Chapter Text
青青园中葵
Sunflowers in the field are purest green,
朝露待日晞
The morning dew waits for the sun to dry it.
阳春布德泽
The warm spring spreads its favours,
万物生光辉
Ten thousand things grow in the radiance.
常恐秋节至
Feared often that autumn will come, and
焜黄华叶衰
Flowers and leaves will yellow and wither and wane.
百川东到海
A hundred springs flow east towards the sea,
何时复西归
When will they come back to the west again?
少壮不努力
If the young and vigorous do not work hard,
老大徒伤悲
In old age, they will be sorry in vain.
《 长歌行 》汉乐府诗：无名氏
“A Song for Long Journeys,” Anonymous (Han Dynasty)
It was cute how much the Investigative Bureau frustrated Fan Xian. The poor boy didn't know what to do about his nickname, and how it was definitely going to stick for his entire life.
He'd come back with a job well-done; the secret Xiao En had been holding for the past twenty years had only confirmed suspicions he had long since held, and while the topic of said secret filled him with a painful sorrow, he was used to it, and could shelve it aside. The Beiqi spymaster had been milked for his final last secret, and Fan Xian had then disposed of him neatly.
He was so proud of him.
Prouder still, that he'd also done precisely what he'd expected; true, he hadn't quite expected Fan Xian to come back with an actual wound, but since Fan Xian had come back with two age-mates who would be important politically and socially, Chen Pingping figured it was all good.
But now…
He had told Fan Xian to stop calling him “Niang.”
As much as he loved the sound of it from Fan Xian's tongue, it … wasn't his title to have, nor his to claim. He was legally nothing to Fan Xian, and it would create the wrong impression and expectation.
Fan Xian had looked so heartbroken when he'd told him that, and he'd hardened his heart a little and sent him off with a few officers of Division Three back to the Fan Residence, and went to report to the Emperor on this mission's closure.
He still had to deal with the Second Prince's problem, after all.
He was glad that Fan Xian had come to like and wanted to help Xie Bi'an, so he needed to think a little more on what the Emperor could be willing to do to help his precious omega son. Having Fan Xian in the works did add another dimension Chen Pingping hadn't thought he could plan for all those years ago after all.
The Emperor was waiting in his study, as always, dressed in nothing much than his tight-fitting underclothes. His fingers were running over the piles of arrowheads kept in the box near the brazier.
Eunuch Hou settled Chen Pingping's chair close to the brazier, bowed, and stepped back out of the room like the good servant he was, knowing exactly when his presence was entirely unnecessary. The Emperor lifted his gaze to meet Chen Pingping's for a moment before he returned to fussing over his arrowheads.
"Do you reckon that he has proven himself in this mission?"
"More than enough," Chen Pingping murmured, curling his hands against his blanket over his knees. It had been a cold morning, and barely warmer in the afternoon when he'd finally made himself dismiss Fan Xian, and now with the evening’s chill full-settled into the city, he could feel the bite of wind. "There should be no more talk against his unsuitability to marrying Wan'er."
His smile was faint. "Assistant Minister Fan and Prime Minister Lin should have no objections with how well he's acquitted himself."
Snorting, the Emperor picked up one of the arrowheads and bounced it lightly in his palm. "There should have never been any talk about his unsuitability for Wan'er," he said, conveniently forgetting that he had used exactly that as an excuse to send Fan Xian to Beiqi in the first place.
Chen Pingping hid a smile by ducking his head down. "His true parentage is not public knowledge," he reminded his Alpha gently. "For all Prime Minister Lin and the city know, he is but an illegitimate son of an Assistant Minister."
The Emperor flung the arrowhead back into its box and took the three long strides necessary to stand in front of Chen Pinging. His fingertips ghosted over his cheekbone for a moment before they dipped down to curl around his chin, tilting his head up so he had no choice but to meet the Emperor's eyes.
"Is he only that?" he murmured.
Chen Pingping didn't shiver; he had years to be used to this. "Is he not?" he said, very quietly, matching the volume of the Alpha in front of him, touching him. His hands were very warm, from working the metal, from being near the brazier. from working matters of state.
"He might wish to call me Niang, but that is not my position to claim."
The Emperor blinked. "Is it not?" he asked, one side of his mouth lilting up in a smile that, Chen Pingping knew, was amused and indulgent and terrifyingly dangerous all that once. "Didn't Qingmei herself call you that while you were falling asleep on her shoulder, exhausted by the effort of carrying him?"
Fan Xian was such a clever boy to have figured it out; he was so glad that it turned out that Fan Xian took after his mother and father so much. He really had been absolutely perfect to be the one to have that last secret of Xiao En's. That was really Fan Xian's to have. All those decades of planning, just so Fan Xian could be the one to listen to that Alpha's last words.
Then Chen Pingping could no longer think of Xiao En, or even Fan Xian, because the Emperor had folded his fingers back, tips touching palm, and was now running his knuckles over the line of Chen Pingping's jaw. "Our old friend is definitely his mother, for without her, his existence would not have been possible. But," he folded down into a squat, eyes never leaving his chosen, mated omega's, "that much could be said about you."
This touch, then, did make him shudder. The curl of his Alpha's warmth on his face, stroking a line of heat along his jaw made him want to drop his mouth open, pant for more of his Alpha's taste.
He resisted, a little.
"... I was but a mere incubator," he said, blinking a little as his Alpha's words sunk into his mind. "I had no hand in the raising of him."
"Neither had I," the Emperor pointed out mildly. "Neither had Qingmei. The only one who had any hand in that," his lips quirked, "is a man who wasn't even in the birthing room when the boy took his first breath."
It was a mistake, a show of weakness, Chen Pingping couldn't help but squeeze his eyes shut, a shiver wreaking from his shoulders to mid-back at the memories that washed over him. The Emperor, who really should have nothing to do with such blood-filled, messy affairs, had settled himself behind Chen Pingping's kneeling body, holding him up, and Fan Xian's mother, his true mother, had coached him through every breath, every push.
He had Ye Qingmei's hand in his left, and the Emperor's in his right, when Fan Xian was finally brought to the world.
"I," he started, and could not continue, breath tripping hard in his throat. "I— Your Majesty."
In response, the Emperor cupped his face with both hands. A whine wrenched out of Chen Pingping's throat as he was kissed, and then his hands clawed at the Alpha's – his Alpha's – shoulders as the Emperor lifted him out of his chair like he weighed absolutely nothing, settling him in his lap as he took his mouth.
His Alpha was always like this – this warm tremendous force of heat and will, and a force that he couldn't help but give into — right from the very first time he'd met him, and even now.
If the Emperor wanted to put his hands on Chen Pingping, there was no other option but to give in return, reach for the man like reaching for the sun, eager to be devoured, sinking into the thick, terrifying musk of him.
After the Emperor of Qing, though he was then a mere King’s heir, and Ye Qingmei, no other Alpha was anything to fear. After them, he could walk the world, the Jianghu and politics both, and be untouched and fearless.
He pressed forward; like this he and the Emperor were of an exact height, and it never ceased to make his heart swoop with how strong his Alpha was, to pull him straight up and out, and manhandle him how he liked.
And he could feel the way heat unfurled in his belly, spreading out to his limbs as if commanded to do so by the Emperor's hand drawing up his spine. Chen Pingping gasped, or perhaps even sobbed, as he felt the Emperor pull his useless legs apart with a bounce and touch, and dropped his head back to let his Alpha's teeth graze the length of his throat.
"Your Majesty," he whispered. "I..."
"Do you think I would've forgotten, Chen Pingping?" the Emperor asked, a dark mirth twining in his words even as he settled Chen Pingping firmer on his own hips. "It might have been decades, but your scent when you approach heat is and will forever be engraved in my mind."
Heat. Heat – this warmth, a burning heat in him, was starting to kindle, and he didn't even know yet why, this would start now.
"It's been decades," he gasped, not quite able to feel what the Emperor had done to situate him, but he could feel the Alpha's hand up his spine, the tingling liquid trail of his Alpha's possession on his skin.
Curling his arms around the Emperor's neck, and leaning in, was pretty much all he could do, other than gasp against his throat and nuzzle straight into the vast, thunderous scent of him that was already surrounding them both.
"I— this aged omega is surely too old—"
The Emperor chuckled, a sound akin to one of those sweets Ye Qingmei had made for them once, a block of dark stickiness that unspooled like heavy honey on the tongue. Chen Pingping clung and sobbed, reduced to nothing more than the weakest part of him, all plans and plots spilling out of his hands in the overwhelming presence of an Alpha, his Alpha, who wrapped him up like this and made him feel so safe.
"You have always been able to keep up with me," the Emperor said, his teeth on Chen Pingping's jaw making it difficult to concentrate on either words or the fact that they were headed straight for the private bedroom tucked behind the study. "I'd even promise to go a little slower at the start."
"That's not," Chen Pingping barely to grit out. "Your Majesty."
"I will find the best doctors in the land," the Emperor said, and Chen Pingping arched as he was half-laid, half-flung onto the bed. The Emperor's eyes were very dark, filling up almost the entirety of his vision before his thumb scraped over Chen Pingping's lower lip. "And make sure that you and the child you will give me both survive and thrive."
He'd never expected his Alpha to be gentle with him. He would never ask that, and never wanted it, and his Alpha was right, because he would always and could always keep up with his Alphas until he passed out.
He opened his mouth to his Alpha, and let him in.
Always would let him in, always— his body, his mind, his soul was entirely his Alpha's to plunder, use as he saw fit, and he couldn't do anything but be bowled over by the rush of it, no longer having to think, never having to calculate anything, his words, just to react and reach for his Alpha, gasp for breath and breathe his Alpha's name.
"Your Majesty." Teeth on his throat, and time folded on itself. "Your Highness."
The Emperor laughed again, a low rumble of a chuckle that ghosted over Chen Pingping's cheek. "Come now," he murmured. "If you're going to go that far, then you might as well call me by name."
What could Chen Pingping do, but obey?
"Yunxu." The name tumbled out from his lips. "Yunxu, Yunxu.” He saw his legs wrenched apart, ankles tied to the bedposts with torn-off strips of his own clothes. His elbow thudded hard against the silk-covered wooden board beneath him, and he barely managed to lift his hips before the Emperor loomed over him again, taking his mouth. "Yunxu!"
He didn't have to hold his legs up, and his Emperor didn't have to spare his hands to do so for him, just ghost his too-hot, too-desired hands, all over Chen Pingping's body, turning him into liquid and inflaming him both at once with both of their desires.
Yunxu didn't stop, wouldn't stop, kept kissing him; it wasn't plundering so much as ... as trying to make them both as one, and he tangled his fingers in Yunxu's clothes, fingers digging into the fabric hard enough that if didn't keep his nails properly trimmed, they might have torn the fabric in his eagerness.
When his Alpha entered him, he knew it because Yunxu growled into his mouth, growling his possession straight to the centre of his body, his Alpha making himself at home within the sheath that Pingping provided for him..
He couldn't really feel his Alpha's movements inside him – a mystery he had never been able to resolve, because his legs being broken made it understandable that he could no longer feel them, but he had lost all sensation and movement from his pelvis downwards – but Yunxu had fucked him enough times since that battle that he knew to lavish plenty of attention to Pingping's throat and shoulders and neck.
"Mine," the Emperor growled, using the pronoun reserved for him and only him. His next thrust was strong enough to Chen Pingping slightly up the bed, staking his Imperial claim over his omega's body. "From the first moment we met," his teeth grazed the mating mark on the join between neck and shoulder, barely covered by Chen Pingping's clothes, "you have been mine." He parted his lips, and—
Bit.
Chen Pingping cried out, hands scrambling at his Alpha's body, and could not breathe for a moment when the Emperor slanted their mouths together again. He could taste the salty bitterness of his own blood before the Emperor pulled back, and the smile aimed at him was sharp and possessive, matched by the gleam of dark, dark eyes fixed upon him.
"Xiaochangzai," he said, and matched the unearthing of the old, old nickname with a stroke over Chen Pingping's cheekbone. "My Xiaochangzai."
He was handed the tea, afterwards, his Emperor bringing him the tray himself.
He wouldn't let anyone else come near Chen Pingping after such a session, much less a heat.
The possessiveness was typical of an Alpha, and Pingping took it as his due, curling as much as he could onto his side, nuzzling the bedding that was thick with both their scents, before his Alpha helped him sit up, leaning boneless against his shoulder, to take the tea.
The smell hit first, the astringent scent of oolong, which wasn't the usual blend used to flavour the contraceptive tea – not the usual, but not unusual either.
Then he touched his lips to it, and the first taste of it hit his tongue.
The Neiku manufactured all sorts of goods ever since its inception, but the Investigative Bureau regulated quite a bit of it, particularly the pharmacological side. The Third Division wasn't just for poisons and gadgets, but also involved with pharmaceuticals and quality control, and he knew precisely the tastes for most of the drugs.
He knew, very intimately, the tastes of certain teas.
The contraceptive tea which prevented pregnancy did so through a complicated process that, Ye Qingmei had explained once, could be summarised as making a uterus' walls too slippery for a child to latch on to it to feed from the mother. He knew exactly how that tea tasted like, and was intimate with every single flavour that the Neiku sold, because he had, by habit, taken a serving whenever the Emperor was done with him.
This wasn't it. In fact, this wasn't any of Neiku's products at all.
No, he knew this tea from twenty years ago, after he had started throwing up and his Investigative Bureau had started placing buckets in every room and discreetly handing them to him. This was a medicine that could be bought by any medicinal hall in the city, a blend of herbs that was meant to help the fetus settle into its mother's body, and ensure a safe pregnancy. There was a variation, Chen Pingping distantly remembered, that would be taken for an easier delivery some months down the line.
He stared at the cup in his hand.
When the Emperor had said that he would find doctors, when he had mentioned a child... Chen Pingping had thought that to be empty words said in the midst of passion. Filthy talk that the Emperor was sometimes prone to, when the mood struck him. But now...
Now, he lifted his head. His Alpha met his eyes, and gave him an expectant smile.
Chen Pingping huffed out a breath, almost amused, and drained the cup in one go.
"It's a good thing," he said, keeping his tone casual and voice even, "that Fan Xian has proven himself in Beiqi." His mouth lilted up into a smile. "It seems that the timeline for him to take over the Investigative Bureau has been moved up."
"It has indeed," the Emperor said, his smile getting wider.
Possessive, really, and the heat of it sent a frisson of shivers down Chen Pingping's spine.
"And with his new responsibilities," the Emperor said, thoughtful, "I think we might be able to turn our minds to our... persistent problem."
Chen Pingping blinked. "Your Majesty has great faith in me," he said, and carefully placed the cup back onto its saucer, and then both on the tray. "May I remind Your Majesty that he has another son, an Alpha, who will be ten years old next year?"
The Emperor waved a hand. "It's not a matter of the child," he said, "but of the mother."
Oh. Chen Pingping let out a sharp, explosive breath. "Have pity on your Empress, Your Majesty," he said wryly. "Not only has her immediate family all been killed and her clan as a whole annihilated as well, she has never been able to make any claim to your heart, and her son never had your favour."
The Empress had been the eldest daughter of the previous Emperor; all of her brothers had been killed to make way for the current Emperor, no more than a nephew of the last one, to take the throne. Then, twenty years ago, she had cooked up an unforgivable plot that resulted in the death of someone very dear to both the Emperor and his omega, and had the rest of her clan vanquished as a punishment.
Or so, Chen Pingping thought, the story went.
"If she had managed to raise her son properly," the Emperor huffed, "then Lao Er would not have to be Lao Er." He folded his arms and sat back down onto the bed. "You know just as well as I do what that third son of mine wants to do to his brother."
Third son. When the Crown Prince was supposed to be separated and isolated by the nominal ranking of a family's children by the nature of his birth. The Emperor had already made up his mind.
"Yes," Chen Pingping said. "I know." He let out a long breath. "But again, Your Majesty: what of your current youngest?"
"He is not a threat to that son of mine," the Emperor said.
His mother was no threat to the Empress, he meant. Consort Liu had none of his favour, having been married merely because it was necessary to take a consort from one of her clan. Her son might be an Alpha, but he was so young as to not be worth considering a viable threat. The only one of his consorts and concubines who enjoyed a modicum of his personal favour was Ning-cairen, whose son was out of the running by every metric possible, and she was not even a little bit liked by the Empress Dowager.
None of his consorts were true rivals to the Empress, and without a plausible replacement, there was no removing her son.
Except for the one person who had his favour, and who had enough of it that being covered by it was neither a stretch of imagination nor a metaphor. Chen Pingping sighed.
"Your Majesty," he said softly, "I am not even sure if I can carry to term. Not with this body."
"The best doctors of the land will be here to guard both your health and the child's," the Emperor said, and his eyes made it clear which he prized higher. This... baby, if it existed (which it definitely did, because Chen Pingping had not ever heard of an omega being taken during a heat and prevented pregnancy without help from the contraceptive tea), was the keystone to removing the current Crown Prince and ensuring the Second Prince's safety from his brother, but the Emperor would gladly wave off all that planning and plotting if it meant his omega would be in danger from the pregnancy.
It was, Chen Pingping thought, always humbling to be the focus of attention of an Alpha like Li Yunxu. Because this was not the Emperor's care; not the care of an Alpha who ruled over a kingdom. No, this was a selfish protectiveness of an Alpha over his omega.
"Is that your only concern?"
Chen Pingping laughed before he could stop himself. "I drank the tea, Your Majesty," he reminded him. "Still, would you give this child some time to settle," at least until the first trimester had passed and the risks of miscarriage had dropped, "before you set your plans into motion?"
Leaning forward, the Emperor grinned at him. "Six months," he said. "You have that long to train Fan Xian to take over."
"Your Majesty is generous indeed," Chen Pingping said primly, letting the Emperor shift around. He refused to allow himself appear to be affected by his Alpha's possessiveness.
And it was, as always, impressive that his mate's mind still worked during the omega’s heat – no other Alpha living could still retain those upper mental facilities as to already lay out a plan just on happenstance.
The fact that the Emperor's Lao Er's mate could hold himself back so much was a trait Chen Pingping's mate no doubt found impressive and desirable in the character of a son-in-law.
He exhaled in a huff, and the slightest of headshakes.
"Very well," Chen Pingping said. "Will you be giving me two hours to settle myself or will I be here till tonight before I can start the preparations?"
Throwing his head back, the Emperor laughed. Then he pushed himself even further forward, hot breath ghosting over the thin skin of Chen Pingping's throat and clavicle before he said, voice a little muffled, "What need have you to return? Stay for the night."
"Wasn't Your Majesty planning to send troops to find the Temple of the Gods now that Fan Xian has told us where it is?" Chen Pingping barely managed to keep his voice steady. He dug his fingers into the sheets to stop himself from clutching at his Alpha's shoulders.
"Has he said where it is?"
"North," Chen Pingping said. "'The very northern edge of the world' were the precise words."
"Then," the Emperor nipped at his pulse, "it can wait."
"Your Majesty," Chen Pingping gave one last effort, "my heat is over."
"Are you sure?" And he was dragging teeth down over his skin.
An excess of restraint, Fan Jian had said, with that very measured caution of his, watching Chen Pingping watching him.
Chen Pingping wasn't sure he could even imagine Li Yunxu with any sort of restraint.
Chen Pingping's any further attempt at protests were strangled in his throat at the flick of hot tongue at his pulse, and he gave up.