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.
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.
***
If you liked it, please consider supporting me with a rb!
So, when I was writing about CWN kneeling in the shrine, I realised I had some misconceptions about where everything was in a siheyuan (*/▽＼*) thus, I went to do some research!
Pictures were either taken from an old edition of The Dream of the Red Chamber 红楼梦 (these pictures are everywhere, but I couldn't find the exact source) or from google. If any of you know them, please tell me!
First of all, here's a picture of Nanping-fu (I hope the quality gets better if you click on it):
This is a drawing mixing the structure of Jia-fu in The Dream of the Red Chamber with the blueprint of a late Qing princess' residence.
(More information and pictures below the cut!)
Nanping-fu was a four-tier siheyuan. From the main door to the backyard, there were four courtyards surrounded by buildings, all interconnected with roofed pathways. The four courtyards had each a main building, which were, from south to north, the festoon gate, the shrine, the hall and the main house. All of them had the same dark grey pitched roofs and crimson pillars, and the floor was paved with the same cool grey stones.
Each courtyard was shaped as an elegant square garden. On his way from the backyard, Liuyan House—where Rong Jiu shared residence with the other concubines—to his office, Mo Ran passed next to the main house, Yihong Hall—his own residence.
On the eastern side of Yihong Hall was Honglian House, Chu Wanning’s home.
To summarize, we have from outside to inside:
The shrine: Danxin Hall (丹心殿)
The main hall: Shuijian Hall (水鉴殿)
The main house, where Mo Ran lives: Yihong Hall (怡红殿)
The eastern house, where Chu Wanning lives: Honglian House (红莲居)
The western house: Cunju House (存菊堂)
The backyard: Liuyan House (柳烟阁)
And some more I’ll add once the plot moves forward.
The "tiers" make reference to how many doors there are. From the front door to the festoon door, there's a small courtyard where servants used to live, so that counts as one courtyard (一进院). From the festoon door to the shrine there's a second courtyard, from the shrine to the hall there's a third and from the hall to Mo Ran's Yihong Hall there's a fourth.
Strictly speaking, the backyard counts as a courtyard as well, but five-tier courtyard were usually for higher ranking nobles. Of course, later in history there were also six-tier and seven-tier courtyards, and there was always the possibility to extend the gardens or the houses to the left or to the right.
This picture is from Pinterest (again, found no source), but I added some changes to it.
Generally speaking, siheyuan were organised as this picture shows (bear in mind that that's a two-tier), I'll just add that usually all the women lived in the back courtyard (concubines, daughters), at the innermost structure, keeping them secluded. Side halls were for sons only.
Some other notions regarding Nanping-fu:
The most honourable position is right in the center. That's why the shrine, the main hall and the owner's hall (Mo Ran, in this case) are all aligned in the center line. The garden was a later add-on.
The main hall is used to receive guests and to hold important events. Along with the shrine, these are the most important places in a siheyuan, and the most grand and solemn places.
Besides, the best position is “sitting in the north, facing the south”. Houses facing the south are the best because they get more light during the day. Servants, however, live in the quarters at the southern wall, facing the north, which is much darker.
Right after the center is the eastern side (which, from their perspective, would be the left). The legal spouse, or zhengshi, usually has their rooms at the eastern side of the owner's hall. In Nanping-fu, that would be Honglian House, Shi Mei's and, later, Chu Wanning's home. The western one is usually for the children, but since Mo Ran doesn't have children, a high-position concubine occupies it.
The rest of the concubines live in the backyard.
Now, about the rooms, I'm using as references pictures from The Dream of the Red Chamber (beware I'm not using the spaces as they were intended in the Dream of the Red Chamber).
This would Mo Ran's room at Yihong Hall. Mo Ran would usually sleep in the bigger bed as the western/left side, and if he got tired of whoever was keeping company that night, he could send them to sleep in the bed at the eastern side.
This would be Chu Wanning's room in Honglian House. The rest of the concubines room would be like this one, but without the library at the right side (with only two spaces: a entrance hall and the bedroom).
Now some pictures from google to illustrate the colours and how the courtyards were arranged!
But I tend to imagine the interiors as they were pictured in Story of Minglan.
I like this last one a lot. Because there would be no electricity and everything was lit with candles, the room would get rather dark in the nights. Yet it looks very rich and rather sensuous, with the darkness clouding your sight of the bed.
As Xue Zhengyong had said, even though Mo Ran barely knew how to write and read when he arrived to Xue-fu, he was a bright boy and made impressive progress in short time.
At the beginning, Chu Wanning used to sit with him to teach him to write.
First, he taught him how to write his name. Then, the names of his parents, so he could abstain from naming them.
In retrospective, Chu Wanning should have found it strange that he allowed Rong Jiu to serve him without changing his name.
Mo Ran made excellent progress, and in two months they were already moving on to easy poems, so he could learn new characters and some literature. At least Mo Ran didn’t call Sun-zi “that grandson” again, if only to avoid Xue Meng’s scorn.
“Shizun, shizun,” Mo Ran called him, “can you write that again? I didn’t catch the strokes.”
“Fine,” Chu Wanning said, “but you have to try for yourself after this time.”
Yet, Chu Wanning noticed Mo Ran was looking at him instead of looking at the paper when lifted his head again. Was there something on his face? He frowned. Maybe the ink had splashed on his cheek?
He wiped his face self-consciously as Mo Ran tried on his own again. Chu Wanning followed his strokes with a critical eye, clicking his tongue when Mo Ran drew a stroke wrong again.
Instead of demonstrating again, he simply moved over and used his own hand to cover Mo Ran’s, guiding his hand through the motions.
Mo Ran’s hand was warm under his own.
“Steady your hand. The last stroke here goes from right to left,” he said, moving their hands together as he spoke, “with a flick of your wrist.”
Mo Ran hummed absentmindedly, watching the elegant and clear characters Chu Wanning had written next to his own disproportionate and messy strokes.
“Shizun, please come here and have a look at mine!” Xue Meng called from the other side of the room.
“Practice on your own,” Chu Wanning told him, as he went to have a look at Xue Meng’s calligraphy.
When he came back at Mo Ran’s table a while later, he was still contemplating the lines Chu Wanning had written for his reference.
辛苦最怜天上月，一夕如环，夕夕都成玦。
若似月轮终皎洁，不辞冰雪为卿热。
“I pity most the moon, working hard in the sky;” Mo Ran read under his breath, munching on the words. “Round like a jade bracelet on one night, while flawed night after night.”
Chu Wanning nodded approvingly to himself. It was quite good that he knew them all already, even though “bracelet” and “flawed” were new characters he had just learnt today. Mo Ran looked up from the table and smiled at him.
“Could I ask shizun to read the other lines for me?”
With a nod, Chu Wanning read the other two lines for him, sitting down again next to his student. His other students were all concentrated in their own texts. Except Xue Meng, who called for him often during their lessons trying to get back the attention of his esteemed teacher, Shi Mei and Nangong Si had taken graciously Mo Ran’s arrival.
“If life was like the moon, it would eventually turn full and bright again, I wouldn’t decline to freeze my body with ice and snow to quell your fever for you.”
“Shizun, what does this poem mean?” Mo Ran asked.
By now, Mo Ran knew he shouldn’t take words at their face value. Chu Wanning had a predilection for using poems to introduce new characters, because it didn’t just show new characters to him. Poems had an easy rhythm, and it could teach him literature and history at the same time.
“The poet wrote these verses lamenting the passing of his deceased wife,” Chu Wanning explained. “He claimed that most of the time, the moon is flawed, but it will eventually return to a perfect full moon once a month. However, once a loved is dead, no matter what efforts he could make, they’d never come back to life again.”
Mo Ran hummed in understanding. For a second, Chu Wanning thought he had seen a twist in his mouth, but a second later Mo Ran was back to his usual dimpled smile.
“Why would he take such a roundabout way to say that he’s sad?”
Instead of an answer, Chu Wanning scowled and pierced him with his eyes. Mo Ran had shown no appreciation for the art of poetry, and he wouldn’t no matter what Chu Wanning brought to class, and he made his opinion widely known.
However, despite just knowing Chu Wanning for a couple of months, Mo Ran showed no sign of fear and just giggled at him.
“Get back to your work.”
***
Since Chu Wanning met Mo Ran not long after he arrived to Xue-fu, he was also present when Mo Ran met Shi Mei, at his first lesson with all of his students.
At times, he wished he could forget about them.
***
It was considered taboo to pronounce certain names, like your parents' names and the emperor's.
The poem is “Butterfly in love with the flowers”, by Nalan Xingde.
***
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Mo Ran punched the wall so hard that it trembled under his fist.
How dared he!? The fucking waste of a space the man was, he dared to call himself a doctor!? Son of a bitch! Ass-licking bastard! He remembered the man’s fawning face and calculating eyes—he had been the one to attend Chu Wanning while they were married. Chu Wanning’s state when he entered the prison was for sure related to this man’s “care”!
Mo Ran pressed a hand to his mouth, trying to control his rapid breathing. The fucking rat… Mo Ran had half a mind to chase after him and let him taste the edge of his sword! He would do the people a favour if he just killed the conniving rat! Disgusting bag of fleas!
His hands pressed into tight fists. Mo Ran was trembling hard from the sheer rage he was feeling right then, hearing his heart beating furiously in his eardrums.
As the saying goes, rats and snakes nest together, he thought darkly, his eyes darting to the western house he knew was at the other side of the courtyard. He could always just light the nest on fire and get rid of all of his problems. A dark, wicked pleasure arose in his chest at the idea, imagining already the screams and the pleas for mercy.
As if Mo Ran had any mercy left in his body. They had taken it away when they took Chu Wanning from his side, so now they’d pay. Everyone would pay. Now that he knew what was going to happen and how, no one could stop him! He’d destroy their lives just like they had destroyed his. He’d stomp them under his feet and have them beg him on their knees!
Since Mo Ran didn’t get a good end, they would have to follow him to hell! He’d made them taste the same desperation, the same impotence and helplessness he had suffered while they wished for a death that wouldn’t come.
He’d… he’d…
Wait.
Mo Ran stopped his train of thought.
He recognised this darkness, this voice in his head that persuaded him to follow his basest, most violent desires.
Fuck. Of course, he had just woken in this body. Last time, it had taken a few days to clear his system out, though he didn’t remember exactly how many. Days blended together when one was imprisoned in a prison cell.
When was the last time he had been in the snake’s nest?
Mo Ran pressed his hands on his face and took a deep breath. And another. And another. He controlled his breathing, counting each inhale and each exhale, calming his mind until he no longer felt his heart beating wildly in his chest. When he lowered his hands, he no longer resembled a demon on earth, though ambers of rage still flickered in the depth of his eyes.
Revenge would have to wait until he made sure that whatever he did wouldn’t splash dirt or blood on Chu Wanning. His husband didn’t need those stains on him.
His only goal this time around was to make sure Chu Wanning got out unscathed of the mess Mo Ran had made.
Mo Ran observed his husband again for a long moment, before placing his exposed hand back under the covers. He tucked the quilt securely under his body so he wouldn’t shake the quilt off if he kicked his legs while he slept.
Chu Wanning’s breathing was still just as laboured as before, and his colour hadn’t improved one bit. Worriedly, Mo Ran put a hand on his feverish face, pushing the lone strands of hair away from his forehead. His palm was so big that it almost engulfed the elegant lines of his husband’s face when he pressed tenderly his hand against his cheek.
His thumb caressed Chu Wanning’s cheekbone, light as a feather. Whatever he did, he’d have to be careful, but his mind wasn’t in the right state to make sensible decisions. First, he’d have to look for a reliable doctor for him. He knew Chu Wanning wouldn’t die from this—after all, he had survived long enough to accompany him to prison—but Mo Ran wouldn’t take any chances with his health.
Any other plan could wait. From now to his impeachment there were four, almost five years. He had time to take measured steps, to remove the pests that plagued his home. Whatever he did, he had to ensure Chu Wanning’s safety first.
Besides… there was something wrong. Mo Ran felt irked. As if he was being observed. He scoured the bedroom, but they were alone.
Before Mo Ran could think about it further, voices reached him from outside the room.
“Ji-xiaojun! Ji-xiaojun! Where are you going!? Please stop, these are furen’s rooms! You can’t behave like this here!” A girl’s voice exclaimed. It started far away, but it quickly reached the doors, just like the noise of several sets of footsteps.
“Out of my way,” a man’s cold voice answered, “as if you cared about furen and his dignity. Don’t you dare lecture me.”
Mo Ran rose. Here comes one problem, he thought, squinting his eyes.
There was a shadow reflected on the white paper of the door. Someone was leaning on the door, holding it closed.
“Please, Ji-xiaojun, furen is sick! You can’t just barge in here!”
“How would you know if furen is sick? You were on your way to Honglian House from the servants’ quarters. Now, get away from the door or I’ll have Xiarong[1]drag you away,” the man said. He didn’t raise his voice, but the steeliness of his voice vowed for the intent behind his words.
Mo Ran had enough. His frustration and his anger hadn’t even receded completely, and now these lowlifes dared to quarrel right under his nose. In two strides, he got to the door and opened it with force.
The maid at the other side almost fell back at the sudden loss of her support, barely catching herself on the door frame on time.
“What is this ruckus?” Mo Ran asked, staring harshly at the maid.
“Houye!” the young man and the maid exclaimed almost at the same time. However, the maid’s voice was heavily tinged with fright, whereas the young man’s reflected a deep surprise.
There was an entire entourage outside, but Mo Ran’s eyes fell on the girl on the floor first. He recognised the maidservant as the first rank maid in charge of Honglian House, a slender and pretty young girl, no older than twenty, with high cheekbones and thick lips.
“Where have you been until now, huh?” Mo Ran berated her, his anger burning anew at the sight of her. “Do you think that Nanping Manor is feeding you for free!? Fucking useless bitch!”
The girl fell to her knees, her head hanging low.
“X-Xinjing[2]is sorry, houye, I-I was…”
“Get to work! Don’t let me catch you loafing on your job again or else I’ll flay your skin off! Do you understand me!?”
“Y-Yes, houye,” the maid said, scurrying in.
Mo Ran stood there, trying to get a rein of himself. He shouldn’t have yelled right in front of so many people.
Well, everyone knew something had changed, since he had carried Chu Wanning out of the shrine and he had chased the doctor out, so he could just break the cracked pot and think of a countermeasure later.
The group was led by a young man wearing his hair in the half-updo that was customary among the men who married in deference to their husbands—concubines, or, like Chu Wanning, the one in submission in a marriage between men. The young man’s face showed his astonishment at his behaviour, though his raised eyebrows and almost bulging eyes didn’t cover his handsome features.
Mo Ran instantly recognised his slightly raised peach-blossom eyes, which gave people an impression of anger, and fine eyebrows, with a cinnabar dot on his brow.
Ji Baihua.
Immediately, Mo Ran relaxed his shoulders a tiny fraction. He had almost forgotten about this man—his harem had grown so much at the end of his life that he no longer kept count of those he didn’t favour. But he had some memories of him, because when Nanping Manor had fallen in his first life, Ji Baihua was one of the few who had remained. Mainly because he had nowhere to go.
This was a man he could trust not to stab them in the back: Ji Baihua was a concubine lady Wang had sent him, a man loyal to Xue Manor and, subsequently, to Nanping Manor.
While he was reminiscing, Ji Baihua had overcome his astonishment and lowered on one knee to greet him properly. Behind him, a maid and a young boy followed suit and an old man with a doctor’s case kowtowed to him, pressing his forehead to the ground, so Mo Ran could only see his grey bun on top of his head.
“Greetings, houye,” they said.
“Rise,” Mo Ran said, keeping his voice tone brisk and short, as if his presence annoyed him. If he suddenly changed his attitude towards Ji Baihua out of the blue, people would think he had gone mad overnight. “What are you doing here?”
Ji Baihua didn’t get up. Instead, he lowered further and dropped his head low.
“I noticed furen didn’t look wellyesterday morning, when we paid our respects to him. Since houyelet him out earlier magnanimously, I acted on my own and invited doctor Ren Kang[3] fromthe Imperial Academy of Medicine. I dare supplicate houye to…”
Doctor Ren Kang!
“Please, come inside, doctor Ren,” Mo Ran said, interrupting Ji Baihua, who threw him another confused look.
Mo Ran didn’t see the sheer bewilderment in Ji Baihua’s eyes, because he had stepped forward to support the doctor as he rose to a standing position. Doctor Ren was an old man in his fifties, with a head full of grey hairs and hooded eyes. He looked exactly the same as he did in Mo Ran’s memories—though the one Mo Ran had met in his first life was a few years older.
“This humble one greets houye. May a thousand blessings be with you, houye,” the doctor said with a steady voice and bowing deeply, with an attitude that was neither overbearing nor servile.
“I’ll have to trouble doctor Ren with furen’s health,” Mo Ran said, pulling him inside without looking at Ji Baihua twice.
Without further ado, they stepped inside. Ji Baihua rose slowly, and, accompanied by his maid, he followed them inside.
Xinjing was picking up some of the mess around Chu Wanning’s bed, creating enough free space so she could put a thick cushion on the floor next to the bed for the doctor to kneel on.
“Leave,” Mo Ran told her, expressionless, as the doctor took out his tools.
The servants were already used to the sudden changes in Mo Ran’s instructions—gods knew that he had become volatile and temperamental beyond recognition after Shi Mei’s death. However, Xinjing’s mouth twitched.
“But who will serve if Xinjing leaves?”
She regretted her words as soon as they left her mouth, as she glimpsed the fury that rose again in Mo Ran’s eyes.
“The servants in this household are becoming more and more capable as each day passes,” Mo Ran said with a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “They dare question their master’s decisions now. If you must know, isn’t Ji Baihua right here to serve furen and me?”
Xinjing fell to her knees again, ready to apologise again, but before she could say a single word, Mo Ran interrupted her.
“Ji Baihua,” he said, his voice cold and sharp as a sword. Behind him, he heard clothes rustling, and his concubine’s face appeared in his field of vision. “Lend me your boy.”
“Yes, houye.” The other man called, “Xiarong!”
“No, no, houye, please have mercy! Houye, please have mercy!” Xinjing exclaimed, her face white as chalk and her voice trembling with fear. She kowtowed repeatedly, knowing this wouldn’t end well for her.
An agile boy leaped in the room in seconds and bowed to Mo Ran.
“Drag her out to the courtyard, and slap her face twenty times! I want her kneeling outside until midday,” Mo Ran said, without batting an eye. “Let everyone know that if anyone dares to laze around and question my orders, this is what will happen to them!”
“Yes, houye!” The boy said, proceeding to drag the girl out by her underarms.
Xinjing trashed around, trying to stop him to no avail. The boy was more than used to heavy jobs and had no trouble taking her out.
“No, houye, please, have mercy! Xinjing is wrong, this servant knows it! Please, houye!”
Her screams followed them all the way out, until the sound of the first slap reached them, and her cries for mercy turned into pained yelps and sobs.
“One!” the boy called out from outside.
Mo Ran acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. To put in order Chu Wanning’s house, he would set an example to start with. No one would dare to disregard his care for the short term, but this wasn’t the way to go in the long run. Whether his rage at his husband’s state of inattention of neglect had set the punishment higher, was a whole another issue that Mo Ran, honestly, wasn’t much bothered about.
The doctor had been working on getting his tools out with steady hands, without batting an eye. He was truly an unwavering man—others in his place might be already trembling.
Returning to his post beside the bed, he saw Ji Baihua throwing a meaningful glance to his maid, who cleverly took his hint and left the room, closing the door behind her just as another cry of pain reached them.
“Two!”
***
Ji Baihua observed everything, even though his expression didn’t change. The marquis was behaving… unusually today. Unusually to say the least—terrifically wrong would be more exact. It was as if… as if he wasn’t the same person.
Just yesterday, there had been yet another ruckus in Honglian House, which ended with the furen serving a punishment in the shrine yet again. Though Ji Baihua didn’t know what had caused their argument this time, he had perceived no anguish from houye at furen’s discomfort the day before. He had announced loudly for all servants to hear that furen had to stay three days in the shrine and no one was allowed to bring him food until his time was up.
Then, he had gone straight to Rong Jiu’s rooms. That son of a bitch never missed an opportunity to seduce the marquis to his rooms, and an angry houye was a houye in need of an outlet.
A night at Rong Jiu’s rooms. That was all that happened.
Ji Baihua couldn’t wrap his head around what could have transpired during the night. He knew better than to expect the little bastard to open his mouth to plead for furen’s case. If anything, Rong Jiu mastered the art of adding firewood to the fire and pouring oil into the flames.
On the surface, nothing had changed. The marquis was just as fickle as ever, as his words to the maid had proved, and equally mercurial and unpredictable.
However, he had brought his husband out of the shrine—Ji Baihua almost hadn’t believed it when his maid told him she had bumped into houye screaming for a doctor for furen. He was allowing a doctor to attend to him. Ji Baihua was ordered to stay. And the marquis himself was staying.
Just these were enough to make Ji Baihua’s mind swarm with turbulence and befuddlement. Though he had married into Nanping Manor for less than a year, he had seen and heard enough to know a few things. First, the marquis hated furen. Second, the marquis disliked Ji Baihua. So for him to ask a doctor to attend to furenand to ask him to stay…
Yet he was used to hiding his emotions, so none of his questions or his surprise showed on his face. Instead, he helped the doctor by placing furen’s hand on the wrist cushion and a silk handkerchief on the bony wrist. Sensibly, he stepped where he could wait on them without being a nuisance.
Now that the door was closed, not a peep from outside could be heard. All the houses in Nanping Manor were soundproof, which was a blessing because the concubines’ rooms were next to each other. Ji Baihua would rather live without hearing Rong Jiu’s voice at nights. Or anyone else’s.
Unlike him, the marquis had taken a seat close to the bed, and everything from his frown and pursed lips to his tapping foot spoke of impatience and a deep anxiousness.
Doctor Ren was one of lady Wang’s old friends and clients. Lady Wang sold herbs and medicinal plants to many doctors in the capital, and among them, she spoke highly of doctor Ren’s abilities and discretion—to be an imperial doctor, and a successful one after two decades to top, one had to have more than just vast knowledge and abilities.
When Ji Baihua heard furen had been punished to the shrine despite his illness—truly, the man could try to fool everyone, but Ji Baihua had a trained eye for illness—he sent a note to the doctor, to ask him to be prepared to come to Nanping Manor. Lady Wang had asked him to take care of furen, so Ji Baihua would do his best, including calling the best doctor he knew.
Though he couldn’t have imagined that the time would come so soon.
Doctor Ren stayed silent for a long time, taking furen’s pulse. Then, covering his fingers with the handkerchief, he examined furen meticulously, from his eyes, to his mouth and tongue, to the nail beds on both hands.
While the doctor worked, Ji Baihua inspected the room discreetly out of the corner of his eye. It was the first time he was in furen’s bedroom, since concubines usually gathered at the entrance hall of Honglian House. As the second largest house in Nanping Manor, HonglianHouse was separated into five spaces. The central one was the entrance hall, at the western side was his bedroom and at the eastern side there was a study, with a calligraphy table and a guqin stand, though the guqin was absent.
The entire house was a mess. Usually, the maidservants kept a minimum order, but whenever furen was absent for any reason, the servants would slope off to the servants’ quarters or the kitchens. Honglian House was a beautiful house, decorated with rosewood furniture with red as an accent, very elegant against the heavy cream curtains that separated each space in the house and the simple ink paintings displayed on the screens. Just that… everything had the mark of wear, some more visible than others, and there was so much clutter everywhere that he could barely see any of the furniture and the carpet—Ji Baihua sighed to himself that to get so much clutter in just a couple of days… was truly a feat on its own.
Though the painting on the other side of the house was very much visible from where he stood. Ji Baihua turned his sight away from it, uncomfortable.
However, the doctor started asking them some questions, so Ji Baihua’s inspection ended.
“Has furencomplained of dizziness, shortness of breath, weariness or palpitations?” He asked first, with his brow slightly furrowed. Though he wasn’t looking at the marquis, it was clear it was him he was asking.
“I-I don’t know,” the young man said, turning at Ji Baihua.
“Furen hasn’t complained of anything… he doesn’t talk much about himself either.”
The doctor hummed, saying nothing.
“How long has he been this pale?” He asked then, observing the back of furen’s hand.
“I don’t remember,” the marquis murmured, looking yet again at Ji Baihua.
“He has always been this pale since I married in, more than half a year ago.”
“Does he have injuries?”
The marquis turned really red when the doctor asked a last question, but yet again the doctor was met with an “I don’t know”.
After the third question, the doctor asked no more, probably knowing that no matter what he asked, he’d be met with half-assed answers like Ji Baihua’s. Or worse, another “I don’t know” from the marquis. If he pressed too much, embarrassment could easily turn into anger with arrogant people like the marquis, and people like doctor Ren and Ji Baihua knew that well.
Neither Ji Baihua nor the marquis made a sound if the doctor didn’t talk first, letting him work in silence. Still, when the water clock marked that a quarter had passed, the young man was defeated by his impatience.
“How is he, doctor?” He asked with tone Ji Baihua had never heard from him.
So the fierce Taxian general did know of the word “fear” after all.
“Furen’s health has visibly worsened since I last checked on him five years ago,” the doctor said unhurriedly, taking out a needle from a linen case filled with long and bright silver needles. With gentle but firm hands, he punctured the patient’s index finger and observed the drop of blood.
“You have attended him before?” The marquis asked, his voice reflecting the same surprise Ji Baihua was feeling.
The doctor nodded, without pausing in his work.
“I was appointed to care for Chu-furen’s wounds after the last battle at the northern borders.”
Ji Baihua tensed up at the mention of it, his eyes immediately looking for the marquis’ reaction. To his utter astonishment, there was almost no change in the young man’s expression.
The battle at the northern borders five years ago was the battle that had taken the first furen’s life—the biggest, most off-limits taboo in Nanping Manor.
Lady Wang had warned Ji Baihua: never mention the battle, never say a word about Mu-furen, Shi Mei. Two years ago, a servant with a big mouth had lost his life when he had dared say that doctors like Mu-furen should have never gone to the battlefield. The marquis had him caned to death.
This time, there was no wave, no change in the marquis’ expression.
Ji Baihua couldn’t help a shiver. Something had happened. Something huge and drastic. What could have caused this change in the marquis? He didn’t know what or why, but it made him feel cold inside.
He should have come prepared for surprises, because the marquis’ next words left him dazed anew.
“He was wounded?”
Both the doctor and Ji Baihua stared at him. Thankfully, they were men with excellent control over their expressions, or else they’d be gaping open-mouthed at him. Still, doctor Ren couldn’t help raising his eyebrows, wrinkling his forehead.
Ji Baihua wondered if it was some twisted joke, but the sheer turmoil and perturbation he saw on the marquis’ face convinced it wasn’t.
“He… he was.” Ji Baihua couldn’t help saying. Immediately, houye’s incredulous gaze froze him on his spot, but his own disbelief was stronger this time. “E-everyone in the capital knows that the former war counsellor Chu was stabbed in the chest and that he almost died on the battlefield.”
When the war ended, storytellers had a busy time telling and retelling how war counsellor Chu Wanning had turned the tides in the last battle, almost sacrificing his own life for the people of his country. Chu Wanning had got a great “loyal” reputation—facing his dying pupil, Shi Mei, and the greater good, he had chosen the latter.
“The sword grazed his heart,” the doctor said, getting back to his work. “It was a miracle he survived.”
Some said a few years later that Chu Wanning should have died on the battlefield. A hero like him should have died a dignified death, instead of suffocating surrounded by four walls all day long. Before, Ji Baihua couldn’t have cared less. After marrying Mo Ran, in the depth of his heart, he agreed with those people.
The marquis was speechless for a long moment afterwards. Ji Baihua supposed he could understand why he hadn’t heard of it right after the war, since his first husband had died in the same battle that had wounded Chu Wanning. But what about the years after?
The silence extended for too long. Ji Baihua didn’t dare look at the young man directly. There was a sense of loss, some sort of helplessness, as if he was a lost child, that made it unbearable to look at him now. He supposed he wouldn’t know if Ji Baihua was looking at him anyway, because he kept his eyes fixed on his husband’s unconscious face.
The doctor finished his examination and turned to Mo Ran.
“From what this humble one has seen in the examination, Chu-furen’s health is still suffering from the aftermath of his war wounds. The base of his health isn’t as it was before the war, and he has been afflicted by a qi stasis around his old wound, as well as a consumptive ailment that affects his blood.”
Ji Baihua nodded to himself, agreeing with the diagnosis. Furen had never taken well convalescence.
However, the marquis merely wrinkled his brow, confused and lost around the medical terminology.
“What does that mean?”
“Chu-furenlost a lot of blood and sustained a great injury during the war,” the doctor explained patiently. “This humble one warned him it would take more than a year to recover, even if he followed my instructions, which I see he didn’t. Though his body isn’t as weak as he was then, his blood and qi deficit hasn’t been recovered.”
“Is it serious? Is it… is it life-threatening?” The marquis asked with apprehension.
The tightly knit brow and the concerned angle of his mouth were so foreign on his face that Ji Baihua couldn’t help stare at him for a moment.
“Chu-furenshouldn’t go on like this, but there’s no immediate threat to his life. I’m sure this fever isn’t a one-time occurrence, and it’s a manifestation of the weakness that plagues his heart. It’ll go down with rest, cold compresses and a tonic to bring the fever down. His body needs rest, which is why he isn’t waking up. This humble one will write a prescription to remove blood and qi stasis and promote blood circulation, and send a tonic to build up his energy and nourish his blood. Furen should take them for at least half a year. I’ll come by to check up on furen every day until his fever ceases,” the doctor said, taking out paper and ink to write a prescription.
The marquis nodded as well, mumbling to himself. His whole body was hovering over his husband’s, as if he couldn’t bear the distance between them. There was a confused, hurt look in his eyes. Ji Baihua looked away.
For a while, they waited in silence as the doctor wrote the prescription. Impatiently, the marquis stood up to read what the doctor was writing.
“What does he usually eat?” The doctor asked off-handed, but he immediately realised that they wouldn’t know the answer, so he continued smoothly, without a pause. “He should have plenty of rest and have good meals. Especially non-vegetarian dishes. All kinds of meats, eggs, liver and whatever furen likes, but keep a good balance with vegetables and fruits. Fresh, not pickled or dried.”
The marquis nodded at each instruction the doctor threw at them with a concentrated expression. Ji Baihua wondered if he was really remembering all the little details the doctor was telling them. Usually, this would be the work of furen’s closest maidservants, but one was sick, and the other was currently receiving twenty slaps.
It didn’t matter, he sighed. He was paying attention just as well, since he was the best candidate to take care of furen. Even if the marquis had a change of heart, his official duties kept him out of the house most of the day.
“I think he was in pain earlier,” the marquis mumbled. “Why was that?”
The doctor’s gaze was blank when he looked up from what he was writing. Ji Baihua could understand what he was thinking, because he was asking himself the same question: if the marquis didn’t even know if his husband had any injuries on him, why would he know if his unconscious husband was in pain??
“This humble one would need to have a look at it,” the doctor said politely. “Where would be the pain?”
Indeed, Ji Baihua could see why lady Wang, a healer of exceptional ability herself, admired this doctor.
The marquis’ question started another examination. Indeed, when the doctor moved his leg, there was a visible wince on furen’s face, even though he was still unconscious. After a few moments, the doctor turned to him.
“May this humble one ask Ji-xiaojun to get a first batch of medicine with this prescription? I want to make sure the preparation is done well.”
Ji Baihua was bright enough to understand the meaning behind his words: leave, please. Whatever the doctor did and said next wasn’t meant for him. Most likely, the doctor was trying to preserve Mo Ran or Chu Wanning’s dignity, by not letting a concubine know what afflicted furen.
Without saying a word, Ji Baihua took the prescription with both hands, bowed to the marquis, and left.
To live well as a concubine, curiosity was a hindrance.
***
When Ji Baihua left, the doctor knelt in front of Mo Ran again, with his head low.
“This humble one has a rough idea of what may be the ailment that plagues furen. Only one exploration is needed to confirm my diagnosis,” he said. “May this humble one request permission to see furen’s knees?”
Mo Ran’s mouth twitched, an instant dislike arousing in his heart at the idea of another man seeing Chu Wanning’s body. How very brave of doctor Ren to request to be left alone with a very volatile marquis and his unconscious husband… if Mo Ran lashed out at his words, there would be no one near to save his hide, he thought with a snarl.
“No!”
“Please reconsider, houye.”
Mo Ran almost lashed out, ready to kick a doctor for the second time in the day, before he caught sight of the earnest sincerity in doctor Ren’s face.
He had seen this expression before.
When he had been at his lowest, none of his past power remaining, this man had treated him with the professionalism and sincerity. Even then, he had treated Chu Wanning with utmost respect, though no rule forced him to.
Mo Ran’s hand formed a tight fist on his thigh.
“Alright,” he said, gritting his teeth.
The doctor got to work immediately. There were no wasted movements in how he quickly uncovered Chu Wanning’s legs and rolled up the trouser leg. Too agitated to stay still, Mo Ran imitated what the doctor was doing on the other side, though he was much placated that the doctor made no contact with his skin.
As they rolled up his trousers, Mo Ran’s mouth felt as if he had swallowed sand when he saw patches of bruises on his husband’s shins, all the way to the knees. Some were still an angry red, while others were already turned blue and green. He didn’t need to be a doctor to know that the swelling in the joint wasn’t normal.
Chu Wanning, you dumb, stubborn man…
Mo Ran’s eyes took in the battered legs. Each of the bruises made his heart cry bitter tears in a way the injuries Chu Wanning had received in prison hadn’t. In prison, the sight of his injuries drew up his rage, his anguish and distress, but in this case, it brought a bitter taste to his mouth.
He had caused these.
Mo Ran stayed silent as the doctor worked, unable to turn his eyes away. First, he pressed his fingers lightly on the side of his knees—Mo Ran found no strength in him to find it inappropriate—and flexed the leg from one side to the other. Then, clicking his tongue, he took out an ointment and rubbed it on his knees with dextrous fingers. The ointment had a strong, pungent smell that tingled in Mo Ran’s nose.
“Furen’s knees have signs of blood stasis and damage to the inner structure. If this humble one isn’t mistaken, he must spend a lot of time kneeling,” the doctor said, picking out more ointment from the jar.
“What did you say?” Mo Ran asked, dumbfounded.
The doctor merely turned to look at one of the many calligraphy practices that laid on the low table.
“I suppose Chu-furen must practice very often.”
Mo Ran followed his gaze to the handwriting he was so familiar with. Chu Wanning’s calligraphy was strong and determined in the strokes, elegant and poised, following a structured and rigid style that Mo Ran had mocked more than once in the past.
It seamlessly brought to mind the image of Chu Wanning kneeling in front of his calligraphy table, in the study at HonglianHouse.
He used a classical piece of furniture, with short and overly decorated legs. It had been there when they had moved to Nanping Manor, and Shi Mei hadn’t used it a lot. However, Mo Ran didn’t have any trouble remembering the multiple instances he had seen Chu Wanning kneeling there, copying sutras and poems or practicing calligraphy. There had been few entertainments left for him as Mo Ran grew progressively unreasonable.
When they had married, Mo Ran had wished to make a statement, and he had forbidden any changes in the furniture and decorations of Honglian House. The thought now brought a wave of bitterness to his tongue.
Mo Ran understood that the doctor was giving him an excuse to get them out of their predicament. Most probably, the doctor knew that Chu-furen was ordered to kneel every once in a while, since Mo Ran hadn’t bothered to keep it a secret. It would be most embarrassing for Chu Wanning to let people know he knelt often enough to injure his legs.
People would talk about Chu Wanning, saying he didn’t know how to learn a lesson, to the point his knees had been injured from the many times he had been sent to the shrine. About Mo Ran, they’d say at most that he had gone a bit overboard disciplining his household. At the end of the day, they were still husbands, people would sigh, he should be more patient with him.
But the worst of the rumours and gossip would be Chu Wanning’s burden to bear. If he returned to the court, it could be used against him: he doesn’t even know how to correct his mistakes when his husband punishes him, how can he correct the other ministers at court?
At once, Mo Ran felt infinitely grateful that the doctor had dismissed everyone, including Ji Baihua. A hard and bitter fist constricted his chest when he thought of why his husband kneeling in the shrine, cold and alone, bearing the pain until his legs were damaged. His heart hurt as if it was being fried in a scalding pan, and his hand hovered on top of Chu Wanning’s knees, not daring to touch them.
“I’ll change his furniture,” Mo Ran mumbled when he noticed that the doctor was expecting some kind of answer.
“It would be best if he didn’t kneel for a while,” the doctor said tactfully. “This humble one will come by tomorrow and relay instructions to him as well. Meanwhile, his knees can be treated with cold compresses, just like his fever. Don’t let him stand for too long and don’t have him sit for too long. Knees can be tricky, and they might hurt with the cold, but don’t let him bed rest for long.”
Mo Ran just nodded to everything the doctor said, mumbling to himself as he memorised what he had to do. He took a seat on the edge of the bed and placed Chu Wanning’s hand under the covers again.
“Thank you very much, doctor Ren. I’ll have a gift sent along with your honorariums to your home,” Mo Ran said with all the sincerity he could muster.
“It was this humble one’s duty as a doctor, it’s not worth houye’s gratitude.” As a last thought, he added, “maybe the servants should add a stove.” The doctor cleared all his tools and looked to the door, ready to leave.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to keep you a bit longer and talk to you privately in my office,” Mo Ran said. There were things he needed to know.
“Of course, houye.”
“Please tell a servant to lead you to the office. I’ll be with you shortly,” Mo Ran said.
The doctor nodded and left, closing the door after him.
There was something Mo Ran wanted to know before he left.
A feeling of wrongness had plagued him since he had arrived in Chu Wanning’s room. There was something deeply troubling him, making his hair stand on end. He felt… observed. But then, Chu Wanning had taken all of his attention—there were few things more important right now than his husband’s health.
He stood slowly, and surveyed the room, taking slow steps as he examined everything. It took him only a couple of swipes at the room to discover what was amiss.
Shi Mei was looking at him from the other side of the room, as young and beautiful as ever, with a slight smile on his lips.
***
Wangyue was bored.
Suppressing a sigh, he rested his chin on his hand, leaning against the armrest. His deep blue robes pooled around his elbows with elegance, weighted down by the fox fur embroidered around his sleeve. His family sent him the latest and most exquisite fabrics, as it befitted a son from the Jiang family, but Wangyue couldn’t wear them without disrespecting furen—a concubine’s belongings shouldn’t exceed the rightful spouse’s—but even his worse robes were priceless. They didn’t bring any other joy to Wangyue, apart from the envious look in Rong Jiu’s eyes.
Rong Jiu, that boastful bastard, had excused himself from the morning greetings. The maid had said something along the lines of “utter exhaustion from serving houyelast night”.
Humph. Better for Wangyue anyway. Rong Jiu was a nasty little son of a bitch. Last month, he had scarred the face of a new maid ru-furen sent him.
Such were the actions of a man without self-confidence. He was one of the youngest among them, even though he had married in much earlier. Rong Jiu had no good-standing family to back him—no family at all, from what Wangyue knew—and no talents to speak of besides his whoring behaviour. His androgynous looks, while charming, were nothing special among the beauties their houye had seen. Besides, he was a man with no option of giving children to their houye.
No wonder Rong Jiu was afraid and jealous of Wangyue.
But there was truly no one to have a conversation with him after ru-furen ended the meeting. Again, Wangyue worked hard to suppress a sigh. It would be disrespectful.
The concubines sat according to their status whenever they were together. From the first-rank concubine all the way to the eight-rank tongfangs[4], everyone knew where they stood in Nanping Manor from where they sat.
In a spacious room with light green curtains and dark wood furniture, with the windows covered with the best “Moonlight paper” from the southern market, ru-furenheld the morning greetings. After everyone had gathered, they had taken their places next to their seat, bowing and kowtowing to her before being allowed to sit. Then, they stayed for an hour or two, listening to whatever she had to commend to them or just to chat idly. When it was furen who held the morning greetings, the dynamics were quite different, but in essence the same: all concubines listened to what ru-furen had to say about the household’s affairs and heeded her orders.
Ru-furen, as the only first-rank concubine, took the most honourable position in the left high chair of her hall in furen’s absence. Ru-furen was a young woman around twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, with a bright gaze and white teeth, cloud-like hair and a face like a flower. Like her brother, a beauty hard to find, though no matter how beautiful she was, it was difficult to conceal her ice-like nature.
Wangyue knew her name, but he’d never utter it in her presence because her status was way higher than his own: she had the highest rank a concubine could hold in a harem, the elder sister of houye’s original pairing, and the one in control of all matters in Nanping Manor.
Mu Yanli.
“… are approaching the age. As their masters, we should think of a good outcome for them. Ask if anyone’s family has already found a match for them, and we shall arrange the termination of their indenture,” she was saying.
Ah, yes. The maidservants were reaching the age of marriage, especially the first-rank maids. Buying new servants in and letting old maids out was ru-furen’s recurring task. Errand boys and male servants were much easier to manage, as they usually stayed in the household.
“If I may, ru-furen…” a girl’s timid voice said next to Wangyue. With ru-furen’s nod, she continued, “Xin’er’s father found her a match in their village. She’d like to return home.” The maid standing behind her, Xin-er[5], immediately went forward and kowtowed to ru-furen.
Mu Yanli stayed silent for a moment, clinking idly her teacup’s lid with the rim of the cup. No one dared to speak while she was thinking, not a fly could be heard. Years spent as ru-furen in Nanping Manor made her role and status clear to the rest of them, and not even Rong Jiu could question her authority easily. Wangyue couldn’t help frowning a bit.
Next to him, the girl that had talked shifted in her seat. She was in her early twenties, with a pale, oval face and enticing big eyes, round like the moon.
She was one of the two third-rank concubines of Nanping Manor.
Among the concubines, from the second to fourth ranks there would seem as if they had been divided on whim, since they held the same authority in the household and they were all married in instead of indentured. However, there was a key difference between them, something that made Wangyue stand over them: their families’ status.
Second-rank came from high-standing families, second only to those concubines from the main spouse’s family.
Wangyue himself was the only second-rank concubine. Though he came from the prestigious Jiang family, he was the concubine-born son of the duke’s third cousin, so he had married out of his home instead of making a match as the main spouse himself.
There were only two third-rank concubinesin Nanping Manor, who came from respectable families with no titles and lower official pots. One of them had married in almost at the same time he had, a young man surnamed Ji sent by lady Wang—the only one besides ru-furen capable of holding a decent conversation with Wangyue and regretfully absent this morning. His maid told him he was serving at furen’s bedside, a common occurrence since they had arrived.
The one who sat next to him was Luo Xianxian, the most senior among the concubines. Wangyue held no feelings, neither like nor dislike, for the timid and soft-spoken girl.
Thankfully, there was only one fourth-rank concubine in Nanping Manor, who was moreover absent this morning, to Wangyue’s relief. Rong Jiu’s voice always gave him a terrible headache.
“Send a letter to your family,” ru-furen said directly to Xin-er, who watched her with wide eyes, “and ask them to come here with your fiancé. I will look into him and check his background. If he’s a suitable match, we’ll add two taels of gold to your dowry and let you back home in half a year.”
There was a short moment of shocked surprise from Xin-er’s part. Wangyue himself found it very generous. Most masters simply demanded to have the family pay for the maid’s indenture—if the family wished to have their daughter back, that is.
“My heartfelt thanks to ru-furen. Thank you so much!” Xin-er exclaimed, kowtowing three times to her. Then she shifted to Luo Xianxian and kowtowed three times again. “Xin-er thanks Luo-yiniang[6]! Xin-er won’t forget Luo-yiniang’skindness!”
Luo Xianxian blushed and hurried to make Xin-er stand again, with a pleased smile on her face.
“Every servant in Nanping Manor works hard and contributes invaluably to the household. Even if our master-servant relationship is due to end, we should guarantee that they have a good life after they leave this place,” ru-furen said, setting the cup next to her. “Servants who work well and remain loyal to us shall see their efforts rewarded.”
The rest of the servants in the room had been observing the proceedings out of the corner of their eyes, analysing the situation. At the slightest signal, ru-furen’s servants and a few of the ones standing in the back turned to her and said “yes, ru-furen” with a slight bow.
Wangyue turned a lazy stare at them. At the back of the room stood a few people with their backs glued to the wall. A couple wore better clothes than the rest of them, but they still had to keep their eyes down and their mouth shut.
There was a bunch of concubines indentured to the household, like his own maids. Among them, only Lin Chunhong[7]and Song Ying[8]had enough rank to sit with them, as they had been raised to proper concubines, even if their papers remained indentured. The tongfangs had to stand with the servants or were busy working somewhere else. Wangyue knew two of them, but he had heard that there were actually four.
Wangyue had realised soon after he had married in that for a noble household like Nanping Manor, the backyard was filled with quite many people with low backgrounds.
Such a difference was striking, even if it was fairly common to have more low-rank concubines than respected second-rank concubines like Wangyue. He assumed it was because furen had no family he could bring into Nanping Manor. Lately, he was changing his mind in the light of what he had observed from the cold and aloof man that lived in Honglian House.
“This will be all for today,” ru-furen said, bringing Wangyue out of his thoughts. “Please, keep in mind what I said today. Ling-er,” she called. One tongfangWangyue was familiar with turned and bowed to her. “Bring houye some refreshments a while later. It wouldn’t do if he were to fall ill as well.”
“Yes, ru-furen.”
As they left Cunju[9]House, the building at the left of the main house and right in front of Honglian House, they were met with the sight of furen’s first-rank maid kneeling at his door, her face swollen and reddened, with a split lip and blood dripping down her chin. She no longer cried as she had been when they first arrived to the courtyard, rather staring at the floor with a lost gaze and tears streaming down her face.
“I heard she lost a tooth,” his maid Feicui[10]muttered into his ear.
“Could have been worse,” Wangyue answered plainly.
The marquis had a terrible, but unpredictable temper. Sometimes he’d overlook blatant mistakes, while others he’d put to death a servant for a small infraction. For that reason, most servants tended to avoid him, letting his tongfangs serve him most of the time.
Servants knew better than to cross houye. What had happened? He wondered.
The concubines dispersed, either returning to their rooms in the backyard building, Liuyan House, or going to the gardens. Only Wangyue and a few servants lingered in the pathways around the courtyard.
Wangyue walked languidly, followed by his maid and his servant, observing Honglian House curiously. The imposing building in red wood and grey tiles remained the same as the day before, though the situation was changing. Rumours flew wild that morning during breakfast, that furen was on the brink of death and houye had allowed the doctor Ji-xiaojun had called to attend him. If he were to die, would ru-furen be instated as the new furen?
The doctor had arrived before the morning greetings had even started, but the door of furen’s home was still closed. Was he still inside? Would furen be really that ill?
Wangyue had no desire to get involved in any power play that happened at the household. His own position was secure: he was a concubine taken in with proper rites, his family supported him from outside, and houye favoured him enough to visit him once or twice a week. Only a fool would dare to do anything unnecessary.
Yet he felt troubled when he thought of furen. He remembered the cold and impersonal hands that had taken the teacup from him the first day he had married in.
But those same hands had picked up a baby bird from the floor days ago, in the middle of a storm, just to put it again on its nest.
“Feicui, search for that hundred-year-old ginseng we have in our storage and send it to Honglian House later,” he said, unable to fight down his own discomfort.
At that moment, he saw a familiar figure emerging from the opposite pathway, walking with decision towards Honglian House. A handsome man with a cinnabar dot on his forehead, clad in sky blue robes and long hair flowing behind him, followed by a maid holding a tray with a covered bowl.
Ji-xiaojun, Ji Baihua.
From afar, rooted in his place, Wangyue observed as he knocked on the door. To his surprise, it was houye who opened the door. After exchanging a few words he didn’t hear, houye took the tray from the maid’s hands and closed the door behind him.
The expression on houye’s face… that had been…
Wangyue covered his mouth with his long sleeve, hiding a surprised gasp. It was soon followed by a distraught frown and an inaudible sigh.
If upon contemplating the results, there’s regret at the actions committed in the past, why commit then in the first place? Wangyue kept his eyes locked on Honglian House’s door.
Yearning unwittingly will only break the willow branch.
[1] 夏榕 (xia4rong2): xia as in “summer” and rong as in “banyan tree”.
[2] 欣婧 (xin1jing4). Jing as in "slender, modest".
[3] 任康 (ren3kang1): ren as in surname Ren, kangas in “health, well-being, peaceful”.
[4] To keep it simpler to non-Chinese speakers, concubines are divided in eight ranks (previously with the Chinese names). Don’t worry too much about what it would mean exactly in terms of rights and obligations, it will be explained in the fic. Just that obviously there’s more respect and honor for first rank, and 8th rank tongfangs are little better than servants. For those interested, they would correspond like this: 1st rank is 侧室(ceshi), 2nd rank is 贵妾 (guiqie), 3rd rank is 良妾(liangqie)，4th rank is 贱妾(jianqie)，5th rank is 妾室 (qieshi)，6th rank is 婢妾 (biqie), 7th rank is 陪房(peifang) and 8th rank is 通房 (tongfang). There’s a super-detailed and super helpful post here! (The post isn’t mine, but consider reblogging if you want to support the blogger!). You’ll notice that I skipped some, just so this was more understandable.A status or another usually depended in several factors that all had to be taken into account, it was much more rigid than palace harem status. Like, in a imperial harem, a servant can start as a eight-rank concubine and ascend to the top, but a tongfang won’t be raised to ceshi. A ceshi(and her family) would consider insulting to be married in as a qieshi, and so forth. Usually, a ceshi stayed a ceshi, and a pianfang stayed a pianfang, but the tongfang may rise to qieshi (official concubine, not a servant anymore) if her master likes her very much or she has a merciful furen. Ceshi and pianfangs are married in, so they can be divorced, but not sold, and tongfangs (and sometimes qieshi) can be sold (so no divorce to speak of). The power they had in the household usually grew and decreased with their status, but that’s only in theory, i.e. you don’t bully the concubine your husband is favoring right now. This will be all be explained as well in the fic, this is just a compilation of information.
[5] 欣儿 (xin1er): xin as in “happy, joyous” and er as in “child”
[6] 姨娘 (yi2niang): form of address for concubines with pianfang and qieshi status.
[7] 林春红 (lin2chun1hong2): surname Lin, chun as in “spring” and hong as in “red”
[8] 宋莹 (song4ying2): surname Song, ying as in “jade-like, lustrous and clean”
[9] 存菊 (cun2ju2): cun as in “store”, ju as in “chrysanthemum”
[10] 翡翠 (fei3cui4): feicui means “jade”
I hadn't posted this chapter in tumblr yet! I'm currently working on some style related things about my fic, so I may take a bit longer to post the next one. Hope you enjoy this one meanwhile!
I hope this question isn’t bothersome but I just wanted to say that I read your story Tales of a Prince in Foreign Lands years ago, and it has stayed incredibly close to my heart ever since. I’ve reread it at least five times, and it genuinely means so much to me.
I was just wondering if you ever plan to update or continue it? No pressure at all—I just wanted you to know how much your story meant to me. 🤍
Hey, hi!
I've thinking about your ask a lot this week, and I wanted to reply the best I can. It's really really incredible to me that my fic has been so well-loved by some readers, and that it stayed for so long with you, considering that I updated it for the last time on December 2022.
Tales of a Prince is a project that holds a special place in my heart. It's the project I worked on it for long hours on lockdown, and it brought me a lot of joy through my last years of university. Both my other fic and this one.
Then, on January 2023 I took the entrance exam to residency. And then I started working in healthcare. My mental health dipped when I started residency, and with it came the fact that I stopped feeling joy from my hobbies. I stopped going to the gym to practice a sport I loved. I stopped writing and drawing. Though it never went to extreme degrees, it did affect me.
A year ago or so, since I'm settled now in my job and my mental health recovered a bit, I started to think about writing again. But I don't feel the connection to the story I wrote anymore. I don't feel like I'm the same person as the one who wrote it. I did have a plan drawn out for the fic, but I no longer daydream about this plot. Instead, I've been daydreaming about new plots, new dialogues, new settings. But I've also been holding back on writing new fics because I feel bad about the ones that I've left unfinished.
I really don't know if I'll ever finish this fic. Two years ago, I'd have said that I would, for sure. But now, I don't know. I also don't feel like it's fair to post something new if I'm not sure if I'll ever finish it. I've been thinking that maybe, if I write a new fic, I'll only post it if it's finished or close to finishing it.
On the other hand, I feel bad for the readers who have been following this for such a long time, only to find that it probably will never be finished. This happened to me with Marriage Stone, and to this day I still think about that fic (it was last updated around 2013!), and I know how it feels. However, I want you to know that I feel truly, wholeheartedly amazed and grateful that this fic has come to meant so much to some of you that you still remember it 4 years later.
I know this might not be the answer you were looking for, but it's the best I can give.
I'm still available on Tumblr, though it may take some time for me to answer. I've been thinking that I can answer questions about the plot of Tales of a Prince and things you might want to know about it, so it might at least relieve the anxiety of not knowing.
Heyyy, Just wanna say that I just love Yearning Willows and believe it or not, I absolutely loved Tales of a Prince in Foreign Lands because Arslan in obviously babie and lmao, I didn't realize they were by the same author. I'm such a dum-dum. Also, I just have to say that your research is just so well done??? Like, I love reading your footnotes and searching up the words because I love the way you describe them. How do you start the process though, I'm curious ( ° ∀ ° )ﾉﾞ
Hiii ヽ(*⌒▽⌒*)ﾉ thank you so much for your nice words about my fics, I’m glad you loved them! I actually thought it would be rare to find readers who had read both, but I’m glad to find one (´｡• ᵕ •｡`) ♡ btw, I changed my username midway, I started Tales of a prince as ladyevelyne, so it’s understandable that you didn’t make the connection (o^ ^o)
Also, thank you for telling me that you like the footnotes. I receive a lot of reassurance from my readers, but I still have some doubts because of a comment I received a while ago (one of the reasons why I haven't updated Yearning willow for a while). Though their tone wasn't as friendly, they did point out some issues with the fic, and I'm working on the word choices of the fic. It might still be a little bit before I update, but it's very reassuring to see so many nice comments about the footnotes.
Now, about how I start the process, I'm afraid I don't understand exactly what you're asking, so I'll try my best with the two approaches I thought might be right (if I didn't get the answer right, feel free to expand on your question, I'm in the mood of rambling about my fics!).
Well, my two approachs are that maybe you're asking how I developed the fics at the beginning, or how I do my research.
If you're talking about the fic, the story overall, both of them were born of my innate need of angst and hurt/comfort fics (I wander into whump fics sometimes, which is really reflected on the fics XD).
Tales of a Prince was born when I was reading The Seventh Night (a link to the fic here, in case you haven't read it, but it's unfinished and it was last updated in 2016). I liked the concept of it, in which the roles of power are reverted in a Daryun/Arslan relationship. However, I wondered about canon!Arslan, how it would affect him if he wasn't the prince, but a commoner. A lot of Arslan's character and personality is based on his status as a prince, which really defines his every move and every thought in canon. I wondered what would happen with their relationship if Arslan had retained his status as a prince, but Daryun was more powerful, the one in control, so to say. But how can Arslan retain his status as a prince while getting into a relationship where Daryun has the last word about everything? Thus, a fic where Arslan is a "prisoner of war" was born.
Yearning willow was heavily inspired by the concept of the novel The Wife is First, another danmei. A husband who is reborn after learning that he treated his spouse unfairly for years, ultimately causing his death... delicious angst (¬‿¬ ). The Wife is First had too much fluff for my taste, so Yearning willow was born.
Then, about research.
I thought at first that I wouldn't need a lot of research of Tales of a Prince. I read the manga from start to finish (well, to the last published chapter) again, getting all the details you'd usually miss in a leisure reading. Some, like names and places, are easy to research, as the ones used in canon exist, so I just chose some from Wikipedia pages about geography, Persian names and such.
Then, as I drew up the outline, I started to see places where I needed more research, in particular the effects of child abuse/neglect. Even in canon, I think there are effects present, as even though he had his "parents", they were emotionally distant or outright harsh with him. I still think it might not be perfect, but I tried my best to keep it as realistic and as respectful as I could. I read a book on pediatric psychiatry cases and multiple articles for that, but my understanding is still lacking in this area, in my opinion (￣ ￣|||)
Even in canon, Arslan was cared for very well, but until he was 9, his parents were completely absent. After he moved to the palace, his parents were emotionally distant or outright harsh with him. In my fic, there’s an amplification of canon, as his mother dies when he’s young and his “father” is violent and abusive. I found a challenge to draw up his personality, as he’s not exactly as he is in canon, while keeping the essence of his sunny and kind nature. In fact, my OC Sareh, his nanny, was born of a need to create a figure to meet his emotional needs as a child.
Still, researching for this fic is easy, as many things appear in canon or in the novels (I only read the first four, maybe?).
Then, researching for Yearning willow was easier, because I've watched far too many chinese harem dramas (￣ε￣＠) I have a few favourites, but surprisingly, yearning willow doesn't take so much from a harem drama, but from Legend of Minglan (link to the trailer), in particular, from the novel. The novel is exquisite in the level of detail and the portray of a woman's daily life in Ming Dynasty, and the tv series is simply stunning. Another novel takes quite a bit backgrounf from is Nirvana in Fire, another staple in chinese dramas.
I use them both as sources of information, since there's no need for hystorical accuracy in Yearning willow. Sometimes, I research something specific, like the structure of a mansion, but it's rare.
Wow, this ended up being long (*ﾉ▽ﾉ)
So thanks a lot for taking the time to send an ask! I'm currently very busy, (whoever said I'd have more free time once I no longer had to take exams lied to me, and the fact that my bf had a tendon tear didn't help) which is why I'm behind with my updates, but I'd rather post a chapter I'm satisfied with, than writing and editing in a flash to post as soon as possible.
Again, I'm delighted to hear from you, and I hope to see you in my next update! Thanks so much and have a nice week!
