Chapter Text
“I know I said that I’d provide poisons for you to test with, but this is too far!”
Maomao stared down her husband. Her husband stared resolutely back. She crossed her arms, leaning back in her chair, clearly letting the light shine off of the ring on her hand.
Jinshi let his eyes flicker down to the light and back. If this was a staring contest, he’d have just lost.
“Why not?” she asked crossly. “You said you’d provide!”
Jinshi exhaled forcefully, pinching the bridge of his nose. “My darling wife,” he said through gritted teeth, “as my darling wife, you’ll have to have your own poison taster at the garden party. You are not permitted to taste your own food, and certainly not mine. As far as everyone else is concerned, you are married to the next Emperor, and thus would be the future Empress. This would be a security concern.”
“Which is exactly why I want to do it!” Maomao pouted. “I haven’t had any good poison in ages. Wouldn’t you at least let me do it? Just once?”
“No. And that’s final.” Jinshi turned around, probably to avoid her sad, sad eyes. “Not even if you beg. We will find some other poor soul to do it, and you won’t die of poisoning.”
She’s less likely to die than the taster, but okay.
Hands caught her attention when they were pressed onto her shoulders. “Please don’t be angry with me, my dear,” her husband said softly, lips hovering close to her ear. “You worry me sick regardless. One night of missed poisonings won’t set you back too far.”
Maomao huffed. She knocked his face away with the back of her hand before she stood up. “You speak far too sweetly to not have been trying to placate me,” she retorted. “Lady Gyokuyou sent for me. I’ll be there for the remainder of the day, but please… hesitate before attempting to invite yourself into the Jade Pavilion.” And stop with the ‘my dear’ and ‘my darling wife’ stuff, it’s creeping me out!
The first time it happened, she brushed it off. It could’ve been a slip of the tongue, or a bit of an experiment on what she was okay with. She gave no reaction, hoping to neither discourage nor encourage him more than his big head could take.
But.
It had been weeks.
Okay, it wasn’t exactly creeping her out per se, but Maomao had always thought affectionate nicknames like those were somewhat insincere. She was used to hearing them at the end of insults, or threats, or catcalls. Not… whatever Jinshi was doing.
“Ugh.” She shuddered again at the thought of it. Gross.
Maomao knew he didn’t have much ulterior motive. Maybe he was just trying to settle into the ‘husband’ role in time for the garden party, but no one was expecting them to actually be affectionate, were they? Marriages in politics were typically seen as what they were, political marriages, so there was no sense in pretending to be in love when in the public eye.
Unless, her brain helpfully suggested, he was actually falling in love.
She shuddered again. Thankfully, there was zero chance that would happen. Maomao was, for one, subjectively visually unappealing. She was mean, rude, and undignified. She had no sense of grace. She was in no way raised to fill the role she was now expected to fill, and up until a few months ago, from an entirely different world than her husband. There was no way he’d fall in love with a creature like her.
The walk to the Jade Pavilion let her clear her head of any other unpleasant and improbably love-related thoughts, so she could temporarily enter Lady Gyokuyou’s service without a certain purple-haired hindrance slowing her down.
“Good morning, Gyokuyou-sama,” she murmured, bowing low. “What would you like me to do for you today?”
Lady Gyokuyou smiled at her kindly. “Would you accompany Xiaoling and I on a walk?” she asked, letting her daughter tug on the ends of her hair. “This little girl requested you, specifically.”
Maomao hid a grin. “Making demands already? How aware of her stature she is, my lady.”
Lady Gyokuyou laughed. “Well, then,” she said. “Shall we?”
Lingli babbled and ran up to Maomao, her little feet pattering on the hardwood floors. She reached up insistently, to which Maomao looked at the consort, who nodded. Maomao hauled the princess up carefully, tucking a stray strand of hair behind the tiny girl’s ear.
The glint of silver on her hand caught her eye, and—
Oh.
Oh no.
“Oh, Maomao?” She’s so fucked. “What’s that on your hand? Is that a ring I see?”
She forced a smile at Lady Gyokuyou. “Yep,” Maomao replied, hoisting Lingli further up her hip. “That is a ring, my lady.”
Lady Gyokyou took her hand and inspected it with a kind of curiosity she only had when she wanted to gossip. Maomao suspected that she was her new target, which was bad, because she couldn’t afford to be found out. “I heard that these sort of rings, worn this way, were signifiers of marriage,” Lady Gyokuyou said, amusement clear on her face, doubly so when Maomao recoiled slightly. “I didn’t know you were married, Maomao.”
Gah. So fucked. I was too busy acting mad to have taken it off before I left. Stupid, stupid. “I’m not married, my lady,” Maomao replied flatly, hoping it didn’t sound fake. “It’s a family heirloom.”
Technically, that wasn’t a lie.
“I’ve never seen you wear it before,” Lady Gyokuyou pressed gleefully. “Did you recently get it?”
“Yes, from my father,” Maomao answered miserably, wishing to melt into the floor.
“When?”
Maomao realized that the consort was having way too much fun torturing her like this. “A few weeks ago, my lady,” she said, trying not to freak out.
Lady Gyokuyou grinned, though she feigned upset. “When and why and who did you leave the palace with, Maomao?” she admonished. “You shouldn’t be leaving at all, you know! Even if you had an escort, it’s still not entirely allowed unless you had permission from… well, a myriad of people really.”
Crap. If Maomao tells her she went with Jinshi, she’d ask why she went with Jinshi. If Maomao told her that she went with the crown prince, her husband… no, that would directly contradict what she just said and reveal her true identity. If Lady Gyokuyou asked why she went out with Jinshi, or why she was visiting family with him, and why Jinshi of all people was taking her out, and on whose authority…
Ehhhhh… Maomao really stepped in it now, didn’t she?
Perhaps Lady Gyokuyou noticed Maomao’s brain being cooked from trying to find a loophole that still allowed her to be truthful, and decided to be merciful.
“Ne, Maomao, I’m only teasing you,” she chuckled, patting her arm good-naturedly. “Relax. I won’t tell.”
Maomao wanted nothing more than to bury herself alive.
When she got released from the day of endless teasing by Lady Gyokuyou, Maomao immediately beelined for Jinshi’s office. Since he didn’t invite himself into the Jade Pavilion, Maomao assumed he was actually working, and overworking himself at that.
After a split second of consideration, she stopped by the kitchen to make tea first, before knocking on the office door to announce her presence. At this hour, he’d long stopped taking visitors other than his personal staff, so Maomao felt safe just walking in.
Maomao was about to start loudly and pointedly tidying at him, but her countenance softened when she spotted her husband furiously writing something. She rapped her knuckles on the edge of the desk.
Startled, Jinshi looked up from his work, his alarmed expression immediately melting away into something almost akin to relief, then shifted back to alarm again when he glanced outside.
“Is it dinnertime already?” he asked, brows furrowed. “I swore I was going to have this all done by sundown, but… gods…” Jinshi set down the brush and rotated his wrist a little. “I wanted to have dinner with you at home. And then I wanted to rest with you.”
Maomao walked around the desk when she noticed his hands twitching towards her anyway, opening her arms somewhat reluctantly. Jinshi brightened noticeably and immediately wrapped his arms around her waist, pressing his face into her stomach. She felt him inhale deeply.
Was he sniffing her? Pervert.
Still, she made no move to change their position, only picking up a book from his stack of them to start idly flipping through as she waited for him to decide he had enough.
The minutes went on. Jinshi kept hugging her.
“Uh, Jinshi-sama…” She tapped his shoulder, feeling him tense under her fingertips. “You still have work to do. But I brought tea. Also.”
“Don’t want it,” he said, voice muffled as he spoke into the fabric of her top. “Don’t want to do the work, either.”
Maomao sighed. “Then why were you writing like not writing would burn you?”
At this, Jinshi buried his face further into her midriff, almost like he was nuzzling her.
“Jinshi-sama.” No response. “Jinshi.” No response. She rolled her eyes. She couldn’t believe she had to resort to this on a grown man. “Husband.”
Her husband groaned softly and let her go, opting to stretch his arms out instead. Maomao watched as he yawned, slightly sympathetic. But not enough to remain sympathetic when he asked, “Can we just go to bed now?”
“No.” She smacked him lightly. “But you can stop work now, and we’ll take tea and dinner in our room.”
Thankfully, this time, her husband listened to her and did as she asked, locking up his office for the night before they walked back to their room, once again stopping by the kitchen to pick up their dinner. Suiren was nowhere to be found, but their food was resting on top of the stove, and they stayed in the kitchen just long enough for Maomao to heat it up.
It was a domestic scene, now that she thought about it. Jinshi, tired as he was, waited for her as he sat at the kitchen table, nursing a cup of chamomile tea from the teapot. Maomao had told him about her day with Lady Gyokuyou, about how they had to be a little more careful now.
Then, against her suggestion, Jinshi held her by the waist as they walked back to their room. Not only was it impractical since she was holding a tray full of food and drink, it was summer, and it was already warm to begin with without them sharing body heat.
“Jinshi-sama, you have to let go of me so we can eat,” Maomao said. “Or at least take off a bit of our clothes so we can get more comfortable.”
“Feed me,” her husband said instead of literally anything else.
I really married a spoiled prince, Maomao thought unhelpfully. Though it really doesn’t make things better when I do exactly what he asks me to.