Chapter Text
The linens must have felt softer when her brain was seeping with exhaustion. That was Maomao’s first thought.
She blinked, head pounding, and tasted blood at the back of her throat. The inside of her cheek was bitten open. Her arms were pinned before her. Her ankles were bound. A rag had been stuffed in her mouth, now half-dangling from her jaw. And only her sweat-scratchy nightwear covered her body.
The air smelled of moss, urine, and stagnant water.
She was not in her room anymore. She remembers the reward, leaving Jinshi alone on the other side of the door selfishly, just so she could have at least one more night of willful ignorance.
“Oh,” she exhaled. She'd been taken.
There was no panic, it wasn't like this was the first time. Only the ache of her wrists and the irritation in her chest, like a splinter lodged in the ribs.
She should have known they’d try again. She and Jinshi had survived the fall into the river. She didn't know how they knew that though, but checking the temporary chambers of the servant girl who was with him was more sensical than she'd attributed to the brutes; it only made sense that if a little girl like her could live through that than surely he could too.
She supposed if she were an assassin with too much pride and too little success, she’d take something he valued too, something to lure him out of the safe walls.
“Idiots,” she muttered through the rag, and then promptly spat it out, tongue working with a feral stubbornness despite the pulsing ache from her previously stuffed mouth. “You absolute idiots. He’s not even invested in me.”
She was just the servant with him at the time of the attack, not someone he'd recklessly go looking for in person after an attempt on his life. She was a curiosity at most, entertainment at the least.
No one answered.
She was alone. A crumbling, moss-streaked cellar—too damp for a noble house, too neglected for military use. Likely somewhere in the far-off hunting lands, tucked in the valley like a buried secret; she was getting fed up with those.
And Maomao was furious.
Not afraid. Furious. So much so that she shook with anger.
She sat in that stillness, that impossibly dark room, for what felt like hours until change came.
The men entered in a group and in the brief moment they had the door open she could see the moon high in the sky. There where three boorish men who circled where she was bound in a pike-grounded chair.
She spat at them the second one came within hittable distance.
They didn’t like that, if the speed in which their repulsively intrigued smirks fell into a scowl was anything to go by.
The youngest slapped her hard enough to send stars to the corners of her vision. “Keep your tongue still, bitch.”
She stared him down, blood trickling from her split lip, and spoke calmly, as if she were trying to reason with a child: “If you wanted a dignified hostage, I hate to be the one to tell you, you kidnapped the wrong woman. Though, in my defense, if you had bothered to ask anyone they would have said not only am I a pain in your ass but I'm also not worth the trouble.”
They descended on her like wolves as if tiring to prove her wrong. They didn't gag her, but they tied her tighter until she could feel the blood be stopped before it reached her hands or feet. The pulled her hair at random times as they circled her. Laughed when she struggled. Called her “bait” among other more colorful terms. Told her she was only a worm on a hook.
“She’s pretty enough,” one of them had said when they were done. “At least she was the last time he saw her. He’ll come sniffing.”
“You think he’s that desperate?” another sneered.
They didn’t say who he was. They didn’t need to.
Jinshi. Always Jinshi. Though if they were looking for him or him she wasn't sure.
"Who's to say if it's desperation. Maybe he just takes after his dear old dad and she just.. ticks all the boxes. Well, all but one."
She strained tighter against the rope after they left, fingers twitching like they still wanted to mix herbs. To grind roots. To do something useful. Instead they just dug into the wood grain.
She did not sleep that night.
On the third day they stopped feeding her.
She asked for water only when her throat was so dry just breathing made her gag. The man tasked with watching her during that period undid her ties as if to comply, to lead her to a river or something. Instead he slapped her to the ground when she stood and kicked her in the ribs nine times for her trouble. It was smart of him really, she was planning on clapping his ears and digging her fingers into the sockets of his eyes the second he let her up anyways. In mercilessly beating her without hesitation he very well may have saved two of his senses, his life if she had been lucky..
They bet on how long it would take, before they got bored and set a deadline.
“Two more days, max,” the bile-stained one said. “He shows or she rots in the ground. I'm getting tired of this.”
They laughed. She didn’t.
She didn’t argue either.
Jinshi wouldn’t come.
Not because he was cruel. No. He was smart. He was important. You don’t chase after lost pets when the whole court is watching. You don't even acknowledge having a pet if it dared go astray. Even if he wanted to take his toy back out of pride, his aids wouldn't let him. Gaoshun had always been kind, but he was an intelligent man and he had his loyalties.
“I’m not even a court lady,” she mumbled into the stone. “I’m a glorified apothecary who once cleaned house for the Consort.”
She laughed.
Then she coughed.
And didn’t stop. Not even when the flehm turned to blood.
Laughter and coughing and vomiting until the men decided they would simply stay outside.
The fever came hard and fast.
By dusk, she was sweating through her filthy robes. By nightfall, she was delirious.
She dreamed of Xiaolan.
Her bright hair. Her bossy hands. The way she’d once braided Maomao’s mess of a braid properly and called her pretty.
In the dream, or maybe it was just a memory, Xiaolan cupped her face and said, “Now you look just like me! We're twins.”
Later, after a long hard day that left the younger girl in tears, she admitted with an anxious voice: "You're a lot like a sister to me Maomao, I really love you."
“I don’t want to be loved,” Maomao murmured. “I want to be left alone.” At least then she wouldn't have anyone to think of in times like this.
Xiaolan didn’t respond. She just tucked a blanket under Maomao’s chin and ran her fingers through her hair.
In the next dream, she saw the palace halls. She walked through them, confident with each step. Jinshi passed her and didn’t look her way, at first she thought it was a godsend. Then Xiaolan smiled and waved at someone behind her, not even stopping to say hello. Was that what she wanted? Was it not what she asked for? It burned.
She was a ghost, drifting between lives she’d barely lived.
Was that really how she wanted to be remembered?
Did she want them to mourn her? To miss her?
Had she ever let them in?
If you could start again, a voice that sounded a lot like her own whispered in her head, would you do the same?
She couldn’t answer. Her mouth was dry and her eyes burned in a way that sent her vision in a spiral, and her limbs weren’t working right. She wouldn't answer. She was fine just the way she was- no one came to her rescue the first time and she made it through just fine on her own. One more is child's play now that she's had the practice.
The world was closing in.
She didn’t even want to fight anymore.
There was shouting from outside.
She blinked, barely aware of her body, or that she was living in it. Heat poured off her in waves, and the only sensation was the wetness of her own sick trailing from her chin to her lap.
One of the men grabbed her by the jaw. “Stay awake, bitch,” he growled. “He’ll be here soon. We want him to see you broken and bloody before we fire the bullet through his head.”
She didn’t respond.
But the fever was cruel, and she was weaker than she wanted to admit. Her chest hurt with every breath.
They cut her loose and tied her to a beam in the center of the room, suspending her wrists on a pike they had driven into the top of the pillar. Her head lolled. Breath came in thin, gasping pulls as gravity anchored her down.
“She needs to be upright,” one said, but it sounded more like two voices overlapping. “We want him to see her face before he's down.”
“Maybe he’ll get mad,” the other replied, kicking Maomao’s knees until she stopped trying to find purchase on her heels.
“Maybe he’ll cry,” the youngest said.
They laughed.
One of them twisted her arm behind her back—something popped.
Her body gave a lurch before slumping. They wanted her to scream, to be a warning, a threat, a message written in bruises.
Maomao was too tired to give them anything but the aborted whimper when her arm was twisted from its socket.
It’s fine, she thought. It’s not like anyone’s coming to hear.
They wanted her to scream louder.
She didn’t give them the satisfaction.
At least, not until they poured a bucket of cold water over her fever-wracked body, laughing when she jerked and shook and bit her own tongue to keep from sobbing. It did nothing to quite the growls she never knew could come from her own throat.
By then, she had stopped believing she might survive this.
She barely remembered how long it had been. Her throat burned. Her eyes burned. Her shoulder burned, hanging loose. Her legs ached. Her skin itched with fever and filth. She couldn't calm the shaking.
One of them grabbed her by the chin and stopped chattering she hadn't even noticed.
“Stay awake,” he snarled. “He’ll be here soon. We want him to see you just like this.”
Maomao didn’t react.
Didn’t care.
She wasn’t broken. She was just tired.
And then—
Thunder.
Boots.
The slam of a door.
The world became noise. Screams. Steel on steel. Blood.
One of her captors fell, neck spurting red. Another turned and vanished in the flash of something shiny.
She was barely conscious.
She didn’t understand.
She couldn’t. There was too much movement to see, too much noise to hear.
Her head fell boneless to the side. One of the men was crawling, throat spurting red when a sword unskewered itself from it. Another was on fire—no, no, that was her vision going red, wasn’t it?
Boots.
Voices.
Hands on her arms, her face, her shoulders. Someone was shouting her name like it was holy. Like it mattered. For a time she forgot she had a name.
“Maomao!”
She blinked slowly.
Jinshi.
He was here.
And he looked—wild. Nothing like how she left him. His hair was loose, eyes flickering unfocused, cheeks streaked with blood and sweat trailing down his preciously pristine skin. He fell to his knees before her, or maybe he caught her while falling to his knees. He unwrapped the remaining ropes from her skin with shaking hands. When had she been cut down?
“Maomao. Gods. I’m here. I’ve got you.”
She flinched.
“No,” she whispered. "No you're not." She reached up to touch his face. “You’re not real.”
His hands paused.
“What?”
“You’re a dream. A nice and pretty one at least. The fever’s got me bad this time, but this is sick even for something coming out of my head.”
His breath stuttered.
Then he held her—no hesitation, no softness—he just crushed her to him like something precious lost and found, and Maomao’s body screamed in pain at the movement but her mind was already cracking.
“Why would you come?” she mumbled. “Why would anyone come?”
“Because you’re mine,” he hissed into her hair. “And I’d burn the country down to its studs to find you, to get you back, forget the forest or these lowly bastard scum.”
Then she must have blacked out, because she didn't remember anything that followed.
The bed she woke up in was too soft. The sheets too clean. Her skin was buzzing at the feeling.
Maomao woke to the scent of boiled ginger and mint. A familiar smell, a nostalgic one.
Suiren was wiping her brow with a cloth, and Xiaolan was asleep on the foot of the bed. Jinshi sat in the corner, face slack with exhaustion.
She blinked.
And blinked again.
“No more dreams?” she asked the ceiling. Calling them dreams was a kindness eh gave herself, who knows what would become of a maid suffering delirium.
Suiren snorted. “If you’re well enough to be speaking nonsense so soon, you must truly be healing well.”
Xiaolan stirred. “Maomao!" She cried, "you scared us half to death—”
Maomao turned away from her teary face.
“I didn’t think anyone would come.”
The silence that followed was thick and sad.
Xiaolan grabbed her by the chin and forced her to meet her eyes. “Don’t ever say that again.”
She watched as Jinshi turned and stalked out of the room. It must be enough to ease his conscious knowing she hadn't died to an attempt on his life. A part of her is glad she could grant him that kindness in turn.
The first night she screamed in her sleep so loud the noise was barley human, Jinshi was already in the hall outside.
He burst in, blade half-drawn. But there were no enemies. Just Maomao, gasping and tangled in her blankets, hands clawing at her throat.
He didn’t speak. He sat on the edge of her bed and took her wrist gently.
“It’s over,” he said. “They’re all dead.”
“I know,” she said, voice shaking. “I just—”
He didn’t let go until she spoke again.
"Would you.. would you please pour me some water?"
He even brought the cup to her lips, tilting it himself.
Later, when she drifted off again, she did so with his arms still around her.
The early sunlight crept through the curtains, casting soft rays over Maomao’s bed. She was awake, though barely. Her body still felt like dead weight, the ache in her muscles persistent, but she was no longer delirious. Her mind, though clouded, was slowly clearing.
She shifted slightly, the motion making her wince as her ribs protested the effort. Her body still felt like it had been bruised beyond recognition, but there was a gentleness in her movements now, a calmness she hadn’t had when she’d first woken up.
Jinshi was in the chair by the window, his eyes focused on the papers in front of him, but she knew he wasn’t reading. His hands were too clenched, his posture too rigid. And the book was upside down.
“Jinshi,” she rasped, her voice rough from disuse.
He looked up immediately, his gaze sharp despite his exhaustion. “You’re awake.”
“Seems so,” she replied, trying to sit up with a slight frown. She winced at the pain in her side and glanced over at him. “You look like you haven’t slept in days.”
He didn’t answer at first, only stood and moved toward the bed, his footsteps muffled on the soft floorboards. He was there in a blink, taking the pillow from behind her head and shifting it so she could sit up straighter without aggravating her ribs. She didn’t protest—he was too careful, too kind.
His hands were gentle as he adjusted her, his fingers brushing her shoulder just long enough to leave a trace of warmth behind. For a moment, neither of them spoke.
Jinshi reached for the water cup on the bedside table, offering it to her, his eyes lingering on her face with a quiet intensity.
“Drink,” he urged softly.
Maomao took the cup with trembling hands, feeling the weight of his gaze on her. It fell and spilt on the edge of the bed as soon as the weight of it was transfered to her grasp.
"I'm so sorry-" but he was already pouring her another. As she drank from a cup in his hand, the sensation of his care wrapped around her like a quiet, invisible thread. He didn’t ask for gratitude, didn’t demand anything in return. Just… this silent understanding.
She finished the water and looked up at him. For a moment, she took in his face—tired, drawn, but with a strength in his eyes that made her heart ache.
“Why did you come for me?” she whispered, still unsure of how to ask the question without sounding pathetically thankful and vulnerable.
Jinshi’s lips parted slightly, as if he hadn’t expected that particular question. Then, slowly, he answered, his voice so soft it almost felt like a confession.
“Because you’re mine,” he said simply. “And I don’t abandon what’s mine. Not ever.”
She slept. Woke. Slept again. The fever faded slowly from her body, like ink bleeding from a page.
On the seventh day, she sat up.
On the tenth, she walked to the window, but she wouldn't admit that it was like walking on two sleeping feet. Beyond her ancles she couldn't feel a thing.
On the fourteenth, she left her room and limped against the wall for support. She found Jinshi in the garden.
He looked up.
Didn’t speak.
Just waited.
She hovelled over the best she could, sitting beside him.
Not close. Not far.
After a minute, she said, “Thank you.”
He looked at her. His mouth moved like he wanted to say something cruel and desperate and foolish. But he didn’t.
A few days later, Maomao was officially allowed outside, though only for a brief stroll in the garden. She felt the need to stretch her legs, to see the world beyond the confines of the room she had been in to for so long. Xiaolan, ever the cautious one, hovered nearby, ready to catch her if she fell, which she did often, while Jinshi walked silently behind them.
Maomao’s steps were slow, uneven, but she was determined. She refused to be coddled, despite her exhaustion. Despite her.. condition.
With each step, she pushed herself a little further, the soft grass beneath her bare feet going unfelt, the warm sunlight wrapping around her like a blanket.
Xiaolan was speaking, but Maomao wasn’t really listening. Her mind was elsewhere, focused on the way the flowers swayed in the breeze, on the delicate hum of life in the garden.
“I swear you’ll get us all killed one day,” Xiaolan was saying. “What’s next? Climbing a mountain for fresh air?”
“Maybe,” Maomao muttered, the corners of her mouth twitching into a tired smile.
Jinshi, always the silent observer, watched them both with a strange expression. His eyes flickered between Maomao and Xiaolan, his face unreadable, but there was a faint softness to the way he held himself when he glanced at her.
Maomao met his gaze briefly and felt her chest tighten, as though her heart wanted to leap from her ribs. She quickly looked away.
"You're getting better," Jinshi spoke quietly, as though testing the waters.
Maomao shrugged, though she couldn’t quite hide the faint sense of pride she felt at being able to walk at all. "I’m not dead yet."
Jinshi didn’t smile, but the corner of his lips twitched up, just slightly.
Three weeks after the attack, Maomao sat in the garden, weak but upright.
She still could not hold a cup of tea in her hands, or anything she needed a delicate grip to keep hold of, but Xiaolan was beside her and Jinshi watched her steps.
Neither of them commented.
The sun was warm.
The birds sang.
And Maomao thought—
If I could start again, I’d like to let myself feel a little more. Not need trust to cost so much. Loiter longer in moments like these.
I wouldn’t be so afraid at the thought of needing people.
Jinshi walked over. Sat beside her.
She didn’t flinch.
She leaned into his shoulder.
Just a little.
But it was a start.
She planned to fully ignore the dopey grin pulling across his face- it was a shame it made him no less beautiful.
Maybe she'd find the courage to tell him one of these days, that the strength in which the tied her to that chair would mean she'd likely never be able to practice medicine again.