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The first few nights together feel like nothing short of a dream.
Mo Ran’s been in a frenzy with house repairs and construction, turning their lodgings into a proper home. And yet, he still somehow makes time for Chu Wanning, taking the time out of his day to cook for Chu Wanning and make sure he’s comfortable. Chu Wanning would have worried that Mo Ran was working himself to the point of exhaustion if he didn’t see how happy these small acts made him.
On this night, somewhere between the third and fourth week of the two of them retiring from the cultivation world, Mo Ran sets out their dinner as he usually does, waiting until Chu Wanning is comfortably seated before piling things into both of their bowls.
Chu Wanning watches him fuss with the plates with a calm he thought he would never feel.
“How is it?” Mo Ran asks once they’ve both taken several bites of the food.
Chu Wanning nods. “It’s good,” he says simply.
“You’re good,” Mo Ran says in response, making Chu Wanning scoff.
He raises an eyebrow when Mo Ran grins. “What, don’t believe me?” Mo Ran asks cheekily.
Chu Wanning rolls his eyes, hoping that Mo Ran will pretend like he doesn’t see the red growing on Chu Wanning’s face.
Chu Wanning watches Mo Ran’s grin shift into a softened smile. After a beat, one where the two embarrassingly do nothing but just look at each other, Mo Ran straightens and clears his throat. Chu Wanning raises an eyebrow at the change. Although Chu Wanning can’t immediately place why, Mo Ran looks almost... nervous. “Wanning?”
Chu Wanning inclines his head, motioning for Mo Ran to continue.
Mo Ran swallows, seemingly steeling himself.
Mo Ran says it almost shyly, “I’ll cook all our meals from now on.”
Chu Wanning looks at him. This is what he was getting nervous for? Was his cooking that terrible?
Mo Ran continues, his hands clenching in front of him. “It’s not that I don’t love when Wanning cooks for me, or um, us, it’s just that... I would like to cook for you every day. All the time.”
Chu Wanning sighs. “I can cook some of them.”
Mo Ran smiles. “I know. I know, I just... Wanning. Do you understand what I’m trying to tell you?”
Chu Wanning hums. “Unless this is your way of telling me you don’t like my cooking, you might as well say it again.”
Mo Ran nods, taking another moment to collect his thoughts, and exhales. “Wanning, I haven’t been good to you in my first life. In my second, I also treated you poorly. It’s only recently I learned how much I would rather die than let anything touch you again. I still have so much to make up for. There are things that I’ll never be able to make up for.”
“Don’t think like that,” Chu Wanning says quickly, feeling his chest squeeze uncomfortably.
Mo Ran shakes his head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to stop. I just wanted to tell you... I want to cook for you. Every day. Every meal. Any meal. Whichever you prefer, Wanning. I just... I want to be there for you. Forever.” By the end, each phrase sounds like it’s torn out of Mo Ran, as if every time he finishes the phrase he remembers a new one he wanted to add.
This moron, tripping over his words simply to ask Chu Wanning if he could cook him meals. “Do what you want.”
The command comes out more fond than anything.
Mo Ran’s eyes widen, his face crimsoning rapidly. “Really? Shizun, you’re sure?”
Chu Wanning frowns. “Why would I not be sure?”
Mo Ran’s entire being seems to tremble. He looks inordinately pleased for someone who has signed up for a lifetime of cooking but once again, Chu Wanning doesn’t voice any concerns for the man. So long as Mo Ran continued to be this happy, there is little Chu Wanning wouldn’t do. Or let Mo Ran do, in this case.
Mo Ran, presumably unable to hold himself back any longer, leaps over the side of the table to press his lips against Chu Wanning’s.
Chu Wanning kisses him back instinctively, making a small noise at the back of his throat. He cups Mo Ran’s cheek and pulls back just slightly.
“I can still cook sometimes.”
“Of course,” Mo Ran teases, “Wanning is the best cook.”
Chu Wanning hmphs and nips Mo Ran’s chin. Take that. “Don’t be sarcastic.”
“Why should Wanning get his hands dirty when I’m more than willing to cook for you?” He leans back in and kisses Chu Wanning again. “You’ll be with me every day,” Mo Ran breathes, as if trying to confirm the fact to himself.
Chu Wanning doesn’t know if he can handle this man’s idiocy any longer. “Where else do you think I’ll go?”
-
Goutou is a new addition to their life.
Chu Wanning loves him and Goutou warms up to him just as quickly. Mo Ran, however, is not so lucky.
Goutou nips at the edge of Mo Ran’s feet again, making small yipping noises and keeping him from walking any further.
Gingerly, Mo Ran lifts a foot to push Goutou’s body out of his path.
“Shoo, shoo. Go bother my husband, will you?”
Chu Wanning blinks. “Goutou, come here,” he says, still unsure if he's heard Mo Ran correctly at all.
Goutou obediently trots over, flopping down by Chu Wanning’s feet unceremoniously. Neither Goutou nor Mo Ran seems to notice his inner turmoil.
“Ha? So you’ll listen to my husband, not to me. Did I get that right?”
Goutou barks as if in agreement.
Mo Ran scoffs and walks off into a different room, completely unaware that Chu Wanning has not moved an inch at his words.
-
Chu Wanning has dreamt of it once.
The two of them dressed in red, confirming to the world what they were to each other. Mo Ran, older than he was during their ghost marriage, looking at Chu Wanning with an eagerness that spoke of only a happy lifetime together in love.
When he woke up, he wrote it off as the exhausting getting to him to be having such fantastical delusions.
Maybe in the eyes of everyone that mattered, they were already married. They certainly acted as if they had eloped and run away, hidden from the lingering eyes of the rest of the cultivation world. And it seemed true when Mo Ran had used their ghost marriage to bring Chu Wanning successfully back from the underworld, so maybe there was no need to go through the process again. Maybe it really counted as a wedding, and Chu Wanning should have been referring to Mo Ran as his husband ever since.
But if they were to marry again...
Would it be like that ghost marriage? Would it be completely different now that Chu Wanning is certain of Mo Ran’s feelings towards him? He doesn’t doubt Mo Ran’s love for him now, and the day where that’s not the case won’t appear in this life or the next, so maybe Mo Ran truly didn’t want to go through the fuss that came with a wedding. Mo Ran is simple like that.
Maybe it is enough that Mo Ran loved Chu Wanning, that Chu Wanning loved him back. There isn’t any need for ceremony.
When Chu Wanning thinks of it like this, his thoughts are quieted. Their path to where they are now was anything but smooth, so the jump between what they were to husbands without any ceremony in between is only accurate to what they’ve always been doing. Truthfully, Chu Wanning doesn’t mind.
He still wonders, though.
-
Mo Ran doesn’t stop with Goutou.
Chu Wanning, much to his chagrin, doesn’t learn about this fact right away. For the first couple weeks of their seclusion, he’s settled himself into a routine that mainly consists of staying at their home and spending time with Mo Ran. It was Mo Ran that did the shopping and interactions with anyone outside of their small bubble.
He had written the moment with Goutou as a one-off, being referred to as Mo Ran's... husband, until he finally decides he will go down to the market with Mo Ran to get some things for himself.
Mo Ran insists they hold hands when they go. Chu Wanning doesn’t mind.
Their hands don’t fit together, not really. And yet, Chu Wanning doesn’t think he could find comfort like this anywhere else.
Standing next to Mo Ran, Chu Wanning isn’t necessarily surprised at the looks they manage to garner. What Chu Wanning doesn’t expect is just as many eyes to fall on him.
One of the shopkeepers even calls out to them, congratulating Mo Ran for god-knows-what.
And then, it’s the children.
“Mo-gongzi! Mo-gongzi!!” A group of children spots them at the other end of the street, waving their hands wildly.
One of the children doesn’t hesitate to run up to the two of them, stopping right at the edges of Mo Ran’s feet.
“A-Yang, don’t run so fast,” Mo Ran scolds gently. “Do you want to fall and trip like last time?”
“I didn’t fall!” The child, A-Yang, says, tugging at Mo Ran’s robes. “Did you see? I didn’t fall!”
“You didn’t!” Mo Ran agrees happily, pulling his hands back from Chu Wanning’s to reach down and scoop up A-Yang to rest the boy against his hip.
A-Yang squeals in childish delight.
“What kinds of trouble have you been up to?” Mo Ran asks.
A-Yang giggles again at the insinuation, just as the rest of the children also begin to crowd the two of them.
Mo Ran greets all of them by name, asking after their families and some activity they’ve done recently.
A-Yang, having the best vantage point of things that aren’t Mo Ran, is the first to see Chu Wanning standing just a few steps off to the side.
“Ah!” He shakes Mo Ran’s shoulders, getting his attention. “It’s him, isn’t it?” A-Yang, whisper-screams at Mo Ran.
Mo Ran raises an eyebrow. “It’s who?”
A-Yang points in Chu Wanning’s direction. “Your beautiful husband!”
Chu Wanning chokes on air.
Mo Ran laughs loudly. “It is, it is! Is he as beautiful as you thought?”
A-Yang looks at Chu Wanning. Chu Wanning looks back, his face increasingly growing hotter.
The child beams, unperturbed. “He is!”
Mo Ran laughs again. “You have a good eye, A-Yang! You’ll definitely be able to find a pretty wife in the future.”
A-Yang giggles, a sound of pure joy that can only come from a young child.
The other children turn their attention to Chu Wanning now, coming closer to him and asking more questions than Chu Wanning can ever hope to answer. They remind him a little of Xue Meng.
Mo Ran smiles at Chu Wanning, teeth shining under the light of the sun. “What do you think, Wanning? A-Yang will meet someone as pretty as you, don't you think?”
Chu Wanning, unsure of how else to respond, just nods.
Mo Ran laughs again.
A-Yang squirms, and Mo Ran sets him down. The boy walks in front of Chu Wanning this time. And just stares at him.
Chu Wanning crouches down to pet his head, feeling two steps out of beat. “Hello,” he says softly.
The other children start to also greet him, wanting their own head pats.
Chu Wanning tries to keep up with their conversation as best as he can, feeling tugs at his robes in every direction to get his attention.
Eventually, Mo Ran finally decides to end this, telling all the children to go play somewhere else, and that he’ll see them the next time he comes to the village.
A-Yang makes him promise to bring Chu Wanning next time, which Mo Ran readily agrees to.
Chu Wanning, for his part, finally manages to take a breath.
“I really like you!” One of the little girls proclaims as everyone else runs off.
Chu Wanning can only look at Mo Ran, dumbfounded.
Mo Ran only laughs loudly. “A-Li, are you trying to take my husband away from me too?”
A-Li turns to Mo Ran with a pout. “Mo-gongzi, can’t I? Please?”
Mo Ran laughs again. “Go along with your friends. Come back in thirty years and try asking again.”
A-Li’s expression turns into one of determination. “I will!” She promises, and runs off in the direction of the other children.
“Wanning, you’re so good with children,” Mo Ran says fondly then, his knuckles brushing against Chu Wanning’s.
Chu Wanning truly does not have a response for him. Not when this entire time, Mo Ran has been the one entertaining them with silly conversation and easy affection.
Chu Wanning has never put much thought into having a child before. He couldn’t envision himself getting married or having children in the most traditional sense by... bedding someone, and he was most focused on his disciples anyways.
And once he came to terms with his hopeless infatuation of Mo Ran, the thought of children was a moot point.
But he would be lying if the image of Mo Ran with a child wasn’t something that has started to filter into his thoughts more often than not.
Raising a child with Mo Ran.
Chu Wanning huffs at his own line of thinking.
They’d have to get married first.
-
When Taxian-Jun wakes up on the third day, as has now become a pattern, he has also somehow received the message that he has gotten married to Chu Wanning without the man in question ever being told.
“Good morning, Mo Ran,” Chu Wanning says when they're still in bed.
Mo Ran doesn’t waste his breath to wish Chu Wanning back, immediately pressing their bodies and mouths together.
It’s only when Chu Wanning is lightheaded from it that Mo Ran finally pulls back. He taps Mo Ran’s shoulder when Mo Ran starts to kiss his way down to Chu Wanning’s chest.
“Not now,” Chu Wanning says, tapping his shoulder lightly. “I have things I want to do this morning.”
Mo Ran hums against his sternum, making Chu Wanning’s stomach clench. “And when has that ever stopped this venerable one?”
“Later.”
Mo Ran pouts, expression going childishly pitiful. “Promise?”
Chu Wanning can’t help it, despite the topic at hand; he smiles indulgently. “Promise.”
-
Mo Ran miraculously hasn’t spotted Chu Wanning entering the clearing yet.
The man in question is on his knees, water pitcher in one hand and their garden in front of him.
“This venerable one will share with you something good,” he tells the plants, his hands gently inspecting Xiao Cui’s leaves. “Wanning is my husband now, and you must refer to him as such. Do you understand?” He holds the water pitcher and pours water over it until he’s satisfied. “This venerable one is very happy and can’t have you dying or withering away,” he explains, moving the pitcher to Xiao Hong.
Chu Wanning fights between his endearment and his ever-growing confusion. He clears his throat, “Mo Ran.”
The only indication that Mo Ran is surprised by him is the slight tensing of his shoulders. “Wanning, how long have you been there?”
Chu Wanning replies, “I just arrived. What are you doing?”
Mo Ran gets up and turns around. “Watering this venerable one’s harem.”
“How are they doing?”
“They are well. They won’t die in this venerable one’s presence,” Mo Ran says proudly.
Chu Wanning smiles. “Of course. They look healthy.”
Mo Ran lights up at the praise, making Chu Wanning’s heart squeeze. “Why did Wanning come all the way here? Did he need something?”
Chu Wanning walks over until he closes the distance between the two of them. “Nothing like that. I only wished to see where you were.”
Mo Ran wraps his hands around Chu Wanning’s waist. “And is Wanning satisfied with just seeing?”
Chu Wanning scoffs, but still reaches up to place his hands on Mo Ran’s shoulders. Mo Ran has already been deprived of so many things. Chu Wanning would be ridiculous to deny him something so simple.
“Idiot.”
Mo Ran grins wolfishly. “Yours.”
Chu Wanning doesn’t bother to respond.
Luckily, Mo Ran doesn’t need one.
-
“This husband missed you,” Mo Ran tells him the next morning. He doesn’t give Chu Wanning a chance to respond before he’s kissing him breathless, and soon after, Chu Wanning forgets that there was anything he wanted to say at all.
-
Chu Wanning commends himself for letting this farce go for as long as it did.
Mo Ran is hunched over the table, spinning a brush idly between his fingers and muttering under his breath.
“What are you doing?”
Mo Ran smiles. “Writing to Mengmeng. I’m sure he’s missing us by now.”
Chu Wanning can’t help but smile back. “I’m sure he is,” he says. Thinking of the fate of Xue Zhengyong and Madame Wang is still painful. But to think of Xue Meng, the boy who used to cry and hug him around the waist, growing up into the man he is now, Chu Wanning can’t help but feel proud.
“We can think about visiting later, maybe. When things settle down. It might not be for a long while yet. But I figured it’s a good time to let him know how we are.”
“It’s a good idea.”
Mo Ran. “And... I have to introduce him to my husband, after all.”
Chu Wanning’s fingers twitch. “Mo Ran.”
Mo Ran hums, but doesn’t look up from his letter.
“Mo Ran.”
Mo Ran finally gives him his full attention. “What’s wrong?”
There’s no subtle way of asking it. Or at least Chu Wanning thinks so. “Why are you telling everyone we’re married?”
Mo Ran looks at him carefully. “Did Wanning want to keep it a secret?”
Chu Wanning shakes his head. “Not that. Why are you telling people we’re married... when it didn’t happen?”
Mo Ran’s expression makes Chu Wanning wish he had never opened his mouth at all.
Mo Ran looks devastated. When he speaks several beats later, his voice is small. “Shizun, did I go too far? Did I force you to agree to this?”
Chu Wanning can’t hide his confusion. “What are you talking about? Was this a joke?”
Mo Ran shakes his head rapidly. “No! Shizun, this wasn’t a joke! I had just...” He swallows once, and shakes his head again. “It doesn’t matter. This one misunderstood.”
Which clears up absolutely nothing for Chu Wanning.
He asks patiently, if only to clear Mo Ran’s expression, which isn’t doing anything good for Chu Wanning’s own heart, “Misunderstood that we were married?”
Instead of answering, Mo Ran asks, “Did... did Wanning not want to get married?”
“I didn’t say that,” Chu Wanning insists.
Mo Ran still looks vulnerable. He’s straightened up now, sitting like a proper disciple being scolded by his Shizun, hands in his lap and eyes cast downwards. “I thought... when I had asked--”
If possible, Chu Wanning’s confusion goes up ten more notches. Still, he manages to gentle his voice when he interrupts. “And when did you ask?”
“I asked... if I could cook for you, forever,” Mo Ran says, wounded. “I thought... that when you said you understood what I meant by that...”
“When you asked if you could cook for me?”
“Yes, Shizun.”
“That was a marriage proposal?”
“...Yes, Shizun.”
Chu Wanning, unbidden, feels irritation rise in his chest. This... this moron! He hits him upside the head. “How am I supposed to understand what you want from so few words?!”
“Shizun...”
Chu Wanning continues, his entire body feeling hot, “I could have gotten what you meant if you had said anything about a ceremony, or anything that would lead me to think you were asking for marriage!”
“I didn’t think Wanning would want so much fanfare,” Mo Ran says, eyeing the cloth on his lap. He clenches his fists on top of it. “And we are technically already married.”
“Mo Ran!”
Mo Ran looks even more forlorn, if possible. He stares harder at his lap. “This one was wrong, Shizun. I apologize.”
Chu Wanning squints. He looks at how Mo Ran’s brows furrow, how his lips pull under his teeth, and the way the hands at his lap start to tremble. Chu Wanning takes it all in, and sighs. “Apologies don’t mean anything if you don’t take any action to rectify the issue.”
“Yes, Shizun,” Mo Ran says agreeably, until the words register and his head snaps back up. “Shizun?”
Chu Wanning looks at him. “Do you understand what I’m telling you?” It’s an echo of the words Mo Ran had asked him for this very purpose.
Mo Ran swallows and shakes his head. “I’m scared I’m misunderstanding your words.”
“You are my smartest disciple. Just what do you think you’re misunderstanding?”
“That you... I... I don’t know,” Mo Ran says helplessly.
Endeared, Chu Wanning sighs again. “Then why don’t you ask me again? Clearly this time.”
He watches Mo Ran take in a deep breath. His hands reach over and grasp Chu Wanning’s own, fingers trembling all the while. “Wanning... would you marry me?”
Mo Ran looks at him shyly, expectantly, as if there would be any other answer for Chu Wanning than the one that Mo Ran wants to hear.
“Do you have any reason to sound so nervous? You were so happy parading around the fact just this morning, weren’t you?”
Mo Ran’s entire face turns red. Chu Wanning’s hands involuntarily go to cup his cheek, as if a natural reaction to Mo Ran’s embarrassment.
Mo Ran swallows. “Can I take it then, that Shizun says yes?”
Chu Wanning nearly laughs. Briefly, he wonders if it’s wrong for him to feel this much happiness. “Mo Ran,” he says.
“Shizun,” Mo Ran insists, “I don’t want to misunderstand. Is that a yes?”
Chu Wanning gives up trying to hide his smile, and lets his happiness take over his face. “Yes.”
-
Later that night, Mo Ran is pressed chest to foot on top of Chu Wanning, head on Chu Wanning’s shoulder.
Neither of them are clothed.
“You will know love for the rest of your life,” Mo Ran vows into skin. “I’ll make sure you never feel heartbreak, or sadness. Wanning, I’ll make sure you are so happy, the pain of our last life can’t even compare to the joy of this one.”
“I already told you not to think like that,” Chu Wanning chides. He knows that even now, Mo Ran struggles with forgiveness. It’s too bad for him that Chu Wanning’s forgiven him two lifetimes over. The only blame the two of them still carry is only directed inwards. It’s something they have the rest of their life to work on.
Mo Ran huffs and kisses Chu Wanning’s neck.
Despite the gentleness of the movement, the feeling of Mo Ran’s mouth in such a sensitive area makes him tremble.
Of course, Mo Ran senses the reaction immediately and kisses Chu Wanning’s neck again.
“Sleep,” Chu Wanning scolds, tugging at a lock of Mo Ran’s hair.
Mo Ran lightens up immediately. “If Shizun insists.” He shifts their positions so that Mo Ran is now the one cradling Chu Wanning in his arms, Chu Wanning resting his head against Mo Ran’s chest.
(There was another time they were in this exact position.
For what he thought would be the last time in this lifetime, Chu Wanning had lied down just like this, head on Mo Ran’s chest, feeling more than hearing the thump, thump, thump of his heart.
Chu Wanning had felt his love’s heart beat softer and softer, as a rough voice told him a horrible bedtime story.
Chu Wanning had felt his love’s heart stop.)
“Sleep,” Mo Ran says, an echo of Chu Wanning’s own words. “I can hear you thinking from here.”
“I’m sleeping,” Chu Wanning says.
“Oh, are you?”
“Be quiet.”
“...Wanning?”
“What is it?”
“When we wake up, shall we do our bows?”
Chu Wanning leans over and bites Mo Ran’s collarbone. “What did I tell you?”
The laugh Mo Ran lets out is more a breath of air than anything, the silence of the night deterring him from making any noise louder. “I got it, I got it. Sleep, right? I’ll sleep.” Dutifully, Mo Ran closes his eyes, tightening his arms around Chu Wanning’s waist as if their whole bodies aren’t pressed together from head to toe. Slowly but surely, his exhales even out until the only noise left for him to make is a soft snore.
Only then does Chu Wanning let himself relax completely, body turning into mush under the protection of Mo Ran’s arms.
The last thoughts Chu Wanning has before letting Mo Ran’s heartbeat soothe him to sleep are these:
If all his days are like this, there’s no need to differentiate between the last life and this one. Not when Chu Wanning is sure that he will be happy enough for both.