If asked about it after the fact, onlookers at that year’s discussion conference assembly might describe Nie-zongzhu as having been an unusually sombre sight: subfusc in dress and distant in expression. However, few people in the room that day are paying attention to Nie Huaisang, and if they are, that attention is quickly diverted. In the hubbub to come, observations of this kind will be easily forgotten in favour of more gripping things.

Regardless of the topic of discussion, today Nie Huaisang appears distracted by nearly everything. The leader of Qinghe Nie is recently forty but still in possession of a boyish look—not the ethereal verdure of high-level cultivators, but an aristocratic doughiness attributed to having been spared most of life’s physical hardships. If anything, Nie Huaisang’s cheeks seem fuller than this time last year.

For her part, Nie Huaisang hasn’t so much been distracted as she has been paying very close attention to her surroundings—the two states can appear indistinguishable. It’s not due to the conference itself being of any particular interest. The subject matter is nothing new, and the only good part of the morning so far was when Nie Huaisang dragged a snort out of Jiang Cheng by leaning across a lunch table to whisper behind her fan about how ugly the Ouyangs’ new sect uniforms are. But she must pay attention nonetheless; eventually there will come a lull in the proceedings, and then she must seize her moment.

When she delivered the news the first time, the various elders, advisors, senior disciples and high-ranking retainers of Qinghe Nie sat fanned out around her at the meeting table. That group, which passes for an inner circle—it’s important that there appears to be one, so no one outside the sect questions how the bills always get paid on time and Nie Huaisang’s blunders never seem to harm the sect members in a lasting way—are the most useful and trustworthy she has. She’s known the bulk of them since she was a child, and they’ve been here since the beginning, since the days early in her leadership when her overwhelm with the tasks required of her was hardly feigned. When Nie Huaisang was young, she thought she was the cousin of everyone even close to Heijan, but that was because she had so many aunties and uncles it was hard to remember which ones she was actually related to.

Nie Huaisang may never have intended to become sect leader, but she’s not without skills. One of these is that she can carry conversations without trouble, and knows how to make most people into friends. She delegates, but never gives any one disciple enough incriminating information about her plans or pursuits to come to conclusions other than that their sect leader has eclectic interests and is prone to indulging flights of fancy. Over the years, she’s taken to appearing around the compound, unannounced and often at odd hours, to politely request to watch the preparations being made for the next day’s training, or to have a late-working clerk explain his sums. This habit, sustained over the years, has given the effect that the disciples of Qinghe Nie believe their sect leader could be anywhere, at any time, ready to hold them to account. Nie Huaisang takes pains not to make them feel overburdened, so that this doesn’t provoke resentment; she brings gifts and is always complimentary. Still, she watches, and she lets them know she watches. She keeps a rotating schedule of lunch partners from all levels of the sect, and asks over their birthdays, their families, their interests. No one is given reason to feel forgotten, or as though their conduct goes unobserved, and her confidantes are everyone and no one.

Over the weeks before she called the meeting, Nie Huaisang had been letting the news trickle through the sect via off-handed comments made in this conversation or that. For this reason, when she came out and said it outright in front of the whole council—she’s going into seclusion, far from the Unclean Realms; it’s important and she isn’t sure when she’ll be back; things should continue as usual in the meantime—the surprise was mostly performed for her benefit. Still, she let it play out in murmurs and heavy nods while she fidgeted with her brushes until the room became silent once again.

“Now, I don’t want to leave you all in the lurch,” she said, voice tripping over itself like a child in overlong robes, “so I’ve prepared some lists of things it would be really helpful for you to take care of while I’m away…”

That is how it began in earnest, the process of running away from one’s own long shadow.

Today, in Gusu, the remarks of Sect Leader Whoever wind to a close. Nie Huaisang fidgets, half-consciously, and sits up straight. Lets out an almost inaudible self-deprecating laugh to clear her throat, and then opens her mouth—

“There is still one item,” intones Lan Wangji from the head of the room, and she bites her tongue.

In his fashion, Lan Wangji gives no further preamble. "I am withdrawing from the position of Chief Cultivator." The air clots with a sticky silence. "I am leaving in the spring, by which time the next appointment will be finalized." He sits down, face frigidly inscrutable as ever, and for moment nobody says a thing. It doesn't last long; quickly, whispers spread throughout the hall. One sect leader starts out, "But, Your Excellency—"; another, down three places from him at the table, begins, "Surely—"; and then the room erupts in a conflagration of dismay and no little outrage. After all, it doesn’t take much guesswork to arrive at the conclusion that when Lan Wangji says he’s leaving, he doesn’t mean alone, and if he's travelling with company, there’s no mystery as to the identity of his companion. If there were any doubt, Lan Wangji practically confirms it by the stony look on his face as he weathers the questions and answers none.

The chaos is such that, when Nie Huaisang slides another announcement into the agenda just before the talks come to an end, hardly anyone is giving it their full attention. Sure, it may be odd for Nie-zongzhu to go into secluded meditation when he’s never cared about developing his cultivation before, but Hanguang-jun is eschewing his duties to go gallivanting around the countryside with a man everyone thought he’d at least have the propriety to pretend was his dirty little secret! I mean, one of these events signals the disappearance of one of the cultivation world’s most prominent leaders from public life, and the other one is about Nie Huaisang!

Jiang Cheng is looking at her, though; Nie Huaisang can tell through the corner of her vision, although she doesn’t turn to meet his eye. He may be the only person in the room more focused on her than on Hanguang-jun. Let him look, for what good it will do either of them.

✥

“Enjoying the evening air alone, Jiang-zongzhu? Or are you waiting for someone?”

Jiang Cheng gives her a sour look, nearly friendly in the familiarity of its exasperation, and Nie Huaisang laughs.

After dinner, people are still milling around, engaging in a subdued, Cloud-Recesses-appropriate form of wheeling and dealing. Nie Huaisang exited the dining hall as quickly as possible, and fell into step with Jiang Cheng almost effortlessly.

They walk amidst the sunset, with no particular destination. “I suppose congratulations are in order,” Jiang Cheng says begrudgingly. He’s harder to read than usual; Nie Huaisang looks at his face in profile, and her mental register of Jiang Cheng Expressions comes up with nothing.

“Only if they’re sincere.”

“I bet you’re glad it’s over with.”

She chooses to respond by being cautiously blithe. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

If there was something more that Jiang Cheng wanted to say, he’s in no hurry to do so.

Nie Huaisang steers the conversation to more neutral ground, after that, and they make an idle path through the Cloud Recesses at a pace that makes Nie Huaisang feel as though they ought to be stroking their nonexistent beards. Jiang Cheng begins enumerating his critiques of the Caiyi waterway system, and Nie Huaisang hums encouragingly and asks prompting questions whenever required. Nie Huaisang nods along, but most of her attention is, in truth, focused on Jiang Cheng’s hair; the evening light plays reddish on the black. She thumbs the hem of her innermost sleeve and lets her gaze move to the way he walks. He’s the oddest combination of stiff and graceful. For this reason—her distraction—she doesn’t recognize the shapes coming towards them out of the corner of her eye until Jiang Cheng's spine goes rigid and all of his gracefulness flows away in favour of impenetrability.

The covered walkways are not spacious enough to allow passing parties to easily avoid having to greet one another. They stop, all four of them, and it’s Jiang Cheng who speaks first.

“Hanguang-jun.” He does give the tiniest of salutes and a bare incline of the head, which is more than Nie Huaisang was expecting. After a beat, and in a tone as though it takes him great strain, he adds, “Wei Wuxian.”

Nie Huaisang quickly makes her greetings, a trifle more warmly, as does Wei Wuxian. Lan Wangji does the same, after enough of a pause that his disinterest is fully articulated. She expects that to be all and for everyone to run along, but Jiang Cheng looks Lan Wangji square in the face and asks, “So, is the wedding going to be before or after you leave?”

It’s a testament to how well-practiced Nie Huaisang is at controlling her face that her eyes don't go wide with horror. They were having a nice evening before, really, Jiang-xiong, must you escalate everything—but rather than Lan Wangji lashing back out at him, the question is answered by Wei Wuxian, who looks wary but level. “After we get back. We're hoping that Zewu-jun will have finished his time in seclusion by then.”

Nie Huaisang fans herself and smiles pleasantly, looking between the three of them. Lan Wangji continues staring at Jiang Cheng with naked enmity. Jiang Cheng's shoulders and jaw are squared, but he's not, it appears, actually been sarcastic, or even done anything particularly objectionable, though there's still time for him to change that. Wei Wuxian, however, is looking at Nie Huaisang—and now at Jiang Cheng, and now back to Nie Huaisang—with a curious eye that fills Nie Huaisang with suspicion.

Blessedly, no one insists on keeping the conversation going longer, and everyone goes on their mutual ways. Nie Huaisang waits until they're well out of earshot, and even then lifts her fan to shield her mouth from any other passersby: “Their wedding? Hold on… you knew that all this was coming, didn’t you? And here I thought you kept me abreast of your gossip.”

“I don’t think they’re putting much effort into keeping anything under wraps.”

She softens. “I think that’s the most mellow I've seen you around Wei Wuxian in years.”

“I know how to act in polite society. You make me sound like some kind of village ruffian.”

Nie Huaisang’s mouth curls in a wry smile, but she decides not to push it.

“I can’t say I’m too sorry to see Lan Wangji leave his post.”

Darkly, Jiang Cheng replies, “Let’s hope whoever takes over will let us drink after sitting through these circuses.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it. Odds are it’ll be Lan-lao-qianbei—not that he’ll be pleased! Unless you’re volunteering yourself.”

She’s not sure what she’s expecting in response—A gleam of ambitious pride? Uncouth dismissal?—but when she looks back at Jiang Cheng, he only looks distracted.

“What’s gotten into you, then?”

Jiang Cheng glances at her face, and then quickly away. “Come see me before curfew sets in. If you can spare the time.”

“Oh?”

She’s expecting him to play coy, following which she can pretend to talk him into having fun, which is their pattern—and an enjoyable one!—but Jiang Cheng just replies, “Come or don’t, I don’t care.”

The air is pine-scented, fresh and brisk; Nie Huaisang’s stomach is still full from a surprisingly satisfying, albeit meatless, dinner. There’s still enough daylight for Nie Huaisang to count Jiang Cheng’s delicate freckles.

“I suppose I could make the walk.”

✥

It’s the first time they’ve had a private meeting in Jiang Cheng’s room, instead of Nie Huaisang’s. The knowledge tingles in her stomach as she makes her way through the open-air corridors. She raps on the doorframe—two knocks, quiet but clear—and runs her fingers through her hair, making sure she looks something like tidy.

She’s expecting to be admitted promptly, and she is. Very promptly. Jiang Cheng must have been quite close to the door when he heard her knock; that, or he dropped whatever he was doing, which the slightly elevated rate of his breathing seems to imply. She shouldn’t linger in the walkway, where any passerby could see her, but she pauses a moment before coming in. He looks at her, ruddy-cheeked. Nie Huaisang looks back, probably the same, then remembers what she came here for, and blinks expectantly. Jiang Cheng gives his head a little shake, and then moves aside to let her in.

She closes the door behind her. The sound of the base sliding in its track sends goosebumps up her arms. When she turns around, Jiang Cheng is standing very close. Of course, he was very close—he only just moved aside enough for her to pass—but his shoulders block out most of the candlelight, and the very quality of the air feels different.

The moment her back hits the wall, arousal drops through her chest like a falling match just before it hits the kindling. Nie Huaisang couldn’t say whether she chose to lean against it or if she was pushed by Jiang Cheng’s advance, but she tips her head back and loses herself in his attention. A powerful thigh bullies its way between her legs, and she squeezes around it, gasping into his mouth. He reaches for the place her lapels fold over; she reluctantly takes her hands out of his hair in order to unfasten her belt so that Jiang Cheng can more easily get his hands under her robes.

They were in frequent contact over the summer, and were able to make time for a handful of overnight meetings, but it’s been a month since they last saw one another, and some things can’t be done on paper. She’s put more than a little thought towards how they could best spend their time, the next opportunity they had to take an evening for themselves, but her elaborate plans feel far away compared to the immediacy of touch just for touching’s sake.

If she’s not imagining things, she thinks they might both be feeling the scarcity of the moment. They shed items of clothing while stumbling over the floor, heedless of tearing, and every few steps they stop to resume kissing and grasping at one another in a way she would describe as frantic. Jiang Cheng’s eyes are blown out, dark and desolate. When she parts his silks enough to touch his bare skin, Nie Huaisang snakes her hand around his waist to rake her nails down Jiang Cheng’s back. She swallows each of the little gasps that follow, and is still left ravenous.

As she so often is, lately, she finds herself caught up in regret. Her mind combs through the past, looking for moments she can latch onto—if only this day or that one went differently, could we have had this together sooner?—though she knows perfectly well there was never any way. She traded away the ability to be close to other people. It bought her what she needed it to, but the price was even more sore than she realized. She didn’t know what she was missing until she’d actually had it.

At one point, Jiang Cheng seems to regain a bit of his senses. He catches one of her wrists. “You aren’t… too tired?”

“If I was, I just wouldn’t have come. I’m terribly flaky like that.”

“I didn’t ask you here just for… I mean, we don’t need to—”

“You’re very gentlemanly, Jiang Cheng, thank you, but there’s such a thing as being too respectful.” Nie Huaisang doesn’t bother trying to keep her impatience from her voice, and when she tugs at his robes again with an expectant expression, he gives way. She’s trying not to unravel in any ways she’ll regret, and if they give themselves too much space for contemplation, she’s not confident she’ll be able to avoid doing so.

That settles it, then—the question in her mind of how exactly they should spend their time tonight. From there, it takes no time at all to head towards a real destination: Nie Huaisang spills over Jiang Cheng’s lap, half-laying, half-sitting up, propped up against pillows. He kneels between her spread thighs with one hand lifting up her knee and the other, slick with oil, under the single loose robe she’s still wearing, and so close—but not quite—to where she wants it.

He’s not teasing her on purpose. Jiang Cheng has done a good job making up for lost time when it comes to his lack of experience, but being playfully withholding in bed is not an impulse she imagines would come naturally to him. More likely, he’s nervous because he wants to do it right the first time. Nie Huaisang is partially to blame for this. She braces a heel on the bed, opening her legs a little wider, and thinks back to the letters they exchanged before coming here. She had given him a bunch of lurid threats that she wasn’t going to let him come until she was wholly satisfied, blah blah, but only because she thought he would get off on it. Being playfully withholding is her thing!

Her voice is casual, fond, chastening. “You remember what it’s like when I do you? Just do the same thing. I’ll like it too.” She taught Jiang Cheng how this goes, didn’t she? He knows what she likes already, and he doesn’t even know it.

Jiang Cheng won’t meet her eyes. A high blush stains his face, but he sets his jaw, and the tip of his finger begins circling her rim, exerting firm and steady pressure.

Nie Huaisang lolls her head back and lets her eyes roam around the room. She doesn’t want to make him feel too self-conscious. His things are kept in meticulous order, but there’s enough visual reminders of his presence here to tug a wry smile out of the corner of her mouth. Heavy purple robes are being aired out on wardrobe racks. The incense burning on the table is more heady and floral than something she’s ever smelled in Gusu before. It’s endearing to think of him bringing a little thing like that from home. She admires anyone who knows their own tastes and feels no shame about indulging them.

When she speaks again, her throat feels thick. “You can push a little more than that. Just be patient. I can take it.”

Soon, he’s penetrated Nie Huaisang up to the crook of his finger, and he’s still careful, but curiosity seems to have gotten the better of his overabundance of caution. He’s taken to massaging the inside of her body with keen focus paid to the response each experiment produces. She touches him while he touches her, running her hands possessively over his shoulders, his arms, his back. She can’t help it; she’s a greedy person.

By the time he introduces a second finger, Nie Huaisang is no longer confident she can maintain even a smokescreen of distance from sensation. Jiang Cheng has a determined little expression on his face, and his long fingers can reach much further than her own can. She can feel her hole clutching around him every time he pulls his fingers back. She feels improbably tight even as she focuses on her breath, willing her body to let him in.

“That's enough, now. Lean back—there you are—”

Nie Huaisang helps him along, in a sense, pushing him down by the shoulders before gathering her robe up enough to swing a leg over his hip. Jiang Cheng bites his lip, and she’s distracted for a long moment by the red swell of his mouth. She lets her skirts fall back down, draping over both of their waists, and then reaches behind her to grasp his dick and pull him into position very smoothly, she thinks, for it being sight unseen. His tip nudges at her opening—his shaft throbs in her hand, and her own gives an answering pulse against her thigh—she releases a deep breath, clears her mind, and lets him push into her body.

She can immediately tell that she went too fast, but she came here wanting to get fucked. It’s not difficult, exactly, but there are always moments when it isn’t easy, either: there’s a struggle between the body's insistence that it can't be done and the mind’s cool memory of all the times it has been done before. Bare knees press into the sheets on either side of Jiang Cheng’s waist, and she pauses for breath halfway down. She opens her eyes—unsure when she shut them—to see Jiang Cheng watching her with an incredulous, near-offended expression that makes her laugh, which relaxes her muscles enough for her to sink down a little further, so it trails off into a weak moan.

When she’s taken him in as deep as she can, she rests again, coming to a standstill around the pressure of his cock inside her. She leans against his thighs for support. Jiang Cheng’s head is tipped back, and she watches light and shadow play over the hollow of his clavicle and the ridges and tendons of his throat.

“Give me your hands.”

After a moment of hesitation, Jiang Cheng offers them, palm-up. Nie Huaisang takes his wrists and braces Jiang Cheng’s palms on her hips. She places her own splay-fingered hands on her thighs for balance. Her heartbeat is pulsing through her gut. “Don’t move, okay? Stay still.”

She feels anticipation run through Jiang Cheng’s body in the tensing of hands on her haunches. She can see the flex of muscle all the way up his arms. She doesn’t move, or tries not to. It’s a bit of a struggle, keeping it together. She wants him quite badly, and anticipatory shudders run through her body every time she shifts in place. The real issue to be accommodated for is his limited stamina, and she also likes to make him beg for it. She is patient, exceptionally so, but a tantalizing flush is flowing from places she didn’t always associate with pleasure: her scalp, the base of her neck, the centers of her hands.

Softly, Nie Huaisang sets her palm against Jiang Cheng’s cheekbone. His face is warm and already slightly damp with sweat. “You’re being very good,” she says, and the intensity of his eye contact slackens in a way that warms her, deep within. The sight of him losing his composure helps her gain back a little of her own, so Nie Huaisang blinks down at him, slow and placid, like a tigress in repose, and then draws her hand over and down his face to trace circles around his lips. “Now it’s your turn. Let me in, will you?”

He looks at her reprovingly, but he opens his mouth. Nie Huaisang slides two fingers onto his tongue, and then taps the underside of his chin with her other hand. Jiang Cheng takes the hint; he screws his eyes shut and seals his lips.

“There you are,” she murmurs. “See how good you can be, when you’re in a nice mood.” Her thumb strokes his jawbone. It’s late enough in the day that she can feel the beginnings of tomorrow morning’s stubble. His mouth is just as silken and inviting as the last time she felt it from the inside, and the sight of him uncharacteristically complaisant makes the blood run hot between her thighs. Nie Huaisang can’t stop herself from rocking back and forth slightly around the pressure of him inside her, so it may be time to stop delaying what they’ve both come here for.

She withdraws her hand, letting spit-soaked fingers trail across his cheek on the way out. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a tease. But—I’m having fun. You know that, right?”

His voice comes out cracked and a little desperate. “What are you waiting for.”

“Oh, nothing, really. It’s okay, I’ve made you wait enough. You can fuck me now.”

She wants to keep him on the edge longer, but can’t keep denying herself; she folds her calves tighter against his body and then slowly pushes herself up, feeling him move through her, as though she can feel him in her fingers and toes.

Nie Huaisang hasn’t quite been sure why she’s put this off for so long—being fucked by him. It used to be one of the centerpieces of her sexual life. She likes the way it feels, and the idea of it, with him, has been the subject of no little amount of fantasizing. It might be because of how different it is from the other things they’ve done together, at least on the surface. She’s felt a not insignificant amount of hesitance around muddying the waters, when it comes to the things she does with Jiang Cheng and the things she did with everyone who came before him. But now her imminent exit is more real than it’s ever been, and she doesn’t want to leave behind unfinished business, even something as unimportant as an unsatisfied whim.

They may both enjoy being on the receiving end of this type of act, but it’s for different reasons. Nie Huaisang hopes that Jiang Cheng knows that. Nie Huaisang has many fond memories of being fucked in the back rooms of one bathhouse or another by some burly man who didn’t know Nie-zongzhu from any other wealthy sybarite, or at least had the decency to pretend not to. It was a straightforward kind of pleasure, which fulfilled both the need for sexual gratification and the more pitiful craving for any kind of affectionate touch. In-the-body without being of-the-body. But—Jiang Cheng—she wants to look him in the eyes, and for either of them to find it impossible to pretend the other is anyone else, or that they themselves are anyone else. Even as it plays out around them, Nie Huaisang is already stamping this moment into the pages of her memory with a methodical hand.

She moves her hands from her own thighs to his, to steady herself better, and sinks back down. There’s something very raw about the feeling, even though they’ve hardly been rough with each other yet. Their eyes meet, and a searing tightness constricts in the pit of her stomach.

“Do you like it?” The pitch of her voice is somehow both husky and fluttery. “Is it good?”

What even is that? She hasn’t said something so inane-yet-sincerely-meant in an attempt to be sexy since she was twenty at the absolute outside, but everything else that comes to mind is equally foolish and even more earnest. The risk of seeming foolish has never stopped her before, but she can live without the consequences of telling Jiang Cheng that she loves the way his cock feels in her ass. Or calling it her pussy just to see what his face does. Or saying that she hopes he’ll never have better sex with anyone else than with her, because it wouldn’t be fair. Jiang Cheng responds with a feverish nod, so at least she doesn’t need to worry about feeling inarticulate by comparison.

“Help me out a little, Jiang Cheng—put your hands on my—oh, yes, that’s perfect.” He reaches under her robe; though she can’t see it, Nie Huaisang feels his fingertips dimple the flesh of her ass. The next time she speaks, her voice is just as hoarse, but gentler. “You don’t need to hesitate.”

A shadow of nameless emotion passes over his eyes before they flutter closed.

She can see the shifting muscles under his upper arms as he helps her move to the pace she’s set for them. It doesn’t even look like it takes him much effort, but it is a lot easier when she’s not supporting all of her own weight. Nie Huaisang runs her tongue over lips parched from open-mouthed breath and says—thankfully having regained the capacity for flippancy—“Look at you, you workhorse,” and then snorts at the indignantly gratified expression Jiang Cheng opens his eyes to make. His hair is tousled around his face, rumpled from motion. He’s never looked better.

She doesn’t know if she’s ever had sex so slowly. Usually, the point is to push headlong into intensity, striving for everything faster, harder, until you can’t think, but she doesn’t want him to come yet, and she’s not sure she’d want them to speed up even if that weren’t a concern. Jiang Cheng has found a rhythm, rolling his hips up into her at a moderate but steady pace. He’s got the right idea; the more carefully they sway together, the harder it becomes to distinguish between his movements and her own. The fire banks itself and burns all the hotter. Her robe is sticking to the small of her back. It’s too good to bother trying not to moan; before they made it to the bed, Nie Huaisang had the forethought to set up a silencing talisman, and she’s glad for it now—

“—Do you have to be so loud?”

Jiang Cheng’s face is bright red. He looks desperately embarrassed, extremely turned on, and considerably pleased.

Nie Huaisang makes an outraged sound and then wiggles to try and spur Jiang Cheng into moving again. “Have you heard yourself?”

(Honestly! When he’s the one taking it—it doesn’t matter whose fingers or what kind of toys are involved—!)

Strands of Nie Huaisang’s hair are clinging to her neck. She’s not hard, and doesn’t feel any urge to change that. She might be able to come just like this—she has before—and if she doesn’t, she doesn’t think she’ll regret making the effort.

Their faces are so close together. How have they gotten so close? At one point she leaned forward and put her hands on his chest, and it feels as though they’re breathing in tandem. She wants to kiss him again, but she’s cautious—no, not cautious, afraid—

“Jiang Cheng,” she says, instead of letting her thoughts run any further, and pulls his left hand up to her breast. He’s good at this part—just touching her. Jiang Cheng runs his hands over her skin like he thinks he’s about to get caught doing something he shouldn’t, and he needs to make the most of it while he can. He fits his palm over her tit and pushes up inside her at the same time, and Nie Huaisang’s thighs tremble. She’s quite close after all, she realizes. It’s getting hard to think.

The tips of her extremities begin to tingle. It spreads up to the base of her spine, and she can hear herself as though she’s out of her own body, making little startled sounds, and Jiang Cheng moves his hand down slightly, just enough to fit her nipple between two of his fingers and squeeze—and after that, well—

She feels sore; sore, and good. When she came, it’s as though something was taken from her, but she doesn’t miss it. A weight, lifted.

He finished a heartbeat after she did, so there wasn’t any time for him to pull out. Nie Huaisang can be a bit fussy about that, but right now she thinks there’s something to it. In a few minutes, she will make Jiang Cheng retrieve some washcloths, but for now she won’t let either of them get up. Jiang Cheng curls around her body, his chest to her back, and she can feel his forehead rest against her hair. One of his arms reaches over her head, out of the way, and the other hand rests on Nie Huaisang’s ribcage. Nie Huaisang hooks a foot around one of his ankles, just to trap him further. Don’t you dare move, Jiang Cheng. Let me have this.

But he seems in no hurry to move, either. She listens to his breath, and to the barely-there whisper of doors rattling in their runners against the pressure of the wind. Her arms and legs still feel weak from effort, but it’s pleasant. Nie Huaisang considers doing something she’d consciously decided she wasn’t going to do when she made her way over here—she toys with whether she should sleep over, and just sneak out in the early morning. It’s undoubtedly more dangerous than it would be to make her way back to her own lodgings under cover of night, and risks serious consequences if her disciples can’t find her in the morning and don’t know where she’s gone—let alone what would happen if she’s seen exiting Jiang-zongzhu’s rooms in the morning, which, unlike even a late-night departure such as this, cannot be excused as a late-night catchup between friends and peers. It would be obvious to everyone that the situation is exactly what it looks like: she spent the night in Jiang Cheng’s bed. But, ah, what a prospect.

She feels momentarily young in a way that makes her feel acutely old, but she almost likes this version of herself, even when she’s thinking stupid thoughts. It reminds her of when she was much more stupid, but undoubtedly more pleasant to be around. And to be.

✥

The well-finished Gusu timber that supports the shaded porch of Jiang Cheng’s quarters doesn’t creak under their weight. The lodging itself is quite similar to the one Nie Huaisang is given whenever she comes to stay at the Cloud Recesses in a sect leader-ly capacity, but where the back of her own quarters looks out on the wall of a small garden, Jiang Cheng’s borders the trees. The rest of the Yunmeng Jiang disciples who accompanied him are staying in the smaller houses nearby, but Jiang Cheng’s is the furthest back, and so they are out of sight, here, of anything but nocturnal animals. The candlelight escaping from the just-ajar door behind them is enough to destroy their night vision, so all they can see are the vague shapes of trunks and branches and then the blackness beyond, but the night smells fresh. It rained intermittently in the early evening, and has since ceased, but the air is scented with petrichor and decaying brush. It’s cool enough for Nie Huaisang to be chilly in her undressed state, and she curls inside the reach of Jiang Cheng’s arm around her shoulders.

“Your golden core isn’t strong enough for you to come out here in this little clothing.”

“You’re too young to sound like a grandmother, Jiang Cheng. Warm me up, then.”

The difference between Jiang Cheng’s fussing and Nie Huaisang’s disciples’ mother-henning is that Jiang Cheng isn’t deferential about it at all, so Nie Huaisang can actually enjoy it. It’s quite difficult to take pleasure in interactions which hinge entirely on being the sect leader. That, and Jiang Cheng’s chest runs hot, and he’s fairly patient about letting himself be used as a furnace.

“You’re not really going into seclusion, are you?”

“No, no, of course I’m not. That sounds awful.”

“Where are you going, then?”

“I might go stay by the sea for a while. I’ve never seen the ocean.”

“Are you going to tell me where?” Jiang Cheng sounds oddly sulky.

“I don’t have a fixed address just yet.”

She has a few prospects in mind. When Nie Huaisang began to accept that there was no way to settle things without treading in dangerous waters, she began to siphon a slush fund out of the general budget in case she ever had to go to ground. The sect’s accounts were doing well enough at that point that they could afford it, considering that fiscal management was one area where Nie Huaisang is more apt than da-ge was, so she doesn’t feel particularly guilty. It wasn’t done out of concern for herself, anyway. Nie Huaisang refused to die with da-ge unavenged, and there was no one else to take on the task.

In any case, the money is still stashed away, and there’s enough to sustain her in modest comfort for the rest of her life. “It’d be a pretty long way for such a busy man to travel, anyway.”

“Don’t be stupid.”

Nie Huaisang pushes her hands a little further into her sleeves. “Do you ever take vacations? You should. It would be good for your health.”

“Why would I waste my time traveling? What does anywhere else have that I can’t get in Yunmeng, without having to endure worse food?”

It’s charming, the way he never delivers anything he says like it’s a joke, even if it’s funny. There’s nothing worse than someone who thinks of themselves as funny when they aren’t; it's much better for one’s sense of humour to be a private quality, ready for delighted discovery by those intrepid enough to find their way to it.

“Sometimes going away helps you appreciate home that much better.”

“Maybe for you.”

Jiang Cheng sounds a little bitter. Fair enough. He’s been in exile from home, had it ripped from him and retaken it with everything he had. Yunmeng is, also, very beautiful. Qinghe is beautiful too, but this isn’t an argument that Nie Huaisang needs to win.

“So what would Jiang-zongzhu do if he had a week to himself? No obligations at all? Just stay home and work on his accounting?”

“Sometimes I go out on the water.”

“You swim?”

“No. Well, yes, of course I can swim, but I mean boating.”

“Boating! Where do you go?”

“Up and down the river. Where else is there to go?”

“Do you go by yourself?”

“I take a-Ling. Or, well, I used to. He’s too busy these days to spend time with his uncle.” The tone he takes for this complaint is scathing, which is a good sign; Jiang Cheng is most content when he’s being pettily irascible.

Nie Huaisang nods, and then, after a weighty, pointed moment, Jiang Cheng says, “I knew about Hanguang-jun’s… wedding plans because a-Ling told me.”

“Oh? You’re speaking with each other again?”

Another long beat, and then Jiang Cheng grits out, “Yes.”

He’s in no hurry to provide any further details, and Nie Huaisang decides very generously not to push him for more. That alone was more than she expected to get. She hums airily, to acknowledge she heard him and is consciously choosing not to press, and then says, “So tell me about your trips up the river.”

“We stay overnight, sometimes. There’s a… cabin, I guess you could call it. It’s nothing fancy, but it’s secluded, and the local lowlifes know better than to go trespassing on Jiang sect territory. It’s not good for much besides fishing, mind.”

“There’s some other things I can think of. Don’t overlook the virtues of privacy.”

“Do you think of anything besides—?”

To tell the truth, she wasn’t even really thinking of sex. Three days and a cabin in the woods, nobody around but each other: she thinks about kissing out of doors. Being able to sit like this, Nie Huaisang tucked against Jiang Cheng’s chest, in the daytime, and it not mattering a bit.

“Too bad you can’t take me with you, next time. I’d clear my schedule. I’m not very good at fishing, but I’d give it my best.” It sounds like something’s caught in her throat. If she were putting on a performance for him, right now, Nie Huaisang would be kicking herself for overdoing it. Even Nie Huaisang the know-nothing isn’t so delicate.

Jiang Cheng’s face does something odd; he looks grave, but at the same time his expression is covered with a horrible sheen of almost-hope, and it gives Nie Huaisang a sense of foreboding. Bluster she could handle, even some of Jiang Cheng’s bizarrely charming form of flirting—this is what she calls the way he gets when he’s trying in earnest to keep a conversation from petering out—but she doesn’t know what to do with this. And yet, it does something to her, to have someone look at her like that. She shivers, and Jiang Cheng snaps, “I told you not to come out here dressed like that!”

Abruptly, he gets to his feet. “Come on. Back inside with you.”

Nie Huaisang allows herself to be tugged along, sliding the door closed behind her, and wonders if this is her cue to leave, but Jiang Cheng adds, “I have something for you.”

“Oh?” But he’s away and gone, so Nie Huaisang sits on the edge of the bed and waits.

Jiang Cheng fishes his inner robes off of the floor—unnecessarily so, in Nie Huaisang’s opinion; it’s only the two of them, they were just having sex, and bearing witness to Jiang Cheng’s indecency isn’t a hardship—and then begins to retrieve something amidst his personal effects. She pulls her robe a little more tightly around herself and feels a mixture of excitement and trepidation.

When Jiang Cheng returns to the bed, it’s with an object held in one of his hands, but she can’t make out what it is, and he doesn’t pass it over. He takes a deep breath—looking like he’s setting his teeth—and then begins. “I know you’re not going to be leading your sect for much longer.”

“I’ve explained to you why I can’t,” Nie Huaisang says, in what she thinks is a very patient manner, considering.

“I know that. Don’t you think I remember? You don’t need to tell me again.” His nostrils flare. “But since you haven’t even figured out where you’re going…”

“Jiang Cheng, I…”

“Here.” He thrusts the object at her, and after a moment, she takes it. It’s a rectangular box; a nice piece of work, lacquered, with a good, even weight. It’s a little thinner than the width of her hand, and a little longer than the length of one. Before she can open it, Jiang Cheng continues: “I still don't really understand what's going on with your… qi situation—”

She can’t blame him for that, since she made it up on the spot. Before she can reply with something vague enough to keep him in his state of benightedness, however, he says something that makes her blood run cold.

“Come to Lotus Pier.”

“I’m sorry?”

“We’ve got room to spare. I—there are enough skilled cultivators in my sect to make sure nothing gets out of hand if you start qi deviating, or—instead of being foolish off on your own somewhere because you’re too stubborn—”

She starts laughing, patently forced in a way designed to implicate another party in its awkwardness. “Oh, I don’t know, Jiang Cheng—I told you, it’s all to do with side effects of my family’s cultivation method. Even the doctors back home don’t know what to do about it. I really don’t think…”

“Cultivation is cultivation. Maybe you need the intervention of someone from outside the sect, anyway, since you lot seem to be unable to control its negative effects on your own.”

“That really doesn’t seem necessary.”

“You’ve said yourself that you can’t stop it. How do you know what else will happen? Just because you treat the life your parents gave you with so little concern—”

“I told you, I’m not going to die!” She can feel herself going pale and agitated. “Is the rest of it really so bad?”

“How do you know—”

“Nothing’s wrong with my meridians. I’m not going to qi deviate. This isn’t like what happened to da-ge.” He looks like he’s going to say something else, so Nie Huaisang cuts him off: “It’s just my body. That’s all.”

“I—”

“I don’t hate it, and I don’t want your help.” Nie Huaisang feels light-headed. Before he gets the chance to recover his wits enough to say something else insane, Nie Huaisang lifts the box he gave her. In the corner of her eye, she can see Jiang Cheng brace himself.

She slides the lid open. Inside rests a pair of silver hairpins on a bed of black silk.

At a glance, she can tell that they’re expensive; the shapes are uniform and elegant, and there are delicate engravings winding around the body of the pins. She picks one up to examine it in better light. The metal feels quality, and she sees no visible flaws in the craftsmanship. The style is unobtrusive, but not plain. She doesn’t know why she’s surprised—she wouldn’t go so far as to even describe herself as surprised that they’re nice—since Jiang Cheng knows how to dress, but it’s not so much that they’re in good taste that has her taken aback, but how precisely suited they are to her own taste.

Next to her on the bed, Jiang Cheng sits rigid. His hands are curled into fists which press into his thighs. Nie Huaisang isn’t sure what sight he’s being met with; the blood has drained out of her face. She should, she supposes, say something. She manages a second, even more vacant “Oh.”

Jiang Cheng makes a tetchy sound. “Have you forgotten how to say anything else?”

“They’re very…” Nie Huaisang sets one pin back down in the case, and then picks up the other for a similar inspection. “They’re very nice.” Her voice sounds strangled.

She doesn’t look up from the hairpin in her hand, but she can tell that Jiang Cheng is sitting just as he was before, tense and visibly expectant. If he had a cup in his hand, she thinks it might have shattered in his fist. Nie Huaisang clears her throat and lowers her hand to her lap, hoping her voice will come out neither shaky nor overly serious. “Jiang Cheng…”

“If you don’t like them then you can just say so.”

“Of course I like them,” she says, and then clamps her mouth shut.

She’s felt his hands in her hair enough times before that she can’t stop herself from imagining the way his fingers would run through it after a night of being rumpled on the pillow. Kneeling before a bronze mirror in the morning with Jiang Cheng behind her, trying to figure out how best to pin her braids up, and thinking, so this is the first day of the rest of my life.

“Then why do you look like that?”

“Well… it’s just…”

“Say what you’re going to say. I hate it when you act cryptic.”

Nie Huaisang takes a long breath, and then asks, “What do you mean by giving me something like this?”

“You were nagging me about not getting you a birthday present.”

Oh, well if that’s all; she exhales, and then Jiang Cheng adds, in a voice small and tense, “And do I have to spell the rest out for you?”

Jiang Cheng, you ridiculous fool, you overgrown boy. Stop showing me your bloody guts.

Nie Huaisang opens her mouth to stall until she can regain her footing, but what comes out is, “I think we should stop. Doing this.”

She’s braced for outrage, for elevated voices and protestation. Instead, Jiang Cheng’s voice is quiet. “What?”

Nie Huaisang looks up at him and blinks, her eyes wide, glassy, stupid: Tell me, Jiang-zongzhu, this one is foolish and needs things explained. “What do you think is going to happen?” Bile rises in her throat. “I can’t stay.”

She can’t, and she wouldn’t if she could. She’s trying to forge a fate that she can live through, and there’s no future for Nie Huasiang here. To be precise, there’s no Nie Huaisang who can have a future here. This Nie Huaisang came into being out of necessity, following catastrophe, and there’s no place in the world any longer for that man. The only way to live—and she does want to live, regardless of whether she deserves to—is to let go of everything that keeps her fixed in this life. Resurrections don’t come cheap.

He stares at her in one of those ways of his, like he’s a fresh orphan again, Jiang Wanyin, Poor Thing, and now Jiang Wanyin, Poor Thing asks through a raw throat, “Is this hard for you, or is it easy?”

“Don’t get me wrong, I had fun. I hope you have too. I mean, you’re good company. You’re—you’re lovely.” Her voice cracks on the word. “It’s just… this—People like us, we can’t just… live that way.”

The pad of Nie Huaisang’s thumb traces the engravings of the hairpin in the palm of her hand. The metal has warmed to the touch, even though she can feel cold sweat on her palms. She’s not sure which way she means. In a state of disgrace? In defiance of the lives our parents intended for us? Happy?

Jiang Cheng’s face is ashen, but rapidly hardening. “So what do you want out of me?” The volume of his voice is rising, and Nie Huaisang is once again grateful that they had the foresight to set a talisman. “You want me to tell you to pick up your clothes and leave as soon as we’re finished? Don’t tell me that you do, because I won’t believe it. You can come and go as you please, but then I’m the pathetic little idiot—”

“—Jiang Cheng—”

“—even though you want me to hold you every time we sleep in the same bed?”

Every time I ever reassured you on one of your insecurities, I was lying so that you would let me fuck you. Nie Huaisang nearly tries out the shape of the words in her mouth. It’s not only me that people laugh at; they mock you too, they just do a better job of hiding it to your face. They’re right to do it. You are deluded and pitiful and no one but me would ever want to sleep with you.

She finds herself unable to say any of these things, either because she wishes they weren’t true or because they aren’t, and for the first time in many years she has little trust in her ability to convincingly lie. This is why she used to keep her distance from people—these were the stakes—Nie Huaisang is an idiot, and she hates Jiang Cheng really unbearably.

Jiang Cheng paces the room like a pit-dog on guard, and Nie Huaisang is very aware of her physical disarray. She sits on the edge of the bed, one layer away from nakedness and still looking like she’s just been debauched—which she has, but she isn’t enjoying the visual aftermath at the moment so much as she normally would—and she has a hilarious urge to ask Jiang Cheng to adjourn their conversation until she can get dressed, so she can get her head in order, but he would probably think she’s mocking him.

Her mouth opens, but it’s been made useless by a heavy tongue. Nie Huaisang can’t even look him in the eye. If she does, she’ll lose her nerve. She tucks the pins away in her sleeve so that she doesn’t need to keep thinking about them, and manages, “You don’t actually want this, you know. You just don’t know the difference between a little kindness and someone wanting to give up their life for you. I’m sparing you from doing something you’ll regret .”

What has she done for him? Gotten him laid and paid attention to him? Such a low bar to clear. He deserves those things, yes, but from someone who means it as more than just the means to an end. Someone who can stay.

He looks at her for a long moment, eyes full of bitter fire, and then he turns away. “What are you still hanging around for, then?”

Jiang Cheng doesn’t turn back when she leaves, and she knows she’s won. In a manner of speaking.

✥

Nie Huaisang makes it the whole way back to her rooms without incident. On the way, she doesn’t think of anything besides hoping her robes are suitably fastened to be seen in public, in case she’s stopped by anyone else wandering the Cloud Recesses after hours; she got dressed in a hurry before leaving Jiang Cheng’s guest quarters, and she feels like she left something behind on his floor, though she can’t think what. She slides the door to her rooms closed behind her, takes four steps, and crumples inwards. One of her knees hits the floor at an unfortunate angle. It’ll probably bruise. Nie Huaisang rubs it with the heel of her hand, and thinks of the reasons why she had to make him look like that. She’s out of breath before she’s even realized that she’s crying.

Every so often, she reins herself in enough to cross the floor from the wall to the table, or from the table to the bed. By the time she’s crushed her face against the pillows, she’s remembered how rigid and uncomfortable Cloud Recesses beds are, which is too much to be weathered at the moment. It starts up again, boiling from a hot spring inside her chest and scalding her throat, her lungs, her sinuses. Her face is tight with blood and embarrassment. She wipes her running nose with the back of a hand and only feels more disgusting for it. Eventually she resigns herself to getting it out of her system; this is less comforting than she would like it to be.

As she attempts to unfasten her belt and kick off her shoes without sitting upright, her motions are as fitful as one would expect from actions fuelled by impotent rage. Only one shoe ends up on the floor; the other rests on the foot of the bed, and Nie Huaisang may have a reputation for poor discipline, but she’s always kept her rooms tidy and her belongings neat. The sight of the stupid lonely shoe makes her throat hitch with the threat of yet another round of tears, which she is at least able to suppress more ruthlessly than the last few.

Nie Huaisang knows very well how uncomfortable it is to fall asleep with metal pressing into her scalp, so she begins to take the guan out of her hair, but when she unwinds her braids, she just thinks of Jiang Cheng’s gift. The guan falls from her loose fingers onto the bedspread. Nie Huaisang rolls onto her back, and rummages through her sleeve until she retrieves the box.

She holds it up to better examine it in the glow of the single candle she had the wherewithal to light. There are delicate mother-of-pearl inlays on the lid and sides; the detailing is similar in colour to some of the lighter robes she was wearing over the summer. He either found something perfectly suited to her after quite a bit of effort, or he had it commissioned. Jiang Cheng doesn’t do things by halves, does he? He commits. That’s something she’s liked about him. It’s something they had in common, though not in this respect, clearly.

Nie Huaisang throws it across the room. It hits the wall with a sick crack. The violence of the sound startles her so thoroughly she stops crying.

It requires immense effort, but she gets up and crosses the floor to pick up the box. The pins are still inside, but an ugly, splintered rift runs across the corner. Nie Huaisang feels nauseous. A waste, and there’s little Nie Huaisang hates more than carelessness with fine goods.

Before long, there’s a soft rapping at her door. Her heart lurches, and then she hears a muffled, sleep-scratchy voice call out, “Zongzhu? Are you alright?”

She shakes her head, clears her throat, and then replies, “Yes, don’t worry.” Before he can go back to bed satisfied with her well-being, Nie Huaisang adds, “But come in here for a moment, will you?”

One of her chief disciples pokes his head through the sliding door. “What is it?”

If he's surprised by the sight of his sect leader sitting on the floor, half-dressed and in stocking feet, in the middle of the night, he doesn't show it. It's not so at odds with the person she's been to them over the years. Nie Huaisang is no longer crying; her expression, if she could be said to have one, is of distant but focused thought. She couldn't say whether it's real or a facade, or whether the difference even matters at a time like this.

Nie Huaisang asks for ink, a candle, and lots of paper to be brought to the writing desk in the centre of the room. Her disciple putters around very efficiently and quietly; Nie Huaisang wishes he was making more of a nuisance of himself, as she is finding it impossible to pull her mind off its course.

For a long time, the future after Jin Guangyao was nothing more than an open pit that Nie Huaisang knew would swallow her one day, but until then was none of her concern. It’s no longer true; at some point, it became the repository for all her dissatisfactions and deferred desires. She’s shaking loose the layers of sediment that have accumulated over too many bitter years, and she’s not going to let Jiang fucking Cheng, of all people, keep her trapped here, under the weight of countless failures and certain successes which weigh on her nearly as heavily.

Nie Huaisang doesn’t need Jiang Cheng. What is he? A needy man with a bad temper and slightly-above-average dick, who was easy pickings when she was hungry for touch and distraction. Hardly the only person in the world to fit the description!

Her disciple has finally bowed his way out, and with tremendous strength of will, Nie Huaisang lifts herself off the ground and trundles her way to her desk. The edges of her consciousness bloom with prickles of primal unease, as though she’s still under observation.

The way that she’s been preparing herself to live—it’s only acceptable if Nie Huaisang fades out of history. She’s brought down the family name plenty already, hasn’t she? And the jianghu doesn’t have much to its credit that would entice her into staying, either. Certainly few other cultivators will regret the loss. And those who do… those who do need to learn, after all these years, how to set their hopes on people who will return the favour.

The idea blows through her like a cold wind, though it’s not the first time the observation has crossed her mind. Nie Huaisang doesn’t get any pleasure out of the thought of leaving Jiang Cheng miserable and alone. Whatever Jiang Cheng might have to say about it, Nie Huaisang isn’t the only one who clings at night, and it’s really—it suits him, to look… devoted. It brings out the best in him. Nie Huaisang did a lot of moping about how little she matters to anyone alive, and then someone insisted on assuring her that she does, and that might be worse. More than anything else, she feels hollow, which is notable, because she only now realizes that she hadn’t, before. She’s been living like that for so long that she hadn’t noticed she’d stopped.

Nie Huaisang is not stupid. Neither is she in the habit of being dishonest within her own mind. It is for both these reasons that, when it becomes impossible to avoid admitting a fact which she has been trying very hard not to know, she resigns herself to it. She doesn’t waste her energy on battles that have already been lost.

She’s been grinding the ink too messily; tiny flecks of pigment cover the top of the desk, and with the way her night is going they’ll stain. Carelessness again, and a beautiful thing will bear the damage forever. Nie Huaisang disgusts herself, which is nothing new, but this is not usually the reason for it. She wishes she had stopped to centre herself before pushing blindly on with the task, but just as she wishes she didn’t love him, it’s too late for that now.