Chapter Text
Excerpt from Chapter 218 - The Old Knife
“… “Sir, your ambitions are high, like the clouds in the sky; I, however, am shallow and shortsighted, like the mud beneath the earth. The swallow does not know the hawk, and the summer insect cannot understand the ice. You and I are like the sky and the earth—entirely mismatched. Ordinary people spend their entire lives seeking only peace and safety. I ask that you be merciful and spare me.”
Be merciful.
When Xie Wei heard these words, it was as if cold water had been poured over him, and even the blood that had been boiling in his veins suddenly turned cold.
Sweetness lasts only a moment, but pain is sharp and heart-wrenching.
Jiang Xuening didn’t wait for his reply. She simply curled the corner of her mouth in a mocking smile and said, “If Sir can’t bear to part with me, how about I sleep with Sir for two years and then when you’ve had your fill, when you’re sick and tired of me, Sir can let me go?”
If her previous words were like a knife stabbing at him, these words now were almost as if she were carving at his heart.
She was deliberately provoking him with her words.
Could he, with all his desires and emotions, simply endure such disrespect?
The anger buried deep in his eyes finally surfaced. But instead of releasing her, he gripped her wrist even tighter.”
Xuening smiled sarcastically at Xie Wei, and told him,
“If Sir can’t bear to part with me, how about I sleep with Sir for two years and then when you’ve had your fill, when you’re sick and tired of me, Sir can let me go?”
If Xuening had been hoping for any sort of response, it wouldn't have been this. Xie Wei froze, an immortal figure carved from stone and made flesh. The unnatural stillness of the man she’d been gearing up for an argument with was beginning to send frissons of apprehension tingling down her spine. Other than his hand tightening his grip on her wrist, he didn’t seem to be blinking or breathing.
Finally, as she couldn’t bear the silence between them any longer, and was about to ask if he were well, he turned to look over the wall that they stood on. His blank stare was so devoid of all emotion that he really was beginning to frighten her. His voice was as somber as the crackling of paper money on a funerary brazier.
“And if I’m not sick of you in two years?”
Xuening would have answered flippantly before, thinking he was angry, and she had been ready to argue with him. Despite everything he’d done for her in this life, every sign of care, of attraction, that he showed, she’d expected him to reject her.
His ‘Your Majesty, please respect yourself.’, and his cruel ‘Get lost!’ whispered in her ear in her ear after he made her think he was going to kiss her, help her, in that past life, had never truly stopped echoing in the back of her mind. It echoed still, even though she currently wore a scarf to hide the marks his teeth had left on her skin. Without knowing what else to say, she responded with a subdued,
“Then for as long as it takes. I’m sure it won’t be long.”
Xie Wei continued with that same, dead tone, turning back to her, and she shivered - but not from the cold wind buffeting them.
“You won’t be able to marry anyone else if you do this.”
That was easy enough to answer honestly. She didn’t want to marry anyone other than Zhang Zhe, and he’d rejected her already.
“I don’t intend to marry at all, so Sir does not need to worry.”
He accepted this with that air of detachment, that same aura of nothing that he had donned like the winter cloak that made his tall form look so imposing.
“And if there is a child?”
Shuddering at the thought of bearing a child for this coiled viper of a man, she thought of her life with Shen Jie - despite his dedicated efforts, he’d never gotten a child on her. Xue Shu had fallen pregnant quickly enough, so the problem likely lay with her - not that she could tell Xie Wei that.
“There are ways to avoid pregnancy.”
Xie Wei turned her hand over in his palm, and began to lightly stroke the inside of her wrist, where her scar was. She didn’t like the parallel between that night with the ginseng soup and this, not at all. Without changing his expression, he threaded his fingers through hers as he started to walk back, pulling her along.
“Alright. Let’s go get started, then.”
Stumbling along behind him, Xuening thought of his lips on her ear, her neck. She thought of the roiling heat that had bubbled in her belly at being pressed against him so tightly that he was the only thing that kept her standing, and his ragged breaths behind her as he sought his release. She hadn’t loved Shen Jie and they had gotten on well enough. She hadn’t wanted Yan Lin but had learned to accept him anyway, rather than be hurt badly by him. She’d been willing enough to offer herself to the man pulling her along. She could do this.
Xuening nodded at a wide eyed Fangyin in apology, their shopping trip being cut short.
She could bear this. For the promise of freedom in a few short years, she could bear a great deal.
It was not the trial she’d expected. It had been awkward at first, Xie Wei obviously being unpracticed, and her having to feign the same. Her nerves came in handy there, at least, making her hands tremble and tears fill her eyes before she was even undressed. After they’d begun to find a rhythm, however, she discovered Xie Wei was a generous lover - seeking her pleasure over and over again with that singleminded, deadly focus of his.
For the next few weeks, she had no complaints. Outside of when he called her to sleep with him, which happened at about the same rate as him calling her for qin lessons , calling her to discuss business, or to feed her his transcendently delicious cooking so that she never knew what to expect, he treated her exactly like before. It was not at all uncomfortable, and fantasising about what she could do, where she could go when she was free, was a pleasant pastime rather than a desperate wish to escape. She would miss his cooking, but such was the price of freedom.
Things continued that way for months. The Princess had been rescued and returned to the capital, Zhou Yinzhi apprehended and an appropriately apologetic note was sent some time later to let the Jinyiwei know that Commander Zhou had met with an unfortunate accident on the road.
Xie Wei, Yan Mu and Yan Lin began to gear up for war.
Xie Wei had never given up on the idea of rebellion, after all, and the Yan family would follow his lead if only to visit vengeance on the Xue family, and out of guilt for not saving this wayward son of theirs. Xuening was glad to find herself largely removed from the plots this time. She was merely providing funds for the army to keep marching, and warming the bed of the man who commanded it from the shadows. He had begun to require her to attend him nearly every night now, but was always very solicitous of her comfort. She grew complacent.