There’s something restful about visiting family shrines, even ones belonging to other families. Earlier that morning, Nie Huaisang had taken advantage of the unusual quiet at Carp Tower to paint, but his heart wasn’t in it. He switched to paperwork out of boredom—oh, how far he has fallen in his old age. Eventually that, too, became interminable, so he went for a wander around the grounds. The gardens in daylight are more banal and more benign than they appear after dark. Jiang Yanli’s lotus pond is still thriving, after all these years, and the sight of the blossoms brought him back to that strange evening with Jiang Cheng, before everyone left for the crowd hunt; that, in turn, brought him to the Jin ancestral hall.

There’s a tablet there for her next to Jin Zixuan; Nie Huaisang didn’t know her well, but lights some incense for the pair of them. Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng both adored her, and Nie Huaisang can extend sympathy on the count of shared little-brotherliness.

If she were still here, would Jiang Cheng tell her about what they’ve been doing together? Nie Huaisang can’t imagine he would, Jiang Cheng has too well-developed a sense of shame, but maybe if she sensed something, and asked first… ah, but what would Jiang Cheng even say? Despite months of thick and fast correspondence, there are many things Nie Huaisang hasn’t asked. One of these is the question, When you think of me, what words do you use? There are many answers Nie Huaisang doesn’t think he would like, which have little to do with which ones are the most truthful.

Nie Huaisang will continue to sign himself off as Jiang Cheng’s friend. He hopes that, whatever else, he will remain that.

The shrine has had new additions since the last time he visited here. Qin Su has a tablet now, near to that of her son, who has been here for years. Jin Rusong was born not too long after Jin Ling; he’d have been nearly an adult now. Nie Huaisang remembers that Lan Xichen had said something eloquent and optimistic at the baby’s celebration about new life bringing prosperity. Da-ge was there; he’d given his well-wishes, at least in formal terms, to Jin Guangyao’s son during the narrow window of time either he or the baby had left to themselves.

Jin Guangyao himself is not present. That decision would’ve been made by the sect elders, back when Jin Ling was still too young and green to make all of the decisions himself. Da-ge was the same age when he took hold of Qinghe Nie, maybe a little younger, and at the time it had certainly seemed to Nie Huaisang that da-ge was in control of everything from the start, but Nie Huaisang was young then, and could’ve failed to notice the subtleties of da-ge’s relationship to the various distant uncles and seasoned warriors that make up the bulk of the sect’s surviving older generation. Even then, though, Nie Huaisang doubts it was quite the same as Jin Ling’s situation. When Nie Huaisang became sect leader, certainly no one within the sect was jostling to take up the position of grasping right-hand advisor. But Qinghe Nie is a smaller sect than Lanling Jin, with fewer branch families and less plentiful a number of ambitious cousins. Da-ge also had the kind of manner that made grown men hesitant to talk over him even at age fifteen. Jin Ling is more like Nie Huaisang had been, in that way; he’s a pampered child whom no one can avoid comparing to older war hero relatives.

Regardless of whose decision it was, Jin Guangyao would’ve hated the result more than anything Nie Huaisang did to him in life. He lights some incense for Qin Su and her son, because he’s already here, though he’ll be happy to put them out of his mind again.

Before he leaves the shrine, Nie Huaisang glances around for any sign of Mo Xuanyu. Of course there’s nothing. Mo Xuanyu was expelled from the sect, and never formally recognized even before that. His memory is still reviled by the public regardless of whether or not he really committed half the things he was kicked out of Lanling Jin for, and the rest of his family—you know how it ended. It’s only Nie Huaisang, perhaps, who would even think to wonder whether anyone would set up a tablet for him anywhere.

✥

“Nie-zongzhu. May I have a word?”

Nie Huaisang is trailing after a line of his disciples, and the whole row of them stop and turn around at the sound of Jiang Cheng’s voice. The disciples make their signs of respect to another sect leader—they’re a good bunch, very polite—and Nie Huaisang follows suit, after a moment, when he’s sure he’s had a chance to put on a suitable expression. He blinks a few times, his face sliding into a timid smile. “Of course, of course—you all can go ahead. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Those who were night hunting returned to Carp Tower early that afternoon, but it’s taken until the evening for Nie Huaisang’s path and Jiang Cheng’s to cross.

His disciples hesitate a moment, but eventually they slink away. It’s a bit sweet, the way they often seem reluctant to leave Nie Huaisang alone, but they’ll forget about him soon enough, when the wine starts flowing and the warm, dim light starts to make everyone look attractive. If there hadn’t been a war, he would’ve spent his early twenties kissing people in shady groves, too.

Jiang Cheng is on his own, clearly having already seen his disciples off to enjoy themselves on their last evening in Lanling. He’s dressed nicely; he must have changed since getting back from travelling, because his current set of robes are not at all practical. Nie Huaisang opens his fan just to peek around its edge. “Come to collect on my debt?”

The coquettishness of the gesture is so false it reveals itself as a game, and thereby sets a tone for Jiang Cheng to follow as he sees fit. Nie Huaisang plays coy sometimes, but he knows himself and his desire, and has always been extremely forthright with Jiang Cheng in these matters.

“You don’t look very busy, but correct me if I’m wrong.”

“Oh, no, absolutely not. I’ve been waiting all day for it.” It’s more true than he hopes Jiang Cheng will realize.

They settle in that sort of public-private space that palaces like this one are full of—open doorways onto empty courtyards through which anyone could walk through, but as of yet has not. There had been some attendants hovering around, just nondescript Lanling Jin servants, but Nie Huaisang had sent them away after they’d brought him the weiqi set he’d requested. He knows better than to think that means they’re necessarily unwatched.

“Your disciples did well. It’s a pity you weren’t there to see.”

“Yes, they made out alright, didn’t they? But not as well as yours.”

Nie Huaisang rarely attends crowd hunts with the rest of the Qinghe Nie disciples unless there’s a reason for him to do so. He’s put a not insignificant amount of time into making sure that the right people are in the right places within the sect so that he doesn’t need to stretch himself far past his capacity, or spend his energy in places it’s not likely to give good returns. Being able to recognize one’s shortcomings can be a strength, in its own way.

Yunmeng Jiang were the winners of the crowd hunt, narrowly edging out Gusu Lan. Jiang Cheng doesn’t often broach the subject himself, but clearly likes to be asked about his successes. Nie Huaisang sees the pleased glint in his eye before he turns away to examine the board. Jiang Cheng wants to seem like he doesn’t care about petty things like that, but he does. That’s okay. Nie Huaisang can indulge him. It feels good when people take an interest in your life.

They are still on the waxing side of the summer solstice, and even during sunset the light is abundant. Nie Huaisang feels unaccountably serene. The weiqi board sits on the table between them, still covered only sparsely with stones. They each have a bowl filled with pieces by their hands, but the game has proceeded only leisurely so far; can you forgive Nie Huaisang for stretching out the evening a little? He’s been waiting around for days wishing he was doing this instead.

Jiang-zongzhu plays black, Nie-zongzhu white. His opponent has played a characteristic set of opening moves: quick and decisive. Jiang Cheng tends to start out this way, though he’s a defensive player at heart. Nie Huaisang compensates each turn by dithering over his options before selecting a cautious, probing position. His choices probably seem chaotic and impulsive, but he’s waiting for Jiang Cheng to show his hand with regards to this evening’s strategy. In the interim, Nie Huaisang asks Jiang Cheng to give him a detailed summary of what Nie Huaisang missed out in the woods, which requires little coaxing. His commentary is enjoyable to listen to for its own sake; at a different time in his life, Nie Huaisang would have felt sorry for the unfortunate nobodies who draw Sandu Shengshou’s scouring gaze, but no longer.

Jiang Cheng’s really been quite bold, bringing himself in such close social proximity with Nie Huaisang multiple times during one relatively short event. Maybe in early days—before Nie Huaisang systematically alienated all of his peers who knew him well enough to see the cracks in the mask up close—their sudden closeness wouldn’t have been noteworthy, but a few scant years ago the sight would’ve turned heads. Perhaps in his old age Jiang Cheng has finally grown a bit thicker of a face—ha, what a thought.

Nie Huaisang reaches for his next piece in an inelegant manner; he pushes his fingers through the bowl of cool stones, savouring the sensation, like when he was a child and snuck into the kitchens for treats only to amuse himself by sticking his hand into a sack of rice.

“If Gusu Lan got second place, does that mean Wei Wuxian was there too?”

It’s as if a cold wind has blown through the room.

Before long, Jiang Cheng begrudgingly answers, “He was there, but didn’t hunt.”

“I see. Well, yes, I did figure he would’ve come along. It seems as though he and your nephew have a surprisingly good relationship these days.”

Jiang Cheng replies through his teeth. “A-Ling is an adult. He’s clearly capable of making his own judgments.”

Nie Huaisang picks up his next stone between his first two fingers and places it without deliberation. “I know it’s not my business, but is this about Wei Wuxian?”

His face hardens as his skin goes pale. Nie Huaisang had been striking mostly blind, but he’s hit something solid. “Why? Has Wei Wuxian been talking about me? I’d love to hear what he has to say.”

“No, don’t worry. I met with him recently about sect business, and he didn’t say anything about you even when I asked.”

Rather than consoling Jiang Cheng, this seems to make him more pained and subdued than he has been yet in their conversation. This is one of the differences between the two of them: Nie Huaisang grew up his own best friend, his own confidant, his own partner in crime. He had da-ge, and for a while he had Meng Yao, but they were something different to him than what Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian were to one another. Jiang Cheng has never really moved past that. Part of him still waits for his other half to come back to him, and to stay; the rest of him is so wounded by the humiliation of being abandoned that he couldn't accept it even if Wei Wuxian did.

Nie Huaisang takes a moment to reassess, wondering whether it’s worth it to keep ruining their nice evening, but this is important, so he steels himself before softening his tone. “It really doesn’t matter what happened.” He’s not just being placating; as he says it, he realizes it’s true. “You don’t need to tell me. It really isn’t my business.”

“Then why ask about it?”

Nie Huaisang rummages for his next stone. “I just hate seeing people fight. It’d be better if we could all get along.”

Jiang Cheng hardly spares a glance for the placement of Nie Huaisang’s last piece before playing his next. He makes himself so easy to entrap. His chosen position is naive, the kind of sloppy move he’s usually better than making, but when he speaks, his voice is thin, low, and sharp. “If you want to know so bad, I’ll tell you, but not here.”

Nie Huaisang lifts his eyebrows. “Oh, sure. I’ve got some nice wine back in my rooms, but it’s too much for me to drink myself.”

He passes his next stone between a few of his fingers, the kind of simple trick of dexterity he’d spend lazy afternoons perfecting in his youth. As he sets it in place, he says, “Da-ge used to drive me crazy.”

Jiang Cheng looks at him with a furrowed brow. Nie Huaisang doesn’t wait for him to interject.

“We used to fight all the time. Real fights, with yelling. He’d be so stubborn about the silliest things, even though he’d turn a blind eye to other things I did, and then he’d get mad if I pointed out that it was arbitrary.”

Jiang Cheng is watching him closely, and the slightly abashed surprise is visible on his face when he realizes he’s overdue for his turn in the game. While Jiang Cheng sighs at himself and reaches for his next stone, Nie Huaisang carries on.

“We’d been orphans for a pretty long time. Being the only ones each other has… that’s too much pressure, don’t you think? Things can get difficult. When there are other people, there’s more room to breathe.” He remembers the days when Meng Yao slid seamlessly into their lives. It had felt like an answer to prayers he hadn’t thought to make.

Nie Huaisang hums, fingers twiddling through the air, before picking up and setting down his next piece. “The way I talked to him was terrible, sometimes. Very unfilial. I didn't understand how hard it was for him. He wasn’t my father. It hadn’t been his idea, to raise me on his own. He was just doing what he could, and sometimes he did a bad job.”

Jiang Cheng looks at the placement, then up at Nie Huaisang’s face, then back down at the board. The silence is taut and sinuous. Worrying away all the time, and for what? There’s so much that Jiang Cheng misses. Make your play, Jiang-xiong; it won’t get any easier than it is right now.

Nie Huaisang murmurs, “But I don’t regret it, much. I meant what I said, and I think if I hadn’t said them, a part of me would still be angry about it, and I don’t want to resent him. Do you understand what I mean?”

A muted, fatalistic click of stone on wood, and Jiang Cheng mutters, “Just make your move.”

‘...And end this.’ goes unspoken, but Nie Huaisang hears it.

“I am, I am!” Nie Huaisang takes another moment for lip-chewing indecision before setting his next piece in place. “Now you go.”

Jiang Cheng surveys the board with grim resolve. He has walked into a trap; his cause will soon be done, and they both can tell. Perhaps he is also thinking back to all of the previous matches they’ve had where Nie Huaisang bumbled his way into fatal errors at the crucial moment. Perhaps Jiang Cheng is remembering how then, too, Nie Huaisang would babble to the point of distraction. He wonders whether da-ge would've seen through the strategy, where Jiang Cheng has not; da-ge who was better at weiqi, but may not have even recognized Nie Huaisang as he is now.

Frowning, Jiang Cheng sets a stone in the narrow path Nie Huaisang left open for him. Nie Huaisang opens his fan and gives himself a gentle breeze in which to consider his options.

There’s no rush to finish him. The outcome is nearly decided, but a consistent trait of Jiang Cheng’s is his willingness to trudge on to the bitter end, regardless of how dire the circumstances. It seems cruel to strike him when he’s already down, emotionally speaking, but Nie Huaisang can’t throw the match now and make it believable; making Jiang Cheng think Nie Huaisang is taking pity on him would do more damage to his pride than trouncing him fairly. Anyway, Nie Huaisang is trying to show him something, isn’t he? With every stone set on the board, Nie Huaisang is being as honest as he’s capable.

Nie Huaisang rests his cheek on a propped-up palm and takes pity: “I know you hate to lose, but I won’t think less of you if you concede. I promise I won’t go telling people.”

After a short but taut stretch of time, Jiang Cheng quietly says, “Let’s see how good this wine really is.”

Then again, you mind a bit less when you’re losing to me.

✥

The truth comes out in fits and spurts. The wine that Nie Huaisang quickly procures them as soon as the door to his rooms closes behind them may be helping smooth the way, or it might just be providing enough deniability that Jiang Cheng is allowing himself to say things he otherwise might not. Nie Huaisang is drinking enough to set the tone, while trying not to actually get drunk; it lines his mind with fuzzy heat all the same.

The concrete facts, as Nie Huaisang understands them: a little under a year ago, there was a disagreement; Wei Wuxian was involved, somehow, though from the sounds of things was more of a topic of contention than an active party; harsh words were spoken; an ultimatum was laid. Jiang Cheng, in his stubbornness, has failed to meet its conditions, which may, if Nie Huaisang permits himself to speculate, simply be to say he’s sorry. And so he’s arrived here, helping himself to more of Nie Huaisang’s (genuinely very good!) wine, gritting his teeth audibly, and staring at the cup in his hand like it’s responsible for all of his problems.

“You’ve been too hard on him,” Nie Huaisang says; not, he thinks, without compassion.

He’s prepared for the inevitable argument, but it doesn’t come. Jiang Cheng’s face is a quite frightful grimace, but his tone is almost plaintive. “You think I don’t know she would’ve done better by him?”

It’s funny, isn’t it, that their paths have crossed so many times over the years, in sorrow and celebration. Nie Huaisang doesn’t need to explain, when they talk about da-ge. Jiang Cheng can mention his jiejie and Nie Huaisang can fill in the rest. They’ve seen each other in some truly unflattering conditions. At least they know each other, right? They know what to expect. If not in the particulars, then the broad strokes. Live long enough, and anyone becomes ashamed to look their family in the face. How can the living possibly meet the standards of the dead?

Nie Huaisang softens his voice. “I’m not trying to chastise you.”

“Isn’t that what you’ve spent the last hour doing?”

“Oh, no. I’ve hardly got a place to do that from, anyway.” Nie Huaisang supposes he’s known this all along, though not put it into so many words: Wei Wuxian’s resurrection has been to Jiang Cheng what Jin Guangyao’s death has been to Nie Huaisang. The weapon impaling you has been removed; out gushes the blood. It bears remembrance, as well, that Nie Huaisang did this to him, though Jiang Cheng seems, for now, to have either overlooked or forgiven this fact.

He adds, “I doubt I could’ve done much better. It’s a pretty raw deal for the world that it was da-ge who died and me who lived.”

Jiang Cheng’s lip twitches, and he looks up from the cup in his hand to cast Nie Huaisang a doubtful look. “That’s a stupid thing to say.”

“Excuse me?” The quality of the air has shifted.

“You aren’t the reason he died. If you’re going to wish him back, just wish him back.”

“Oh, it’s not that. I don’t know if I could face him now,” Nie Huaisang says lightly. If da-ge had never died at all, and Nie Huaisang stayed the person he always was before—it should be a comforting thought, but it’s so far away from reality it feels impossible to even imagine. It’s been nearly twenty years. Half a lifetime. He wouldn’t be able to recognize himself.

“So you'd rather he was left alone, like you were?”

“It’s not the same,” he replies, and then runs aground.

Nie Huaisang’s youthful blunders can’t be compared with the things he’s done since da-ge died. Da-ge would never live under the same roof as someone with Nie Huaisang’s record of treachery. The rest of the world stood by and let Jin Guangyao go unpunished, so it has no right to judge Nie Huaisang for what he did to collect that debt, but if da-ge was to look at Nie Huaisang now and slap him, Nie Huaisang wouldn’t say a word in his own defense. That was how he felt before he knew he was going to abandon his position, that their father’s bloodline would go to the grave with him, and—everything else. Even if he hadn’t made himself into the kind of person da-ge hated more than anything, he doesn’t know how he could explain any of that in a way that his brother could understand. It’s not the same as the way that Jiang Cheng has been left alone. Empathy has limits.

Jiang Cheng looks at him strangely, his face absent of contempt but full of a mixture of things he recognizes and some he doesn’t, and a thick, clotted feeling takes over Nie Huaisang’s throat. It’s difficult to swallow past it, and so it’s far too late when Nie Huaisang manages to speak again.

“Will you let me give you a bath?”

“What?” Jiang Cheng is taken aback. So is Nie Huaisang; he doesn’t speak impulsively anymore, it’s something he trained himself out of long ago, but Jiang Cheng brings out his bad habits.

“I ordered one to be sent up before bed. It should be here soon.” Nie Huaisang empties his cup, and looks over Jiang Cheng without reservation. Under his eye, Jiang Cheng straightens a little in his seat. Nie Huaisang wonders whether he knows he’s doing it. “I’m trying to get you naked. Plus you might find it relaxing.”

It’s a typically humid late spring in Lanling, and so even though Nie Huaisang had asked for the water to be not too hot, it’s still brought up warm enough to make him sweat just sitting beside the basin. He considers only briefly whether he should make an effort to avoid the servants noticing that Jiang Wanyin is here with him, but decides it’s not worth the effort. They’re peers. They’re both dressed. Nie Huaisang can say the water is for later, if anyone asks.

The contrast between Jiang Cheng’s naked skin and Nie Huaisang’s cocoon of clothing makes the textiles feel especially sumptuous and fine, though they’re also stifling, too thick for the season as they already were. Nie Huaisang’s small hands look even smaller coming out of an effluence of sleeves. When he pulls one of them further up his arm with the other hand to keep it dry while he touches Jiang Cheng, rather than a polite gentleman serving tea, he feels like a painting of a village washerwoman, or some other quaint romanticization of manual labour dreamt up by a soft-palmed aesthete, such as himself, who has done very little of it.

Nie Huaisang has been in a position of responsibility for many years, but caretaking has never come naturally to him, outside of the small comforting gestures he used to perform for da-ge when he was overburdened, before da-ge’s burdens grew far too great for Nie Huaisang to meaningfully lessen. He’s too much of a youngest child to be good at it. This, though, is simple. Anyone can scrub away someone’s sweat and dead skin. As Nie Huaisang makes methodical progress across Jiang Cheng’s body, he enjoys not only the scented oils and the satisfying scritch of a skin-scraper over flesh, but the sights. Jiang Cheng sits with his feet planted on the bottom of the tub and his knees sticking out of the water, which rises to mid-chest. His upper calves are dusted with hair. His tits are almost bigger than Nie Huaisang’s own, truth be told. Doing one’s drills has some advantages.

When Nie Huaisang’s hand goes a little further down his chest, he lets himself cop a feel with a blandly innocent expression on his face. At one point, Jiang Cheng’s jaw tightens. Nie Huaisang pauses, assessing, with his fingers curled in the air, and then says, “I don’t need to touch them. I mean, if you’d rather I ignored them.”

Nie Huaisang had been fascinated by Jiang Cheng’s scars, the last time Jiang Cheng took off his shirt in front of him. He hadn’t thought much of the way that Jiang Cheng had looked somewhat uncomfortable; Jiang Cheng always came across as wrong-footed when he was the object of desire (though, less and less so). Jiang Cheng had reacted like Nie Huaisang had been teasing him, which perhaps he had been, but not largely. It interested him, the stories Jiang Cheng’s body told of his suffering. He found the contrast between the puffy and discoloured scar tissue and the serpentine strength of the surrounding muscle attractive. But he hadn’t been particularly concerned with the more sensitive of Jiang Cheng’s feelings then. He’s ashamed of himself now.

“Whatever. You’ve already seen them.”

“Do they really bother you that much?”

“Touch them or don’t. I just don’t want to think about them.”

“Okay.”

Nie Huaisang finishes washing the area briskly and then moves around the basin to scrub Jiang Cheng’s back. He has to drape Jiang Cheng’s hair over his shoulders to clear the way; Jiang Cheng didn’t put it up before getting into the water, so it’s hanging loose, and Nie Huaisang will have to wash it too. For now, the bulk of it is dry, but the ends swirl around the water. The longer Nie Huaisang spends time looking at Jiang Cheng’s body, the more things he finds that are worth examining. Maybe it’s the soft duskiness of candlelight, but everything is lovely to his eye, like the handful of freckles and moles scattered over Jiang Cheng’s bare back, which he’s noticing for the first time. He’s never done this for a lover before.

“Did you ever really want to get married? I mean, when you were younger. If things had worked out differently.”

“I thought I would once, but there was never—no.”

“Do you regret it?”

“It wasn’t in my power to change.”

“But your parents never betrothed you to anyone? They did your sister.”

“That was only because our mother was close with Jin-furen.”

“I see, I see. Well, it’s a shame; if things had really worked out differently, you could’ve made an honest woman out of me.” If Nie Huaisang hadn’t been drinking, maybe he’d be able to be more coy. He says it casually, but Jiang Cheng doesn’t answer and his face is turned away, so Nie Huaisang adds, “But then you would’ve had to work up the courage to ask da-ge for my hand. Not for the faint of heart.”

“I would have,” Jiang Cheng retorts immediately. Nie Huaisang wonders if he put any thought into the implications of saying so, or if it’s just his reflexive need to disprove anyone who doubts that he’s capable of doing something.

“Mm. But it was probably for the best, right? What a useless wife to have, when you needed help rebuilding, and who would’ve looked after da-ge? I couldn’t have left him all alone.”

Of course, da-ge didn’t get married either. Huaisang used to feel petulant about it: why couldn’t da-ge go and have a baby so Huaisang wouldn’t have to be his heir anymore? Preemptive jealousy over having to compete for da-ge’s attention was assuaged both by the relief it would bring Huaisang and by the thought of nieces and nephews. (Huaisang has been told that when da-ge was little he had very fat cheeks, but Huaisang wasn’t born yet, and didn’t get to see.) He had his reasons for avoiding it, same as Nie Huaisang has—some of them the same, others not—but Huaisang wonders what da-ge told himself to keep the guilt at bay.

Jiang Cheng makes a muted sound which Nie Huaisang can’t identify as agreement or argument, and Nie Huaisang continues, a touch more off-handedly: “You know, he thought well of you. He would’ve given you a hard time at first, but I think he would’ve given in.”

No answer comes, and Nie Huaisang sets down the scrub-brush and turns Jiang Cheng’s face towards him with fingertips under the chin. His cheeks are warm from the water, and he blinks like he’s confused—Nie Huaisang thinks that’s it, until he sees the wetness sticking in Jiang Cheng’s eyelashes. Oh.

Tears don’t frighten him the way they do some people. He and da-ge were both easy criers. He’s still disconcerted by the sight of it when it’s Jiang Cheng: not that Nie Huaisang is surprised that Jiang Cheng is capable of this kind of feeling, but that he’s willing to show it in front of Nie Huaisang.

Nie Huaisang lets go of Jiang Cheng’s chin and pretends he didn’t see, to give him some face. The next time he speaks, his voice is carefully banal. “I really did just want to give you a bath, you know. We don’t have to fuck.”

“Did I say I don’t want to?”

“Well, I didn’t want to assume.” Lest Jiang Cheng think he’s being pitied, Nie Huaisang doesn’t linger on it. “But if we’re going to keep this up, you should probably tell me what you don’t like.”

“What do you mean?” Jiang Cheng asks in a tone of vague irritation, but Nie Huaisang suspects he’s being intentionally obtuse.

“Haven’t you done your homework, after I sent you my books? People get up to all kinds of things. Don't you worry I’ll make you do something you don’t enjoy?”

Though it’s been a while now, Nie Huaisang is a bit surprised that Jiang Cheng enjoys having these things done by him, specifically. It wasn’t long ago Jiang Cheng said he didn’t trust him. Though there are different sorts of trust.

Jiang Cheng snorts. “Your cultivation isn’t strong enough to make me do anything.”

On the one hand, it’s true, and has occurred to Nie Huaisang as well. On the other, it’s naive of Jiang Cheng to think that physical strength is the only measure by which someone can take advantage of someone else. Not to mention that Nie Huaisang only likes to hurt Jiang Cheng because Jiang Cheng leans in to take it, and is easy to patch up when it’s over. The satisfaction of just ruining things turns sour, eventually.

“So there’s nothing at all you wouldn’t do? And you call me a pervert.”

That does the trick; Jiang Cheng hisses Nie Huaisang’s name like a curse, and then goes quiet before saying, in a clipped tone, “No breaking skin.”

His cock, suspended in the water, gives Nie Huaisang’s wrist a neighborly brush as he washes along Jiang Cheng’s navel. “Yes, alright.”

“But you can hit me,” Jiang Cheng adds brusquely, and then adds again, “if that’s what you want.”

“Sure thing, Jiang-xiong.”

“I can’t think of anything else.”

“Well, if you do, just tell me, okay? Promise?” He doesn’t want to sound entreating, and he thinks he manages it for the most part, but he doesn’t want to linger on the topic. Nie Huaisang begins pulling Jiang Cheng's hair back over his shoulders to cover his back, and he reaches for more of the soap. “I really do like this, though. Thanks for indulging me.” He means the bath. Mostly.

Art by Tasha.

“I don’t know why you like half the things we do.”

With a little pitcher, Nie Huaisang runs enough water through Jiang Cheng’s hair to wet it, and then sudses it up, making an effort not to let individual hairs snag on his fingernails. “What’s there to not understand?”

“How good could it be for you? Half of the time you don’t even come.”

Nie Huaisang laughs. “You know you’re a good-looking man, don’t you?” He massages Jiang Cheng’s scalp a little as he goes, watching the soap form a thicker lather.

“You don’t need to talk me into bed. I’m already naked.”

“I’m just telling you the truth! Give me a little credit, will you? I have excellent taste.”

Jiang Cheng valiantly presses on. “Well—what does it matter if I can’t… satisfy you?”

“I’m not sure what to tell you. There are things to enjoy about sex that don’t involve coming. Maybe it’s hard for you to believe, because you come so easily—”

He turns around indignantly. “Nie Huaisang—”

“—but it’s true.” Nie Huaisang hums, genuinely somewhat thoughtful. “Does it bother you that I don’t always come?”

Jiang Cheng grits through his teeth, “I understand if you don’t want to put us through the embarrassment of having me try.” (As if Nie Huaisang wants much more than he wants that, these days!)

When Wei Wuxian told Nie Huaisang about Jiang Cheng’s list of the traits of his prospective bride, they’d laughed at his lofty standards, but most of it was only to be expected of a sect heir’s wife. Nie Huaisang wonders, as he had wondered then, how much of it really mattered to him, as opposed to being what he thought he ought to want. Jiang Cheng has desires—clearly—but prurient mind and all, the Nie Huaisang who had giggled at Jiang Cheng’s self-consciousness at the time would not have foreseen them ever doing this kind of thing together. He didn’t imagine Jiang Cheng was capable of humbling himself for pleasure. How lovely to be wrong.

Nie Huaisang is about to shuffle back around the basin to face Jiang Cheng’s front again, but he changes his mind. “Turn back around,” he says, and warmth suffuses his stomach at the readiness with which Jiang Cheng complies.

Jiang Cheng’s face is pink and apprehensive, and meeting his gaze makes the hair on Nie Huaisang’s arms and legs prickle. His own face is impassive, but he doesn’t want to spend too long making eye contact, in case he fails to maintain it that way. Nie Huaisang lathers a little more soap at Jiang Cheng’s hairline, and wipes away stray trickles making their way down his forehead, in case they get into his eyes. It’s easier that way to say, “You’re always coming up with things to stew about, it’s silly. You don’t need to be thinking all the time.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes dart to the floor, a little bashful—why? After everything they’ve done?—and Nie Huaisang feels, suddenly, so fiercely protective of him he doesn’t know where to put the feeling. He certainly doesn’t have enough room for it within himself.

Like a joke that isn’t, Nie Huaisang says, “Come on, Cheng’er, tip your chin back for me.” Jiang Cheng’s eyes dart back up and he gives Nie Huaisang a long look, but he tilts his neck enough for Nie Huaisang’s purpose. Nie Huaisang dips his own hands in the water to rid them of soap. “Hold your breath,” he adds.

He’s expecting some resistance on principle, some superficial protestation that Jiang Cheng doesn’t need Nie Huaisang to show him how to wash his hair, who does Nie Huaisang think he is, Jiang Cheng’s mother, but Jiang Cheng looks back at him and takes a visible breath. He pinches Jiang Cheng’s nostrils between finger and thumb. Jiang Cheng’s gaze is a supplicant flicker, and then he closes his eyes.

Nie Huaisang places his free hand on Jiang Cheng’s shoulder and pushes him so his head is submerged in the water. He works quickly but thoroughly, running his hand through Jiang Cheng's hair, rinsing out the soap. Jiang Cheng’s hair infuses the water around him like spilled ink. When Nie Huaisang has done a passable job, he pulls Jiang Cheng back up and releases his airway. Jiang Cheng is panting, and Nie Huaisang feels its echo in his own lungs. There’s an intoxicated look on Jiang Cheng's tipped-back face that wasn’t present before, wine or no. Droplets of water course down his breastbone. When their eyes meet, Jiang Cheng looks shocked—at which of them Nie Huaisang isn’t sure. Of course, in one way, Jiang Cheng is right; Nie Huaisang couldn’t have truly drowned him, not if Jiang Cheng wanted to live, but Jiang Cheng’s compliance makes Nie Huaisang want to sink his blunt little teeth into every piece of Jiang Cheng’s tender flesh. He settles for pushing a lock of wet hair back off of his temple, and then Nie Huaisang looks away, reaching for oil and a comb he’d set aside earlier. “Now, hold still. I’ll try and be quick, okay?”

Once his hair has been taken care of, Jiang Cheng steps out of the bath so that Nie Huaisang can towel him off. When he finishes, he doesn’t let Jiang Cheng go, but stays sitting in front of him, towel hooked around the small of Jiang Cheng’s back, and looks at Jiang Cheng’s face. Jiang Cheng has regained a bit of his scowl, though he’s naked as the day he was born and looks almost as fresh, his skin pinkened from the rubbing of cloth. Nie Huaisang tugs at the towel a few times, and on the third Jiang Cheng gets the hint, and comes down to Nie Huaisang’s level on the floor.

One of Nie Huaisang’s hands comes to rest on Jiang Cheng’s lower thigh. It’s still warm from the water, though rapidly cooling in the air. Jiang Cheng looks at it, and then back at Nie Huaisang’s face. Something has opened in Jiang Cheng’s eyes that hasn’t yet closed. Jiang Cheng says, with transparently feigned impatience, “What now?”

Nie Huaisang reads widely, when it comes to spring books: ones with just men, with men and women, and even sometimes only women, if something piques his interest. He thinks about the different male types—strict tutors, inexperienced gentleman-scholars, lecherous priests, dashing warriors. Though the rest of the world knew him as Sandu Shengshou, a man as callous as he was dangerous, his lover knew better. With grace befitting a high-level cultivator, Jiang Wanyin… What? What kind of man would it be fun for you to be with me, Jiang Cheng?

He has some guesses, but he wants to know what the sticky dreams of Jiang Cheng’s early mornings look like. Does he fantasize about Nie Huaisang half as often as Nie Huaisang fantasizes about him? There are some well-trod paths in Nie Huaisang’s mind these days, when it comes to time spent in contemplation with his own hands, and though it’s all very complicated, it’s also quite simple.

In smutty stories, the women are always beautiful and alluring, unless it’s one of the ones where she turns out to have been something else in disguise, like an animal or a wicked old hag. Nie Huaisang has a cute face, is not quite as uncoordinated as he’s made himself out to be, and can be charming in a facile way around the right company, but is otherwise a far cry from a heroine, even for this kind of trash; however, his imagination is robust, and he’s familiar enough with the genre to imagine how it might read. Nie Huaisang had to make the most of their liaison; they had only until midnight before they would have to part, and pretend they had never known the ecstasies of each other’s embrace. These forbidden flowers could bloom for only a moment before being plucked. But while they still had time to enjoy their exotic fragrance, they had to drink deeply of it. Though no maiden, she took a trembling breath, and answered— “My turn, isn’t it? I don’t want the water to get cold.”

Jiang Cheng’s eyes sharpen with curious intent.

That same Nie Huaisang who had long ago thrown away her virtue sighed, and went on: “Would Jiang-gongzi treat me as his wife? Just for the night? Would he rub my ankles, and wash my back?”

There’s a folding screen Nie Huaisang could use to bathe in private, but Nie Huaisang doesn’t want to do that, not really. Nie Huaisang purses her lips like she’s thinking, and then pats Jiang Cheng’s knee. “Go get yourself a robe, and another for me. There’s a few by the vanity, and will you grab something to put my hair up? I don’t want it getting wet.”

While Jiang Cheng fetches her things, Nie Huaisang takes her hair down, slowly. She’s buying time, in case she’ll see sense. She looks back over her shoulder and watches Jiang Cheng going through Nie Huaisang’s things with careful deliberation. He dressed himself in the spare robe, as Nie Huaisang told him to, and though it’s too short for him in the arms and legs, the sight of him in Nie family colours gives Nie Huaisang a pang in the chest.

Just as they had when Jiang Cheng unbraided Nie Huaisang’s hair in Yunping, his hands in her hair now make the room seem small. Once again, Nie Huaisang is surprised by the assuredness with which Jiang Cheng handles another person’s hair, which she shouldn’t be, after the time spent today discussing how Jiang Cheng raised a child.

“When you’re done, won’t you help me get undressed? I’m so tired, you really wore me out.”

Nie Huaisang gets to her feet, arms aloft by her sides, and Jiang Cheng begins unfastening her leather belt. The sash beneath it is next, and then the first of a series of robes. Without the layers of a scholarly leisurer, Nie Huaisang isn’t sure what she looks like, but is fairly sure it isn’t Nie-zongzhu. Because Jiang Cheng is very good and clever, he folds each item tidily before setting it aside.

When she’s down to trousers and an inner robe, she turns around, head sheepishly cocked.

“Jiang Cheng,” she starts, dragging the sounds slowly through the air. “I think I need a little more oil.”

He gives her a beleaguered look, but he returns to the vanity to look through the jars, and Nie Huaisang takes the opportunity to finish undressing and get into the tub. The water only comes to her breastbone, and she curls her toes against the inside of the basin. Jiang Cheng turns around, having found what he was looking for, and surprise flickers across his face, and then is cleared away—hastily, and not entirely.

Nie Huaisang hums and then turns around inside the tub, sitting away from Jiang Cheng with her knees propped up to her chest. “Wash my back for me?”

Moments of silence, broken only by the residual soft lapping of water, and then calloused hands, first one, and then the other, on her shoulders. When Nie Huaisang had bathed Jiang Cheng, her object had been to wash him clean of something more pernicious than dirt. Jiang Cheng’s skin had been scrubbed a dusky pink in places, the old surface thinned out to make way for the new. This is not how Jiang Cheng bathes Nie Huaisang. His hands are slow. His thumbs map out her shoulder-blades and upper back in a craftsmanlike fashion. Nie Huaisang helpfully signals her approval with hums and sighs whenever Jiang Cheng does anything particularly nice. She folds her forearms over each other on the rim of the washtub and rests her chin on top before closing her eyes. It’s not a harsh touch, but he does apply pressure, sometimes hitting on twists in Nie Huaisang’s muscles Nie Huaisang didn’t know were there until they’re loosening under Jiang Cheng’s fingers. She shifts, adjusting to the unique nakedness of having her bare neck exposed; somehow, it feels more palpable than the air on her spine.

“Are you going to start dressing,” he hesitates, “differently?”

Oh, so they’re talking about this? Very well. “Well, I couldn’t do that now. Can you imagine?”

“I mean eventually.”

Nie Huaisang trails the fingers of her free hand through the water. It feels lovely, even if the temperature is approaching lukewarm. “I’ll be far away by then.”

“So you will. Wherever you’re going.”

“If I feel like it,” Nie Huaisang says, dispassionately, like it’s a choice. It is, in a sense. There’s always a choice, but in this case it’s like the choice whether to stay in bed forever or get up; eventually life or nature will force one’s hand. “I mean, I’ll still be myself. Though,” Nie Huaisang adds after a moment, “I probably won’t go out much. I’ll just live quietly, and it won’t matter if I look ridiculous.”

The idea of what self-imposed exile will look like is slippery, and hurts to touch even as it slides out of her grasp. But justifying the things you must do is the hard part. The rest—thinking through the practicals—comes along in time, but only after you’ve committed to the task. It doesn’t do to get queasy halfway through and let everything you’ve already done go to waste.

As if sensing the direction her thoughts have taken, Jiang Cheng asks, “Are you going to come back?”

She'll surely have to find a way to return to her family's graves now and again while she's still alive, to care for them, but as for herself... Where will she be interred? Da-ge's remains are also in exile. It seems deeply unjust that Nie Huaisang should be allowed to rest at home, and not him.

A lancing sting to the heart, and then Nie Huaisang folds the thought up and stows it in the locked box where she keeps all of her unlived lives. “Maybe.”

His dutiful washing has extended down her arms, and she lets him keep at it a little longer before gently shaking his hands free and swivelling around again, so she faces him. It's no exaggeration to call him a beautiful man. He looks attentive and careful; not without his usual intensity, in fact it’s very present, but giving him a straightforward physical task settles him enough to make him nearly nice.

He’s retracted his hands, unsure what’s coming; a reprimand? No, not that. She gives an artificially lofty sigh, and then says, “You were doing so well before.”

Jiang Cheng snorts, not unkindly—she’s familiar with his long-suffering act, though it reminds her of how he was with Wei Wuxian, long ago, and it stirs at her strangely to see it directed at herself—and gingerly touches the side of her neck. Her spine shivers. He gently rubs soap along her collarbone and the upper part of her breastbone, but seems cautious to go down any further until Nie Huaisang places her palm over his knuckles and guides his hand to her half-submerged breast.

His face is excited-solemn-hopeful-nervous. When Jiang Cheng was a youth he was all of those things, but the expressions have been submerged beneath spite and hollow resignation for so long that every time they drift to the surface of him, it surprises her. The skin is still impossibly sensitive, tender in the sense of young meat, and her stomach swoops when he brushes her with the pad of his thumb. He touches Nie Huaisang like he’s trying to learn her. She wants that, like she wants so many things from him. She wants him delicate and strong, tentative and bold. To know how to touch her, and how to hold back when she doesn’t want to be touched. Nie Huaisang takes his other hand and places it on her waist, below the water. Thankfully Jiang Cheng had the forethought to tie his sleeves back.

They’ve come to the part of the book that Nie Huaisang would revisit often enough for the spine to crease. Jiang-zongzhu could repress his desire no longer. In the face of his commanding yet tender caresses Nie Huaisang swooned, her—

—purchase slipping as she tries to kneel upright within the tub. Nie Huaisang clutches for something to give her balance; she’s aiming for the lip of the basin, but she ends up clinging to Jiang Cheng’s forearms—

—which brought her so near to his smouldering stare. Every channel in her body felt open and quickened, desperate for sensation; Nie Huaisang couldn’t bear it, but knew too well there was no escape from the force of their molten passion. In her anguish, she did the only thing left for her to do—

—she kisses him instead of looking away; anything to close her eyes. It should be impossible to feel this wild just from some petting. When they stop to breathe she can’t suppress small bursts of disbelieving laughter. Jiang Cheng looks a little dazed, understandably so, as Nie Huaisang is all but jumping him, any restraint abandoned—

—and she knew his sense of noble pride would keep him from asking for what he truly wanted. Nie Huaisang kissed him once more, and then brought her quivering lips to his ear—

—“Do you still want to get me off?” His fingertips dig into her flesh a little more, and he nods. Nie Huaisang takes his earlobe between her teeth for a moment before letting it go. Her fingers and toes are getting pruney, and the water isn’t as warm as it was. Nie Huaisang pulls away and pants, “I can finish the rest myself. Go over to the bed and wait for me, will you?”

Before long, Nie Huaisang sits on the edge of the amply sized bed, wearing only the clean robe Jiang Cheng had laid out for her. Jiang Cheng kneels, fingers curled against his thighs in loose fists. He’s capable of such stillness. Nie Huaisang can only get like that when she’s pretending to be unconscious, and it takes work. It’s not that Jiang Cheng is comfortable in his skin. Nie Huaisang thinks that Jiang Cheng simply sees his physical form as a tool to be kept well-honed, and from which he demands only the best performance.

She pulls her skirts up and out of the way, holding the loose material in bunched folds by her hips. Without them she’s aware of her body’s lack of elegance: weakly muscled, all bones and fat. Fleshy knees and a mostly-soft cock and a gnarled knot of scar tissue on one of her thighs.

Jiang Cheng meets her eye—she gives him a small nod—and places a palm on Nie Huaisang’s calf. It roams upwards until it falters past her knee. He’s looking at her mid-thigh; he’s found the scar. After a moment, it comes to him: “Su She.” Jiang Cheng frowns. “No. It wasn’t, was it?”

He examines Nie Huaisang’s impassive face, looks back at the scar, and then decides not to press for more. His hand slides further up Nie Huaisang’s inner thigh. Nie Huaisang takes a crisp, reflexive inhale, as if in anticipation of pain, and her knees fall apart.

Against all reason, Nie Huaisang feels more wrongfooted every time they fall into bed with each other, not less. With strangers, or near-strangers, Nie Huaisang doesn’t need to be Nie Huaisang, only a naive but fuckable fool. Jiang Cheng knows—oh, but what does it matter? She wants this anyway, despite her hesitance. Nie Huaisang likes to work Jiang Cheng over, more than she ever expected to, but she is a lazy person most days, and longs to sometimes lay back and be pleased. Can’t she have that, when it’s there for the taking?

“Wait—open your mouth.” Nie Huaisang holds her palm open below Jiang Cheng’s bottom lip. Jiang Cheng looks up for confirmation, incredulous—of this of all things?—before spitting into her hand. Nie Huaisang wipes his lip with the pad of her thumb before slowly stroking herself with the wetness. While she’s at it, she pushes Jiang Cheng back on his heels with a light shove of a bare foot to his shoulder. “If you use your teeth I’ll slap you, I mean it.”

When she lets herself go, their eyes meet for a quick moment: a question and an answer. Jiang Cheng swallows as if he’s about to go into battle, and then tentatively picks her cock up from where it rests in the crook of her thighs. He holds it in his warm palm, supporting it with his fingers, before he lowers his head between Nie Huaisang’s thighs. She feels his hot breath on her skin. Experimental laps of his tongue are followed by his parted lips, brushing from root to tip. His lips are slightly chapped but give way to the silken inside of his cheeks, and his free hand rests proprietarily on Nie Huaisang’s hip.

He pauses and takes his mouth away just long enough to shift one of Nie Huaisang’s legs over his shoulder, and then he holds Nie Huaisang’s other thigh for better leverage. Nie Huaisang’s senses take in the scene only in shards: Jiang Cheng’s fingers splayed over scar tissue. Her fingers curled in the rumpled cloth of her robe. The heat of him, his flushed face and slippery mouth. It makes her feel torn up inside.

Jiang Cheng leans forward, slowly enveloping Nie Huaisang in his mouth, and Nie Huaisang moves one hand to touch the side of Jiang Cheng’s face. An unsteady thumb caresses the trough of his eye and then gently taps his cheek. His eyes lift to meet hers before slipping closed again. Jiang Cheng’s wet hair sticks to the side of his face, and it makes him look ten years younger while at the same time emphasizing the gauntness of his face, which in certain light looks as though his body has rid itself of any nonessential comforts.

Her own voice sounds like a stranger’s, throaty and hushed. “Stay still a moment. Just—like that.”

Jiang Cheng breathes somewhat laboriously through his nose, but he obeys, cradling Nie Huaisang on his tongue. Nie Huaisang wishes they had all night, that Jiang Cheng could actually stay here without it causing them problems in the morning, because his mouth is sweet and welcoming and Nie Huaisang thinks she could remain like this for ages, held safely between his lips, only idle, habitual suction buffeting at the edges of her control. But, unfortunately, their time is not endless and she’s been spendthrifty enough with it already, so she sighs and whispers, “Okay, keep going,” and Jiang Cheng pulls back to suck the tip again.

Blood blooms high and fetching on his cheeks. He looks gorgeous and more sure of himself by the moment. Nie Huaisang makes sounds to encourage him when he does something nice; it doesn’t take active effort so much as it is a choice not to suppress the body’s natural reactions. The planes of his face look smudged, messy, like paper when the colours run. Despite that, Jiang Cheng somehow looks a bit smug, not at all the tremulous stuffy virgin he was when they started out. His first time sucking dick, and he thinks he’s good at it? But, it must be admitted, Jiang Cheng is good at something, even if his motions are clumsy and he hasn’t figured out how to help himself out with his hand. Jiang Cheng would probably like to be told in exactly which ways it’s good, but right now she’s too cowardly to do it.

Nie Huaisang feels sixteen again, or twenty-two, ages when it felt like the body was something that existed for sex and it was very annoying to be expected to do other things with it, except instead of a lot of fervent, idle fantasy Nie Huaisang has what she actually wanted, back then: someone pretty, who wants her back, and has the will and the means to help her figure out the difference between what she likes and what she only likes in books. These days, when Nie Huaisang’s fantasies are pared to the core—those wordless longings and starkly crude images that defy conscious interpretation while they’re being thought—Jiang Cheng is everywhere. Sometimes it’s only a part of him. Long legs, distressed brow, flushed mouth. The curve of a hesitant smile when it’s turned against Nie Huaisang’s palm.

Now, in a similar state of mind, her thoughts are flowing unbidden and unmoderated for sense; Nie Huaisang thinks that, if she really were Jiang Cheng’s wife, Nie Huaisang would demand this from him often, like the worst kind of domestic tyrant. He’s so mellow and receptive, his eyes closed and lashes dark against his skin, suckling gently with hollowed cheeks. It’s a good thing he isn’t hers, because Nie Huaisang wants to take him home and put him in a vault, with the rest of her valuable things too precious to go on public display.

Her whole being is a dam on the verge of breaking, and Jiang Cheng leans forward and takes a bit more than he can handle—he gags but doesn’t pull back, instead letting his eyes redden and lashes get damp. The sight overtakes Nie Huaisang before she can do Jiang Cheng the courtesy of warning him; how many times is he going to make Nie Huaisang into a hypocrite? The thigh propped against his face twitches wildly. Jiang Cheng makes a muffled, reflexive sound of effort, but stays where he is, fingers tightening on her flesh. The tightness of his mouth and throat are impossible. She gasps, soundless, in pleasure that nears pain.

Nie Huaisang’s body feels as though it’s melted outwards from the core to her extremities. She’s made up of nothing but liquid. Liquid doesn’t get bruised or feel shame; it simply rests in whatever container it happens to fill. At some point, she must have fallen onto her back, though she has no memory of this; when her vision returns, she’s looking at the hangings over the bed. She doesn’t see it when Jiang Cheng eventually slides his mouth free, only feels the loss. Don’t go away, Nie Huaisang thinks, stay a bit longer, but he just rests his forehead against Nie Huaisang’s thigh. She sighs, slowly, letting something leave her with her exhaled breath, before sitting up on one elbow. He leans back on his heels and meets her eyes. His lips are wet, but it looks like he swallowed without any prompting, which gives Nie Huaisang an inexplicable urge to kiss him on the brow.

Jiang Cheng’s erection is visible through his robe. As Nie Huaisang closes her legs and pulls her own robes back into place over her lap, she gives him a pointed glance. “Sorry to have left you high and dry. You’ve been a good sport about it.”

“Shut up.”

“Maybe we should do it more often. Practice your stamina.”

“I mean it.”

Nie Huaisang could continue to ignore it, but she doesn’t find it likely she’ll enjoy denying him more than she’ll enjoy giving him what he wants after he’s been so agreeable. “Come here, come here.” She pats the bedsheet beside her, in case her words aren’t clear, and after a moment’s confusion—in his defense, it’s difficult to think straight when one is as aroused as Jiang Cheng appears to be—he gets to his feet. She sits up to direct him so that he kneels astride her hips, and then she lets her head fall back against the bed.

He doesn’t touch himself right away. Nie Huaisang places her hands on his thighs, pushing the hem of his robe up as she slowly runs her fingers through the hair on his legs, and tilts her head.

“Alright, you had your fun with me. Now show me your cock already.”

Jiang Cheng huffs, but pulls his robe aside to grasp himself. Up close, Nie Huaisang can see how tightly he fists his dick; it gives her a little sympathetic discomfort, though it’s not truly surprising that he uses a harsh grip. It makes her feel a sort of fond tut-tutting, like, Ah, of course; oh, you.

Nie Huaisang could watch this for days. He looks so fucking good it’s stupid. They’re both nearly naked, in nothing but Nie Huaisang’s spare under-robes, and she can see the tan line at Jiang Cheng’s collar where his skin is usually covered up. Jiang Cheng’s gaze can’t seem to stay on any one part of Nie Huaisang at a time: it flits from neck to navel to parted mouth.

Before she can think too much of it, Nie Huaisang lifts one of her hands off of his thigh and brings it to her chest. Nie Huaisang is loath to disturb him while she’s admiring the view, but she needs someone’s hands on her. She doesn’t know—isn’t sure this won’t look silly—but when she cups that paradoxical softness and firmness, so unlike the feeling of a man’s chest, it’s like her heartbeat hasn’t gone down a bit. Her ribcage still rises and falls with quick, unsteady breaths. He places his free hand on her other breast, but isn’t even really feeling her up so much as steadying himself as he leans in a bit closer, his muscled thighs squeezing her sides more tightly, as he touches himself to her touching herself until he lets out a choked ghost of a sound. She withdraws her hand just in time for him to come in jagged strokes over her tits and stomach, and Nie Huaisang moans in a way that would be less embarrassing if it was staged.

Jiang Cheng keeps wringing what he can from his dick for as long as he can stand before releasing it with a susurrous sigh. Nie Huaisang would usually play flustered about getting come on, like she can’t believe how naughty this whole predicament is, but none of that impulse comes to her admittedly dazed mind. It doesn’t seem important, in the way it had always been important, to pretend she hadn’t arranged things to happen like they did. Instead, she paws at his sleeve. “Come on, Jiang Cheng, you made such a mess. How are we supposed to cuddle like this?”

He’s too far gone for false modesty. Jiang Cheng bends over her but pauses with his lips parted over the nipple. The feeling of his hot breath alone makes it tighten and her toes curl before he lowers his head the rest of the way and takes it in his mouth. While he sucks, his thumb rubs circles over the other. Nie Huaisang’s tits really aren’t big, they hardly justify such careful attention. Eventually he moves on, travelling south: Jiang Cheng’s mouth follows the slight valley between Nie Huaisang’s ribs to Nie Huaisang’s belly, kissing messy and open-mouthed.

Afterwards, when Nie Huaisang is restored to some kind of decency, he lays on his back beside her. After a time, Jiang Cheng turns to look at her, but not at her face; his eyes trace her body. Nie Huaisang looks away from the ceiling and fixes him with a stare, suppressing the urge to fidget.

Between the late hour and the residual sleepy satisfaction of sex, they both seem content to enjoy the closeness. Nie Huaisang has known plenty of truly tall men, so she knows that he isn’t really that tall, but next to Nie Huaisang in the bed, he seems so long.

“I don’t think any wife in Carp Tower has been treated so well tonight,” Nie Huaisang says, magnanimously, because it’s true, and he deserves to hear it. A person could grow old like this.

Jiang Cheng makes a little tch that means he’s touched but can’t just say so, and Nie Huaisang rolls onto her front so she can watch him more easily, propped up on her elbows.

Zidian sits on his hand; he never took it off for the bath. Spiritual weapons don’t rust, she supposes, so why risk losing it? It’s an angry thing. Nie Huaisang has seen it crackle with dormant rage on Jiang Cheng’s fist many times. How come a tool like that can exist without taking from its owner so cruelly, but their sabres cannot? What is it about their own cultivation that’s so set on making them pay for whatever they get out of it? What’s wrong with them, to dream up something like that?

Nie Huaisang has never wanted children, even before she knew what having children in their family meant. But that means no one to care for you when you’re old, no one waiting by your bedside while life slips away from you. She'd known she would likely die alone, but she’d thought—while still sect leader, she could assume that someone would be around who would be concerned for her, even if it were only the obligatory concern of a disciple for a lackadaisical master. Nie Huaisang could leave a note, she supposes, with whichever strangers end up in closest proximity to her, to be delivered to Qinghe upon her death, letting them know she’s truly never coming back. The news would filter out to the rest of the world eventually. Jiang Wanyin would hear it before long, if he outlives her, which seems likely based on their levels of cultivation. The thought doesn’t rest easily, and Nie Huaisang amends that perhaps she should leave two notes, and do him the courtesy of learning the news from her own hand. So that he doesn’t dismiss it as rumour. He’s prone to holding onto disbelief when it comes to things like that.

Usually, Nie Huaisang can contemplate these things clinically, but right now it gives her a leaden feeling. She doesn’t love life, but she lives it. One is not required for the other. But, when touched like this, she’s grateful to still have a body.

“We were pretty foolish to wait so long to do this.” To wait until there’s almost no time left for them at all, she means.

Flatly: “Yeah.”

Regardless of the reasons why they shouldn’t do this anymore, it’s clear without either of them having to say it that they’ve both given up on self-denial, at least for now. It’s not that they’ve gone back on their word. They can only sustain this intimacy because it’s circumscribed.

Her fingertips have found the back of Jiang Cheng’s hand. She pets the skin over the sharp bones and the soft blue veins.

“But it’s nice to be able to pick.” Nie Huaisang’s voice is quiet and small.

Jiang Cheng sounds muffled, on the edge of sleep; he sounds like he should be talking into a pillow. “What are you talking about?”

“You know.” Nie Huaisang hasn’t felt drunk in a while—in all honesty not since they sat at the table—but there must be some wine still flowing in her blood, because her mouth is saying things without the permission of her mind. “You’re not here because anyone told you to be. I just—invited you.”

Sometimes she thinks that, in order for this lifetime to have turned out so poorly, there must be another Nie Huaisang in another world, on the other side of a door somewhere, who has succeeded in keeping the things that this one has lost, or never had. Right now that door must be very close; it's like she can hear the sound of voices on the other side.

✥

When Jiang Cheng took Lotus Pier back from the Wens, he rebuilt every damaged or burnt building as a near-replica of the one that had come before. Jin Ling's recent renovations to Carp Tower are nearly entirely aesthetic; We've broken with the past, the gleaming fixtures and tiles say, though the bones of the structures are more or less intact, and only time will tell whether reinvention or inheritance will win out.

Nie Huaisang thinks of this, as she says her farewells to Jin Ling before Qinghe Nie departs for home, and thinks also of the place that awaits her. Barring a few redecorations and upgrades, it remains near-identical to the place where Nie Huaisang was born. That's in part due to the fact it survived the war intact, of course, but in a few decades, what visible remnants of her time as sect leader will remain?

She always thought—and maybe for a while thought of it as a comfort, as something that made her stronger than others—that she didn’t care about whether she would ever be mourned. It was an advantage, at times. She thinks Mo Xuanyu may have thought they had in common. More fool both of them, then, as Nie Huaisang remembers him with something like regret, and no longer thinks it’s likely that no one alive will remember her with sadness, either. It’s the kind of thing she ought to be happy about, isn’t it? But it makes everything so much harder.

After the formalities are through, Nie Huaisang pauses, contemplative; but ah, screw it. “I’ve heard from your uncle about this little disagreement you’re having.”

It takes little to jar Jin Ling out of his sect leader's demeanor, which is still largely reliant on rote memorization. He looks skeptical, suspicious. “I hadn’t realized you and Uncle were so close.”

“Really? We’ve known each other since we were young. I guess maybe he doesn’t talk about those days.”

“Uncle’s never had many friends. I’d never seen you spend much time together until lately.”

“Oh? Have we been?” Nie Huaisang can’t, she supposes, claim they’ve been very subtle. “Well, anyway, what I mean to say is… I know it’s not my business, and I don’t like to meddle. I won’t tell you to make nice if you don’t want to. You shouldn’t unless you mean it. But whenever you do, I don’t think there’s much he wouldn’t be able to forgive of you. He’s just... You know how he is, but people can change. And don’t tell him I said this, but he’s lonely.”

Jin Ling’s mouth twists—he looks so much like Jiang Cheng; she thinks this every time she sees him, but it remains true—but he mutters, “I know.”

“If you have things to say to him, you should say them. We never have as much time as we think.” It doesn’t make it much easier when you love them, Nie Huaisang knows.

Nie Huaisang wants to say, Look after him, even though Jiang Cheng isn’t old enough yet to justify it. But if not Jin Ling, then who? Who else is close enough to Jiang Cheng to disregard his own disregard for his happiness?

Instead, Nie Huaisang steers the conversation back to calmer waters. She asks Jin Ling about design: where did he get the inspiration for the newly remodelled interiors? He’s shy about it, like he thinks he’s being tricked into something, but he’s done a good job with the place, truthfully, even if it does all bear that signature Lanling Jin garishness. Eventually, Jin Ling mutters, “I didn’t do much of it myself. I’m not good at that kind of stuff.”

“Well, then, congratulations on your choice of designers. That’s a skill too, you know.” By his expression, Jin Ling thinks Nie Huaisang is mocking him, but she means it. “I don’t know what your uncles told you, but a sect leader doesn’t need to be good at everything. Get good at finding people who are good at the things you aren’t. It’ll get you by just as well, and you might get some time for yourself now and then.”

Now Jin Ling looks at Nie Huaisang like he’s hallucinating. Well should he! What’s next, after Nie Huaisang dispensing sensible advice? “But what do I know,” Nie Huaisang adds, and flutters her fan a little faster.

Eventually, a year will come in Qinghe when no one remembers Nie Huaisang at all, and that might be for the best, even if it’s sooner than one might otherwise anticipate. Perhaps especially then. The sect managed to get by, during her long stint of dragging its name through the mud; surely it can manage again without her direct supervision. Nie Huaisang has made it into a machine that can maintain itself.

Sorry for ruining your life, Nie Huaisang thinks, though she is and she isn’t. What she is: glad she didn't get him killed. And she ought to give Jin Ling credit; he’s muddling along well enough.

“Thank you, Nie-zongzhu,” Jin Ling says eventually. It’s still gruff, still uncertain, but not unkind. He’s a good boy, really. Jiang Cheng, you raised a good boy, despite yourself. Don’t get in your own way now.