Jiang Yanli had always tried to be the glue which kept her family together and more or less functioning. It was hard but she never complained and carried the burden by herself. The only break she gets is when Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng go study to the Cloud Recesses. When they come back however, it is another story. Jiang Yanli finds it impossible to go back to her previous role. How can she protect Wei Wuxian and at the same time preserve harmonious relationship among the whole family? There is just one solution she can think of. Part of the Between a rock and a hard place series, can be also read as stand-alone fan fiction but I recommend to read it after the previous parts of the series. This fic will contain themes and mentions that may be triggering, please read the warnings and tags I used and proceed at you own discretion. English is not my first language so I apologize in advance for any mistakes. I am also not very familiar with Chinese culture, customs nor naming conventions so this work may in some places not be 100% accurate. I do not own any characters I have used in my story, this is purely a work of fan fiction. Hope you will enjoy reading :)