"Lan Zhan? Do you know? When you finally decide 'this is it; I'm done', your whole world starts to get really quiet. I could hear the blood pumping through my veins louder than the battle going on around me. I could hear each tear drop as it fell of...
The Jingshi was quiet and covered in dust. No one had entered it in almost a year. Lan SiZhui had traveled ahead of the rest of the family; the youngest one did not do so well in dusty conditions. At only three months old, her lungs were still too little.
Not that she would be staying in the Jingshi, Mother would take Baobei to her family during this mini-holiday, and Nanny would take the younger children to a guest house. The older siblings would stay in the dorms. Mama, about halfway through her latest pregnancy, had decided to not come to Cloud Recesses. There had been a minor spat over that; Baba had felt it was more his duty to attend to his pregnant concubine than it was to attend his son's friend's wedding. Mama had won that fight; she wanted the time to rest and relax without Wei WuXian hovering over her and worrying every time she heaved into a bucket (which was almost an hourly event at this point).
He began cleaning: carrying blankets and bedding out to get some air, dusting and mopping. He checked on the water tanks outside the bathing room and made sure the pipes were running water into the tub cleanly and at the correct temperatures. And that the tub drain was also working. He was quite sure Baba would make use of his invention after he arrived. His fathers had been known to take multiple baths a day during the year after the water tanks were perfected.... He grinned thinking back on the number of wooden tubs Father destroyed over the years before Baba finally ordered one that was big enough for four adults to comfortably use simultaneously.
He could have asked servants to do the cleaning, but he needed the stress relief. His stomach was all knotted up with nerves. The day before, he had finally received affirmation about a portion of his future. But today, he needed to let that stew in the back of his mind to be examined later. Today was a celebration: Lan JingYi was getting married.
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It was a little past eleven when he slipped out of the men's dorms, nodded to the night guard, and took a path he could have walked blindfolded. He had traveled only a dozen meters or so when he heard familiar footsteps behind him. He smiled but did not acknowledge her presence. At the upper pond, he stopped and wrapped his cloak firmly around himself before sitting on a large flat rock. In the light of the full moon, the pond appeared to be glazed in silver. Ouyang XiaoDan sighed as she sat down next to him. "It's beautiful," she breathed.
He looked down at her and agreed, "Yes." But he wasn't only referring to the scenery. Ouyang XiaoDan had grown a few centimeters over the last eight years. But so had he, and she still stared straight at his collarbones when they stood face to face. She had rounded out in some places, thinned in others, and somehow had become so beautiful it almost physically hurt to look at her. For some strange reason, though, his friends didn't see this and merely commented that while she was cute now, she had been cuter at sixteen.... "Why are you following me?" He asked that question every time they were alone together, and she always answered the same way. Do you mean to tell me that I cannot walk in the same direction as you?
Ouyang XiaoDan refused to look at the man beside her. That stupid question. Always that same, stupid question. She had followed him as much as she dared for the last eight and half years. And though she always answered the same way, over the last few years, she wanted to change her answer. I follow you because I love you, you idiot. Tonight she was determined to end it all. What was the point of following a man who didn't love her back? She could feel moisture stinging her eyes, and she tried to tell herself that it was because of the cold or the stark beauty of the pond in the moonlight. "My father sent me a letter today. He said he's entertaining an offer of marriage for me."
