Bonus Chapter One
Ever since Qi Zhan and I finally sorted things out, he had grown considerably less restrained in certain respects, and I found myself nostalgic for the polite distance of our early months together.
One night, when he was moving to kiss me, I pressed my palm against his chest and said very earnestly: "Qi Zhan — doesn't the moon look exceptionally large and full tonight?"
He glanced toward the window, then raised an eyebrow. "...Yes?"
"A moon this beautiful," I pressed on, "seems like a better occasion for poetry and conversation about life's meaning, doesn't it?"
Meaning: stop what you're doing.
"Ah." An expression of comprehension crossed his face, followed promptly by a smile that set off all my warning instincts. "Fine, let's talk. My ambition in life is to share it with you, so —"
I clapped my hand over his mouth. "Can you say something sensible?"
He looked at me with wide, innocent eyes and kissed my palm. The sensation crawled up my arm embarrassingly fast. I snatched my hand back.
"What's senseless about it? You know what I was going to say. If anyone here is thinking indecent thoughts, I'd argue it's you."
He had the audacity to turn it back on me. I rolled over in exasperation and put my back to him. "You're impossible."
"What do you feel like hearing, then? I'll talk to you all night if you want sweet words."
"No."
If he started talking sweetly, it would only get worse.
He laughed, a low and amused sound, and wrapped his arms around me from behind. His breath was warm against the back of my neck. "Fine. Sleep then."
I let out a subtle sigh of relief. I closed my eyes, shifted into a comfortable position in the circle of his arms — and just as I was settling into sleep, I heard him say: "Yun Chu. Let's have a child."
I went rigid. I kept my eyes closed and said nothing.
"I want a daughter — someone as lovely as you."
"I know you're awake. If you don't say anything, I'm taking that as agreement."
I jerked my eyes open, rolled over, and glared at him. "What is wrong with you? If you want a baby, go have one yourself."
"You don't want to?"
He asked it like an innocent question, and then didn't give me space to answer — just pulled me close and kissed me until I couldn't remember what I'd been trying to say. Then he drew back and asked again, low and unhurried: "Yun Chu. Why won't you?"
My thoughts were pleasantly scrambled. The truth was — it wasn't that I was unwilling. It was more that things had been moving at a pace I hadn't quite adjusted to, and I felt like I needed a moment to prepare. That, however, would be a very unsatisfying answer for him.
I caved, in the end. "These things happen in their own time. There's no urgency —"
"I'm urgent."
He was. I didn't say that part out loud.
* * *
In due course, I was expecting.
It was a strange and precious experience, carrying a life. My heart, once the baby had truly arrived, was somehow less anxious than I'd imagined it would be.
Qi Zhan, on the other hand, was an anxious wreck from the moment we knew, which surprised me — he was usually the composed one.
The birth itself was hard. At the height of the pain, I thought quite specifically about the unfairness of the arrangement: he had simply made a request, and I was the one suffering for it. In the moments when I nearly lost consciousness, I heard his voice by my ear, fractured and quiet: "Chuchu — curse me if you want to... we won't do this again..."
That was his choice to offer, not his to make. But I saved that argument for later.
I had a boy, which Qi Zhan had not planned for. He'd spent months thinking up girl's names. When I came back to consciousness, he was sitting at the edge of the bed, still pale, expression complicated.
"You look upset," I said. "Are you disappointed?"
"No. I'm glad he arrived safely. I'm just — thinking of what you went through."
"I thought perhaps you still wanted a girl."
"I don't want anything. I never want you to go through that for a second time."
I closed my eyes, tired to the bone, but my mouth pulled at the corners.
* * *
He was still very attached to the idea of a daughter, though. He'd catalogued dozens of girls' names during the pregnancy and now had no use for any of them. He picked up the baby with uncharacteristically stiff arms, examined him, and started to say: "I feel like he looks a little —"
He caught my expression and pivoted: "— a lot like you. That's good."
"Newborns all look like this. What exactly were you about to say?"
"Nothing. I was wrong. I take it back."
He apologized with good grace, but the baby seemed to sense something — he let out a sudden, extremely loud wail and refused all consolation.
Qi Zhan eventually handed him to the wet nurse with a long-suffering expression. "A daughter would definitely be calmer."
Before I could reply, he leaned down and pressed a kiss to my brow. "But since he's ours, I love him."
I looked away, pretending not to hear the last thing he said under his breath: "You're still the one I love most."
* * *
— End of Bonus Chapter One —
* * *
Bonus Chapter Two — Qi Zhan's Perspective
I had never encountered such an ill-mannered girl.
The longer I knew her, the more I understood that bad manners were just the surface. She was generally opposed to convention in every form: homework went uncompleted, she fell asleep in the middle of lessons, and her excuses for skipping class were so creatively bizarre that the tutor stopped questioning them out of pure exhaustion.
To be fair, I had my own record of neglected lessons and convenient absences. The difference between us was this: I was smarter. When she couldn't work out her homework, she had to sit there blinking those big eyes at me, putting on the most pitiful voice she owned: "A-Zhan, please help me~"
If you need help, just ask for help. Was the pouting really necessary? Absolutely insufferable.
...Absolutely adorable.
Of course, she got less adorable as the years went on. Eventually all the soft coaxing was replaced with: "Qi Zhan! What did the master tell us to memorize yesterday?"
"You couldn't remember it anyway."
"What's that supposed to mean? I have an excellent memory!"
"...I meant I'll just prompt you when the time comes."
"That's more like it."
I missed the little girl version of her, honestly. Just a little.
* * *
My second uncle's household had a girl — not his wife's daughter, which the whole family knew but nobody said plainly. She was gentle and timid, with eyes that would fix on me uncertainly and call me "Brother."
I spent some time thinking about whether this was something I could properly ignore, concluded that I couldn't, and started asking questions. The answers eventually led me to Chunfeng Lou.
I had never been to a place like that. What surprised me was that Yun Chu, when I spotted her there, looked remarkably comfortable with the surroundings.
A young woman walking around a place like this, just casually — I was irrationally annoyed. But she'd done me a service, so I held my tongue. For now.
* * *
My father heard about the incident despite my efforts to contain it. He said nothing about it and asked instead: "How did things go with the Yun girl today?"
"Fine, I suppose."
"What do you think of her?"
"Think of her how?"
"How does she strike you as a wife?"
"...She'd do, barely." Temper like a lit fuse, face passable. She'd just about meet the bar.
My father knocked me on the head. "You think she's barely acceptable? She might not even be interested in you."
I said "hm" and didn't particularly care. There was no shortage of women who'd want to marry me. She wasn't necessary.
* * *
Yun Chu gave me a lantern.
She didn't give me any opportunity to refuse before she'd turned and walked away. That was deliberate — definitely deliberate.
I walked home holding this clumsily made lantern, and my face, for some reason, was warm. Inexplicably warm. I hadn't expected her to give me a lantern.
So she... liked me?
I lay awake turning this over for most of the night, which was uncharacteristic and irritating. Refusing seemed wrong. Accepting... didn't seem entirely impossible. She'd made the first move, I reasoned. That changed the arithmetic.
* * *
Yun Chu was a liar.
I saw her walking beside another man, laughing, saying goodbye to him with an easy warmth that stopped my breath. When she noticed me, her voice went flat immediately. "Oh, Qi Zhan. You're here."
I opened my mouth. Closed it. Everything I'd wanted to ask turned into ash.
She wasn't even doing it to taunt me. She simply hadn't thought of me at all. I couldn't blame her for that. She hadn't offered anything — I'd conjured expectations out of thin air and been fooled by my own imagination.
She had no feelings for me. I should have been relieved. I was not relieved.
It must have been that she'd been laughing so openly with someone else. That was all it was.
* * *
My own face must have given me away, because even Xuan Xuan could see it. "Brother — did something happen with Yun Chu?"
"What does she have to do with anything."
She considered me carefully. "Brother, I think you like her. When you talk about her, your eyes go bright."
"..."
She said she'd go explain things to Yun Chu so there'd be no misunderstanding. I said not to bother. Let her think whatever she wanted — she didn't care either way.
* * *
Both families announced the betrothal. I'd expected Yun Chu to be unhappy about it. Seeing her actually unhappy was still somehow worse than I'd predicted.
She didn't want to marry me. Fine. She was going to anyway.
In that moment, I was quietly glad my father only had one son of appropriate age for this kind of arrangement.
* * *
On our wedding night, she sat in the full crimson of the bridal dress, still as a painted figure, waiting. I lifted her veil.
I said: "How did I end up with you?"
What I meant was: Thank god it's you. It could only ever be you.
Plenty of time, I told myself. One day she'd understand that I was the only right answer for her.
— End —