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It was the snacks that did it.
The snacks Gaoshun so casually handed Chue as he herded her out the door. Away from the private conversation that he had come to have with Maomao, in front of Jinshi.
The gulf had grown so wide between them in the years since she’d first met the reserved attendant in the Rear Palace. She, no longer a laundry maid, he no longer a eunuch at the beck and call of the Master of the Rear Palace.
But it was the snacks that broke her heart.
Maomao hadn’t even thought she had a heart that could break. Much less over something so trivial.
All those times in the Rear Palace when Gaoshun had brought her treats, sweet buns and savory, not to mention the smuggled in rice wine. In those days, she’d first thought it simply payment for services rendered. To put it bluntly, as compensation for him looking the other way while his beautifully arrogant young master sexually harassed her. It was only later, after the gift of the warm winter jacket, the solicitous hovering after her leg injury, the way he brought her Xiaolan as an assistant for the incident with the blue roses that she’d begun to think the treats were a kindness. An indication that he’d noticed, and cared for her.
The restorative effect his calm demeanor and occasional mischievous teasing had on her, it had almost felt like. . . what she imagined a father’s care might be. Not the distracted, disengaged, and somewhat absentminded affection of her pops (she could admit to herself if no one else, that she loved him far more than he did she), or the obsessively besotted affection of the freak strategist; his love had no reason or boundaries, despite their estrangement.
It had been lonely since they went their separate ways, Gaoshun to the Emperor’s side (where, she’d been shocked to learn, he should have been at for all these years in the first place), she back to her apothecary and drafty shack, and then to the Court Ladies’ dormitory. Even that year in the Western Palace, she had seen far more of Taomei than of Gaoshun. And then, he’d been surrounded by his real family, Baryou, and Basen, and Miss Chue, while she’d been forced to endure Lakan’s presence all too often.
Sure, she’d occasionally cross paths with Gaoshun, and sometimes, a flash of that old banter, that quiet companionship would solidify in the moment. But gradually, the fuzzy feelings became fewer and farther apart. Worn down as they all were by stress and the drama of imperial life, the grind of short supplies, a hungry populace on edge.
Then, the anticlimactic return to the capital. Jinshi’s rejection when she finally offered herself freely. Gaoshun no more than a name scrawled on letters addressed to her from Jinshi to hide the royal secrets. The gulf between them widened. Maomao was more surrounded by friends and biological relatives than she had ever been, and yet she no longer had anything that felt to her like a family. Her own adopted father treated her more formally than ever, painfully aware of how her position was viewed as nepotism in action, and her biological father ever more unhinged and clownish in his behavior, as his actions at the gathering of the named clans made clear.
And finally today, the sudden reminder that Gaoshun casually used food to manage his chaotic daughter-in-law, to placate and distract her. Seeing how Baryou did the same thing. Maomao was suddenly forced into the realization that perhaps, the warmth she’d once felt had been all of her own imagining. That Gaoshun had simply been using the tools he had to manipulate her after all, just as he did Chue. The perfect aide, always knowing what must be done, to whom, and when to produce the desired obedience.
She couldn’t let herself get distracted by the sudden chill in her heart. Not when they had come together to discuss the taboo subject of the Emperor’s health.
Maomao had to wrap the discussion up quickly, before anyone could sense her disquiet
“I have faith that the physicians will tell you only what is true,” She answered truthfully, if vaguely.
“Understood,” Gaoshun replied, and left.
Not even a goodbye. It shouldn’t hurt, his rank so high above her own. But it did.
She quickly made her own excuses to Jinshi, barely able even to look him in the eye. She should have stayed and given him grief about his own poor decision making, but she needed to get away. Away from the memories that standing in Jinshi’s office had brought to mind. Besides, what right did she have now to berate Jinshi after he’d rejected her so vehemently? On one level she knew Jinshi was doing his best to protect her, on another, she felt they too had never been further apart. Another source of pain she would not acknowledge to any living soul.
Maomao hastily went out and hurried back to the dorms, needing to be alone, to remind herself that she’d always been alone, fixing the stony face she wore so that it would not crumble again. She did not notice the confused and worried look Jinshi exchanged with Chue as she slipped away. She had always been easier to read than she thought.
It was a few days later, on an unseasonably warm afternoon, that Maomao decided to take a few minutes to clear her head. She’d received a letter that morning from Jinshi, as usual addressed with Gaoshun’s name, and it had set her off again. It had been so long since she’d received a bona fide letter from Gaoshun, in Gaoshun’s neat and tidy script. They no longer solved cases together, there were no social visits. She had been such a fool to want to believe. It had gone against everything rational, and yet despite it all, she’d fallen.
During her lunch break, she set off for a long walk though the Outer Palace, checking on some of her favorite gardens (or rather, gardens where she’d illicitly planted some medicinal herbs amongst the decorative shrubbery and flowers, much as her father had once done in the Rear Palace). She never saw the woman tailing her at a distance before scurrying off.
Maomao was sitting on a bench, staring sightlessly at a small lotus pond when she glimpsed movement out of the corner of her eye. Who one earth would come and sit near the freak strategist’s daughter of their own volition?
She sneaked a peek.
“Xiaomao.” That familiar deep voice, the nickname he’d never quite stopped using, despite how inappropriate it was.
Maomao winced. Why was he here, why now? Shouldn’t he be with the Emperor?
“Yoh is resting,” Came the calm reply to the question she hadn’t thought she’d asked aloud.
“What can I do for you, Master Gaoshun?” Maomao cautiously asked. She hoped he wasn’t going to ask her opinion over that of the senior physicians again!
“It is more, what can I do for you?” He promptly replied. “Is everything well between you and. . .?”
Really? To ask such a thing here and now?
“I’m sure Chue and Suiren have kept you and the Emperor informed.” Even Maomao was surprised by the bitterness in her own voice. Still, she wasn’t sure to whom that bitterness was directed.
“It is one thing to hear second hand. Are you alright, Xiaomao?” He hesitated, reached into his robes and pulled out a gourd, offered it to her.
Maomao said nothing, nor did she take the proffered bottle. Gaoshun’s eyes widened in concern. Maomao didn’t even have a hint of the salivation reflex that alcohol usually inspired in her.
“Have I done something to offend you?” She was scowling at him the way his own daughter did, like he was lower than a cockroach. Gaoshun had become accustomed to Maomao’s rude teasing, snark, and occasional sly smiles. Her scowls had always been reserved for when he’d outmaneuvered her into doing something she didn’t want to do, but had never held this degree of chill.
He did not like it. It was hard enough having one daughter despise him. He had no idea what she was upset about, but then, he’d never understood Maamei either. The mind of a female was a complex and treacherous place, even one so unwomanly as Maomao.
“Xiaomao?” he asked again, uncertainly. He wished Chue had told him exactly what was going on before dragging him out here. Perhaps he should have made more time for Maomao over the past year and a half, as he had in the past, finding time to visit even when she’d been working as an apothecary in the Verdigris House, but he had his own burdensome responsibilities, his own family. . .
Ah. So.
He had wondered, more than once, where he stood with Maomao. It was inappropriate to question such things when she already had two paternal figures of her own. And yet, she was the intended of the Night Prince, whom he’d raised almost as a son. She was thus, almost as a daughter-in-law. He had tried to step back once he’d realized she had a biological father (and once he’d seen the parallels between the way she treated Lakan and Maamei treated him), and had pushed her to reconcile with her father. Had tried, in short, to shut a door he’d opened himself, unthinking.
No, not unthinking. He’d known exactly what he was doing. He’d seen the look in that underfed servant girl’s eyes in the Rear Palace, the loneliness and fear hidden by her cool façade. The face with limited dynamic range that showed emotions poorly, but that were still clear to anyone with eyes to see. He’d wanted to erase that fatalistic look from her eyes, had wanted, oh so inappropriately, to spoil her in all the ways his own daughter wouldn’t let him. He’d enjoyed their back and forth, all of them pretending to be what they weren’t. But that, that connection had become real, despite it all, despite themselves.
And then, he’d turned his back and walked away. That job done.
This was his fault.
Gaoshun looked closely at Maomao, her head hanging low now, eyes cast down, unfocused, her hands clenched in her lap.
What would he do if Maamei was seated like this before him?
Gaoshun reached out, took hold of Maomao’s hand, and placed it between both of his.
That got a reaction.
“Master Gaoshun! What?!”
“I am sorry, Xiaomao.”
He could not make excuses. Gaoshun was never one for excuses. Apologize, admit the fault. Make amends. Move on.
“I have not been present as I should have been. Please accept my apologies.”
“Huh?!” Maomao blinked in shock, pulled her hand back, clasped it with her other, and pressed them between her knees, curling in on herself.
She had rarely looked so small to Gaoshun, so. . . bereft. Even after being rescued from the Shi fortress, even the night he’d found her bloodied and filthy, collapsed across Zuigetsu, the both of them asleep on the floor of his rooms in the Western capital.
He had to look away, but when he did, there in the distance was Chue, signalling something most dramatically to him with her good arm. He let out a long, frustrated breath and turned back to Maomao.
“Miss Chue is being patronizing again, huh?” Maomao’s voice was dull, defeated. Her selectively sharp perception showed up at the strangest of time. She knew the answer even without the acknowledging tilt of his head.
There was a long silence. He didn’t say anything. She didn’t say anything. Chue appeared to be making faces at him.
Finally, Maomao looked up from her lap, her gaze on a point across the courtyard. She had to say something, but words were not her forte, and what her heart wanted was not something she could ever ask for aloud, regardless.
“Sister Joka was right.” She would not meet Gaoshun’s eyes. “No matter what, in the end, what it comes down to is that I’m the daughter of a whore. I will never belong to your world, much less his. I owe everyone here a debt for allowing me to pursue a career in medicine, but beyond that?
“Joka always said, the heart of a powerful man is a fickle thing. And neither a whore nor their daughter will ever be enough to hold it. Forgetting even the old fart, it was foolish to think we could ever be more than master and servant, even if I survive the next few months with my neck intact.”
Maomao had no illusions but that if the Emperor should die, the factions at court would use his death as an excuse to eliminate Lakan, and his entire family; her and her dad’s involvement in his medical care would be the pretext. Even Jinshi would not be able to protect her.
Having said her piece, all that she could safely say. Maomao hastily stood. Tears came more easily to her these days. A sign of weakness she could no longer control as she once could. She had to get away before they betrayed her humiliation.
She found her way blocked however, by the immovable wall of fabric that was Gaoshun’s chest. How on earth had such a big man moved so quickly from his seat to intercept her?
Maomao recoiled, only to find her retreat blocked by strong arms that moved to encircle her, and wrap her in a warm embrace. The only male to ever hug her before had been Jinshi. And those embraces had been predatory, hungry. He no longer embraced her, or touched her at all. This hug was not predatory, nor was it hungry. It felt similar to Pairin, only with hard muscle not soft suffocating breasts pressed against her face, a scent of sandalwood and spice, rather than her sister’s light floral perfume. The encircling arms and hands that soothed her tense back were so very unexpected.
Maomao froze. She did not know what to do. But it hardly mattered. The tears she’d been holding back could not withstand this latest shock.
Above her, she could just barely make out the words Gaoshun murmured into her hair.
“Xiaomao, my Xiaomao. It will be all right. One day, this old man will see you wed that fool boy.”
She thought she must be hallucinating, because after that, she could have sworn he whispered, “Hurry up and give me another grandchild to spoil”.
There was just no way he could have said, or even thought such a thing. Even as a jest.
Maomao curled her hands into the front of his robes and cried harder. Letting out all the pain and fear she’d held in, all the longing for a connection that she thought could never be. Her sobs, silent heaves against the safe, solid mass that was Gaoshun. Letting all the badness out to make room for a warm thread of relief seeping in from his heart to hers.
Gaoshun tightened his grip, pressed his chin against the top of her head, tried to shield her from the world, even knowing that Chue would keep anyone from seeing. Still, he couldn’t help but think,
If Zuigetsu doesn’t get his shit together, I could still adopt my brother’s son and offer him to Maomao instead.
One way or another, he would ensure that Maomao never again doubted her place in his heart.
My daughter. Or as good as.