When Jiang Chen was little, she told her mother that she wanted to be like her when she grew up. Madame Yu thought it referred to her cultivation and was very proud, even smug, but actually Jiang Cheng had been eyeing her beautiful skirts and delicate jewelry, her proud back and gentle curves. It wasn’t until Jiang Cheng was a little older that she realized that she couldn’t be like her mother – that she was supposed to be like her father. Because she was her father’s son, and not his daughter. She was never going to be like her father.

Once upon a time in Yiling, a rumor started about the Yiling Patriarch having started to collect a harem of beautiful young men from a variety of sects. (it was Nie Huaisang's fault) (to be fair, the porn didn't help)

Figuring out that the second daughter of the Jiang clan was, in fact, their son and heir - if you look at it by Qinghe standards - when no one else in Yunmeng had yet figured it out caused Nie Mingjue enough of a headache, and it must have given him a bit of a reputation for sticking his nose into other people's business. That must be the reason that Jiang Cheng would come to him of all people after the fall of the Lotus Pier, hand a little too low down on his stomach for the problem to be food poisoning, to ask for advice - or maybe it was only that he had nobody else to turn to.