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There are some situations which all people believe they will never find themselves at the centre of, no matter the size of their ego or status in the world and in spite of the innumerable times throughout humanity’s history fate had proved herself frivolous and fickle.
The preposterous and the reprehensible; the cruel and the tragic.
The sort of thing one hears in the stories spun by bards and writers for entertainment; the sort of thing gossiping women will exclaim over and embellish upon while seated around a table in a tea shop; the sort of thing you know somewhere deep down can happen to anyone, yet inexplicably believe yourself and your loved ones to be immune to.
If, however, you are misfortunate enough that any such situation were to befall you, then of course you would handle it with dignity. You would not direct blame at those who did not deserve it. You would not crumble in the face of adversity or let yourself and your hopes waste away.
You would fight the hand you were dealt and do your damnedest to come out on top.
All people believe they will be strong and persevere with heads held high, that they will do the right thing, the noble thing, when push comes to shove.
It is so very easy for one to believe the best of themselves, and easier still to shut out the worst.
--
What is the right thing to do, one might ask, when one balmy late summer evening your mother, grey faced, out of sorts and with a marked tremble in her hands, asks if you will let her into your chambers, the tone of her soft voice just shy of pleading?
Of course, the answer is simple: you open your door wide and usher her in, hooking your right arm through her left to steady her.
(You are a good child. Filial. You love your mother, and the state she is in has you distinctly unsettled, afraid and feeling somehow much younger than your years. If you can help her, if you can do anything to calm the anxieties you have noticed plaguing her of late and which she had so far refused to name, then you will.)
And when your mother withdraws and activates a noise-cancelling talisman from her sleeve and sends it to stick to the door with a flick of her wrist once you have sat her gently down out of fear she will crumple in a heap on the floor for how frail she looks? When she proceeds- hushed, faltering, agonised- to purge the huge, earth-shattering burden she has borne alone upon her graceful shoulders for two long decades?
What do you do when your mother locks her haunted eyes with yours- eyes you had inherited from her, right down to the colours that make up your irises and the curve of your long, thick lashes, and oh, you had never thought much of how little resemblance there was between you and your father, had you?- and tells you that you are a child born of rape?
That the man you are in love with, the man you are set to marry, the man whose seed has already quickened within your belly (for now, this is still a coveted secret; you have not even had the chance to share the news with your beloved) is your brother?
The answer, once again, is simple: you tell your fiancé what your mother told you, and together construct an acceptable reason for breaking off your engagement. Whatever will result in the least amount of face lost for all parties involved, whatever will least harm your respective future prospects with people who are not your relations.
As for the baby… what its father does not know will not hurt him. There are reliable methods with which to terminate a pregnancy in its early stages; the hardest part will be accessing them in secret.
It does not matter how much you want either of them, Jin Guangyao or his child. It does not matter, because to keep them would be to go against the laws of society and nature both. Perverse. An abomination.
So of course you will tell him. There is no other choice.
You just need time.
Time to gather your haywire thoughts and muster up the courage and correct words to end this cruel farce. Time to figure out how to tell the man who had once saved you after appearing in a blurred flash of Nie green and grey, accents of gold matching the way the sun caught in flyaway strands of his hair, and slitting the throat of a Wen captain moments before he could make good on his threat to teach you a lesson, what you now know.
Time to sneak out and seek the aid of a physician not beholden to your clan or its allies to abort your- to take care of-
Of it.
--
The next time you are alone together, four days after your mother poured her heart out to you and broke your own in the process, Jin Guangyao picks up on something being wrong almost immediately despite your best efforts at maintaining composure.
His gentle questioning should be the perfect opportunity for you to confess to him what you must, but the words get stuck in your parched throat, lodge fast in your oesophagus and choke you.
You make a series of feeble attempts at brushing off his concern until you have left him no choice but to admit defeat, at least temporarily.
It is wrong, it is disgusting, that you do not angle your head away when your fiancé leans in to kiss you, instead turning what would otherwise have been a quick, chaste thing into something drawn-out and heated.
It is worse still when you draw him into your arms and welcome him between parted thighs, even knowing what you know.
You do your best to console yourself with the notion that it will only be once- a deplorable mistake made out of weakness, a misguided bid for comfort amidst overwhelming grief, a final selfish goodbye before you face cold reality head on, and besides, what further damage can possibly be done now?- and then you will tell him.
You have to tell him.
You begin to cry when your- when A-Yao sinks into you, even as you cross your ankles over the small of his back to urge him closer. He frowns, brushes the tears away from the corners of your eyes with gentle thumbs and asks once more if you will tell him what has upset you so.
You do not dare to look at him too closely, do not give yourself a chance to search for and then lock in on any features you might have in common, any telltale hints that you are bastards sired by the same lecher in the lines and curves of his lovely face. You duck your head, hoping the action comes across as bashful rather than ashamed. You smile for him, hoping it does not seem forced. You resolve to say nothing, intend to draw him closer and distract him with another kiss and a roll of your hips, figuring since you have already made your bed you may as well continue laying in it.
But it seems you have taken full leave of what you had until extremely recently considered to be perfectly sound senses.
As if what you are doing is not already terrible enough, you find yourself telling the man you are supposed to have broken your engagement with that he is going to be a father, your traitor mouth spewing words you cannot take back without your consent.
Your brother-fiancé presses a hand low over your abdomen, lips parted and eyes wide, stunned joy etched clear in his gaze as he asks how long you have known.
Your gut roils ominously with the touch, as if your body has belatedly realised it should be rebelling your ill-advised decision. You swallow heavily against the sudden nausea and let A-Yao believe that the reality of your pregnancy, how you should break it to him and how he would react once you did- you were not yet wed after all, a date had not even been set; if anyone were to learn of it, what a scandal it would be- was the reason for your agitation.
(You think to yourself with more than a touch of hysteria that a baby conceived a few weeks out of wedlock with a man who had every intention of marrying you anyway could not even be considered a scandal anymore in light of what your mother told you, in light of what you are doing at this very moment.)
You let him kiss you sweet and fuck you hard, let him murmur endearments and filth into the shell of your ear, and his hand, both tender and possessive, never strays far from your stomach.
(You should tell him to stop. You know he would, if you asked.
Jin Guangyao is a good man, a better man than Jin Guangshan in every conceivable way. He would not force himself on you the way his- your- the way the leader of Lanling Jin forced himself on-)
Soon enough the great big world and all its hurts and betrayals, all the things it saw fit to dangle before you like carrots before a donkey and then senselessly snatch away, condense down to the shape of A-Yao’s name in your gasping mouth, the slide of his cock in your slick cunt, and the tiny life you made together sheltered in your womb.
(You will tell him, you think wretchedly afterwards as you lay in the cradle of his arms and watch him sleep, face peaceful in a way you have rarely seen it.
As soon as a feasible enough stretch of time has passed that it will not be obvious to him you had to have known the final time he took you, you will tell him.)
--
Your mother, nerves hopelessly frayed and at her wits’ end, finally tells you over an oppressive supper that if you cannot find the strength to inform your brother you cannot marry him and why, she will do it for you.
Please, I… I know how hard this is for you, A-Su, I do, but… you cannot put this off any longer. You know that, don’t you? Your father and that- th-that man are bound to agree on a date any day now!
I will do it myself, if-
You take her shaking hands in yours, console her, assure her you will do what she asks. Assure her you will do the right thing, the proper thing, bite the inside of your cheek and blink away tears.
(Or are you merely trying to assure yourself?)
You need to put up a strong front for your mother. It is the absolute least you can do for her.
There is no need for you to go so far, a-niang. This daughter knows she has dallied, but she will handle it. I would not see you put yourself under any more stress.
Your mother looks at you, gaze piercing and body still. It seems she finds whatever she is hoping to, for she closes her eyes with a heavy nod.
If I am sure of one thing, it is that I have raised you well, A-Su. I know you will do what is needed.
She opens her eyes, now shimmering with unshed tears, and settles a palm against your cheek. I’m sorry, she whispers brokenly. I know you love him. He would have been good to you. I’m sorry.
You snuff out the vile voice inside your head that hisses she should be, that everything would have been fine if she had kept her silence, and envelop her in your arms.
You tell her perhaps a little more forcefully than strictly needed that it is not her fault, and pray she believes you.
--
Your mother does not attend your wedding, her rightful place by your father’s side in a seat of honour left glaringly vacant. Your resigned certainty that she would not come does not make her absence hurt any less.
(But if she had been present, how would you have been able to look her in the eye?)
A-Yao is reluctant to perform his husbandly duties, and you put it down to stress and exhaustion. It is unorthodox, nay, insulting that he had been left to plan much of the ceremony and following banquet himself. On top of that, he had not been able to escape subtle ridicule from his own clan members throughout the day, the Jin patriarch and his furen chief among them.
You are not happy the way a new bride should be, especially one who has had the uncommon good fortune to settle down with the man she had fallen for and who loves her in return, but that is fine.
You do not deserve it.
--
There is a part of you that hopes your mother did tell Jin Guangyao you were his sister in the end, for then he would be just as shameful and depraved as you are, just as much of a dirty liar: like brother, like sister, like father.
You want to believe that he knows, but he makes time for you whenever he can around the hellish schedule your- his horrible excuse for a father has set for him, doting on you even more than he was before. He continues to smile at you as though you were the centre of his world, and he cooes sweetly to the unborn child slowly filling out your belly, always with that faint mix of wonder and adoration in his gaze.
He is still all too keen on bringing you pleasure.
So yes: you want him to know… but you are quite certain that he does not.
He is better than his father. He is better than his sister, too.
(Of course there is his peculiar relationship with Zewu-jun, but the distinct possibility that he is sleeping with another man does not wound you quite like it should. Your A-Yao’s affections for the First Jade of Gusu Lan have been clear as day from the very first time you saw them together- and anyway, what right do you have to be upset, even if he is bedding Lan Xichen behind your back?)
--
A matter of days before your baby terrifies you with a far too early arrival, you make a foolish mistake.
You are laying on your side, swelled stomach supported by the mattress beneath you; your husband is plastered against your back, an arm hooked under your knee to keep you open as he rocks into you slow and deep and drags his lips teasingly along the curve of your arched neck.
Half-mad with pleasure, you call him gege.
He stills behind you, and for a horrible second you are dreadfully certain that this is where everything finally falls apart, that you will spill your foul secret quicker than you can bite your own tongue-
But then he whispers in your ear, hesitant, sweet, and so very clueless: What is it, meimei? Tell gege what you need.
You come right then and there, blacking out for several moments with the force of it.
A-Yao seems bemused but not displeased; you do not think you imagine the lilt of amusement in his voice when he asks if there is something you wish to tell him.
Oh, you think, mortified and miserable and unbearably turned on.
If only you knew, A-Yao. If only you knew.
--
After A-Song's survival is assured and he slowly but surely begins to gain weight and strength, after your body has well and truly embarked on its slow recovery and the ever-present anxiety that had made a home of your bones finally begins to lessen-
Only then do the sparks of desire make their gradual return.
You are not ready for penetrative sex, are not sure you will be for a long time, but you still want.
You choose to up the stakes of the fledgling game you accidentally initiated just before your precious son came into the world (and he is precious: perfect, a little fighter, a tiny miracle who never should have been and then very nearly wasn’t and is therefore all the more beloved for it).
Gege is to obey the rules his baby sister lays out for him.
Gege can look, and he can beg, and he can cry, but he cannot touch.
Gege will only be allowed to get himself off once his meimei has sated herself.
If meimei feels moved to reward her gege for good behaviour, he is to be grateful for how much or how little she offers him, whether it be a brief touch to his cheek or a light kiss upon his sweaty brow, a finger or two coated in her slick eased between his lips or the sole of her foot trapping his stiff, straining cock snug against his abdomen.
It helps assuage your guilt, to pretend that you are not in the wrong. To pretend your husband knows and wants you anyway.
You wish you had known how stunning your A-Yao would be in submission far earlier; beauty aside though, you realise it has the additional, highly welcome benefit of halting the gears turning inside his vigilant, ever-active mind, a reprieve he desperately needs. It is, admittedly, a gradual process- control is a safety net for him, and something it takes him no small effort to let go of- but with time he settles into his role almost seamlessly.
It borders on obscene, the pride you take in the knowledge that he feels safe enough with you to leave himself so vulnerable.
(Does Zewu-jun do this too? You do not think so. You cannot imagine him being cruel to his lover, even if expressly asked to be. You cannot imagine him taking any pleasure in causing someone pain or humiliation, nor understanding why A-Yao might want to be treated in such a way.)
--
When you hear of Jin Guangshan’s death and the debaucherous manner it occurred in, your first reaction is a savage, visceral thing: a sense that long-overdue justice had finally been served.
Your second is unbridled relief on A-Yao’s behalf.
--
Days before A-Song’s first birthday, A-Yao tentatively asks if you have ever given thought to bearing another child, of giving your son a little didi or meimei.
You cover your rising panic with a lie that is not truly a lie at all, but rather a safe portion of the whole truth: after how traumatic A-Song’s premature birth had been, after almost losing him and nearly dying yourself, you think you are content with the one child. Besides, you add with a small smile, A-Ling is practically yours even if he is not of your own body, and a brother in all but name to the younger cousin he fawns over.
A-Yao hums, then lapses into silence for a time.
Eventually, he asks softly: Is that why we do not lay together any longer, A-Su?
You wish you could pick out even a trace of anger, dejection, accusation, any negative emotion in his voice, but you detect nothing of the sort.
You do not have to fake the tears that spring into your eyes or the quiver in your voice when you admit you are too afraid of another pregnancy to feel comfortable with letting him take you again.
(You know there are preventative draughts you could drink, know you could still have your husband in the most intimate of ways and bear no lasting consequences for it… but there is always a risk something will go wrong, and you have no desire to tempt fate more than you already have.)
Your husband pulls you close and shushes you. He tells you he understands, that he is satisfied with how things are between you and has no wish to pressure you into anything you are not okay with.
You do not think he is only saying it to make you feel better.
(He is better than his father, and better than his sister, too.)
--
Your mother passes away a year and a half after A-Song’s birth.
You did not speak to her much after your wedding, a mutual unspoken agreement having formed between you to keep your distance from one another, much to your father’s ever-increasing confusion and dismay. You had always been a close family, before.
You know she could not bear the sight of you standing at Jin Guangyao’s side draped in Jin cream and gold. You know she did not have the heart to get to know her grandson as you had so dearly wished her to.
You try to convince yourself it was not your actions that had as good as sentenced her to death.
You try, but it doesn’t work.
--
The year following that, Yu-er is expelled from Jinlintai.
You pity your young didi. Though you had not grown close, you considered him to be a kind, sensitive boy, if rather troubled. You see him as an unluckier version of yourself.
You cannot help wondering whether incestuous tendencies might run in the family, take a frankly concerning level of solace in the fact that A-Yao seemed to bear Yu-er’s clumsy affections with good enough grace until they were publicly exposed and could no longer be brushed under the proverbial rug.
A-Song is beside himself when he is informed he will not be able to play with his Yu-shushu anymore, red-faced and spluttering with the force of his sobs.
(It is A-Ling who finally calms him down in the end, though only after he manages to stifle his own loud fit of tears.)
--
A Nie zongzhu you initially suspect to be inebriated appears on the steps of the Fragrant Palace the evening following A-Song’s third birthday banquet. He seems to believe himself considerably younger than his years, and clings to your husband’s side with a strength you had not previously seen from him.
He seems frightened. He seems lost. His eyes are bloodshot, and there is a slow trickle of blood emerging from his left nostril.
You learn he is not drunk at all but undergoing a minor qi deviation, and immediate alarm takes hold of you; everyone knows how Chifeng-zun and a great many of his ancestors before him died, after all.
(You also learn that your husband used to share his young master’s bed during the time he spent as Nie Mingjue's deputy, both for innocent comfort and… other things, after a bleary-eyed Nie zongzhu attempts to kiss him right in front of you.
You should not be wondering how the two gorgeous men would look naked and wrapped up in one another, least of all with Nie zongzhu in his confused, regressed state of mind- but then again, you have thought about A-Yao and his Zewu-jun together often enough, haven’t you?)
--
In an unforeseen though not unwelcome turn of events, Nie Huaisang becomes an occasional addition to your bedroom activities (you had always assumed it would be Zewu-jun, if it were anyone). He appears to be almost as eager to get his soft, very talented hands on you as he is to have them back on his san-ge.
(For the first time, you wonder if his infamous antics merely derive from a deep loneliness, a longing for the company of an old friend however he could get it.)
You must imagine the brief flash of cold satisfaction in his dark eyes, the blink-and-you-miss-it curl of victory playing at his lips, the first time you and A-Yao agree to invite him into your game.
He takes to his role beautifully, bullying your husband as if he has done it before- you can only assume that years ago, he had- and together you make an excellent team. Still, it is difficult to deny the thrill that takes hold of you upon realising no matter how well Nie Huaisang plays his part, your A-Yao never goes as far under as he does when you are alone together.
Neither of you expects it when during one such venture Nie Huaisang silkily suggests putting an heir of his own in your belly, since naturally your gege cannot provide one- that would be ever so dreadfully wrong, wouldn’t it?
It is not a threat, it can’t be, because there is no way he could know.
It does not make you feel any safer. It does not stop you from flinching bodily in his hold, nor quell the growing need to gulp down air like a fish deprived of water for fear you might suffocate.
A-Yao fights his way out of his trance-like state, simmering anger creeping into eyes that are still a little hazy.
Nie Huaisang apologises profusely as you valiantly attempt to fight back tears and get your breathing under control, near-frantic and looking suitably ashamed of himself as your husband drapes your inner robe around your shoulders and draws you to his faintly trembling body.
He was lost in the scene, he let his mouth run without thinking and said something tactless! He didn’t mean to upset Jin furen, didn’t mean to overstep! He didn’t know, he didn’t, he didn’t!
A-Yao sighs, then quietly asks Nie zongzhu if he would be so kind as to dress himself and return to his guest chambers.
--
When your sweet little Rusong is murdered, you are inconsolable.
--
Nie Huaisang finds you alone what might be weeks, months, years- decades, centuries, millennia- after you lose your son, sitting hunched in a field of sparks-amidst-snow, delicate blooms trampled all around you and still more ripped out by their roots.
The cloying smell permeating from the myriad of crushed petals turns your stomach.
You have a jug of liquor in your hand. It is three quarters empty.
You are drunk enough to resent your husband for leaving on an urgent matter sorely requiring the xiandu's presence, all the more so because you are aware he will be in the company of his Zewu-jun despite their relationship never having been a problem to you before; he should be here, with you.
You are drunk enough to hate him for not openly mourning a child he was not permitted to openly mourn.
You are drunk enough not to wonder why Nie Huaisang might be visiting Jinlintai when your husband is currently several provinces away in order to mediate an inter-clan dispute that had rapidly begun spiraling out of control, a trip you are certain was common knowledge.
You are drunk enough to let him pull you gently to your feet, wrap a steadying arm around your waist, and lead you back to your quarters. To let him help you onto the bed you share with your husband- your brother- and not question it when he joins you.
He is a warm, solid weight supporting your shivering frame, even if he is not the right one, and you are inebriated, heartbroken, and unbearably lonely.
You let him kiss you, or perhaps you were the one who leaned into him first- you don’t quite remember. You paw at his fine robes, and it might be an uncoordinated attempt at stripping them off him or a half-hearted one at pushing him away. Regardless, you do not protest when he divests you of your own rumpled layers.
When he lowers his mouth to your breast and suckles, you hold his head in place. When he slides an uncalloused hand down between your legs, you spread them wider for him and cant your hips, wordlessly asking for his clever long fingers inside.
When he fills you up with his cock, you moan like a whore.
As he moves inside you, as he murmurs indiscernible words that sound comforting nonetheless against your lank hair and holds you close, you remember how Nie Huaisang had once crooned in your ear about giving you his baby.
You cling tightly to him with arms and legs both and cry silently into the crook of his neck.
--
The next morning, you do not recall the face Nie Huaisang made when you choked out your husband’s name right before falling apart with an ugly sob. If not for the pressed flower and the strangely sombre note of farewell he had left together on your bedside table, along with the telltale ache in your body, you might not have remembered you had taken him into your bed at all.
--
There are some situations which all people believe they will never find themselves at the centre of, no matter the size of their ego or status in the world and in spite of the innumerable times throughout humanity’s history fate had proved herself frivolous and fickle.
The preposterous and the reprehensible; the cruel and the tragic.
All people believe they will be strong and persevere, that they will do the right thing, the noble thing, when push comes to shove.
It is so very easy for one to believe the best of themselves, and easier still to shut out the worst.
--
When a man who is not your brother-husband fucks you in your marriage bed as wine circulates throughout your bloodstream and suffuses into your system, further clouding a head already deeply addled by grief, and you do not bleed that month or the next, what do you do?
The answer is simple, of course: you pretend the affair never happened, pray the other party does the same, and hope that your husband never finds out.
As for the baby, there are reliable methods with which to terminate a pregnancy in its early stages.
This child is not a product of incest, but all the same, it cannot be allowed to exist.
It does not matter how desperately you want to keep it:
You can't.
--
In the end, a distressed A-Yao coaxes… a version of the truth from you, because once again you dally over carrying out a choice you were sure you had made, and the crushing weight of bearing your latest sin- that and the irrevocable proof of it- leaves you even more of a wreck than you already were.
You do not think even the fiercest Qinghe warriors of old could have matched the pure wrath your husband exudes once you tell him what their current leader did to you... and yet he is so tender with you as you collapse in his hold, guilty, heartsick and exhausted-
But relieved.
--
Nie zongzhu vanishes without a trace later that very same week, leaving his sect in complete disarray and his guards looking like bumbling, inadequate fools. He is never heard from again, though rumours claiming he had been spotted in this lively market or that famous teahouse circulate on occasion.
You are not so cold as to refrain from lighting a stick of incense in his memory in the privacy of your gardens, and you burn paper money too. He was so very fond of the lavish and luxurious, and you owe the poor man, don’t you?
Gods, do you owe him.
--
You give birth to a beautiful, healthy girl with a formidable set of lungs.
A-Yao loves her like she were his all along, and his eyes burn fierce and bright when he vows to you that he will not make the same mistake twice- that he will do whatever it takes to keep her safe.
You cradle your newborn daughter close to your chest and adamantly refuse a wet nurse, utterly unwilling to let her out of your sight or entrust her with anyone barring your husband after losing her elder brother as you did.
--
(You continue burning incense and money: it is simultaneously a gesture of heartfelt gratitude for the child Nie Huaisang gifted you with, and a woefully inadequate bid to placate his spirit for the grievous wrong you had done him.)