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When Jīn Guāngyáo found the servant who gave Lán Xīchén lotus wine because they thought it would be mild enough for a Lán, he was going to reassign them to the stables for the next year.
Jīn Guāngyáo had left Lán Xīchén in his guest rooms, in the hope the other man would settle down for bed, or at least have the decency to pass out close enough that Jīn Guāngyáo could shove him in it once he came back from dealing with a different crisis involving Jīn Líng having escaped the nursery to find his jiùjiù yet again. However, when Jīn Guāngyáo entered Lán Xīchén’s guest quarters, there was no Zéwú-jūn to be found, and Jīn Guāngyáo walked quickly out of the room and down the corridor to the nearest courtyard.
Sure enough, there was Lán Xīchén up on the roof, flute out, swaying back and forth as he stared up at the moon.
“Èr-gē!” Jīn Guāngyáo called out softly as not to startle the precariously placed man.
“Ā-Yáo!” Lán Xīchén called back, much louder. He waved effusively down at Jīn Guāngyáo. “Come up and look at the moon with me! Is the sky not beautiful tonight, Ā-Yáo?”
“It is, Èr-gē, but I would prefer to enjoy it safely, down here. I do not have a cultivation high enough to heal quickly if I fall from so far! Please come down,” Jīn Guāngyáo pleaded, still softer than Lán Xīchén’s own excited rambling as not to disturb the few guests already asleep.
“Oh!” Lán Xīchén pondered for a bit before nodding. “Yes, it’s much safer for me to come to Ā-Yáo!”
Jīn Guāngyáo felt relieved that Lán Xīchén would be flying down, but only for a moment, as just before Lán Xīchén stepped off the roof he tripped and fell forward. Jīn Guāngyáo moved quickly to try and catch the other man, and when Lán Xīchén landed in his arms, the force knocked both of them to the ground.
Jīn Guāngyáo inhaled slowly and took stock. Nothing was broken as far as he could tell, only some soreness from landing hard on his back and the ache of a forming bruise where Lán Xīchén’s body struck his. Where… they were chest to chest, Jīn Guāngyáo realized in a cold spike of dread.
They were chest to chest. Jīn Guāngyáo thought, his heart suddenly pounding. Èr-gē can feel- he can tell I’m not a man!
Lán Xīchén was frozen on top of him with wide, startled eyes. Lán Xīchén slowly and carefully stood, closed his eyes for a moment, shook his head and opened his eyes again before offering Jīn Guāngyáo a hand up off the ground. Jīn Guāngyáo noted somewhere under the panic racing through him that Èr-gē had likely used his technique of burning much of the alcohol from his system. Jīn Guāngyáo opened his mouth to speak but only air puffed out.
Jīn Guāngyáo couldn’t breathe.
Distantly as if through a fog he could here Èr-gē calling his name and a hand on his wrist, but Jīn Guāngyáo was lost in his head, scrambling for a method or an excuse to give for this, but each seemed flimsier than the last.
Jīn Guāngyáo’s mother hid that Jīn Guāngyáo was a girl in the brothel she grew up in, with the help of Mèng Shī’s closest companion Sīsī, they were able to hide Jīn Guāngyáo as a son until Jīn Guāngyáo was able to hide it herself.
Now, everything was at risk due to a simple accident. If this was the end of Lán Xīchén’s tolerance of Jīn Guāngyáo’s methods, then she didn’t know what she would do, where she would go. She would simply have to figure it out.
Jīn Guāngyáo blinked and realized she was back in her own rooms, being sat down at her own table, as Lán Xīchén moved away to make tea. Jīn Guāngyáo took a deep breath, swallowed, and settled her face into a pleasant sort of apologetic expression by the time Lán Xīchén had turned around to face her.
Jīn Guāngyáo opened her mouth but is quickly poured tea and given a small cake from the stock she keeps for guests. Lán Xīchén poured his own cup with accompanying little cake, and who is Jīn Guāngyáo to ignore a sign that Lán Xīchén isn’t ready to discuss this yet, and sipped form her own cup.
The tea and the cake helped settle Jīn Guāngyáo’s own nerves, and soon enough they finished. Lán Xīchén set his empty cup down and looked her in the eye.
“Is this something you wish to discuss with me?” Lán Xīchén asked.
“I may as well. The ruse is up now, isn’t it? I should give my reasons before I am condemned, no?” Jīn Guāngyáo offered pleasantly. Lán Xīchén frowned.
“I would never condemn you for something as understandable as this, Ā-Yáo.” He sounded sad. “Whatever happens from here is on your terms. If you wish to discuss this, I will listen. If you would prefer I leave it be as none of my business, I will listen to that, too.”
Jīn Guāngyáo quietly sighed. How was this man so effortlessly good, she wondered. “My Ā-niáng hid me as a boy, as it was safer. A boy would be made to clean and run errands, in a brothel. A girl would be put to work. She did it to protect me, and it is simply safer to be the son of a prostitute than the daughter of one.”
A wrinkle appeared in Lán Xīchén’s brow, but he nodded in understanding. “Is it that you are a woman hiding as a man, or are you perhaps one of the few that have reincarnated in the incorrect form for you?”
Jīn Guāngyáo almost smiled in surprise. That wasn’t something she ever considered a problem, but of all people who would consider such things it would be Lán Xīchén. “No. I am a woman. Lánlíng Jīn Sect and Jīnlín Tái is a place where it is safer to be a man than one of my Fùqīn’s targets. He considers me his nominal heir, but if I were discovered, it would be easy to replace me and have me thrown out, or worse, gifted to one of his preferred subordinates.”
“You’re his child!”
“I’m his servant. I know my place and follow the orders I’m given, but if I step out of line?” She left the rest for Lán Xīchén to complete in his mind. He looked pained.
“Does anyone else know, besides you and I?”
Jīn Guāngyáo flinched before she could stop herself. “Dà-gē knows.”
“Oh?” Lán Xīchén seemed surprised.
Jīn Guāngyáo rubbed her wrist and looked down at her lap. “He wasn’t pleased about it. He was angry at being asked to keep my secret.”
Èr-gē looked sick now, and sympathetic to Jīn Guāngyáo. Lán Xīchén reached over and took Jīn Guāngyáo’s hand to squeeze.
“What would you like from me, at this point, and in the future?” Èr-gē asked softly.
Jīn Guāngyáo took a deep breath, relief flooding through her like a rising tide. “I know Èr-gē doesn’t lie, but if Èr-gē would simply put this out of mind. Don’t bring it up to anyone, or show me any deference or kindness more than he normally would were I truly a man, I would be grateful. I am your sworn brother, and that is what is important.”
Lán Xīchén nodded, his shoulders loosened and he squeezed Jīn Guāngyáo’s hand again. “I can do that, Ā-Yáo.”
Lán Xīchén paused. “But— I think I can offer one thing more.”
Jīn Guāngyáo froze as Lán Xīchén reached behind his own head with his free and and tugged loose his forehead ribbon. Lán Xīchén lifted their joined hands and loosely wrapped the ribbon around their wrists, nodded, and then freed his own wrist. He let Jīn Guāngyáo’s hand go and finished tying the forehead ribbon around her wrist where it would be hidden by the fall of her robes.
“If you ever are exposed, with my ribbon in your possession you can claim protection from Gūsū Lán Sect and from me, as Lán-zōngzhǔ, Ā-Yáo. Please use it if you need to, alright?” Lán Xīchén offered, his eyes soft.
Jīn Guāngyáo blinked away her shock. “Thank you. I will, Èr-gē.”
Lán Xīchén smiled brightly and Jīn Guāngyáo felt a pressure in her chest. They both stood and bowed to one another before Lán Xīchén made his way back to his own rooms for the night.
After the door closed behind Lán Xīchén, Jīn Guāngyáo collapsed back into his seat. His hands were shaking even though everything had turned out well in the end. Zéwú-jūn had even offered him his personal protection and that of his sect, which was more than Jīn Guāngyáo expected. Jīn Guāngyáo hoped to only ensure Èr-gē’s silence as he had Dà-gē’s, and for their relationship to become just as strained.
Jīn Guāngyáo smiled down at the white ribbon and stroked it lightly. How lovely, he thought, to have Lán Xīchén always on my side.