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They were friends, once, back before everything. He always respected her, admired her even. He did not hold admiration for the way her features looked like they were painted on with painstaking care at her conception, every aspect of her carefully sculpted and arranged until her presentation overall was the envy of maidens and suitors in every sect. (Undervalued only by her foolish husband.) These were merely the guilded wrappings intended to blind those who hadn't taken notice of the strong muscles and charged air around her for the promises of destruction that they were.
He was captivated by the sharp movements of her arms as her whip dispelled spirits and carved through beasts bellies with less effort than it took most to breathe. Her violent beauty was truly deserving of the name Violet Spider. Much like himself, she had crafted her skills through hours, years, of bruises and callouses that were never visible on her soft, firm hands. Strong and proud, her seduction lay in her forms as she practiced, sword singing against his, never allowing him close enough to close a fist around her heart, around her core. Never giving him the chance to capture any part of her. She was guarded. Smitten only with Jiang Fengmian for reasons he could never know.
The delicate flower of a man could never be a match to intoxicating venom behind her intimidating beauty.
Even after years (had it been decades since they'd trained together? Before she became madam of the Jiang household and he the servant of Qishan Wen?), he still respects her. How could he not? She had stalled him, cutting down every member of Wang Lingjiao's entourage with the flick of a wrist and a nod of her head. She had kept him from advancing and he had honored her. He did crush her child's core that night as he entered the fight he was not yet skilled to entertain (he would regret having to crush that child in time to come; the boy looked so much like his mother and yet possessed none of her vicious grace as he screamed, passing out from pain) to block the blow he should not have been able to land on Yu Ziuyan.
She had been burdened enough to retreat, regroup. To let him bring more men to cut down her family. Serving his master was a sin he refused to regret.
He could hardly tear gaze from her form, sweat and blood not her own soaked into purple robes, hair largely refusing to whip out of place as she hacked through his liegemen as though she was never a day out of practice. She looked so much like her youthful self. He could still see her practicing sword forms in her father's training grounds, readying to spar until her arms and legs gave out then fight him bare handed until she could no longer move, until she had won so many times his body lost count. Until he had broken through his new technique, the one technique he would never weild against her, despite his confidence that she would best him every time.
Unyielding. Effortless beauty. Impossible strength. Yu Ziyuan was a general commanding her home, carving through his siege on her home though she danced in pools of her family's blood. She was determined not to let the Wens have anything. No one would command her.
Yu Ziyuan had always been an empress in her own right.
Even as she was now surrounded by his own servants, panting harsh as her grip on her sword, zidian long banished with her children, she commanded an air of respect. No one could deny the savage skill with which she fought for hours. He alone would fight her to the end, just like before.
And then her husband came home.
And her strength was renewed.
Jiang Fengmian screamed, "My Lady", wasted effort in his pathetic display of devotion; the famed Jiang Swordsmanship never spilling out from his body before his blood drenched stone.
Wen Zhuliu waved his men back. Watched her smile bitter, heartbroken laugh that came as a sob only to his ears before she plunged her dagger into her own heart, placing herself down to lie with her beloved husband, clutching his hand tighter than the sword he wished she still held. She would not be conquered by him. Her only Submission was to her heart which bled out together with the man she had chosen all those years ago.
She had looked beautiful on her wedding... She always looked beautiful in red.