples—which Lan-er-gongzi overheard and promptly punished her with lines to jot down—isn't enough.

"Yu-san-guniang!" The girl looks up at the call of her name, and stares like Cangse Sanren is a mad woman. "Yu-san-guniang!"

"Cangse Sanren!" Jiang Fengmian hisses behind her, sounding aghast and horrified like one does when they're going to witness something catastrophic, but Cangse Sanren continues to wave at the maiden until she gets up. Even the way Yu-san-guniang moves is graceful, her skirts fanning around her legs as she walks forward and nods her head in quick acknowledgement.

"Cangse-guniang." Wow. Has Cangse Sanren done something to her? She's never heard her name voiced with such ice. "How can I help you?" Well, shit. Cangse Sanren has only thought as far as to call her over.

"Jiang-gongzi here was just wondering what flowers you like." The words prompt a slow blink. "He says he sees you painting a lot of spider lilies-" Yu Ziyuan's eyes flit towards Jiang Fengmian. "But are those the only flowers you like?"

"Does Jiang-gongzi need you to voice his words for him?"

"What?"

"Is Jiang-gongzi incapable of voicing his own questions?"

"San-" Jiang Fengmian abruptly cuts himself off. "Yu-san-guniang."

"Jiang-gongzi," Yu Ziyuan returns frostily. "Is that all?" She spins on her heel, marching away with no answer to her question.

"Wow," Cangse Sanren remarks, turning to look at Jiang Fengmian with an expression that is completely bewildered. "What the hell did you do to get her to hate you?"

Jiang Fengmian simply buries his face in his palms, peeking through his fingers at the call of his wife's name.

"Yu-san-guniang." His eyes narrow when he spies Wen Ruohan smirking down at Yu Ziyuan. Right. Weren't there rumours that Wen-da-gongzi was always looking at Yu Ziyuan appreciatively in their younger years?

At a Discussion Conference where Jin Guangshan had, as he typically does, get drunk off his ass, he had carelessly declared that their generations was full of beauties.

'Especially Jiang-xiong's wife! How lucky of you to snag her. Don't you agree?' He looked around at the gathering of sect leaders, Nie-zongzhu who looked at him with disgust, Lan Qiren who didn't look at him at all and Wen-zongzhu, who had smirked and nodded in lieu of Jiang Fengmian.

Call Jiang Fengmian petty but he had taken a great deal of relish when he went to his wife's room in the guest halls of Lanling Jin and watched her beautiful face fill with pleasure.

Yu-san-guniang, however, is not his wife in this time and looks up at Wen Ruohan with a nod. "Wen-da-gongzi." She looks startled at the hand he offers her to help her down the staircase, eyeing it like it's poisoned.

'Don't take it.' Jiang Fengmian mutters in his mind, a traitor to the voice in him that desired to let Yu Ziyuan go in this timeline. 'Don't-'

The Yu Ziyuan he knew at this time would have scorned him, flitting her eyes in Jiang Fengmian's direction before striding away. She had already known that she was to be married to him, and, on a celebration where she had gotten drunk and reverted to the maiden who did not yet hate him, leaned against him and said sweetly that she had liked him since then.

Yu Ziyuan places her hand in Wen Ruohan's larger one, nodding at him when she brushes past him and down the stairs.

Cangse Sanren startles as Jiang Fengmian's clarity bell jingles noisily, glancing at him curiously to find his jaw clenched and a dark expression aimed in the direction of Wen Ruohan.

Jiang Fengmian doesn't know why he's getting up to the same mischief that his son and ward were partaking in a few months ago at the Cloud Recesses, but perhaps it's because there's something so stifling about the air in the Cloud Recesses that one must break a rule lest they strange themselves out of sheer boredom.

That was the sheer poetry Cangse Sanren sprouted when she had snuck into their rooms, cajoling a pale Wei Changze—who was wondering exactly why his young master wasn’t scolding the lady for being in the room of two teenage boys—and Jiang Fengmian into nicking wine from the nearby Caiyi Town and sharing it amongst themselves and other bored disciples.

Convincing, she might be, but quiet-footed or quiet-mouthed she isn’t, and that’s why Jiang Fengmian is crouched behind the wall and lamenting why he let Cangse Sanren drag him into antics he thought he had outgrown.

He has no small amount of respect for his son. No wonder Jiang Cheng was shouting at his ward, especially if it meant they’d have to be faced with a punishment.

Jiang Fengmian’s wrist throbbed in protest. He has already written the many rules of Gusu Lan too many times and can not, will not, write them again. He might have to, if they get caught by Lan-er-gongzi, who has pinned them as the troublemakers of their generation.

“We could always give ourselves up,” Cangse Sanren offers, facing two withering looks that make her grin sheepishly. “Two of us could make a run for it and the other one could distract them.” In the past, it would always be Wei Changze offering to be the one left behind, yet Jiang Fengmian now knows that his eyes must have been fixed on the sight of the young master he was beholden to running and exchanging smiles with the girl he loved.

His friend has been too good to him for many years, a silent yet gentle figure who supported him whenever Jiang Fengmian found himself scrambling, listening to his rage at having to grow up so early, not knowing exactly how to comfort him but his presence being enough.

Wei Changze had been someone for him, just like how Wei Wuxian was someone for Jiang Cheng. Not a servant, but instead a brother, expressed in everything other than words. They were both men of action, and so Jiang Fengmian thought that Wei Changze knew that he would give his life for him just as the former would for him—that they two were opposite sides of the same coin.

He wished, in the future, that he had expressed it better. Then maybe Wei Changze and Cangse Sanren would have chosen to marry at Lotus Pier instead of eloping. Maybe Wei Changze would have seen pride instead of heartbreak on Jiang Fengmian's face, but then, hadn't Wei Changze known of his affections for the same woman?

Jiang Fengmian smiles at his friend, pushing him forward in Cangse Sanren's direction. "Go on. I’ll be the distraction." He hopes he takes it as the encouragement as it is, clumsily expressed as it is, and Wei Changze's eyes shine before he nods, grinning like a youth as he and Cangse Sanren run away, hand-in-hand like they would years later.

Satisfied, Jiang Fengmian settles in to be ultimately caught and scolded by Lan Qiren when a hand catches his wrist, tugging him out of the way of the lanterns. He's pushed against the wall, a slighter body covering his, and he blinks down at the head of a maiden looking to the side.

The moonlight shines down on the both of them, highlighting the shape of Yu Ziyuan's cupid bow, her bottom lip caught between teeth and promptly released as she glares up at Jiang Fengmian. "Jiang-gongzi," she starts, and Jiang Fengmian realises it's the first time they're having a conversation face-to-face. "Are you perhaps a martyr?"

"What?" he says weakly, head spinning at their proximity and the perfume he long thought he had forgotten was Yu Ziyuan's favourite.

"Are you a martyr? Lan-er-gongzi will beat you black and blue if he finds you. Why would you let your servant and Cangse Sanren go running off like that?"

"Wei Changze, San-niang," he corrects, and prays that Yu Ziyuan won't catch the rather intimate address.

"Whatever," she mutters, craning her head before she steps away from him. "Come on. I know a way to the male disciples' quarters."

"Why would Yu-san-guniang know that?" Jiang Fengmian questions, surprised, and she flashes him a look. He didn't know how much he missed that look.

The cultivation world was adrift with tales of how Yu-furen was not cherished by her husband. Jiang Fengmian did not love her then, the way he did Cangse Sanren, but he grew to care for her in his own way.

Yu Ziyuan, the mother of his children, the one who kept on caring for him even with the distance between them.

Whose spiritual weapon curled around him in a caress of affection before he bound and sent their children away, who yelled at him for coming with tears in her eyes and died with her hand reaching for him.

Only a fool wouldn't care for a woman like that.

Jiang Fengmian has been a fool for too long to be a fool now.

"Because I like knowing where each and every thing is." Her answer is so wholly like her that Jiang Fengmian aims his smile at the ground.

"Of course." She looks at him over her shoulder, beckoning him forward impatiently. For a second, he can only stare at her and feel-

'Jiang Fengmian! Do you hate me so much?'

'Jiang Fengmian, you fool! Why did you come?'

Wretched, wanting to hold onto her and never let her go.

I did care, he wants to say, tongue heavy with the need to express. Had the world made it so that you no longer do just to even the scales?

Hearing footsteps around the corner, Yu Ziyuan curses under her breath and grabs his hand. Blades of grass are crushed under their feet as they run, Jiang Fengmian clumsy for he has never run like this with his wife, Yu Ziyuan sure-footed as she moves him away from danger and towards safety.

'I could not leave my lady behind.'

One can nearly always hear Yu Ziyuan coming.

In the Cloud Recesses, her grace means that the tinkling of her jewellery doesn’t sound, making her abide by the rules. Yet outside of the rules, Yu-san-guniang knows that she must be heard, will be heard, and the jewelleries adorning her make delicate noises that sound her presence.

She has a fondness for jewellery, that Jiang Fengmian knows. Every pin he bought her as penance was stored away carefully on beds of silk, treasured in a box carved out of Yunmeng wood so that even the rainiest days wouldn’t spoil the contents of it.

Yu Ziyuan lends half a ear for the conversation Lei Qiao has entangled her in, eyes surveying the array of pins and jewels that hail from Gusu. The thought of Yu Ziyuan wearing the pure whites and deep blues of Gusu Lan doesn’t sit well with him.

“Jiang-gongzi,” Lei Qiao greets, observing how he greets her back before turning his attention to a stiff Yu Ziyuan. The future wife of Jin Guangshan, Jiang Fengmian had encountered many of her icy looks whenever they met at Discussion Conferences. His wife’s cheer was roused by her friend, her laughter more present whenever Lei Qiao brought Jin Zixuan for the play dates they arranged for the two, and Jiang Fengmian’s presence meant that Yu Ziyuan would restrain herself.

Granted, Jiang Fengmian had no reason to shine in her eyes, and the taut smiles he wore around her husband meant that he earned more of Lei Qiao’s ire. ‘Maybe it would have been better if you married Nie-zongzhu,’ he had overheard her saying bitterly to Yu Ziyuan, voice hushed.

Yu Ziyuan smiled mirthlessly, holding out a hand to Jiang Cheng, who toddled over to her eagerly and raised his head to press his cheek against hers in a bid for affection that he received. ‘But then I wouldn’t have my children.’

“Is Yu-san-guniang a fan of white jade?” he asks her, desperately trying to knock out the thoughts of Yu Ziyuan marrying Nie-zongzhu, who is decidedly unmarried and, like a majority of male cultivators with eyes, has glanced in Yu Ziyuan’s direction more often than not.

She shakes her head. “I prefer silver, or perhaps gold. Jade does not do too well in wet climates.”

“I thought it doesn’t rain that often in Meishan?” Yu Ziyuan pauses, nodding slowly.

“I discovered as much on visits to other sects.”

“I see.” Lei Qiao having departed with a cheeky wink aimed at her sword sister, awkward silence hangs between them. Jiang Fengmian doesn’t know how to voice his admiration of her talents without sounding like someone who looks at her too much. In truth, he’s paid more attention to Yu Ziyuan this time, taking in the sun’s rays curving around her cheek as she dips her brush into finely grinded ink during Lan laoshi’s lessons, the seamless in and out of the needle as she sits with an embroidery circle to stitch roses and spider lilies across fabric with the other female cultivators, the softness of her mouth as she parts it to eat dragon’s beard candy on visits to Caiyi Town with Lei Qiao and Meishan Yu disciples.

Eyes snagging on a particularly fine pin, he balances it between his fingers, smoothing his thumb over the ridge over the flower shaped jewel. “Are you getting that for Cangse-guniang?” The abrupt question nearly makes him drop the pin, whipping to look at her. Yu Ziyuan’s face is blank, her fingers dancing over the earrings resting in front of her.

“I am not interested in Cangse Sanren,” he says carefully. Yu Ziyuan snorts, disbelieving. “I’m fairly certain that Cangse Sanren is interested in Wei Changze.”

“And?”

“And?” Jiang Fengmian wracks his brain. “I am very happy for them?” Yu Ziyuan’s lips are set into a decidedly unimpressed frown.

“Haven’t you liked her ever since she visited your sect? You’re saying you don’t have feelings for Cangse Sanren?” In the past, Jiang Fengmian certainly did, and seeing her again made his youthful heart beat faster. But Jiang Fengmian hasn’t gone through nearly two decades, nearly one without Cangse Sanren, and not haven grown up. His heart has swivelled, a softness in him growing for the maiden in front of him—who smiles at the children scampering around Caiyi Town when she thinks nobody is noticing, who scolds the Meishan Yu disciples fiercely but compliments them clumsily only to blanch when they look at her with expressions of delight.

The Yu Ziyuan who kept Lotus Pier in tip top shape whenever he left, the right-hand who made sure that it shined and polished despite all the rumours surrounding her. Yu Ziyuan who reserved her smiles for her children and sighed at Jiang Cheng chasing after Wei Wuxian even when she expressed her disapproval of him but didn’t take him back to Meishan Yu forever as someone else might have done.

“Cangse Sanren is a dear friend. I do not have any romantic feelings for her.” Yu Ziyuan gazes at him. Her eyebrows are creased together in thought, smoothing out when she sees whatever she’s searching for.

“I see.” Is her mild response, and Jiang Fengmian smiles at the vendor as he hands over the silver needed to pay for the pin. Yu Ziyuan startles when a warm hand passes by her face, eyes darting upwards to see Jiang Fengmian gently sliding the pin behind her ear and into the top knot she pulled half her hair into.

“It suits Yu-san-guniang.” His smile is sweet and sincere, and Yu Ziyuan swallows, fingers bunching nervously in her skirts.

“Thanking Jiang-gongzi!” It comes out nearly like a shout, and Jiang Fengmian blinks after her departing back, not bothering to hide his smile this time.

Night Hunts are exhilarating, especially this far in Qishan, where a gracious Wen Ruohan had agreed to host them. Granted, it was only because his father demanded that they come to the conference he was hosting even though Lan-zongzhu has stressed that the academic was far from over, but the past Wen-zongzhu was tyrannical and influential enough for even Lan-zongzhu to give up.

“They’re saying it’s an ‘educational experience’.” Cangse Sanren frowns, cutting her sword through the air as she crosses her arms over her chest. “As if. It’s just a bunch of old men throwing around their weight.” She’s dressed in more extravagant robes than she usually is, her dark hair curling around her rouge-stained mouth, and Wei Changze keeps on glancing at her, keen to see her beauty expressed in such a way.

“Well, politics means that Lan-zongzhu had to concede. If not, who knows if Qishan Wen might start hosting their own ‘educational camps’.” If his words come out bitter, then neither friend of his is willing to pick up on it. The banquet hall is full of the booming laughter of Qishan Wen disciples, and Jiang Fengmian tugs at his collar, frowning at the stiffness of the robes he had to change into for the ‘celebration of the young generation’s newest Night Hunt’.

Lan Qiren looked positively apoplectic, only his older brother’s soothing arm on his shoulder calming him down.

The sweet smell of a familiar perfume cuts through Jiang Fengmian’s musings and he looks up from the cup of wine he’s been nursing to see Yu Ziyuan, souring when he sees that she’s being accompanied by Wen Ruohan. Silver jewellery wraps through her dark hair, matching the silver robe gracing her shoulders, a pink belt tied around her waist and her skirts swishing as she walks past him. Wen Ruohan says something, her sharp reply making her laugh, and Jiang Fengmian is irritated enough to be relieved when Lei Qiao takes her arm.

“Jiang-gongzi,” Yu Ziyuan’s greeting is cool, like she hadn’t turned pink when Jiang Fengmian had smiled at her a week ago and presented her with a silver hair pin dusted with pink jewels for her aid in escaping Lan-er-gongzi. He’s pleased to note that her topknot is threaded with the same pin, hiding his smile in his cup as he takes a sip of the heady Qishan wine. She watches through narrowed eyes, suspiciously sure that he’s smiling, and Jiang Fengmian is fonder than he expected.

His heart is a cowardly thing, always yearning for something or the other. In the past, it was Cangse Sanren, but he seems to have grown up in this time. Now, he yearns for Yu Ziyuan, a thing he can not be sure of if he deserves after the past they shared.

‘I’ll treat you better,’ he vows as he offers her a pastry flecked with sweet red bean, one that he knows she favours. Her lips tug upwards into a ghost of a smile as she takes it with a bow of her head, biting into the pastry and elbowing Lei Qiao when the girl teases her for her ‘consistent tastes’. ‘I’ll treat you better, so please, San-niang—’

He promises, but does the universe doubt him? Is that why, when he swings open a room to a door he suspects to belong to Wen Ruohan, having heard from Cangse Sanren that the man seemed insistent on meeting Yu Ziyuan, he finds said woman in a large bed?

Jiang Fengmian pauses, his heart sinking all the way down to his stomach, sick and nauseous as the figure sitting on top of another turns around. Hair loosened, robes slipping down to reveal shoulders, rouge stained, Yu Ziyuan looks startled to see him. The cracked open window lets the moon through, lighting the figure below as Wen Ruohan, soundless and quiet.

“San-niang,” he croaks, and doesn’t recognise his own voice. Something in him screams.

Is this what Yu Ziyuan felt like, every time she heard the rumours he found no reason to curb? Is the cracking of his heart, the hardening of his resolve, the need to shout and find an explanation what she felt? This suffocating distaste, this anger that what he wished for has not come to fruition, it powers him to shut the door behind him and show the rage he feels at Wen Ruohan. Was it not enough that he had to light his world on fire, but now linger and crave the girl he knows is close to being promised to another?

“Jiang Fengmian-” Yu Ziyuan starts, thoroughly surprised when Jiang Fengmian takes a hold of her wrist, yanking her off from the man and standing in front of her protectively.

“Wen-da-gongzi has gone too far.” She doesn’t recognise the boy in front of her, the way he keeps on gripping her wrist, not letting go but not bruising her either.

“Jiang-gongzi, what are you doing here?” Yu Ziyuan demands, and Jiang Fengmian pins her in place with his gaze.

“Are you in love with him?” he throws back. “Is that why you’re so cold to me?”

“Jiang-”

“Yu Ziyuan!” Jiang Fengmian’s features are twisted with the fierceness of his emotions, before he pauses.

He’s been in Wen Ruohan’s room for more than five minutes, interrupting what was obviously an encounter between a man and a woman who had slipped away from a party, yet the usually hot-headed Wen Ruohan hasn’t attacked him for his affront?

His hand slips away from its perch on Yu Ziyuan’s wrist as he stalks over to Wen Ruohan. His eyes are closed, mouth slightly parted but no breath comes through. Jiang Fengmian presses fingers to his pulse, finding nothing there. “San-niang,” he turns to look at her, eyes wide. “What have you done?” She tips her head upwards, proud and arrogant even in this, when faced with the blood she wears on her hands.

“What must be done, Jiang Fengmian.” Yu Ziyuan falters, her grey eyes widening. “What did you just call me?” Jiang Fengmian notes the slip of his tongue, opening his mouth to hurriedly respond when Yu Ziyuan surges forward, her palm pressed against his face. She stares at him, eyes flitting over his features, taking in and noting things he’s not privy to. She must see what betrays his age, his true age rather than that of the sixteen year old he wears, and hope is alight in her eyes. “Fujun?”

He sucks in a breath, daring not to hope but knowing it must be true, for there was a time when Yu Ziyuan used to call him that before everything soured. “San-niang?”

Chapter Text

Jiang Fengmian sits across from Yu Ziyuan, hands folded on his knees, fingers aimlessly tapping away as his wife—ex-wife, his mind corrects absentmindedly—takes a sip of the floral tea her maids had set before her.

If Yinzhu and Jinzhu looked sideways at this young master their young mistress always seemed to be purposefully tuning out, then only Jiang Fengmian's strained smile was a testimony to this.

Yu Ziyuan is not just Yu-san-guniang, but rather, his San-niang, and that makes him look at her through new eyes. He takes in the pride that makes her back straight, the tea she's serenely sipping on something that hails more from Yunmeng than Meishan, the curl of Zidian around her finger. His eyes linger on the ring that has always adorned his wife, up until the moment she bound their son and the child she despised to get them to safety, its violet sparks reflected in his surprised eyes when it actually obeyed him instead of biting.

"San-niang-" he starts, and cuts himself off when she raises her head, setting her eyes on him. To be looked at with that cutting gaze is as bracing as ever, and Jiang Fengmian internally winces as he readies himself to hear caustic words.

"So." Her voice is sharp, a drawl of mockery. "You're back, Jiang Fengmian?" Her beautiful lips are curled in a sneer, her mouth still stained red, yet she is miles away from the quiet, tempered Yu-san-guniang who she presented herself as. "How long have you been back for?"

"It's been a year, my lady." Her eyes narrow at the affectionate nature of the title he refers to her with, red nails smoothing over the rim of her cup. Yu Ziyuan used to have dyes imported from Lanling to colour her and Yanli's nails at the height of fashion, smiling faintly at her daughter when Yanli showed off her dyed nails to her younger brothers. Jiang Cheng would wrinkle his nose but obediently let his sister paint his nails, mother and daughter laughing at the boy’s put-on pout, a little family of three.

"A year," she repeats, dutifully unimpressed. "And you've done nothing, haven't you?"

"I certainly decided to do some things, not like you did." His own voice gains an edge, and his stare is flinty. "You killed Wen Ruohan. Do you not know how risky that is, San-niang?" Yu Ziyuan waves off his concern, as she usually does. It doesn’t matter to her that everyone will be suspected, throttled and looked at with suspicion for this act.

"The poison was specifically designed to emulate the same symptoms of a qi deviation, and everyone has been hearing whispers about how Wen-da-gongzi has been suffering from the worst 'migraines'." Her teeth flash in her smile, and Jiang Fengmian feels a pinch of irritation at how she's calculated all of this.

"Is that why you've been so close to Wen-da-gongzi?" It comes out as a pushier question than he anticipated, but all Yu Ziyuan does is blink before sneering.

"What concern is it of you?" she bites out. "Wen-da-gongzi was surprisingly good company," she adds thoughtfully.

"He goes on to become a madman." Yu Ziyuan shrugs, plucking at one of the arrangements of sweets set in front of them.

"Doesn't everyone?"

"San-niang."

"Wen-da-gongzi seemed interested in marriage." She's talking absentmindedly, not expecting him to react for she has spent enough time with his strained smiles and disinterest to know where he stands with her. Raising her head at the shadow looming over her, Yu Ziyuan is startled by the darkness of Jiang Fengmian's eyes, the clench to his jaw.

"Marriage," he echoes. "And were you considering his proposal?"

"Of course not," she snaps, nose raised high into the air and mouth curled with discontent. "That boy's sons hurt my son. For that, Wen Ruohan had to suffer a thousand times." The venom in her voice is familiar, heard every time he dared not pay attention to the treasure she brought into the universe. Perhaps she had a soft spot for her son for the same reason as to why Jiang Fengmian found Jiang Yanli easier to deal with—both children reflected elements of themselves, elements they had time to temper and weather.

Yu Ziyuan snapped at her son a thousand times for crying, but behind his back, she’d wreak havoc on whatever or whoever dared to make her son shed tears.

Jiang Fengmian sits back in his chair, more relieved than he has any right to be. Yu Ziyuan has seemingly not forgiven him for the past if the sharp cut of her eyes says anything, behaving in the same manner of their past, but not bringing it up herself. "San-niang," he has to clear his throat to say. "About our marria-"

"I asked A-Die to not set up the engagement." The abrupt statement has Jiang Fengmian floundering, his eyes widening as he processes her words. "A-Die agreed to let me choose my husband in the future, when I want to get married."

"W-What?" Jiang Fengmian stuttering is so out of character that Yu Ziyuan raises her eyebrow.

"This way you can be with Cangse Sanren, just like you always wanted to be."

"I-" He has to cut himself off to breathe deeply. Yu Ziyuan's tongue is a blade itself, but he can't blame her, not entirely. His wife's cruelty has been something not of her own creation, her once normal disposition becoming more twisted when he began to foster affection she felt was made for their son to Wei Wuxian. "Cangse Sanren is in love with Wei Changze. That's the way it's always been."

"That didn't stop you in the past, did it? Are you going to pine after her like you did?" She scoffs, crossing her arms over her shoulder. "Trust that you don't get anything done in this life either."

'Like what, murder a soon-to-be sect leader?' He barely manages to hold himself back from questioning incredulously. But Yu Ziyuan has been the more pragmatic one out of the two of them. Didn't she hotly tell him to prepare for war rather than go to the enemy?

Foolish, he was, for not listening to her—for not listening to the worried expressions of his children, not seeing the haggard state Jiang Cheng wore himself into to try to avoid the Wens and bring them back to Wei Wuxian, not understanding that things must be terribly wrong for his son—a well-known sect heir—to be subjected to such cruelty.

"I will not," he says firmly. "I'm not the same young man I was when I fell in love with Cangse Sanren." Yu Ziyuan stares at him, gaze suspicious, and he returns it with an earnest expression, pleading for her to trust him.

But how can she? He recalls the intensity of his agony, how it felt like an arrow had been plunged into his heart when he discovered his wife with Wen Ruohan. He had thought that he had her by his side even when he was sent back into the past, but the realisation that maybe in this life, Yu Ziyuan might not be his was—

It was strange. A part of him was relieved that he wouldn't have to bear her barbs and listen to her yell herself hoarse at him, needing to keep a calm face to not scare their children further. Another part screamed, crawling its way to the surface and wanting to punish Wen Ruohan for daring to lay a hand on his wife, his wife, not Wen Ruohan's.

His Third Lady, not Wen Ruohan's, not anybody else's.

Yu Ziyuan's gaze remains flinty and hard. Jiang Fengmian's is soft and beseeching.

The two of them are locked in an interaction, one that brims with tension, woven through the years and the intimate knowledge they have of one another.

To think of the future, they have to convince eac

h other first--that the intention between them is one worth honouring.

When Jiang Fengmian first met Yu Ziyuan—long before they relived these young years of theirs—he had been struck by her beauty.

It was obvious, that the kind of beauty Yu Ziyuan possessed was edged with steel, drastically different from the kind of charm Cangse Sanren easily commanded. Her straight-backed figure, dark lashes laying low on shielded eyes, bottom lip pursed out further than the top one in discontent, all of it made her a sight for sore eyes.

Jiang Fengmian would sneak glances at her, trying to learn whatever he could about the girl he was going to marry as his mother kept on stressing, not exactly liking what he heard but being drawn in by her appearance nonetheless.

She sits now, on a low wall made of white stones, studying a scroll. Out of the Gusu Lan cultivation robes, the pink gauzy fabric loosely gracing her elbows brings out the lushness of her lavender-tinted robes, her hair streaming down her back and a single rose woven in the twin buns that adorn the sides of her head. In their past youth, she used to favour shades of pale pink and vibrant blue, adding a cheer to her otherwise hot-headed demeanour, but perhaps years of wearing violet have made Yu Ziyuan reach for robes tinted by the shade. "San-niang," he says, quietly enough that nobody will hear as he approaches her, and it earns him her ire nonetheless.

"Jiang-gongzi," she utters the title sharply, reminding him of who they are, and a little bunch appears between her brows. With the shade of the leaves casting patterns across her pale face, the tree she had sought shelter under leaning in her direction as if wondering what questions she seems to struggle with. Jiang Fengmian sweeps his eyes over the parchment, gaze knowing as he smiles at her.

"Are you struggling with the self-protection charms?" Yu Ziyuan had Zidian to protect herself, and so sometimes she struggled to wield the more fiddly talismans and charms that would protect her in case Zidian failed to work.

'Useless,' she scoffed in the past. 'As if Zidian would ever fail!'

She stiffens as a hand is offered to her, palm upturned as if requesting her own. Her eyes are narrowed, looking like a cat heavily suspecting something in front of her, and Jiang Fengmian bites back his smile, waiting patiently. Yu Ziyuan’s slim hand slips into his own, and he smooths his index finger to carve out the characters.

“When you write them like this, trying to keep it as connected as possible, the energy is easier to diffuse through the characters,” he explains, voice low as if his vocal chords understand how fragile this moment is. His wife’s eyebrows are knitted together in concentration, and his breath hitches when she turns the position of their hands around, nail scratching lightly against the thin lines of his hand as she copies the characters.

Ever so carefully, Yu Ziyuan has never spilled or wasted a drop of ink when she writes, much like her son in her calculated nature. Jiang Fengmian has watched her then, and he watches her now, smile infinitely gentle when she looks up.

Yu Ziyuan's heart hurt.

Never in her life had her husband looked at her so kindly as he does now. Did it take her dying for him to decide to try all over again? Did he ask her how she felt?

Did he ever look at her son the way he looks at her now, in this body of Yu-san-guniang, not Yu-furen?

Bitter venom is on her tongue, scalding and burning its path down from her throat to her heart. 'He has twisted feelings. How foolish of him to love Yu-san-guniang, expecting her to love him back.' Wen Ruohan chuckled before her hands wrapped around his throat in sheer and utter rage.

This man separated her from her children, and that meant that even that version of Wen Ruohan—who stared at her with a smile that was sharp but full of intent—was loathsome to her.

The man in front of her is not as loathsome. Yu Ziyuan's foolish heart has yearned to give itself to Jiang Fengmian since the wind of the Cloud Recesses carded its hands through their hair, his purple ribbon rippling in the breeze and his smile gentle and aimed at the laughing woman by his side.

She has loved Jiang Fengmian for many years, comforting him in the absence of any other, learning to soften herself for his mother and for the sect who seemed to walk around her like she was a second away from blowing up.

He doesn't love her now, the trauma of watching her sink to her knees and never get back up again driving him insane.

He'll wake up. He'll open his eyes and realise that the woman by his side is not the girl he's loved and go back to chasing after her ghost.

He always does.

Sitting with her sworn sister and disciples, Yu Ziyuan appears softer. Her dark hair curls around the corner of her mouth, eyes shadowed and the silver needle weaving in and out of the fabric circle she holds matching the crown settled on her head. She listens to their conversation, every now and then joining with something dry muttered, lips twitching when they giggle and laugh at her words.

It's Jin Guangshan who voices as much, eyes lingering on the gathering of women sitting outside on the grassy hills of the Xloud Recesses overlooking the training field they're perched in, and Jiang Fengmian has to hide his scowl at the man's lecherous tone.

"It's a fine day. Why wouldn't the female disciples come out to appreciate the first glimpse of the sun?" Lan Qiren's voice is cool, contempt hidden in it, and Jiang Fengmian flashes him an approving smile that makes the perpetually awkward man clear his throat.

"They're doing embroidery, Lan-er-gongzi. Something like that is just a distraction, no? Maybe they're watching over us." Not-so-subtly, Jin Guangshan arranges his form into a preening position.

'Peacock,' Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng used to sneer at his son, and Jiang Fengmian feels like doing the same thing.

"Are you embroidering flowers again, Yu-san-guniang?" Wei Changze's head rises as the wind helpfully carries over Cangse Sanren's face, the girl peering down at the fabric stretched across Yu Ziyuan's wheel.

"Pay attention to your own embroidery, Cangse-guniang. Your threads will make Lan-laoshi have a coronary," comes his wife's cool reply, and Wei Changze raises an eyebrow.

"Yu-san-guniang seems to really dislike Sanren," he notes, and Jiang Fengmian winces delicately.

"Their temperaments are too different."

"And what would you know about Yu-san-guniang's temperament?" Jin Guangshan smiles but his eyes read danger, calculation etched in those cunning fox-like eyes. "I've heard you've been chasing after Yu-san-guniang."

"Plain gossip, Jin-gongzi," his friend defends coldly, and Jin Guangshan's smile flits, lips curving downwards into a menacing scowl—all too similar to how the disciples from other sects would behave around Wei Wuxian. Except, at least Wei Changze's son was known as Jiang Fengmian's ward, as opposed to the former who is Jiang Fengmian's trusted right-hand.

"You sure embroider a lot of lotuses, Yu-san-guniang." Cangse Sanren's comment cuts through whatever Jin Guangshan is going to say, and Jiang Fengmian can practically feel the smile that stretches itself across his mouth.

"You-!" Evidently having had enough, Yu Ziyuan wraps up her needles and threads, ignoring a laughing Cangse Sanren who tries to chase after her as she storms down the grassy halls.

Jin Guangshan is watching Jiang Fengmian as the girl comes closer, slightly perturbed by how dazzled he looks by the sheer fury Yu Ziyuan wears. She might be a beauty, but she's someone Jin Guangshan has the common sense to stay far away from, especially since his first visit to the lower rings of Meishan where his fiancé's house was located resulted in him humiliating himself by throwing up in front of all of the respected elders of the Discussion Conference.

That's why even Lan-er-gongzi—a second son!—didn't give him face!

Still, it irritates him how she seems to have Jiang Fengmian wrapped around her pretty, nimble finger. Did the man have no shame? They were supposed to woo women, not the other way around!

Flicking his sword out discreetly, he only intends to pause Yu Ziyuan in her trajectory, eyes widening when she lifts her hand and, without looking, sends her blade to defend against his own. Gaping, he stares at her, and she sneers as she brushes past. "Pathetic," she says sharply.

Jin Guangshan is feeling wronged—Yu Ziyuan used to mind her tongue for her sworn sister before!—when he feels something dark creep behind him, the hilt of his sword poking his stomach. He looks in the direction of the prodding to find Jiang Fengmian's smile taut and entirely without mirth. "Jin-xiong should be careful. Yu-san-guniang could have been badly hurt."

Hurt? The only one hurt is Jin Guangshan! His feelings are very hurt!

Jiang Fengmian, the shameless curr, only chases after the girl he's entirely besotted with. "San-niang has the habit of embroidering lotuses, doesn't she?" She doesn't deign to reply, and Jiang Fengmian continues. "You used to embroider handkerchiefs and belts for A-Cheng and A-Li, didn't you?"

Pausing in her furious march, Yu Ziyuan looks at him quizzically. "How do you know that?"

"I notice things," he says cryptically, and offers her his arm. "May I have the pleasure of accompanying you to Caiyi Town?"

"How did you know I was visiting Caiyi Town?"

"It's the end of the week. You always visit Caiyi Town at this time." Her expression spasms, and she breathes out a heavy sight after moments of staring at him.

"Do as you wish." She does her best to ignore him as they nod at the Gusu Lan cultivators who guard the entrance to the sprawling mountains, tipping her head upwards to enjoy the light, airy breeze that greets her—far warmer than that present in the Cloud Recesses. Yu Ziyuan hates to admit it, but she never fares well in Gusu. She’s made for warmer climates, years of living in Lotus Pier conditioning her to withstand even the most fiery of heats but wrap herself up in blankets at the faintest chill.

Laughing, her da-jie had teasingly remarked that perhaps Yu Ziyuan should marry into Yunmeng Jiang. ‘Their young master is a bit tepid for my tastes, but maybe he’ll suit you, A-Yuan! Yunmeng is always warm, and it’ll keep you nice and toasty in lieu of us.’ Her eldest sister’s eyes glimmered with amusement, calculation hidden behind the mirth. Her parents had been surprised by her using her voice to declare that she was too young to marry, not at this period, not when she had woken up a week ago to find herself not gurgling and suffocating on the blood in her throat but instead spread across the warm silk beds of her childhood bedroom in Meishan.

Yu Ziyuan hasn’t changed much in terms of personality, so her family did not suspect her words for more than fear of marriage, something that was common in young ladies of Meishan who had to settle for marrying men to appease their Elders. It gave Yu Ziyuan time and hope that maybe she could avoid Jiang Fengmian in this world, until she was staring at him in the doorway of Wen Ruohan’s bedroom, his hands yanking her off and demanding that she pay attention to him rather than the corpse of the man she just killed.

Giggling maidens look sideways at the couple drifting through the crowded streets of Caiyi Town, the young lady a visitor they are familiar with, the male cultivator one as well but never together. He keeps one arm locked behind the other, gaze moving around and observing everything before drawing itself back to the shorter woman in front of him. Dark hair scented with sweet perfume oil moves in the breeze, silver jewellery chiming gently, and her steps are firm as she strides forward with a destination in mind.

‘The young gongzi must be driven by affection,’ a maiden whispers to her friend, noting how the man’s eyes rarely stray from the frowning lady. ‘Every time something grabs his attention, she earns it just by breathing.’

‘How romantic.’ Her friend sighs dreamily. ‘Immortal cultivators and their romance truly are as wonderful as the novels make out.’

Yu Ziyuan, overhearing their comments, snorts rather inelegantly. What would peasants like them know? They have a greater change of finding love—mild, untampered but still love—than she does. Lanterns swing above their heads, and the fact that she is accompanied by someone who isn’t her maids or her fellow disciples and sworn sister makes her unnerved.

Jiang Fengmian must be feeling nostalgic, she convinces herself bitterly, to seek her out like this. Their marriage was equal parts hot and cold. She remembers vividly the vacant nature of his gaze as he peered out at the endless stretch of the lake before his eyes, the brightness of it when he saw their two children and taken-in ward frolicking amongst the lotuses, as if Yu Ziyuan didn’t know who he pretended to see. Not her children, not even Wei Wuxian, the poor bastard.

No, he saw only a reflection of the woman he loved, and the man he lost her to.

Yet…

There were also other times. Jiang Fengmian would smile at her in the mornings when he was too tired to remember that he was forced to marry her, his office sharp with the sweet incense of lotus and his hand absentmindedly inking out letters he’d trust Yu Ziyuan to read over. When he’d sweep her in his arms after tiring of her raging at him and try to silence her with his mouth, knowing she’d answer back equally wildly. His large hand would cup the back of her neck and draw her in until she was flush against his form, thumb smoothing over her battering pulse.

Shivering, Yu Ziyuan absentmindedly raises her hand to touch the space where her jaw meets her neck, unaware of the eyes that watch the move and turn heated. “Are you cold, San-niang?” he asks her, startling her and making her whip around to see that Jiang Fengmian has walked closer. His hand flies out to steady her, lingering on her arm, and she stares at the point of connection before shaking her head.

“It must have been a draft,” she lies, and Jiang Fengmian smiles at her. Looking forward, he reaches out to wrap his fingers more securely around her wrist before tugging her forward gently. “What are you-”

“There’s a lantern making shop there. You like lanterns, don’t you, San-niang?” Yu Ziyuan would always help their children fashion the most incredible lanterns, using her deft knife skills to slice into the paper so thinly and accurately that large, delicate shapes would form whenever a candle was placed into the holder of the lantern. He starts walking, turning around to give her a wider smile. “Let’s go, San-niang.” His eyes are as sweet and tender as honey, that crystal-like glass peering at her with something akin to affection, and it scorches. It tears her apart, that he looks at her like this, that he might- he might actually care.

Yu Ziyuan can only swallow, and wish that the life they’ve both survived has changed her husband somehow, a kindling of hope in her chest.