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1.
Nie Liang was barely past nine when their younger sisters arrived.
He didn’t know where they came from, exactly, but Father assured him that he would tell once he was much older to understand. Liang wanted to know immediately, and while Father was very firm about it, Liang’s insistence only made him laugh. It was fine; he liked hearing Father laugh especially when he looked exhausted, like he usually was these days. Da-ge just said it was normal, considering the circumstances. What those circumstances were, da-ge was equally evasive.
It was a pleasant surprise when they found out about their twin sisters. One of them was as red as a tomato while the other one looked like a potato, but Liang thought they were really small and cute. Father only laughed when he told him as much, though before Liang could ask to hold each of them, a-die had beaten him to it. In his large arms, their new sisters were incredibly tiny, a-die’s wide palms cradling the back of their heads fully.
And then a-die cried over them and Liang just felt uncomfortable seeing a-die crumple over his baby sisters like he wasn’t somebody tall—he might squish them! Liang’s own noise of warning came as a surprise even to himself, and when Father only grinned at him and told him not to worry, Liang was incredibly embarrassed.
A-die said that he was just very happy and couldn’t explain past that because he burst into tears once again. It was annoying, but Father glowed like da-ge did whenever he was praised and Liang couldn’t say anything about it. Certainly not when it was his turn to hold one of them and found her incredibly soft and tender like one wrong move and he would hurt her.
His sister stared at him with wonder and Liang suspected that something inside him had melted without his knowledge. No wonder a-die had a sudden urge to cry—not that Liang was urged to do the same, but he liked to think he understood.
And no, Liang’s eyes were just misty, and his sniffles were just from the cold.
2.
Father blinked at the book Nie Liang was carrying. “Should I ask?”
Liang shrugged. “A disciple left it at the back.” He didn’t say that he found it exactly on his nap spot. Father might not be as strict as a-die when it came to slacking off, but he’d rather not tell that sleeping often occupied the better part of his days, enough that he had found himself a nice patch of land underneath a shade with the right turn of the sun. “I’m looking for them.”
Keen red eyes stared at him and there was a moment where Liang honestly thought that Father was trying to catch him on a lie. He wasn’t lying that he was looking for the owner, per se, but the reason he had found it in the first place was to sleep the rest of the day away and finding whoever left the book meant no one would come across him snoring later on. He did hope that Father wouldn’t bother to ask, but knowing him he must have already an idea. Never mind that Liang was diligent when it came to saber drills because those were more interesting, and there was a time when he foolishly believed his interest in the saber would give him a pass to neglect the rest of his duties.
Father hummed, the corner of his mouth twitching. “I doubt anyone would admit to owning it. Keep it for now. I’m sure somebody will try to look for their lost book.”
Liang could only nod when Father promised that he would ask among the disciples and tell who to find. He thought that would be the end of it, until he spoke again, this time with hands on Liang’s shoulders.
“You know, you can always ask me any questions you might have,” he said, sighing. “I will admit that your a-die will be hopeless on such matters, but if you are… curious, that is normal. You are at that age.” He gestured vaguely over the book, for some reason. “Your sisters might need our full attention, but that doesn’t mean we no longer have time for any of you.”
Liang blinked. He knew that of course. It wasn’t like both of his fathers ever neglected him or his brothers or had given them any doubts about that. “Okay,” he muttered, unsure. “Thanks?”
That was enough for Father to smile brightly and ruffle his hair fondly. Before merrily going his way, however, he spoke again, “Oh, and as your father, I feel as if it’s my duty to point out that the version you have is a terrible rip-off of the original series.”
He wouldn’t understand it until later, when Liang was seized with a sudden curiosity over the book and flipped through the pages, and, uh…
Fine, the art was passable, the plot, not so much. There was more skin shown than an actual development in the narrative, which wasn’t to say that the story was anything notable in the first place. He ended up annoyed and frustrated because who the hell would make their main character a dumbass who never learned and obviously knew she was being hurt for fun? And surely she didn’t like being bound by a rope that much?
“I did say it’s a rip-off,” Father told him after a week, when Liang told him that he was done with The Gathering of Red Pearls. He might be wrong, but he must have heard da-ge choking on his tea when he mentioned the title though otherwise didn’t comment. “That only means you must read the original.”
He was given a copy of The Climb for the Heavenly Pillar, though, somewhat unexpectedly, this one had two males instead of a male and female for the main characters. Unexpectedness aside, the first one he had read had nothing on this one. Father’s taste in stories was impeccable.
His other father didn’t think so. Clearly not when one morning he heard him yelling Huaisang, you better not be the one who gave porn to A-Liang!
3.
Zizhen was the one who found him at the back of the mountains. Courtesy of Yuan, no doubt. Fortunately, Liang was already roused from his nap, and with parchment and charcoal poised on his fingers, one could easily mistake that he’d been here for hours sketching.
Gusu was pleasant, and da-ge had told him that he’d appreciate the scenery more than he had. His older brother wasn’t wrong, but he suspected that he knew what kind of appreciation Liang would do most of the time.
Fine, so he had fallen asleep in the location more times than he could count, but could he really be blamed here if the ground with patches of grass was almost as soft as the dormitory bed and the silence was incredibly lulling? Da-ge might not have admitted it, but Liang could imagine him unknowingly napping here on occasion after feeding the rabbits when he had been a student.
“What are you drawing?” Zizhen asked when he saw the paper. It had nothing but outlines so far. “Can I see?”
“I haven’t drawn anything yet.”
“That’s fine. Do you mind if I watch?”
Liang gestured at the space next to him vaguely. Zizhen sat, though far closer than Liang expected. He chalked it up to Zizhen being Zizhen; his friend was the most tactile person he had known outside of family, and being with him most of the time in the last three months in Cloud Recesses had gotten him used to it.
Zizhen was unobtrusive and respectful of the quiet. Liang appreciated that he knew when to be talkative and when not to be, something which Jin Ling or Jingyi could learn themselves, really. It usually took Liang to ask Yuan to keep their voices down because he was the only one they listened to.
“Was it your father who taught you?” Zizhen asked once Liang’s sketch was starting to take a more defined shape.
“A-die has no artistic bone in his body.” Liang snorted. “Baba did not have as much interest.”
“But Consort Nie has an eye for color. I liked what he did with the decorations at last summer’s conference.”
“Yes, you’ve said that a lot last time,” Liang reminded him amusedly. “Color’s his thing. I think.” He still had his childhood clothes with colors that many had claimed had suited him as a boy but which he wouldn’t be caught with these days outside of grays and blacks and the occasional greens. Nie-fujun had been the one in charge of what to tailor for his boys, Liang had been told before.
“Oh, artistry must have run in the family then.”
“As I said, Sect Leader Nie has no artistic bone in his body.”
“Well, maybe Chifeng-zun is an artist outside the medium of ink and paper.”
No doubt. His father could wield Baxia like a dance when the situation called for it. “I suppose,” he acknowledged. “And you?”
“Terrible.”
Liang raised an eyebrow. “Ever considered that your medium is outside ink and paper?”
“It’s not like Father wanted to encourage it.” At Liang’s frown, he explained, “He’d rather I hone the sword than waste paper, he said.” Zizhen shrugged. “Besides, it’s not like I’ll have the time for it once I ascend as Sect Leader.”
That was true. Must be why a-die held no interest in any of the gentlemanly arts either since he had to lead the sect young. But that was a necessity and not by choice. “That’s stupid,” he said bluntly.
Whereas anyone else would have scoffed or gotten positively indignant, Zizhen snorted. “Yes, it is. Father,” he paused, sighing, “I love him, but sometimes I think he listens too much to others that he doesn’t realize he parrots the same stupid ideas they have.”
Liang’s fathers were by no means perfect either though at least they were not the same. “Then you owe it to him to smack some sense to Sect Leader Yao once you’re on the same level as him.” Zizhen gasped. “What? We all know he’s the most stupid of them. And your father listens to him.”
“I dare you say that in his face.”
“No need. I’m sure Grandfather already did in several ways but the old man didn’t understand.” Zizhen laughed. “But if need be, sure. If he pushes his grandniece again to da-ge. She’s not much older than our younger sisters!”
“Wait, was it Lady Shang?” Zizhen winced in sympathy. “Your brother too, huh.”
“What, you refused her and he moved on to proposing her to my brother instead?”
“That is what happened. The bad thing is Father actually considered it. He said seven years weren’t that far apart once she’s a woman.” Zizhen rolled his eyes. “I put my foot down because she’s still a child. I think that’s the only time he deigned to listen to me.”
It seemed that even the to-be bride of his son was not out of Sect Leader Ouyang’s hands. “Keep putting your foot down. It’s not like he can force you to marry out of your own will.”
Zizhen’s father could , technically speaking, but under what threat? Disinheritance? It wasn’t like Zizhen had any brothers as far as Liang knew.
“I guess,” he said, his voice sounding strange. “You? You must have multiple prospects yourself.”
“None that I know of.” There was an unspoken agreement that his parents would not be interfering in that matter, the same way they wouldn’t with Yuan and da-ge. In their older brother’s case as the Nie Sect’s heir, they freely gave him the names of those whose families had put forth for him and let him decide whether he wanted to know them personally or not. There was never any real pressure on him that Liang knew of, and da-ge was always at ease on the subjects of betrothal. “I personally don’t think the prospect of marrying a third son is that appealing.”
“What? Why not?” Zizhen sounded honestly surprised at that. “You’re still Chifeng-zun’s son and your Grandfather is Wen Ruohan. If not your name, then surely once they see you and find out how intelligent and handso—”
Liang turned away from the paper, idly smudging the darkened stain of charcoal to find Zizhen falling abruptly quiet next to him. He quirked an eyebrow, smirking, “You think I’m intelligent?”
Zizhen’s face took on an alarming shade of red that seemed to war with how increasingly pale he was getting. “Not only!”
Dumbly, Liang watched as he hurriedly stood and ran away back to the path down the mountain.
What the fuck just happened?
He found Zizhen during supper, much later since they had an idle chat and his abrupt leave. Thankfully, he didn’t leave immediately this time, but Jingyi was staring at the two of them oddly. Best not to call to attention how they had parted earlier. “Here.”
Zizhen hesitated to take the neatly folded paper. “What’s this?”
“You took off without letting me finish it,” Liang said. “Keep it.”
He doubted he would be making another so soon. The inspiration to draw didn’t come to him as often as he would like. Still, if he would end up creating a single piece during his stay in Cloud Recesses, then it was fitting to give it to the company he had while making it.
4.
Liang wouldn’t say that the particular bit about betrothal and marriage in his and Zizhen’s talk had stayed with him. But he did end up remembering it some years later when his father spoke to him about a potential betrothal.
“We can respectfully decline, of course,” Nie-fujun assured him. “Your Father and I have spoken. They’re an old family of merchants that we’ve dealt with in business a couple of times before. Wealthy but no cultivator even among sons. They’re likely angling to introduce one for the next generation.”
They would both bring something to the table of each other’s families, which Liang supposed was practical as far as marriages went. He finished his tea. “Alright.”
“... alright?”
Liang shrugged. “I’ll meet her. If she decides she doesn’t want me, then we’ll just say.”
His father inclined his head slightly.
“She does have a say, no?”
“Of course,” Father assured him. He cleared his throat. “And so are you.”
“I don’t see any harm in trying.” It would not end in an actual betrothal if it was largely up to him. But he was a part of the main branch of the Nie Sect, a son of Sect Leader Nie. Marrying and having children were his duties to his family no matter how little his two fathers spoke of them. “It’s time I take it seriously.”
Father looked at him strangely then, and Liang wondered what he said wrong. “Was there, ah,” he paused, his usual eloquence gone, “was there a time that made you think you weren’t taking it seriously?”
Liang shook his head vehemently. “It’s just that da-ge’s already smitten with Lady Xiao, and as much as Yuan likes to pretend he’s accompanying Senior Wei and Hanguang-jun on night hunts to learn from them, I’m sure you already know he’s with them to impress their daughter.”
Father blinked. “Point taken.” There was a split-second where he looked like he was trying not to laugh. “But just because your brothers are already quite… taken with talented young women means we’re urging you to do the same. A-Liang, what your brothers found for themselves, those are not something that can be arranged,” Father said. “And while your father and I are delighted to have more daughters to dote on, we’re the last people to oppose if you decide you’d rather have another son for us instead.”
That would certainly be far easier if his dilemma was mainly to find a young maiden or a young master. “But what if I don’t want to?”
“Then we will respectfully decline and call it a day.”
“I meant,” Liang hesitated, his mouth suddenly dry, “what if I don’t want to wed at all? That I’d rather live as I am without ever having a spouse,” he challenged.
He spared his father a glance before bowing his head. It was enough to catch the inexplicable stare he had.
“Then we don’t speak of betrothals anymore,” Father eventually said. His voice was quiet, but Liang liked to think that it was kind and gentle, the same way he remembered being a stupid boy who had climbed a tall tree and hurt himself and Father had to coax him to show where he had been hurt so he could tend to it. “Is that how you’ve always felt?”
For as long as he could remember, he didn’t say. His silence was telling, however, and he heard Father sigh.
“I’m sorry if somehow we’ve unknowingly put pressure on you,” he said, like Liang wasn’t the one wrong here for not being normal.
He felt the light tap of his father’s folded fan atop his head before he was engulfed in a tight embrace that belied his father’s slightness.
“I think,” he began, smiling tenderly when Liang dared to look up at him, “I think it would be better if you speak to your a-die.”
Liang didn’t think his advice was anything but to help him with whatever this confusion was, though by the time he faced his other father, he was left out of his depth as to what he should speak with him about. His father, too, it seemed, had not been told of what Liang had admitted to his baba.
Liang felt almost embarrassed to tell him, that a-die might think him a fool, after all. A dark part of his mind told him that maybe he had been told to go to a-die in hopes that he could change his mind.
So instead, he asked, “How did you know? How did you know that you want to be with baba?”
The question caught his father off guard by the looks of it, and Liang supposed it was a feat against somebody like Chifeng-zun.
“I thought there are already variations out there about that,” his father grumbled.
Liang scoffed. “It’s not the same.” How people were particularly fond of his parents’ romance specifically, he would never understand.
“I’m glad you think so. They’re mainly exaggerations,” Father said dryly. “The tortoise was true though.”
Many sang that killing off a xuanwu was the pinnacle of grand romantic gestures doubled as a marriage proposal. For all Liang knew, it could have been purely coincidental and Chifeng-zun had been at the right place and time to kill the tortoise before it could victimize more cultivators.
“But I did it for Huaisang because he would have handled it on his own.” Father’s mouth twisted into a wry smile. “And I did it because I wanted to be with him.
“The truth is I just knew. It wasn’t some kind of grand epiphany or divine intervention that urged me to marry him. I’ve always considered him my family way before marriage and children came into the picture.”
It must be the same with da-ge, with Yuan. “I-I don’t think I can have that. I don’t think I’m capable of knowing that .”
His father’s eyes lingered on him long enough for Liang to see the dawn of understanding on his face. And wasn’t that a wonder, how a-die could have known. “You too, I see,” he murmured, cryptic. “A-Liang, we understand.”
A-die’s large hand also found its way atop Liang’s head, making him feel like a little boy again.
“Silly boy,” a-die said, “we’re not so much different, you and I.”
5.
The baby he brought home was strangely quiet.
She was a small thing but with strong lungs that had cried out for anyone. Liang had been in the vicinity for a night hunt, and, instead of coming across a yao or another of its victims, he found her instead, abandoned in her soft swaddling clothes. She was warm with a fever then, hungry, and overall uncomfortable. Liang tried not to imagine what fate had awaited her nor what had befallen her parents, if she had any at all. He was rushing her back home without a second thought, his qi her temporary sustenance during the journey.
She was awake for the duration of it, staring up at him with wide amber eyes like he was a thing of wonder. It was good, he thought, for it meant that she was somewhat healthy enough to remain awake and not kick up a fuss while flying. Only once they landed in the Unclean Realm’s courtyard did she make a hiccuping noise, blinking before promptly falling asleep.
The weak heartbeat did nothing to assure him that she was still alright. There was one terrifying moment where he was seized with the urge to take her back when the healers, headed by his sister Meixiang, took her from him, when he was assured that they would take it from there.
Da-ge was the first to find him worrying the floorboards outside the infirmary with his incessant pacing, and it was to him that Liang haltingly spoke of how he had found her. Da-ge was patient as he listened, his understanding of his worries Liang knew to be genuine; da-ge recently had a daughter, after all, and she was no older than the babe that Liang had just brought home.
He had stayed with him for the rest of the hour, leaving only briefly to get him food. Da-ge brought Father with him upon his return, and he seemed to have some idea of the situation already judging from how he hardly had any questions by the time they were told that the infant would live though not without her constitution compromised. Liang accepted the news grimly and thanked his sister for their efforts.
It wouldn’t occur to Liang until later, when it was just him and his father, that he was blaming himself for not happening upon her sooner.
“Don’t,” a-die told him suddenly, “I know what you think. It does not help. Be glad that you rescued her early and that she will be well.”
“But I could have—”
A-die sighed. “I know. I used to think the same when it had been you, that maybe if I had been there sooner I could have saved even your father.” He looked distantly. “You were small and fitted the palm of my hand, and it was a while since you and A-Qiao were trapped that I feared you already died in your brother’s arms. But you breathed the moment I poured my energy to you. You hardly slept when you woke up, even while we were on air, and I knew then that you’d like flying.”
It was the first that Liang heard of it. He had known that it had been Sect Leader Nie who had rescued him and da-ge, that it had been Nie-fujun who had doted on them immediately despite the ongoing search for their blood father. Perhaps a part of Liang had been long aware that he and da-ge had been loved already before they could be officially adopted, but to hear a-die speak of it, well…
Liang hastily rubbed across his stinging eyes. Really, the weather could have been better right after a dry spell.
A-die was there when Liang visited the baby who was fast asleep, and he even cooed at how much of a deep sleeper she was. Liang wouldn’t be surprised if she would be another permanent fixture in his father’s arms soon.
When she blinked awake, her eyes seemed to have sought Liang the first thing, urging him to carry her gently. She yawned and blew a soft baby’s breath that smelled better than any flower out there, and Liang knew that he was captivated.
If he was unable to stop his sudden tears this time, a-die only chuckled and muttered a far too smug ‘I told you so’.