Chapter Text
Loyal, Brave, and True
A Harmony is the Value Story
By Sif Shadowheart
One: Change Itself
Wei Farmstead, Outer Caiyi, Gusu Lan Territory; Mid-Spring
“What’s wrong, a’Zhan?”
Wei Yuexia would admit that when she woke up that morning - the morning before the fifteenth anniversary of her birth which normally didn’t really mean anything but in this particular case was important - she didn’t have finding Lan Zhan hiding in her favorite forest glade cuddling Yingying-tuzi with all his might on her bingo card.
Point of fact, given that it wasn’t a rest day, she didn’t expect to see either of the Lan heirs at all. This despite the fact that since Lan Huan - now equipped with his spiritual weapons and a courtesy name and well on his way to earning his title of Zewu-jun from what she could tell - was strong enough to carry his younger brother with him on his sword, the pair had become a much more common sight in Caiyi. And the Wei farmstead in particular, especially as her brothers were still too young to go out on night-hunts with her and Zhuliu-ge.
The brothers hadn’t had to wait on their uncle to bring them down to Caiyi for months now that Lan Huan (Xichen, she had to remember to call him Xichen in public) had both his sword Shuoyue and a jade token that let him freely through the Cloud Recesses barrier arrays. A fact that they tended to take ruthless advantage of. For his own part, Xichen might not come to visit more than once or twice a xun on their rest days, but with a’Zhan’s friendship with both of Yuexia’s little brothers and Xichen’s fondness for the Wei family in general, they came as often as their free time allowed.
At least, insofar as Yuexia could tell.
That said, as it wasn’t a rest day and there was no Xichen in sight either at the farmstead before Yuexia had gone looking for her naughtiest bunny or in the glade with a’Zhan…Yuexia had concerns.
Lan Zhan was without a doubt growing into a powerful young cultivator, but he was just that: young.
So young that he was only a pre-teen as yet, without a spiritual weapon at all let alone a sword. He might receive his sword a year early during the next round of New Year celebrations, but that was iffy and depended on the development of both his physical self and his golden core. Twelve was conventional for gentry, sect-raised boys to receive their spiritual swords, but it was more of a guideline than anything.
Nie Mingjue was said to have received his saber early, and Yuexia tended to believe that given his…everything…rather than dismiss it as political boasting, but even Xichen had waited until he was twelve for Shuoyue and due to the expense of forging a new sword - as her mother’s hadn’t suited her, nor her it - Yuexia had been older than that before she received Liúshēn.
(She hoped that her mother’s sword suited one of her brothers, as a first-class spiritual weapon was nothing less than a back-breaking expense for her father to bear alone. His pride as a father wouldn’t allow him to dip into the red-packet savings of his children, or accept “help” from Jiang Fengmian. As it had been her idea that had led to a’Yao joining their family she thought that some of the funds she’d gained from her farming adventures or even her successful night-hunts should go towards swords for her brothers, or at least a’Yao, but in this Wei Changze had proven intransigent even to her entreaties. They were his sons, and he would provide - that was the end of it.)
Leaving Yuexia with two puzzles before her: first how a’Zhan came to be cuddling Yingying-tuzi and second why.
Rather than answer, Lan Zhan only buried his face into the soft overgrown white fur of Yingying-tuzi, the wooly creature not yet having his summertime haircut as Yuexia had been away on a series of minor night-hunts during her normal bunny-shearing window.
Seeing that he’d gone non-verbal in his upset, Yuexia settled down next to him within touching distance, and reached out letting her hand hover within his peripheral vision over his arm before she gently rested it on his bicep when he didn’t flinch or pull away from her touch. She waited for long moments as they fell into the quiet between them and the sounds of the forest, then when a’Zhan leaned - ever so slightly - into her touch she shifted at the cue. Turning as she sat, Yuexia wrapped her lean arms around the silk-clad shoulders of the gangly boy who’d grown as close to her as her own blood over the years since he tried to hide - however politely - between and behind his older brother and uncle upon first introduction to the madhouse that was the Wei farm.
Yuexia pulled him fully into her embrace, bunny companion and all, a’Zhan falling into her. A cold nose burrowed into her robes until it rested lightly against the hollow of her throat, her own chin resting on the top of his head with her cheek snug against his top-knot. No small feat, given that even at physically (but not officially) eleven, a’Zhan was almost taller than she was at fifteen.
Both of them would catch up to her height soon - a’Zhan and a’Ying - and as her own growth had slowed a’Yao was sure to do the same eventually even if he was never as towering in stature as a’Zhan and a’Huan (and maybe a’Ying? She couldn’t quite remember.) were destined to become.
She wished she could stop them from growing. Both in stature and in age. Just keep them small enough to comfort and cuddle with ease with smaller worries than were certain to devil them as adults.
A common lament of parents and older siblings everywhere she was sure, but one no less heartfelt for it.
Yuexia couldn’t say how long they stayed like that. Yingying-tuzi for once being well behaved (as he only tended to do for a’Zhan, because of course her brother’s namesake would only behave for Lan Zhan.) while the humans remained still. Lan Zhan burrowed into Yuexia’s hold. Wei Yuexia ensured that her hold on the pre-teen was comfortable rather than restrictive as she waited for a’Zhan to be ready to talk.
Despite a’Ying’s best efforts, Lan Zhan had never turned into a chatterbox, being a quiet person at heart, but he did talk and could be quite effusive when he wanted to - the catch was that he rarely wanted to when a look was often enough to make his thoughts clear to those close to him.
Otherwise he fell on concision wherever possible, a trait that in the future would come off as erudite but given his current age seemed clipped or even rude more often than not to those not his immediate family or the Wei.
“Too much change, Xia-jie.” Eventually Lan Zhan unburied himself from within Yuexia’s embrace, turning to look up at her with devastated golden eyes swimming with shimmery tears. “Xiongzhang, now Xia-jie, soon Wei Yao…” He sniffled, his expression turning put-upon at how his body had betrayed him with mortifying tears.
Yuexia narrowed her eyes. Since when did a’Zhan call Xichen ‘xiongzhang’? That was new, and she wouldn’t be surprised if the reason behind that change in particular was the real reason he was upset, not anything to do with a’Yao being old enough for a sword at the next New Year, or Yuexia’s imminent hair-pinning ceremony.
“Only thing in life which doesn’t change, a’Zhan,” Yuexia started work on excavating the central issue that was bothering her honorary little brother. “Is that everything changes in time. The trick is to learn to tell when change is for the better - or the worse - and then adapt or react accordingly.” She arched a brow at the pout that took over a’Zhan sweet face, still round-cheeked with youth and baby fat. “Who told you to call a’Huan xiongzhang rather than gege, anyway?”
How Lan Zhan’s lips went thin from pressing them tightly closed was more than enough explanation, even without the boy saying a word.
The elders then.
Fucking meddling old bastards.
“If you don’t want to call a’Huan more formally, don’t.” She advised shamelessly. “You’re the Second Young Master Lan. By your own clan laws the only person with authority to see you punished,” at the moment, “is your uncle. Did Lan Qiren demand you stop calling your brother familiarly?” She asked, leadingly.
“No.”
“No.” Yuexia nodded crisply. “I didn’t think so. There’s several ways you can act going forward, as this has clearly hurt you, a’Zhan.”
“Mn?” The mulish expression on Lan Zhan’s face told Yuexia rather clearly how he’d like to handle the matter, but they both knew this dance.
Years of friendship with the Lan had taught her a lot about the Lan Elders and how they tried to micromanage the fuck out of both Lan Qiren and how the two heirs were raised, how they behaved and acted, to the point that she genuinely believed that if they could they would control even what the two thought.
Wei Yuexia was looking forward to her time as a guest disciple at the Cloud Recesses if for no other reason than giving her Lan, Qiren included, an ally within the confines of their mountain home, rather than ones outside of it.
“You can ignore the stricture.” Yuexia rattled off the options as she saw them. “Fight fire with fire, citing the Precepts to counter every rationale that the elders give you for forcing the change, I can think of a handful off the top of my head you could use and I’ve only given the rules a cursory study in preparation for my time at the Lectures.” There were three thousand of the damn things after all, with so many redundancies it made her head spin and conflicted with each other to ridiculous means when you moved beyond the core precepts and into the ones meant to control and moderate behavior, actions, and even beliefs. Starting early so she was well-prepared when the time came was only sensible - and with her connections to the Lan, was well within her means to manage as Lan Qiren had easily passed her a copy of the Lan Precepts the next visit following her original ask. “You can obey it to keep the peace, or you can walk a middle path.”
“Middle path?” Lan Zhan asked, intrigued. The ambiguity that the Wei family was so comfortable with had been odd and shocking when he’d first met them years before. Among the Lan, there were usually only two options: do or do not. It wasn’t until the Wei that he had realized that it was never so simple despite what the rules and the elders said, and it had taken him a long time and plenty of meditation to come to terms with that realization.
“Publicly comply and privately resist.” Yuexia looked down at the pair of boy-and-bunny with a sly expression. “The elders would be satisfied that once again you’ve proven amenable to their corrections and no one gets hurt. Compromise isn’t always the correct tactic, but in this case if you don’t want to wage a petty war of the rules with whichever stuffy elder demands you address your brother formally, it’s probably the best one.”
“You do that.” Lan Zhan noted insightfully. “Formal in public, informal in private.”
“That I do, a’Zhan, Lan-er-gongzi.” Yuexia squeezed her arm around him with a wicked grin. “My situation is different from yours, but I have to walk a fine line between obeying common expectations of speech and behavior from someone of my social status and staying true to my own ideals. I know my own mind and what I believe, and therefore what allowances I can make and which ones I simply won’t budge on.”
“Like?”
“Like…” She sighed, staring off into the middle distance. “Like with the aunties clucking over how pretty I am instead of how strong of a cultivator.” Her expression was rueful when she turned it back on Lan Zhan. “In Caiyi I’m known as my father’s pretty, dutiful daughter. I bow my head and blush and say thank you - even though it grates at my pride. Does that mean I’m going to put down my sword or march to the matchmaker the day after tomorrow?”
“No.” Lan Zhan snorted at the very notion of Wei Yuexia, who sparred regularly with him and her brothers and even his brother when Huan-gege was willing, discarding her sword for a civilian marriage.
“No.” Yuexia nodded firmly. “I am a cultivator, no matter that I blend in with the civilians of Caiyi well enough. But my family relies on business from those same civilians to commission my father and to buy the work of my hands and excess produce from the farm. It’s a compromise as even knowing that I’m from a cultivator family, they struggle to see me as one so fitting into their assumptions is easier for the good of everyone.”
“Not you.” Lan Zhan countered, a stern look in his eyes. “Xia-jie shouldn’t have to leave her sword at home to make the civilians more comfortable.”
“Shoulds don’t matter all that much in the grand scheme of things, a’Zhan.” Yuexia warned him. “I travel enough anymore as a rogue cultivator that it doesn’t grate as much as it used to. As you will, soon enough.” She added knowingly. “You might find that it’s easier to play the part within the Cloud Recesses once you’re able to spend as much time away as you need to keep yourself centered.”
Comfortable silence fell between them for a few moments, then Yuexia roused and climbed back to her feet, urging a’Zhan along with her.
“C’mon.” She nudged him towards the path to the farm. “Let’s go before your brother sends out a search party. How’d you get down here anyway?”
“Uncle.” Lan Zhan answered reluctantly. “Business in Caiyi.”
“Ahh.”
Wei Yuexia was less than surprised to find Lan Qiren waiting inside her home taking tea with her father when she arrived with Lan Zhan in tow, the boy reluctantly putting Yingying-tuzi into his hutch before greeting the men.
It either said something about Lan Zhan’s predictability or how much Lan Qiren trusted the Wei, as the older man didn’t seem to be worried or anxious at all to have found himself nephew-less in Caiyi.
Xichen would’ve lost his damn mind, but that was an elder sibling for you.
“a’Xia.” Her father greeted her warmly. “I see you found our wayward wanderer.”
“Father, Grandmaster Lan.” Yuexia elegantly saluted the pair with Lan Zhan echoing her a heartbeat behind. “Good day.”
“Good day, Yuexia.” Lan Qiren returned the salute, the corner of his mouth kicking up into what amounted to a smile from the stern man, there-then-gone. “Thank you for looking after my nephew.”
“It was no trouble, Lan-xiansheng.” Yuexia waved off any notion of thanks for spending time with one of the didis, ratcheting the formality back a notch. “Lan Zhan in fact had done me a favor by tracking down one of my rabbits so I did not have to spend extra time searching it out.”
“Did he?” Qiren gave both children a look that said he knew what they were up to - and that Lan Zhan was likely the reason her rabbit had gone missing in the first place. “That is well then.” Rising, he bid the pair goodbye, Lan Zhan on his heels, and the Lan were gone as swiftly as they came.
“a’Zhan tracked down Yingying?” Wei Changze questioned, suspicious at the timing given the boy’s love of small furry creatures - and a’Xia’s bunnies in particular.
“Probably snatched him from the hutch and went off to sulk in private.” Yuexia shrugged, posture easing without having the imposing presence of Lan Qiren - for all his hidden indulgence towards her, he still cut an authoritative figure - to impress. “But the last thing either of Lan-xiansheng’s boys needs is extra scolding or punishment.” She wrinkled her nose. “They get more than enough of that from the Lan Elders.”
Wei Changze dropped the subject, knowing from his own observations of the Lan Clan dynamics that his daughter had the right of it, instead pointing towards the package resting on the table between where Lan Qiren had been seated and where Yuexia usually resided as hostess. It was plain. The wrapping wasn’t anything fine or ornate, instead the simple rough ramie most civilian merchants used to protect their wares.
But with Lan Qiren’s favor towards his daughter, and her hair-pinning taking place on the morrow, Changze had a decent idea of what it contained.
Coming over to kneel diagonal to her father, Yuexia let out a soft gasp as she unwrapped the package and could feel the qi the gift(s) were embedded with. Not that they weren’t beautiful when she saw them - they were. Expertly carved hair sticks in buyao style fashioned of imported rosewood that was still fragrant, slim lengths of wood with a high shine, cloud-motif ends and a strand of jade beads dangling from the openwork of the motif-ends, they were one of the finest gifts she’d ever been given. Before the talisman work she could feel was taken into account and that she narrowed down, after lifting and inspecting each of the matching pair, had been done on the jade beads.
Each elegant hair stick was strung with a thin filament of silver-wrapped silk thread, both strong and flexible. In turn, each thread, which hung about two inches from the openwork clouds, was strung with a trio of qi-carved and imbued jade beads in a color gradient. Yuexia sharpened her vision by channeling her qi, as even with the bright spring afternoon sunlight she couldn’t make out the fine details of the talisman work otherwise.
The bottom bead of each string was a rare pure black, and if she was reading the talisman work correctly it was spelled against curses. Next came a bead that protected against corpse poisoning in moss-amongst-snow that was predominantly white with vivid green flecks. Last and closest to her head was the mutton-fat white bead that was usually only seen on members of the Lan Clan itself, as they reserved jade in shades of white or the icy near-silver from their jade deposits - the largest and finest in the Jianghu - for their own use. This last bead was engraved to provide protection, however potentially minor, against resentful energy.
It was a gift worthy of a rich merchant's daughter or a member of the gentry, especially given the quality and near-translucence of the jade that she knew made it a finer grade than anything the average person would see in a market place.
It was also a declaration to anyone who saw her wearing them. That Wei Yuexia, rogue cultivator and woman or not, had the favor of the Gusu Lan. While it wasn’t as overt as draping her in blue and white or giving her a jade token to the Cloud Recesses, it wasn’t subtle either.
The sort of extravagant statement she would expect from the likes of Jiang Fengmian, not Lan Qiren, though the protective talisman work and simple design was exactly in keeping with the Lan grandmaster’s temperament and personality.
“I’ve been receiving inquiries about your hand in marriage ever since you began traveling and taking night-hunts.” Wei Changze informed his daughter, now that she was a night’s rest away from becoming eligible to marry. Come the morning, her age alone would no longer protect her from men, and it was better that she knew it than him fruitlessly trying to shield her only for her to be hurt worse as a result of being unprepared. “More, since you ran into those Ouyang and Yao cultivators in the autumn.”
Yuexia set her new hair pins down and wrapped them back into their cloth packaging, having no need for them at the moment, even if she was interested in picking apart the talisman work that had gone into them.
“What did you tell them?” She asked, entirely unafraid of his answer given her father’s categorical distaste for sects.
“That my daughter, like all my children, will be allowed to follow the path of her parents and wed where she chooses.” Changze sipped at his cooling tea with a wry smile on his face. “There was some blustering from Sect Leader Yao, but given the precedent no one can take offense.”
“Good.” She nodded firmly. “I have no intention of getting married anywhen soon, and the less idiots I have to brush off the better.”
“Mmm.” Changze hummed in agreement, then warned her even as she rose to take her gift up to her room. “There are some avenues I won’t be able to dismiss without causing genuine offense, a’Xia. Be careful around the great sects. Qiren or Fengmian would never press the matter but Nie Jianhong has always been volatile and neither Wen Ruohan or Jin Guangshan have ever liked to be told no.”
“Of course, baba.” She agreed, taking the warning for what it was: a loving father’s worry; rather than an indictment against her own intelligence, then carried on with her day.
Tomorrow was going to be difficult enough, with her undergoing hair-pinning without an older woman to perform the hair-combing and pinning rites and admonitions, and then having to parade through Caiyi.
Though, thankfully, unlike other girls who weren’t actively involved in a young courtship, her parade would end at a restaurant for a banquet rather than at the matchmaker’s home.
Small mercies, given that she still had to make a show of herself nonetheless.
The morning of the fifteenth anniversary of the birth of Wei Yuexia, at the beginning, was like any other before it.
Conventionally, the physical anniversary of birth was of only minor importance in most matters. The actual day of birth was typically used in determining astrological charts - for determining compatibility, especially in arranged marriages but also to predict the fortunes of a potential love match, commonly but there were other purposes as well - and little else. A day like any other, though some families may celebrate in a minor way depending on their region and/or familial and/or cultural traditions.
Both Wei Changze and Xiao Meihua had had their own traditions surrounding their personal birthdays as well as those of their children that they had brought with them into their marriage, and even years after the latter’s death, the Wei patriarch still practiced them - that that particular birthday was the day of his daughter’s hair-pinning celebration didn’t matter in this instance.
First, they had their private, family celebrations, then the formal cultural events could commence as he had made very clear to any well-meaning women who might have wanted to participate in celebrating Yuexia’s recognition as an adult woman.
Being simple people, their personal traditions were far from gaudy banquets like the Jin indulged in but they were meaningful nonetheless. The favored foods of the celebrant would be served (when possible) at each meal. Peaches kept under preservation talisman would be served. Longevity noodles would be slurped up. Beloved songs and games would be played.
Simple, small gestures to ensure that the celebrant knew they were seen and recognized.
It was a dearly held thing, but one that Wei Changze found himself jealous of when their guests arrived to take his daughter in hand and oversee her hair-pinning prior to the traditional parading of the newly-eligible maiden.
Though there was one last task to get through prior to their guests arriving, and one that filled Wei Changze with equal parts love and grief.
Ushering a’Xia into his room that was already prepared for her hair-pinning, Wei Changze sat her next to him on the bed and with tangled emotions and took the carved and talisman-protected cedar box with its motifs of mountains and streams, handing it over and entrusted it into her care.
“I wish your mother was here.” He said earnestly as small hands, callused from holding a sword and work alike, ran carefully along the carved top of the box and along its edges with no small amount of wonder. “You look so like her. My Huahua. She would be proud of the woman and cultivator that you have become, our a’Xia. Her belongings are yours now.” He told her, stopping any protests she might have had with a single stern look. “As is only right, as her only daughter. a’Ying and a’Yao are moving her clothes up to your room as we speak.”
He didn’t speak of his wife’s flute or sword, as both had rested beside Meihua’s memorial tablet since they had set up the small shrine in a corner of the house. It wasn’t for him to decide whether or not they resided there - not anymore. He had thought that perhaps Meihua’s sword would suit a’Xia, but that had been proven wrong not long after she had formed her golden core.
Their precious child might look like a blue-eyed version of his late wife, but in personality a’Xia had always been far more his child than hers.
Even in the name a’Xia chose for her own spiritual sword echoed his own: Liúshēn which was the second part of the idiom that his own Jìngshuǐ’s name was taken from and said much of their temperaments.
Him the quiet water, her the swift and dangerous rapids that flowed beneath it.
At last, Yuexia bit her thumb and let a droplet of blood fall onto the center of the talismanic protection sigil that had been worked into the carvings of the cedar box - recognizing her father’s work on sight - and with a soft pulse of qi she could feel the protections aligning to her qi signature. Bracing herself, as she had no idea what she would find, not having any memory of her mother ever wearing jewelry or fancy hair pins much like Yuexia herself, she opened the hinged box and took a deep breath at what was revealed within. There were four flat trays within the hinged box, not including the bottom of the box itself, each lifting out with ease from the box’s confines and lined with soft cotton flannel to cushion and protect the contents.
Yuexia felt no shame at admitting, if only to herself, that she was rather shocked at what she found, given her assumptions about Xiao Meihua and her origins, to the point of staring over at her father incredulously once she had laid out each tray, that at a glance she estimated at a foot square, onto the bed and took in the array before her.
Not every tray was filled, quite a few slots of the removable divided trays were empty, but it was still a far larger inheritance than she ever expected to receive.
“Part of it is a portion of your dowry.” Wei Changze informed her with a soft huff of laughter at the sheer befuddlement on his daughter’s face at the sight of what she’d been gifted - not only by him, but also her brothers whether blood, adopted, or chosen. “These,” he tapped two of the removable trays, ones mostly filled with either wooden or bronze straight ji-pins and u-shaped chai hair pins along with several pairs of earrings and a single piece that even he didn’t know the origins of, only that Meihua treasured it. “Were your mothers.”
Yuexia smiled down at the assortment of wooden hair pins with delicate carved motifs that she recognized as her father’s work. Bronze chai-style pins, not quite the bobby-pins she remembered but not that different from them either, that would be useful for everyday use as much as making the more complicated buns and hairstyles she might want to wear. Two pairs of silver earrings, one of which had jade tear drops attached in a light grey she knew would match a’Ying’s - and therefore their mother’s - eyes. A single pair of bronze earrings with wooden beads.
It was the last piece that had her frowning in confusion, Yuexia lifting it from where it rested to examine it.
Braided copper wire, that alone wouldn’t be enough for her to draw a few conclusions from, but the round knobs set with opals definitely were.
“This was Mother’s?” She asked, turning it over and over again in her hands as she took in the far-too-familiar style of bracelet that looked distinctly foreign in a not-quite-Ancient-China setting.
“Yes, though she never told me where it came from.” Changze nodded, understanding his daughter’s fascination with the piece. “She took as good of care of that bracelet as she did her sword.”
“I’m not surprised.” Yuexia set it back down and locked eyes with her father. “Did she ever tell you anything about her origins, who her people were?”
“No, she was an orphan.” Changze frowned, a bit confused. “You have her look, as a’Ying has her eyes, but she was found by her master too young to have solid memories of what came before the Immortal’s mountain.”
“I think I know where my eyes came from.” Yuexia tapped one finger on the bracelet that was Northwestern European in styling, with a rare stone embedded that only came from Ethiopia - if she was remembering correctly, which she should be given that they were her birthstone and favorite gem once-upon-a-lifetime - without taking any of the “new world” continents into account. Wei Changze would have to have some form of blue eyed gene as well, but if Xiao Meihua did have at least one parent from the West, it would explain a lot about Yuexia’s hair, and both her and her brother’s eyes. “That is a style of jewelry and a type of stone from the far West.”
“Your seeing, told you this?” Changze questioned.
“In a way.” Yuexia shrugged. “I recognized it on sight as from the West.”
As her father contemplated that, Yuexia took in the other three compartments and their contents, which he indicated made up a portion of her dowry, should she marry.
Each of the two trays and the bottom of the box were organized by type of contents: hairpins, hair sticks, and miscellaneous jewelry like bangles and sets of earrings.
The short hairpins were all either straight spikes or chai, with the former having either silk flowers and ribbons attached or simple round bead ends. The latter had more ornate tops. Bronze curves with spokes threaded with quartz beads in several colors. Delicate chains with bells at the ends that were closer to buyao than not. Two that had matched strands of semiprecious amethyst beads that if she knew anything about those around her were a gift from her Zhuliu-ge.
Meanwhile all but one of the hair sticks were more carved wood, several of which were clearly the work of less-expert hands than her father’s, but were still perfectly lovely in their own rights from her younger brothers.
The outlying hair stick had her biting her lip to silence her tongue and reminding herself that her father had said that it was part of her dowry - and arguing with him about how highly he valued her was just asking for a lecture and a disappointed look. Pure silver, it had been cast and polished and engraved into the shape of a wisteria vine complete with dangling flower clusters. The craftsmanship was exquisite, better than anything she had seen worn outside of the likes of the Jiang or Lan.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, among the few pieces of jewelry was a matching silver bangle engraved with more wisteria and set with an amethyst cabochon the size of her thumbnail, and delicate silver earrings with amethyst tear drops the size of her smallest fingernail.
There wasn’t more jade, so there was that at least, though she’d finally have to get her ears pierced since as she’d never owned earrings in this life she hadn’t bothered.
A small commotion in the other room drew both of their attentions, Wei Changze rising at the prearranged signal.
“That would be our guests to oversee your hair-pinning.” He bent down and hugged her tight, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, and then took his leave. “I will think on what you said.”
“Thank you, baba.” She gestured to the gift but meant so much more than that.
A fact that if the soft expression on his face was any sign, Wei Changze more than understood.
He nodded, then turned away, only feeling a little remorse for the surprise that was about to crash over his daughter like an unexpected wave.