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The first time Qi Yan tries to kill Nangong Jingnu it is with fire. The Weiyang palace goes up in flames easily enough and its easier still to pin the blame on someone else, a disgruntled former servant who had motive and means, enough so that with a little encouragement he started the blaze on his own. He never meant for it to go this far, only intending to destroy a room or two, but Qi Yan has other plans. Discovering his little plot had been a stroke of luck and one she intended to capitalize on to the fullest extent possible.
Nangong Jingnu cannot be found in all the ash and smoke, the palace crumbles bit by bit, the flakes of ash catching in the hair of servants rushing to and fro to douse the blaze like large snowflakes, blanketing everything. Despite their efforts the flames continue to rage on. There is little hope. Qi Yan forces herself to hold back a smile, how could it possibly have been this easy already? To kill the emperor’s most favoured child with such a gentle nudge… fate is on her side it seems.
It’s no wonder then, that with all the chaos and the heat of the flames, and the palace being as much of a wreck as it is, that she goes into some kind of shock when none other than her royal highness stumbles out of the inferno. Her gait is unsteady and she’s covered in soot, her robes pockmarked by embers and flying sparks, but she is whole, alive. She collapses almost immediately once she’s out and Qi Yan, having been putting on the performance of her life until quite recently is the one to catch her, close as she is to the building. Nangong Jingnu stares up at her, eyes half-lidded, and that performance of hers must be even more convincing than she thought because she reaches a blackened hand up as though to pat her cheek, to give her husband some sort of comfort. She falls unconscious moments later, and Qi Yan is left holding her mortal enemy’s child, the one she up until very recently assumed she had killed, tenderly in her arms as one would a lover.
She’s awake again by the time they’ve got her lying down somewhere comfortable, seemingly completely unharmed, the palace physicians are quick to ascribe the blessing of her good health to the benevolence of their leader, something which make Qi Yan scoff under her breath. The initial shock wears off fairly quickly thankfully. The attempt failed and it’s a shame, but she can always try again, it was nothing more than a fluke. She has plenty of time and Nangong Jingnu doesn’t suspect her at all. In fact, she seems to care for her more than she did previously, the fainting spell in her arms clearly worked in her favor. No matter, it will make it easier to get close, to try again.
Nangong Jingnu sleeps before her on the eight-step bed in the princess estate. Although she has her health, she had been exhausted. Continuing the charade, Qi Yan had pleaded to be allowed to stay and watch over her, and her request had been obliged. She sighs at she stares at the princess’s small sleeping form and brushes a small trace of ash off of one of her soft white cheeks.
Her second attempt is with poison. It slips into the tea unnoticed, it’s more subtle than her last attempt, something that will cause her to fall ill and waste away within days of drinking it, but leave naught but a fever behind. And come the fever does, her highness sweats away in bed while Qi Yan watches from the door, the servants moving quickly and efficiently, trying to cool her with wet cloths. It’s like this for three days before she dies. Or before Qi Yan thinks she has anyways. She was so sure, she’d checked her pulse herself, but by the time the imperial physicians came back she was fine, better than ever even, sitting up in bed, bright and chipper and apparently none the worse for wear. Qi Yan grits her teeth and pastes on a relieved smile, rushing to her bedside with feigned urgency. Her highness buys it, seems even more enamoured in fact once she’s told that Qi Yan had spent days at her bedside, never mind that it was only to ensure that the poison took. Her hands are so small in Qi Yan’s own and she feels a flash of guilt for the pain she’s caused this girl. She bites the inside of her cheek, hard, and forces herself to remember her own illness, remember what had caused it. The guilt washes away. She’ll just have to try something else.
By her fifth attempt Qi Yan is frustrated and all but ready to give up on killing this member of the Nangong family. Every time she thinks that she’s finally done it, finally succeeded, Nangong Jingnu makes some sort of miraculous escape or recovery and she’s starting to dread the process. It’s been over a year since they were married, and the longer this goes on, the more she is coming to dislike it. It just… feels wrong somehow… to kill someone so bright and full of life, someone so joyful and smart. It feels wrong to manipulate her like this, to be this cruel when Nangong Jingnu truly seems to care for her. But hadn’t that been her goal? Hadn’t she come here to cause as much pain and suffering as she could? It doesn’t matter anyways, this is not her choice to make, this is not for her but for her people. There is no other choice. This time she’s going to have to make sure that Nangong Jingnu cannot escape, cannot recover.
She plans it for one of the few nights they spend together for appearances sake, waits until Jingnu is fast asleep. She sits up in the giant bed, knife carefully tucked away in her underrobes. All is quiet save for the sound of slow steady breaths. All is dark save for the faint light of the moon through the window. Nangong Jingnu is not at her most beautiful in sleep, she doesn’t lie still, her hair is always a mess, her face scrunched up in the middle as if she is protesting rest even now. Nangong Jingnu is most beautiful instead when she is awake and alive, Qi Yan is willing to admit that, beauty has no basis on morality, she can be objective in this regard.
She is not so beautiful in death.
Qi Yan made it quick at least. For her kindness and for all the suffering she’s put her through, she feels as though she owes her this much, and there is no one left to judge her for her mercy. The blood begins to trickle onto the sheets, pooling. They will have to be burned. She looks back at Nangong Jingnu and startles backwards. The cut on her neck is healing, slowly knitting back together and she is frozen in shock. When Nangong Jingnu gasps awake she still cannot move, when she calls out, hurt and confused, a broken “Yuanjun?” Qi Yan still cannot move, not when she gasps at the knife in her hand, not when she touches her own neck and shudders, when she wrests the bloody thing from her grip. When she finally moves it’s too late. The princess doesn’t know what she’s doing, had probably expected Qi Yan to attempt to defend herself. At least if she is to die like this, she will stain Jingnu’s reputation in the process, if not in the eyes of the public than in those of her father, her family. The knife is wedged between her ribs, she hadn’t meant to kill her she thinks, she just panicked. Qi Yan has the strange desire to comfort her, and lacking any reason not to fulfil her own dying desire, she does so, brushing a tear off of Jingnu’s cheek. She can’t speak, blood fills her lungs, choking out the words like thick vines strangling a flower, but she gives her a tired smile and closes her eyes.
This isn’t how she wanted it to go, and she can’t help but regret how badly her plan had gone. The rest of the Nangong family still deserves to suffer, to rot, they don’t deserve this victory, the death of the prince of the chengli tribe one more great deed that they will ascribe to themselves. It is not their victory, it is her mistake, her mistake for starting to care, for starting to feel. Xiao-die and Bayin might still be out there, her people are still out there, how can she fail them like this? But at the same time, she feels a strange sense of peace, she is glad, to some extent, that it is over, that she can rest. The regret is a bitter sting on her tongue, but she tried, she made it this far, and now she can go. Perhaps the next life will be kinder, her sins will weigh less heavy for her attempts, maybe she will meet her family again.
It is with that thought that she drifts off, content to float in the dreaming sleep of the dead.
When she wakes up a few minutes later, her first thought is of pain. She’s quite surprised that she’s alive all things considered. That Nangong Jingnu called for help, let her live after what she’s done. She can’t tell right away if she’s pleased to be awake, it is unlikely that she’ll ever be able to complete her plan now, exposed as she has been. Her second thought is of confusion, when she opens her eyes and sees Jingnu staring at her in shock, halfway out the door.
What?
She looks down at her chest almost frantically, there’s no knife in it now, but there’s blood soaked into her inner robe and a large tear in the fabric where it went through. There is, however, no corresponding tear in her own skin. She looks back at Nangong Jingnu, wide eyes mirrored in frantic faces. Jingnu steps back and slowly closes the door.
They both reach for the knife at the same time.
The tenth time Qi Yan kills her highness the Zhenzhen Princess light has begun to filter In through the windows and she gasps awake once more with the first breath of dawn casting delicate shadows on her face. They’re both quite covered in blood at this point, some of it dry, much of it not. As the hole in her chest pulls itself tightly shut once more, Qi Yan raises her hands up in a gesture of surrender.
“Your highness.” She starts, valiantly ignoring the way Nangong Jingnu pushes her back down onto the bed and grabs a pillow, likely one she’s going to try to smother her with. “Before the servants come to begin their duties, this subject would like to suggest that some effort be made to hide the evidence of these events.” Nangong Jingnu pauses, briefly, before shoving the pillow in her face and holding her down. She doesn’t bother to protest, they haven’t actually been trying to kill each other for the past hour at least, more venting their separate anger than anything, and she’s gotten hers out of her system for now. Besides, there is a time for practicality even when the situation is nothing of the sort. It’s a quick death to recover from and so Qi Yan does, picking up where she left off as soon as air fills her lungs once more. “If your highness so desires, this activity can continue of course, but this subject has no desire for the whole palace to know of what occurred and believes that your highness wishes for the same.” Nangong Jingnu throws the pillow to the floor in her fit of pique, tossing her a glare over her shoulder as she climbs out of the bed to change her ruined clothes. Qi Yan smiles.
She’ll have to update her ranking she surmises. Jingnu is beautiful at her most lively and animated, but she is most beautiful when she is angry.