“I propose that we kill two birds with one stone,” Liu Mingyan said, and if her tone goes a bit theatrical, Jiang Cheng had the decency not to point it out. “I don’t follow,” Jiang Cheng deadpanned, crossing his arms. “I thought the plan was to milk this whole thing for what it’s worth and gracefully part ways when it inevitably fell apart.” “Yes, well. There’s a perfectly viable solution to the whole ‘falling apart’ part - you,” she said, pointing to Jiang Cheng, “Marry my brother.” -- Jiang Cheng gets married in the spring of his 39th year. It turns out better than he expected.

Yunmeng Jiang is housing a retinue from Qinghe, here on diplomatic grounds. Among the people gathered here is Sect Leader Nie. Maybe that’s the reason why Jiang Cheng is restless - he can never keep himself still around that man. Jiang Cheng feels so stupid to act this way - as if wartime flings aren’t just a thing that happen sometimes - but how can he help it, when the last time they’d met, all those months ago during the Sunshot Campaign, Nie Mingjue had pressed kiss after aching kiss to his mouth, to his neck, to his shoulders? Jiang Cheng bites his lip and breathes out hard through his nose. He needs to work off some of this energy, before it comes back to bite him in the ass. Before he starts expecting things that weren’t meant for him in the first place.

The thought had been niggling at the back of his mind quite a bit lately. He wasn’t showing Shang Qinghua proper obeisance, was he? They’d grown so comfortable in their roles - Mobei-Jun as Shang Qinghua’s king, and Shang Qinghua as his dutiful servant - that they hadn’t thought to… stop. It was how it had always been. But things were different, now, weren’t they? They’d been different for a long time now. To ignore that wasn’t proper. That stops now, Mobei-Jun decides. His ancestors would be rolling in their graves to see him ignore the proper rites of courtship - the fact that he and Shang Qinghua were already mated besides. He was not raised to be some kind of country rube, as much as being sequestered so far up north might imply otherwise. Shang Qinghua was his partner, and, with all factors properly calculated, the more powerful of the two. It was only proper that Mobei-Jun display an appropriate level of submission to his better. -- Mobei-Jun realizes with increasing clarity that he wants to serve Shang Qinghua. Shang Qinghua does NOT pick up on it.