Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Mama,” Mo Ran says entering the respite pavilion his mother lives in. He calls out quietly in case she’s sleeping. “Are you up? I brought you lunch.”

He likes the pavilion despite its flaws. It’s the first real home he’s ever known. His first feeling of safety and rest without fear or hunger hanging in the back of his mind are in this pavilion. The warm colors his mother has decorated the rooms with are cozy. Reds and yellows and oranges just like the fires they used to build in the long, dark nights of uncertainty.

The respite pavilion resides in a small courtyard just within the bounds of the ninth city of Rufeng, near the cultivated wild lands and Nangong Yan’s sprawling residence. It’s tucked away in a forest clearing where the madam of the house won’t be faced with seeing such a disturbing sight and thinking of his husband’s coveted object. In the Spring and Summer the dense trees overhang a carpet of flowers and soft grass. In the winter a beautiful blanket of snow silences the forest. Nearer the pavilion is a small pond for viewing fish and turtles, overhung by a weeping willow and a bench placed perfectly under the shade. The pavilion itself is small but luxurious. Instruments line the walls on display for Duan Yihan to pick up as she pleases. Shelves of books and scrolls keep her entertained. Set out by the window is paper and inks, a half-finished landscape slow to dry with the humidity of the afternoon rain from the day before.

“Xiao Ran? I’m back here” Duan Yihan calls from the back room where the grand bed lies. Mo Ran toes off his shoes, wiggling his toes in the soft plush rug as he has ever since he was little and delivers the tray to his mom.

She’s sitting up on the bed draped in chiffon, watching the rain dripping from the jasmine growing up the eastern side of the building. She smiles brightly when she sees him, her phoenix eyes rounding into delighted crescent moons seeing her son. It doesn’t disguise the fact that she looks tired. She still wears the soft cotton gown for sleep despite it being midday. Her hair is down and flowing with a few wild strands standing on end. A smudge of makeup that she failed to wash off catches at the corner of her eye and on her lip.

Visible around her neck is the thin gold chain pressed against her soft skin. When she reaches out her hand for him, a matching gold bracelet cuffs her delicate wrist.

Mo Ran wears the same chains. His thinner, lighter, less noticeable to look purely like expensive jewelry, but still they are markers of ownership. He’s had them since he approached his fifth year of life, each year the chains severed and replaced to accommodate his growing form while his mother’s have never been removed since they were forged onto her wrist.

He used to love those pretty chains. They received them when they entered the Nangong household. He was too young to understand what they meant. All he knew back then was his mom was sick with fever from an infected wound after falling on those knives. Mo Ran had snuck out, deciding to beg his father for any help at all. He didn’t understand his mother’s pride when her dignity was stripped away from her by the townspeople. He couldn’t understand a world in which a parent couldn’t love their child because his mother loved him so much. He loved his mother so much he also couldn’t understand a world where someone might not love her with their whole heart and give her everything they have to give.

He was lucky. He found him. Nangong Yan was out on a hunt hosting visiting cultivators when Mo Ran stumbled upon them on the outskirts of the city. The muddy child tumbled to his knees and sacrificed all dignity his mother tried so hard to afford him and begged his father to help Duan Yihan. It was only because Nangong Yan was with his two guests insisting that he relented and agreed to go see what this muddy street rat was crying about.

Mo Ran is still unclear on what happened exactly. His memory was weak with hunger and his mother unconscious so she never could recount it to him. Apparently one of the men accompanying Nangong Yan was from Guyue’ye Sect and specialized in turning butterfly bone beauty boys into pills before a female escaped another lab and destroyed his whole population. He knelt by Mo Ran’s mother and checked her fading body when his eyes went wide noticing something abstract. And then there was a flurry of action. A heated conversation. Eyes all aimed at Mo Ran kneeling on the bed next to his mom, boring into him with an intensity that was scary.

I want it. That physician cultivator had said leaning over Duan Yihan to grab Mo Ran’s arm. Payment for looking at that one. I can heal her now if you give it to me.

There were more heated words. An argument. Something about how Nangong Yan could have another feast if he wanted more now that he had her in his possession. She was the greater prize than this filthy little half-breed mutt whose blood was weak and so impure it likely wouldn’t be worth much. Mo Ran didn’t understand back then even if he does now. Now he understands that the man somehow saw lingerances of Butterfly Bone Beauty blood in them and needed a male for a new breeding line. Mo Ran understands how his body is coveted in the most detestable ways. His mother’s too.

It was then that Nangong Yan claimed Mo Ran as his son to force the man to release him, snapped that no Nangong blood would ever be the center of a feast. Mo Ran foolishly had asked to go to the feast, not understanding but only thinking if he went to a feast he could shove enough food into his pockets to bring back to his mom and they would both have full bellies and be okay.

Nangong Yan refused outright. He called Mo Ran Nangong Ran. He brought Duan Yihan and Mo Ran home and had Duan Yihan’s wounds tended to. He had Mo Ran fed. And he had a jeweler fit the pair of them with these chains. Throats and wrists wrapped in gold. One chain's magic was too weak so two were needed. Just in case. Mo Ran thought they were markers of them belonging to the Nangong family, claimed and recognized by his father.

They were not. They were similar to the slave collars of ancient days, only smaller and weaker with less control. They marked them as belonging to the Nangong family, claimed by his father. The gold Mo Ran once loved, he’s grown to resent and feel only disgust for, especially against his mother’s delicate wrist and throat. Still, he appreciated the fact that Nangong Yan saved them, even if his demeanor shifted upon his wife and son’s return home.

It is only because of that single month treated as Nanong Ran before his wife returned from a trip for her health that Mo Ran is afforded the dignity of a son rather than a piece of property locked away to be stored for later. He had been publicly announced and it was too late to take it back upon Nangong Yan’s wife's  return. But still his bloodline is known. His body is desired. And the subject of who his father will marry– sell – his son to is a growing topic throughout Rufeng Sect and beyond as his cultivation advances.

“Did he come visit you last night?” Mo Ran asks sitting on the bed next to her and setting the tray with lunch down on her lap. He avoids saying his father’s name most of the time. Not unless he must. The name is a shield against others’ ill desires for Mo Ran, but serves the opposite alone in the room with his mother. It’s a blade that cuts through flesh and sinew.

She nods, hungrily taking the first bite. “This is lovely, Ran’er,” she says taking another. “Did you make it?”

“Mn,” Mo Ran grins and pulls his legs up onto the bed to sit cross legged. “Spent all morning making the broth like how you like it.”

She reaches over and pinches his cheek, softly saying, “You’re too good to your mother, xiao Ran.” Mo Ran smiles and closes his eyes, leaning into the pinch which turns into a cupped palm against his cheek.

Xiao Ran. That name feels like home to him. His mother still calls him that. No one else does. Perhaps a few of the maids, if he stumbles into the ones from his childhood that are still around. Most of them have moved on though leaving only Duan Yihan calling him by his name.

Publicly, Nangong Yan will call him Nangong Ran, but only when trying to use him as bargaining collateral to levy his own position. Otherwise, Mo Ran is called Mo Ran. A sir name given to him when the madam threw a fit over a whore’s son being given the same name as her child. She wouldn’t refer to Mo Ran as Nangong Ran. Nor A-Ran nor Ran’er nor xiao Ran nor even just Ran. She huffed and avoided referring to him or called him the mutt. Finally, after a lesson in which her son spilled ink all over Mo Ran she started sneering as she called him that ink boy until everyone just started calling him Mo Ran. He was never granted a courtesy name, his father’s wife refusing to let it happen. So Mo Ran became Mo Ran.

But to his mom, Mo Ran is still just xiao Ran.

“Your father said that he’s leaving for the second city today and he’s taking you with him,” she says after a moment of resting her hand on his cheek.

“Yeah,” Mo Ran replies breaking away. He unconsciously fiddles with the chain around his wrist. “He told me last night. Otherwise I’d’ve come and told you.”

Outside the rain picks up, the wind rustling the trees around the respite courtyard. The small white jasmine blooms bounce on the wind, the translucent pearls of water clinging to their petals shaking off and falling out of sight.

“It’s okay,” she says through another mouthful of the soup. “He told me that too.  He said it was all very last minute for him to attend and he wants you at more social gatherings with him. He spent a good while talking about it.”

“You know you don’t need to entertain him all night,” Mo Ran blurts out unable to hold it back.

“I don’t mind entertaining him,” Duan Yihan replies in a pleasant tone. “Most of what he does is bring me new music. And we went out last night to the grand theater. There was an opera company from Shangqing Pavilion visiting. It was lovely, Ran’er. I wish you could have been there. If they're still in town next week let's go. I'm sure A-Yan would let me go without him just the once.”

Mo Ran scowls and mindlessly tugs on his bracelet again. Nangong Yan might have taken her to see an opera but he knows that he also used her body for a cultivation boom before visiting the second city. He hates that his mother is treated as a caged bird.

“How’s your cultivation? Have you made any improvements in the last week?” she asks changing the subject, knowing Mo Ran’s sore spot and not wanting him to feel resentment towards their saviors. She always insists he repay his father with kindness. Anyone else he'd be able to but with Nangong Yan he can't find it in himself. 

“No.” Mo Ran replies. “My instructor still says that it will likely be another four years before I achieve core formation.”

“Twenty-three isn’t bad for someone like us,” she says warmly, almost consolingly. And then her smile quirks and asks, “But how is it really?”

“Fine.” 

Mo Ran gives her a smile not telling her the truth to keep from worrying her. She’s supportive of him cultivating in secret to grow stronger faster, but it’s a double edged sword. They both know that the moment Mo Ran’s core is formed he will be married off to the woman of Nangong Yan’s choosing in a financial or political exchange. He doesn’t want her or anyone else to know that he thinks he has already reached that stage after over a decade of hard work in secret to hide it from the ever changing troop of tutors Nangong Yan hires to help him cultivate while keeping him apart from his brother’s education. No one questions it taking him so long. Butterfly bone beauties are weak so no one expects much of him.

They should expect more from him.

He stays long enough for Duan Yihan to finish lunch. He helps wipe away the old makeup and helps brush her hair. He even helps her dress and they walk together through the rain. She marvels at the fact that Mo Ran can create a barrier to keep the water off their heads, although the dew on the grass still clings to their feet.

When it’s time for Mo Ran to go she kisses him on the forehead and says, “Don’t forget to meet someone nice.”

She says this every time Mo Ran leaves the city for more than a day. That’s always her one hope: that Mo Ran will meet someone kind who might offer up an exorbitant sum for his hand in marriage. Someone who might love him for who he is and not what his body can offer. 

Mo Ran smiles back at her and replies, “I always meet nice people, Mama.”

She laughs and replies, “Someone nice you can bring home to meet me.”

Mo Ran departs. He walks alone through the rain, kicking his feet through the puddles. He doesn’t block the water for himself. He lets it soak him to the bone. His clothes and hair clings to him uncomfortable and the warm wind cuts against him. He doesn’t have far to walk before he’s back in the main halls of the Nangong estate, moving through courtyards to his private chambers to wash and dress himself for travel. From under the eves people wave to him and call out, asking him why he’s walking through the rain and if he wants an umbrella. Mo Ran grins and calls back that the damage is done and he’s already wet so it wouldn’t do much good, but still one of his friends from the kitchens runs out and shoves her umbrella into his hand for the remainder of his walk to his room.

Robes are left out for him. They’re nicer than what he usually wears. Deep purples with cream highlights to bring out his eyes. A silk blend that is soft but without the glaring shine. Set next to the neatly folded robes are gold accents to accompany the choker and bracelet he always wears. A belt. Another bracelet. Rings. All indicators of his father’s wealth.

Mo Ran puts on the outfit piece by piece after bathing. A Rufeng disciple enters and dries his hair for him. The young man’s fingers tickle against his scalp.

“Mo Ran,” the young man says quietly as he braids a section of hair. Mo Ran watches in the reflection of the bronze mirror at how his fingers knowingly interweave each inky section.

“Hm?”

He lowers his voice and says, “My shixiong heard gossip today.”

“Oh?” Mo Ran asks breaking into a smile. He enjoys gossip. He might technically be a disciple of the sect but he’s not the same as the other men. If anything, he’s treated more like a woman here: nameless and out of sight, only representing their shizuns, or, in Mo Ran’s case, father. He’s excluded from most of the gossip that isn’t hand delivered to him by those he’s made friends with.

“Nangong Yan met with the head of the Shadow Guard yesterday morning and his second in command,” the young man recounts.

The faint memory of a bright man far too juvenile for his middle age floats to Mo Ran’s memory from a dinner he attended a year ago in place of his brother. “The new one?”

“He’s been there a few years, but yeah. And Yao-xiong said that they both left looking quite pleased. We thought that maybe that’s what tonight is about. Maybe the Shadow Guard is doing something.”

“Of course he wants a role in the Shadow Guard,” Mo Ran says after a moment of contemplation. “He wants to become sect leader so he’s been cultivating his own power. This would just be one more facet of it. Control the Shadow Guard and you can be like Nangong Xu and try to take over. Dumbfuck is only going to get himself killed.”

The young man makes a sound of agreement and holds the braid separate as he starts pulling Mo Ran’s hair into a ponytail. All his concentration goes into fussing with it until he gets it just right, then he adds the braid back in at the perfect drape. When he’s added a plum ribbon around the base, Mo Ran passes him back the small golden hair crown that was laid out to wear.

Their eyes meet in the mirror and the young man blushes. Mo Ran laughs and thanks him for his beautiful work.

And then he’s left alone in the room. Mo Ran twists the heavy gold ring on his finger and tugs at the bracelet on his wrist again. He checks himself in the mirror with a tug on his chain collar.

His father at least knows what suits him. The shoulders are structured and squared, building out his form even more. Unlike how delicate his mom is, Mo Ran is tall and bound in muscle. He’s made sure of it over the years, removing any hint of litheness from his form. It served as a self defense to trick people into thinking he could win in a fight even without his cultivation much like a cat bristling or a frog colored brightly to warn predators away. Only when that doesn’t work does he fall back on the gold chains adorning his skin. Then people understand that he’s already owned by one of the most powerful men in Rufeng and therefore cannot be touched.

The drape of the robes is nice too. He likes how it tapers at his waist. He enjoys how the light fabric floats, and with the warm humidity of the Spring rain it’s thinness feels like a boon. 

There’s a knock on the door as Mo Ran is wrapping his feet and pulling on his boots. A house servant calls, “Nangong Ran? Your father is waiting.”

Mo Ran calls a reply and shoves his feet into the boots.

The carriage ride through the rain is awkward. Neither Mo Ran nor Nangong Yan says a word beyond the initial greeting. Most people Mo Ran can slip into conversation with the same ease he can slip into a bath of perfect temperature, but with his father it’s different. All he can see is his father feasting on his mother every few nights. He can see the lies he’s sewed in her head that he’s the only protection she and her son have in order to keep her docile. He sees how he favors his wife and therefore locks his mother away out of sight. And he hears the words he once overheard crooned to the woman who harbors deep resentment for Mo Ran and Duan Yihan: “Don’t worry, my love. It isn’t cheating if she isn’t a person.”

Bile rises in the back of Mo Ran’s throat and he readjusts himself to look at the rain hitting the streets lined in spirit stones. People move to and fro as they pass through the cities. An elderly couple walks together hand in hand despite the rain. They don’t look like cultivators. They just look like they’re in love. Mo Ran watches them with a muted smile until they’re out of sight. They’re still holding hands when they vanish and he’d like to think they will continue to hold hands as long as they have each other.

They pass through a street lined in flowering trees. Petals drift around the carriage. Mo Ran is certain they keep the flowers like this year round, always stunted and never allowed to grow the fruit the trees yearn to produce. Such a cruelty even to plants. 

“Nangong Ran. Are you listening to a single thing I say?” Nangong Yan says and Mo Ran realizes he isn’t listening in the slightest. He’s too preoccupied thinking about the pears that will never be.

“I wasn’t. I was just looking at the trees. I’m sorry.”

Nangong Yan inhales deeply and pressed his fingers to the bridge of his nose. He has a handsome face that looks so much like Mo Ran’s only weathered with age and subpar beauty. Mo Ran hates that they look so similar. Every time he looks in the mirror and sees his father and not his mother he feels ill. It feels as though he’s guilty for the man’s crimes simply because he was the product of them. It makes him love the summer when he can rest under the golden light and his skin darkens to a deep, warm tone, even if his brother turns his nose in disgust saying he looks like he belongs on the streets or in a rice paddy. Despite the comments that make his blood boil, it’s when he feels like himself and not a copy of his father’s form and instead just himself.

“I was saying that there will be a formal dinner amongst the heads of family,” Nanong Yan says when Mo Ran’s attention is on him. “In that time disciples are expected to socialize. There’s a few people I’d like you to meet specifically.”

“Okay.”

Mo Ran turns his attention back to the passing trees.

“Nangong Ran.”

He turns back to his father. 

“I need you to behave like a normal person.”

Mo Ran swallows the bitter spike and forces his voice calm. “I am a person.”

“That’s not what I– Nangong Ran I just need you to behave. You’re a likeable boy. That’s why I’m bringing you tonight instead of your brother.”

Mo Ran studies him. He looks tired too. Clearly he spent all night with Duan Yihan. Clearly he intends to show off his cultivation in some way today. Or maybe he’s just growing old and weak and like so many ancient old men needs to start buying women’s powders and balms to spare his pride. He says none of that though. He just tugs at the bracelet on his wrist.

“I will introduce myself to people,” Mo Ran says calmly. He would have anyways, but now he doesn’t want to. Now he just wants to be a thorn in his father’s side. But like how his mother spends hours of the night entertaining Nangong Yan to spare her son, Mo Ran will do whatever he can to spare her from his father’s frustrations. Their actions are connected like the ocean, one wave rolling into the next even if they feel distant in the space between. She protects him and he protects her in return. “Are there people in particular you’d like me to meet?”

“There’s a man in the Shadow Guard called Ye Wangxi. I’d like you to introduce yourself. He’s bought another butterfly bone beauty before, so you will have something to discuss. Perhaps you can offer him advice on how they like to be handled.”

Mo Ran makes an ugly face and turns away with a “Fine. I will ask him how it feels to own someone.”

Another deep sigh from his father but Nangong Yan makes no further effort to push Mo Ran.

Before they get out of the carriage he does place a hand on Mo Ran’s shoulder to stop him from getting out at the luxurious Daylily estate. Mo Ran stills and stares him straight in the eye. The man only flattens his collar and tucks the golden chain around his throat under the fabric so only a narrow flash of it can be seen.

“You always have been a handsome boy,” he says. “And kind hearted. I’ve always wanted what was best for you, xiao Ran. I’ve spent the last nineteen years trying to protect you.”

“You speak as if you have something horrible planned for me,” Mo Ran says. He can’t quite read Nangong Yan’s expression. Nangong Yan merely offers a smile and says, “Perhaps I’m just feeling sentimental with your brother moving to the first city and your sister entering her fifteenth year. All my time has been spent thinking of her courtesy name and not enough about you.  Can’t I feel sentimental for my middle son?”

Mo Ran forces that sticky sweet Nangong smile and replies, “I understand.”

“Good lad.” Nangong Yan pats his shoulder and lets him out of the carriage. Nangong Yan ascends the high stairs to the crest of the tower for an initial meeting with the elders while Mo Ran joins the celebrations inside on the main floor.

When the Nangongs throw a celebration they go all out. Music floats through the hall over the chatter of people intermingling. It issues a calming effect that might be unnatural. Mo Ran can’t be certain. Vivid tapestries hang over the walls. The floor is mosaiced in spirit stones except where deep, ancient hardwood casts a threshold to each room. Through the windows the giant trees are all in perfect bloom. The rain presses their petals from their branches to drift down to where a river lined with spirit stones twists. 

Food is laid out on vast tables before the initial dinner is served. Mo Ran always gravitates towards the food. He is, after all, still the child who begged to go to a feast because he thought he could shovel food into his pockets to squirrel home because he didn’t realize the feast was his very being. No matter how long it’s been, that boy is still hiding inside him. He picks up a slice of orange and pops it into his mouth to chew as he examines the rest of the table for what to eat next and what to pocket for his mom. 

“Nangong-gongzi!” someone calls but Mo Ran ignores it. He’s never been the Nangong referenced in Nangong-gonzi. He picks up one of the candies and pops it into his mouth, leaning against the wall sucking on it while watching the wind push the rain in walls. Whoever shows up now will get wet even with umbrellas. He laughs when two people come in and kick their shoes in attempt to shake out the water.

“Mo-gongzi!”

Mo Ran jumps seeing Li-shidi standing right next to him. A round, proud young man who studied with Mo Ran the few years he joined education with other disciples of the sect, before his father decided the risk to his property was too high. Li-shidi was nice to him. Younger than him by a handful of years. He looked up to Mo Ran ever since Mo Ran pulled him from the mud after training. He either didn’t know about Mo Ran’s origins or else didn’t care. It wasn’t under a year ago that Mo Ran learned it was the latter, having come from a family of donkey farmers and somehow squeezed his way into the respected sect. Mo Ran holds out one of the candies in his hand and Li-shidi accepts it, popping it into his own mouth.

“So,” he says. “Have you gotten out of the ninth city much lately?”

“No,” Mo Ran replies. “You? How’s the first city?”

His eyes light up and he starts telling Mo Ran about how he’s been allowed to go on missions for the sect of late. His most recent one he went with a group of girls meaning he got to introduce himself as the representative for the sect instead of any of the women. Mo Ran listens and praises his friend, enjoying the brief moment of living through his stories. He can imagine traveling and facing down ghosts and demons instead of hunched over books and practicing sword technique under the blanket of darkness.

Several others pass by the table of food. Mo Ran does as he was told and introduces himself to people. Some give him a double take, their eyes hungrily taking him in before moving away, while most hear the name Mo and ignore him as some lowly disciple rather than technical heir.

“Why don’t you go by Nangong Ran?” Li-shidi asks Mo Ran after the fourth incident. “If I was a Nangong I’d tell everyone.”

“Matter of preference, I guess. Better to live humbly, right?” Mo Ran replies lightly. He doesn’t want to explain being the inky child with stained hands that no matter how hard he scrubbed them raw until tears sprang up at the corners everyone else could see the dirt beneath the black ink stains painted by his half-brother. He doesn’t want to explain his father’s wife refusing to speak his name. And he doesn’t want to explain that he wants to be anything except a Nangong and this one name cruelly gifted is a relief to his soul.

Li-shidi hums understanding and dives into a new topic until he gasps, prodding Mo Ran that he sees someone new to greet. Mo Ran tells him to have fun so he runs off, leaving Mo Ran alone at the table again.

He picks up a small cup of rice wine and moves towards the door wanting the fresh air.

The doors are still opening and people are still filtering in. Many wear the uniform of Rufeng Sect disciples. Their robes, although more elaborate, make the deep purples of Mo Ran’s stand out more.

Ascending the steps is a new pair. They are not bashed by the rain unlike the others. A sturdy force keeps them enshrined in dry air. The one in front is a tall, lean man of his early 20s with a haughty expression. Mo Ran recognizes him immediately as Nangong Si. They’d met on a few occasions, though not many. When Nangong Yan realized that Nangong Si didn’t want to have playdates with someone he didn’t consider a person, any hope for the two boys being friends died quickly and Mo Ran was tucked back into his mother’s respite courtyard. Over the years they’ve encountered but never been alone together. Mo Ran refuses to talk to someone who doesn’t think him a person.

Behind Nangong Si walks a tall man dressed in  deep burgundy robes. He ascends the steps with such grace that it looks as though his feet never touch the stone. The only indication that he walks is the way his long ponytail swings back and forth. Mo Ran hasn’t seen him before. He’s immediately enraptured by him though. He openly stares at the stranger.

Nangong Si passes the door to keep climbing the steps to where the family is holding a preliminary meeting. The other man does not follow. He walks right past Mo Ran inside without a single glance in his direction. The moment he's through the doors the rain's clatter resumes like the weather was holding its breath for his safe passage, his barrier dropping.

Mo Ran tracks him passing. He catches the slope of his straight, narrow nose and the long line of his throat. He catches his sharp sword brows and his soft eyes. 

Soft eyes that remind him of his mom's beautiful dark phoenix eyes. They magnificently pull towards him somehow in the final seconds of their passing.

“Hi,” is all Mo Ran can manage from his state of rapture. 

The man merely nods and keeps walking, leaving Mo Ran alone at the entrance once more. Several more people enter in the next few moments. Mo Ran feels stupid introducing himself to them but he wants to be able to tell his father he did. 

More than that, he wants to be able to tell his mom he did. Trapped in her bird cage, not allowed to leave lest Nangong Yan’s wife see her, Duan Yihan finds immense joy in the fact that her son lives a bright and full life as a disregarded young master of the sect. She loves when Mo Ran returns to the respite and tells her all about the world they exist in but never truly belong in. 

A few people find Mo Ran striking and pull him away from the door to chat. Eased by the wine Mo Ran laughs and carries on with their banter. He's enjoying himself laughing with these new folks.

Even so, his eyes still dart to the figure in burgundy standing alone watching the silk dancers perform. He feels an impossible pull towards the man and breaks from the conversation.

“Here,” Mo Ran says holding out a small cup of wine to the man when he approaches.

The man eyes it and says, “I don't need it.” His attention passes over Mo Ran making him feel warmer than his previous cup of wine did. Mo Ran smiles down at him. He thought the man was taller passing, but he only meets Mo Ran’s shoulder standing side by side. 

The man is much more striking than Mo Ran realized. There's something ephemeral in his beauty, a captivating appeal that Mo Ran thinks could only ever be captured once in a single lifetime and this man was gifted it by the gods. It's not the same as his own or his mother's. He doesn't think he's butterfly bone beauty too. Instead, he just thinks he's well built.

Mo Ran pulls the cup back towards himself. “Don't drink?”

“Not typically.”

Mo Ran hums in understanding. “My mom doesn't either but she likes this wine. It's much sweeter and a little floral. I'm tempted to ask if I can bring any leftover jars of it back to her.”

Long fingers reach out and pluck the cup from Mo Ran’s hand. In surprise Mo Ran lets it go. The cup rises to the man’s thin lips, a small pearl of liquid escaping the corner. 

“Nangong Ran,” Mo Ran says surprising himself at the name that slips from his lips.

The man lowers his cup and lightly replies, “Chu Wanning.”

The name is familiar. It prickles in the back of his mind. In front of them all the women spin, their vibrant teal silks expanding in unison. 

“OH! You're an artificer, right? You invent stuff and new techniques and things. You're a zongshi!”

Chu Wanning takes another sip of his wine. “You've been reading antiquated books if you're still using the term artificer.”

Mo Ran blushes. He does read old books. Those are the ones in his mother’s library. He rather enjoys them and never saw a fault in them before now.

Chu Wanning lowers the cup. “But yes. I do sometimes do that.”

Mo Ran relaxes.

They somehow slip into an easy conversation. Chu Wanning remarks on the food and Mo Ran eagerly tells Chu Wanning about how much he enjoys cooking. Chu Wanning admits he hasn't been in a kitchen in years. Mo Ran nearly dies of shock when his definition of a few years is over a decade. Immediately Mo Ran blurts out “Next time I visit the first city I'll have to find you and we can cook together. Whatever you like. What's your favorite food?”

Chu Wanning contemplates and finally says “Crab meatballs.”

Mo Ran gives a big nod. “The first city has a fresh fish market, right? We can walk down to it and buy crabs. I can show you how to cook and shell them. I doubt it's much different from your artificering.” 

“Mn.”

“And then we can make them too. If there's a specific type you like you better tell me so I can learn how to make them, otherwise you'll just be getting whatever my heart says.”

“You cook without a recipe?”

The way he says it is silly coming from the powerful man. Pitched and perplexed, he sounds more like an indignant child upset at a friend not following the rules. It makes a laugh rise in Mo Ran’s chest.

“If you cook enough you don't need one. Like you don't need someone else's instructions to make things, right? You just know some things and other things are gut instinct.”

Chu Wanning looks doubtful. He takes a sip of his wine and says, “You'd have to prove it to make me believe you.”

“I will then. Next time my father comes to the first city, I'll come along too and ask to visit the revered Chu-zongshi so I can take him on a cooking-date to the fish market.”

Pink rises in Chu Wanning’s ears.

The music slows and the dancers gather into a line, slowly filing out of the room.

Mo Ran takes another sip of wine and shoves his hand in his pocket. He feels the paper wrappings of candies he squirreled away to bring home to mama and pulls them out. 

“Want a candy?”

Chu Wanning looks surprised before his face settles. He nimbly reaches out a hand and plucks a single candy from Mo Ran’s palm before freezing. Mo Ran realizes too late that the gold chain on his wrist has slipped out from under his sleeve. He quickly tucks his hand away into his pocket but he can feel the heat on that sharp gaze moving to his throat where a finger's width of gold chain can be seen under his overlapping layers.

“I'm not a slave,” Mo Ran says defensively before Chu Wanning can get a word out. “And I am a Nangong.”

“I didn't say you weren't,” Chu Wanning replies. He untwists the ends of the candy slowly, its paper wrapped crinkling between his fingers. He doesn’t look at Mo Ran anymore. Mo Ran can hear how his tone has changed seeing the gold soldered around him. The soft warmth between them has frozen over and Mo Ran feels mildly ill.

A teenager jogs up to the pair and asks that Chu Wanning come to the elders’ meeting. Chu Wanning excuses himself without a word, leaving Mo Ran alone again. The giddiness of finding someone  nice to talk to has rotted away to a hollow in his chest. He downs the remainder of the wine and wanders off in search of Ye Wangxi given he's the one person his father explicitly told him to introduce himself to. He might as well talk to the person who feels buying a human to consume is a decent thing to do. And then he can find a corner to tuck himself away in so no one else will see the gold chaining him as his father's possession.

He doesn't find Ye Wangxi.

He resumes his post by the table of refreshments, picking away at anything portable to shove into his pockets to bring to his mama.

When all the elders return from their meeting dinner is called. Everyone takes their places. Mo Ran is seated next to Ye Wangxi. Nangong Si is on Ye Wangxi's other side. It fills Mo Ran with disgust to see Ye Wangxi on such terms with Nangong Si who doesn't consider Mo Ran human. Mo Ran makes a gruff introduction in view of his father then falls into silence. Throughout the meal he unconsciously keeps tugging at the bracelet trying to keep it shoved up under his sleeve.

Once he catches Chu Wanning looking at him and shame rises. He didn't lie but he feels like he did. He feels stripped naked and publicly humiliated for the gold against his skin. Nangong Yan might as well yell it in front of the crowd that he brought his bastard son who's only acknowledged so he can be married off and fucked to the point of consumption.

He avoids looking at Chu Wanning.

As the evening closes Mo Ran lingers near the door for his father to finish his business. Li-shidi stands with Mo Ran chatting and keeping him company. Mo Ran is grateful for it because every time his father finishes one conversation someone wanders over to strike one anew. Whatever happened in the private meeting must have gone Nangong Yan’s way because a honey sweet smile rends his face. He beams and bows but repeatedly shakes his he no to people. When Nangong Liu approaches he falls into a deep bow and Mo Ran can hear the excited pitches in his voice although he can't make out the words.

After what feels like an eternity Nangong Yan finally approaches Mo Ran.

“Ran’er,” he says and Mo Ran insides react with a disgusted lurch at the familiarity. He reaches out a hand towards him ordering “This way.”

Mo Ran thanks Li-shidi for accompanying him throughout the evening and follows his father. He makes sure to keep his posture straight and upright, reminding his father that he is bigger and taller than him, in raw physicality far more powerful. In reality, it’s because Mo Ran feels small and scared, a child separated from his mother and led off by a stranger, that he puffs his chest like a bristling dog.

He’s led up the stairs all the elders descended from before the meal. Mo Ran can’t help but look around. He attends conferences and events as Nangong Yan’s son, but he’s never been welcomed into the back rooms of the sect. Only in the ninth city is he allowed beyond the public’s field of view and often he is trapped there.

He can hear people before he sees them. Their voices murmur under the heavy wooden door that is opened by an inner disciple upon their approach. Inside the room are a dozen people who all turn to look at Mo Ran and Nangong Yan. The hand at the small of his back nudges him forward. Mo Ran goes with his head held high.

“Gentlemen,” Nangong Yan says. “This is my second son, Nangong Ran. I’m sure several of you have met him.”

Several people Mo Ran has met before surge forward to greet him, all with the same saccharine smile every Nangong family member knows. Mo Ran greets them with the same sticky smile until his gaze locks onto Chu Wanning standing at the back of the room with his arms crossed, his expression pulled tight and cold. Mo Ran’s smile falters.

“Chu-zongshi, have you met Nangong Ran before tonight?” Nangong Yan asks, summoning him forward.

Chu Wanning does not step forward. He coldly says, “No.”

“Hm. He must have really caught your eye then. Something about him.” Nangong Yan laughs. “He’s just like his mother in that way. The moment I saw her I couldn’t help but fall in love. I even lied and said I was a merchant to get her attention. Of course, I heard her singing voice before I ever laid eyes on her.”

Chu Wanning doesn’t reply and Nangong Yan’s laugh stumbles into an awkward cough. He instead turns to Nangong Liu and says, “I’m excited to see where this takes us. The boys used to play together, you know. Rong Yan would bring Nangong Si around. Perhaps they will become friends again.”

Nangong Liu replies and someone else pipes up, but Mo Ran keeps his eyes locked on Chu Wanning who avoids looking at him while also avoiding anyone else’s attempts at dragging him into conversation.

They all sit around a vast table. Nangong Yan points to the chair next to Chu Wanning for Mo Ran, who takes the seat as he’s told.

“So when would you like it to take place, Chu-zongshi?” one secretarial looking man asks Chu Wanning.

“As soon as possible,” Chu Wanning replies. His eyes flit to Xu Shaunglin on the opposite end of the table, as well as to Ye Wangxi. “I won’t appreciate anyone trying to undercut this arrangement.”

“What arrangement?” Mo Ran asks. “I’m happy with my tutor. If you’re trying to move me to the first city, I’d rather stay with Mama.”

“Ah” someone inhales sharply and looks to Nangong Yan.

“Nangong Ran… Ran’er,” Nangong Yan starts in a way that Mo Ran doesn’t like at all. “Chu-zongshi has asked to marry you and I feel it’s quite the fitting pair. He’s a very powerful man, so your addition to his household would prove a benefit to not only you but the entire sect. Even Nangong Liu agrees that the marriage is fitting for his son’s shizun.”

Mo Ran’s stomach drops and the world turns white. He stares at Nangong Yan in disbelief. Three more years. That’s what everyone said. That he wouldn’t be married off until he’s reached the core formation stage of his cultivation because that’s when he’d be most useful to a potential spouse. No one knows that he’s reached it already in secret. He’s tricked even his own mentors. He’s supposed to have more time to figure out how to get him and his mom out of Nangong Yan’s grasp.

“No–” is all that manages to escape the numbness encapsulating him.

Nangong Yan laughs and lays a hand against Mo Ran’s wrist where that chain lays. “Now, Ran’er, you knew that you’d be getting married sooner or later anyways. What’s wrong with Chu-zongshi? He’s an upright and noble man. You’ll move into the first city with him. Day after tomorrow?”

This last question isn’t asked to Mo Ran but to the room at large. Everyone murmurs back and forth. Someone tries to object saying there is no time to plan a grand affair by tomorrow but Chu Wanning cuts in saying “I do not wish for a spectacle. Tomorrow is better.”

Mo Ran is numb as a flurry around him begins. The only thing he remembers asking is for his mom to be brought to him, to which he’s told it’s not a priority to send for her when other matters must be attended to. She’ll arrive tomorrow with the scant few other guests invited. But tonight she will remain in her respite pavilion while Mo Ran is caged here, now trapped in the second city of Rufeng Sect.

He feels like a bird too when people show up to attend to him come morning. They wash his hair and scrub his body. He feels like a bird with its wings drawn out taut to be clipped feather by feather as he loses any hope of flying away. He never fully processed what it’s like to feel less than human. He’s felt it, ever since it was almost 5 he’s felt it, but not like this. Not wholly. He was always granted the benefits of being Nangong Yan’s son but now he’s nothing more than a groom and a feast.

The red robes that are brought for him are not as nice as some of the wedding robes he’s seen people wearing. They were rushed, pulled from some wardrobe under the presumption that they would fit his massive frame.

Mo Ran stumbles over himself when the door opens and a soft, worried voice calls out “Xiao Ran?”

“Mama!”

He thuds hard into his mama with enough force to nearly knock Duan Yihan over. She grunts and stumbles but wraps her arms around Mo Ran, letting him bury his face against her shoulder.

“It’s okay, xiao Ran,” she says calmly. 

“They said they weren’t going to bring you before,” Mo Ran whimpers into her shoulder. His entire body is shaking. He doesn’t even care if the other people in the room see him breaking down. How could he not when this news was thrust upon him? Even if they think he’s not, he is only a person.

She strokes his hair back off his face, taking him in with a sorrowful expression. 

“I came as soon as they told me,” she says. “They’d never stop me from coming. Are you okay, little puppy? You’re not hurt at all?”

Mo Ran nods but his lips grow into a tight, painful line over his face and a knot rises in his throat. She hugs him again and lets him bury his face against her, the whole time stroking his back and reassuring it’ll be okay.

“You have to convince him that even if there are trace amounts of butterfly bone beauty in you that it’s not enough to actually be one,” she says after Mo Ran has calmed. She stands behind him doing his hair having shooed all the attendants out. “Even if you can’t, keep calm. I’ve heard A-Yan talk about him before. Apparently he does have morals.”

Mo Ran scoffs at how moral a man can be to buy another. Because Mo Ran knows that’s what happened. He knows money exchanged hands to sell him off early. That has always been part of his value for his father.

“It’s best to go into this with an open heart, xiao Ran.” She brushes his shoulders before reaching around to pick out the golden hair crown to place on the top of his ponytail. “You cannot believe he’s a bad man without proof of it. Besides, maybe he fancies you. Handsome, bright young man like you? Who wouldn’t. I heard you talked at the party.”

“Mama, you’re not helping” Mo Ran whines when she pinches his cheek like if he's two years old.

“Oh, I’m not helping, am I? Then why are you smiling? Here. I brought this.”

From her bag Duan Yihan pulls a single steamed bun. There’s nothing special about it. It’s less than fancy; it's the sort of cheap bun that can be found on the streets of any town. But she carefully pulls it in half as though it contains the greatest treasure either has ever known and passes the bigger half towards her son. Mo Ran reaches out and takes the smaller half, just like he always has. She pats his head and calls him a good boy.

They sit together eating the split bun. She beams at him with each bite, chewing with her mouth closed. Mo Ran chews with his mouth open. He grins back at her between bites. Despite all the misery pooling at the bottom of his heart, he can’t help but feel immense joy sharing food with his mom. If there was one happiness that he would never forget, this would be it.

The morning moves too fast and too slow. Mo Ran wants to stay with Duan Yihan as long as he can. It’s the two of them against the world again, just like when he was tiny. Back then they had others helping them. People who would toss them food or offer a roof for a night or two. Now it’s the passage of time and the whispers between them that are their only tethers. 

He helps her dress and do her makeup before he’s dragged away into a holding room where two attendants linger at his side. He knows they’re not there to serve him but rather are there to ensure he doesn’t escape. The swords at their sides promise it. He paces like a caged animal. The carpet is a crushed path under his feet. The shiny new boots rub a sore spot against the back of his heel. He keeps pacing until it’s time.

There aren’t many people there.

His father. His mother.

The sect leader.

A sect recorder.

Xu Shunaglin.

A handful of witnesses Mo Ran doesn’t know but must be important.

The only person who looks to be there for Chu Wanning is Nangong Si, who harbors a bitter expression. 

Everything in Mo Ran tells him to run from the cold looking man, that he’s a lamb walking knowingly into the slaughterhouse, but there is nowhere to run. And his mama is standing next to Nangong Yan. If he were to flee now he’d only be caught and place her in harm’s way. No, it’s better to face down the wooden statue of a man before him and accept his fate in marriage.

For now.

They listen to Nangong Liu speak. They bow. They share wine.

They’re married.

Mo Ran feels numb.

The entire time Chu Wanning’s expression doesn’t waver. His thin lips are pinched tight and his brows drawn together in frustration at Mo Ran dragging his heels at every stage. He looks like he's about to hit Mo Ran when they bonk heads bowing. Mo Ran sees the way when he asks for Mo Ran to come to him and Mo Ran refuses to leave his mother’s side, his hand balls into a fist and trembles with anger at his property ignoring him. 

Chu Wanning sits alone the entire event, only an empty chair besides him.

Mo Ran spends the entire time next to Duan Yihan. He sits with her, laughs with her, eats with her. He doesn't cry with her. He refuses to cry.

He won't speak to his new owner. He won't talk to him. Not of his own volition. The only conversation he shares with Chu Wanning is when Duan Yihan introduces herself to her new son-in-law with a warm smile.

There isn't much fanfare. Chu Wanning said he didn't want a spectacle and meant it. It turns the setting somber, a funeral for Mo Ran rather than a celebration of a new union. Duan Yihan performs a single song for her son. People eat and congratulate the newly wed couple and then they leave. 

Mo Ran doesn't get to leave with them. He watches his father place a hand at the small of Duan Yihan’s back guiding her away, obscured by a green umbrella. All the air in Mo Ran’s lungs leaves with her.

He stands alone at the doorway watching the rain crash down against stone. Tender flowers are crushed under the pressure, their stems cracking to leave the petals discarded on the ground.

He feels like when he was a toddler and his mom would leave for hours and hours, telling him to be a good boy and wait for her. He'd sit at the threshold of whatever shelter they had and stare through the rain for the shape of her return. Only now he watches her go and the warmth he felt is smothered by her absence. 

“Are you ready to leave?” A cold voice asks from behind. 

“Yes.” Mo Ran flatly replies without looking at Chu Wanning. He steps into the downpour. His mind is so off kilter he doesn't notice that not a single drop hits him by the time he reaches the carriage, nor does he notice that while he is dry, Chu Wanning has been struck by the rain darkening his red wedding robes. 

Silence.

Neither says a word.

More silence.

Deafening silence. Painful silence. The sort of silence that is building to an explosion. 

Mo Ran won't be the one to break it first. 

Twice Chu Wanning looks as though he's about to speak but the silence remains. 

Chu Wanning leads Mo Ran through the ancestral halls of the first city of Rufeng. Through twists and turns that are so confusing that Mo Ran can't track the way to freedom. They finally exit one end of the building for a massive training yard surrounded by high stone walls so no one may see in. They loop through a side door and into a private residence resting at its center. 

Mo Ran is staggered by the mess. Piles of laundry, forgotten drinks and plates. Half abandoned projects shoved into piles that merge together into a single lump of chaos. Mo Ran halts at the entrance staring at the mess. Surely he can’t expect Mo Ran to live in this pig sty? Or clean it?

Chu Wanning looks back over his shoulder at Mo Ran.

“Come in,” he says with a gesture. It’s not an offer but an order. Mo Ran steps inside the room. Chu Wanning points around, specifying where the never before used kitchen is, where the library is, where the bed chamber is.

Mo Ran shoots him a dirty look. The three things Chu Wanning cares most about, apparently. Food, because Mo Ran told him he knows how to cook and therefore expects it of his new captive. The library, because he heard Mo Ran use an antiquated term and looks down on his education and intelligence. And the bed to take advantage of his new butterfly bone beauty.

“Anything else?” Mo Ran asks coldly.

“Do you need anything else?” Chu Wanning shoots back. Mo Ran bites an acidic retort. Chu Wanning studies him then points at the bedchambers saying, “Your clothes haven't arrived so you'll have to make do with what's in there.”

Mo Ran turns on his heel and leaves. He's picking up the robes set on the bed knowing they're too small and will expose the skin of his chest like some brothel whore before he even bothers trying to put them on when Chu Wanning walks in behind him carrying a small metal box that he balances on a precarious pile.

Carelessly, Chu Wanning says, “Loosen your robes and sit on the bed.”

Mo Ran realizes the explosion they have been building to is coming from him. That feeling of a caged animal shifts from pacing to lunging and snapping. His heart beats too fast in his head, pulsing in his heads. Anger and frustration and betrayal.

He had thought for a single moment that Chu Wanning was kind as they talked. That they could be friends. And then Chu Wanning saw the chains of a slave and learned he was a butterfly bone beauty, and Mo Ran went from friend to feast.

“You practice asceticism, right?” Mo Ran suddenly asks. “I heard someone say.”

“En. That is my cultivation path.”

There’s a flash in Chu Wanning’s eyes. Those words Mo Ran overheard his father say flicker in the back of his mind. It isn’t cheating if she isn’t a person.

It isn’t sex if he isn’t a person.

The anger surges forward, stronger than Mo Ran has ever felt before.

Mo Ran spits, “Do you even know how to fuck?”

Chu Wanning’s expression twists into anger to match Mo Ran’s. Before he can get a single word out, Mo Ran snaps “You bought me to fuck, so do you even know how? Even if I laid down for you, would you know what to do?” He laughs. It’s manic and uncontrollable, a snort of stale air sitting in the bottom of his lungs ever since he saw his mom led away. He lunges and grabs Chu Wanning, shoving him hard backwards against the wall. Mo Ran shoves his body up against him, pinning him there with his own.

“I can show you,” he hisses and ruts hard against Chu Wanning, shoving him further into the wall.

Chu Wanning grunts with the force, grimacing as he snarls “Nangong Ran! Get–”

“You don’t even know my name.” Mo Ran grabs at Chu Wanning, ripping at his robes, wanting him to feel less than human too. “You bought me to fuck and didn’t even think to ask what I like to be called when you do it. Well don’t worry because I’d rather you kept my name out of your mouth. Keep all of me out of your disgusting mouth.”

Mo Ran’s hand just barely finds the bare skin of Chu Wanning’s hip under the beautiful red robes when he’s elbowed hard in the ribs. Mo Ran doubles over but not before a blinding golden light slashes across his body, cutting from face to shoulder, and a knee lands squarely against his stomach.

Mo Ran falls hard on the floor, gasping for air. Chu Wanning stands over him rumbled, his hair out of place, one of the long hair pins pulled most of the way out. He tugs at the edges of his robe where Mo Ran’s hand found a way inside. Mo Ran has never seen anyone angrier than Chu Wanning, red face lit golden from a glowing whip. 

“Get out.” Chu Wanning thrusts his hand at the door, his trembling voice raising louder and the whip exploding sparks of angry light. “ Get the hell out!”

Mo Ran doesn’t need to be told twice. Clutching his arm where the whip laid into him, he staggers out of the room. Out of the house. He storms out into the rain, half running through the massive training yard towards the exit. Not the one they entered through, but a vast gate on the opposite end of the training field. He doesn’t care where he ends up. At this rate, anything will be better than being in Chu Wanning’s grasp.

He finds himself alone in a garden. Tall hedges of flowers hug along the path. Like him, they’re pummeled by the rain. Offshoots of the path lead to meditation alcoves. Benches under trees. Pagodas encompassed by flowers. A platform surrounded  by mossy stones. A fragrant grove of clementines. He keeps walking until he’s at the furthest end of the garden, cut off by a twisting path of water. At the muddy shore he falls to his knees.

Looking up to the sky at the rain falling down at him he forces back a sob.

His entire body shakes. The rain has soaked through his wedding robes to reach his skin. The warmth of the day has burned off, filling the air with stormy coldness.

When Mo Ran draws his hand back from where Chu Wanning’s whip struck him. Blood stains his palm red. Even when he tries to hold his hand still it won’t stop trembling. The rain pushes the pink from his fingers down his wrist to wrap around the gold chain bracelet visible above his cuff. He returns his hand to the wound, and folds over on himself trying not to cry.

He’s never felt more alone and less human.

Everything is grey by the time a glowing light approaches him. It’s blurred by the dense rain. Mo Ran doesn’t move. He remains sitting with his knees drawn to his chest watching the raindrops bounce off the water of the deep stream.

The person carrying the lantern gets close enough that the whole area around them is lit. The light scatters over the water, cutting sparkles over the dark surface.

The rain stops pummeling Mo Ran’s back. It’s replaced by the sound of rain striking an umbrella.

“Do you want to come back inside?” Chu Wanning asks.

Even though there’s an underlying order, Mo Ran treats it as a question and replies, “No.”

Chu Wanning shifts his weight next to him. He’s still wearing the red robes too, although now the hem is splattered with mud. His silk embroidered boots are muddy too. The fine threads are now filthy. The boots are dark from the water saturating them to the point of soaking through. Mo Ran readies himself to be pulled upright.

He isn’t.

Chu Wanning just stands next to him holding the umbrella and lantern as the rain falls around them while darkness closes in.

Minutes stretch into hours, and hours stretch into a slumped sleep. Mo Ran is utterly exhausted.

When he wakes the world around him is pitch black but still the rain is kept off his back. The lantern has burned out but still Chu Wanning is there. He’s going to wait until Mo Ran breaks and submits himself. It’s a sick game.

It’s a game that Mo Ran can play too. He spent years enduring the weather. He’s no stranger to sitting in the mud or trembling in the rain. He pushes himself upright, wincing and clutching his arm, but doesn’t move to get up. Chu Wanning doesn’t make him. He just stands over him holding his umbrella over himself, happening to protect Mo Ran too in the darkness.

Hours pass and a gap in the clouds offers a brief respite before the rain resumes.

When sunlight finally crests the gardens Chu Wanning touches his own cheek in the corresponding spot to where a single leaf of the willow vine hit Mo Ran and says, “You’re still bleeding.”

Mo Ran huffs.

“Tianwen is a holy weapon. You don’t have the cultivation to heal those wounds yourself. It will take months for skin to grow over. You need to go to the medical ward if you don’t want them to scar.”

“You don’t want them to scar.” Mo Ran retorts. He doesn’t wait for Chu Wanning to reply. He pushes himself upright, ignoring the stabbing needles in his numb legs, and moves through the gardens back in the direction he came. He passes gardeners in broad hats keeping their hands free and faces dry as they take care of the plants. Several look up at him then back to Chu Wanning trailing behind.

Mo Ran only stops to lift a drowning worm from the stone path before hurrying on.

He doesn’t ask Chu Wanning for directions to the medical ward, instead directing the question to a random disciple he passes. He can feel Chu Wanning behind him until the moment he enters the ward. The doors close behind him and do not open again. Finally, for a brief moment, he’s free of his husband.

He’s given dry clothes. Simple clothes. A plain pale grey shirt and pants. Hot tea to warm his insides. His cheek is prodded at and stinging balm applied. The wound on his shoulder is deeper and needs to be massaged with a physician working spiritual energy into the wound. He tries not to grimace the whole time. It feels like the physician is trying to draw tears from his eyes just to see if they’re gold.

The physician asks Mo Ran questions about last night, questions about if he’s hurt or sore elsewhere. Mo Ran doesn’t answer those questions and when they try to feel his pulse to check his spiritual energy he withdraws his hand, still wanting to keep his fully formed core a secret.

He remains in the medical ward for several hours to eat and sleep properly. He doesn’t trust a single person there but it’s better than sharing a space with Chu Wanning if he must sleep. Besides, he tells himself, he is still Nangong Yan’s son. Even if he has been married off, he technically is still a distant heir to the sect. Only his husband can wrong him now.

It’s late afternoon by the time he returns back to the house in the training field. Outside the house Ye Wangxi, Nangong Si and three others are practicing in the sparse rain. A massive wolf joins the five. Mo Ran gives them a wide berth. Nangong Si stops what he’s doing to watch Mo Ran. Ye Wangxi does too. Mo Ran feels like a slab of meat set out on a tray the only one can touch but others can drool over.

He locks the door when he gets inside and immediately regrets it remembering Chu Wanning. The room is empty though. Mo Ran takes it as a blessing and remains in the entryway where it’s known to be safe.

He gets bored and nudges a few of the piles on the floor with his toe. A cup full of rusted screws tips over. Mo Ran sighs and looks around to make sure his husband isn’t there to watch him clean up. He won’t let this become his job. Only when certain Chu Wanning isn’t around does he pick up all of the screws only to realize there’s a shattered glass jar not even a meter away, half buried under a stack of books that seems to have tipped over onto it. Getting annoyed, Mo Ran picks that up too. He’s not going to get his feet mangled just because Chu Wanning is a slob.

Mo Ran carefully cleans one corner that he will call his own. He drags one of the chairs and many cushions to his corner. He spends a lot of time angling the chair just right so that his back is to the rest of the room but he can still see behind him to know if his demon is approaching. It’s a good spot too. He can see out the vast window onto the green training field.

He kicks through the piles of books until he finds one that looks okay and curls up in his chair.

The hair on the back of his neck prickles. He keeps looking around for where Chu Wanning might emerge, but the man never does. It takes Mo Ran a long time to realize that the strange feeling is hunger.

He snatches the umbrella by the door and leaves the house. Ye Wangxi makes a move towards him and Mo Ran speeds up, ignoring his call of “Nangong-gongzi! Nangong Ran, wait a moment!”

He moves through the halls until he finds a few young disciples. They all give him a side eye not because they know what he is, but because he’s still wearing the grey shirt and pants given to him in the medical ward. Mo Ran smiles at them and asks which direction the mess hall is. The youngest rattles off the most nonsensical directions Mo Ran has ever heard while another tween boy volunteers to take him there directly.

He learns a few things about the first city. Namely most of the city is taken up by the formal buildings of the sect rather than a sprawling city-scape of comprised of mortals like the ninth city, that there’s a beautiful clementine grove on the hill but only the main family is allowed there, and that the coast is not particularly far from the edge of the city. He also dares ask a few questions about Chu Wanning.

He learns that Chu Wanning came to the sect young. That he once had a huge fight with the sect leader shortly after Rong Yan died. That he’s Nangong Si’s shizun. And that he’s really scary.

Mo Ran agrees that he’s really scary.

He eats alone.

Well, mostly alone until a gaggle of middle aged women show up and tell him that he’s eating at their table. Mo Ran begins packing his tray up to leave when they all tell him to calm down unless he’s got a problem with them. He doesn’t so he stays.

As always, he has to pry their names out of them. Being women, they’re so trained to report themselves by their ranks or shizuns or other titles. Anything but their names. 

Mo Ran introduces himself as Mo Ran, not Nangong Ran. They beam and welcome him as himself before diving into their meals. They report on missions they’ve gone on recently. One woman complains about how she went to deal with a possession but only a few months before cultivators from Sisheng Peak had been there and undercut them by charging nothing! Which made it hard for her to collect proper payment. Another complains about having traveled South to Guyue’ye Sect and meeting with Jiang Xi, wherein she was called an insufferable goldhound with mashed tofu for brains. They all roll their eyes and laugh before diving into conversation of the pretty sect leader. Inevitably it falls into conversations of other sect leaders and sects until one of the women turns to Mo Ran and asks, “Where are you from, then? You can’t be from around here. We’d have seen you. Jiang-mei is too big of a gossip to let someone like you slip through her fingers.”

One of the women with wrinkles at the edges of her eyes and deep inset smile lines grins at him and says “Guilty.”

“Ninth city,” Mo Ran replies. “I’m just visiting for a little bit and trying to get my footing.”

“So you are a cultivator then? Not a commoner?”

“A bit,” Mo Ran replies. “I’m a disciple but I never had a shizun to teach me. Just mentors passing through.”

The woman all rise into a chatter, saying they’ll need to introduce Mo Ran to all the shizuns then. “Not often do they take on people as old as you, but if you’ve already started someone might. It’s always worth a shot. Have you had dessert here yet? You’d die for the honey cakes. Come on. Let’s get them.”

She drags Mo Ran up and back to the line where food is served, chattering and introducing him to her friends. Mo Ran’s heart feels a lot lighter talking to everyone. He feels a little more human. And he has a warm, full belly as he leaves the hall.

He doesn’t return to the house in the training field. He returns to the rain soaked gardens Chu Wanning found him in the night before and sits in the pagoda meditating until the sun starts to set. When he opens his eyes he's surprised that the nasty man isn't standing in front of him wordlessly putting pressure on him to return to the house. Instead there's only the faint sounds of laughter from people exploring the gardens in the break in the rain. 

He gets himself dinner at the mess hall again, sitting with a group of people whom he was introduced to at lunch, and finally returns through the training field to the dim house. 

The only window lit golden is the bedroom window. Mo Ran almost turns away from the house but doesn't. He returns inside and curls up in the chair he claimed as his corner, waiting for the dragon to poke its head out of its lair and demand he enter the depths.

The bedroom door never opens and no demands come of him. He ends up falling asleep at an awkward angle in his chair.

The following day repeats as the previous. The only difference is when Mo Ran comes back from exploring the mess in the kitchen has been cleaned by someone who clearly knows nothing about cleaning. Tidied is barely the word for it. It's a clear indication that Chu Wanning expects Mo Ran to cook without actual cleaning.

Well, Mo Ran expects to be treated like a person. Maybe if Chu Wanning does that he'll start cooking for him.

He does make a cup of tea for himself. He sits in his chair watching the rain as he sips it, wondering if his mom is doing the same. He makes a second cup and drinks it as he writes a letter to his mom. Only after does he realize he doesn't know how to send it, and even if he figures it out the repercussions might be harsh if he sends it without permission. 

He makes a third cup of tea, holding it between his palms debating if he wants to disturb the demon. In the end he really wants to send his letter to his mom so he knocks. 

There is no answer. Confused, Mo Ran knocks again. There's a faint sound inside. Unsure, Mo Ran tests the door and finding it unbolted, opens it. 

The lantern flickers inside, a low, consistent light illuminating the mess of the room. At its center is the bed, and on the bed, blankets kicked away to the floor, is Chu Wanning curled into a tight ball. Mo Ran stands frozen in the doorway watching his shoulders rise and fall. It feels like he's caught witness to something that should not be seen and he should flee before it's too late.

“Chu…Wanning?” Mo Ran asks quietly. He doesn't want to wake the sleeping beast. 

There's a faint sound that emanates from the man indicating he's partially awake. Mo Ran summons all his courage and enters the room.

“I made you tea if you wanted it,” Mo Ran says. He has to step over the still wet wedding robes haphazardly thrown on the floor like the carcass of a dead animal.

“No.”

The voice is small and croaked. Proof that Chu Wanning is awake. Further evidence is provided by the fact that a hand reaches out to blindly feel for the blankets crumpled on the floor.

Mo Ran sets the cup down on a table and picks up the blankets, tossing them over Chu Wanning without daring to get too close.

“Rough night?” Mo Ran asks unsure what to make of it. Is he throwing a tizzy tantrum because his new pet won't lay down and submit? He won't look at Mo Ran. There are no bottles of alcohol like Mo Ran might expect of someone in this state. 

When Chu Wanning doesn't reply except for a “You can go” Mo Ran answers with “I brought you tea if you wanted to sit up.”

A hand moves out of the blankets, waving him away. From his new vantage point, Mo Ran catches the red in his cheeks and knows it’s from fever. 

It doesn't move his heart. Chu Wanning can rot with fever as long as it leaves him incapacitated and unable to issue demands. He stays just long enough to be told he may write his mother and leaves. 

He finishes the letter and takes it to the administration building for it to be sent. He feels anxious watching the disciple tuck the letter under her robes and step on sword to deliver it, wishing that he could go see his mom.

He lingers outside the administration building waiting for a reply. Several times he's told that any reply will be delivered to him, but still he waits.

An hour feels like an eternity before the disciple returns and hands him the letter neatly sealed. On the outer edge is his father’s stamp. 

Mo Ran half runs back to the gardens that feel like a sanctuary. He finds a small gazebo surrounded by nasturtiums in full bloom. He draws himself onto the table and with shaking hands reads his mother’s reply.

It's the first time tears roll down his cheeks. It's only been two days and yet those two days are a lifetime. He's never been away from his mama this long. He's never been this worried for her, while she's equally or more worried about him.

Of course she's worried about him.

He reads the letter again and again and again. 

Under the letter addressed to him is a smaller one addressed to Chu Wanning in her beautiful handwriting. Every part of Mo Ran wants to open it. He toys with it as he rereads his letter. In the end he doesn't though. He trusts his mom. When he wipes the tears from his eyes and returns to the house in the training field. He returns to his chair in his one clean corner. And he rereads his letter again.

He doesn't leave his chair and Chu Wanning never emerges. 

Mo Ran is fine with that. Let the man rot alone in disease. Clearly no one likes him if no one has come to check on him in his absence, not even his disciple. An awful, cruel old hag of a man who can only find a spouse by buying one like animals in a feedlot.

It isn't until three days later that Mo Ran and Chu Wanning encounter each other.

Mo Ran has established a routine by now. Breakfast with the women he met his first day in the First City. They leave for training and Mo Ran tags along, surprised at first that no one objects to his presence. A break for drinks in which Mo Ran departs from the group, wandering until he finds an elder giving a lesson to a group of kids that he can sit close enough to to overhear. Lunch with new friends and an afternoon in the libraries or gardens. He avoids the house in the training grounds and its plague-filled occupant until nightfall, where he regularly dodges Ye Wangxi who clearly wants to speak with him, or Nangong Si who the third day blocks Mo Ran and demands to know how long before Chu Wanning returns to training. 

Mo Ran and Chu Wanning only encounter each other because Mo Ran breaks his newly established routine. He returns to the house in the training fields several hours early when his favorite spot in the gardens is occupied. He plans only to grab an umbrella and coin and walk into the first city itself, deciding that he should take advantage of Chu Wanning being ill to explore the city before he’s locked in the house like his mother has been for a decade and a half. He’s too busy thinking about what he should indulge in buying when he enters to realize Chu Wanning is in the kitchen.

Hunched over the small stove, prodding the flames with his finger, Chu Wanning looks over his shoulder at Mo Ran. His long dark hair is down, hanging limply over his shoulders and over the golden flowered blanket draped over his shoulders. He still looks ill. That’s what takes Mo Ran by surprise. He didn’t think such a powerful cultivator could fall ill for so long and look like such a mess. Mo Ran had reached the point of thinking Chu Wanning isn’t ill anymore, but rather ashamed that his purchase fought back and is too embarrassed to show his face.

There are heavy shadows under his phoenix eyes still frosted over. His cheeks are pink. It makes his jade skin look even paler. His lips fall open when he meets Mo Ran’s eye, quickly fixed though and pulled into a tight line. He drops his gaze down to the pot on the fire, giving it a stir. Mo Ran watches the delicate hand with a narrow wrist escaped from his sleeve working the ladle back and forth to stir his meal.

“You’re back early.”

Mo Ran puffs himself for another struggle.“And?” 

“Are you going out again?”

“Are you going to stop me?”

Chu Wanning shivers at his harsh tone returned back to him. Even though Mo Ran can only see his back now, he watches the shiver move up his entire body. Chu Wanning reaches for one of the two bowls stacked next to the portable stove and ladles soup into it before wordlessly returning to his room. He doesn’t bother giving Mo Ran a second glance, and all the anxious energy built up in Mo Ran’s chest expels all at once. He suddenly feels weak and light headed.

The soup bubbles. Chu Wanning didn’t even bother to reduce the heat to a simmer. Mo Ran stares at the steam curling off the pot, twisting in narrow tendrils.

He feels like there's something that he's not clever enough to figure out.

Inside the pot is an overcooked mix of cabbage and root vegetables. Goods that Chu Wanning has had sitting around in his little kitchen for far too long. Mo Ran crinkles his nose in disgust looking at it. Even his mother trapped in her birdcage eats better than this. Chu Wanning is the elder of the sect leader’s only son and he’s eating unseasoned, over-boiled mush. The man has no standards. No wonder he’s approaching thirty and previously unmarried and untouched if he eats this garbage.

He reduces the heat and places a lid on it. Maybe it would be better if he left it roaring and the house caught fire and burned down, but he knows the guilt would eat him alive if that were to happen. 

He digs through his bags finally delivered and stacked neatly in his corner, picking out a pouch of coins. At the door he grabs the umbrella Chu Wanning held over himself while Mo Ran sat in the rain their first night married. It’s a big umbrella, wide enough to cover two. He can’t help but feel annoyed that he sat in the rain all night and Chu Wanning barely covered him. He's lucky that he hasn't fallen ill too. 

The low rain doesn't bother Mo Ran leaving the cultivation grounds into the city. It actually brightens his spirit as he bumps shoulders with non-cultivators, asking for directions and recommendations. He finds a shop selling nice hair pins and picks one out for his mama. He finds a nice robe he buys for himself, one that will repel the rain so he can be done with this nonsense. He meanders down to the covered market where sellers cram together under the roof and eves selling their wares. Mo Ran walks slowly through admiring it all.

He's always liked food. He's always been fascinated by it. How it can hurt your stomach if too old or too raw or too much, and yet its absence can hurt too. When he was little he'd always pick the pain of rotting food over an empty stomach. 

He has learned how to prepare it too. Even the worst foods passed to a begging child he learned to be appreciative of and cook into a proper meal. If he and Chu Wanning got along, he knows he could have made something mouth watering with what was thrown into that pot of mush. But Chu Wanning didn’t ask to share a meal so why would he offer to help cook one?

He wishes he could buy armfuls and take it home to the respite pavilion and make a meal for his mom.

He ends up buying more food than he meant to. It's an unconscious habit. Something about hoarding food someone once said, but Mo Ran doesn't think so. He always eats it or shares it. He doesn't just leave it to rot like the people he saw in childhood. That was the true hoarding. 

He pulls a few pieces of fruit to pass to children on the street hiding from the rain. They take them in delight, thanking him and running away. He finds a butcher and buys a prepared rabbit as well as some dried meats. He spots a tea shop and surveys what they have, picking a local green tea and two fancy looking imports.

As he's leaving he spots the road down to the wharf where the fish market bustles. Even with heavily laden arms, Mo Ran can't help but trot down just to inspect and meet people.

Immediately he ingratiates himself with a fishmonger woman who calls him handsome and trades him veggies for a small smoked fish to pick at as he walks. He likes the way she looked at him not because he liked being called handsome because it means a new freedom in it despite his captivity. In the Ninth City everyone knows he's Nangong Yan’s son and therefore everyone knows he's butterfly bone beauty feast. There was no escaping it. He saw it in how they looked at him. Here though, although he's trapped and prisoner of Chu Wanning’s marriage, no one knows what he is. If he keeps the bracelet and necklace hidden, no one will know. Even if they see it, no one but the most studied cultivators will know. For the first time, he can just be Mo Ran.

He ends up buying a large fish fillet despite his already full arms. He can barely hold up the umbrella on the way back, and he can't even snack on the box of berries he bought as he walks. But it doesn't matter. There's a lightness to his step as he goes, a happy trot as he putters back through the market talking and laughing with those he passes.

He returns to the house in the training grounds. The pot is still on the low flames, slowly simmering and filling the room with a homey scent of fresh food. It causes Mo Ran’s stomach to growl as he unloads his arms onto the messy table and sets to organizing the kitchen. 

As he begins reorganizing the entire kitchen so that it makes sense, he notices the second clean bowl set out next to the stove. It's the only area totally clear. There, and where Mo Ran set all the goods he bought in an empty spot that spans two seats at the table. Mo Ran makes an ugly face thinking Chu Wanning might have wanted to share a meal with him, but as he sets the filet of fish into a screaming hot pan, Mo Ran can't stop thinking about how what he wanted from Chu Wanning was to be treated as a human. What's more human than a shared meal?

He mulls it over as he cooks dinner. Outside the rain picks up and falls in sheets. Water pools in the training field. It looks like the house sits in the center of a lake. The trees around the training field bounce with the wind. The haitang tree's petals are bashed from its limbs to drown in the water.

In the end he makes two plates of food and clears the table so that two people can sit comfortably. He doesn't call Chu Wanning out of his room. He just slowly eats his meal and writes another letter to his mom to accompany the presents he bought, explaining in detail what he's seen of the First City. 

He's almost done with his meal when the door opens and Chu Wanning emerges. His eyes slide over Mo Ran before averting, his chin rising to give him a look of haughty superiority despite his pink nose and pallid complexion of illness.

He ignores the food Mo Ran made set neatly out on a plate for him. Instead he lifts the lid of his dreaded mush soup.

Mo Ran can't help but snort in disbelief. 

Chu Wanning glares at him. “Do you have something to say?” He asks coldly. 

“You're eating more of that when I made food?” Mo Ran asks. “Like a virgin meadow, you can't bear to be touched by the cattle you bought to eat the grass.”

Chu Wanning glares. Mo Ran turns away from him and keeps writing, pausing only to take a bite. His entire body is tense waiting for Chu Wanning to react. 

Chu Wanning does react on a delay. He picks up the second plate and series of small bowls and serves himself not the soup but the neatly divided half of what Mo Ran cooked. He doesn't sit in the chair next to Mo Ran, but rather uses his elbow to shove aside a space at the end of the table just big enough for him to set down his bowls.

Uncomfortable silence hangs in the air between them. Chu Wanning doesn't speak and Mo Ran isn't going to speak first. There's only the clatter of utensils on plates, Mo Ran smacking his lips and Chu Wanning breathing through his mouth.

When Chu Wanning’s plate is empty he stands, leaving them on the table, and says, “There's money in the box on the shelf.”

Mo Ran almost chokes. He slams his hand on the table trying to hold back a cough. Chu Wanning doesn't react.

“First you think I'm a whore and now I'm your personal chef?” Mo Ran shouts at his retreating back. “As if money makes what you're doing any better? I have my own money and don't need a single leaf from you.”

Chu Wanning stops in the doorway, hand clenched on the frame as if he's about to turn around and shout back. Mo Ran pushes himself up ready to fight. He'll lose, but he'll be underestimated and might land a few good blows first. And it’d make him feel better at least.

“Well?” Mo Ran snaps at him, unable to hold it in anymore. “What the fuck do you want from me? If you’re going to eat me, get it over with.” He grabs a knife from the table, ready to thrust into Chu Wanning’s hands if he dares get closer.

Chu Wanning's long fingers curl against the frame. In a false calm, he says, “I meant if you wanted to go out and buy yourself things, there is money in the box. You said you liked cooking, so I wanted you to have funds.”

He vanishes into the bedroom. Mo Ran is alone in the room, the remnants of their first shared meal a mess on the table. His heart races, catching on the flesh and ribs of his chest. His knees feel weak. He slowly lowers himself back into his kicked out chair and buries his face in his hands.

He doesn’t like what this place has done to him.

Very slowly, he starts to calm down. The adrenaline fades. With the onset of night and the crashing rain bashing against the side of the building, Mo Ran slowly begins to process their first shared meal; Chu Wanning emerged from the depths of his caves, wordlessly ate the food Mo Ran prepared because Mo Ran scoffed at him eating his own meal, and then left. He didn’t grab at Mo Ran. He didn’t carve a knife into his arm to take a bite. He didn’t pin Mo Ran down on the table to fuck. Instead, he sat and ate. His cheeks were pink with fever. He wouldn’t look at Mo Ran. His nose was stuffy making his mouth breathing loud. And when his meal was gone and every grain of rice eaten, he left.

There was no danger to Mo Ran.

Mo Ran abruptly pushes his chair back and hurries to the box on the shelf by the door. It’s heavy and the dark cherry wood is beautifully carved. When Mo Ran pushes open the lid the grain rubs against itself indicating the box is either new or rarely used. Inside is a stack of gold and silver leaves, enough to buy meals for a year if not a decade if one were frugal enough. Although Mo Ran has gotten used to his pockets weighed down with coin, he’s not used to having this much money set before him all at once.

He could just take it, a small voice in the back of his head announces. Take it and leave. Run away. This is enough it could even buy one of those gu worms that can change someone’s face. Chu Wanning would never find him. He could lie about the bracelet and necklace around his body. He could make a new life for himself.

But he couldn’t leave his mom.

Mo Ran’s heart drops realizing that he’ll never be able to leave because Nangong Yan keeps Duan Yihan caged. He’s forever trapped. He knew it, but it hits differently holding a box of gold and unable to make himself leave. 

He closes the lid on it and stares back at the bedroom door with a frown.

The moment he presses the door open Chu Wanning greets him with a sharp “Get out.”

Mo Ran decides to ignore it and pushes the door open all the way.

Chu Wanning sits on the bed next to an open window. A blanket is drawn over his shoulders and his long hair hangs limply in his face from lack of care in his illness.. A small golden dragon coils his fingers. It flicks its tongue out at Mo Ran and eagerly asks, “This is the pretty young husband?”

“I will burn you alive,” Chu Wanning hisses and squeezes the dragon. It yelps and screams, writhing as though Chu Wanning has crushed it to the point of death. With high, drawn out wails it begs forgiveness and mercy and clemency. Anything to escape Chu Wanning’s grasp.

“Hey!” Mo Ran barks seeing the scene and immediately feeling sympathy for the caught dragon. He feels the same crushed under Chu Wanning’s hand. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

“Managing my magic,” Chu Wanning says and crushes the dragon entirely. With a final pitiful wail calling Chu Wanning an old crone it vanishes. When he unfurls his hand a yellow talisman is crumpled in his hands. He flattens it to shove up his sleeve and says, “What do you want?”

Mo Ran stares at where the dragon vanished from and how Chu Wanning is entirely unaffected by its begs. His desire to strike a truce with his husband fades as he thinks of himself begging for mercy ignored.

“Well?” Chu Wanning asks again. “Speak or get out. I have things to do.”

“Things… to do?” 

“Zhu Jiu Yin brought me a missive. There's a ghost occupation I need to deal with.”

Mo Ran feels his brain is moving slowly, sogging through a thick layer of mud to understand after being cut off so abruptly. “It's dark. And raining.”

“And the people affected should wait for daylight and a break in the rain?”

Mo Ran is quiet because Chu Wanning is right. They shouldn't have to wait just because it's raining. Chu Wanning is rustling through some boxes when Mo Ran finds his words and says “I want to come too.”

Chu Wanning doesn't even bother raising his head when he decisively says “No.”

“I'm not weak,” Mo Ran says.

“I didn't say you are. But you're not coming.” Chu Wanning gathers a bundle of fabrics. He gives Mo Ran a glance to see if he's going to leave the room, and when he doesn't, Chu Wanning pushes past him to change elsewhere. 

Mo Ran lets him leave. He watches him vanish through the sheets of rain with only an umbrella to protect him. Mo Ran can't help but find it strange that he's sick enough to remain in bed for days and yet will jump up to run through the rain at the first missive addressed to him. The man must be stupid.