eve, hi! your 2ha-qws au is so so good! mo ran's regret and his thoughts of the underworld ("Maybe then he’d reach the underworld mostly intact, and he wouldn’t scare Chu Wanning too much when he saw him." my heart) are amazing. cwn's not even there and you can really feel based on mr's thoughts how much he sacrificed for mr. it's heartbreaking. i'm really happy you did a little fic with your idea. if you ever do more, i'll just have to sit and wait excitedly!
Hi, Lu! I’m glad you liked my qws-au! (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟI’m testing it out, since I’m writing something larger, but I couldn’t resist to writing it. Like, the busier I am in rl, the more inspiration I get OvO It has come to the point it has a more complete outline and a title (which means, unfortunately for my schedule, that I’m going to write this, albeit slower and in shorter segments).
I have named it “Yearning unwittingly breaks the willow branch” (无令长相思，折断杨柳枝), the phrase the fox demon tells Mo Ran when he hands him the box with Jiangui. Let’s leave it at yearning willow for short 😂
Willow branches in Chinese poetry, particularly broken ones, means “regretful parting”. It basically comes to “to yearn for the wrong person will lead to bitter partings”, which is 2ha and this fic summed up in 10 neat characters XD
I have a second chapter written, which I’ll probably post here this weekend, and it has enough length now (for my own standards) to be posted to ao3, which I’ll do this weekend as well.
I can’t stress enough how thankful I am for the interest you and other readers have taken into this fic! It’s really encouraging to find people that like what you write, so you have my eternal gratitude °˖✧◝(⁰▿⁰)◜✧˖°
As thanks, I offer you a ficlet. I hope you like it!
Yearning willow masterpost here 🍃
Mo Ran 2.0 (1)
“Who are you?”
“What do you mean, Wanning?” Mo Ran laughed, though his voice was constricted under the weight of his husband.
If anyone entered Honglian House now, they’d be taken aback by the sight. Or rather, they’d start preparing for the funeral of the marquis’ husband.
Mo Ran was lying on his back on the bed, his arms pinned tightly at his sides by Chu Wanning’s legs. Said man was striding his abdomen, a hand clutching a handful of Mo Ran’s hair, and the other one pressing a sharp dagger in his neck.
But Chu Wanning didn’t care, because this man wasn’t his husband.
“You’re not Mo Ran,” he said in a cold, sharp voice. “Who are you? A Northern spy? Or an Eastern assassin? What have you done with him?”
The man was wearing his husband’s face alright. He pulled tentatively at his hair, but it was rooted firmly in the scalp—the hair was real then. He examined his neck meticulously, but found no marks of a mask, nor trace of make-up.
However, Chu Wanning had read about the magic some Northern tribes practiced, of the many tricks Eastern kingdoms knew of espionage. He didn’t need to know what had been used exactly, because something was terribly amiss.
Instead of an answer, he stared at him with those dark eyes, with an almost purplish quality to them. So similar to Mo Ran’s, and yet, not his.
Mo Ran never looked at him with such tenderness.
He’d have never stood still under Chu Wanning like he was now. The real him would have thrown him down by now—gods knew Mo Ran had that strength—maybe even slapping or punching him, and he’d order Chu Wanning to kneel in the shrine to repent for his disrespect towards his husband. All of those would have been more agreeable behaviour, because it would be ordinary.
“Why do you think I’m not him?”
Chu Wanning sneered.
“You didn’t do your investigation very well,” he said, pressing the dagger more firmly against his neck and extracting a drop of blood. “Mo Ran doesn’t come to Honglian House on his own accord.”
The rest of it was too embarrassing to tell to an outsider, and much more to one that didn’t know the actual state of the relationship between them. He cooks sometimes, Chu Wanning thought, but never makes a portion for me. He would have never called a doctor to attend to me, nor would have him come to my bedside to see me.
If it was in his fancy, he’d have just taken Chu Wanning, doctor’s orders and his own agreement be damned.
Quick as lightning, Chu Wanning pressed down with his thighs when he felt him trying to extract a hand.
“Don’t move!” He snarled.
His legs trembled with the effort, and his knees protested under him, despite being supported by the soft mattress.
“Okay, okay,” the impostor acquiesced, relaxing under him. “See? I’m not moving. Don’t overexert yourself, you’re still recovering, okay?”
There was worry in his voice, Chu Wanning realised, his hand twitching where he was grasping his hair.
“What have you done with Mo Ran?” He asked again after a moment, trying to recover his senses.
If he spent a moment longer with this impostor that had Mo Ran’s face and voice, he’d go mad.
The impostor merely looked at him with a helpless gaze.
“I’m really not some impostor,” he said. Before Chu Wanning could say anything, he continued, “let’s see, what can I tell you to make you believe me?” He was deep in thought for a second. “Ah! You have a blade scar in your chest, just above your heart!”
Chu Wanning pondered on that, but shook his head almost immediately.
“You could have seen that when I was unconscious.”
Unnerving as it was, it seemed the impostor wasn’t in the slightest bit nervous, even though Chu Wanning hadn’t relaxed his hand on the dagger on his neck all this time. He merely looked at the canopy over them, as if he was being asked a question over tea.
“I remember…” he said, his voice much lower than before. “I remember that in our wedding night, we were like this, with Wanning on top of me.”
…
Like a cat bristled with water, Chu Wanning jumped backwards, jolting to the corner of the bed. The dagger fell on the floor resoundingly, and Mo Ran sat on the bed, smoothing out his rumpled clothes, with a boyish smile with dimples. The smile felt apologetic, and somewhat guilty, but Chu Wanning was too flustered to process that.
He…
He had to be Mo Ran. Only Mo Ran knew.
For all he had been a scoundrel since they married, he didn’t talk about the matters of the bedroom. Not to him, not to anyone.
Besides, in the months after their marriage, he had let many people believe he had gone directly to Mu Yanli’s room straight after the banquet, instead of coming to Chu Wanning’s first and then leaving for hers.
The night of his wedding. It was an unpleasant memory, and he pushed it far to the back of his mind.
He smoothed his own clothes as well, but kept himself in the far corner of the bed. For now, he should focus on what he could manage.
“You let me put a knife to your neck,” he said, incredulity swarming his features and his voice.
For much less he had been ordered to kneel in the shrine. However, the present Mo Ran didn’t show any indications of wanting to punish him. The young man picked up the dagger from the floor and put it on the low table in front of them.
The tray with food Mo Ran had brought was on top of the table. The food was still warm, still steaming—Chu Wanning’s attack had taken a short time. Mo Ran picked up the bowl of congee with minced sea bass and green onions and a spoon, and sat back on the edge of the bed, offering a spoonful to him with a bright smile.
“I know my Wanning would never hurt me.”
***
Honglian (红莲) means “red lotus”. It was the name of Chu Wanning’s pavillion in the novel.
If you liked this consider supporting me with a reblog!
I decided to try my hand at this AU! Hope you'll like it!
You can find the masterpost here. There's no need to have read QWS (Wife is First) or watched Minglan before, though I really recommend them (ﾉ´ヮ`)ﾉ*: ･ﾟ
Spoilers of 2ha, but not of QWS or Minglan.
Warnings: character death, knife, blood.
Mo Ran 1.0
Mo Ran’s execution
Mo Ran made no move to dodge the stones thrown at him. One hit his eyebrow, and blood dripped down his face.
There was a flare of pain. But it didn’t hurt.
Nothing hurt since Chu Wanning had breathed his last.
Stones and rotten vegetables continued to rain over him, as people shouted around the cart Mo Ran was being carried in. The cart was a cage with wheels, letting everyone see the proud Taxian general reduced to this sorry, pathetic state, with his head and hands bound in a cangue and kneeling in repentance.
The fearsome, all-powerful general, Hero of the North, Marquis of Nanping.
A tiger without claws and teeth.
“Wasn’t he the one who drove the northern barbarians out of our lands?” A woman said in the crowd, asking his husband with a hand on his arm. “That didn’t count for something?”
“Not anymore,” he answered, spitting on the floor, “not since he tried to overthrow the emperor.”
I didn’t, Mo Ran wanted to say. I didn’t do it, someone framed me.
Yet what would he get saying it? Would Chu Wanning come back from the dead?
If there was a way to bring him back, Mo Ran would do anything. He would let them parade him like this fifty times if it was necessary. Chu Wanning had been the most innocent party of all this plot someone had staged to bring Mo Ran down. To this day, Mo Ran still didn’t know who to blame. Who to hate.
Who was he trying to trick? The fault for this whole situation and Chu Wanning’s death, ultimately, lay in him.
But hate was more easy to manage. Sometimes, regret and shame threatened to gobble him whole when he remembered the last eight years. He had spoiled his concubines and neglected his lawful husband, letting him have the worst kind of life for a proud and soft-hearted man. The worst sort of man for the schemes and plots that lurked in a household like Mo Ran’s.
Chu Wanning should have left him behind, like his concubines and servants had done. Mo Ran wouldn’t have blamed him.
“Have you seen him?” A scholar admonished his child, a big eyed boy no older than five. “Be an upright man, never act like this beast.”
The child merely nodded his head, struggling to understand what Mo Ran had done to deserve such treatment from the public. They were throwing dirty things at him! That was a rotten egg splashed on the man’s back!
“Traitor! Bastard!”
“Worse than pigs and dogs!”
“I hope you die a horrible death!”
The last one almost sparked a bit of amusement in Mo Ran. After all, he was on his way to a horrible death, paraded through the city, all the way from the imperial prison to the execution ground. This parade should serve as a reminder and a warning to all citizens, the soldiers had said.
Though it was more likely just a good way to dispose of their spoiled food.
Something hit him on his temple. Mo Ran looked down. It was a carrot, wrinkled and soft. What a waste, Mo Ran thought. It was overripe, but mostly good. He would have given everything to have something like this to bring to Chu Wanning in his last days, when they either got a broth that was merely muddy water or a mouldy bao for the two of them every couple of days.
It was funny, Mo Ran concluded, with no trace of hilarity. When he was the influential and wealthy Taxian general, with the world at his feet and whatever riches he desired at the grasp of his hand, he had given nothing to Chu Wanning. Well, nothing if you didn’t count eight years of suffering and grievances. It was much later, when he had lost everything, that he wished he had given Chu Wanning more.
Even if just to improve his health.
Perhaps, if Chu Wanning had been more selfish, he wouldn’t have died, Mo Ran ruminated. Maybe he’d have demanded Mo Ran to give him what he was allotted to as the husband of a Marquis, and his health would have been better when Mo Ran’s household collapsed. Maybe he’d have never entered the prison to be with his husband, for a crime he had nothing to do with. Maybe he wouldn’t deceive Mo Ran and let him have all the food when it got scarce.
Baobei, it was my fault, Mo Ran thought often. He hoped Chu Wanning could get a swift passing in the underworld and get a good reincarnation. Was the underworld a cold place? He wondered. Chu Wanning hated the cold.
No matter. He’d find it out soon.
When one was lost in their own thoughts, time flied. In no time, they were already at the execution grounds, a tall and thick post in the middle of a dusty arena. People surrounded the place, eager to observe how they carried out the execution of the infamous Taxian general.
Lingchi. The death by a thousand cuts.
Mo Ran let the executioners tie him to the post, offering no resistance. Briefly, he asked himself if it would be long. When the sentence arrived at his cell, he had already lost all his money and power, so he couldn’t pay the executioners to make a first cut in his neck, letting him bleed out quickly. Besides, he hadn’t really cared at the time, too busy letting his grief swallow him whole.
Chu Wanning had died the day before.
As he was tied, the executioner brought out an imposing knife, as long as his forearm, and dipped the blade in salt water.
“It will be quick,” the man said gruffly. “General Xue paid for a swift death.”
Xue-bofu, Mo Ran realised with a startle.
After his imprisonment, Xue-bofu and Xue Meng had really exerted all efforts to get them out, but to no avail. Mo Ran had felt an intense guilt for his estrangement and disrespect towards them in the last years. When he had fallen to his darkest, only Nangong Si, his wife Ye Wangxi and the Xue family had stayed with him.
A quick execution must have cost his uncle dearly as well, he sighed. He was thankful it was the last time he’d imposed on them like this.
Mo Ran’s numbed senses took a while to feel the first cut.
It was a lick of fire, heated and intense on the front of his thigh. His nerves caught on the fire seconds later, every inch of skin burning and in pain. His leg trembled, and he knew he’d have fallen if they hadn’t tied him to the post. He didn’t scream, he still had that pride.
Distantly, he felt the blood trickling down his leg.
The next one was on his chest, and another one on his shoulder. A sliver of his old impatience and ire flickered up, and he threw a dark look to the executioners. Wasn’t it supposed to be quick?
One of them shivered under the weight of his gaze, but the other, the one holding the knife, merely shrugged with an impish smile.
“Lord Mo must understand this humble one…” he whispered, holding in a snicker. “It’d look suspicious if we made it too quick and this humble one would get into trouble.”
Bah. Mo Ran merely closed his eyes and turned his head the other way. It wasn’t as if he could actually do anything about it. Let Xue-bofu ask him for a refund once Mo Ran was dead.
Though it didn’t ease his disappointment at the loss. He had allowed himself a bit of hope that he’d die before they degraded his body to the utmost. Maybe then he’d reach the underworld mostly intact, and he wouldn’t scare Chu Wanning too much when he saw him.
Given the circumstances, it’d be best if the deities sent him directly to hell, instead of letting his husband see his wretched state.
Finally, when Mo Ran had lost count and his forehead was covered in sweat, the executioner reached his knife to Mo Ran’s neck. Probably he found disappointing that he didn’t scream and decided to end things before lord Xue could complain to him.
As the blood covered him, Mo Ran was freezing. He was cold before, but now the chill bit into his flesh and seeped into his bones. He could feel his heart beating frantically in his chest, and his breathing catching up, trying to get more blood flow to his body. At least he was no longer in pain.
His eyelids weighted a lot. Soon, he had trouble opening his eyes, and the blood loss made him dizzy and sleepy.
Well. It wasn’t as if he wanted to open them again.
Wanning… it was my fault… will you forgive me?
You were a man of unmeasurable genius and grand ambitions… yet you had to spend your days locked up in the manor, like a forgotten toy in a corner.
I’m sorry…
If there’s a next life…
I will make it up to you.
***
Cangue: it was a device designed for public humilliation and punishment in Ancient China (and not so ancient times too). It's a must in c-dramas.
Bofu (伯父): uncle, especifically, father's elder brother. Remember Lan Zhan's shufu? That's your father's younger brother. Chinese genealogy 😂
Lingchi (凌迟): it's literally "death by a thousand cuts". People did pay executioners to make a cut on the prisoner's neck, asking for a quick death.
***
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