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Liu QingGe knelt, an unseemly act for a man like himself—rich, powerful, upright, and just—but one he had been doing a great deal lately. He would soil his robes and prostrate himself at Shen QingQiu's feet as if he were not a god of war, but a mere slave praising his master. He gazed at her as if she had brought him down the stars, the sun, and the moon, as if with a single word from her, life itself could be illuminated. He looked at her as no one had ever seen her before, as a strong, courageous, honorable woman, so beautiful and perfect that she could practically be a deity because she was simply perfect. And he loved her, with all his soul, with his life, and with his body. He wanted to swear his sword, his sect, his loyalty—everything—to her. He longed to make her his wife, for her to bear his name, for her to be the mother of his children. He wanted to wake up every morning beside her and hold her close, gaze into those emerald eyes, kiss her lips, and bring the world to her feet so she would smile at him. He wanted it, and he would do it. He had promised himself that he would marry no one but her, that she would be his Furen. She was a perfect woman; he couldn't ask for more. Just one thing, one thing, and everything would be perfect. That's why he was on his knees.
"Marry me. I have been courting you for years, Shen-Shixiong. Marry me. Become Liu Furen, be my wife, my partner, the only person by my side. I beg you, my dear Jade Star, grant this poor man his deepest desire. Let me see you in red, walk you down the aisle, kneel before you three times, and intertwine our arms to drink wine. Be my wife, the mother of my children."
A gentle breeze drifted in through the window, making her look even more beautiful. There she sat, like the deity she was, a woman so beautiful that even the most radiant goddesses would envy her. She was going to be his wife; she was going to say yes. He already knew it; he was certain of it.
"No." And when Liu QingGe looked up from her beautiful hands with nails painted a soft pink, he saw her crying. "I don't want to be your wife." Her tears were like tiny diamonds falling onto the hem of her hanfu. "I don't want to be your wife, your fiancée, or anything." She opened her mouth, wanting to know why. If everything was going so well, why not? Why didn't she want it? "I love you," she said, refuting the thoughts racing through his mind. "I love you too much, but I don't want to be your Furen."
"But you will be a perfect Furen: beautiful, strong, and brave."
And he couldn't continue because she interrupted him. "But I will be yours, QingGe, I will be your wife, your companion, the mother of your children. I will not be Shen QingQiu, I will be nothing more than another highborn woman married to a powerful lord. My achievements will be erased, my desires forgotten, my words silenced, and my body locked in a gilded cage. I will be expected to bear children, to wait for you at home, to embroider, to clean, to cook, to wait for you. But that is not what I want. I do not wish for you to take me to your bed, nor to wake up every morning in pain because I am trying to conceive a son. I do not want any of that. I do not wish to wear ostentatious robes, nor to wear a red veil to mark my fate for life. I do not want to have to live in your house, to endure your mother, your aunts, your grandmothers, your cousins, and your nieces." I don't want to be unable to leave the sect because that's my husband's job. I don't want to be disregarded because my word is no longer that of a free woman. —She cupped his cheek and saw him cry, but she herself was no longer crying, though her eyes were still red.— I don't want to be trapped with you for life. I want to travel, see every corner of the world, save lives, cultivate myself until I achieve immortality, or perhaps die in peace. Liu QingGe, I don't want to be a wife, I don't want to be a woman in the slightest. I love my body, I love loving you, I love having you by my side, but this can't go on. It's not that I don't want to be with you, but there won't be a single day in my life that I'll put a man above my own freedom. I don't want to be a wife, I don't want to wear red and gold, I don't want and I never will want to give birth to a child, boy or girl, it doesn't matter to me, I don't want to be a mother. I don't want to end up like my sisters did, I don't intend to bring more people into the world to suffer. I want nothing more than to be at peace, here, without having to worry about what people will say about me, about my voice, my face, my body, my fertility, my reputation. I don't want to be called Furen, or Shijie, or Meimei, or Jiejie. I don't want to give birth only to see my body and my cultivation plummet even further. Marriage, Shidi, will never be something I like, not in this life, nor in my next. I would never swear loyalty to someone in that way.—
Silence fell. Liu QingGe remained kneeling, clinging to Shen QingQiu's legs as if letting go would send her flying, or cause her to turn into foam and end her own life.
"Shidi, you should go to sleep."
He whispered, his sweet, melodious voice a little hoarse from speaking so much, but he didn't seem about to cry again. Unlike the man at his feet, who was still sobbing uncontrollably.
"Even if you weren't my furen, the mother of my children, or my wife, would you still marry me? You would be my husband, you wouldn't lose anything, you would be here for me, and I would be there for you."
Those delicate white hands that always played the guqin combed Liu QingGe's silky hair as if she were comforting him. She had already decided her answer long ago; he just didn't know it yet. Perhaps it was time to end this. She couldn't allow herself to keep hurting him.
"No, shidi. There's no point in getting married if we're always going to be there for each other. It's the same as now; there won't be any difference..."
"Then we should end this once and for all."
He regretted those words until the end of his days.
They drifted apart, but she still cared for him; they fought, but she still waited for him; they shouted at each other, but she still comforted him; they killed each other, but she still loved him.
And it was on that day, some time after the failed proposal, that he realized he had ruined everything. That the day she died, she would do so with the guilt of not having accepted. Although he knew that she had made the best decision that day, and it was selfish of him not to have proposed marriage, but to have smiled when, at the moment of her death, she said that if she lived, he would be her husband, her furen, her shijie, the mother of his children, his wife. He knew that she loved him, but he also knew that dying was the best thing that could have happened to her that day. Because if they lived and married, there would be no woman in the world more unhappy than his beloved.