She was fourteen the first time she met him, in the dense woods near the Western border of Meishan. She’d been sent out alone, namely as a punishment but she knew better. It had been Mother’s way to give her some time to cool down after yet another disastrous matchmaking attempt. There had been news of a low-level yaoguai and Mother thought that would prove an excellent way for her to both let out some frustration and practice her new weapon.
Zidian was gorgeous and uppity, trying its hardest to resist her. Too bad she was her mother’s daughter and by the time the yaoguai was defeated, she’d whipped (ha) the ring into submission.
And that’s when he made himself known.
”That was impressive,” a low, slightly hoarse voice said from the other side of the clearing.
She whirled around to face a young cultivator in robes that belonged to no sect, hair done in a neat, no-nonsense bun. He was holding both himself and his sword with effortless confidence that made something bristle within her.
”Who are you?” She snapped, Zidian crackling in her finger, ready to defend her now. ”What are you doing in these woods, preying on a defenseless maiden?”
The man’s impassive face rippled with something that might’ve been amusement. ”You are hardly defenseless, young mistress.”
”That’s right,” she hissed. ”So don’t even try—”
The man leaped forward with surprising speed, almost landing a strike. She parried and ducked out of the way, dancing to the side as she let Zidian unfurl. It was an exhilarating exercise and made her feel alive in a way she’d never felt before. Perhaps it was because she didn’t know who the rogue cultivator was. Perhaps it was because he clearly didn’t care about who she was. Perhaps it was because she could lose herself in their dance and not think about anything that had made her so furious.
It ended interminable time later when the rogue cultivator used his bigger bulk to push her against a tree and nailed her sword into the trunk with his own.
”It seems like I won,” he said, his breath hot on her face.
”Barely,” she panted back.
They both knew she could get out with a flick of her wrist but she…didn’t feel like it. His frame was strong and muscular and felt so very warm through their robes.
When he ducked his head to kiss her, she didn’t turn away. Instead, she met him eagerly, taking the kiss as yet another fight to be won, and leaned onto the touch with an eagerness Mother would’ve gotten her whipped for. His mouth was hot against hers, his tongue insistent, and the small sound he let out made her tremble and a familiar wet/hot feeling spread from between her legs. She had touched herself—of course she had—but this thrill was something she’d never managed on her own.
How would it feel if he took me now? She wondered, while fully aware that she’d rather kill herself than let him get that far.
And then he drew back, lips red and shining and bright, blushing spots on his cheeks.
”Thank you for the fight, young mistress,” he said as he saluted, and then he was gone.
It took her a moment to collect herself and return home.
That night, when she reached her fingers down and rubbed herself to satisfaction, she imagined it was his fingers caressing her wetness and his mouth on hers to muffle out her cries.
The second time they met, she was nineteen and about to be married. It made her absolutely livid. Her husband-to-be was a weak man disguised as a noble and powerful cultivator, the young leader of a prominent sect. At least Mother was marrying her off to a sect that didn’t scorn strong women—she would rather give up her cultivation than marry a Lan. But this man…He hadn’t even been able to stand against her for half an incense stick! And that was the kind of a man Mother wanted her to marry.
She snarled, fully aware of and ignoring the pitying look Jinzhu and Yinzhu shared behind her back. They’d let her hack and whip out her fury at the fierce corpses, letting out all the pent-up frustration she’d gathered over the years. Matchmakers were said to be good at their work but she just couldn’t fathom how they’d figured she and her husband-to-be would complement each other. They were supposed to lead a sect together.
She was quite sure they couldn’t even lead a tea ceremony together, let alone a life.
When she was done, she was feeling only slightly better. Her anger was still sizzling under her skin, making her twitchy and snappish. Her maids didn’t deserve her temper but they bore it with unflinching loyalty that told her just how well they understood her. They accompanied her up the stairs of the modest inn, ordered her bathwater, and bathed her without complaint. She didn’t feel like going downstairs to eat so Yinzhu brought the dinner up, seasoned with her favorite spices and with a jar of wine she enjoyed. It still wasn’t enough—the restlessness itched within her still, so she decided to take a walk outside.
She opened her door at the exact moment when the door opposite her room opened and—
It was him.
He was older but she recognized him immediately; the dark eyes on his seemingly impassive face, the wide shoulders and the power that thrummed within him. He was dressed in black this time with a leather glove on his right hand and half of his hair up, the rest falling down his back in a silky stream of black.
”Young mistress,” he saluted with a small quirk of his lips and—
If questioned later, she’d say she had no idea what possessed her to do what she did. ”Stay,” she said over her shoulder to Jinzhu while holding his gaze, and stepped forward, forcing him to back up until they were in his room. Without looking, she drew up a privacy talisman and slammed it behind her back with her right hand while reaching behind his neck with her left, yanking him into a kiss.
It was almost as she remembered. Almost, but not quite. So, she drew back slightly and looked at him, raising a challenging brow.
He didn’t say anything, merely looked at her for a long time before nodding slowly.
She knew what she was doing, of course she did. She was Meishan Yu so, despite having no personal experience as of yet, she was well versed in all matters of sexual relations. She knew the different ways to please and be pleased, the herbs to both help and prevent conception and the ones to help to cleanse herself after a night of intimacy.
He unrobed her like she was something precious and laid her down on the thin mattress like finest porcelain, mapping her skin with his fingers and lips like a man starved and she gave in to the pleasure, let herself come apart from the seams, and fly. She lost the sense of time as he brought her off with his fingers, as he licked into her and buried himself inside her over and over again until nothing else remained other than the pulsing heat and shivering bliss.
When he fell asleep, spent and well served, she let out a long breath and untangled herself from his arms, slipped into her underrobe, and tapped a short code on the doorframe. A split moment later, Jinzhu opened the door just enough to let her out and they crossed the hallway into her room like a pair of shadows. She drank the bitter tea Yinzhu handed her, sat in the bath made of a particular selection of herbs, and leaned her head back as Jinzhu combed her hair.
In the morning when they took their leave, the room on he other side of the hallway was already empty.
It was an accident, the third time they crossed paths. Or perhaps it was fate? No, she didn’t believe in anything as fickle as fate.
Coincidence. Yes. That was acceptable.
Her marriage had turned out to be the farce she’d expected from the moment Mother informed her of her future husband. They were too different, too volatile, too…everything. She occupied a part of Lotus Pier her husband never set his foot in and tried to build up a life she could stand. It wasn’t easy but she was stubborn. If her husband refused to respect her as his wife and the Lady of Lotus Pier, then he should at least fear her for what she was capable of.
He gave her a daughter.
She resented him for it because that meant she would have to suffer his touch until she bore a son. And it was suffering, compared to—
Sometimes she hated him for teaching her how it felt to come undone.
When Yanli was three, she was on the market, taking some time off from the fragile, vulnerable thing that was the daughter she was afraid would break if her tone took a too sharp edge. She wasn’t even looking for anything, just walking and rifling through ribbons and earrings eager vendors tried to sell her, and when she glanced up from the surprisingly delicate spun silver pendant, he was leaning against a building, half shrouded in shadows. But she knew him, of course she did, how could she not? When his eyes burned like low embers, when his gaze traveled down her frame boldly like he had the right, when she felt the pull between them like a string drawn taut.
She drew breath and half-turned only to meet Yinzhu’s knowing eyes, and then her maid was already weaving her way across the marketplace. She held her head high and continued on, refusing to feel shame for what she was about to do. There was nothing to be ashamed of, not with the rampant rumors about her husband who coveted after a woman who had refused him and chose another, not with the gossip about the parentage of the child said woman was carrying.
Her husband refused to do anything about the rumors.
She refused to be ashamed to take what she considered hers.
She entered a private room of her preferred teahouse and then followed Jinzhu through a hidden passageway into an abandoned house. He was already waiting for her and she barely bothered to wait for the door to close after her maids when she fell into his arms.
”Make me forget who I am,” she said, shedding her sect robes and tearing at his clothes that bore the motif of the sect he’d pledged his allegiance to. She didn’t want to think about sects or allegiances, not now, not for the short reprieve his touch would grant her.
He complied, of course he did. She knew how much he drew pleasure from the way he maneuvred her, from how she grew wet and willing under his tongue, from how she clutched her thighs around his head and screamed through her release. He flipped her on her belly and yanked her hips up so that he could spread her open and bury his face deeper until she was a shivering mess, and then he plunged into her like an animal and forced her to take it, take him, until there was nothing else but his voice, his strength, him, him, him. And when he was spent, he turned her on her back and kissed the indents his fingers had pressed on her hips and the faint marks Yanli had left on her. He bent down to mouth at her nipple that had never quite returned to the color and shape it had been and she couldn’t bite back a breathy sound at the feeling the wet, hot mouth induced.
He paused for a split moment and then fell upon her like he hadn’t just spent himself inside her. Her legs fell open at the onslaught and she felt him grow hard against her again and she welcomed him back—or tried to, at least—because instead of giving in to her, he mouthed his way down. She didn’t know what made him so ravenous, so hungry for her but that’s what he was, eating out every trace of himself and then making her come on his tongue until she’d screamed herself hoarse and he was letting out small, desperate sounds himself. Then, and only then, he rose to his knees and lifted her into his lap like a doll, speared her on him, pushed her down, and held her there as they both shook.
Later, she would wake up alone, cleaned up and carefully wrapped into her underrobes, but for now, she kissed him with a sense of impending doom and pretended, for a moment, that everything was fine.
The final time they meet, they stare at each other across the Grand Hall of Lotus Pier as the blood of fallen Wen slowly seeps into the floorboards.
”Wen Zhuliu,” she says coldly.
He inclines his head. ”Violet Spider,” he says, and if she didn’t know him as well as she did, she would’ve said his eyes were emotionless.
But oh, she does. She knows how his eyes look when he takes her apart, when she takes her pleasure in him, when he touches her with tenderness no one would ever associate with someone who bears his title. Behind the cold veneer hides pain he doesn’t dare to show, not when the Wen wench hangs from his sleeve, not when he’s a dog obeying his master for reasons she’s never quite understood.
Their fight is brutal. They both are immensely stronger and more ruthless than the first time they met but back then, they were…flirting. Feeling each other out. Now, though?
She’s fighting, not for her own life but for her children. For Yanli who is fragile and soft, for A-Cheng who is prickly and impressionable and, fine, yes, for Wei Wuxian who, despite everything, is her best bet to make sure the Jiang survive.
She’s fighting but she’s not quite serious. Not against him.
And neither is he.
The emergency flare changes things and she disables him with a burst of power and speed that leaves him gasping and then she grabs her boys and runs. They have to live. They need to live and they need to be away from Lotus Pier for her to do what she has to. They cry—of course they do, A-Cheng is still so attached and Wei Wuxian is a soft-hearted fool—but she wraps Zidian around them, pours most of her spiritual power into it as she bids it goodbye, and then she pushes them on their way, slams the small boat with a talisman that takes them into safety.
Her tears burn in the late evening wind that carries the smell of smoke and grief and she allows herself a moment of bitterness, of lost hopes and dreams, and then she wipes her face, steels herself, and turns.
Lotus Pier is burning and it is time for her to burn with it.
She fights until she can no longer see properly. She fights even though her core is almost depleted, even though she sees her maids being stabbed in the back. She fights, all the time keenly aware of the dark eyes that follow her every move.
She fights until the main gates burst open and her husband flies in. For a short, glorious moment, she thinks they’re going to live after all but that hope is torn to shreds when Fengmian stops, coughs blood, and slowly ducks his head to look at the sword protruding from his chest.
Backstabbing. Always with the backstabbing.
As Fengmian drops to his knees, sways, and keels over into a pool of his own blood, Yu Ziyuan raises her head and screams at the unyielding sky above. She screams out her fury and disappointment, the things she never had the chance to have. She screams as she lowers her head to meet Zhuliu’s sad eyes across the yard.
Neither of them wanted things to end like this.
They both knew it would always end like this.
She holds Zhuliu’s gaze as she plunges the dagger into her heart and when he closes his eyes, she knows he understands.
She drops her gaze when she lets go of the dagger and crawls to her husband, twines their fingers together so that even if they never quite knew how to live together, they could at least die together. Because even though her heart had never belonged to this place, her duty and her life belong to Lotus Pier.
Her heart, though…
That was doomed one bright summer day in the woods of Meishan.