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#shangguan qian x yun weishan
be-bi-do-crime · 4 months
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千叮万嘱心念; prayers for longing
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🐺 3.7k words, completed oneshot 🌙 weiqian has an affair going on, in which they may or may not be catching feelings about it... 🐺 featuring: mutual yearning (and destruction), a confession, and the choice to stay 🌙 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/53375941
reblogs, kudos, and comments are very very appreciated!!
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kanjichris · 9 months
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my journey to you? more like my journey to yuri
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shewholovestoread · 6 months
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My Journey To You - Thoughts and Impressions Part 2 of 2 - The Characters
Part 1 HERE
The format of the post will be as follows:
1) Yun Wei Shan
2) Gong Zi Yu
3) Their Relationship
4) Shangguan Qian
5) Gong Shang Jue
6) Their relationship
Spoilers below, beware all who enter.
Yun Wei Shan:
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On paper, Yun Wei Shan seems like a perfectly fine character, she's empathetic, kind in an unkind world and willing to go to extremes (even putting her life on the line) to protect those she loves and cares about. The problem is just that though, in a book, we would have access to her thoughts and her perspective which would make for interesting reading. But when viewed visually, it's not as compelling. Visually, you have a character who seems to have the range of 2 expressions and there's no sense of internal conflict. Take her 'allegiance' to Wufeng for instance. From the very beginning, we the audience, can tell that she's not truly aligned with them or their ideology. She doesn't agree with their methods and if not for her foster sister, Yun Que she would have quit long ago. Not even the poison that Wufeng uses to keep all their assassins in check, would stop her.
What I will commend her characters for is her innate kindness. She is kind in a world that should have snuffed that light out a long time ago and yet, it persisted. This was in no small part due to her bond with Yun Que. She wasn't simply a dorm-mate, a fellow assassin. She was a sister in every sense of the word. She had someone to care for and protect. Even her mentor, Han Ya Si, is not like the cold and unfeeling mentors we meet later. You can tell that he genuinely cares about those under him. For all intents and purposes, he raised these women since they were children and unlike the others, he doesn't view them as tools to be used and then discarded when no longer useful.
When she goes to the Gong Family as a prospective bride, we also know that Yun Que is dead, her one tangible tie to Wufeng is gone. She's now thrust into this family that Wufeng claims is their arch-nemesis but throughout the show, we never find out what her actual mission is, what is she after? Why was she sent? She's clearly not supposed to kill anyone. Evade discovery but then what? We never find out. But because she's not particularly loyal to Wufeng, there's never any sense of conflicting desire inside her. So in that sense, she becomes a very one-note-character.
In terms of character growth, there is very little. Throughout the series, her one desire for freedom which, in a sense she does achieve (if you ignore the last 5 minutes of the show) All her life, she's been told what to do and that love is a weakness. At the end, she chooses to stay with Gong Zi Yu and embraces her love for him and those around her.
Gong Zi Yu:
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Gong Zi Yu is perhaps the weakest link among the four main leads. If Yun Wei Shan's growth seemed negligible, Zi Yu's felt unearned.
I understand what the writer and director were going for, they set him up as a contrast to the other clan warriors who are cold and calculative, he was warm and kind. He starts off the series as someone who doesn't much care for the Gong family traditions, preferring instead the company of courtesans, he likes poetry and music. However, with the sudden death of his father and brother, he's thrust back into the family and worse into the role of Sword Wielder (SW), the leader of the Gongs. To officially become the SW, he must pass 3 tests and this is where things become a little strange. He passes them with ease and it feels unearned because while others who trained their whole lives took considerably longer to pass those tests, he came in with essentially no training and aced.
Now, you can be special but the fact that you are "special" must be made noticeable in text, like foreshadow it, or leave subtle clues that hint at it. The show does none of this and instead just asks the audience to believe it. That is not how you write a compelling character.
He's also probably the least mature character in the show (and I'll get to big reveal in a bit) but his blatant disregard for the Gong family protocols more than once, illustrate his cavalier attitude. Another way of looking at this is that he breaks tradition because he wants to create a better world for the generations to follow but all of that gets negated at the end.
The big reveal at the end, where we realise that everything that happened since Yun Wei Shan's reveal as a Wufeng assassin, was his grand plan does not make sense one bit. It comes completely left of field with little to no set-up at all. There was no foreshadowing, no little seeds left by the writer/director, little things that the audience could notice upon rewatching the show. In their effort to be ‘unexpected’, they sacrificed coherent story-telling.
Even his relationship with Yun Wei Shan is boring. I get that it was meant to be sweet but sweet will only take you so far especially in a show where the tone is anything but that. I know we're meant to swoon because of how steadfast he is when it comes to her but there are times when it seems straight up stupid. She is an assassin who has infiltrated his family and her mission could possibly be to kill him or someone close to him. Unlike the audience, he doesn't know that she is kind and even if he sees it, how can he know that it's not a facade? This also makes it seem like their relationship has no stakes, like what could she possibly do to make him doubt her or vice-versa.
I know you could be thinking, "but this is a healthy relationship." Okay but how is it healthy? It would have been if they explicitly trusted each other and communicated (like a Dream of Splendor, now that was a healthy relationship) but Zi Yu and Yun Wei Shan don't do that either, at least she's not always honest. If we're meant to believe that they do indeed communicate, then we need to see it, you can't plug it in as an extension of a previous scene and call it a day.
One of the best ways of making a compelling couple is the push and pull of the relationship and this ship had all of the ingredients; The Assassin and The Target, both suspicious of each other but inexplicably drawn together, so much sexual tension and angst. Instead, all we got was bland love at first sight and then sticking through it.
Shangguan Qian:
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Shangguan Qian is the other assassin sent by the Wufeng (why send only one when you can send two and double your chances of success) and her character is infinitely more delicious than Yun Wei Shan's.
Shangguan Qian is very hard to pin down and stays so till pretty much the end of the series. Her motives are complex and you can never tell just whose side she's on. I also love the way she gradually warms up to the Gong brothers. I think that Wufeng feeds it's assassins a lot of lies about the family and her being with them, i think starts to dispel some of the myths.
She is also set-up as a foil to Yun Wei Shan. Where Wei Shan is kind and straighforward, Shangguan Qian is cold and unpredictable. Her demeanour makes sense when you look at her relationship with her mentor, Han Ya Qi, who in contrast to Han Ya Si, does seem to view his pupils as expendable. He recognises, correctly, that the only person Shangguan Qian cares about her is herself and that's because of the world she was raised in, caught in a perpetual dance between survival and death, there was little time for luxuries like love.
But even here, the show and Shangguan Qian surprise us. At the end, we learn that Han Ya Qi did take steps to protect Shangguan Qian and when he is at death's doorstep, alone, she does come back for him and tries to save him. The Shangguan Qian we met at the beginning of the series, would have left him there to die without a backward glance. Her time with the Gongs and especially with Yun Wei Shan and Lady Wuji, gave her glimpse of what life could be like, it's subtle but it's there. Every time Wei Shan helps her without asking for anything in return, there's always a beat where you can tell that Shangguan Qian is wondering what her motives could be. She never trusts the other women fully, they are after all Wufeng assassins but I do believe, by the end of the series, her opinion of them is kinder at the very least.
I also loved how unapologetic Shangguan Qian is. She's not sitting there wringing her hands, fussing over things she has to do. To her knowledge, if she fails her mission, she dies. Her mentor doesn't seem to care beyond training her, she has no one to fall back on. She has a job to do and she's gonna do it to the best of her abilities.
I must also talk about the actress, Lu Yu Xiao, and her performance. Her character is someone who is always on alert, always plotting her next move, carefully observing those around her for weaknesses she can exploit. She goes from seductive to hurt to unaffected in a beat and conveys it all through her eyes and the minutest of facial expressions. Her performance is so understated and it's a pleasure to watch.
Gong Shang Jue:
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Gong Shang Jue is the resident emo dude and he is easily one of the best characters in the show. He makes no bones about his opinion of Zi Yu and for the most part, his criticisms are on point. He is an also incredibly traumatised character, having lost his mother and younger brother during the previous Wufeng attack. His zeal, therefore, to find and root out any and all Wufeng assassins who could have infiltrated the family makes sense, he's already lost the people closest to him, he doesn't want to lose any more. He is so single-minded that he doesn't even spare his own prospective bride when he suspects her of being from Wufeng.
Unlike Zi Yu, Shang Jue realises why the Gongs put in the protocols that they did. At the beginning of the show, he is painted in a more antagonistic light (this is to land the big reveal at the end) but you can see that Shang Jue doesn't really care about power. His quest for position of SW, is more about keeping his family safe and he believes that he is the best candidate for that job.
His cold exterior only ever cracks when he's with his other brother Gong Yuan Zhi (he's the resident psychopath) With Yuan Zhi, you can see what Shang Jue could have been like, if not for the events of the past.
The relationship between Shang Jue and Shangguan Qian is a treat to watch. There was so much sexual tension between them, so much suppressed yearning, I loved it. Theirs was such a cat and mouse game with each constantly trying to outwit the other.
Is it a healthy relationship? Not really, he literally interrogates her and threatens to torture her even more if she doesn't talk. But he's not someone who is demonstrative of his emotions and feelings, like I don't think he knows how to open up. But with Shangguan Qian, his cold heart begins to thaw and you can see that in their interactions.
Every time, Shangguan Qian initiates physical intimacy or tries to, you can see the confusion on his face and the inner conflict. On the one hand, he doesn't fully trust her and is suspicious of her motives, but on the other, there is a part of him that genuinely likes and yearns for it. There are instances where he wants to reach out to her or touch her but always holds himself back.
Shangguan Qian is also only ever honest with Shang Jue, she tells him the truth and I think a lot of their later interactions (at least on her part) are largely genuine.
They are also unnervingly similar to each other, both owe their allegiance to something larger than themselves and are shaped by their trauma (Shangguan Qian with the loss of her entire family and Shang Jue with the death of his mother and brother) They are drawn to each other despite everything because they see that they are the only people who are capable of understanding exactly what the other is going through.
What differentiates them however, is that while Shang Jue is driven by loyalty, Shangguan Qian is driven by vengeance and therein lies their greatest obstacle, the one thing that neither is willing to compromise. They are so beautifully written and executed that, even knowing that it could never work out, they still make the audience root for them.
And yet, by the end of the show, they are both fundamentally different people. Shang Jue chooses to let her go when he finds out she's pregnant and instead of going back to Wufeng, Shangguan Qian chooses to stay in a small isolated house with azaleas planted around the house. She chooses to peace and safety for her unborn child over her thirst for revenge.
If there is to be a season 2, a Shangguan Qian and Shang Jue reunion is inevitable and I for one, would love to see how that unfolds...
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Sometimes Yuanzhi wonders if someone will notice if he disappears. It's probably just one of his bad days but the loneliness is choking him.
Ziyu is fooling around with Zishang and Jin Fan under the loving eyes of his wife.
Shangjue is glued to his wife and their stinky and noisy kid, Jin Fu protectively following them.
But him? He has no one, the servants don't like him, his brother doesn't care anymore about him. And for romantic love... he doesn't know if he is even capable of that, the whole idea of letting someone touch him in that way disgust him.
He's better alone after all, or, at least, that is what he is constantly telling himself.
He has his work, that is enough.
A/N: I took some liberties with this one Nonnie, I hope you don’t mind x
It’s quiet.
Why is it quiet?
Sluggish gossamer thoughts flit and slips through his fingers. It’s life holding on to fine grains of sand. Flashes of emotions and images flicker in front of him.
The scene of Ziyu kissing Jin Fan as he is expounding on the merits of a particular sword oil during a family dinner while Zishang jie and Yun Weishan are chatting on their own, unperturbed by the way their husbands are practically sucking each other’s face.
“…di!”
A short sliver of Elder Yue smiling at Elder Xue and Xue Tongzi while they discuss matters about medicinal research.
A sun drenched scene of Gege with his son astride on his shoulders, laughing and playing while Shangguan Qian looks on with her hand rubbing her very pregnant belly.
The whispers of his residence’s servants who scurry away at the sight of him.
“…up…”
An absolute and soul crushing loneliness.
Yuanzhi is exhausted. Bone deep and gnawing at his heels. He’s tired of being left behind. Of being the one that everyone forgets about in moments of happiness. He’s so sad. Breaking apart at the crudely sewn seams with the sheer enormity of the waves that threaten to take him whole.
Yuanzhi relaxes into the nothingness.
He just wants to be done with it.
In the floating darkness, he thinks he can taste the tang of salt on his lips.
“Y…zhi…”
There’s something he did. Or didn't do? It is hard think when—
Another flash of memory.
One that leaves him bereft when he realised that it’s the sight of him sitting alone just a half a step behind everyone while they’re cuddled up together in pairs and groups while they’re watching the winter moon.
Yuanzhi has a fleeting sense of… something. An emptiness that gnaws at him. A sort of haunting that rattles around in the empty rooms of his soul. Because that’s what he is, isn’t it? Empty.
He is poison personified.
A bane on everything and everyone he has ever loved. A venom with no cure. The thing everyone leaves behind the second they can. He has no place in the happiness of others.
“Wake—“
How work is his last lifeline.
If he can prove his worth, if he can somehow make himself useful, maybe… maybe someone could love him back?
“Didi, please…”
Yuanzhi feels so sleepy. He just wants to rest. He wants everything to stop and be quiet just for a second. Just long enough for him to think.
He just—
Waking is anything but a peaceful event.
There’s a flurry of activity around him. Doctors who are shouting about him waking up and pressing their fingers to his pulse point, servants who are running in and out of the room with basins of water and medicinal supplies.
Then.
Then, there are hands on him and voices calling his name. An ache in his belly that burns. He vaguely thinks he should remember this.
Yuanzhi closes his eyes.
He remembers none of it.
Sunlight is the first thing he registers when he opens them again. He groans, throwing his arm over his eyes.
“Let me get that.”
Yuanzhi jolts a little at the voice.
Gege returns a moment later after pulling down the blinds, gently coaxing his arm away from his face. The sight of him is hazy and distant. Yuanzhi doesn’t have the energy to do anything more than whimper quietly when Ge checks his temperature with the back of his hand. Satisfied with the results he finds, Gege moves to hold Yuanzhi’s hand between his palms.
Neither one of them speaks and Yuanzhi soon feels his consciousness swim a little.
“We almost lost you,” Shangjue gege says, voice dense with an unnameable emotion. Yuanzhi blinks his eyes open. Mouth shut, he tilts to face to him.
Shangjue squeezes his hand. “Do you remember what happened?”
Yuanzhi exhales slowly. There’s a huge chunk of his memory that moves through him and his mind swims, but eventually he seizes on a singular moment.
“I… Was in my workshop…”
Gege nods, rubbing his thumb over the back of his hand. It’s soothing and feels a lot like how he would sit by Yuanzhi’s side when he was a child and less able to withstand the poisons he was testing.
He’s not a child now, but this still feels nice.
“I was running an experiment and I—“
“Second Young Master, Young Master Zhi.”
There’s a wince on Jin Fu’s face that he can’t quite hide in time as he bows. Yuanzhi feels Shangjue’s touch still.
“Did I not say I wasn’t to be disturbed while I’m with my brother?” Ge says slowly, resuming his comforting arc on Yuanzhi’s skin.
“My apologies, but it’s from furen,” Jin Fu replies. “She says that the little master is seeking you.”
Yuanzhi’s heart stops beating at that. Biting the inside of his cheek, he pulls his hand out of Shangjue’s. Tucking the blanket around his shoulder, he turns himself to his side, facing away from Gege.
“You should go,” He whispers. Curling into himself, he ignores the way Shangjue gege calls his name.
Feigning sleep becomes real sleep, and when he’s back to the land of the waking, it’s nighttime again and Yuanzhi thinks that he has about enough of being unconscious.
There’s no one in the room with him but the lamps are lit. Mentally running through a checklist of his well-being, he deems himself healthy enough to not need another second in the sick room.
He’s in the middle of tugging a coat around him when there’s a rustling of robes coming into his space.
“And where do you think you’re going?”
Jin Fan is frowning, crossing the room to take him by the arm. Looking him up and down, the divot between his eyebrows deepens.
Yuanzhi tries to wrench his arm out of his hold but he’s still too weak, and it does little more than make him stumble forward into Jin Fan.
“Let go.”
“No.”
“Let go of me!”
“No,” Jin Fan repeats, tossing him over his shoulder and stalking to the bed. Yuanzhi braces himself to be thrown unceremoniously onto his back. Just as he stiffens his body, he is surprised when Jin Fan carefully, and perhaps a little preciously, lays him down. Dark eyes search his own before the Jade Guardian steps back, expertly stripping him out of his half worn coat.
“Young Master Zhi, you’re a very difficult fellow to love, do you know that?”
Bristling, any budding warmth in Yuanzhi’s chest is immediately extinguished and he grits his teeth. “I’m very well aware of my failings, thank you very much.”
“That’s not what I—“ Jin Fan sputters, sighing deeply before he moves on to take his shoes off. “I meant no offence.”
“You didn’t say anything wrong, so there was no offence in the first place.” Yuanzhi tugs his collar tight around his neck. Shuffling until he is pressed to the far side of the bed.
Dimly, he is aware of Jin Fan muttering something to the effect of, “I’m really the last person who should be doing this.”
Yuanzhi just keeps to himself, choosing to wallow in his failed attempt at escaping. He turns his mind to plotting another one. Maybe through the window, though he’s concerned about getting winded if he does. It wouldn’t be a long trek back to his quarters to barricade himself in. No one would look for him then and he doubts any of his brothers and sister will even be bothered to care.
Yes. That could work.
He just needs—
Jin Fan has his hand around Yuanzhi’s wrist, the warmth of his palm making him shiver and gasp.
“If you’re thinking of jumping out the window, you should know that the Zhiren has a net trap set outside to catch you,” He placidly says.
Damn it all!
Yuanzhi huffs, flicking his sleeve and hugging his knees to his chest even though that just makes things hurt a lot more.
The bed makes a creaking sound. Jin Fan is back again, tugging him by the ankles until he is laid up. Without a second word, he bundles him up under the blanket.
“Alright,” He sighs. “Apparently I’m the man for the job, so here goes.” Jin Fan pinches the edges down, effectively trapping Yuanzhi under his weight and gaze. “Your family is worried about you.”
“I’m fine,” Yuanzhi sullenly snarls. He’s going to be difficult about this, damn his health. “So you can just—“
“In what version of the word fine are you, because from what I’ve seen, you can’t even hope to match me now!” Jin Fan raises his voice before exhaling with a short groan of misery.
Good, Yuanzhi thinks viciously, be fucking miserable.
“I keep going about this the wrong way. What I meant to say is that your family has been worried about you for the longest time and no one more so than your Gege.”
Yuanzhi does stiffen at that. The blanket is hot over his body and it’s starting to be uncomfortable. The room is starting to swim again.
“There’s nothing to be worried about,” Yuanzhi says, affecting his most nonchalant tone. “I’m perfectly fine.”
“Oh heavens, they can’t say I didn’t try!” Yuanzhi has barely any time to register that shift in his voice before he is picked up and thrown over his shoulder again.
“What are you—!”
“You want to leave the sick room so bad? Fine! I’ll bring you out myself!”
Yuanzhi squeezes his eyes shut. Pursing his mouth tightly shut as he is bumped and carried, all while still in the rolled up blanket. He breathes as shallowly as possible, scarcely daring to even do anything other than focusing on not vomiting all over himself.
He feels it the moment Jin Fan kicks open a door.
“Tell him yourself. He isn’t listening to me.”
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be-bi-do-crime · 29 days
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冬生寒; winterborn chill
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🏮 3k, completed oneshot 🌬️ pre-canon, a different first meeting between weiqian 🏮 yun weishan is sent to watch over shangguan qian’s behaviour in dafu city— and ends up attending a blind date with her 🌬️ link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/55617316
reblogs, kudos, and comments are very appreciated!
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be-bi-do-crime · 9 months
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平局; tied game
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🏹 yun weishan / shangguan qian ☕ 2.4k, completed oneshot 🏹 canon-divergent, takes place sometime before they move out of the courtyard ☕ entrusting your life in your enemy's hands while on the brink of death 🏹 ...and kissing about it
link 🔗: archiveofourown.org/works/49894180
reblogs, kudos, and comments are very appreciated!!
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be-bi-do-crime · 6 months
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风不问��朵, 云也不说; the clouds don't tell
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☁️ yun weishan / shangguan qian ❔ 2.2k, complete oneshot ☁️ takes place pre-canon; weiqian meet each other (blindfolded) at wufeng when they're promoted on the same day link 🔗: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51947959
reblogs, kudos, and comments are very appreciated!! <3
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be-bi-do-crime · 9 months
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my first full-length weiqian edit— to “i can see you”! just 4+ mins of yun weishan and shangguan qian’s insane dynamic. happy watching <3
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But... what if Yun Weishan and Shangguan Qian can't have children because of the miasma and the responsibility to give an heir to both lineage fall on Yuanzhi's back? 👀
Tags: Mpreg, Consensual Cheating, Breeding, Breeding Kink, Jealousy, Broodmare Yuanzhi, Gong Ziyu x Gong Yuanzhi, Gong Shangjue x Gong Yuanzhi, Gong Shangjue x Shangguan Qian, Gong Ziyu x Yun Weishan
🌶️🍋🌶️🍋🌶️🍋🌶️🍋🌶️🍋
"I think congratulations are in order, Jiejie."
Yun Weishan doesn't bother deigning Shangguan Qian with an answer, merely smiles demurely and sips at her tea. Behind the lotus print of the screen that separates the bed from the rest of the sitting space, she spies the way Ziyu is fucking the last throes of his orgasm into Gong Yuanzhi's body.
Her core throbs with the phantom want of being where he is now under her husband.
The shape of her husband leans down and soon enough the wet sounds of sloppy kisses fill the air in tandem with the quiet panting of two satiated bodies basking in the bliss and afterglow.
Next to her, Shangguan Qian lifts her hand over her mouth, hiding a smile.
"Don't be jealous, Jiejie," She coos, laying a hand over her wrist to get her attention. Yun Weishan turns to her then, keeping her eyes fixed on Shangguan Qian's knowing smile.
Somewhere in the back, she hears Ziyu grunting, softly moaning as a breathless voice answers him thick with pleasure.
Against Shangguan Qian's breast, her daughter sleeps, softly snuffling against her. The heir to the Jue lineage, her heir, even if she was born from the womb of the man currently fucked by Yun Weishan's lord husband in the hopes of begetting him with a babe of their own.
A child that will be her heir.
Yun Weishan's attention is pulled once more to the hazy scene behind the screen.
Another figure has now joined her husband and Yuanzhi in bed. Beside her, she can feel the moment Shangguan Qian stills and tastes that bit of triumph on her tongue when the weight of jealousy is not only hers to bear. Gong Yuanzhi and Gong Shangjue were inseparable no matter what and this isn't something Shangjue was going to let his didi go through without him.
Gong Shangjue croons something low and mumbles to Yuanzhi, who hums tiredly in response. She can't blame him; Ziyu has always been able to last longer than anyone might expect.
It seems that Shangguan Qian can tell what's being said and if the way her lips purse is any indication, Yun Weishan can take a bit of glee at how unhappy she is by what she has heard.
She idly wonders if Ziyu is looking at Yuanzhi with the wonder he looks at her when they make love in their own bed. She thinks he'd be kind to Yuanzhi, at least. Ziyu's sweet like that. Even when they'd found out that they could never have any children from her womb, he'd never once stopped loving her as much as the day they first confessed their affections to one another, never blamed anyone, never even blamed the miasma that caused it.
Instead, he had gone to Gong Shangjue to ask for his permission to be next after him.
Kisses fill the air. Neither she nor Shangguan Qian can determine who was kissing whom.
But does it matter?
They'll keep doing this for as many times as it takes for Gong Yuanzhi's womb to be seeded by Ziyu. And once that child is a year old, they'll be back here again, sitting just beyond the screen to hear Elder Yue take his turn for an heir, then again after that for the Xue lineage.
A gift like Gong Yuanzhi is meant to be shared.
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