ChengQing + "you're not the only one"?
Wen Qing sipped her tea in silence, waiting for Jiang Cheng to work up to whatever it was he was going to say. It was very good tea, so this was not a hardship.
"I don't want you to worry. This isn't—" Jiang Cheng paused, mouth working. "I'm not bringing a marriage suit to you."
Wen Qing's temper flared. "Why the hell not?" she snapped.
For months now after the door had opened on her Golden Scale Tower dungeon, freeing her and others of Jin Guangyao's clandestine prisoners, she and Jiang Cheng had been dancing around each other. When the Jin sect doctors cleared her to travel, she went first to Qishan, of course, to visit the cenotaph her brother and her cousin had established. But before she left Golden Scale Tower, the young Sect Master Jin had pressed a scroll into her hands. She had waited until she was on her way to unroll it, and found that it gave her free passage into Lotus Pier, stamped with the Jiang sect master's own seal. She'd thought he'd finally—
Jiang Cheng's voice was tightly controlled and formal. Wen Qing hated it. "I wouldn't place that burden on you. After what my Jiang sect has done to you, how could I ask you to be its mistress and spend your life with the man who destroyed your clan?"
"Is that what you think it would be?" Wen Qing set her cup down on the table with a clatter.
"I led the attack on the Charnel Pit back then," Jiang Cheng snapped. "I know what I've done."
"You're not the only one!" Wen Qing yelled, rising from her seat. "You're not the only one who compromised their principles for their clan! You think I didn't know what use Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangyao had for my expertise? For the sake of my family, I have been party to countless miserable deaths!" She slammed the table with her palms and was viciously pleased to see him startle. "What's the use of tallying our wrongs? After everything I've been through, shouldn't I have one thing I want?"
Jiang Cheng's mouth opened and closed soundlessly a few times. Wen Qing dropped back into her seat, breathing hard, and picked up her teacup again.
"You... want...?" he echoed weakly.
"I wanted you when my clan was killing yours, and when the remains of that clan were living on a mountain of corpses," she said morosely. "When in those days should I have indicated my interest to you?"
Jiang Cheng reached across the table and gripped her free hand in both of his. His eyes burned with emotion. "Now's a perfect time." He laughed, an almost giddy sound. It occurred to Wen Qing that she had never before heard him laugh. "If you really— If it wouldn't trouble you—"
Wen Qing grinned at him across the table. "I'll get you my eight characters."
Charnel Pit for 乱葬岗 is c/o dragongirlG's translation.
Eight characters 秊庚八字 indicate the year, month, day, and hour of a person's birth and are used to determine a couple's compatibility for marriage.
