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Qin Su rather likes Jin Zixuan. He’s fun to play with, to hang around, to be with.
He can be awfully annoying, though, and today is one of those days.
“She’s not very pretty,” he says, as if she hasn’t heard him say the same thing a thousand times. “She’s not a cultivator, either – I haven’t heard anything about how talented she is or anything! Why do I have to marry her?”
Qin Su wrinkles her nose at him. They’re hopping the little creek that runs through the gardens – there’s little stones that go down it, built just for this purpose in this cultivator-created little creek, and she finds it very fun to concentrate, to hop from stone to stone. “I’m not a cultivator, either,” she says.
A-Xuan huffs at her. “Yeah,” he says, petulantly. “But I’m not gonna marry you.” She frowns at him, pausing before she hops to the next stone, but he doesn’t notice – he’s already ahead of her, concentrating on the next rock. “Besides,” he says, continuing. “You’re really pretty. And you’re good at singing and writing and have lots of talents. Why can’t I marry you, instead?”
Because that sounds like the worst, she thinks. A-Xuan is fun, and she likes him, but only in small doses. Like spicy food, or when she eats too many sweets and gets sick. She thinks having to live with him and be in Koi Tower with him for the rest of her life really doesn’t sound super fun.
Qin Su actually has a sense of tact, though, so she doesn’t say it, and hops to the next stone.
“Why don’t I marry her for you?” she asks – and she times it perfect, right when A-Xuan is hopping to another stone. He slips, falls, crashes into the water and she grins as his golden robes soak, but he’s staring at her wide-eyed.
There’s hope in his eyes. “You’d do that?” he asks, delighted, because surely it must be that easy, right? “You’d marry her for me?”
Qin Su shrugs. She doubts this Jiang Yanli is actually as bad as A-Xuan says – because A-Xuan likes to complain, seems to find that super fun, and A-Yang had told her when she visited Koi Tower that no, she really wasn’t that bad, and she trusts A-Yang’s opinion more than A-Xuan’s. Qin Su’s mother also goes very odd around talk of marriage, of betrothal, and maybe this would make her settle.
“Sure,” she says instead, and she’s a kind person so even though she definitely on purpose made him trip into the water, she reaches a hand down to help him up.
He takes it, rising to his feet, but doesn’t let go of her hand and squeezes it in wonder. “A-Su!” he says, and he throws his arms around her and UGH now she’s wet, too.
Mother was right. Don’t be mean. It’ll come back to bite you.
She wrinkles her nose and with a sigh, hugs him back, because she’s already so wet. A-Xuan pulls back and grins at her. “We need to go ask Mother if you can come over when she next visits!” he says, practically bouncing in place. “I can’t ask Mother to call off the engagement, but if Jiang Yanli likes you enough maybe she can call it off and your mother can talk to Madam Yu and-“
A-Xuan is delighted, probably in the best mood she’s ever seen him in and she finds herself tugged along, leaving the creek behind as he continues to plan. She tunes him out, wondering if she should regret this, when he stops abruptly and she crashes into his back.
“What?” Qin Su asks, affronted, and when A-Xuan turns, the look on his face is… well, she’s not sure what to make of it. He looks a little threatening. “What?” she asks again.
“We need A-Yang’s help,” he says, very firmly.
And it’s not that she dislikes A-Yang, because she definitely doesn’t, but she doesn’t understand why and her brow furrows. What can A-Yang do that she can’t? Besides cultivating, of course. “Why?”
“Because,” he says. “You’re really pretty and talented and stuff but she has to like you even better than me. It’s going to be hard. You need to woo her, and we need A-Yang’s help.”
Ah, she thinks.
“Do you even know if she likes girls?” Qin Su asks instead, because she’s starting to think she’s in way too much over her head and she’s regretting being too nice of a person to tell A-Xuan to suck it up and deal with his apparently ugly fiancé himself.
A-Xuan pauses. Considers. Looks her over. “If she doesn’t like girls,” he says, “Then you gotta make her. I think you can do it, you’re really pretty.” He tugs her along again, and Qin Su’s feeling pleased, warmed from the compliment.
“You can do it better than A-Yang, at least,” A-Xuan says, and Qin Su has a fleeting moment of wait, wait, has he already tried this with Luo Yang and it didn’t work-
But before she can say anything, before she can demand answers, they’re there with the parents and Qin Su isn’t cruel enough to start revealing A-Xuan’s secret plans and get him into trouble. (Not yet, at least.)
“Mother!” A-Xuan says, pulling her in. “Mother, can A-Su come to Koi Tower next week?”
Madam Jin frowns at him. “I don’t think so, dear, A-Li and her family are visiting next week…”
“I know,” he says, and he finally lets go of her hand to give a quick bow. “But! I think…” He swallows. Forges ahead. “I think A-Li would feel better if there was another girl. Since… Madam Yu isn’t fond of A-Yang.” There’s a lot unsaid in there. Qin Su’s eyebrows lift.
However, Madam Jin looks pleased. “Very thoughtful!” she says, and she turns to Qin Su’s parents. “What do you think? It would be good for A-Su to get to know A-Li.”
Her mother doesn’t look happy – never does, about Koi Tower – but her father looks thoughtful. “She has a brother, doesn’t she?”
From what Qin Su has heard from A-Yang, she has two, but one doesn’t Really Count because he’s a bastard. (Which is stupid, she thinks, but she doesn’t get to make those decisions.) Madam Jin nods. “Young Jiang Wanyin,” she says, and her eyes dance a little. “Unbetrothed.”
Qin Su shoots A-Xuan a poisonous glare, since none of the adults are looking their way. If this ends up with her engaged to Jiang Wanyin, she will learn to use a sword just to get him with it.
Her father nods, and Qin Su bites her tongue. “That is acceptable,” he says, and A-Xuan grins.
He’s not grinning when they’re out at the creek again, just a little later, and she shoves him in the water once more. “You planned that!” Qin Su says, hands on her hips, looming over him with a glare. “When did you get- get smart like that?”
A-Xuan pouts at her. “I’ve always been smart!” he tells her.
Qin Su isn’t that much of a fool.
She waits.
Begrudgingly, when it becomes clear she won’t let him stand up and get out of the water without an answer, his face turns blotchy red and he glances away. “…A-Yang came up with it and made me practice everything til I sounded convincing,” he admits.
Qin Su is going to learn how to use a sword so she can get both of them.
“If I get engaged to Jiang Wanyin,” she says, and she sticks out her hand to help him up, “I’m gonna get you.”
“Okay,” says A-Xuan, and he takes her hand and pulls her into the water and she shrieks, and he laughs.
Her clothes are wet and her hair is wet and- and- she’s gonna end up married to Jiang Wanyin!
Qin Su bursts into tears.