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Nie Buzhi watched the children of the Five Great Sects frolic in his garden. Nie Huaisang showed little Mo Xuanyu a rare variety of hummingbird Nie Buzhi had just brought to the garden. The younger boy listened with rapt attention, a hint of a true flush underneath the paint he'd applied to his cheeks. On the other side of the garden Wei Wuxian tugged on Lan Wangji's sleeve, chattering so quickly Nie Buzhi had to struggle to make out individual words. Lan Wangji listened to the other teenager, with a tolerance for Wei Wuxian's antics that took years to cultivate in another life.
They were the bookmakers' darlings this Discussion Conference. Lan Wangji was first in the odds to win the sparring contest and the tests of gentlemanly arts, while Wei Wuxian was the favorite to win the archery and talisman contests. Nie Buzhi had, of course, placed his own discreet bets. The practice was officially frowned upon (and openly scorned by his sect leader) but in Nie Buzhi's opinion a gentlemanly wager never failed to enhance otherwise tedious proceedings.
Jin Zixuan sat by the pool in the eastern section of the garden, whispering to Luo Qingyang. Knowing the boy, he was likely confessing his fondness for the Jiang sect's oldest daughter. The daughter in question walked with her brother beside the lotus pond in the southern part of the garden. Nie Buzhi watched them admire the lotus blossoms and the Yunmeng birds that perched upon them.
In the privacy of his sanctum, a hut in the center of the garden outfitted with talismans that let him survey the entire garden, Nie Buzhi could admit that he had created a better world than the one he'd left. In his first life, several of the children occupying this garden were dead. Others were altered beyond recognition - would Wei Wuxian recognize the version of himself Nie Buzhi had left behind, who wore another's face and commandeered the dead?
This new world had not come without cost. Nie Buzhi misses the life he left sometimes. He misses talking to people who no longer exist, and watching children who have yet to be born grow up.
If all goes well, there will be no Lan Shizui in this world. Sometimes Nie Buzhi wonders what became of that boy. No doubt he became an exemplary cultivator, and a peerless sect leader of the Lan. Nie Buzhi imagines telling Lan Qiren that he narrowly avoided having his sect run by the last of the Wen, and chuckles.
"Is something funny?"
Meng Shi hugs him from behind. Nie Buzhi smiles and clasps his wife's hands.
"I was just reminiscing," he tells her.
"Ah." She squeezes his hands, then tucks her chin over his shoulder. Nie Buzhi closes his eyes and breathes in her scent. He loves how she smells: jasmine, rose, and something unique to her underneath.
He had not expected to love his wife so. Their courtship had begun as a calculated ploy: in one fell swoop he could save a woman from death by destitution and give his former nemesis the love and support he'd been deprived once upon a time. Yet in the months after their marriage he found himself growing fond of Meng Shi. She grounded him when he became mired in schemes and abstractions, and shared his desire to safeguard and nurture their son.
In his first life, he had little interest in carnal matters. He'd spent that life first consumed by grief, then bloodthirsty ambition. There had been no room in his heart for anything but revenge. Even in the aftermath, he found himself preferring friendly companionship to trysts. Sex, to him, was more interesting as a means to understand those who partook in it. He told his friends he collected pornography the same way others collected paintings, or instruments; he treated them as works of art. The other Wei Wuxian had laughed in his face, and both the other Lan Wangji and Jiang Cheng had bestowed remarkably similar skeptical expressions upon him.
Thus, he was the most surprised when he began to desire his wife.
They had been living together in the Unclean Realm for a few months when it happened. She had walked out of their bedroom, her innermost robe askew. Nie Buzhi had glimpsed the curve where her neck met her shoulder and was beset by the thought of putting his mouth to that juncture, and learning what her skin tasted like.
Such thoughts became a fixture of their life together. Nie Buzhi endured for a few weeks, but eventually broke down and confessed all to his wife.
She'd taken his hand, kissed his knuckles, and told him they could explore carnal intimacy together.
In the present, Nie Buzhi takes his wife's hand and kisses her palm. He can feel her smiling against his hair, her cheek pressed against his guan.
"Have I ever told you how grateful I am?" he asks her. "I could not have asked for a more wonderful wife."
"Many times," Meng Shi says. She presses a kiss to his hairline. "How are the children doing?"
"Fine," Nie Buzhi says. "Good, even."
"Oh, A-zhi." Meng Shi kisses him again, this time on the cheek. "How are you?"
"Fine," Nie Buzhi replies.
"Good, even?"
Decades ago, before Nie Buzhi had met his wife, he would have lied without hesitation. It took years at Meng Shi's side before he could unwind enough to confide in her, to cease the dissembling that had become second nature. He will likely never cease to weave plans within plans; he's done it for so long that foregoing it completely would feel like cutting off a limb. But at the very least, he can apply his blackened, scheming heart to the betterment of those around him. It's thanks to Nie Buzhi, misshapen core and all, that all these children are able to wander this bird-filled garden with barely a care in the world. If Nie Buzhi has anything to say about it, their lives will be untouched by war.
"Yes," he tells his wife. "I am good."