Chapter Text
The hand gripping Wei Wuxian’s elbow was crushing.
“Remember,” Lady Mo hissed, digging her fingernails in harder. Wei Wuxian heard the noises of a wedding procession getting closer and closer. “Don’t you dare screw this up! Or all of your friends will die!”
Now, normally, Wei Wuxian would never tolerate being forced into wedding clothes and being marched out the Mo estate’s front gate unto his doom. Unfortunately for him, he’d screwed up big time only two weeks before…
—
Wei Wuxian whistled cheerfully as he walked through the woods. Wen Ning followed him, wringing his hands nervously.
“W-wei-gongzi,” he stammered. His bow trembled. “Are y-you sure this is-s a good idea?”
“Sure it is!” Wei Wuxian said breezily. He twirled Suibian in one hand. “Fourth Uncle already scouted it out. There’s a rich carriage heading this way. We can buy everyone in the Burial Mounds new winter clothes once we rob them!”
It was far from the first time the group of scattered remnants of the previous Wen Dynasty had robbed travelers. Wei Wuxian felt confident as he heard the sound of horse hooves and carriage wheels squeaking.
This would be a piece of cake.
Five minutes later, Wei Wuxian’s face was smashed into the dirt, a cultivator holding him down with a talisman. Dammit. Dammit.
“How curious,” a sharp older woman said, looking down her nose at Wei Wuxian. She was dressed grandly and positively dripping gold. Wei Wuxian glared right back at her. Unfazed, she turned to the man next to her. “He looks just like that mad nephew of mine, doesn’t he, Su Minshan?”
“Too bad for him,” Su Minshan snorted.
“Hey!”
Is what Wei Wuxian would have said if he weren’t currently subject to a silencing spell.
Nobody in the Burial Mounds had thought anyone traveling this way was wealthy enough to have a cultivator with them. Fourth Uncle couldn’t have possibly known. Although it did explain the rather small procession of guards and servants. Wei Wuxian was mortified that he’d underestimated these travelers. In his defense, only royalty and a select few officials could hope to afford a cultivator.
Which meant he was facing a formidable problem here.
“I am Lady Mo,” the older woman introduced herself. “The rest of my soldiers have already seized your friends. If you want them to live, you’ll do what I say.”
—
“The Second Prince has arrived!”
Wei Wuxian winced at the ear-splitting noise of his—or rather, Lady Mo’s nephew’s—betrothed being announced. Wei Wuxian could only make out vague shapes moving toward him through the thick veil. Lady Mo pinched him again.
“You fool!” she hissed. “Didn’t we have Su Minshan teach you manners? Bow to the prince!”
Wei Wuxian dropped to one knee and tucked the other behind him gracefully. His muscles ached where Su Minshan had whipped him until he got the etiquette right. He was definitely going to make that man pay in three months. Wei Wuxian was already plotting how he was going to do it.
A voice broke through Wei Wuxian’s thoughts.
“You may rise.”
The Second Prince had given him permission to rise in a quiet but firm voice. Wei Wuxian did, managing to rise to his feet with the manner of someone who’d been raised like Prime Minister Mo’s only nephew. Because this was who he was, now. Mo Xuanyu, eldest grandson in the Mo family, and betrothed to the Second Prince.
The real Mo Xuanyu had accidentally been killed shortly before his wedding. With this family around him, including his awful cousin, Wei Wuxian wasn’t so sure it was an accident. He’d spent the last two weeks locked in a dilapidated set of rooms being forced to learn court etiquette in preparation for this marriage. There were many scraps of paper squirreled away in corners of the room and drawers that sure made it seem like Mo Xuanyu was desperately unhappy before his death.
The Mo family would lose face and political advantage if the wedding of Mo Xuanyu did not take place.
Wei Wuxian needed to protect the Wens, and bore a striking resemblance to Mo Xuanyu.
And so, Wei Wuxian took his place.
He stepped in the bridal sedan, guided by the Second Prince. The Second Prince’s hand was warm and large as he helped him up. Wei Wuxian felt calluses across his palm, suggesting the Second Prince trained his body regularly. How interesting. He would have expected the second son of the Lan Emperor to be far more pampered.
Before the curtain of the bridal sedan could slip shut, Wei Wuxian peeked out the window. In that brief glimpse, Wei Wuxian could at least make out his groom’s profile through his veil. He felt a little lurch in his stomach. The Second Prince certainly looked upright.
Ah well, “Not that it matters,” Wei Wuxian mumbled to himself after the bridal sedan took off. Su Minshan and Lady Mo’s plan was to stage his death in three months and then he, and the Wens, would be free to go. Surely, the pair had some kind of nasty plan for the Second Prince after Wei Wuxian “died”.
Thankfully, it wasn’t Wei Wuxian’s problem. He would marry the Second Prince, tough out three months of fake marriage, and then run far, far away from Gusu and its Second Prince.