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Yin Xinyue first noticed it in the street, although later, when she truly began to think about it, she came to the conclusion that it must have happened before. Probably many times. Zhang Qishan had an entire collection of small habits he performed with such natural ease that it was as though his body had learned them long before his mind ever thought to give them meaning: a hand resting on his holster when he entered an unfamiliar room, a brief glance toward the windows before he sat down, the almost imperceptible shift of his weight whenever a stranger came too close. Even at home, where there were no soldiers, no enemies, and no reason to expect an attack, Zhang Qishan sat in a way that let him see the door. When they walked through the city together, he usually took the side closest to the street. When they climbed stairs, he let her go ahead of him, and when they descended, he was the first to place a foot on the lower step. At first Xinyue had assumed these were simply the habits of a soldier, of a man who had spent too many years in a world where a moment of carelessness could cost a life, but that afternoon, for the first time, she saw one of those reflexes clearly enough to truly remember it.
Nothing particularly dramatic happened. In fact, if someone had asked her about that day later, she probably would have remembered the weather more than anything else, because Changsha was bathed in soft afternoon light and, after several days of rain, the air finally smelled of earth instead of dust. They had left together after a meeting Zhang Qishan had originally intended to attend alone, until Xinyue informed him that since the matter also concerned several of her family's interests, she would be accompanying him. She had not asked permission. Zhang Qishan no longer made the mistake of assuming such things were open to negotiation. He accepted her presence with one calm nod, and when they got out of the car, he offered her his hand as though that had been the plan from the very beginning.
They were walking back toward the car now, talking about something entirely unimportant. Xinyue was in the middle of explaining why the man they had just met was an idiot - in considerable detail, too, and she had only reached the third of at least seven reasons - when a violent crash sounded somewhere across the street.
Later, they learned that a wooden crate had split after being carelessly dropped from a cart.
At the time, however, they had no way of knowing that.
Xinyue only had time to turn her head.
Zhang Qishan was already moving.
He did not grab her roughly. He did not shout. There was nothing theatrical about it, nothing even particularly noticeable to the people passing by, because the entire movement lasted perhaps a second: his hand closed around her forearm, his body shifted half a step sideways, and Xinyue was guided behind his back before she had even realized she had changed position. Zhang Qishan stood between her and the source of the noise, his arms loose, but Xinyue could see the change in his posture - the tension across his back beneath the uniform, the slight lowering of his shoulders, the way his right hand stopped near his weapon. Only when he saw the overturned crate, the goods scattered across the paving stones, and the terrified merchant did the tension begin to leave him.
“Are you hurt?”
Xinyue blinked.
She looked at the crate.
Then at the broad back of the man standing in front of her.
Then down at Zhang Qishan's hand, still resting on her arm.
And something small, warm, and entirely ridiculous spread somewhere beneath her ribs.
“I'm fine.”
Zhang Qishan turned his head, apparently checking her face as though her answer alone were not sufficient proof. Only then did he let go of her arm. He did it without comment and continued walking as though absolutely nothing had happened.
Xinyue remained where she was for half a second longer.
Oh.
Oh, that was interesting.
+++
The second time was less subtle.
A few days later they visited Er Yuehong and Yatou, and as they were leaving, one of the horses standing in front of the residence suddenly spooked at the slam of a closing gate. The animal jerked at the reins, whinnied, and reared. The man holding its bridle immediately tried to regain control, so there was not really any genuine danger; Xinyue stood several good steps away and had already instinctively moved back on her own.
Zhang Qishan still ended up in front of her.
Again.
The same hand.
The same movement.
One smooth shift that placed her behind his back.
This time Xinyue was prepared enough not to look at the horse.
She looked at him.
That was when she finally understood what, exactly, affected her so much about all of this. It was not simply the fact that Zhang Qishan wanted to protect her. She knew that. Of course she knew. Zhang Qishan might be sparing with words, but he was not difficult to understand once one learned the language he spoke; love from him rarely took the form of declarations and more often appeared as a car waiting exactly when she needed it, a coat handed to her before she stepped out into the cold, food left on the table because she had come home late, a chair pulled out without drawing any attention to the gesture, a man sent with her under the pretense of handling some other matter whenever Zhang Qishan thought the road might be dangerous. Xinyue knew all of those things and had learned to accept them, even if sometimes she deliberately forced him to say something aloud purely for the pleasure of watching that barely perceptible helplessness appear in his eyes when his own wife demanded that he verbally express something which, in his opinion, was already perfectly obvious.
But this was different.
Because Zhang Qishan was not thinking.
That was what struck her hardest.
He was not assessing the situation, making a decision, looking first at her and then at the threat. There was no time for any of those steps. A crash, movement, possible danger - and his body answered immediately.
Xinyue behind me.
As though that one rule had been written somewhere deeper than all his military orders.
Her heart did something very stupid.
“Xinyue?”
Only then did she realize that the horse had long since been calmed and Zhang Qishan was looking at her with a faint crease between his brows.
“Hmm?”
“I asked if you're all right.”
“Wonderful.”
The crease deepened.
Xinyue smiled.
Zhang Qishan looked at her for another moment, apparently deciding there was no point in asking.
It was a very sensible conclusion.
Because Xinyue had just made a decision that, over the next two weeks, would make Zhang Qishan seriously question his wife's sanity.
+++
Experiment one took place over dinner.
Naturally, she had no intention of creating any real danger. She was not that insane, regardless of what Qi Tiezui occasionally suggested. She merely needed a stimulus sudden enough to trigger the reflex, and the opportunity presented itself when a servant carrying a tray caught his foot on the edge of the rug.
A teacup wobbled.
Xinyue did not even have time to think: now.
Zhang Qishan's hand appeared in front of her.
There was not even anything to block. The cup did not fall, the servant regained his balance, the tea stayed where it was, and yet Zhang Qishan's arm had lifted across Xinyue's body like a barrier.
Xinyue looked down.
Then slowly raised her eyes.
Zhang Qishan looked at his own arm as well.
For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Then Zhang Qishan calmly lowered it.
Xinyue pressed her lips together.
It did not help.
The corners twitched.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
Zhang Qishan knew her far too well to believe that 'nothing.'
“Xinyue.”
“I'm eating.”
And she did indeed lift her chopsticks, although the smile was still trying to escape onto her face.
Zhang Qishan watched her for a few seconds before returning to his meal.
Experiment one: success.
+++
Experiment two came the next day.
Xinyue dropped a book.
On purpose.
It was a heavy book.
Zhang Qishan was sitting at his desk several steps away, going through documents, when the volume struck the floor with a resounding thud.
His head snapped up at once.
Xinyue sat perfectly still.
Zhang Qishan looked at her.
At the book.
Back at her.
This time he did not move.
Hmm.
So noise alone was not enough.
Interesting.
“I dropped it.”
“I see.”
Xinyue picked up the book.
Zhang Qishan returned to his documents.
After a few seconds, without looking up, he said:
“If you're testing something, you could at least tell me what.”
Xinyue froze.
Slowly, she looked at him.
Zhang Qishan turned a page.
“I don't know what you're talking about.”
“Mm.”
That short, calm 'mm' was one of the most irritating sounds known to mankind.
Xinyue narrowed her eyes.
Experiment two: inconclusive.
+++
Experiment three required assistance.
“No.”
Qi Tiezui did not even let her finish.
Xinyue looked at him indignantly.
“I haven't even told you what I want yet.”
“You don't have to. You have that face.”
“What face?”
“The one you always have when you're about to do something that will make Fo Ye look at me as though he's considering whether he can legally shoot me.”
“That is a very specific face.”
“I know it well.”
They were sitting in a small parlor, and Qi Tiezui held his teacup in both hands as though the porcelain might offer him protection from Xinyue's ideas. She could not stop herself from smiling. One of the reasons she liked Ba Ye was that his instinct for self-preservation was extraordinarily well developed, yet somehow almost never strong enough to actually keep him out of trouble. Qi Tiezui could spend half an hour explaining why entering a particular tomb would end with everyone present dying, and then be the first to follow Zhang Qishan inside while continuing to complain. His courage always arrived disguised as cowardice, and perhaps that was precisely why Xinyue was so especially fond of him.
“I just want you to throw something in my direction.”
Qi Tiezui set down his teacup.
“Goodbye.”
“Ba Ye!”
“No. Absolutely not. I've already seen Fo Ye angry. I have no need to experience it again from a closer distance.”
“Not at me!”
Qi Tiezui stopped halfway to his feet.
Xinyue explained.
The longer she talked, the stranger his expression became.
When she finished, Qi Tiezui was silent for several seconds.
Then he asked:
“You're testing your own husband?”
“I'm conducting an observation.”
“That sounds worse.”
“I want to know if he does it every time.”
“Does what?”
“Moves me behind him.”
Qi Tiezui blinked.
And suddenly his face changed.
First came understanding.
Then amusement.
Then something that looked dangerously close to delight.
“Oh.”
Xinyue pointed a finger at him.
“Exactly.”
“Oh.”
“Stop it.”
“That is...”
“Ba Ye.”
“...actually kind of sweet.”
Xinyue felt warmth climb up her neck.
“Are you going to throw it or not?”
Qi Tiezui grinned broadly.
“I'll throw it.”
Traitor.
+++
The plan was simple.
Zhang Qishan stood beside the table in his study, talking with Zhang Rishan. Xinyue entered and stopped beside him, and Qi Tiezui was supposed to walk through the doorway a few seconds later and throw a rolled-up piece of cloth in their direction.
Soft.
Light.
Completely harmless.
Xinyue only wanted to see what would happen.
What happened exceeded her expectations.
The cloth traveled perhaps half a meter.
Zhang Qishan caught Xinyue around the waist, moved her behind him, and intercepted the flying object with his other hand.
All in one movement.
Qi Tiezui froze.
Rishan froze.
Xinyue, now standing directly behind Zhang Qishan's back, peeked over his shoulder.
Silence fell.
Zhang Qishan looked at the piece of cloth in his hand.
Then at Qi Tiezui.
Ba Ye went pale.
“Fo Ye, before you jump to any conclusions...”
Zhang Qishan shifted his gaze to Xinyue.
That was worse.
Much worse.
Xinyue smiled innocently.
“Interesting.”
“Xinyue.”
“Very interesting.”
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Qi Tiezui made the sound of a man whose conscience had just been put to the test.
Zhang Qishan looked at him.
Qi Tiezui cracked immediately.
“She's conducting an experiment!”
“Ba Ye!”
“I want to live!”
Rishan turned his face away.
Xinyue was almost certain she saw the corner of his mouth twitch.
Zhang Qishan, meanwhile, said nothing for a long moment. He looked at the cloth. Then at his wife. Then back at the cloth again, as though he were reconstructing the events of the past few days and had just begun finding answers to questions he had not even thought to ask before.
“The teacup.”
Xinyue bit her lip.
“Possibly.”
“The book.”
“Control experiment.”
Qi Tiezui snorted.
Zhang Qishan closed his eyes.
Just for a second.
“Why?”
And it was precisely that question, asked without anger, without even real irritation, that suddenly softened all of Xinyue's amusement. Because she could have told him it was funny. She could have said she wanted to test a theory. She could have continued teasing him, and he would have allowed it, perhaps answering with something dry, and the whole situation would have remained another small joke Ba Ye would later tell anyone foolish enough to listen.
But the truth was softer than that.
Xinyue stepped out from behind his back.
She stood in front of him.
“Because I wanted to know if you do it consciously.”
Zhang Qishan frowned.
“What?”
“That.”
She touched his sleeve, exactly where his arm had been in front of her only moments ago.
“Every time something happens, you stand in front of me.”
The silence changed.
Rishan looked somewhere off to the side.
Qi Tiezui suddenly became very interested in the ceiling.
Zhang Qishan looked at his own arm as though Xinyue had just informed him of a habit belonging to an entirely different person.
“You didn't know.”
It was not a question.
And that was the most beautiful part.
Zhang Qishan truly had not known.
Xinyue felt that familiar warmth in her chest, only this time it was neither sudden nor playful. It spread slowly, reaching places whose existence one only remembered when someone touched them gently enough. She was loved. She knew that. She did not need proof, and yet there was something almost painfully tender in discovering that she existed inside Zhang Qishan's reflexes. A person could control his words. He could control his face. Zhang Qishan controlled both better than anyone she knew. But no one could plan that single second between danger and thought.
There was no Fo Ye there.
No commander.
No head of the Nine Gates.
There was only a man whose body had learned one simple rule:
Xinyue first.
She smiled at him, entirely differently this time.
“I like it.”
Zhang Qishan looked at her for a moment.
“Then stop having things thrown at you.”
“Technically, Ba Ye was doing the throwing.”
“Fo Ye, I would like it noted that I was acting under pressure.”
“Traitor.”
“Madam Zhang, I have a family.”
“No, you don't.”
“I'd like to have one someday.”
Rishan coughed.
This time he was definitely hiding a laugh.
+++
Xinyue promised that the experiments were over.
She truly intended to keep that promise.
For three whole days.
On the fourth day, they encountered a goose.
It was not an ordinary goose.
Xinyue would later insist on making this point very clear, because the way Qi Tiezui told the story suggested that an innocent animal had been unfairly accused of aggression toward the head of the Nine Gates. Nothing of the sort. The goose was evil. Xinyue knew it was evil from the very first glance. There was that particular kind of unscrupulous intelligence in its eyes that suggested a creature perfectly willing to set the city on fire simply for the pleasure of watching it burn.
Zhang Qishan did not notice it.
They were walking along a path behind one of Wu Laogou's warehouses, where they were meant to inspect a shipment that had arrived the previous evening. Wu Laogou walked several steps ahead of them, talking about the crates, while Xinyue listened only half-heartedly because she was far more interested in the animal standing beside a small fence.
The goose looked at her.
Xinyue looked at the goose.
The goose lowered its head.
“Oh no.”
Zhang Qishan turned around.
The goose moved.
It did not walk.
It did not run.
It charged.
Xinyue did not have time to do anything.
Zhang Qishan was already in front of her.
Of course he was.
One hand moved Xinyue behind his back, while the other lifted slightly, as though Fo Ye were genuinely considering the possibility of entering into physical combat with an enraged bird.
The goose stopped.
Zhang Qishan looked at it.
The goose looked at Zhang Qishan.
Silence descended.
Wu Laogou turned around.
Xinyue peeked out from behind her husband's shoulder.
For several long seconds, the most powerful man in Changsha and a bird weighing roughly five kilograms stared each other down.
The goose hissed.
Zhang Qishan frowned.
And that was enough.
Xinyue started laughing.
At first she tried to stop herself. She really did. She pressed her lips together, hid her face between Zhang Qishan's shoulder blades, even covered it with one hand, but the image was too absurd: Fo Ye, commander, a man before whom soldiers, merchants, and members of the Nine Gates all stepped aside, was currently shielding his wife from a goose with his own body.
The laughter burst out of her so violently that she had to grab Zhang Qishan's uniform.
“Xinyue.”
“You...”
She could not breathe.
“Xinyue.”
“You really...”
The goose hissed again.
Zhang Qishan took half a step, blocking her even more completely.
That finished her.
“Stop!”
“You're the one laughing.”
“Because you're protecting me from a goose!”
Zhang Qishan turned his head just far enough to look at her from the corner of his eye.
“It charged at you.”
“It's a goose!”
“I can see that.”
“Fo Ye!”
Wu Laogou turned his back on them.
His shoulders were shaking.
Traitor number two.
The goose apparently concluded that Zhang Qishan had no intention of yielding, because after one final angry hiss, it retreated toward the fence.
Victory.
Fo Ye: one.
Goose: zero.
Fo Ye's dignity: result unknown.
Xinyue was still laughing when Zhang Qishan turned to face her.
“Satisfied?”
The question should have sounded dry.
It almost did.
But Xinyue knew his face.
She saw the tiny softening around his eyes. The barely perceptible twitch of his mouth. That particular kind of patient resignation that appeared only with her, as though Zhang Qishan had long ago accepted that loving Yin Xinyue meant making peace with a certain amount of chaos.
Suddenly, her laughter softened.
“Very.”
She straightened.
She smoothed the fabric of his uniform where she had just been clutching it in her hand.
Then, before he could say anything, she rose onto her toes and kissed his cheek.
Wu Laogou abruptly discovered something extraordinarily interesting on the other side of the courtyard.
Zhang Qishan did not move for a moment.
“What was that for?”
Xinyue looked at him.
She could have answered: for saving me from the goose.
It would have been funnier.
But she did not say that.
“For always stepping in front of me first.”
Something changed in his eyes.
Not much. Zhang Qishan never needed much.
His hand lifted and tucked a loose strand of hair behind her ear. The gesture was calm, ordinary, almost inconspicuous. Exactly like all the other things he did for her every day, things he perhaps did not even count himself.
“You're my wife.”
As though that explained everything.
For him, it probably did.
Xinyue looked at him for a moment, feeling something squeeze gently around her heart. Sometimes she forgot that this was simply the way Zhang Qishan loved. Without ornament. Without grand words. To him, love was not something that had to be named over and over again, because it existed in the decisions made every day: in the place at the table, in the hand extended as she stepped out of the car, in remembering the particular kind of sweets she liked, in coming home despite yet another stack of documents that could have kept him in his study until morning.
And apparently it also existed in an unconditional willingness to duel a goose.
Xinyue smiled.
“You know you don't have to protect me from everything, don't you?”
“I know.”
“And yet you do.”
Zhang Qishan was silent for a moment.
Then he gave a slight shrug.
“Habit.”
Oh.
Oh, no.
Xinyue felt a smile slowly spread across her face.
Zhang Qishan saw it.
And immediately understood that he had made a mistake.
“Habit?”
“Xinyue.”
“So I'm your habit?”
“That isn't what I said.”
“Fo Ye, that's exactly what you just said.”
“I said that-”
“Wu Laogou!”
Wu Laogou quickened his pace.
“I didn't hear anything!”
“Fo Ye said I'm his habit!”
“Congratulations!”
“Wu Laogou.”
“I have to check the crates!”
And he fled.
He actually fled.
Xinyue started laughing again.
Zhang Qishan sighed.
+++
That evening, when they were already in bed, Xinyue thought about it again.
Not the goose.
Although the goose would probably remain one of her favorite memories for the rest of her life.
She thought about the first crash in the street.
The horse.
The teacup.
The piece of cloth.
About that one movement repeated exactly the same way every time, regardless of whether the danger was real or absurd. Zhang Qishan slept beside her, or at least pretended to; his breathing was calm, one hand rested on top of the blanket, and in the half-light his face looked younger when it was free of that constant awareness of everything for which he was responsible.
Xinyue watched him for a long time.
There was something sad about it, once she thought deeply enough.
A person was not born with the instinct to shield others with his own body.
He had to learn it.
And suddenly she thought about all the years before she had known him. About the boy she had never met. About the young man who had learned that he should be the first to enter dangerous places and the last to leave them. About the soldier who had probably discovered far too early that his body could become a shield if the situation demanded it. About Fo Ye, who had carried responsibility for other people for so long that perhaps he no longer even remembered when it had first become heavy.
Then she understood the other half of that reflex.
Zhang Qishan always stood in front of her.
But when there was no danger, Xinyue could stand in front of him.
She could make sure he ate. She could drag him out of his study. She could get angry when he worked through a fever, take documents away when his head hurt, straighten his collar, force him to rest, and remind him that home was not another post where he had to stand guard.
Maybe that was why she liked his little reflex so much.
Not because she needed a hero.
She had a husband.
And she wanted him, sometimes, to have someone who would stand between him and the world too.
She moved closer.
Zhang Qishan opened his eyes.
Of course he had not been asleep.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
She wrapped an arm around his waist and pressed her cheek to his shoulder.
A moment later, she felt his hand move across her back.
“Xinyue.”
“Hmm?”
“Don't throw anything tomorrow.”
She laughed softly into the fabric of his shirt.
“I wasn't planning to.”
“Don't ask Ba Ye to do it either.”
“All right.”
“I don't believe you.”
“Very wise.”
Silence settled around them.
His hand still rested on her back, heavy and warm, and Xinyue closed her eyes.
After a moment, she murmured:
“Fo Ye?”
“Hmm?”
“If a goose attacks me again...”
The hand on her back went still.
Xinyue pressed her lips together to keep from laughing.
“...would you save me?”
The silence lasted a very long time.
Then Zhang Qishan pulled her closer until she was practically entirely in his arms.
“Go to sleep.”
“So that's a yes.”
“Xinyue.”
“I knew it.”
“Sleep.”
She smiled into the darkness.
And obeyed.
Because she already knew the answer anyway.
It did not matter whether what stood before them was a man with a weapon, a frightened horse, a falling teacup, or the most murderous goose in all of Changsha - whenever the world made a sudden movement toward her, Zhang Qishan always answered in exactly the same way.
Half a step.
One hand.
Xinyue behind him.
Perhaps it really was nothing more than habit.
But as Xinyue fell asleep with his arm around her waist, she thought that of all the ways Zhang Qishan could have learned to love her, this was definitely one of her favorites.