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“Zecheng told me about how you knelt at the palace gates for one whole night and one whole day to demand justice from His Majesty for me,” Gu Tingye said softly, after all the chaos had settled (the Emperor’s power was now secure; his conniving stepmother had died – a gruesome death he would not have wished for even her, but there was no point in mulling over that now; even in his wife’s family, there was something like peace).

Minglan turned onto her side so she could look at him, saying, “At the time, it felt like the only thing I could do; I would have knelt there for longer, if the Empress did not finally bring me into the palace and told me the truth about how you and the Emperor had a ruse going on.”

Tingye reached out to stroke Minglan’s hair and wondered at how she could speak of her deed of bravery with such nonchalance; he berated himself for all the times before this when he had acted to purposefully to annoy her or rile her anger so that he could see her direct any intense emotion towards him, for how he had rejoiced that she had risked her life in annoying the Empress in order to visit him in prison because it was proof that despite her practiced serenity, she cared for him enough to make such a fuss – he knew now how cruel and wrong it had been to push her, to test her if it would accumulate in her risking her life and her health pleading for him for a whole long day and night only a month postpartum; he no longer rejoiced in how she had allowed herself to suffer for him, and his heart only ached as he pulled her close and kissed her forehead gently, hoping that it was enough to begin to make amends.

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Yuanruo was almost out of the door before he turned abruptly to face Gu Tingye again, and spoke in a bitter voice, “I could have done it, you know; if Prince Yong hadn’t been holding my father hostage, I would never have married his daughter and I would not have regretted dying to prove my love for Minglan – ours would have been a love to rival that of Liang Zhu.”

Gu Tingye couldn’t help but pity the look of defiance Yuanruo was wearing, as if he were daring Gu Tingye to feel insulted for the implication that he was now Ma Wencai in this equation.

“You were willing to be her Liang Shanbo and make a martyr of yourself,” Gu Tingye replied calmly, “but did you ever think to consider, after all that she had been through, how she has had to struggle for survival every single day in her father’s house, whether she would have been willing to be your Zhu Yingtai?”

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“Polo matches seem to be a place where love blossoms,” Minglan observed, smiling archly to her husband as they dressed in preparation to take Rong'er out for her first polo match. “After all, we got engaged at a polo match, General Shen and Zhang Jiejie connected at a polo match…my Si Jiejie met her husband at a polo match and Princess Jiacheng also first glimpsed Qi Yuanruo at a polo match; Husband, are you not afraid that today, your daughter might meet the love of her life?”

“What nonsense are you saying?” Gu Tingye exclaimed, alarmed, “it’s one thing to talk of us and the Shen family, but how could you lump your Si Jiejie and Princess Jiacheng into this conversation, don’t wish such horrid luck on our daughter!”

It wasn’t until Minglan burst out laughing that Gu Tingye realised she was joking, but he was still grumbling about it an hour later as they ascended the carriage, much to Rong'-er’s confusion, because she said, “Dad, you were just bragging to me yesterday about how accomplished you are at polo, are you now afraid you might lose to the younger men?”

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“Liu Meimei, I suddenly don’t want to get married anymore!” Rulan blurted out, after bursting into Minglan’s room and sending all Minglan’s maids outside without so much as a by-your-leave.

“Wu Jiejie, you cannot speak such nonsense!” Minglan said, trying to keep her voice calm, but truly she was a little alarmed; surely this house cannot stand anymore scandals. “Your wedding is tomorrow!”

“Yes, but Mother just…told me about what is to happen tomorrow night,” Rulan said, her cheeks turning red even as she twisted the fabric of her skirt into a knot, “and I suddenly don’t want to get married anymore.”

Oh. 

Knowing Da Niangzi, Minglan didn’t think that anything she had to say about the marital bed could possibly be pleasant or reassuring. Even Grandmother hadn’t been terribly comforting about what awaited Minglan herself less than a month from now…but then Grandmother still had such an ill impression of Gu Tingye. 

“I think we should go speak to Saozi,” Minglan finally decided. She truly hoped that her brother and sister-in-law weren’t asleep yet, and that her brother wouldn’t mind his sisters stealing his wife away for a night. 

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Gu Tingye was a soldier, and soldiers go to war, where sometimes they get hurt; Minglan knew not all the scars on her husband’s body were due to the cruelty of his father, but evidence of the sufferings he had endured to rise to his current position, and she admired him for it, to have had everything taken away from him by both chance and fate and the cruel caprice of the world, only to rise from the ashes due to his own merits. That didn’t mean that she didn’t worry, everytime he went away; that didn’t mean she didn’t choke with pain when his subordinates brought him into the house on a stretcher, him upon it as still as a - 

For three long days and three long nights, Minglan stayed by Gu Tingye’s bedside, and more than once, the imperial physician dispatched by the emperor himself looked as if he was holding onto hope only out of pity for her…then, on the dawn of the fourth day, his hand stirred in hers, and Minglan finally allowed herself to burst out crying as she rested her head against his chest, relishing in the way his heart still beat against her ear.

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Minglan looked up in alarm as Xiaotao ushered in a Rulan whose eyes were red-rimmed, with her daughter in her arms, and exclaimed, “Wu Jiejie, what on earth is wrong?” 

Despite Minglan’s question, it took a few moments before the two sisters could actually sit down to talk - after Rulan had been convinced to hand her daughter off to Rong-jie’er and Xiaotao had placed two steaming, frothy cups of tea in front of them - and Rulan said tearfully, “Liu Meimei, I know it is probably hypocritical that I’m seeking your comfort right now when I wasn’t very nice to you when we were young, but there isn’t anyone I can talk to - Mother would only tell me to bear it and that I chose this, Da Jiejie is too busy, so I can only talk to you, even if you have no idea how lucky you are that your mother-in-law is dead.”

At these last words, Minglan’s hand nearly slipped, which would have sent the steaming tea cup in her hand crashing to the ground, as she stared at her sister, then seeing as Rulan did not elaborate and only sniffled and dabbed her sleeves at her cheeks, Minglan placed her tea cup down and pressed the other cup into her sister’s hand, saying soothingly, “Have a sip of tea first, then tell me what’s going on.”

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Now that she was grown, and had found escape from Sheng House, looking back Minglan couldn’t help but think that sometimes it wasn’t the overt and vindictive cruelty of Lin Xiaoniang and Si Jiejie that had hurt the most; no, it was the hurts inflicted by careless words that were dismissive of and indifferent to her suffering exhibited by her father and Da Niangzi, and the casual put downs from Wu Jiejie, most of the time directed at Si Jiejie but somehow always catching Minglan in the crosshairs, that weighed down her soul. 

And yet, once they were grown, it was Wu Jiejie who had confided the matters of her heart in Minglan, somehow demonstrating a trust that Minglan hadn’t thought Wu Jiejie could possess that Minglan would not ruin her; and when Gu Tingye’s life and good name was being targeted, it was Da Niangzi who came to her with advice from a mother’s heart. 

There was once a time when Minglan would have lumped them both together with Lin Xiaoniang and Si Jiejie, all the authors of the hurts of her childhood - and this was not untrue - but now, seeing them extend these tokens of familial affections, even the most steely cynical parts of Minglan’s heart tempered in the crucible of courtyard conflicts for so many years, could not continue to close her heart against them; the truth was, they had all been pitted together by circumstances and the cruelty of the world, and now that they had all grown in their own ways, even Da Niangzi, Minglan would rather enjoy this warmth of harmony now that she could, to make up all that she lacked in all the long years of her childhood. 

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Sheng Minglan was used to being invisible and overlooked, but being invisible and overlooked had never hurted until that day that her mother was giving birth to her baby brother, and no one heard her despaired begging for a physician to save Xiaoniang’s life - no one but a boy who wasn’t even related to her, who ended up putting more effort than even Minglan’s own father had bothered to find a physician for her mother; it was all for nothing in the end, but Minglan would always remember him as the first person who had seen her and heard her, and felt moved to ease her pain. 

Even a decade later, when they were both grown, he was still the only one who truly saw her for who she was, and not the mask that she put out to the world, even if she did not immediately realise this at first, not even in the moment that she agreed to marry him - in that moment, she had only thought, somehow he understood the desires of her heart, but by then, she had also been hiding her true self from the world for so long that she took it for granted that she was succeeding, and did not fathom it was possible that he could see through her mask. 

So she did not understand at first why he was so determined to provoke her to drop that mask, to react and show emotions to his antics - perhaps for years she didn’t understand but when she finally did, when she finally felt something like assurance that he would not forsake her for her anger every time placed his own life in danger, Minglan also realised why it always twisted her heart so that he could be so cavalier with his own life; Gu Tingye had always said she was oblivious to her own heart, and perhaps that had been true once, but she was oblivious no longer, and looking back, she could not help but think perhaps her fate was already decided from that first moment he took her into his carriage and put his cloak around her, he had seen her pain then and was the one person who had never lost sight of her, so if in the end, she could not even be moved to love him, would that not be the saddest thing of all things under Heaven?

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What Minglan didn’t tell Gu Tingye until months later was that, after their engagement was confirmed on the polo field, Qi Heng did finally manage to corner her again; the first thing he had said to her was, “I love you.”

At the time, Minglan had only felt a deep ache in her heart - to say she felt nothing for Qi Heng even then was a lie, but unlike him, she knew whatever feelings they might still possess, they were ships that had passed in the night a long time ago - so she had only answered, “Do not worry, it will pass.” 

Qi Heng of course had wished to protest, but Minglan only cut him off with a determined, “Young Lord, it must pass, for I am to marry your Second Uncle Gu Tingye, you must not think of me any longer,” - and judging by the heartbreak on Qi Heng’s face, though he clearly already knew of Gu Tingye’s wishes and intents, this was the first he had heard that Minglan intended to agree; perhaps, in the end, it was best that he heard it from her first, because it was unlikely his dreams would be allowed to crush without this most cruel blow from her. 

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Their estate was close enough to the imperial palace that in the dark stillness of the night, Qi Heng could still hear the echoes of distant drums, and it occurred to him now as he counted the beats that he did not know Sheng Minglan at all, that perhaps he had never known her; he could never have imagined the little girl he had grown up with would be so bold as to publicly challenge the emperor like this. 

At least, Qi Heng did not think she would ever do such a thing for him. What was compelling her now to keep the entire capital city awake in order to argue Gu Tingye’s case like this?