Chapter Text
“Da-ge!” The familiar shout has Mingjue turning even before he consciously realizes it. “Huaisang?” He catches his little brother in a hug. “It’s early. What are you doing up?”
“It’s about Meng Yao.”
“What did he do? It’s only been a few days.”
Huaisang looks around furtively, then pulls Mingjue into the corner. “He got sick right after you left, and then he barricaded himself in your room.” Huaisang’s hands tighten around his fan, a subtle sign of nervousness. “I told everyone he’s just shy about being seen when he’s sick, and they bought it. He’s barely eaten since, and he’ll only eat if I eat half first.”
Mingjue frowns, feeling his brow furrow. “His cultivation isn’t good enough for inedia.”
“I know,” Huaisang hisses. “I brought Zonghui with me to see if that would help; you know he has a safe aura, but Yao-ge just lay there like a broken doll.”
Mingjue sighs. “What should I do, Huaisang? He’s my husband; I can’t just avoid our room.”
Huaisang shakes his head. “No, you need to see him. I just wanted you to be… gentle.”
Mingjue glares at his little brother. “It’s not that you’re rough with him,” Huaisang hastens to say. “It’s just that you tend to be… suspicious, and I think that scares him, and he really doesn’t need that right now.”
Mingjue huffs, annoyed to be rehashing this argument for easily the fifth time. “I’m right to be suspicious. Why would he be afraid if he didn’t have anything to hide?”
Huaisang clearly judges him. “You know his history. Do you think it ever mattered if he was actually hiding something when people wanted to get him in trouble? How is he supposed to believe you’ll hear him out when you haven’t done it before?”
Mingjue opens his mouth to respond, only to be interrupted. “Nope,” Huaisang snaps. “That was rhetorical, and you’re about to say exactly the kind of thing I’m telling you not to. Go see your husband, be gentle, and try to convince him Zonghui isn’t going to kill him for being paranoid.”
“Fine,” Mingjue grouses, but he’s really thinking about what Huaisang has said. Hearing someone out about murder is different from hearing them out about being nervous. If Meng Yao has a grievance, which he clearly has, he should have come to Mingjue about it and formally challenged the men. Still, there’s a persistent what-if in his head. What if Meng Yao has a good reason? Mingjue has had traitors in his army, real ones, who were spying and passing information to the Wen, not just those who deserted or changed sides. After Meng Yao left, he learned what it’s like to have your enemy in your camp, wearing your clothes, eating your bread. Sharing your tent. He learned what it felt like to kill a man with the same family name because that man decided money was more important than loyalty.
Now he’s been thinking about it for too long, and his hand is on his bedroom door, and he still hasn’t decided what he’s going to do about Meng Yao, but the longer he waits, the less confident he’ll be, and dealing with Meng Yao takes all the confidence he can muster.
When he opens the door, he’s greeted by what appears to be his husband huddled under the thick fur on their bed. His brain is reminding him that Huaisang had to add the fur because Mingjue was too stupid to realize that his husband’s low cultivation would leave him cold. Meng Yao always sleeps in the fetal position, like he’s hiding from the world.
Thus, nothing about the scene is unexpected. Mingjue simply slips into their room to change into sleepwear. It’s barely past midnight, enough time for him to be well rested by the time Huaisang bangs on their door in the morning.
Mingjue would overheat if he wrapped himself in the fur Meng Yao prefers, so he simply tucks it tighter around his husband to clear his space on the bed.
“Mingjue?” Something is off about Meng Yao’s voice, and he doesn’t seem sleep-muffled at all. Still, regardless of his thoughts, his husband deserves an answer. “Yes?”
A hum comes from the blanket-covered lump. “You’re back.” It almost sounds airy, like Meng Yao isn’t really listening. Suddenly, Mingjue feels like someone should have handed him a script.
“I am.” The hair pricks on the back of his neck. Mingjue rolls off the bed as a flash of silver cuts the air, and when he rights himself, Hensheng hovers in the air right above where his neck would have been.
Mingjue gapes at his husband. He’s not sure what Meng Yao can read from his face, but whatever it is makes the smaller man sneer. “Thought you’d find me dead in the morning?” Meng Yao’s voice grows high and mocking. “Oh no, I don’t know what happened! I don’t even know when he died!” He snarls, backing away from the bed, Hensheng held defensively in front of him. “I bet you were surprised when Huaisang told you I was still alive.”
Finally, Mingjue finds his words again. “I was very surprised to find you didn’t eat while I was gone.” The second it’s out in the air, he knows it was the wrong thing to say. It sounds dismissive even to his own ears, and it isn’t related to what Meng Yao said, making it sound as though he’s ignoring him, and there’s little Meng Yao hates more than being ignored.
Meng Yao backs up again, and Mingjue slowly makes his way to the other side of the bed. He’s not totally sure what’s going on, but the main thought running through his head is that he needs to get Hensheng out of Meng Yao’s hands. The sword trembles, not in the way that comes from the wielder’s hands, but as a sign of a spiritual sword fighting its bonded cultivator. The last time Mingjue saw that, the sword was his father’s, and it was aiming for Mingjue’s heart.
Not incidentally, that was also the last time Mingjue saw his father.
A sudden spike of fear hits his heart. “Meng Yao, a-Yao, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he babbles, and Meng Yao takes another step back. “You do,” he insists, and Mingjue is surprised to hear that the smaller man sounds like he’s choking on tears, despite his face being entirely impassive. “You’re in on it, and that’s why I’m still here.” Meng Yao glances around their dark bedroom, the only light coming from the lantern Mingjue hadn’t yet snuffed out on his side of the bed. “You and my father, you’ve been planning it, and that’s why you don’t,” Meng Yao’s voice cracks, but he just continues. “Why you don’t believe me.”
Mingjue takes another step, and so does Meng Yao. “Why don’t you believe me?” he pleads, lowering Hensheng until she’s practically scraping the ground. “What don’t I believe?” Mingjue questions, only half paying attention.
“He’s trying to kill me,” Meng Yao says, so abruptly that it sounds like a non-sequitur. “He’s trying to kill me; he wants me gone, wants me dead, stain on his legacy,” Meng Yao devolves into muttering, and Mingjue takes the chance to make a larger step than before. The smaller man still shuffles back, then seems to decide to shuffle more, only to run into the wall.
“…you know he’s trying to kill me, he’s trying to kill me, you’re in it together, you’re trying to kill me,” Meng Yao looks up like he’s had a revelation, but his eyes shine with unshed tears. “You hate me that much? You hate marrying me that much?”
Mingjue’s ears ring so badly that he can’t even hear what Meng Yao’s rambles become after that; he only sees Hensheng rising again. He watches Meng Yao turn to the side, braces himself for the younger man to run, to catch him, and he’s so busy predicting Meng Yao that he almost doesn’t notice Meng Yao turning the soft sword to his own neck.
Hensheng shakes like a leaf in a typhoon, but Meng Yao doesn’t seem to notice at all as he draws her edge across his own throat. Mingjue watches in horror as the blood wells up, and suddenly, his brain is quiet, and the only thing he can hear is Meng Yao’s hysterical giggles and the clang of metal as Hensheng falls to the floor.
“A-Yao!” It’s as though time stops for a second, and in the next, everything is back to normal, and Mingjue has his unconscious husband tugged into his lap, channeling spiritual energy directly into the wound in the man’s throat. Meng Yao didn’t get an artery, and that’smore reassuring than anything else. If Meng Yao wanted to die, no one would be able to save him, so clearly, this is just some bizarre occurrence.
Mingjue feels the edges closing beneath his hands, the heat from the Qi transfer turning the blood tacky, sticking his hands to Meng Yao’s neck. Under his hand, his husband’s pulse is steady and strong.
By the time the wound seals, Meng Yao turns his face into Mingjue’s lap, hiding from the world once again. The blood dries into rusty flakes, and Mingjue realizes there’s honestly much less than he first thought in his panic. It hasn’t even been an hour since Mingjue arrived in the Unclean Realm, but it feels like days.
Meng Yao’s pulse is steady, if a bit fast. Unwilling to relinquish his husband just yet, Mingjue shifts to hold him in one arm, Meng Yao’s face pressed into the crook of his neck. He stands carefully, making his way to the wash basin in their room.
Mingjue wets a cloth, gently wiping the dried blood from Meng Yao’s neck and his own hands before peeling off his husband’s stained outer layer. Meng Yao is lighter than he ever was as Mingjue’s second, and this thought makes Mingjue clutch him just a bit closer.
Mingjue wraps his husband in the furs on their bed, placing him safely in the center and fighting the urge to push the bed against a wall to tuck Meng Yao away behind the bulk of his body. If there’s one thing the evening has taught him, it’s that Meng Yao does not react well when backed into a corner.
Now that Meng Yao is taken care of, Mingjue turns his attention to Hensheng, still lying on the ground, coated in her master’s blood. He’s never asked about her origins, though he’s almost certain she’s the blade used to kill Wen Ruohan, retrieved after the conquest of the Nightless City and given a new wrapping, much like Meng Yao himself. Her new hilt is white and gold, as a Jin sword ought to be, yet she has Qinghe-colored engravings. Mingjue has never had the courage to ask why.
He picks her up from the floor, bracing himself for some sort of bite or sting as any spiritual sword would do when handled without warning or deep trust. Instead, she remains perfectly inert, indistinguishable from any fresh blade. It’s concerning, for a sword to be unwilling to protect itself when its wielder is incapacitated. For now, all Mingjue can do is clean her and hope her physical state will reflect positively on her spiritual self.
He grabs his cleaning kit, more for the meditative aspect than any real need to use all his tools. Hensheng, if nothing else, is well maintained. After a moment’s hesitation, he grabs Baxia from her rack. Meng Yao hasn’t been with the Jin long enough to have cultivated their sword style, and the Wen style is more compatible with the Nie style than anyone likes to admit. Hensheng was almost certainly cultivated with a combined Wen-Nie style, and Nie blades, even those that are only swords rather than sabers, are highly social.
Mingjue sits cross-legged at the foot of the bed, Baxia balanced on his lap and Hensheng in his hands. He sets his attention to removing the blood from her blade with a dry cloth, soon moving on to the intricate details of her hilt. It isn’t hard to make her gleam; a single coat of oil has her looking like she’s newly forged, and after a moment of deliberation, he sets both Hensheng and Baxia on the stand beside the door.
He snuffs out the lamp, plunging the room into darkness, and lies on the opposite side of the bed from the door, hoping the clear path to an exit will be enough to stave off another breakdown when his husband wakes.