I can't stop thinking of 0.5 Chu Wanning waking up to a 2.0 Mo Ran and their little girl (this is completely spoiler free btw, I'm on book 5 rn! It's just that I feel very emotional whenever I think about Chu Fei and I want him to be happy... Even if it's just for a bit)
He went to bed early last night because he was feeling ill. He'd rather sink into his lukewarm sheets and suffer there in silence than alarm the ever-unstable Emperor Taxian-jun. But, strangely, he woke up to find himself wrapped in two strong and warm arms, with a little thing tucked into his own.
Something is tickling his nose, and when he shifts his head, still half-asleep and lost, he feels something warm pressing against his lips.
It's the most chaste kiss he's ever received in his whole life.
When he opens his eyes, is to find a handsome man hovering above him, with sun-kissed skin and curly hair draping over his shoulders. He smiles warmly at him, murmuring sweet words as those beautiful twin pools of sweetness form at either side of his face. A bit at a loss, Chu Fei looks underneath him, just to find two big inky eyes looking unblinkingly at him, a purplish glint tainting the lower half. The little girl's face is pretty much like his, with straight hair framing her chubby cheeks. But, although straight, the colour is the same as Mo Ran's.
A strange feeling hits him all of a sudden. And before he even has the time to realise what is happening, he has already alarmed the other two.
“Baobei, are you alright?” “Baba, why are you crying?” Are the first things he hears coming from their mouths. He doesn't know when tears have started welling up in his eyes, much less when they have started slowly sliding along his fair skin, making it glow under the sunlight spilling through the window.
If he starts crying harder when Mo Ran holds him close and starts pressing soft kisses onto his cheek, letting him feel the steady pace of his heart, and if his breathing turns ragged when the little girl shuffles closer to him and starts massaging his temples carefully, he's not to blame. It hurts. It hurts even more than Taxian-jun's cruel behaviour.
How is someone accustomed to being abused supposed to react to this sudden warmth? How is he supposed to blithely accept these two beautiful people tearing off his defensive cocoon? He needs it. He knows this is but a dream. He will soon wake up to his lonely Red Lotus Pavilion, probably drowned in a high fever. He won't allow himself to feel happiness.
Yet, this Mo Ran tends to him with nothing but love, and it is so hard to simply ignore it. The moment the little girl leaves the room to “make breakfast for her sad baba”, he carefully holds him in his arms and asks him if he is not his Chu Wanning.
But his answer doesn't change his lovely attitude towards him at all. Instead, it somehow makes him softer.
Chu Wanning stays in bed as ordered. He simply stares quietly through the window, seeing the breeze gently rocking the leaves. A while after, his husband and daughter —well, the other Chu Wanning's husband and daughter, come into the room carrying his breakfast.
He shouldn't cry for something so simple. But the tears simply fall again. This time, he feels Mo Ran's callous pads tenderly sweeping them off his face.
What wouldn't he sacrifice to ensure Taxian-Jun came back to his senses? This version of Mo Ran... This version of him... How beautiful it was.
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