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!
This has been also taken to ao3! I’m now posting the same chapter both here and on ao3.
Ficlets posted out of order:
Mo Ran 2.0: “you’re not Mo Ran”
Buy me a kofi!
Reminder that the 3 timelines are:
0.5: their first life together, in which Mo Ran and Chu Wanning are forced to marry. They are married for eight years.
1.0: Mo Ran and Chu Wanning are imprisoned together. Many things come to light and Mo Ran finally realises something about himself. However, Chu Wanning dies during their imprisonment.
2.0: Mo Ran comes back to life at the end of their fourth year of marriage. Our dumb husky has made up his mind to utterly spoil his white kitty.
New 2ha fic idea (who I’m lying, it’s been living rent free in my head since I read 2ha)
Mainly QWS-AU (backstory from The Story of Minglan), set.... sometime around the Song Dynasty, like Minglan, probably?
EDIT: There is now a masterpost and several ficlets here. 🍃
Mo Ran, the powerful, tyrannical Taxian general, is brought to the court for his crimes against innocents and for trying to rebel against the emperor. He’s sentenced to death. The people in his household can’t escape: enslavement for the women, death penalty or exile for the men.
However, in the immense harem of this general, there’s only Mo Ran’s husband left. The servants and the other concubines, both male and female, have long escaped since the imperial edict for Mo Ran’s arrest had arrived to the manor. Some had even provided the court with more evidence to escape their prosecution (将功折罪, to atone a crime with good deeds).
The general’s husband is no other than the previously renowned military and martial genius Chu Wanning. Since he had married Mo Ran, he had disappeared from the public eye, presumably his husband had forced his retirement.
For his past merits, he’s offered a pardon from the emperor himself, but Chu Wanning merely says: “Husbands should be as of one body, share both the sweetness and the bitterness (同甘共苦), in glory and failure.” Stubbornly, he gets himself in the same cell where Mo Ran was imprisoned. Said man is looking at him like he can’t believe what he’s doing.
The emperor is enraged: “don’t think that because you saved the country once you’re above the law!” Since Mo Ran was handed the capital punishment, and all his close relatives were involved, without the emperor’s pardon, Chu Wanning is to be sentenced along with Mo Ran.
Chu Wanning had saved the country in a mission in which he worked with Shi Mei, Mo Ran’s first husband. In said mission, Shi Mei dies. Mo Ran blamed Chu Wanning for the death of his husband, having witnessed how Chu Wanning left the scene where Shi Mei was gravely injured. However, for political reasons, the emperor issues an imperial edict for the marriage between Mo Ran and Chu Wanning a year later.
For all Mo Ran hates the situation, he can’t escape from it either. Instead, he forces Chu Wanning to retire, takes uncountable concubines and reduces his authority in the house to nothing. After 8 years of mistreatment, Chu Wanning’s health is frail when Mo Ran is imprisoned. In prison, they get to know each other and Mo Ran learns that Shi Mei’s death wasn’t Chu Wanning’s fault, and that somehow, in the years they had been married, he had fallen in love with his husband.
Chu Wanning dies in prison. Mo Ran is executed not long after, promising a better life for Chu Wanning in their next reincarnation.
Instead, Mo Ran wakes in the past: in the 5th year of his marriage with Chu Wanning.
Come in a doting Mo Ran, who has to make sure he isn’t accused and sentenced this time around, a confused Chu Wanning (who are you and have you done with my husband?) and a harem full of concubines with their own goals.
Taxian General: 0.5 Mo Ran. Imprisoned general: 1.0 Mo Ran. Reincarnated: 2.0 Mo Ran 😂
I’m currently writing another plot-heavy fic, so I’m keeping this here first. If I write it anytime soon it’ll be in ficlets, probably.
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.
***
If you liked it, please support me by reblogging! Thanks!
I just wanted to say I am absolutely taken by your 2ha ficlet as well! I even started reading "The wife is first" per your recommendation, and every new chapter I read all I think about is "ooh, this would fit so well with ranwan, what an amazing idea!" I really can't wait to read the rest of what you have written, thanks for doing this
Hi! Omgsh, thanks so much for the nice! I felt that since people might not know the series this au is based in, they might not take an interest to it! I write for my own pleasure, but it feels good to post it and see some response.
I’m glad you’re enjoying QWS. It’s really a comfort novel, like, each chapter feels so warm and nice! I reread some chapters when I’m feeling in the mood for some comfort without the hurt part (／ω＼) And the main characters are so similar as well, like JS is a bright boy on his way to take care of his hubby and JQ is the cold and aloof man who is like wtf every time JS does something for him. Besides, I really like the setting the author created for homosexual marriage.
I leave you here the main scene that was inspired in the novel, I hope you’ll like it!
Yearning willow masterpost ❤️
Mo Ran 2.0 (2)
Resurrection
Mo Ran snapped his eyes open.
Was he dead?
It was dark, a faint crimson undertone around him.
He was lying on something soft, something akin to a blanket covering him. He was warm and comfortable.
There was, however, had a faint pressure in his head, as a light hangover, and a frantic feeling in his chest, his heart beating hard and his breathing picking up. Did the spirits have the same sensations as the living? Mo Ran asked himself. Tentatively, he curled lightly his fingers. His fingers answered at his slightest order, with no difference to when he was alive.
Excruciatingly slow, Mo Ran moved his hand up his chest, and placed his hand over his heart.
It was beating.
Was he really dead? Or had Xue-bofu come up with something at the last moment, saving him? But he would swear that he had felt the knife in his neck, and the blood flowing out like a fountain.
Mo Ran glided his hand over the spot of his chest where the executioner had made the second cut. The skin was intact, no sign of a knife cut. Mo Ran frowned slightly, feeling that something was amiss.
His eyes were adjusting to the dark. Those were… curtains? Like a canopy?
As a thunderstruck, he realised what was amiss. He couldn’t feel his ribs. Instead, there was supple muscle under his hand, like he had before he entered the prison. In prison, the prolonged lack of food had led him to lose almost all muscle mass.
Startled, he sat on the bed. He felt… good, despite the headache. Better than he had in the last months. But it was more like… normal.
He was wearing a cosy night robe, partially open at his chest. Mo Ran opened his lapels, noticing dumbfounded that the blade scar he had got in a battle a couple of years before his imprisonment was nowhere to be seen. In fact, he had no injury other than some old scars. He was… intact. Whole.
Mo Ran was alive. Not just alive, but his body was in the state it was in several years back.
There was a huff of breath next to him.
Startled, Mo Ran looked to his side. A body lied next to him, with his back facing Mo Ran. There was another huff of breath as they stirred, apparently deep in sleep. They had long, silky hair extended over the pillow. He couldn’t determine if they were a man or a woman.
He was in a bed. Someone was lying next to him.
This wasn’t unknown to him. Quite the opposite, Mo Ran was very familiar with this setting. Also, he was recognising the place, his heart threatening to get out of his chest as his hand trembled from the force with which he clenched his night robe.
There was only one way to check it.
Putting a hand on the pillow to support himself, he reached over and peered at the face of the sleeping person next to him.
Rong Jiu.
Rong Jiu’s young, graceful face, with his tender and androgynous features.
They were lying in the canopy bed in Rong Jiu’s old rooms in his Nanping manor. He recognised now the crimson drapes with embroidered mandarin ducks. Now that he saw them again, the deep red colour still vibrant and new, he felt the same need to tear them down.
As he had before his imprisonment.
He threw another look at the man lying beside him, noticing the lovebites and the handprints on the skin that peeked out of the blankets. What’s more, there were fine rope marks on Rong Jiu’s wrists.
Weren’t those remarkably similar to his own handiwork!?
Mo Ran couldn’t bear to stay in there anymore, so he got up from the bed, letting the bed curtains fall closed. He was indeed in Rong Jiu’s old room, with the same red and gold decorations and rich fabrics with detailed embroidery. However, last year Mo Ran had made some renovations to make the room more spacious. The room looked as if he had never made them.
It was cold, and it was still dark outside, but he could see faint sun rays from the paper windows. The room was silent—not even birds were singing yet.
There was a mirror in a corner, and Mo Ran watched his own reflection.
Strong. Muscular. Tanned. Traits he lost when he was imprisoned. Yet the white hairs he had got when Chu Wanning got ill in prison had disappeared altogether.
Had he… had he gone back in time?
Mo Ran was confident that he had died at the execution grounds. But he had heard stories before. Stories of people who died under serious grievances, with the blessings of the gods, going back in time so they can start over with the knowledge of the future.
The realisation hit Mo Ran like a sack of stones, and he staggered, dizzy.
“Fuck!”
Gods hadn’t abandoned him after all. He had another opportunity.
Another opportunity.
His voice, however, finally rose the sleeping beauty resting in the bed.
“Hum… Houye… You woke up so early today.”
Mo Ran’s gaze was icy when he looked back at the man sitting up on the bed. Years ago, he had received Rong Jiu as a gift from Viscount Chang. He had liked him and took him in as a concubine. In the end, Rong Jiu proved to be an internal spy all along, and provided the court with more evidence of Mo Ran’s wrongdoings to expiate himself with good deeds. Viscount Chang had brought him back when Mo Ran was imprisoned and got himself some merits from the emperor.
How he had fallen for the tricks of this little vixen!
He had been so blind to find attractive an androgynous and seductive beauty like Rong Jiu. It was nothing like the beauty of his husband, his Wanning…
Chu Wanning. If Mo Ran was back, that meant that Chu Wanning was back too?
Rong Jiu noticed that Mo Ran looked gloomy and unwilling to talk to him, but merely thought that he might be in a foul mood.
“Houye, did you not sleep well last night? Did you have a bad dream?”
I died, moron. That’s a bad dream in its own right.
Since Mo Ran still showed no signs of talking or approaching him, Rong Jiu raised, draping a robe on his shoulders, and hugged him from behind.
Mo Ran fought his first instinct to shake the treacherous man from his back. He wanted nothing more than to shake him off and slap him until he vented his anger. Yet, for the time being, it would be best if he were careful and treated everyone as if they knew nothing—at least until he got more information about his own situation.
Besides, he should care about his marquis reputation, just in case. His reputation as an immoral who did anything he pleased was the reason people had been so ready to believe that Mo Ran had tried to dethrone the emperor in his past life.
In his past life, Chu Wanning used to advise him to be humbler and keep a low profile, but he hadn’t heeded his advice. Later, he’d realise the kindness behind his words.
“How about I ask servants to prepare breakfast for you? Congee and fried buns sound good?”
Finding himself unable to talk, Mo Ran simply nodded his head.
Rong Jiu called a servant and went on his well-practiced routine with Mo Ran, preparing boiling water and clean clothes. Mo Ran merely observed him. The man really hadn’t changed in the past years.
If everything was real, if Mo Ran was back in the past, then everything had yet to happen. Mo Ran had yet to lose his title and his estate, he had yet to die, and Chu Wanning… Chu Wanning was still alive. He could still fix things with him before it was too late.
Rong Jiu had been taken into the manor in his second year after his marriage with Chu Wanning, so he knew he was already married to him.
“What day is it?” Mo Ran asked Rong Jiu as he approached him with his thick outer robes in dark blue and lined with grey rabbit fur.
Judging by the cold, it was around winter, but that alone wasn’t enough information.
“Third day of the tenth month, houye. Today’s the beginning of the winter.”
“Dingyou year?” He guessed it should be around that time.
“Yes, houye,” Rong Jiu answered with a hint of amusement. “Did houye had too much to drink last night, that he has to ask about the year?”
Dingyou year. He was twenty-six years old, and he had been married to Chu Wanning for almost five years. He was back from his last big military campaign, earning the title of Taxian general from the emperor. The campaign had taken him barely a year and ended around… The Lantern Festival? Mo Ran remembered he had been back for that one. He had been back in Nanping-fu for almost a year then.
After his campaign against the north, everything had gone downhill. Mo Ran had been drunk on praises and riches, taking in five or six concubines every year, and allowing himself to do as he pleased. He had gotten into many fights, both private and in court, and he had estranged himself from the Xue family and Nangong Si.
He remembered how he had gone out of his way to make Chu Wanning miserable as well.
The servants brought in the breakfast and set the dishes on the table. Mo Ran took a seat on the low table and let Rong Jiu serve him a bowl of congee. He extended his hand to take the bowl and chopsticks, but Rong Jiu batted his hand away with a teasing gesture.
“I’ll serve houye his meal,” he said with a flirtatious smile.
Mo Ran merely stared at him, incapable to react at first. The wish to slap a few teeth out of that smile was so strong that Mo Ran almost acted on it. Then he remembered he should act normal, to avoid raising suspicion.
A slow, boyish smile appeared on his face, and opened his mouth when Rong Jiu approached the spoon to his lips. He used to fish out sputum from their prison’s meals, so no matter how disgusting he found to let the boy feed him, he had no trouble acting his role.
There were worse things.
He let the young man feed him three bowls and a half, alternating with bites of the fried pork buns, and then stopped him. It had been so long since he last had a full meal, that the need to finish every bit of food in sight was strong.
From what he remembered, he usually had two bowls of congee and a couple of buns for breakfast, but, in his mind, it had been half a year since he last ate to his heart content. His belly didn’t agree with him, feeling overstuffed, and Mo Ran stopped Rong Jiu before he got sick. He would get used to eating regularly again, he supposed.
He couldn’t help to scoff internally. Rong Jiu would give him whatever he asked, with no regard to what was actually good for him.
Mo Ran wanted nothing more than to ask about Chu Wanning (where was his husband?), but another manservant got into the room with his official robes, a heavy garment in deep purple and a tall, black hat.
Fuck. Of course, if he was back, he’d have to go to morning court.
“Take it away and call a doctor. I’m not feeling well,” he told the servant.
If he had to attend morning court, he should at least familiarise again with the current situation. To be safe, he should avoid it for a few days.
Rong Jiu looked at him with alarm.
“Why didn’t houye say anything earlier? Quick, go call a doctor!” Then he fretted around Mo Ran, pulling him to lie back in the bed.
Mo Ran batted Rong Jiu’s hands away—he was getting throughly fed up with Rong Jiu’s act, knowing that he fretted around him now, but news of his “illness” would spread to Viscount Chang before noon. Ignoring the look of incredulity in his concubine’s face, he wrote a leave of absence and gave it to the servant, telling him to take it to the palace.
“Tell the doctor to come to my office.”
He had no patience left to deal with Rong Jiu.
Nanping-fu was a siheyuan, a courtyard house, divided in a front courtyard and a backyard. The main door, Mo Ran’s office, guest parlour and the library were all in the front courtyard, open to guests, while everyone’s bedchambers, the family shrine, the kitchens, storage rooms and guest rooms were in the backyard.
All the chambers were arranged around an elegant inner garden in a square. The one positioned in the north stood among them as the main house, where was Mo Ran and Chu Wanning’s room.
The same room he had shared with Shi Mei. Mo Ran frowned, uncomfortable with the thought. He’d have to do something about it.
Mo Ran walked through the beautifully decorated pathways with slow, lingering steps. The last time he had seen the place, some servants had even turned the flowerpots upside down, some taking the valuable flowers and others taking the hand-carved pots.
On his way to his office, he passed the guest parlour. The mere sight of it brought bad memories to Mo Ran. It was there where he received the imperial edict ordering his imprisonment. With it, any woman in Nanping-fu could be enslaved and sold as a servant, and any man left in there was to be exiled. Though few fools were still there when the sentence reached it.
Fools like Chu Wanning, his stubborn husband.
“For his father’s past achievements, and his own contributions and military merits towards the empire, Chu Wanning, husband of the criminal Mo Ran, is granted a pardon. By the grace of the Son of Heaven, this marriage is rescinded. He is hereby allowed to return to his old post in the Censorate, retaining the goods he brought into the marriage!” The imperial eunuch had announced.
At the time, Mo Ran had thrown a hateful glance towards his husband. Had he stayed just to show off his pardon? Or did he stay to laugh at Mo Ran’s expenses? Or maybe it was both of them. At the time, it wouldn’t have surprised him; Mo Ran had made his life mission to make Chu Wanning’s life as uncomfortable as possible in the eight years they had been married.
Chu Wanning should be happy that the marriage was over.
That’s why the words Chu Wanning had said after kowtowing three times had utterly surprised him. His thin figure looked as if a strong current of wind could blow him away.
“I’m grateful for bixia’s magnanimous graces. But since this marriage was meant to unite the old and new nobility, nothing more would serve this purpose than letting the both of us get the same sentence as husbands. Husbands should be as of one body; we shall share both glory and failure.”
“What are you doing?” Mo Ran asked, absolutely bewildered. He was signing his own death sentence!
Chu Wanning hadn’t even looked at him, his head bowed to the floor—only the tips of his ears reddened as a sign of his fluster. Mo Ran’s eyes were red as well, his frustration and his pain long past the point of trying to fight for himself.
“I won’t leave Nanping-fu,” Chu Wanning had said.
At first, Mo Ran still thought it was a trick. That some imperial eunuch would come to the prison and announce that the joke was over and Chu Wanning could go and take back his post at the Censorate. But the imperial edict that came was instead that Chu Wanning was stripped of his titles and his possessions. Later, all doubts were erased when the prison guards interrogated him.
The need to see Chu Wanning was so enormous that Mo Ran could hardly breathe. It filled everything and grasped his heart, constricting it painfully. He had to see him and make sure… make sure that Chu Wanning was still alive. That this wasn’t a nightmare conjured by his dying mind, in which he came back to life only to find that Chu Wanning wasn’t there.
Or worse. A punishment set out by the hell judges, to let him live an eternal life in this nightmare.
A servant passed next to him carrying a basin of water, bowing to Mo Ran when he was a few steps away.
“Greetings, houye.”
“Hum,” Mo Ran said in all answer. The servant was about to go away, when he cleared his throat and asked off-handed, “where is furen?”
The servant merely looked at him, his eyes wide as plates. The fear pricked his heart hard, cold sweat forming on his back, and Mo Ran made a tight fist, waiting for an answer.
“F-furen?”
“Yes, where is he?” He asked, trying to conceal his anxiousness under his mask.
“H-he’s still kneeling in the shrine, houye, as you ordered him yesterday.”
Fuck.
***
Houye (侯爷): a respectful way to address a marquis (hou, 侯). It can be used by his spouse, concubines, servants, all those whose ranks are below him. People of his same rank and above may address him as “Mo-hou”.
Dingyou year （丁酉）: 34th year of the sexagenary cycle. It’s just a way to keep track of the time, because I don’t know in which emperor’s reign would this be based on XD
Nanping-fu (府): fu means “manor”. There was a distinction between what one could call their own house, and only nobles of certain level could call their homes “fu”. A lower level would be “zhai” 宅, while the higher level would be “gong” (宫，palace).
Furen (夫人): literally, “madam”. BUT, furen is made up of the characters 夫 (fu, husband) and 人 (ren, person). Being as nouns are only gendered because they’re historically tied to a certain gender, I think it’s fine to think that a furen can be a man, but in a position of deference towards their spouse.
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