Chapter Text
Growing up, Maomao always felt like she was a stationary piece in a play, a prop that watched the actors and actresses. Maybe it came from being a weeping toddler, forgotten on the floor of the brothel. She wasn’t part of the show, and yet she was there, to watch, to see whatever there was to see, to understand that she is not part of the story.
She was never a character in the story, only the reader.
Then the Moon Prince came along, and decided for some reason that in his story, she should be his love interest.
It took a very long time for her to accept both that he wanted her to be part of his story, and that she wanted to be part of it as well. She couldn’t really imagine living a life without him now; she met him when she was barely nineteen, and now she is twenty-two.
Despite being surrounded by beautiful, buxom women who would do anything for him at his mere request, Jinshi never made it a secret that he was attracted to her. It took awhile for her to understand this in the beginning because she didn’t understand human emotions and viewed his incursions into her personal space and his flirtations as being similar to how a horny dog will hump a person’s leg if he’s wound up enough.
Being a young adult for Maomao meant comprehending the sacred and vulnerable truth:
Even though he could have chosen any women in a nation of millions, the only leg Jinshi wanted to hump was hers.
Their relationship grew quite slowly, which was her fault. There were times she tolerated his lusts, but even when they kissed for the first time, it was methodical for her. What she was taught to do, she did; she was not, in the moment, suffering the same sort of delirious want that he was.
Even when she reported to his bedchamber, ready to offer herself to him, she followed the instructions she knew were the correct preparations and she knew what techniques to use.
Maomao thought she simply wasn’t a passionate person, and she didn’t mind. People didn’t choose their own nature, and it seemed Jinshi had accepted her somewhat aloof disposition as well, even if it made things difficult.
Something had changed.
Forever.
It wasn’t something that even directly involved Jinshi.
When Basen and Lishu married, Lishu seemingly got pregnant the first time he touched her with his fingertip, and good on them for being such fertile people. Maomao asked Lishu if she would trust her to look after her during her pregnancy, as she hadn’t been a primary medical officer for a whole pregnancy, and she hadn’t actually attended a birth yet.
Of course because it would be her first birth, she intended to have Luomen there to advise her.
Lishu was always such a shy and timid girl, and while Basen’s love did something magical for her, Maomao watched Lishu evolve from someone trapped in a certain mindset to an excited and confident mother. At the beginning of her pregnancy, she cried now and then because her own mother died and she was scared she wouldn’t know how to be a mother, but by the time the baby came, she seemed so natural and confident, ready to meet her little one.
Her labor was difficult, and Basen stayed with her faithfully through all of it, rubbing her back, holding her hand, reassuring her. Somewhere in her mind, she knew Lishu was laboring to give birth in the same bed where the had consummated their love. It was some sort of ultimate, unmatched expression of her love for him, that she would cry, and bleed, and scream, and push to bring their child into the world.
It was an intense, emotionally and physically rigorous, and dangerous process, but she thought of it as being similar to when an insect sheds its outer layer so that that it can keep growing.
Maomao decided as she witnessed this that she wanted to undergo this transformation too. There is a side of Lishu that was hidden to Lishu until she endured this painful transition and revealed a wonderful, more passionate, more perfect version of herself.
Maomao decided that maybe there is a version of her that she is not allowed to know, one that will only be revealed to her when it is her time.
Basen transformed too. He also became a more wonderful version of himself.
After the baby arrived, when Maomao was holding him, even though she has held many other babies in her life, this particular time, she felt a profound emptiness that she could not explain, and a kind of longing that was equally impossible to describe.
There was a voice inside of her that very loudly said, ‘I want one.’
Now that she’s finally made it back to her apartment near the medical office, she tries to order her thoughts but finds herself unable to do so. The bath water in the common area is tepid because it’s already hours old, but she finds something strange as she’s undressing: her undergarments are sticky.
This is perhaps normal for other women according to literature she has read, but it’s not something that happens to her. She wonders if it’s an early sign of infection as this simply doesn’t happen to her. Even when Jinshi has teased her in the past, her body didn’t react the way one might expect.
When she touches her vulva, checking for signs of infection or irritation, it feels…different. Hot. Sensitive. Slippery.
In her mind, she understands this perfectly and recites it as from a textbook; in anticipation of intercourse, blood rushes to the genital area, causing increased sensitivity to touch, an increased urge to have intercourse, and various other symptoms throughout the body. Her heart rate is high, and her respiration is a little labored.
The slick fluid is a sign that her body was attempting to prepare itself for penetration. It’s purpose is to allow an erect penis to enter the vagina without friction or injury, so that the act of intercourse can be successful.
Maomao has masturbated before, because why not? But she wasn’t particularly compelled to it and used lotion because it stayed quite dry.
It was…okay.
The okayness of that experience made her incurious about sex. Perhaps it was just something that people did, and there would be some pleasure, but she hadn’t ever felt driven to it. She had a lot of information about sex, a lot of technical instructions, and little motivation to execute them before now.
She wasn’t even explicitly fantasizing about a sexual situation; childbirth and intercourse are simply related events and, in her mind, that intrusive little thought that demanded she have a baby knew the way to make that happen was through intercourse.
A long soak in tepid water causes the strange mood to pass, although once she lays down for bed, her mind drifts and drifts and drifts.
At one point, she rests her hands on her flat little belly, and wonders why she’s never been so acutely aware of how empty it is? Or why has she never wanted it not to be empty before?
There are multiple facets to all the strange things going on inside of her head.
Previously, she wanted to give birth in order to gain access to a human placenta, and while she thinks she could have asked Lishu for hers, her dad was there, and she didn’t want to get a look from him. She assumed she wouldn’t be a terrible mother, but she didn’t really understand a mother’s love.
There is a part of her mind that whispers quietly to her that she will understand that love when she becomes a mother just like Lishu did.
Maomao does finally manage to drift off to sleep, and when she wakes up in the morning, she feels different.
Since she was working for two days straight at the Ma clan residence, she has the day off, although she plans on going to visit Lishu to check on her. Part of her also wants to see if her body has such a strange reaction to the baby again or if maybe she was under the influence of some unexplained phenomenon the night before.
The prince is on a trip and will not return for another five weeks, and because Basen’s child was due to arrive, and the emperor, not wanting Basen to miss such an important event, sent Gaoshun with the prince. Basen instead stayed with the emperor until Lishu went into labor and is enjoying a few days off to spend with his wife and newborn.
Opening her window to let in some light, she spots a nest where two sparrows are sitting on some eggs. Watching them carry on has been one of her secret little side pleasures this year. In the beginning, it was just the female that hung around her window, and Maomao would give her crumbs now and then.
One day, the male sparrow came around. Like most birds, the males are more beautiful than the females, and despite this, they still have to use various forms of harassment in order to reproduce, which Maomao finds quite funny.
The attitude of female birds impresses Maomao: ‘I don’t care how beautiful you are. You’re going to dance for me and offer me gifts or no sex for you.’
The male sparrow came around with his silly little offerings, little twigs and bits of grass, occasionally bits of food or a tiny insect. She was hesitant, and he, deeply impassioned and quite silly, always clowning about with his gifts and his dances, as if he was certain she would give in to his charms if she could just understand exactly how handsome he was and how much he liked her.
One day, she looked out and they started building a nest together, so now Maomao wonders if there was a moment in female sparrow’s mind where she simply decided, ‘I want him to fertilize me.’
And the male sparrow was thrilled, because he also, wanted to fertilize her.
Despite all the complications of their human lives, were she and Jinshi simply on the same mysterious journey?
Was it that way for everyone?
Certainly not.
Basen and Lishu were both previously very shy around the opposite sex, so Maomao really had no idea how they even got married. Who made the first move? It almost had to be Lishu, probably with some sort of sweet gesture he enjoyed but did not understand, because Basen is just an incredibly physical person.
Jinshi is very physical too.
Men are physical.
Most of them are bad with their words and like to talk with their bodies. They also wanted to be spoken to in physical language. Sometimes it wasn’t even words; there were times when he smelled her, like her scent provided some sort of information to him.
She read a book once that said that once there was a survey done in the west. Men were asked to meet with women at different times during the month and then asked to guess which of the women were in their fertile time of the month.
Most men got more right than was possible by chance; some men were almost always able to accurately discern this information. It seems to not be information they are able to deduce with their logical, active minds, or something they are consciously aware of. None of them knew how they knew. Yet when asked, some sort of secret intuition guided their answers.
She wonders if they obtain this information from scent, and if, when Jinshi smells her, it is a request from that secretive, primal side of him. What information is received, and what is done with it when it is received?
Is there information about Jinshi that she might obtain by smelling him? If there is, would she be consciously aware of it, or would it only be known to her instinctual side? What if that hidden part of her mind has always been collecting information about him and she simply didn’t know it?
For some reason, she begins to very vividly remember that one time she accidentally squeezed the Grand Imperial Amphibian a few times, and how each time, it became more engorged and heavier.
It’s probably very big, that much she acknowledged at the time.
But her mind now wants more detail. How big, exactly? Thick as well as long? How does the tip look? Does it curve in some sort of way? Are there veins?
Blood rushes to her vulva as she ponders these thoughts. She knows her vaginal canal is actually unusually narrow, and he’s most certainly girthy. He would fill her, stretch her. It seemed like an uncomfortable chore a day ago that she would do for him because she cared for him. Now her body seems to ache for it, as if demanding this lovely torment.
There are facets to that moment that were unseen by her until then, like the fact that his hips moved, however slightly. The way he exhaled when she took her hand away like he couldn’t breathe when it was on him…then, there was the mere fact that the Grand Imperial Amphibian answered her touch eagerly, begging for her to keep her hand there even though Jinshi asked her to take it away.
Jinshi wanted to be a gentleman, but it seems the frog did not care for courtesy or chivalry and just wanted her to keep her hand where it was.
The more she considers the Grand Imperial Amphibian, the more she aches. She’s had a vagina for all of her twenty-two years of life? Why has it never felt empty until this moment?
There is a twitch between her legs that makes her toes curl as her mind runs wild, obsessing over that man and his frog. If he put it inside of her, it would make her feel pleasure—she’s been dubious about how good it would feel, but her body promises it would be really, really good.
Let’s get fertilized, says that intrusive voice.
Pictures are painted in her mind, a vivid fantasy of frantic undressing, and being lowered onto a bed, where he whispers in her ear, ‘Spread your legs for me,’ in that deep, ragged voice he gets from time to time.
Maomao feels dizzy, plops down on the edge of her bed, and sliding a hand inside of her robes, finds that sticky wetness has returned.
More importantly, just the brush of her fingers made her gasp.
And so, she masturbates, first thing in the morning before even having a meal, her fingers playing with her clitoris while her body just does stuff on its own like it’s in control. She’s touched herself before; it was formulaic. This is different, and the slightest pressure on her clit activated some primordial response in her body that she wants to open her legs and present her entrance. Her hips move as if she’s desperate to grow closer to the source of her pleasure, which in this case, is only her hand. If she was in bed with a man, she imagines she’d be wildly thrusting her hips upward, desperate for penetration.
She wonders if he’s as intensely curious about her vulva as she is about his penis? Does he think about what it might look like? Does he wish he could see it? If she told him something about it, what would happen? If he saw her do this, what would it look like?
And so she adds a hand mirror to this, watching her fingers pleasure herself while the delicate tissues drip with slick, turning from a light pink to a deep pink as the area becomes more engorged with blood.
Despite thinking that release would give her relief and allow her to move on with her day, it is more intense than she anticipated, and also relieves nothing. She’s left with a twitching, wet pussy that still feels empty. It begs for penetration, and she thinks about using her fingers, but she doesn’t want to mess around and break her hymen this way.
The prince has, after all, been weirdly obsessed with her virginity for a very long time and he would be annoyed if she told him she broke her own hymen because she became so aroused that the only thing she could think about was having her pussy filled with something big and hard and hot and he was simply…out of town and unavailable to provide that big, hot, hard thing.
Instead, she lays there and brings herself to climax two more times, when her clit becomes so sensitive she can’t touch it anymore. This leaves it swollen and incredibly sensitive as she cleans herself off and thinks about how she was only seconds ago, imagining Jinshi absolutely filling her with hot semen.
Maomao knows she could probably find out the average amount a man ejaculates when he reaches orgasm, but the wild part of her that is fantasizing about impregnation imagines there being far too much. So much it just keeps coming, spurt after spurt. She doesn’t know how it will feel, but her imagination is quick to make some suggestions. Tells her it would be amazing to have his seed just oozing out of her swollen, slick pussy.
With the mirror, she watches her pussy twitch from orgasm and knows this would give the Grand Imperial Amphibian immense pleasure, her body milking him for every last drop.
She’s heard there are exercises she could do to make it tighter, to make it clench harder. It’s already very tight, and she’s very small in comparison to him. Could she make it twitch so hard he couldn’t take it?
She smells her fluids, and finds they smell vaguely sour from sweat. Since she grew up at a brothel, she knows that’s mostly due to her pubic hair.
Maybe she’ll remove it?
After recovering, her clitoris still twitches now and then as she begins to prepare for her day, as if reminding her that for some reason, she over-masturbated herself while imagining Jinshi doing all sorts of things to her.
Looking in her little mirror, the image feels wrong somehow. Something inside of her has changed, and it doesn’t like what is happening in the mirror. Things don’t match.
Her bangs are long; it’s time to cut them, but chunky bangs are also most common among girls. It’s not something women usually wear; she still wears her hair the way Luomen used to fix it for her as a little girl. The chunky bangs in part serve to be part of the ‘unattractive’ disguise, with her freckles.
The freckles too no longer serve any purpose. Anyone who sees her face knows dragging her into a back alley is a poor decision because there are two obsessive men in her life who have access to the national armory. If someone is still going to kidnap her, it will not be because she didn’t paint on her freckles.
On this day, she clips her bangs back so they can continue growing out, and she does not reach for the clay. She has observed this behavior in other women before; when something happens that changes a woman on the inside, she sometimes also wants to change the outside.
In her peculiarity, she begins thinking about what should happen if she wants to become pregnant.
She’ll need to stop doing poison experiments on her own body, maybe forever. While her body can tolerate poison well, an unborn baby would not have that benefit, and some poisons linger for a while. As long as she is at risk for becoming pregnant, she shouldn’t have any poison in her body.
Experimenting with her body has always been a basic part of her training as an apothecary, but over the past couple of years, her interests have sharply turned more from poison to medicine. Botanical research being what it is, there’s simply more use for healing than hurting.
Her breast size certainly indicates that she should preferably gain weight and might not be particularly fertile as she is. Pregnancy is a difficult process and takes much from the body of the mother, so bolstering her nutrition, adding weight to her frame, and possibly supplements will assist her in completing this task.
Maomao quietly begins to obsess over this strange transformation she instinctually feels driven toward. She experiments with different ways she might do her hair, and then goes to the pharmacy at the medical office to begin whipping up wellness teas and ingredients that will enhance her fertility. She plans to begin exercises to strengthen her body in order to prepare her for vigorous sex and childbirth.
When she goes to check on Lishu and holds her sweet little baby boy, her body reinforces the idea that yes, she should get pregnant. Immediately, if possible. But it’s not possible, because the prince is away.
They have not ever discussed having a child except on that one night when she came to his room and they discussed how a pregnancy would be unwanted. Not for personal reasons. The prince never said he never wanted to have a baby with her. He said he didn’t want to have a baby that was going to be in danger, or put the empress’s little ones in danger.
Perhaps she should ask, and they should have a reasonable conversation about this, but for some reason, she thinks if she told Jinshi that she’s been obsessing over him putting a baby inside of her belly, he might die from a stroke.
There is a plethora of concerns that make pregnancy for her an item of misfortune, political entanglements that are confusing and frustrating. Sometimes, her mind just doesn’t let her think about those things. But then again, those are exactly the things that are going to end her little dream before it can begin. That won’t make her want a baby less, it will just mean that she will continue to want one and be unable to have one.
Why can’t they just be together?
Thinking about politics is as annoying as ever, and all the fun things happening inside of her distract her from doing so. Why think about the implications of adding complication to the imperial family tree when she can touch herself and think about Jinshi nailing her to the bed?
Somewhere in the north, this unknowing man is buried in paperwork, unable to relieve her desires, so they churn in the form of her very peculiar obsessive nature.
Her breasts immediately become sore when she starts chugging her fertility-enhancing serum a few days later, and she pats herself on the back because she knows that means it’s working. She carefully manages her diet and determines the exact amount of weight she wants to gain before his return. Her hair changes every day, and she experiments a bit with her makeup as her childlike bangs remain clipped back during their awkward stage of growth.
Maomao believes this process is a secret that only she knows about, but Luomen knows.
He knows that witnessing a birth is powerful, something that changes a person’s life. Of course, no one’s lives are changed more than the parents. Lishu and Basen are close peers to Jinshi and Maomao, and as it is in every generation, once the process starts in a circle of friends, suddenly everyone is settling down with a family.
Since she was little, she’s had confused and dulled emotions due to the circumstances of her birth, but Luomen can tell from the herbs she purchased from the pharmacy for personal use that she’s not confused about what she wants now.
Although he does wonder how the prince is going to react when he returns from his trip and is pounced by his cat, who demands kittens. It’s hard to imagine any man would be able to contain himself if the woman he loves asks for a child.
Luomen hopes that when she makes her vulnerable and honest request before the man that she loves that she is not denied. The young prince has loved her with his whole heart for years now, and he almost certainly longs for a child with the woman his heart has chosen.
National imperial politics being in the way of their love really was unfortunate.
He wonders if there’s anything he can do to help, but he doesn’t believe he can. The emperor has said he will grant Luomen a favor for performing his surgery, but Luomen knows that favor won’t be able to change the imperial family in any sort of way.
Still, Luomen wonders if he might appeal to the emperor’s goodwill towards his son. After all, Luomen certainly knows the truth, as it is the truth he paid for with his kneecap. His silence about the baby swap likely allowed the young prince to survive, and so Luomen has never minded much.
The fact that prince was the one who loved his Maomao so much was actually a rather sweet story in a royal house that was so marred by ugliness.
Luomen spends his favor on a frank discussion with the emperor, one loving father to another, about the situation facing the young couple.
There are no real barriers to the relationship; if they wanted to marry and have a child, they could do that. It would cause political controversy, but every meaningful decision an imperial makes has consequences of some kind or another. While the emperor has implored his oldest son to not live his life in fear of those consequences, he does anyway.
Zuigetsu is probably Empress Gyokuyou’s strongest ally outside of her family, and he did everything in his power to help her become empress, often working for her benefit and even loaning her his most precious treasure during her second pregnancy.
His refusal to create danger for the young crown prince is noble; he is unknowingly an older brother protecting his baby brother from danger at the expense of his own happiness.
After the conversation with Luomen, the emperor isn’t sure what to do. His son is impatient for a resolution to the matter, and it seems like he is really going to allow his loyalty to his younger brother to hinder him from settling down with Maomao.
Of course, the emperor would prefer to have his oldest son as his heir. Despite the prince’s doubts about his abilities, he’s quite competent and outstanding. If he really wanted, he could have been a fine emperor.
Sometimes Emperor Yang wonders if he’d be amenable to becoming emperor if Li evolved into a nation that wasn’t held together by the imperial harem.
It might be something he would accept if he didn’t have a choice, but the emperor knows what his son truly desires is freedom from the imperial house.
Even if he can decide in his mind that Zuigetsu will never be emperor, how that actually works is an entirely different question. The real problem is that the best way to eliminate someone from a line of succession is to kill them and turning him loose while he is still alive will create ripples in the water.
The most obvious answer would be to give Zuigetsu a civilian name and allow him and Maomao to begin a family of their own, but they’d be beset by those who wanted to influence them toward or away from the throne. Just declaring him no longer part of the imperial family didn’t change the blood running through his veins, after all.
The emperor really doesn’t know what to do about this. It’s a puzzle that can’t be easily solved, and also, a part of him doesn’t want to solve it because he doesn’t want his son to leave him.
He was more or less settled on doing nothing for the time being, but one day a few weeks later, he overeats, and as he passes by the infirmary a week before the prince is due to return, he says to his attendant that he wants to quickly drop in and see if they can give him something to settle his stomach.
When he enters, he is greeted by a woman he knows that he knows, and yet he has a hard time forcing his mind to accept that it is her.
Maomao is wearing her medical officer uniform, which includes blue divided robes on the bottom with a white robe tucked in. Her hair is pinned up in two little buns on each side of the top of her head, and her bangs are no longer visible.
She is wearing a little makeup, maybe something dark around her eyes, and her lips are pinker than normal.
Most importantly, she not only appears to have gained a little weight, but she has visibly larger breasts. One of Maomao’s most distinct traits is her strangely flat chest, and it has size and shape now. They’re not huge, but they exist.
Maomao is growing her breasts by consuming obscene amounts of fertility and femininity enhancing herbs because she wants to become pregnant and she’s not allowing herself to think about the political implications of that. The primal, dark version of Maomao is apolitical and only cares about being impregnated by the Grand Imperial Amphibian.
He sees her growing breasts, and being a person of reasonable intellect who underestimates Maomao’s force of will and deep peculiarity, considers the only reason a woman this age suddenly grows breasts.
The emperor makes a mistake.
He assumes she is already pregnant, and his initial reaction is actually simply joy.
It is the kind of mirth a person may only revel in when unknowingly starring in a comedy of errors.
What wonder he feels at the idea of becoming grandparent to a child that does not exist.
And what unimaginable confusion Maomao experiences, because the emperor walked into the infirmary looking like he was about to puke, and now he’s just standing there staring at her with a weird look on his face instead of answering her question.
“Your imperial majesty. Are you feeling unwell? Can I help you in some way?” she asks, for a third time.
He emerges from his own imagination and says, “You look different, Miss Maomao.”
“I am going through a transition,” she says, simply.
“What sort of transition?”
“I can’t talk about it at this time.”
The emperor nods in understanding. At the moment the error unspooling the threads of his mind causes him to think this woman is in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy crisis. She’s not bound to Zuigetsu formally, so this was a mistake, and it’s one that needs to be quietly covered with grace and care.
Maomao meanwhile asks again, “Are you unwell? I can prepare medicine. Or…is there something else I can do to help you?”
“This time, I will help you. Leave everything to me. I’ll work everything out,” he says.
Maomao has absolutely no idea what this man is talking about. The emperor isn’t someone to be questioned, so she simply doesn’t do that. In some ways, she doesn’t even want to know.
The emperor says, “I’m going to order you to be placed on paid leave for now.”
“Did I do something wrong?” she asks.
The emperor thinks she thinks he is mad at her for her condition, which doesn’t exist. “Caring for someone is not a sin.”
Okay, but who said anything about that?
“Well, isn’t it suspicious if I suddenly stop working for no reason?”
The emperor says, “You’re right. Half days then, in the afternoon, so you can get plenty of rest.”
Maomao stares into the emperor’s eyes and realizes that there is some sort of malformed idea in his head and he is running with it to unknown places. She recognizes the signs because she knows another man who also comes to bad conclusions at times and then carries them until they cause some sort of trouble. These men are related, so she can only assume it can only be a learned behavior or is a hereditary issue.
Was Jinshi born with a strange streak of idiocy woven into the fabric of his soul, or did the emperor impart it to him at some point during his youth. How would one even teach this very specific and highly undesirable ability?
It’s all just very perplexing to Maomao because she has no idea why the emperor walked into the infirmary or why he walked out, or what strange thing happened to him in the middle.
When she gets home to her quarters, a man who serves in the emperor’s personal palace brings her a plate of crispy pork belly, prawns, exotic fruit, mushrooms…it’s just an absolute feast with the best ingredients. The emperor decided to have his kitchen prepare an extra meal for her since pregnancy required excellent nutrition, and sent the servant to deliver it to her.
Maomao thinks that maybe the emperor needs her to taste it for some reason? Maybe his regular taster is out for the evening, although it is strange the food was brought to her.
Nonetheless, she tastes each dish and announces to the servant, “No poison.”
“Of course there’s no poison! This meal is a gift from the emperor,” the servant exclaims before exiting and slamming the door shut at the idea that the emperor would poison his secretly pregnant future sister-in-law.
Maomao remains confused, but the food is spectacular and excellent for nutrition, so she eats alone in her room, delighted by having such a fine meal.
The emperor meanwhile begins making plans and pondering how to cover an unplanned pregnancy that does not exist.
The emperor decides he will tell the Grand Commandant that Maomao has become pregnant and that as heads of the respective clans involved and leaders who wish the best for both, they should seek a favorable outcome.
While the emperor tells Lakan that his ‘younger brother’ got his beloved daughter pregnant in secret, and Maomao entertains wild fantasies as she touches herself about him doing exactly that, Jinshi sleeps peacefully.
Unaware, unknowing, unsuspecting. Innocent of all charges, just minding his own business and doing the work he was asked to. He found a strange and rare ingredient to offer his love as a taken of his affections and fell asleep looking forward to returning home where he expects everything to be exactly as he left it.
Notes:
if you guys like sad stories i have a sad JinMao i am writing. it's called Cat's Cradle and it's posted here.
Chapter 2: The Empress Loves An Idiot Plot
Notes:
Oh my goodness, I was so surprised at how well my first chapter was received. I really, really appreciate everyone who took time to read my work. I was just over here giggling like Gyokuyou.
Chapter Text
Gyokuyou waits until the emperor steps out to laugh uncontrollably, because what on earth is even going on? She’s certain Maomao isn’t actually pregnant for many reasons, the main one being is that Maomao herself did not say she was pregnant. Gyokuyou assumes her breasts are growing because she’s drinking some weird medicine that she whipped up that no one knows about yet.
May the gods help the poor girls in the Inner Court if Maomao invents a breast-growing serum. The emperor would be so pleased if such an absurd thing happened, and Maomao could become the wealthiest woman in all the land. Maomao is a strange sort of genius like that, always on the cusp of something, always mysterious, and yet always unpredictable.
Once Gyokuyou asked Maomao what she was thinking about because she seemed really pensive, and Maomao looked her dead in the eyes and said, “Pork dumplings,” offering no other explanation or detail and said little else for the rest of the day.
Gyokuyou adores Maomao, but she also thinks because she knows her that there’s just no way the emperor is correct. He did not ask directly, although in his own mind, he thinks her confirmation is implied by her participation in the conversation.
Gyokuyou knows exactly what Maomao was doing, because she knows Maomao will just let Prince Yue be wrong rather than trying to correct his actions.
The men in this family…
The empress wonders whether she should simply tell her husband that he is likely wrong. Despite being the emperor, he actually isn’t so stiff or unreasonable that he would want anyone to stay silent if they knew he was mistaken. He appreciates respectful guidance, and she could provide that to him.
On the other hand, she could remain silent.
The emperor already told Lakan that Maomao was pregnant and didn’t get to say anything else because the Grand Commandant ripped a door off its hinges because he was too beside himself to open it properly (it wasn’t even closed). Then he proceeded to storm off in some sort of fit that concerned the emperor.
Maomao was one of the emperor’s absolute favorite people in all of the world, and she was on his mind often, not only for her relationship with the prince, but because he genuinely found her intellect and disposition to be delightful. It’s something the two brothers share, as far as Gyokuyou is concerned.
The emperor is also reluctant to let his younger brother move on from their family despite his wishes.
Lakan is meanwhile wholly unwilling to accept Maomao’s love for the prince and has been known to speak of this matter as if the prince harasses the young medical officer without cause or encouragement.
Maomao becoming pregnant without being bound to the prince as a concubine or wife would be a matter of disgrace and humiliation, and even if Lakan doesn’t approve of the relationship, if he believes the pregnancy is real, he will be forced to accept that the best thing is to create a path for them to make their relationship official.
Gyokuyou doesn’t believe anyone involved in this situation would truly want to solve this imaginary situation by abortion or any other outcome that might harm Maomao. As usual, the men who are involved in these events are typically safe; the prince’s reputation is unlikely to be bothered no matter how it turns out. That’s just how it is.
Everyone is going to move to protect Maomao because Maomao is precious.
She decides to say nothing, in hopes that the emperor and Lakan will set aside differences and work to create a solution to this problem that allows everyone to move forward with their lives. Since she is the reason that the prince holds himself back, she hopes that this small contribution on her part will allow him to find the happiness and freedom that he desires.
Also, she thinks the situation is going to devolve into something hilariously bizarre in the end.
The emperor returns from the restroom and climbs back into bed, twisting some of her lovely red hair between his fingers.
“Tell me something about you that I don’t know,” he whispers.
MAOMAO ISN’T PREGNANT, YOU GIANT DOOFUS, she thinks, but does not speak.
Gyokuyou says, “What do you want to know?”
She touches his face gently, and he looks to the table by her bed, where a few books are stacked. She quite likes reading, mostly novels, but sometimes he sees her giggling while she reads a humorous book as well.
“What’s your favorite kind of book?”
Empress Gyokuyou smiles and strokes his face. “I really enjoy humor. There’s a kind of storytelling called an ‘idiot plot.’ Basically, it’s a story that is only a story because everyone in it is foolish about some matter, and they comically stumble through some situation that would be easily addressed if any of them understood what was going on.”
The emperor says, “I’ve never heard of anything like that before. This sort of story is amusing?”
“It’s my favorite,” she answers with a little laugh.
“You’re such a giggly girl tonight.”
“I’m in a good mood,” Gyokuyou answers.
The emperor is such a strange man, but she has grown to love him so very much. She hopes that Maomao can soon know the joy of being married to a handsome but caring and highly respectable idiot, that way they can have tea and talk about their husbands together as sisters in law. Is it too much to ask?
When morning comes, the emperor orders Lakan to report to him again.
Lakan is sour-faced as he joins the emperor.
He really sort of wants to fight the emperor, but he looks back to see who is looking after the emperor today, but of course he can’t tell. “Who are you there, by the door?”
Basen answers, “Basen, Grand Commandant.”
Lakan does not know Basen’s face, but he knows he’s an inhuman monster, capable of incredibly feats of strength. He’s a rather square-brained brute who would break all of Lakan’s bones if he took a swing at the emperor.
Perhaps he’ll behave.
Basen wasn’t with the emperor the prior night as the emperor sent him home early, and the emperor doesn’t freely discuss matters with him as he does with Gaoshun, so he has no idea what’s going on.
If Gaoshun was there as he normally was, he would have simply gone to Maomao and asked for clarity before the emperor spoke to Lakan, because Gaoshun is most excellent at his job. And while Gaoshun might not have ever heard the phrase ‘Idiot Plot,’ he knows when one is spinning to life right under his nose and quietly takes care of it before it can get out of hand.
Gaoshun has difficulty passing on to his son the knowledge that the people who hold virtually all the power in Li are a bit of a hazard to themselves and suffer from a very specific and recognizable sort of defect, and that the most important thing he can ever learn is how to protect these people from their own minds.
But Basen has a square brain, as previously mentioned. He’s not stupid, but he’s not mature or experienced enough to realize extremely powerful people suffer from cognitive impairment because they are rarely criticized or denied and this leads to situations like this: two of the most powerful men in the country mad at each other about something that isn’t even true.
Lakan plops down on a chair and crosses his arms. “Emperor.”
“Grand Commandant. Let us pick up where we started off last night.”
“Are you going to tell lies about my precious, pure, virtuous, innocent daughter to me, her papa?”
Emperor Yang takes a long, deep, slow breath. “Basen, this is a sensitive matter. Could you step out for a bit?”
“Of course.”
In the hallway, it’s easier to daydream about his wife and baby without a couple of old farts bitching at each other about whatever they’re mad about. Sometimes it’s better not to know.
Once the door closes, the emperor says, “Maomao is dear to the imperial family. All of us have a particular softness in our heart for her. Especially the prince.”
Actually, the emperor thinks, if what the prince had for Maomao was a particular softness and not a particular hardness, they wouldn’t be having this meeting—except they would, because the Idiot Plot cannot be stopped once it has been ordained by the fates, except by Gaoshun, who is far away.
The real problem is that the ratio of Idiots to Gaoshuns is just all wrong.
Lakan throws his nose in the air. “She isn’t pregnant.”
“She is.”
“It’s impossible. Papa hasn’t told her about the birds and the bees yet.”
The emperor says, “Lakan, I’m really a little concerned that you might be a bit out of touch with reality. You think Maomao, who was raised by a brothel, can’t be having sex, because you haven’t told her what sex is?”
“Well, I’m her papa.”
(To whom it may concern: Maomao taught the emperor’s concubines how to wash their assholes out so the emperor could have anal sex with them, but the emperor will not mention this as he thinks Lakan might actually die.)
Maybe he really is delusional?
The emperor doesn’t think that the path to getting Lakan to acknowledge the pregnancy is trying to force him to understand that Maomao is like a walking encyclopedia of forbidden delights and sexual health information.
Instead, he says, “Lakan, maybe you should just…see her. We won’t directly mention the pregnancy in order to not disgrace her.”
“Fine. You’ll see my pure little petunia is untainted by that wicked heathen despite his attempts to corrupt her unwavering purity.”
(Maomao also taught the imperial concubines how to get a cucumber all the way down the hatch without gagging, but the emperor isn’t going to say that either.)
The emperor calls Basen, and orders him to fetch Maomao.
Since the emperor already ordered her to only work in the afternoons, she’s spent much of the morning working on another feast that arrived at her door that morning. Lobster for breakfast? The emperor was sending her such extravagant food, and why? No one knows, except the emperor. A mistake, surely, but she’s not going to turn good food away.
Her belly is slightly distended with discomfort from over-indulging two meals in a row, and when Basen comes for her, she gets ready quickly and follows him to meet the emperor.
Basen knows the Grand Commandant is in the room, but he knows a few things about Maomao and one of those things is that she makes scary faces if someone mentions Lakan. He just doesn’t want to see Scary Maomao, so he doesn’t tell her. That can be someone else’s problem.
Does Basen notice that Maomao’s appearance has changed? Even though her hair style, weight, and breasts are noticeably different?
No. He is aware something is different, but he has no idea what it is, and he doesn’t care. The only woman Basen cares to look at is Lishu and his Squareness refuses to allot any more of its processing ability to considering what other women look like.
When he delivers Maomao to the tearoom where the emperor is sitting with Lakan, she feels like she was tricked, because she was having such a good morning. She slept in, ate lobster until her stomach literally could not contain any more, and had four orgasms while she pondered the size and girth of the Grand Imperial Amphibian.
Now she is here in this room. What’s going on? She doesn’t know. She doesn’t want to know.
The emperor gestures for her to approach. “We won’t keep you. I’m sure you would like to rest.”
Maomao bows. “How may I be of service?”
Like the mystifying situation at the infirmary, the emperor does not say anything and Lakan also does not say anything. They just stare at her. Intently.
Lakan says, “I haven’t seen you in some time, Maomao.”
“Yes, this is intentional, because I don’t want you to look at me,” she calmly answers.
“Papa adores you so much though!”
“Okay?”
Maomao’s appearance is different; with her bangs gone, she looks so much like her mother, but Lakan thinks she doesn’t want to hear that.
Lakan comments, “You’re glowing. Your face, I mean. Wh-Why is that?”
Maomao has started wearing moisturizer because she thinks creamy skin will make Jinshi want to impregnate her more. There are some logical issues with this that she knowingly chooses to ignore, but anyway, she’s actually very annoyed.
She could tell him she started wearing moisturizer, but instead, she says, “It’s a secret.”
Lakan has factual information about what Maomao’s body looks like, so he knows there are boobs where there were no boobs. He does not wish to address this as his sweet, perfect little petunia might be embarrassed.
He sees her belly, rounder than it is supposed to be.
Lakan swallows fearfully, and asks, “Maomao, your belly looks a bit round. Have you been…satisfied?”
Maomao wonders if the emperor sent her food as some sort of favor to Lakan as she just has absolutely no idea what is actually going on and that is the only conclusion she is able to reach.
Placing two hands on her belly, she gives it a pat. “Yes, I was. Twice. Filled all the way up until I thought I couldn’t take anymore, but I couldn’t stop.”
Lakan feels part of his soul separate and leave his body, and the emperor is surprised at how shamelessly Maomao speaks of fornicating with the prince. Then again, did he expect shame for the girl who taught his concubines what to do with a man’s ballsack?
The woman is perplexed because these men seem horrified that she ate the food she assumes the emperor sent to her due to some situation with Lakan.
Maomao has learned the best way to live is to accept that rich and powerful people are exceedingly strange. It’s best not to question them; most of their problems could be solved by a thoughtful day of simple chores and quiet reflection.
The emperor says, “I didn’t realize you had such an appetite. I thought you were more subdued.”
“I may have a small body, but I can fit a lot, believe it or not.”
Lakan says, “M-Maomao, don’t say such things in front of Papa! Surely you were forced!”
“Forced? No one has ever forced me to put anything in my mouth.”
“In your mouth?!” her father asks.
“Yes. That’s how I usually do it,” she sarcastically answers, speaking of eating. How else did he expect her to do it.
The emperor says, “I understand.”
For some reason, she thinks that no one in this room is understanding anything.
Lakan asks, “And you…you enjoyed this?”
“It was amazing,” she pats her belly again.
The Grand Commandant falls from his chair in despair as if her words contained physical force that pushed him. There is a crack, and his bad back assaults him with searing agony. He twists and contorts, despaired by back pain and the news that his little baby girl has been doing filthy things with that horrible prince.
He’s too scared to ask the question, and the emperor said it would disgrace her. But he sees all the signs the emperor does.
He decides that his baby is going to have a baby. Incorrectly.
Emperor Yang’s belief in this false child that does not exist is only strengthened by this conversation and he wants to move on to talk about what they will do about it, but unfortunately, Lakan seems to be immobile, wriggling around on the floor in pain while Maomao, a medical officer, does nothing.
“Is there something you can do for him, Maomao?” the emperor asks.
Maomao replies, “I’m still in training. It might be best for a more trained physician to tend to him.”
Lakan reaches out. “Maomao, heal Papa!”
With a roll of her eyes, she says, “Fine, fine. Basen, please assist me.”
Basen, who listened to this whole conversation, does not know that these men thought Maomao was pregnant because he was outside the door earlier, and his Squareness prevents him from seeing further into it. From his perspective, it was just a very weird conversation between Maomao and Lakan, the two strangest people he has ever met, and the emperor.
Maomao orders Basen to grab Lakan’s wrists. She holds his ankles in place and says, “On three, pull until you hear a popping sound. One, two, three!”
Basen pulls until he hears a snap, and then releases Lakan.
The Grand Commandant says, “I’ve been healed!” but then he tries to get up and is somehow less mobile than before. “Oh no, it is somehow much worse?!”
His daughter shrugs. “Sounds like you need a real doctor after all. Sorry about that. I’ll send someone over. Is there anything else?”
The emperor shakes his head, because he thinks that, maybe what he just witnessed was not an attempt at medicine, but a medical officer ordering a senior member of the military to hurt the commander of the military in front of the emperor? He’s just not sure there was a genuine intent to aid and assist in there anywhere, just a girl who doesn’t like her father, doing something bad to him using Basen’s muscles.
He thinks he witnessed a crime?
Maomao walks away from the conversation so annoyed and confused. There is a part of her that knows this is somehow connected to the ‘wrongness’ that the emperor stumbled into when he visited her at the clinic.. And it is her personal policy to not delve into what these people are actually doing or thinking because most of the time, it’s just better not to know.
Lakan has to get treatment, and by the time he meets with the emperor again, it is already late night, with the prince due back from his trip in five more days.
Upstairs, Gyokuyou is in her room, screaming laughter into a pillow because the emperor relayed the perplexing conversation to her while they were having dinner. What an absolute mess! Lakan has joined in with the emperor on his foolishness, but that is according to plan.
Now they have to come up with a real solution.
Gyokuyou considers herself a benevolent in this situation, who has looked down from her throne of KNOWING TO ASK A WOMAN IF SHE’S PREGNANT INSTEAD OF ASSUMING, and decided to allow this madness to continue for the greater good. She will take credit if it works out, but if Lakan like, kills the prince or something, then she’ll just pretend she didn’t know anything. That seems unlikely, right? Lakan murdering the prince? With that back?
Meanwhile, downstairs, the emperor is now annoyed, because this is his third attempt to have an honest conversation about the thing that he made up in his mind about his son who he pretends is his brother and his love.
He says, “I am hoping not to speak as emperor and subject, but as one clan leader to another.”
Lakan, now wearing a back brace that holds his back unnaturally straight, answers, “Then I can speak freely, as one clan leader to another?”
The emperor sighs. “Fine. The prince will return in five days, and judging by how Maomao looked earlier, it won’t be long before she’s really showing. Maomao is precious to both of our clans, so we do not wish for her to be humiliated or disgraced by this situation. Our responsibility as their elders is to make a deal that will allow them to quietly marry. I would like to come up with a plan and present it to both of them when the prince returns.”
Unfortunately, the only thing Maomao was ‘showing’ earlier was that if she is offered a large amount of lobster, she will eat a large amount of lobster, as nature intended for her to do. She has by this time at night returned from the toilet with a flat belly, so she can begin the dinner that came from the emperor’s kitchen.
Lakan says, “I have an idea.”
“Do you?”
The emperor knows Lakan does not have an idea and he’s just going to say something rude because he has been given permission to do so, but to him, his son got Lakan’s daughter pregnant, so maybe he was entitled to it.
Lakan answers, “Since the Moon Prince has so much experience pretending to be a eunuch, maybe it is because he truly wants to be one, and we should grant his wish when he returns. I will take care of my little Maomao, and her sweet little kitten.”
“That is obviously out of the question.”
“Why? If a stray he-cat comes around, castration is the best way to keep it from causing problems.”
“Do you think the Moon Prince is a stray he-cat?”
“No, I actually like cats.”
The emperor taps his fingers in the table where they sit, wondering if this is a fruitless endeavor. While every single member of the imperial family adores Maomao with great sincerity, Lakan has never let anyone doubt what his thoughts were about the Moon Prince and Maomao.
It’s not his style to speak sincerely with people outside of the imperial family, and Lakan is a tricky person as it is. He is very hard to talk to, and having conversations with him is notorious unpleasant.
Emperor Yang says, “I will tell you my concern then. I am unsure you are unaware of this event, but some time ago, the prince almost took Maomao as his consort officially. The reason they did not go through with it was the concern about pregnancy, since there are obviously those who would favor him on the throne instead of the crown prince. They decided they could not have a child together, because if they did, it would create danger. Maomao had already collected ingredients to prevent that outcome, and if necessary, erase it.
“If the political situation is the same for them going forward, there is probably a very good chance that when the prince returns, he and Maomao will quietly decide to have an abortion. I don’t think that is what either of them would want, but they will feel it is best. It’s natural to want a child with the one you care about, is it not? Do you want Maomao to have that experience.”
Lakan doesn’t want to have a serious discussion about the fact that Maomao loves the prince. He really doesn’t, because he feels like he never got an opportunity to love her, but she gave this random dope a chance, like he was a handsome prince or something.
The imaginary pregnancy in the emperor’s mind can only end in a few outcomes for Maomao: she might lose it naturally, she might have an abortion, she might birth out of wedlock to an illegitimate child, or she might join the Moon Prince as a consort or wife. There aren’t any other outcomes available, and the emperor labors patiently with this strange, difficult, and oftentimes childish man to make him understand that everyone in both families wants what is best for Maomao.
Lakan doesn’t want Maomao to face humiliation over this pregnancy that is not real, but he struggles to find a solution that avoids that which also doesn’t include joining her with that stupid prince. He thinks the castration idea is great, but the emperor tells him to stop suggesting it.
“That’s not constructive,” Lakan says, mocking the emperor on this, the one night where he is allowed to speak this way because both of them think the Moon Prince got his sweet little Maomao pregnant.
The old men are misguided, terribly wrong about very important matters, but sincere at least in their love for Maomao.
XXX
At a northern estate, the prince is getting ready to leave in the morning and begin his return trip home. Everything has gone amazingly well so far, and he’s quite pleased with his work. They’ve been in the north, and this time of the year, in early summer, the weather is quite nice. Fresh air, cool breezes, plenty of sun.
It’s all been so calm and relaxing.
Most of the bags are packed since they are leaving early.
Gaoshun enters and reports, “Everything is ready to go in the morning. Good weather is expected, so we should arrive on time.”
“Excellent, thank you. I am grateful to you for your assistance on this trip. It went very well, didn’t it?”
“It did. You carry yourself so well as a young man and a prince. Everyone here was impressed with your talent,” the attendant answers.
His gift to Maomao is sitting on a dresser, and as Gaoshun speaks to him, he takes the lid off the porcelain jar and smells it again, crinkling his nose. This is a strange good he’s never seen before, some sort of exotic honey from afar that looks quite odd. It was almost incomprehensibly expensive, so he carries it personally or has Gaoshun do so.
The honey is jet black and glossy, and when they passed the trader who had it, and said it had very potent medicinal properties.
It doesn’t smell good, and he heard it’s quite sour, and generally, he understands not to taste anything he is going to give Maomao because sometimes she’ll say something like, ‘Oh, if you eat five petals of this flower, your big toe will fall off,’ or something to that effect.
The prince is ignorant to any material facts:
Black honey is only produced in very specific conditions in very specific places, and while it does have some generally useful medicinal properties, what it is really famous for and the reason it fetches such a high price is that it is an ingredient that significantly enhances male virility and desire.
More erections! Longer erections! More desire! More semen! More powerful orgasms! More intensity but actually orgasming will take longer! More bloodflow, more swelling, all of it!
The prince is already so horny as a twenty-three year old virgin who is desperately in love that he struggles to contain his passions at times. His drive does not need to be enhanced; it needs to be gently relieved with great care.
Jinshi is a condemned man who is preparing to journey to the gallows with some rope that he hopes to use to offer to his executioner in hopes of making her feel happy. He doesn’t know what people use rope for, but he thinks the lady on the gallows might like to have some. The lady at the gallows knows what kind of rope this is, eight hundred ways to die a noose, and that when she commands him to put around his neck, he will do without question.
“It really doesn’t smell like honey at all.”
“I am sure that Maomao will enjoy such a rare ingredient,” the attendant says.
The prince answers, “I wonder what she will do with it. Maybe she’ll make some medicine that will heal sick children or something. Then maybe I can take a little credit for bringing this to her.”
He will look back at his naivety and find this particular past version of himself innocent and ignorant, and from before that one time he wondered if ‘fuck stroke’ was a real thing that people die from and not just something his head made up because his brain went several hours without adequate amounts of blood due to the contents of this jar.
But for now, he doesn’t know. He’s just a boy who wants to make his girl very happy.
And he will, because she will give him this ingredient and he will be compelled like a man possessed by an evil spirit whose sole dark assignment in this world is fill her with as much semen as possible and absolutely nothing else.
This jar contains the power to release the horny wolf that only occasionally manifests with a loving little nibble and a sniff here and there, from very good boy to very bad woof woof rawwwr!
He smiles and says, “She’s always helping others. She really is special. I’m sure this will help many people, so it’s fine if it was so expensive.”
Gaoshun smiles gently. “I hope so as well. You seem to be in such good spirits right now.”
“Maybe it’s the fresh air, but my mind feels so clear now. I’ve been really frustrated about things lately, because I’m so eager about certain matters. For my own sake, I’ve been trying to make peace with the fact that Maomao and I just have to be more patient. I trust the emperor will allow us to be happy together when it is time.”
Gaoshun is glad to see the prince calm and momentarily in a calm state. His situation is quite complicated, and truthfully, Gaoshun doesn’t know how long it will be before the emperor is willing to release the Moon Prince from his imperial duties and burdens.
As the one who perhaps spent the most time with this young man when he was a child, watching him fall in love with Maomao has been one of the warmest and most fulfilling experiences of his adult life—as precious to him as watching his own children find love in their lives. Gaoshun really wants to see them reach their happy ending too and hopes it doesn’t take too long.
Prince Yue adds, “I’m really excited for Basen too. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know him. Now he’s a dad. Are you excited to meet your new grandson?”
Gaoshun beams a bit. “I am. My wife said in her letter that Lishu is such a good little mother, and Basen is doing so well as a father.”
The idea of Lishu as a mother is just the kind of sickly sweet, lovely thing that no one could hate, like eating a piece of candy. Since joining the Ma clan, she’s changed so much, and they’ve been so good for her. She had powerful women to encourage her and have her back, and the intense, unwavering love of Basen.
Gaoshun wonders if the prince feels left behind, as he and Basen had gone through many things together as they grew up. Basen has gone on as a man to become married with a child, and the prince still waits in uncertainty.
Jinshi says, “Now and then, I think maybe it would be nice if Maomao and I could raise children alongside Basen and Lishu, and continue the tradition of raising Ma and Ka children together. But there are a lot of obstacles preventing that. I honestly don’t even know if Maomao wants to be a mother.”
“You’ve never discussed it with Xiaomao?”
“We talked about how we can’t have one right now once, and that was kind of a low point for me. Like, as a man. That I wouldn’t be able to provide a safe life for my child. There are some things that aren’t even about being imperial. She showed up with ingredients because she knew she couldn’t have a child with me, and that really stung. When I think about it, it still hurts.”
This is a heavy subject, and the prince doesn’t want it to be too heavy because he’s trying to stay positive, so he adds, “And one time I gave her alcohol, and she drank it and told me that she wants to give birth someday so she can eat her own placenta. She spent ten minutes talking about what how she would eat her own afterbirth and did not at any time, actually mention what she would do with the baby.”
Sometimes, Maomao is very weird and very gross, and the prince just accepts this side of her unflinchingly despite the fact that is such a strange and off-putting for one human being to utter to another human being.
Gaoshun wonders what would cause that woman that she would look into her lover’s eyes and say to him that she wants to eat human placenta. And he, loving her so completely, just sort of accepts that she should be able to do whatever she wants in life.
They really do belong together.
A normal woman would bore him to death, and a normal man would be unable to comprehend or appreciate Maomao in any sort of meaningful way.
Gaoshun asks, “Do you want to have children someday?”
Once, Gaoshun asked him this question and he emphatically insisted he would never have children because they’d just be political complications for him and he didn’t feel any need to. He was nineteen then, and Maomao had made her appearance in his life already, but he wasn’t fully in love then.
“I always think about how unhappy I was growing up, or how complicated it would make things, or how I don’t really know what a good father is like. But I think about it more now, especially since Lishu got pregnant. It seems like that was really special, right? Not really like when a concubine in the rear palace has a child. Different.”
Neither Maomao nor the prince understand anything about intimacy.
Maomao has so much information about sex but views it as a list of techniques and tasks to be done to achieve a specific goal. Like someone who knows how to play an instrument but doesn’t understand that sometimes music is about expression and not entertainment.
They both have bad impressions about pregnancy and birth. In a brothel, having a child is a curse; Maomao was someone’s curse. In the harem, it’s business, a task to be completed because the work needs to be done.
The emperor loves his children, and he does have sex with his concubines, but he rarely engages in the kind of genuine intimacy that commoners freely enjoy in their daily lives.
“The idea of Maomao with a little pregnant belly is just really, really cute to me. I occasionally dream about her like that,” he admits.
Gaoshun considers this and decides yes, pregnant Maomao would be very cute.
The prince’s pining being at the level of ‘dreaming of Maomao carrying his child’ is an interesting insight too.
Since there’s not much that can happen at this point with the prince’s future still undecided by the emperor, daydreaming about such things just makes the prince frustrated. He desperately wants to be at peace and be patient with the emperor, but he wonders how long he will be made to wait.
Gaoshun sees his countenance shift and adds, “With good weather, the return trip should be pleasant. I am sure you’re eager to return home. I’m sure everyone is looking forward to your return.”
At that moment, Maomao is in her room mashing raspberry leaf by candlelight to enhance her uterus for his return, Lakan is asking the emperor to cut his penis off, the emperor is denying this request, Gyokuyou is laughing like a madwoman as she listens from the hallway, and news of Maomao’s nonexistent pregnancy has inadvertently spread to a third party because Lihaku accidentally overheard the emperor and Grand Commandant arguing as he walked down that hallway to deliver a message to the night guards.
Lihaku is bad at keeping secrets and when it comes to Pairin, and when he arrives at his appointment the next night, he chants in his head that he will not say the thing that he is not supposed to know.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
Don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it, don’t say it.
He'll be fine. All he has to do is not say it. All he has to do is not tell people that Maomao knows and loves like family that Maomao is pregnant, because if he overheard if from the Grand Commandant and the emperor, there’s no way it couldn’t be true, right?
But he’s not going to say it, because he is a trusted officer, and this time, he’s not going to tell Pairin state secrets when his penis is in her mouth even though she didn’t ask because her mouth was full and he just…volunteered the information freely.
This time, Lihaku is going to keep his mouth shut because he is a respectable adult with self-control.
Pairin asks, “Have you seen our little Maomao lately? How’s she doing?”
Lihaku very calmly answers, “PREGNANT! She’s pregnant! Little Lady is pregnant! The Moon Prince did it, and her old man is so mad that the he wants to cut his dick off!”
Pairin smiles. “Really? Our little Maomao?!”
She runs to the doorway and shouts, “Madam! Master Lihaku brings us news about Maomao. It’s wonderful!”
The old lady, sitting beside Joka, her apprentice, yells, “Oh? What’s she up to now?”
“She’s going to have a baby!”
The old woman almost falls off her chair. “My Maomao? My Maomao?”
“Yes, a mother!”
Word spreads through Verdigris House quickly that Maomao is carrying the Moon Prince’s child, and unfortunately, that also means that the patrons, who are largely high ranking nobles, also overhear, but they overhear over alcohol and partying and the haze of ignorance.
The news that spreads here among patrons is that ‘the Moon Prince got someone at Verdigris House pregnant,’ but the word that spreads among the employees is that Maomao and her sweet prince are going to welcome a child. This leads to the emergence of a third rumor, that he got a courtesan and a medical officer pregnant.
None of these things is correct.
As Lihaku gets ready to leave in the morning, the Deputy Minister of the Treasury sees him as they both spent the night there. “Oh, you’re…Lihaku, is it?”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Would you like to head back to the palace with me? I have a carriage.”
“That’s such a kind offer. I would appreciate that.”
Except once they get in, the man whispers, “Did you hear that rumor that the Moon Prince got one of the Verdigris House ladies pregnant? I wonder which one. Maybe Joka? Maybe not. They’d just sit there and stare in disdain trying to figure out which one was prettier. And some other woman who works in the medical office as well.”
Empress Gyokuyou imagines she is part of the solution, but Lihaku knows that he is part of the problem, and rather than correcting his mistake, quietly purses his lips and just hopes none of this comes back to visit him because he’s just a nice guy who loves a girl and wants her to know all of his secrets.
Chapter 3: The Fox Must Be Kicked
Chapter Text
It really is kind of a downer for the emperor, having to mentally prepare himself to be an uncle and not a grandfather. The Sun Emperor made a person, and that person made a person—at least, in his mind, and he just wants to be a little bit happy about that.
Why can’t he be a grandfather?!
Blah, blah, blah, imperial succession. Of course it’s easier for him to go if he’s the ‘brother’ and not the ‘firstborn son ordained by the gods.’
As he passes through a hallway at his home, he sees Princess Lingli sitting in the parlor with her mother and brother. The little boy is playing with some blocks, Lingli is drawing with western colored wax on some paper, and the empress is watching over them while she reads a book.
Princess Lingli consistently lifts his spirits, so he sits next to her at the little table and asks, “Well hello, Princess. What’s Papa’s special girl doing?”
“Drawing a picture of the prettiest lady in the world, Mama.”
Emperor Yang points to himself and asks, “Does that make me the most handsome man in the world?”
Lingli never looks up from her page. “I don’t think it works like that.”
“Okay, well then who is more handsome than your Papa?”
“Uncle Yue. He’s the most handsome man in the world.”
There is a noise…not a full laugh, but a giggle that has been held in, and he cranes his head to find delight in his wife’s eyes as she peeks at him over the top of her book.
Gyokuyou is also a cat, but a different sort of cat than Maomao. She’s like a fluffy, beautiful orange cat with a full shiny coat made from silky fur and gemstone green eyes. She is the type of cat that knows she’s so beautiful the humans worship her—their problem, really. She enjoys playtime, and she’ll sit on his lap if he asks (this is where the children came from after all), but her favorite thing to do is to lounge about and quietly watch the chaos of the world.
Lingli is basically a fuzzy little orange kitten who has become old enough to play and begin her own mischief, often unknowingly.
The emperor says, “Are you sure Prince Yue is more handsome than me? I am your papa.”
“Mhmm.”
She’s still just looking down at her little drawing of her mother, the Prettiest Lady in the World.
The emperor can feel his wife’s amusement. She has the most playful eyes, and a sense of mischief that somehow makes her more lovely. Yes, she is prettiest when she is appreciating some sort of anarchy that she never causes but always seems to be around for.
Lingli says, “Mr. Basen is handsome too. Mr. Gaoshun. Kumo.”
“Kumo is a dog, Lingli,” the emperor answers.
“He’s a handsome dog.”
Gyokuyou thoroughly delights in the fact that Lingli is old enough to fully express her thoughts but too young to filter them. It’s such a rewarding stage of motherhood, and makes her want a third child now and then. If Maomao did actually get pregnant, she might be persuaded as she thinks parenting with Maomao would be quite a fun experience.
Lingli is quiet for a while, and then just starts to say men’s names, like she’s naming every single man that she knows to add to her list of ‘men who are more handsome than papa.’
The emperor scowls; he’s just not allowed to have anything. Can’t be a grandpa due to a lie spanning across two and a half decades that is so old now telling the truth would be inconvenient and he has to be an ‘uncle’ instead. And his daughter apparently thinks her dog is more handsome than he is.
Lingli stops drawing for a minute and looks up at him to find he seems playfully displeased.
She really looks up at him, as if she is, in all of her youth, trying to understand why he seems unhappy. It is a moment for her, trying to comprehend the thoughts and feelings of her father, and after great consideration, she says, “Mama says some people are only pretty on the inside.”
This is a misinterpretation of Gyokuyou’s actual lesson for her daughter, that inner beauty matters most, but she’s four. Comically misinterpreting information is one of her personality traits at this stage.
She comforts him like someone talking to a pubescent girl who has not been blessed by the gods with good looks or charm.
“…But Mama is pretty on the inside and the outside. Like Uncle Yue. But I love you the most because you’re my papa!” she says, jumping into his arms to hug him and give him a kiss on the cheek.
She wounds, and then she heals, like a kitten that bites for no reason and then wants to snuggle and purr afterward.
Like his oldest son, he’s a man who loves cats, after all.
Gyokuyou puts the children to bed, and when he enters her chamber, she asks, “You don’t want to visit the rear palace? It’s my time of the month as you know.”
The emperor says, “I’m too tired. The rear palace is exhausting.”
“Maybe you just need a schedule. You could service them twice a year if you visited five of them each night.”
“Even courtesans and prostitutes get a day off.”
Gyokuyou says, “The tireless father of our nation never stops working for the people of Li. Sounds like you need to get to the fathering.”
Pout. Pout. Pout. Pout. Pout.
When he joins her in bed, he says, “Do you think Zuigetsu is more handsome than me?”
“Darling, I don’t think you should ask anyone else that question. Obviously you are the most handsome man in all the world.”
Pout. Pout. Pout. Pout. Pout.
Gyokuyou says, “I think it’s cute how much she adores her uncle. I think they look a lot alike, don’t you? She’s got his perfect little doll face.”
Emperor Yang thinks often about how when Zuigetsu was a little boy, people saw how handsome he was and decided he must be a bastard child because he was so good looking that there was no possible way he was related to any of the men in the imperial family. Hidden in plain sight, because it didn’t occur to anyone—ever—that he might have made such a beautiful child.
One of the most salacious rumors that floats around is that because Gyokuyou’s children are such attractive creatures, and they both look resemble Zuigetsu, that she had an affair with Zuigetsu while he managed the rear palace. Because obviously, they didn’t get their beauty from the emperor.
In reality, they all look alike because they are siblings and he made them, but he is an artist who doesn’t get any credit at all for the art.
He can’t even tell people that he is the artist of the oldest one.
There is insult in saying, ‘Trust me this isn’t my son,’ and literally everyone in the world answered, ‘Yes, we believe that completely. He’s handsome. No questions here.’
Gyokuyou knows how to lift his spirits, and says, “I’m sure you’ve been blessed in other ways compared to your brother. You were endowed well by the gods,” as her hand slides under the covers.
“I appreciate you attempting to brighten my mood, but his is much bigger. I have no idea how much bigger it must be when it is ready for service. It’s probably a miracle he didn’t kill Maomao with it.”
“My poor little Maomao!” she says hiding her face with the covers so she can once again giggle.
The emperor says, “When she talked to Lakan and me. She just…looked her own father right into his eyes with this weird sort of disdain that she has for him and told him how she was filled up twice and couldn’t stop herself. Told him how she usually puts him in her mouth and implied she finds it delicious. Zuigetsu’s cat has such unimaginable, carnal greed trapped inside her tiny little body.”
Gyokuyou really does try to control herself because if she laughs so hard she dies, then she will never get to see what happens next, and she can’t have that.
Sometimes Maomao encounters perilous amounts of foolishness in the wild, and as she has no will to remedy the bad thinking of other people, she simply drifts through it and her innate chaos makes everything worse. She doesn’t understand; she chooses not to understand. She grants no understanding to anyone else.
Gyokuyou and Gaoshun have jokingly given this very specific sort of event a name in honor for the first time they observed this curious phenomenon.
Yang and Lakan were Lihakued by Maomao.
This is all so lovely.
She’s so excited she can barely sleep, but she has to sleep, because the prince is expected back the next day.
Near the infirmary, Maomao awakens that morning, dresses, enjoys her morning off, eats another mysterious meal from the emperor’s kitchen, and ponders life. A package arrives for her, from Verdigris House, and when she opens it, it contains lingerie. Nothing but lingerie. A lot of it, brand new, the high grade stuff the courtesans wear that makes them look like goddesses and causes men to empty their pockets and their testicles.
The madam had written a note congratulating her for finally completing her mission and on her new baby, and perhaps she would know that everyone at Verdigris House thought she was pregnant if Pairin had actually remembered to put the letter in the box before it was sent. But she didn’t, so Maomao received this box without any context at all.
It is a gift for her, because the madam thinks that since she is pregnant—at least as far as the madam’s knowledge is concerned—the prince will certainly marry her. That’s all he’s been trying to do all long anyway. Now he has an excuse. This trunk of silky thrills is supposed to be a blessing for that marriage.
Maomao understands what lingerie is used for.
She doesn’t understand why it has appeared in her room.
The highest grade lingerie is really only worn by courtesans and the concubines of rich nobles, and it’s quite expensive. Considering how stingy the madam is, this appearance of this trunk is possibly the most suspicious thing yet.
Eating the same meals as the emperor is lavish and unexplained, but he’s actually quite generous, so it’s not entirely unheard of for him to treat someone quite well. The madam spending money unnecessarily is considerably more suspicious.
There are signs that something is going on: the madam spent money, the emperor is feeding her, the empress is moving about with this strange glimmer of mischief in her eyes, people are whispering around her, Lakan is being quite a pest…
It really is better not to know, she decides.
She wonders if the prince might like to see her wearing these? Maybe she could do a little show for him? She knows some erotic dance moves, being raised in a brothel. While she’s not particularly inclined to dancing in general, lap dancing seems like it would be easier since it doesn’t really require any sort of natural grace.
Perhaps she’ll ask if he wants a lap dance later after he returns? She wonders if the Grand Imperial Amphibian would like that sort of thing? As much as she has at times been annoyed at Jinshi’s dog behaviors, she’s been thinking a lot about how she kind of wants to tease him so bad that he loses his mind and has his way with her as he growls and nips at her neck. Consensually, of course, but she wants to be reminded how much stronger he is than her.
Maomao hasn’t even met the amphibian, and yet she thinks about it all the time. Her body aches for something she has never seen or touched, and it’s really driving her crazy. All politics side, even if she can’t get pregnant today, today is the day that she will meet the Grand Imperial Amphibian.
Maybe she’ll wear something from this trunk, and some lipstick, and…well, isn’t there some western fairytale about kissing a frog prince, or kissing a prince’s frog or something like that? She knows it involves lips and a frog and a prince, and she has all of those ingredients so she figures it’ll work out nicely.
Maomao is sure that the prince will allow this introduction. She thinks he really wants to show it to her. Like really, really, really wants to show it to her.
On a road not far, the prince is napping peacefully in a carriage: angelic, unbothered, a mere one hour from the palace.
Gaoshun is quite relaxed, believing that everything has gone well during the trip. Sometimes, when he steps away from the capitol, situations emerge that seem difficult to manage, but nothing has been reported to him.
It’s just so incredibly rare for everyone to be competent at the same time. He’s so proud of everyone on a job well done and looking forward to making his report to the emperor and then heading home to meet his new grandson.
He’s exceptionally impressed with Basen, who both became a father and has reportedly done an excellent job attending to the emperor.
Gaoshun looks at the jar of black honey; someone they crossed paths while travelling knew what it was used for and told him. The prince didn’t hear, and Gaoshun is left wondering if he should maybe preemptively confiscate the honey and give the prince the souvenir he got for his own wife to give Maomao instead.
It just really seems like giving Maomao the black honey is similar in nature to giving a military grenadier a box of gunpowder and hoping they don’t make a bomb.
The prince can barely contain his affections as it is. He is young and virile, in the prime of his life. He does not need to be enhanced. He need relief, affection, and understanding from Maomao, not a drive-enhancing grenade he will definitely swallow the very first time she asks.
He sighs.
If these two ever figure it out, he’s going to be so relieved.
Maomao, meanwhile, goes to the infirmary to work because she has no idea that her entire world is about to be blown up by the foolishness that has quietly been churning around her this past week.
She mixes medicines.
She treats a kitchen burn.
She considers what the Grand Imperial Amphibian will look like.
She works on putting away a new order.
She remembers how Pairin told her that when she has it in her mouth, not to look away from his gaze.
She gives some medicine to a military medical officer to replenish the military’s stores.
She thinks about what it will taste like.
Luomen works alongside his daughter, who is just in a different place as she goes about her work. He considers asking her if she’s all right, but her pupils are dilated, she’s breathing much more heavily than she needs to, and the vein in her neck shows her heart rate is accelerated.
That man is due back, and he thinks she has been anticipating his arrival.
He’ll just leave her in her happy little world.
Then Lakan enters the infirmary while they work on charts together, causing Maomao’s happy little world to simply cease existing for the time being.
Luomen says, “Oh, nephew! What a surprise. It’s always nice when we’re all together, isn’t it?”
Maomao answers, “Nice in what way, exactly?”
“Now, Maomao, the day is too lovely for unpleasantry,” Luomen answers.
Lakan has come to check on his daughter, who he believes is pregnant. He has brought an offering with him, from his genuine concern and care. “These are for you,” he says, holding out a wooden box she recognizes as being from an expensive shop in the capitol that sells different kinds of sweets.
Inside of the box are ginger drops poured into elaborate little floral shapes.
Since sucking on ginger candies is a well-known remedy for pregnancy-related nausea, and because she is planning on becoming pregnant, is it possible that Lakan somehow gave her a gift she will actually like and appreciate?
It doesn’t matter if she does like this gift, because one thing that Maomao has always known is that this stray fox must never be shown the slightest sign of kindness or acceptance or she will never be rid of him.
The fox, when it appears, must always be kicked.
If it is being good, it will be kicked.
If it is being bad, it will be kicked even harder.
Maomao asks, “Is there something we can do for you, Grand Commandant?”
“Just checking on my darling precious petunia. Are you well?”
“Worse now that you are here.”
Lakan says, “I just wanted to ensure that you were feeling well.”
Maomao answers, “This is my job, where I work. I don’t show up to your job for personal reasons.”
“Do you want to?! That would make so very happy! Come visit me at my job at any time! I will stop everything I’m doing no matter how important it is and we can do whatever you want. My petunia is more important than work.”
The fox must always be kicked.
The young woman says, “This is an infirmary, where we treat disease. You, a Brothel Crawler, are a source of disease. If you do not have official business, please return to your own work.”
“Brothel Crawler?” Lakan repeats with a frown. “Okay, but have you considered…Papa?”
“No.”
“Will you consider it?”
“No.”
Lakan says, “Why don’t you come stay with me, and I will take care of you from now on. You don’t need that stupid prince.”
MUST KICK FOX.
“But he’s a good kisser.”
Maomao expects this to have a really dramatic effect on Lakan, but it really doesn’t, because Lakan believes she’d told him all about their sex life. Saying she kisses him really just has no effect on him whatsoever because he is so deeply traumatized by his own misunderstanding.
She’s disappointed that he’s not disappointed. Her expectation was that she’d tell him she kisses the prince, and he’d fall over and need help getting off the floor. But nothing. He gave her nothing. She kicked, and he shrugged. It’s incredibly unfulfilling as she fully expected to damage his psyche.
Lakan leaves the infirmary because it’s clear she is annoyed, and he doesn’t want her to be stressed out in her nonexistent delicate state.
After he leaves, Maomao finds herself wondering why he wasn’t bothered.
Was it possible that Lakan had maybe accepted her feelings for the prince on some level? Sure, he said he wanted her to come stay with him, but when she said she kisses the prince, nothing happened.
Luomen is really very puzzled by the whole exchange, and when Lakan leaves, he asks, “You seem disappointed. Did your father say something to make you upset?”
“I wanted him to be mad I said I kiss the prince,” she grumbles.
Luomen asks, “Well, accepting your affections for the man you’ve chosen would be quite a sign of grown and personal development for Lakan. It seems natural that you would want his approval, or at least his respect for your decision.”
The old man’s voice is so calm and steady, so reassuring. So comforting! It has to be because everyone else in his family is criminally insane and yet they all seem to find their ways into high positions in the government.
Maomao answers, “I don’t want him to approve or accept. I want him to disapprove of my choices and hate Master Jinshi. I want him to be mad about it until he dies. Besides, one of the most attractive things about Master Jinshi is that the old fart hates him. Said old fart accepting him would diminish his beauty.”
“Maomao.”
“Yes?”
“That is all deeply unhealthy and incredibly concerning. Sometimes, I really worry about you,” he gently says.
“You don’t need to worry about me, Dad. I’ll be fine.”
When she goes back to check on a patient, Luomen hears a carriage outside.
Jinshi steps out into the bright sun, a crease on his face from his nap. This is his first stop; he wanted to see Maomao first before anything else.
Luomen often lingers near the front of the infirmary since it’s the central point of command and he’s less mobile than any of the other staff, so he is there alone, sitting at a large desk.
Gaoshun kicks himself mentally as they enter the infirmary to visit Maomao because the prince is carrying this huge glass jar of black honey. He doesn’t know it’s used for enhancing male sexual performance; he’s steady been thinking this whole time that she’s going to use it to save sick children, cure illness, and so forth.
In Yue’s mind, the black honey is an ambivalent substance that will heal and save.
Luomen looks at it and knows there’s basically only one thing it’s really used for and even though he likes the prince just fine, he’s not sure how he feels about this boy walking around with a substance he is going to use to do sexual things to his precious little Maomao.
It just seems like it’s in bad taste.
“Good afternoon, Master Luomen. Are you well?”
“Y-Yes…I think? Mostly. And yourself?”
“Doing quite well. Excited to see Maomao again.”
Luomen looks down at the black honey again. “I bet you are. Very excited to see her.”
“Yes! It’s been so long.”
Even longer now, after a few doses of that…Luomen thinks, his thoughts making his mouth dry. Does he like this prince? This just seems so shameless, first of all to buy enough black honey to inseminate the entire Inner Court and secondly, to brandish it in front of him?
Gaoshun sends his strongest telepathic vibes across the room, saying ‘He doesn’t know what it does,’
Luomen does not receive them.
Maybe Lakan was right and they should try and keep her away from this animal? What is he going to do to her?!
The other medical officers, hearing the prince has come to visit, make their way to the front of the infirmary to bow and show their respect to them, like they do each time he appears, almost always in search of Maomao.
He stands there, so casually and with such a friendly and innocent face, holding his giant jar of black honey. Everyone in the room knows what it is except him, and he does not pick up on the weird stares because why would he—he’s never read a room successfully in his life, and he’s not going to start today.
Maomao hears his voice as he greets the others, and they stand mostly silent and a little grossed out. Even a little spoonful can turn a man into an unstoppable machine, what is this man going to do to Maomao with two full liters? And considering the cost—in a year where taxes were raised?!
“Master Jinshi! How was your—”
Her eyes grow wide when she spots the glass jar and he holds it out with an innocent smile.
It’s just…such a nasty gift for them to exchange in the company of others. Everyone in the room is disgusted except Jinshi, who doesn’t know what he is doing, and Maomao who only sees the delight and wonder of a rare ingredient.
“Pearl Peak Black Honey?! Could it be?!”
He’s so happy that she likes it, and she’s so happy that she thinks this means he also wants to have tons of incredibly rough sex with her.
“Thank you! We’re always on the same page!”
Gaoshun sighs.
They have never been on the same page. He’s not even sure if they’ve ever been in same section of the library at the same time, as Maomao is usually quietly tucked away in the mystery section, sitting on a stack of pornographic tomes while she reads about poison and the prince is reading joke books because he is depressed and wants to leave the palace.
Maomao’s ability to discuss sexual topics freely out in the open actually wasn’t that unwelcome in the rear palace, but in the infirmary where she works with those who are not concubines or brothel workers it is deeply unsettling.
She starts going on because she’s just so excited! “This is the most potent male sex enhancing substance known to mankind. It’s said just a few drops can make an old man young again for a few hours and even increase semen and fertility. In brothels, we reserve this for the absolute wealthiest clients when it’s available.”
Jinshi’s brain briefly stops working and he blinks a few times as he tries to restart it again. “I’m sorry, it’s used for what?”
Luomen mumbles to himself, “Oh, he didn’t know.”
Another person, “He didn’t know.”
The onlookers realize this isn’t an unrepentant pervert expressing his wishes in public; he’s just a very nice idiot.
They whisper, and they all quietly slip away to go back to their work and hide from the disaster that those two always seem to be. Luomen also decides to go to the back with them because one minute of that and he felt like he was ten years older and he’s already old to start with.
This leaves the prince and Maomao, and Gaoshun, who stands by the door also feeling like he is ten years older than he was one minute ago.
Sometimes Maomao’s presence is like running face-first into a brick wall for the prince, because he didn’t even get to greet her properly or digest the fact that her appearance changed significantly in his absence before she started yelling perverted things at him.
She has little boobies, they have shape, they have form, they have a slight heaviness. She’s gained weight. Her hair is different, and shiny from deep conditioning. Her skin is freckle-less. Glowing.
Jinshi walks around her fully, taking little snapshots with his mind so that he can think about all of this once he recovers from running into this brick wall for the thousandth time in his life.
“Maomao, you look very nice? Did something happen while I was gone?”
“It’s a long story. I’ll explain later. How was your trip?” she asks.
The prince answers, “It was nice. What did you…what did you mean when you said we were on the same page? What page was that?”
Maomao says, “I was mistaken.”
“I would like to know about this page, please! What page are you on?”
“It’s not important.”
Jinshi also says, “Also, I didn’t realize what that stuff is. I’ll take it back and get you something else. I apologize if you thought I was trying to give you a perverted gift. In front of your dad. And your coworkers. I am…so sorry.”
When he reaches for it, her hands clench it with surprising force and she says, “No need. This gift is just fine.”
“I insist. You deserve a much finer gift.”
Maomao tugs it back toward her. “Master Jinshi, it’s the thought that counts. I’m sure you had the most noble intentions. Perhaps you thought this ingredient would save the lives of others. And therefore, I will accept this gift.”
The prince tugs at it. “Maomao, I have given you a gift that you cannot use and therefore insist on replacing it with one that might be of some utility to you.”
“How foolish of you to think that I would leave any ingredient unused. This is a rare item of high value and will make excellent use of it,” she answers, tugging it back toward her.
Jinshi asks, “And just who do you plan on administering this ingredient to besides me?”
“Well, Master Jinshi. Medicine is for everyone and not just you.”
“So you plan on enhancing the sexual drive of other men with this gift that I brought you?”
“Now you’re just being jealous,” she answers.
Jinshi says, “Do you think that I need enhancement?”
“Of course not. What if I just used it for experiments? On an animal, that will not be hurt?”
This seems reasonable, maybe. If no one is getting horny or harmed, maybe that is okay? The prince considers it, hands still clasping the jar, some of his fingers overlapping hers.
Jinshi asks, “What kind of animal are you going to give this to?”
Feline mischief flashes in her eyes and she whispers so Gaoshun can’t hear, “A frog!”
“I can’t even believe I almost fell for that!”
The tug the jar back and forth, getting closer and closer, and when they’re close enough, Maomao cops the puppy eyes and soft voice, bites her bottom lip and says, “Please, Master Jinshi? I’ll be a good girl.”
To him, this is just so cute that he is instantly disarmed and incapable of denying his request. “Fine. You can keep it.”
The young woman hugs him briefly and then runs down the hall to lock up the black honey, leaving a rather impish giggle echoing off the hallways.
Jinshi takes a deep breath. “That was mistake. Should I be scared? I’m a little scared.”
“Yes,” Gaoshun answers.
While Maomao is gone, the door opens again, and as all of the other staff have fled from the front room due to Jinshi and Maomao being themselves as always, there’s no one else there besides the two men.
It is Basen, the unwitting attendant to the Carnival of Errors that has taken place this week, mostly without his knowledge. He has helped nothing, prevented nothing, clarified no misconceptions, and rectified no mistakes. On the precipice of chaos, he reports to his father.
Gaoshun embraces his son because this is the first time he has seen him since Basen’s son was born. “Are you well? And your wife and child?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And things here?”
“No serious incidents. Everything has gone well. Although I did overhear the Grand Commandant asking the emperor if Prince Yue could be castrated like thirty times. He was the only one yelling so I don’t know what they were talking about.”
The prince stares at Basen, confused about how ‘everything has gone well’ and ‘the leader of the military wants to castrate you’ go together. Jinshi’s tone is rather mild and a bit confused as he says, “Lakan was repeatedly demanding my castration? Well, that just seems kind of rude.”
Jinshi thinks for a while, but he as far as he knows, he can’t imagine a reason that Lakan would be acutely angry with him. He doesn’t like him, but Lakan’s opinion of him went from neutral to abysmal years ago and to his knowledge, there’s no reason for it to be worse.
In fact, Jinshi thought maybe he had made some minimal progress toward earning Lakan’s respect.
Jinshi asks, “Basen, did you remember to deliver his birthday present?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Maybe he didn’t like it?”
Basen asks, “Do you think Lakan wants to have your dick cut off because you sent him a bad birthday gift?”
Jinshi says, “I don’t know why that man does anything.”
Gaoshun thinks the oddest piece of information here is that Lakan loudly demanded the prince, the emperor’s brother, face ritual mutilation and the emperor allowed him to repeatedly make this request without punishing him, which implies that the emperor at least understood whatever craziness that Lakan was expressing.
Asking for a man’s genitals to be removed suggested a very specific type of offense. In some countries, if someone steals, their arm is cut off, for instance. Castration implies an offense was related to sex, obviously.
He considers Maomao’s appearance: the glowing skin, the weight gain, the noticeable and striking change in her chest area.
Surely not.
Gaoshun doesn’t think these two have had sex, and generally, he thinks when it does that the prince will talk to him about in some form or fashion. Maomao isn’t formally bound to him, so if they lost control of their passions and she found out she was pregnant while they were away, that might explain both Maomao’s appearance and Lakan wanting the prince to be punished as well as why the emperor might tolerate Lakan’s anger.
When Maomao returns from the back, the prince says, “Do you know why Lakan hates me more than usual?”
Maomao asks, “He hates you?”
“Yes. Definitely more than before I left. He apparently has been calling for my castration before the emperor.”
She lets out a sigh at the proof that Lakan still hates Jinshi, and says, “What a relief!”
This is just a very confusing utterance for the two attendants and the prince, who exclaims, “Excuse me?! What do you mean ‘what a relief?!’ Do you want me to be castrated?!”
“Of course not. Then the black honey would be worthless.”
“Then what part is the relief?!”
“It’s difficult to explain. It would take too long. I wish no harm on the amphibian.”
While Jinshi and Maomao have an animated discussion, Gaoshun pulls his son aside and whispers, “Basen, is it the case that Maomao is pregnant and you have been asked not to say anything?”
Basen, in his Squareness, answers, “No one has said anything to me.”
“Have you heard rumors?”
“There’s a rumor floating around that the prince got like six women from the Pleasure District pregnant during some giant orgy involving a live human sacrifice or something like that. You know how the court is.”
Gaoshun frowns because what can he even say to that? The good news is that false gossip often mutates from one form to another until it became so absurd everyone realizes that it was never true and it passes out of social circles without permanence.
“Nothing from senior officials or the imperial family?”
“No.”
“No signs that a pregnancy might be the subject of Lakan and the emperor’s discussions?”
“None whatsoever.”
Gaoshun looks back at Maomao, and then back at Basen. He dips his toe into the Idiot Plot experimentally, to see how it feels. He’s not willing to commit, but he can tell that there’s something amiss. A fire is burning somewhere, and Basen definitely hasn’t been able to smell the smoke.
Basen suddenly snaps his fingers. “I totally forgot why I came here. The emperor wants to see the prince right away, privately, in his office with him and the Grand Commandant.”
Chapter Text
And so the unsuspecting prince makes his way to the emperor’s office, having lived an entire week with his brother-father-emperor believing he defiled and impregnated the daughter of the least pleasant clan leader in all of the land.
The only thing he really cares about is that he got to see his Maomao and she makes his world so sunny and perfect. Perhaps there was a little mixup and he brandished a substance known to Luomen in the Pleasure District as Sex Venom in his presence and also in front of all of her coworkers, but that was in the past!
Jinshi is daydreaming about how charming Maomao is, walking with his eyes closed and a happy little smile on his face.
Gaoshun thinks this is like a man whistling and skipping along to a location where he will be bludgeoned in the brain with a brick repeatedly for an offense he does not appear to be aware of.
Prince Yue stops. “Didn’t Maomao look extra cute today?”
Gaoshun says. “It is as you say.”
“I don’t care about anything the emperor has to say. I just want to linger in Maomao’s personal space until she gets mad and leaves to go somewhere else. And then I’ll go there,” he answers.
Basen answers, “That’s exactly what being married is like.”
Gaoshun makes a note to burn some incense and pray for Lishu, a newborn baby and Basen? May the gods grant her peace and patience.
He really wants to go see her be a little mama since the baby was born while they were gone, but instead, he’s here, on his way to watch the prince get the brick. As they walk, the prince hums a little out of his joy that he got to see his kitty cat and she was adorable. People they pass, having heard various rumors, whisper quietly, as if they are also sure the prince is about to get to have trials and tribulations thanks to Lihaku.
At their arrival, no one else has arrived for the meeting yet, and so the prince enters with the attendants.
The emperor’s office has a front room where his personal secretary works, a room with a desk where papers are piled comically high, and an adjacent sitting room for small meetings.
Visibly nervous, the emperor’s secretary is putting out tea and refreshments in the sitting room, some little fancy cookies shaped like flowers at a table situated between two sofas. Once that is done, he flees back into his reception room and shuts the door like he is running from a fire.
Gaoshun and Basen post up at the door while the prince sits on one of the couches and eats a cookie.
Jinshi is just so happy. He did good work on his trip, made it home safely, and got to reunite with his mischievous little kitty cat. He has a cookie. How could life be better?
Lakan arrives second, and Gaoshun considers just keeping him in the reception area until the emperor arrives because he actually is kind of unruly, but he is wearing some sort of strange medical apparatus that appears to be for his bad back and it doesn’t look like he can move well enough to cause a real problem.
“Grand Commandant, welcome. The emperor has not arrived yet. Did you injure your back again?”
Basen looks away like he doesn’t know anything about this, and Lakan says, “I have a small hairline fracture to my back due to being attacked by that violent brute you call a son.”
This doesn’t sound like something Basen would do, and Gaoshun prickles at the accusation toward his family.
Basen quickly says, “Maomao told me to do it.”
Gaoshun presses his lips together so tightly as he shows Lakan to the sitting area and then grabs Basen by the ear and drags him out into the hallway, where he slaps Basen upside the head so hard that for the briefest moment, Basen’s Squareness became perfectly round.
Basen experiences one half-second of omniscience but then forgets all the knowledge in the universe right away and is left possibly even more square, with ringing ears.
Lakan, meanwhile, sits on the couch across from where the prince is sitting, on the opposite side of the table.
There are two very distinct energies in the room, because one of them is a happy boy with a flower cookie and the other one wants to commit murder and bathe in the blood of his enemy.
Jinshi thinks to himself that Lakan really knows how to kill a good mood, and they sit in silence. He doesn’t want to start the meeting without the emperor, but he does kind of want to know why this man has been aggressively lobbying for his castration.
The prince says, “So uhhh…how have you been, Grand Commandant Khan?”
Lakan just glares at him.
Since Lakan doesn’t recognize faces, the prince always wonders how it is that he maintains eye contact. It seems like he isn’t looking at Jinshi but rather, fixing his stare directly on Jinshi’s eyeballs as a means of intimidation. It’s very weird and gross, and it makes eye contact with Lakan a very unsettling experience. Even if a person doesn’t know about his handicap, there’s something about it that just feels incredibly weird and unnatural.
Since he didn’t answer, the prince says, “I’ve been doing quite well. Love having all my body parts attached, in case you needed that information for some reason.”
“I don’t care what you like.”
“Okay, well. Do you know what this meeting is about?”
Lakan doesn’t want to get into the details at this time because starting the discussion without the emperor would be inappropriate, but he also wants to say something. Words float around in his mind, and as he glares directly at the prince’s eyeballs, so the prince knows how serious he is, he tries to choose the best one.
Finally, he says one single word. But, loudly.
“FORNICATION!”
Still holding a half-eaten cookie in hand, the prince stares blankly, confused, because he was just sure this was some sort of administrative meeting. His best guess was that the prince wanted to talk about military fortifications in the north because Lakan is the commander of the army and no one invites him to meetings for his pleasant presence and conversation skills.
Fornication? The act of sexual relations between a man and a woman who is not his concubine or wife? Why would they be having a meeting about that?!
Lakan repeats the word, as if he expects something from the prince.
“FORNICATION!”
The prince wonders what it even means that they would be meeting about ‘fornication,’ and what it is that Lakan expects from him. As someone who has never fornicated, he feels like he has nothing to add to a conversation about fornication, and conversely, wonders if Lakan is there as a subject-matter expert on the topic of fornication.
But why would anyone need an expert on that, and certainly, if fornication is a concern of the nation for some reason, there were more charismatic experts than Lakan to invite?
It never occurs to him that he is being accused of a crime, and he sits, puzzled, trying to figure out what on earth is going on.
Lakan studies the prince, and sees that even when he, Maomao’s loving father, speaks to the prince’s sin directly to his face, the prince never flinches. There’s no apology in his face. No regret. No shame. He seems puzzled, and Lakan interprets that to mean that this imperial prince cannot even understand why his deplorable behavior is being questioned.
After all, he’s a prince, and what is Maomao, but a sweet, innocent perfect little petunia?
Lakan glares at this arrogant, lustful, unrepentant, entitled prince, who shows no response to having his sin revealed besides confusion that anyone might dare question his actions, no matter who those actions hurt.
The prince searches Lakan’s countenance for some explanation about why he seems to get angrier and angrier by the second and takes a bite out of his flower cookie.
Lakan has never been so incredibly insulted in all of his life, that this prince would dare look him in the eyes at a time like this. The room is silent other than the strangely loud crunch from the prince chewing, which seems to be amplified by the tension in the room.
Gaoshun stands by the door, well aware that the Grand Commandant was accusing the prince in a matter involving Maomao. She does look a certain sort of way, so he wonders if it might really be true. Maybe those two really did get a little too passionate.
Maomao’s glee over the black honey really seemed to indicate an affirmative sexual interest in the prince.
Had it already happened?
No, Gaoshun doesn’t think it has, because if it did, the prince would be aware that it did, and he’d have some response to being accused rather than just sitting there loudly eating his cookie.
Basen leans over and whispers, “I wonder what his deal is.”
The emperor enters the room and finds Lakan looking like he might drop dead from a heart attack out of pure rage, while the prince looks on quite confused.
While the emperor is quite thrilled about this pregnancy that he has made up in his own mind, he knows he has to be stern because of Lakan. In most cases, a situation with these perceived qualities would be a disgrace—a prince using a young woman without regard for her honor.
In this case, they were in love, so there had been no real offense in the emperor’s eyes.
Lakan saw the matter differently.
The emperor thinks he is right, Lakan thinks he is right, and they have both always been wrong because none of this ever happened.
It is clear that Lakan has already spoken, and he has already made his accusation. He’s so angry he is nearly shaking.
And what kind of a man is his son?
Zuigetsu is so regal, so composed, so unapologetic, so unbothered by this man. Of course, he is the prince; he carries himself at times with a certain power and grace. Now is one of those times, as far as the emperor is concerned, as his son sits perfectly composed, unashamed to look Lakan in the eyes and unwilling to grovel and apologize for his passions. It’s such an incredible display of fortitude and confidence.
Were Zuigetsu willing, he would have made such a fine emperor.
The emperor puts on his sternest face, even though he can’t wait for his son and his little kitty to have their baby. He will pretend to be an uncle, but at heart, he will be grandpapa.
He carries with him a small, lacquered document box, usually used for protecting treaties, contracts, and other important documents, which he places on the table as he sits down beside Lakan.
Jinshi takes notice that he sat on the other side, and suddenly, he feels like a child about to be scolded by the two old men staring him down.
“Zuigetsu.”
“Good afternoon, Emperor,” he says, standing to bow.
Lakan does not bow, but he is also not able to bend his body in the middle thanks to Basen’s amateur physical therapy.
The emperor says, “Have you spoken to Maomao?”
“Yes, I visited her briefly.”
“Did she tell you about her condition?”
“Condition? Did something happen to her? She seemed to be fine to me, very healthy and also in good spirits,” he answers.
The emperor knows this means his son does not know. He reflects briefly on what a priceless treasure it is to be able to tell his son that he will become a father. Will he be happy? Shocked? Perhaps in denial? He wants to memorize the exact face he makes and how he responds so he can tell his grandchild about it in some years.
Taking a deep breath, Emperor Yang says, “Maomao is pregnant.”
At long last, after an entire week of chaos, mistakes, and misconceptions, brick finally meets brain and the prince sits stunned.
In his mind, he remembers noticing that Maomao’s body was looking a little different. Her chest was distinctly more curved, and she had definitely put on some softness. She looked so squeezable.
Even though he actively knows he has never had sex with that woman, or any woman, he still makes an inquiry of his mind to ask, ‘did we do this?’ as if he thinks there might be some chance that he might have impregnated Maomao and then somehow forgotten about it.
The emperor says with quite a bit of warmth in his voice, “You seem surprised.”
“Yes.”
Suddenly, he is Lakan, only able to utter one single word.
Because it is the emperor who is telling him, and the emperor employs many doctors and medical staff, and because he saw Maomao’s little boobies with his own eyes, he does not question how this was confirmed. He simply accepts this truth as it is presented to him, leaving him to try and understand it.
Was Maomao’s cuteness due to the presence of a strange child?
How could that have happened?
He doesn’t give any thought to the possibility there’s another man she loves because Maomao really seems like she is barely attracted to men at all and refuses to share chemistry with them. It took him, a very handsome, rich prince, literally an entire year to convince her that he was even slightly likable.
No…her willingly loving another man is not possible.
That really just leaves one possibility.
Someone hurt Maomao.
He has always had a fear that something like that will happen, because Maomao tends to not be mindful of her own safety. She’s always wandering off to strange places in search of plants. She’s not careful at all, and gets so excited about whatever she’s doing that she doesn’t pay attention to her surroundings.
She always tries to make herself less noticeable to men, but he wonders if she really understands that men don’t rape women because they are beautiful. It’s about power, and she’s just a cute little thing that looks like she wouldn’t be able to fight back much.
Jinshi could say that he has never been with her, and perhaps the madness would stop for a moment, and questions would be asked that should have been asked long before this point.
“Wh-What did she say?” he asks.
“She said she had been with you. Maybe in more detail than we wished to hear,” the emperor answers.
His poor, sweet Maomao.
First, she was attacked, Jinshi deicdes, and now she was facing a crisis growing inside of her. When she needed him to protect her, he wasn’t there. And he hasn’t been there these weeks when she’s probably been quite frightened.
Even when he thinks back to his visit to the infirmary only a few minutes ago, he feels like he failed her. Unaware of her trauma, wielding a perverted gift, insensitive to her stress and pain and fear, forcing her to pretend like everything was okay.
How embarrassing and shameful it must have been, he decides. If the emperor and Lakan know about the pregnancy, they must have found out and confronted her, and unable to bear her shame, she said she had been with him.
Jinshi would never reveal her lie in front of these men. If she said it was him, because she doesn’t want anyone to know, then he’ll go along.
“Whatever she said we did, we did!” he quickly says.
Lakan thinks about Maomao patting her little belly and bragging about this man ‘filling her up’ and grabs the tea tray, hurling it at the prince, who dodges. The metal tray hits the wall behind him with a clang, and the teapot and tea settings shatter on the floor.
“How dare you defile my precious petunia?!” he roars as he falls from the sofa onto the floor and then cannot get up again.
The prince decides he probably needs to sell this, and answers, “It is because we are passionate for one another!”
Jinshi can cover Maomao here, take responsibility for the situation, and allow her to protect herself. If she doesn’t want anyone to know, he will make sure things stay that way. If she wants to have a strange child, he’ll lie and say it’s his.
Lying about a child being royal-blooded is a death-penalty offense, but can he risk death for Maomao. He would die if anything bad happened to her anyway, and in his minimal understanding, she has already lied to the emperor about this matter.
Lakan struggles to wiggle off the floor at the emperor’s feet, and Gaoshun goes over to set him upright on the couch again, mostly because watching him slither around on the floor is disturbing. He looked like a giant angry worm, shouting about his little petunia.
What ensues is about fifteen minutes of yelling, mostly between Lakan and the prince while the emperor watches through his beady red eyes. Jinshi fervently defends sharing carnal passions with Lakan’s daughter.
It’s very unpleasant.
Gaoshun shakes his head and quietly excuses himself, because the whole conversation feels wrong to him. He’s not sure what is wrong, but something is grievously amiss.
When he returns to the infirmary, Maomao is not there, because the emperor evidently ordered the infirmary manager not to let her work more than four hours per day. He goes to her quarters, and she’s not there either. She’s not at the garden patch, and returning to the infirmary, none of the other medical officers knew where she went either.
The problem with cats is that they don’t come when called, they hide in strange places, and they tend to not be predictable in any sort of way. The palace is a big place, and Maomao freely moves about through the Inner and Outer Courts.
As he stands outside the infirmary, he taps his foot on the ground, and Luomen comes out.
“Is finding Maomao an urgent matter?”
“Extremely urgent. Consider it a matter of national security.”
Luomen answers, “I do not now this for sure, but just between us as people who care deeply for Maomao, if I needed to find her right now, the first place I would look is the prince’s residence.”
That would be unusual, and Gaoshun wonders why she would go there when he is not home, but Luomen is her dad, and Gaoshun has no other ideas, so he decides he’ll go look there.
Suiren confirms that Maomao is, in fact, at the residence with a bit of a mischievous giggle and says she’s gone back to his personal chamber.
Gaoshun wonders if this means that they’ve really been having sex.
Then he realizes that’s absurd. He just saw them together and they are definitely still just frisky virgins. He has no idea what is going on in the emperor’s office and thinks no one else does either, but there is certainly one person who knows the answer to every burning question.
Gaoshun opens the door to the prince’s bedroom and finds Maomao sitting on the bed on her knees in beaded lingerie, her makeup quite thick, smoky around the eyes with shiny red lips.
Just waiting.
“Oh. Good afternoon again, Gaoshun.”
“Good afternoon to you as well, Xiaomao.”
Maomao slides off his bed and puts on a robe. “Are you looking for the prince?”
“I was actually looking for you.”
“And you came here? That feels like an accusation,” she says.
The attendant answers, “Well, you are here. I assume this is not official business of some sort.”
“It’s very official to me. Are you here on official business?”
Gaoshun nods. “I would like to ask you a few deeply personal and sensitive questions. I would like plain, full answers.”
“Do you think I would lie to you?”
“I know what you do, Xiaomao.”
Maomao ties the robe and sighs. “Fine, fine. What do you want to know?”
Gaoshun asks, “Are you pregnant?”
“I am not.”
“Are you certain about that? Absolutely no chance at all that it might be happening for you right now.”
“There is a zero percent chance.”
Gaoshun says, “Are you and the prince having sexual intercourse?”
“We are not.”
“Are you sure?”
“I would remember having a whole giant frog inside of my—”
Gaoshun puts two fingers over her lips. “No, Maomao. Be a good girl.”
“You’re the one who asked.”
Although he suspects he already knows the answer, he asks, “Has anyone asked you any of these questions, or similar questions regarding your intimate life or any potential pregnancy lately?”
“No, no one has said anything to me.”
“Have you had any confusing conversations with the Grand Commandant or the emperor? Or witnessed any odd behavior?”
Maomao thinks for a moment says, “Well, now that you mention it, all kinds of strange stuff has been happening, but I didn’t want to get involved in whatever was going on.”
“Did you at any time tell anyone that you are or might be pregnant?”
“I did not.”
“Did you at any time, explain in disturbingly graphic detail, describe yourself performing sexual acts with and on the prince? Directly, to the emperor and Grand Commandant?”
Maomao says, “Absolutely not. That is a very odd and quite gross question.”
Well, that settles that. There is no pregnancy, hasn’t even been sex, and whatever the emperor and Lakan thought she said to them about having sex with the prince, she was clearly having a completely different conversation with them.
Yes.
Maomao Lihakued the emperor; how strange and fearless she is.
That leaves so many questions, like where the pregnancy rumor came from. The emperor and Lakan wouldn’t just believe common court gossip, and even if there was a credible rumor, a pregnancy in a medical officer who was raised by a doctor and knows everything there is to know seems like it would be easy to confirm.
And having decided this pregnancy had happened, what then? Gaoshun wonders what the purpose of the meeting was. To tell Prince Yue to get rid of the baby or maybe to force a quick marriage?
And why on earth didn’t the prince just say he hadn’t had sex with her instead of testifying that all of their horrible misconceptions are correct?
What a mess!
After the longest, deepest sigh of his life, he feels the quiet pang of his soul as it longs for retirement.
“Xiaomao, there has been a Great Misunderstanding. Please get dressed and accompany me to the emperor’s office. I need you to speak to everyone involved and clarify some simple facts.”
Pregnancy, sex, the old fart? Maomao doesn’t think she wishes to go to where the Great Misunderstanding is happening. And certainly, she doesn’t want to clarify anything.
“I think I’ll just stay here.”
“Put your regular clothes on.”
“Is that an order from the emperor or the prince or…can I just…not go anywhere near whatever is happening right now?” she asks.
“Xiaomao, please get dressed.”
Gaoshun’s seems to turn up the Father Power in his voice, like a parent warning a disobedient child, but Maomao loves to piss her father off. That sort of thing doesn’t work on her, and she thinks it’s silly that he tried.
All she is wearing is beaded lingerie and a thin robe that barely covers her knees. In sunlight, it might even be transparent. Her state of undress protects her from being forced to attend the Great Misunderstanding, and so she decides to stay like that.
Maomao answers, “It sounds like you know all the important facts. And let’s face it, if you didn’t stop them, those people would walk straight off the edge into a volcano.”
Gaoshun says, “Yes, well, that volcano is home to a mischievous cat spirit who appears before wanderers and instead of warning them not to keep traveling on the dangerous path, informs the travelers that it’s warm up top and the view is very nice.”
“That really seems fair to me. I do not see the problem with that at all.”
“Xiaomao. Clothes.”
“I think I’m going to stay here. I’m sure that you can take care of the rest.”
The attendant slides his blue outer robe off and the next thing Maomao knows, she’s been trapped in Gaoshun’s huge robe, and he is carrying under his arm.
Maomao obviously wishes to avoid the Great Misunderstanding at all costs, and Gaoshun is seemingly not going to allow her to do that. She finds this unfair, an act of kidnapping, and she is certain that at the end of this journey across the Outer Court that she will feel quite awkward and uncomfortable.
“This really doesn’t seem like it’s my problem. I never asked to be involved in any of this.”
Gaoshun answers, “At some point, you must accept that you are part of the problem.”
“It’s not my fault if someone else gets a wrong idea.”
Gaoshun’s robe has a rather Dadish aura about it, warm from being on his body before he put it on her, quite big and soft, and it smells Dad-like. Under different circumstances, it would be perfect to use as a blanket for a nap on a rainy day. She finds it quite comforting despite the fact that she did not consent to being dressed this way and everyone is watching him drag her across the outer court like a carpet with her little bare feet sticking out the back.
Maomao doesn’t know about the Great Misunderstanding, and she doesn’t want to. She’s just trying to get pregnant, and she’s reasonably confident that whatever madness is going on, it’s not going to help her in any sort of way. Also the idea that the old fart and the emperor are arguing about her having sex is one of the most disturbing thoughts she’s ever had.
She doesn’t want to go to the Great Misunderstanding.
She is not the one who has misunderstood.
Experimentally, she tries to see if she can wiggle free, but finds Gaoshun’s grasp quite inescapable. Despite his age, he handles her weight as if she is nothing, leading Maomao to quite a discovery.
She gasps. “I always thought Basen’s monstrous strength was some sort of accident of nature. It’s inherited.”
Gaoshun answers, “I have never wondered where you got your unusual intellect.”
“That is the meanest thing you have ever said to me,” she complains.
The faithful attendant carries her all the way up to the office, where he opens the door with one hand and brings Maomao inside, through the reception area and past the emperor’s big desk to the sitting room, where they yelling is ongoing.
They’ve accomplished nothing.
Gaoshun says, “Emperor, please pardon my interruption. I believe that Xiaomao has some important facts she would like to share.”
The emperor says, “Gaoshun, why are you carrying her like that in her delicate state? On her belly? You could hurt the baby.”
Lakan adds, “You dare to handle her so roughly?!”
The prince says, “She is fragile, Gaoshun. You could hold her more gently.”
They all agree on something: Gaoshun is the villain for carrying her like a rug. After all, what if he squished the baby that she definitely isn’t actually carrying? They all pile on to complain.
Maomao is released from his grasp gently, so her bare feet touch the floor. As she stands in the attendant’s robe, she thinks maybe refusing to put her normal clothes back on was a poor choice, because now she just feels awkward.
The room is silent.
They wait for Maomao to speak.
She looks around and decides she doesn’t want to be in this room. The tension in the air is palpable, and there’s a mess next to the wall where it looks like someone threw a whole tea setting at the wall behind Jinshi’s head. The fact that no one has come in to clean it up speaks to the fact the energy in the room is so tense that even the secretary knows not to enter.
Jinshi face is so incredibly concerned as he asks, “Maomao, are you all right? Did something happen? Why are you dressed like that?”
“It’s not important.”
She showed up to the Great Misunderstanding wearing Gaoshun’s robe, and offers no explanation for this. Gaoshun himself decides to just let this mystery go because explaining they have never had sex is a more difficult task if they know she was found in lingerie waiting in his chamber so she could ambush on him.
Jinshi wants her to know that he understood that she told the emperor that he fathered her child, and that he’d gone right along with it. Also, he wants to communicate to her that he supports her fully no matter what, and so he says, “I admitted that we have expressed our passion toward one another. I’ll take care of everything. I’ll take care of the baby. You don’t have to worry about anything.”
The brick comes for Maomao, and she’s just so incredibly confused because while the emperor and Lakan clearly got tangled up in some stupidity, but Jinshi? Jinshi?!
Presumably, the Great Misunderstanding should have stopped the instant it reached him, because surely, he knows they have not had sex. His eyes are so sincere and caring, so filled with love, to the point that for a moment, Maomao wonders if perhaps she is the one that has gone mad. Perhaps they consummated their relationship before his trip, and she did some sort of poison experiment and forgot?
The sheer enormity and power of the Idiot Plot causes her to question her own sanity and her own memory of events.
There are three men here who know her well, and they all think she had sex with the prince, and the prince is one of those men.
Maomao has always had this weird little fear that lingered in the back of her mind. Her mother died from syphilis, which she had for many years. Despite this, she has never been able to get a straight answer from the old madam about whether her mother was prostituting before she was born, so she generally thinks she was. So the apothecary has always had this weird little fear that she might have contracted the disease at birth.
Syphilis can live unknown inside of the body for a very long time, quietly eating away at the brain. When it becomes advanced, people change. Sometimes they become promiscuous. Forgetful. Obsessive. A person whose mental capacity is diminishing is typically not aware, so people living through this process don’t know that it is happening to them.
So she starts to wonder if they had sex and she doesn’t remember it now, and her brain’s subconscious obsession with pregnancy comes from the fact that she is actually already pregnant. What if she started taking the fertility concoction due to this mental defect and her breasts were actually growing from a pregnancy she cannot remember?
Jinshi’s eyes are just so loving and so sweet, and he is standing holding her hand in his.
“We were together,” she mumbles in confusion.
The prince says, “Yes, many times! Just like you told them.”
She doesn’t remember having sex, but the prince does, and between them, she unfortunately has a much higher chance of having holes in her brain from syphilis.
“We’re going to have a baby?” she asks.
If Maomao is confused, then Gaoshun, who brought her here to clear up this misunderstanding after she very confidently explained she was an unfertilized virgin, is simply unable to comprehend this scene. It’s like being told by other people that she had sex and was pregnant had convinced her that it was perhaps actually true.
The older men getting it wrong was one thing, but Maomao and Jinshi? Clearly they should know whether or not they’ve had sex. Why would Jinshi confess if it didn’t happen, and why would that confession change Maomao’s opinion, as she also knows it did not happen?
Maomao wonders what this meeting is?
What if it’s her biological father, and Jinshi, and the emperor talking about what to do about her pregnancy and her dementia?
Is she doomed to become her mother? Give birth to a child and then die from syphilis-induced dementia?
Now, everyone believes in the imaginary baby, even both of the parents who would have been present to conceive it.
They’re to Gaoshun like a group of people who lit a fireplace indoors and didn’t open any windows and are slowly being gassed to death by the smoke.
Maomao remains deep in thought, and somewhat panicked, something that is rare for her.
She scratches her chin and snaps out of it because she has a near imperforate hymen, which she has observed while masturbating with the mirror because she’s horny and wildly curious. While she does not have a lot of information about the Grand Imperial Amphibian, she knows it has never been inside of her.
The lack of information that Maomao’s brain has concerning the Imperial Amphibian also suggests that she has never actually seen it, rather than the possibility that she saw it and simply forgot what it looked like.
No, these men are all lying to her, trying to convince her that she slept with the prince and that she’s going to have a baby as a result of that. Her initial opinion was correct: she is still a virgin and not pregnant.
What is going on in this room? A strange game? Are they all really that stupid?
Maomao’s face melts into one of unimaginable disdain, and glares at Jinshi like he is an annoying insect she’d like to step on. He hasn’t seen that look in so long that it shocks him, but then he remembers that he loves having her look at him like he’s an absolute pile of rotting garbage waiting to be lit at a burn pit.
Her eyes shift to the emperor, who has never seen Scary Maomao with his own eyes. Flinching visibly, he can tell she is mad at everyone in this room and everything they have ever done in their life leading up to this moment.
And finally to Lakan, who is used to her looking at him like that, so he just says, “Are you okay, my precious petunia? Surely in your condition, you shouldn’t get so worked up.”
Maomao looks back across the room, and lowering her voice, asks, “Master Jinshi…”
“Y-Yes, Maomao?”
“For what reason did you tell these people that we had sex?”
“Because you told them?”
She points. “I didn’t tell these men anything, and I have no idea why they thought I would.”
Lakan leans forward. “The baby isn’t his?”
“There is no baby! What is wrong with you all?!”
“You lost it?” the emperor asks.
Maomao answers in exasperation, “There was never a baby! There was never even sex! You three are so wrong that I thought I was the one with a failing mind. It’s you. All three of you. I don’t know what this is, but I don’t like it. Something is wrong with you. Individually. Collectively. Any combination of you together in any form at any time.”
It’s so rare for her to raise her voice, and the emperor is not spared the criticism despite being the emperor.
The emperor asks, “You’re certain?”
Maomao’s nerves are fried from nearly being convinced that she’s losing her own mind and reaches for whatever she can. She throws a flower cookie directly at the emperor, hitting him squarely in the forehead.
“Why were you certain that I was?” she asked.
The emperor answers, “Well, I went to the clinic and saw your bosom had developed.”
“…and?”
“You gained weight. You were glowing. Also, Luomen came to me and said he thought you desperately wanted to have a baby.”
Luomen being one of the key instigators of the story is quite a plot twist, because yes, Maomao did desperately want to have a baby. She wonders how her dad deduced this, and if he did, why he didn’t discuss it with her? Talking to the emperor was obviously a very dumb thing to do as evidenced by what is happening right at that moment.
“Did you ask?”
The emperor leans back and says, “I didn’t want to embarrass you.”
She points at Lakan. “That thing made me. Do you think I can be embarrassed?!”
Normally, someone leaning over the emperor and talking crazy to him, calling him stupid and throwing things at him would be stopped immediately by his faithful attendants, but Basen is frightened by the power commanded by Scary Maomao, and Gaoshun thinks whatever she does is well-deserved. The emperor is not someone who believes himself to be beyond reproach, and this is a family matter if anything is.
Maomao turns to Lakan, who says, “My precious petunia is still pure? All of this has been a misunderstanding? Still safe from that disgusting, bumpy monstrosity…what a relief.”
Maomao throws a cookie at him and it’s not enough so she throws the whole plate knowing he can’t exactly dodge it.
Then she stops.
Did she just obtain information about the Imperial Amphibian from the old fart? Like, of all the people living on the earth, did she want to hear he was big and bumpy from this one?
“Have you…seen him naked?” she asks, so visibly disgusted she can taste stomach acid.
“Often?” Lakan answers.
“What do you mean often?! Why are you getting naked in front of him?” she asks Jinshi.
The prince still really has no idea what is going on. He has been confused from the beginning when Lakan was shouting ‘Fornication’ at him and he remains befuddled. But what he does know is that Maomao is perturbed that Lakan has seen his penis and she has not.
In an effort to make Lakan seem less special because it would be very weird if he had just shown his penis to Lakan for no reason, he says, “I offered to show it to you that one time and you seemed horrified. Anyway, I think you’re the only one here who hasn’t seen it, actually? If that helps.”
“Why would that help?! Do you just walk around showing everyone the amphibian?!”
Jinshi says, “The emperor is my brother. The rest of us are in the military and run into each other at the baths at the barracks after training. The Grand Commandant does is back exercises there. I see him there sometimes. He sits in the water and stares at me like he wants me to die. Sometimes I say good morning.”
The idea of the Grand Imperial Amphibian stewing in the same water as Lakan is deeply gross to her.
She adds, “And anyway, if I’m the only one who hasn’t seen it, why am I the one being accused of a pregnancy? You just want to show it to everyone but me, and then the emperor decides that I’m the one who is pregnant.”
Lakan says, “What about…when you said you were filled up. You talked about putting it in your mouth. Your belly was bigger. I saw it with my own eyes.”
Maomao has nearly forgotten this conversation, but when she remembers, she exclaims, “I was talking about lobsters. For some reason, the emperor started sending me food. He sent me five lobsters for breakfast, and I ate five lobsters for breakfast because who wouldn’t want to eat five lobsters for breakfast? And I’d had a fancy dinner too. So I was filled up twice, and even though I got full, I kept eating. By putting lobsters in my mouth.”
“That wasn’t about…putting that thing in your mouth?”
“Why would I talk to you about that?!”
The emperor says, “We did find it very unsettling.”
Maomao turns and grabs the prince by the head, and begins shaking. “And you. YOU. You know we didn’t do it. Why did you tell them that we did?”
The prince answers, “I thought I was helping?”
“Did you get kicked in the head by a horse?”
He timidly explains, “Well obviously I knew I didn’t get you pregnant. But I was told that you were and that you said it was me. So I thought someone had hurt you and you just blamed me because you were suffering. I would never expose your pain to anyone, so I just said whatever you said was right and went along with it to protect you.”
She answers, “You’d lose your head for lying about someone being of imperial birth. Literally suicide if you got caught.”
“It’s fine. Without you, I’d just lay down and die anyway, and then rot straight through the floorboards.”
Scary Maomao’s rage subsides.
Maybe this one is a slightly more tolerable moron; he was told she was pregnant and that she said he did it, and he went along without it. Without argument. Without question.
It occurs to her that having a baby with this man would be like combining all these insufferable together and using the resulting mixture to make a new person. This would surely either make someone immune to this sort of behavior, or it would create a new, more powerful type of idiot.
Flopping down on the sofa, she says, “Have we cleared everything up?”
No sex, no pregnancy, just Maomao returning from Scary Maomao state, and the prince very quickly and unapologetically deciding he’d betray the imperial house and lose his head just to keep her safe. No question about it. He didn’t even confirm any facts, although he perhaps got that from the emperor.
Emperor Yang says, “No explanation has been provided for your bosom.”
“I made a medicine.”
“Could you perhaps…make more?”
There is a glimmer of Scary Maomao that silences him, and she wonders if Gaoshun has ever considered that maybe these people deserve the volcano.
A brief discussion takes place, and they all learn that the emperor saw her and thought she looked pregnant, and sent her too many lobsters to eat, which gave her a distended belly when he used to convince Lakan. And once both of them were convinced, they had this meeting, where they told Jinshi, who did not consider that they were simply stupid and went along with all their incorrect assumptions, thinking she had been raped and needed him to protect her. Then Maomao was brought in and he told her she was pregnant from them having sex and the old fart and the emperor affirmed this, causing her to briefly consider whether she had syphilitic dementia.
The emperor experiences a moment of self-awareness and thinks, Oh no, this is an Idiot Plot. His role as chief idiot and instigator is clear, and in retrospect, what he has done seems immediately thoughtless. What an easily avoidable and stressful catastrophe he caused entirely by himself.
Maomao asks, “If there’s nothing else, I’ll be going.”
Gaoshun knows that since he carried her here without shoes, he will also have to return her, although he doubts she wants to go back to where he found her. She seems quite perturbed with everyone involved in this strange affair because the absurdity was so great she almost fell into it with all of them.
The emperor releases Basen to return to his family for the night, leaving him alone with Lakan and Prince Yue.
There’s an extended silence, as they reflect on what has happened.
And then the emperor asks, “So…Zuigetsu. How have you been lately?”
Notes:
If I saw the emperor and the Grand Commandant, it seems like both of those things should either be capitalized or lowercase. I think I'm doing it wrong because I read online that 'the emperor' would be lowercase but Grand Commandant is a proper title?
Does anyone know?
Chapter 5: Perfectly Normal Dad Behaviors
Chapter Text
Three days after the dreaded Great Misunderstanding, the prince stands at a random corner in his house, barefoot. He takes a deep breath, and kicks it as hard as he can, and curses under his breath, hoping on one foot as blood begins to drip from the torn toenail.
Suiren hears the commotion and comes. “Goodness! I think you should go to the infirmary to have that looked at.”
“Really? That bad? I guess I have to take your advice.”
The old woman, who is in a position where she is mostly retired but still stays with the prince and occasionally manages other attendants, says, “Well, if you’re asking for my wisdom, I would say that hurting yourself so you have an excuse to talk to Maomao is probably unnecessary.”
“It was an accident.”
“You still have her clothes. You could have used returning them as the excuse for going to see her.”
Well, now he just feels stupid, and his toe is bleeding.
When he got home after the Great Misunderstanding, as it was being called, he found Maomao’s regular clothes in his bedroom, including the undergarments she was wearing when she walked to his house. This led him to the theory that his innocent little kitten was either naked under Gaoshun’s robe while she was yelling at everyone, or she was wearing something really naughty.
He definitely didn’t smell any of her undergarments, if anyone is asking.
Did not—that would be so gross and rude and creepy.
But he didn’t do that.
Anyway, he got cockblocked by his older brother who has nine hundred concubines, and that just doesn’t seem fair.
He has not had direct contact with the emperor since leaving his office and is certain that Basen is tired of carrying his passive aggressive messages to the emperor.
The prince puts on socks and sandals since his toe has an injury, and he carries a basket with Maomao’s clothes over to the infirmary.
When he arrives, Luomen is sitting at the front, as is normal, reviewing a book with one of the medical officers.
“Ah, Your Highness. Welcome. How may we assist you today?”
“I have something to deliver to Maomao and also require medical assistance.”
Luomen thinks right away that this man hurt himself so he would be able to see Maomao, which is such weird behavior since he could have just come by to speak to her at any time.
Maomao isn’t really sure how to feel about everything, because she’s not good at emotions. On one hand, everyone involved in the Great Misunderstanding was trying to help her in some incredibly misguided way. On the other hand, the whole situation was angering and embarrassing. Everyone involved had apologized, but she still felt so awkward.
As she enters the examination room where the prince is waiting with his sock off, revealing a bloodied big toe, she immediately knows he purposefully caused this injury, and says, “This type of attention-seeking behavior is not desirable.”
“I really wanted to see you.”
“You could have marched right in with ten healthy toes at any time. Injuries like this always seem insignificant, but in rare cases, they can become quite dangerous. If you got an infection and I had to amputate your toe, what then?” she answers.
The prince replies, “I have nine others.”
Maomao begins cleaning the wound and says, “Actually, while losing a pinky toe might not disrupt your life, using your big toe would dramatically weaken your ability to balance properly. Besides, perhaps I only want to entertain the affections of a Ten Toe.”
He points to the basket on the bed. “I brought your clothes. Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything weird with them.”
“A perfectly normal thing a person says. It’s okay if you sniffed them. I know you’re kind of a dog.”
“Woof woof?” he nervously answers, his cheeks burning a bit in embarrassment that she knew exactly what he did.
Maomao asks as she works, “I was wondering awhile ago, what do I smell like to you? I don’t always use the same kind of soap, and I rarely wear any kind of perfume. I think most days, I would have a neutral scent, with maybe a twinge of body odor if it’s been hot out or if I’m working.”
He’s not totally sure how to articulate the answer to this question, so he says, “I think…maybe a scent is different than a smell?”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“It’s sweet, but not like a flower or food. If I was blindfolded, I could pick you out of a hundred women just by your scent.”
With a little mischievous grin, she asks, “So what you’re saying is you sniff a lot of women?”
“No! The only woman I want to sniff is you.”
“Does smelling me make you feel any sort of way?”
This is a scientific inquiry, about a behavior he knows is sexual or at least somewhat sexual in nature.
“It lifts my spirits.”
Maomao asks, “Does it lift anything else?”
“Yes.”
“…the Imperial Amphibian enjoys it.”
Jinshi’s brows raise, “I was wondering how it obtained a more formal title? From Frog to ‘Imperial Amphibian…’”
“Well, technically, I think its formal title is Grand Imperial Amphibian.”
He asks, “Grand?”
“Is it not?”
“It is.”
Maomao says, “It seemed proper to give it a title. I don’t ever call you by your real name either. I wouldn’t want to offend the amphibian by speaking so informally of it.”
It’s just so cute when she’s silly, he can’t take it. Well, he can and he does, but he doesn’t want to. He wants to throw her over his shoulder and carry her off so she can meet the ‘Grand Imperial Amphibian.’
Instead, he asks, “Do you know it?”
“Your real name?”
A nod.
“I do.”
“I would like to hear you say it someday.”
“I will consider it. Obviously, I don’t want to get my head cut off, so it would have to be in private.”
“Of course.”
Maomao says, “I have a carriage coming in a few minutes, so we’ll have to finish this conversation later.”
“Where are you going?”
“The Ma clan estate in the city. Lishu had a little issue, and I wanted to check on her. The baby is probably doing well still, but I would like to see how he’s growing as well. The baby is a very good eater.”
“To be expected of Basen’s child. Can I go with you? I can ask Basen. I haven’t been able to make it over yet because I’ve been so busy. I’m sure he’d like to drop in on his family as a surprise as well,” he asks.
“That’s probably fine. Lishu’s issue is a female issue, so leave us alone and mind your own business.”
“Understood.”
And so, they go, with Basen to visit the Ma clan estate in the capitol.
During the carriage ride, the prince reflects on the happenings of the last few days. His mind drifts back to the document box that was never opened during the Great Misunderstanding. Once it was revealed there was no crisis, whatever was inside of that box became a deal that didn’t need to be made.
The emperor wouldn’t even tell him what exactly that deal was, but he was sure that it included an exit path for him from the imperial family because the emperor knew they probably wouldn’t have a baby in the family. Being denied just because everything was okay annoyed him, and the prince knows he’s not the only one.
Several people are cross with the emperor at the moment, for causing the embarrassing debacle, intruding on Maomao’s privacy, and for refusing the prince’s request to have whatever exit plan was inside of that box so that he and Maomao could be together. The whole disaster was a reminder that their lives were controlled by circumstances they would rather be free from.
Maomao has also been reminded about all of this, and how the emperor is a dragon who holds the prince in his jaws. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wonders if creating a pregnancy crisis would allow everything to work out, but that exact sort of decision is how she entered the world, and that didn’t work out well for anyone involved. She doesn’t want to make that decision for that reason. The idea of letting this wonderful man get her pregnant just because she liked him felt all kinds of good, the idea of doing it for any other reason just makes her feel disgusting.
So how long are they supposed to wait? When will the emperor finally give in? What if he doesn’t let the prince go until his young sons come of age? That seems so unfair. If she tells him she’s been feeling more like a woman than just a person lately, or that she doesn’t want to live apart from anymore, or that she’s plagued by incredible desire, or that she wants to have his baby, he’ll probably just feel like shit, so she decides she won’t say any of that.
Maybe she’ll just cut her bangs, go back to obsessing about poison instead of also thinking about all of this, and put up the wall inside of her that was apparently keeping most of her emotions and desires at bay.
Maomao sits in the carriage considering this with Gaoshun’s robe neatly folded on her lap as they travel in silence.
When they arrive, Basen very proudly walks them to the bedroom where Lishu is currently trying to breastfeed when three people just enter, including a man who should not be seeing her topless.
The prince quickly turns away and leaves, and he hears Lishu fuss at him for not knocking.
Lishu’s baby is inexplicably enormous, seemingly motivated to grow into a giant by some unseen dark force that entered him before he took his first breath. From his first moment, he has been obsessed with eating, far more than a normal, more polite baby.
Maomao considers this to be very Basen-esque behavior.
After the baby finishes feeding, Maomao takes him out into the hallway and delivers him to his father, saying, “Don’t even think about coming in until we’re done.”
“Fine, fine, fine.”
The door shuts and the lock is lowered into place, and Basen cradles his son. “So, here he is.”
Jinshi’s first thought about Basen’s son is that even if he is month old already, he really just looks like he’s too big to have come out of Lishu’s body. It’s also a bit surreal, because he has known Basen literally forever, and now he has become a dad to this new person.
They go to a sitting room, and the prince listens to Basen talk non-stop about his experiences as a new father. It really hasn’t been that long since the wedding, and then around a month after that, Lishu started getting sick in the mornings. Basen’s opinion on the pregnancy evolved from terror to excitement over time, and now, it’s hard to imagine that this little person stressed his father out so much.
A chubby little foot wiggles free from the blanket. “Is it okay if I?”
“Yeah, sure, of course.”
He reaches over and lightly toys with to little foot. “Soft…”
“Do you want to hold him?”
“I actually don’t know how.”
“Seriously? You’ve never held your niece or nephews?”
It’s not common for men in their country to hold babies at all except their children or grandchildren. And with the situation in the imperial family, very, very few people are ever allowed to have direct physical contact with the little ones when they’re so tiny.
Princess Lingli likes to climb him like a tree or hide and jump on his back from furniture, which he doesn’t mind, and the little princes seem to enjoy his attention, but he certainly didn’t handle any of them when they were babies.
“It’s easy. Just make sure you hold up his gigantic head. Babies are apparently born with such monstrously enormous heads that they can’t hold them up for months.”
“Is that true for all babies, or this one in particular?”
“I dunno, actually?”
The baby is transferred to his arms, and Jinshi decides right away that baby holding is quite a precious activity. The baby is so soft and squishy, and warm, and his fat little face looks a lot like Lishu, but he can see Ma clan characteristics there. There are hints of Lady Taomei, Basen’s mother and boss of the Ma clan, for sure.
Taomei having the most dominant blood in the Ma clan is very much in character for her. “This baby looks like he was fathered by your mother.”
“I know, I know. I tried, but I was also in some ways, fathered by my mother.”
Basen’s older sister brings tea, but Prince Yue is far too interested in the baby to put him down. He makes a little noise, and it’s cute. His little fingers wrap around one of his much larger ones, and that’s cute too. His little foot curls when he yawns, also cute.
When Maomao finishes up with Lishu, she takes Gaoshun’s robe and since it is his day off—the first he’s had in a while, since he was sent on the trip and then plunged directly into the Great Misunderstanding—she doesn’t want to disturb him too much. She thinks the last thing he wants is to see any of them at his home.
Basen’s sister Maamei shows her to a living room where Gaoshun is napping with two of his grandchildren in the middle of the floor, having seemingly fallen asleep while playing.
“Oh? I guess it is naptime.”
Maomao covers them up with the robe, deciding this was too adorable to disturb. She still owes Gaoshun for dragging her across the Outer Court against her will, but vengeance can wait for another day.
She didn’t come from a family like this, so it’s difficult for her to understand their warmth. But these people are Jinshi’s family too in some ways. He’s certain they know more about him and care more about him than anyone in his blood family, and she thinks that he wants to break free from the imperial house so he can have this sort of life someday.
When she joins Jinshi and Basen, she is struck by the image of Jinshi holding the infant against his chest. When the image only existed in her mind, it was bad enough, but he looks quite happy like that, arms full of baby. He’s talking to Basen in a low and very gentle voice—Maomao doesn’t think she’s ever heard this particular version of Jinshi speak before.
The sight of Jinshi with a baby does something strange and powerful to her body. She is ready to get pregnant, right now, maybe in the storage room across the hall.
“Maomao?”
“Master Jinshi. My turn?”
They are suddenly two people who have been on their journey much longer than Basen and Lishu have even known each other, snuggling a baby that isn’t theirs while their respective imaginations run absolutely wild.
Jinshi thinks this little baby is the real cause of all the drama. It’s just really hard for him to not think about what it would be like to share this sort of experience with Maomao. He can tell from how unusually expressive Maomao is with the baby that she’s quite emotional about this infant.
There are dreamy, playful glances, but no words.
When Gaoshun wakes up from his nap, he finds Basen has snuck off to annoy his wife and left his son in the care of two people whose affections are certainly turning to painful longing for a life the emperor won’t let them have.
The emperor is obstinate about the matter; an exit deal certainly existed. Gaoshun actually knew the contents of it because he was the one that was tasked with burning it.
The prince asked to be freed, and the emperor refused.
Empress Gyokuyou had something one might consider an actual quarrel with him because she felt he was being unfairly cruel to the prince.
Then Ah-Duo after that, who was summoned to the capitol by interesting rumors.
Then the Empress Dowager after that.
Gaoshun was asked his opinion, and he gave his opinion. What most of the characters expressing their disapproval for the emperor’s refusal don’t know is that the emperor and the prince had an agreement that the emperor would let him go if there were other heirs, and the prince went into the rear palace. There were heirs, and yet the emperor has not fulfilled his side of the agreement.
And that’s ignoring the fact that Maomao herself is the only reason any of the younger children were alive.
The emperor was evidently moved by how the prince handled the crisis he had created, and decided he was even more convinced that he should stay in the family a bit longer, which doesn’t seem fair to Gaoshun, although he couldn’t exactly express that sentiment.
Even if everyone thinks the emperor is wrong, his mind remains unchanged.
It’s not like anyone can defy the emperor.
At that very moment, Lakan is making his way back to the office where the Great Misunderstanding happened. He has a matter of professional business to report on, and also a private matter.
Since Gaoshun is not present, he some other person attending him—it’s not one of the Ma clan members, judging from the robes. Lakan doesn’t want anything too terrible to happen to him, so as long as it’s not one of them, it’s fine.
Because Lakan is making a rather sensitive report, the emperor sends the attendant out into the reception area with the secretary.
He delivers his intelligence update, and then says, “I had another matter to discuss with you.”
“Oh?”
“After conferring with my uncle, I have decided that I would like to allow Maomao and the prince to marry per the prior agreement,” he says.
It’s absolutely shocking to hear Lakan say such a thing, since he has been vehemently opposed to the prince’s involvement in Maomao’s life. The emperor didn’t really ever think there was any possibility that Lakan would willingly accept their relationship. He’s someone who will be petty just for the sake of it.
Yet, this doesn’t really change anything. He is the emperor, and he is the one who gets to decide..
“There is no crisis, so we can move on.”
Lakan had a very long conversation with Luomen after the Great Misunderstanding. Because Maomao doesn’t want him in her life, and she’s not particularly expressive anyway, it’s always been difficult for him to figure out what goes on in her mind. Her emotions are often puzzling even to those who are closest to her, so Lakan has an even more difficult time..
Luomen has mostly refrained from telling him much about her that he knows she wouldn’t want him to know, but Luomen is coloring outside the boxes he drew for himself out of his concern for Maomao. First, he talked to the emperor, and then after the Great Misunderstanding, he talked to Lakan.
Obviously, Lakan resists the idea of any other man being closer to his daughter than him, because he didn’t ever have the chance to get to know her. Certainly, he understands that chance probably isn’t going to come.
Luomen asked him if he would prefer Maomao to live her life completely alone, and of course he doesn’t. As someone who has been solitary throughout most of his adulthood, he knows that’s not good for the soul. No caring father would want his precious daughter to have a lonely life, and to grow old in torturous solitude, unable to experience the joys of being loved and of loving others.
The second question was if he thought the prince wasn’t good enough for her, and if he believed someone would come along who would treat her better. Lakan knows the prince would never abuse or neglect her; he treats her like his personal cat goddess. He’s faithful to her when no one requires that, willing to sacrifice anything for her, supportive of her eccentric interests, and gentle with her.
Is that enough?
Lakan hates the idea, but the Moon Prince is the one that Maomao chose. He wants to be given an opportunity to know his daughter, and he feels like if she marries and moves on further from him, that’ll just become less likely.
But he also knows what it is like to love someone and not be able to be with them because of some stupid reason. He was prevented from being with Fengxian, and they conceived a child in questionable circumstances.
There are a lot of things he doesn’t understand about Maomao, but he does know that it is very painful to live without a chosen love, and even worse if there is a child involved.
Even a terrible parent like him knows the thing he fears most is that his child will suffer the same curse as him.
Emperor Yang looks up because Lakan is still sitting there, contemplative.
“Is there something else?”
Lakan says, “My precious daughter wants to raise a family with the man that she chose, in peace and in the way they think is best. So I think she should be able to do that.”
“I already gave my decision on this matter. No one is telling them they can’t get married. He could marry her right now. Take her as a concubine. Whatever. The other matter is separate,” Yang answers.
The older man says, “If my Maomao is forced to marry into the imperial family…maybe I should do like any other clan leader and do whatever it takes to make her empress?”
Emperor Yang’s blood runs cold, as he answers more nervously than he intended, “Maomao doesn’t want to be empress.”
“Well, if we don’t care what either of them want, does that matter? I’m sure it is not news to you that you are not a popular emperor among the clans. But I’ve heard people say the emperor has a younger brother, someone fair and good, trustworthy and diligent. He doesn’t wish for an extravagant, expensive harem for his ego, and serves as a diligent public servant while his older brother carries on with all of his women.
“…At least, that’s what people say. Not me.”
The emperor’s mouth becomes quite dry as he sits under this man’s strange, unsettling stare. As he reaches his hand out for his teacup, he notices it shaking, and Lakan’s blue eyes fixate on the trembling motion.
Yang says, “Of course, you would never say those things.”
“I don’t engage in such foolishness. Your younger brother could never become the emperor of Li.”
“Because he is unwilling,” the emperor answers.
Lakan answers, “Because he died as an infant.”
Lakan is someone that the previous emperor feared, and his mother before that. Both tried to stop his meteoric rise through the ranks because he had a curious tendency to weave strange relationships with all sorts of people. Yet he somehow ended up reaching the most dangerous position in the government that might be occupied by a person who wasn’t a member of the imperial family.
And now he’s threatening to burn Li to the ground because the emperor won’t let his daughter be happy.
It’s just incredibly unhinged, and the Grand Commandant seems quite thrilled with himself, like he’s finally happy to have something he can do for his daughter, except that thing is threatening to depose the head of state unless she can live as she pleases. The insanity of it is almost incomprehensible; it doesn’t even feel real and yet it is quite scary.
Lakan says, “Since your family’s claim to power is that you were ordained by the gods, it might be interesting to see how those who believe that might feel about the fact that your eastern-blooded son was denied his identity and cast aside in favor of that western woman and her western-blooded son.”
Of course Lakan knows that Zuigetsu was not ‘cast aside.’ He cast himself aside, but people aren’t going to hear that as easily because the emperor’s most powerful critics hate his choice to elevate the west in order to strengthen Li.
Lakan doesn’t care about the emperor’s western bias even a little; really, he doesn’t have any specific concerns of his own at all. He doesn’t care what the imperial house does and doesn’t have any ambition to become more powerful. What he does have is sharp intelligence about what everyone else is mad about and powerful paternal instincts to ruin the lives of every single person he knows if his previous petunia isn’t happy.
The emperor also knows Lakan doesn’t care what he does with very few exceptions and he’s just threatening to set fires until Maomao gets what she wants.
No matter what, Zuigetsu has resolved to never become emperor, and over the past three days, literally everyone Yang cares about has told him to let him go so he can live his life with his woman. Digging in and fighting Lakan will do grievous damage to him, and he’ll gain nothing for it.
His arm is twisted, and he knows he can’t fight Lakan, who knows exactly how to make him bleed and seems completely willing to do it as long as he remains an obstacle to Maomao’s happiness.
This man is absolutely insane and also unimaginably dangerous.
Still, the emperor isn’t going to admit that he’s going to give in out of fear.
Rubbing his chin, he says, “Now that I think about it, Maomao has worked in the service of this family, and most of us are alive thanks to her intellect and care. I suppose I could reconsider my decision.”
“Excellent. Let’s do our best to ensure my sweet little Maomao is happy, because anyone who stands in the way of her joy is my mortal enemy. I’m sure no one wants that. I’m afraid I don’t have much to show for myself but my daughter. What’s a little minor treason for my daughter’s happiness?”
First of all, threatening to overthrow the emperor of the nation is not a little ‘minor treason,’ at least as the emperor sees it. And second, he’s just stunned at how bizarre and crazed this behavior actually is.
Second, Lakan doesn’t seem to be worried at all that he’s going to face any consequence, although Yang is left wondering if he’s like Zuigetsu and he’s just ready to die for Maomao on any random day of the week.
The Great Sun Emperor wonders what exactly Maomao does to people that have them so willing to commit combination treason-suicide for her sake. In terms of looks, she’s certainly looking cuter lately, but she’s not the kind of beautiful he would expect in a story where people start a war over a woman. After improvement, Maomao is still nearly titless. She does not flirt. She intentionally goes out of her way to not be charming. She’s exceedingly weird.
If the courtesans at a brothel are good at making a man empty his pockets, Maomao has seemingly found a far more powerful skill: using her questionable charm to coax powerful men into treason and death.
The emperor likes her personally, but finds her oddly terrifying in a way now, because despite her aversion to politics, even the emperor will bend his knee to her whim.
It’s probably some sort of blessing she wasn’t actually raised by Lakan and that she doesn’t want to be powerful.
After Lakan leaves, the emperor returns to his personal residence, left with a chalky taste in his mouth from being threatened by the most powerful man outside of the imperial house.
The past few days have been really not great for him, because after embarrassing himself and everyone else in his office, his mother told him he wronged the couple and especially Maomao and that he should release them to be free to live their lives.
Then Empress Gyokuyou said basically the same thing, but with more pouting.
Then Ah-Duo.
Then Lihua.
Virtually everyone woman he regularly speaks to thought he was an asshole and a moron over the incident and that the least he can do is open a door for the prince and his love to be together.
But he stubbornly dug in on the basis of being the emperor, and for three days, all of them were mad at him. Yet he still persisted, although he realizes now if he’d just listening to the women trying to tell him what he should do, and relented sooner, Lakan would not have come to his office and threatened to depose him with that creepy grin on his face.
All in all, this whole debacle has been a reminder of the limits of his judgement, the patience of those around him, and the Grand Commandant’s sanity.
Behold the secret political prowess of the Sun Emperor: humiliating himself and others, making everyone around him mad, and gaining nothing.
He smells food, and expecting a nice meal to be prepared, because he is the emperor, he instead finds all the aforementioned women having dinner together. There is no place set for him.
All of them just congregating in the same place by choice is very weird because they just don’t do that. Lihua is here, which means his mother probably brought her from the rear palace just so they could completely fill the smaller dinner table where he normally ate and ensure he knew he was not welcome to join them.
They were all laughing when he walked in, and really, he is the only thing that they all have in common so he thinks that he is the butt of their jokes.
(This is correct.)
This just feels like deliberate intimidation, like they want him to know that they all think he’s wrong.
The emperor has this weird suspicion that Gyokuyou knew all along that Maomao wasn’t pregnant and let the whole misadventure take place for unknown reasons, but he has no proof of this, only vague suspicions and the memory of her adorable giggles while he stumbled through his own idiocy for an entire week.
Lady Ah-Duo says, “Oh, you made it home. We decided you might have too much work to do since you took so much time off this past week to meddle, so we had the cooks prepare a meal for you to eat in your study. You’re such a diligent worker, and it serves the people of Li so well.”
This is bullying.
He is being bullied.
Emperor Yang says, “I changed my mind. I have decided after careful deliberation that I will allow Zuigetsu leave the imperial family and marry. I decided this on my own, after careful reflection and prayer.”
Lady Ah-Duo answers, “Exactly what we expected from our wise emperor.”
Lady Anshi asks, “Do you want to have dinner with us?”
The emperor considers this and decides this convergence of female energy is probably dangerous to him in some way. Even though he has given in, the rage of a woman cannot be satisfied so easily. He humiliated Maomao, who has a very close personal connection to everyone at the table, especially Gyokuyou and Lihua.
They will not leave the debt unpaid. An apology is not enough; he will atone for making the trouble he has caused the cat.
“It is as you say. I’m very busy. I’ll eat in my study. And then I will retire to the rear palace for a while.”
Lihua says, “The father of the nation works so hard.”
Gyokuyou answers, “And so wise. Never a mistake in judgement or intuition. The insight he has is without equal.”
“As the wise consort, I recognize the wisdom of the emperor is far superior to my own,” Lihua playfully replies.
Lady Anshi adds, “Now, now, let’s not be too hard on him. He did his best, ladies. His best.”
Emperor Yang shuts the door and sulks. Is he not the emperor?
Then he opens it again and says, “Would you all like to assist in planning a wedding for the prince and his cat? I am certain they would both be horrified by a big ceremony, but something small would be suitable. It seems like you all need something to do.”
Well yes, they would.
Of course they would.
Dressing Maomao up in a red gown with gold embroidery? Ceremonial tea at the shrine? Silly little wedding night traditions?
He considers this distraction a brilliant tactical move that will improve the quality of his life significantly.
But he has learned nothing, because elsewhere, Jinshi and Maomao are returning to the Outer Court from their visit to see the baby, and they have no idea they are getting married. They’re quietly disappointed by the uncertainty they think they are still trapped in, unaware that Maomao’s generally incompetent father threatened to overthrow the government if she couldn’t be happy.
Maomao thinks maybe they should have sex anyway, although with her heart as it is, and the fact that she’s full of fertility herbs, she worries they’ll just be talking in a couple of months about how to get rid of something she thinks they’d both be happy to have.
When they reach the place where they might part ways normally, since it’s after dark, he says, “I’ll walk you back to your quarters.”
“Master Jinshi.”
“What is it?”
“If I asked, would you grant me an audience with the Imperial Amphibian?”
The prince feels a little nervous as he asks, “Do you wish to observe it for scientific purposes or…?”
“Entertainment.”
“That just makes you sound like you want to point at it and laugh.”
Maomao answers, “I can’t promise I won’t. I have no idea what it looks like, but apparently, you’ll show it to anyone. The old fart said it was bumpy, which is concerning. Do you have bumps?”
“I feel like you are asking me if I have the clap.”
“I won’t ask questions, but I will make you some ointment. If you have sores, and they fester, the whole thing might rot off or need to be amputated.”
The prince crosses his arms. “First of all, it’s bumpy because it’s very veiny, which I’ve heard is considered a good thing. And second of all, no, I don’t have venereal disease. And third of all, this conversation really seemed like it was going somewhere nice, but now you’re talking about cutting my extremities off for the second time today.”
Maomao answers, “So you won’t let me meet the Imperial Amphibian?”
He pretends to be as cool as possible as if all the blood in his body hasn’t dropped to one area. “What’s in it for me?”
“You get to show me your frog. I will look at it. With my eyes. You will watch me looking at it with my eyes with your eyes.”
Of course this is more than fair. She wants to see it. He reallllly wants to show it to her. Wants to see her face when she looks at it, and hear the weird, clinical observations she will make to herself as she examines it like a doctor and uses very medical terms to describe it. He has no problem being the patient for the Cat Doctor as long as no amputations are involved.
“Would you show me yours?” he teases.
“I don’t have a frog.”
“You know what I mean.”
“I’m afraid I don’t.”
Jinshi lowers his voice. “I will say it. I’m not a coward like you, needing to call it some other word.”
“I don’t think you will.”
He tries to hype himself up, but…nope, that word is not coming out of his mouth, at least not in this context as they walk together in a semi-public place. No one can hear them, but still, his cheeks are red and hers are as well. A third party would have no problem guessing they were flirting.
“Okay fine. I’m a coward, but please,” he whines.
Maomao says, “I would need to bathe first.”
“What, did you think I was fresh as a rose? You know, we could go back to my house and have a bath together if you’re that bothered.”
She answers, “I don’t believe people who bathe together before sexual activity clean themselves as thoroughly as if they were alone. I could take a bath and return to your home, I suppose.”
“I could just have the servants prepare you a different bath at my home. We could eat, have a bath, and then I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”
Maomao realizes she’s carrying the basket that contains the clothes she left behind the last time she visited his room. “Now that I think of it, I already have something to put on in the morning.”
He grabs her hand, and they hurry toward his place.
The cat and the amphibian prepare for their long-awaited first meeting.
Chapter Text
There is a rule that the prince has come to respect.
No matter what, there will almost always be a comical interruption, so while he and Maomao have agreed somewhat to maybe mess around, there is a part of him that isn’t sure it’s actually going to happen.
Anyway, his dick and balls have never been cleaner, and they are prepared for their long-overdue examination by the Cat Doctor.
The room has been set up by Suiren while they were eating and their baths were being prepared.
Suiren is just a kind old lady trying to help her very special grandson get laid so he doesn’t die alone, and if he actually knew she was his grandmother, perhaps he would feel pathetic about the fact even his grandmother knows he desperately needs the touch of a woman.
Ignorance is bliss, and he waits on the bed, which has been sprinkled with petals, wondering how far they’re going to go or if they’re just waiting on the unknown interruption.
Suiren has laid a white cloth across the bed in case they go all the way, which would be used as proof of virginity if smeared with blood afterward.
What if they do it, do it? How exciting!
And then someone knocks, and his whole world shatters.
“Whoever it is, go away, you’re ruining my life,” he says.
Maomao, standing at the door wearing nothing but a silk robe Suiren gave her and some slippers, frowns at the door. “Fine. I’ll see you in the morning.”
She turns, confused, and makes it about two steps before the door flies open and he sweeps her off the floor into his arms.
“Not you, Maomao. You’re coming with me.”
“I didn’t agree to anyone coming anywhere, but maybe. You’ll probably do it first, considering that one time,” she teases.
He rides a wave of so few words, first, Maomao made a joke about them climaxing, and that was amazing. Up and up he went, and then she reminded him that one time they tongue kissed, and when she sucked on his tongue, he visibly climaxed and was left shaking like a wet puppy.
The prince throws her over his shoulder. “I was going to carry you to the bed all cute, but you’re being bad.”
With his free hand, he shuts and locks the door and then throws her slippers on the floor.
Maomao drags her fingernails lightly up his back through the single layer of silk he is using to cover himself. This causes chills to run through his entire body and makes him so stiff all over that he can barely move.
He retaliates by turning his head and simply biting the butt cheek that’s right there by his head.
Maomao feels teeth through her robe, hears him growl a little, and then, because he liked the mouthfeel, he did it again.
“I’m not a chew toy, Master Jinshi.”
“Bad kitties get bites, Maomao,” he says, throwing her down on the bed.
She lands on her back and bounces slightly as he climbs onto the bed after her, flashing his teeth.
She asks, “And if I’m good?”
“Maybe I’ll find a better use for my mouth than discipline, but also bites,” he says, licking her neck.
There’s some shifting around on the bed to find a comfortable position, and Maomao’s body betrays her somewhat; as he moves above her, for some reason her legs just part entirely on their own. It feels like a subconscious action, and as soon as it happens, she tries to draw them back together, but feels a sweaty palm on her knee, holding it out.
“Flowers don’t close once they open.”
Maomao answers, “Actually.”
He kisses her to stop her from saying anything else and then says, “Just let me be wrong.”
“About plants? I do not attempt to seduce you by making misstatements about your life’s work.”
“And just what do you think my life’s work is?”
“Paperwork.”
Tracing the scar on his face, Maomao playfully teases, “You could lay me on your desk and stay up late making sure I get done right. Until your fingers are sore and stained from my ink.”
The metaphor fell apart at the end, but she tried her best. They are perhaps both failing at making sexy talk, but it seems fine.
He lets out a low little laugh and kisses her again, his lips still happy-shaped when they brush against hers.
Somehow, this is perfect, playful words and touches and teases. She finally wanted to be there as much as he did, and he has noticed that she seems so present, like she wants to feel everything. It’s like Maomao wants to touch him because she likes him, and not because she knows three hundred ways to make him immediately achieve climax.
As his hand rests lightly on her abdomen, he feels the flesh almost twitch away from his touch, and her body stiffens oddly.
He stares at her like a scientist who has just made a discovery that will send humanity into a new era.
“Maomao, are you ticklish?”
“No.”
His fingers tease lightly along the silk, and she contorts away, barely able to stifle the giggle that wants to escape.
Maomao doesn’t wish to be tickled, and while she is sure that she could simply say that and he would respect her wishes, she has a better idea.
As he goes in to tickle her, she pulls the tie on the robe and lets it fall open.
Jinshi nearly sits up on his ankles, stunned, and watches as Maomao rises onto her knees and slips the robe of completely, neatly folding it while he sits staring in awe at her.
She’s…totally naked.
In his bed.
It’s everything he has been dreaming about and more; she’s just so beautiful to him that he can hardly contain himself, finally getting to see her tiny little nipples and soft little body.
At different times, he’s seen different parts of her body, like in the cave, when little was covered, and his brain has done well when it comes to stitching those pieces of knowledge together, but to have the whole picture at one time! With the forbidden places revealed!
His eyes study her intently while she sits blushing.
Between her legs, there’s no hair, so he can see the outline of the top of her labia, and this combined picture makes his heart pound so hard that he thinks he might actually die.
Maomao teases, “What’s the matter, Master Jinshi? Cat got your tongue?”
“No, but she’s about to,” he whispers in awe.
That, he decided, was such a cool thing to say, and he hopes she thinks it was cool too. How smooth! How suave! What an appropriate use of the cat metaphor!
She teaches for the tie on his robe and pulls curiously. “Now, let’s see that froggy.”
The robe is visibly tented as the frog thinks he might finally get to come out and play with his favorite person, and when the silk parts, he shrugs off the robe and sits kneeling on his bed absolutely naked with Maomao, who is sitting in the same position at the same level of nudity.
Maomao had certain expectations for the frog, because it belongs to the most beautiful of men. She expected it to be a handsome specimen. Pristine. Statuesque. A perfect penis. Proportioned according to how Pairin explained the perfect male member.
Plot twist: It’s hideous.
As Maomao stares with her mouth agape, he laughs. And laughs. And laughs. Because obviously, he knew what his dick looked like. He’s been waiting for literal years to see this expression on her face when she finally sees it. Now that the moment has come, it is everything he expected and more. She seems so shocked and confused!
Blinking slowly, Maomao studies it. It is first and foremost, very big. She’s felt the amphibian’s presence from time to time, lightly nudging her at tense moments, and in the cave when she made the discovery that it existed.
Maomao measures it, holding one hand flat near the base and the other at the tip, and then holds her hands up against her small body. She realizes her organs were given relief from poison experiments just so they could be tormented by a giant frog monster. Would they even return to their correct positions once he finished stirring them around?
In addition to being long in size, it is fat in a way that is really not cute at all. Fat like a giant worm in a garden that is so chubby from eating that it might burst and covered in bulging veins that stick out far enough that she can see his pulse in them.
Although the prince’s pubic hair is very well trimmed, it is unexpectedly thick considering that he doesn’t really have a lot of hair on his arms or legs.
It curves at the end, and at the moment, the tip is dripping with and smeared with precum.
Maomao’s best guess is that Jinshi is beautiful because he concentrated all of his ugliness in this one area of his body. It’s really very deceptive, because she’s seen so much of his body and it’s all been beautiful. She thinks the frog looks like something that would be hanging between the legs of a giant troll that lives under a bridge and eats people.
It’s obvious he knows it’s strange looking because he can’t stop laughing at her horror, as if he’d been expecting it all along.
Her eyes are somewhat offended by the idea that any part of Jinshi’s body isn’t breathtaking, but there is a part of her anatomy that is very greedy and is certainly more enamored with this fat, engorged amphibian than ever. Perhaps it is not good for looking at, but she assumes it will perform its function exquisitely, and so the heat between her legs seems to intensity significantly.
While the eyes are holes and windows to the soul, they are not holes that the frog will ever explore, and therefore her mind suggests it doesn’t matter if it’s not nice to look at. Being pretty is not the job of the amphibian, after all. It is an instrument of human reproduction, built for burying his seed deep inside of her.
She is mildly annoyed that he’s amused by her reaction to his frog, and so she seeks to silence his mirth.
She says, “I’ll have you know, mine is lovely. Perhaps I am prettier than you after all if we take this into consideration.”
“You’ve always been prettier, Maomao. Maybe you had all your silly little tricks to make yourself look less than you are, but I saw right through all that.”
She reaches out with one hand, and he watches with wide eyes as both her small hands wrap around his cock, the absolute stuff of his fantasies. And yet despite imagining it thousands of times, the real thing was so much better.
“Could you lay down?”
“You could tell me to jump out a window right now and I’d do it,” he whispers, laying back but propping himself up on his elbows so he can get the best view of a very curious cat.
Maomao sits between his legs and has an examination first. She squeezes to feel the texture and thickness, traces the veins with her fingers, plays with the foreskin. The head beneath is pink and shiny, and quite drippy. The amount of pre-ejaculate leaves her wondering if it is normal for him to be so leaky? Maybe he’s just very aroused?
When she rubs it from tip to base and spreads the precum around, the cock has now become bumpy, fat, and moist, not entirely unlike an actual frog. She smells her hand; there is a maleness to the scent. She doesn’t love it, but it’s not horrible.
Maomao really wishes she could examine the amphibian in full natural light so she could see better, and for some reason, she suspects that if she asks him if they can go somewhere so she can play with his frog again in better lighting, he will happily arrange that for her.
As she looks up, he is staring at her so intently.
“Oh, you’re not laughing anymore?” she teases.
“M-Maomao…”
Maomao lowers her head and says, “I’ve heard that the most sensitive spot,” her fingers slide the foreskin back to reveal the head, “is this area here,” she says, dragging her tongue along the bottom of the head of his cock.
And then suddenly she is moved, and she is flat on her back.
The prince kisses the inside of one of her knees after pushing them open and says, “I owe you one, don’t I? From what happened before.”
He’s less analytical and more of a horny dog that hasn’t been permitted to eat for several years despite living alongside his favorite snack, so he simply dives in. Yes, it’s adorably pink, like an exotic orchid that should be admired for its delicate beauty, but the pup is hungry.
Maomao knows that most men do not perform this specific activity, especially in situations where there is a difference in class between partners. She thinks the emperor has probably never done it, and most of the patrons at Verdigris House are willing to receive, but rarely give.
It’s also not surprising to her, because Jinshi has been communicating a certain intent to devour for a very long time. He sniffs her like a hot meal he’s dying to taste, puts his mouth on her often, and sometimes, just generally wanders around with her looking like a steamed bun would save his life when he’s actually eager to sink his teeth into her buns.
“J-Jinshi! What are you—”
What he lacks in experience, he makes up for in incomparable enthusiasm, nipping at her soft outer labia with his teeth when she speaks before exploring her very wet vulva with his tongue and lips.
For some reason, the idea that Maomao was wet for him makes him so very happy. Very satisfied with himself. Despite her shock at the frog’s true form, she wants him to use it to fuck her and if he wasn’t already as turned on as he can be without embarrassing himself again, he would take a moment to think about that.
Maomao is surprised at the staggering difference between her manipulating her own body and how it feels when someone else’s hot, wet tongue does it. It’s a completely different sensation, one that makes her feel a bit mad, leaving her grabbing fistfuls of his hair but unable to decide if she wants to push his head back or drown him in between her legs so she does a bit of both.
That desperate sense of emptiness creeps back, and it occurs to her that the appropriate tool for relieving that sensation is present and ready to perform its intended job.
And then she can’t think about anything, because the prince made the divine discovery that tends to elude less considerate men. There’s something nearly demonic this man who will stare straight into her eyes while he has her clit in his mouth.
Really, the nerve of this man.
“J-Jinshi…”
He doesn’t cease his torment, and suddenly, she makes quite a loud noise and starts visibly twitching.
It was…unexpected. For her. For him. Was there such a thing as premature climax for a woman?
Jinshi read an entire book about making women orgasm because he didn’t want to be a poor performer in bed, knowing she had all the training she did. His understanding was that it was kind of difficult to do. It took experience. Practice. Of course, it was written by a man whose chief accomplishment in life was being able to please a woman, so the writer was motivated to make it seem more difficult than it was. Otherwise, who would buy his book?
“Did you?”
In his mind, he always thought it might be more difficult than normal for Maomao, who tended to resist her emotions. He assumed she’d resist her desires too, but the actual experience has been very different. She was a slippery, mewing mess, and it just happened.
Now he doesn’t feel so bad that he nearly came on the ceiling because she licked his cock.
They are enthusiastic.
When her fingers relax and slide from his hair, she says, “I just thought that would take you longer?”
“You thought I’d be bad at it?”
“You’ve never done it before, right?”
“Of course not!”
Maomao lifts the sheet and sits up to wipe his face and the tip of his nose as he does the same. “You’re a very messy eater.”
“Say what you want. Your legs are still twitching. You climaxed for me, Maomao. Either I’m just spectacularly skilled or you might actually like me. Maybe.”
“Just maybe?”
She reaches out to touch his cheek and says, “You’re so handsome. Well, mostly.”
“You’re beautiful everywhere.”
They’ve come to the ‘how far are we actually going to go’ crossroads that have been before them since they reached the rather ambiguous agreement to do a genital reveal. He doesn’t ask, as if he is leaving the decision to her. At the very least, she thinks she should return the favor.
Or they could do it. The deed. Have the sex.
“Zuigetsu,” she whispers, brushing his thumb over his face.
He beams a bit at the sound of his real name coming out of her mouth. The way she says it is so sweet to him, and so he kisses her forehead.
“I would like for you to put a baby in my belly.”
If that’s what Maomao wants, that’s what’s going to happen; he decides he’ll figure out the rest tomorrow.
Hearts pounding, taking uneasy breaths, he lowers her down, pulling the pillow down so it rests comfortably under her head. Her hands rest on his shoulders, and her legs part.
“You’ll live with me as my wife then?”
She nods.
It hurt more than she expected it to, but the frog is fat, after all. Maomao has a high tolerance for pain, and somewhere in the back of her mind, purposefully hurting herself causes her to feel a certain amount of excitement when she is subjected to discomfort because she’s just a very normal girl.
He feels the telltale pop of the barrier that proves she has known no other frog in her life, and worries she’s experiencing too much discomfort, but she whispers, “Hurt me more,” while digging her fingernails into his hips and pulling him toward her like she needs him to fully get inside of her immediately.
The Imperial Amphibian is ugly, but she wants more of it, and rough too.
The fact he doesn’t last long like that is not surprising, but what is surprising to her is how what a happy little breeder she is, getting pumped full of cum. She wasn’t sure if she’d feel the actually ejaculation process, but yes, she does.
It gets hard again before he even pulls out, and she says, “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“Despite being ugly, it’s useful,” she pants.
“I actually really like it when you insult it,” he teases.
The veiny fatness that makes it ugly also makes it a supreme organ for giving pleasure, and therefore, Maomao has decided to accept the fact that it’s not nice to look at. It fills her up in more than one way, and that’s what it’s for.
On the second round, she climaxed just from the frog, without needing her clit to be touched, and after that, he bent her over on the bed and mercilessly fucked her for what felt like an eternity because her sense of time somehow became miscalibrated by a tide of building up, falling down, recovering, and then starting all over again while she had her face down in a pillow and her ass up in the air.
It's so much more than either of them thought it would be, and when he is finally satisfied for the last time, she rolls onto her side. She feels so unimaginably filthy, sweaty both from her own body and from his sweat rubbing off on her. It smells like sex in the room, and her vulva is swollen, and somehow both sensitive and numb.
She observes the frog in its state of repose, and notes it still looks very odd, but less monstrous. “It turned back into a tadpole?”
“It would be awkward if it was a fully hard all the time.”
When he reaches over her to put out the candle so they can sleep, the smell of the wick causes her to sneeze, and she’s so full of semen that it bubbles out of her like blood during a period sneeze and that’s just one of the most delightfully gross sensations she has ever experienced in her life.
And yet she is so satisfied to be in such a disgusting state, and all she wants to do lay down and sleep peacefully with her prince and the Imperial Amphibian, unattractive as it is. She doesn’t think there’s a single place on her body he hasn’t touched with his enormous sweaty hands.
The prince curls up with his little cat, still a bit stunned at just how greedy she actually is. She’s always been a bit cautious and reluctant, but no, Maomao is a fiend.
They are both animals in a very different but completely complementary way.
Their sleep is peaceful and uninterrupted, until very the next morning, when Suiren knocks on the door.
The prince raises his head, realizes that Maomao is there and he didn’t just have the most vivid wet dream of all time, and calls, “Tell everyone I’m sick for the day.”
“Prince, it would be good to have a meal. I’ve prepared baths.”
Maomao groans but realizes she feels withered like a raisin. Now that she thinks of it, there were little snacks and some tea laid out on a table in the bedchamber, but they never left the bed to enjoy them. It seems the frog demanded much of her bodily fluids. That was to be expected. Frogs love being wet, after all.
When Maomao slides out of the bed, she is greeted by a new, strange and somewhat uncomfortable sensation. Actually, going from being a virgin to entertaining a giant frog monster for many rounds left her vagina feeling sore and quite angry, a rather ‘what have you done to me’ sort of sensation.
The prince hears her groan a little. “Are you okay?”
“A little sore. My back too,” she answers, her voice a bit hoarse from making too much noise.
“I’m sorry, did I hurt you?”
Maomao says, “You can’t pretend to be my nice, caring man now. You were growling and biting and making me tell you how wet I am for your big ugly frog only hours ago. I know who you are now.”
“We’ve learned so much about each other. And ourselves. I think I might have natural skills. Besides paperwork that is.”
“And being pretty.”
Jinshi answers, “Okay, so my life skills include: paperwork, being pretty, and sexing up my cat.”
Maomao says, “I need you to never, ever utter that phrase again. You know that no one around here ever understands anything.”
She makes her way to the refreshments, room temperature tea that she guzzled like she just climbed out of a desert into an oasis that was filled with peach flavored white tea for some reason, and offers him a cup, when he discovers that yes, he is actually dying from thirst and was too excited about the fact he had sex to notice this.
XXX
Elsewhere, panic!
Basen arrived at the palace with his father, and just before they were going to separate for their respective duties, they were chased down by Lihaku, coming from the infirmary.
Maomao is missing.
The two men go to the infirmary first, where Luomen explains that he went to Maomao’s room late the prior evening to ask if she wanted to have dinner with him, but she wasn’t there.
Guards had already entered her room and found nothing particularly interesting.
It was weird, because she has packets of herbs in places one might expect clothes or personal possessions, but nothing indicating that she was in any sort of danger. Also, Maomao does not have a particularly extensive wardrobe, but there was an entire trunk filled with lingerie under her bed.
Gaoshun and Basen go to her room, and Basen, despite his squareness, says, “There’s something missing. The prince had a blue basket with a white lid, the kind they use at his home. I think it had some of her clothes in it for some reason? I don’t see the basket here. Maybe she didn’t make it home last night.”
Since she shared a carriage with the prince, if the carriage didn’t make it back and the prince’s whereabouts were unknown, everyone in the palace would have been up all night. Maomao missing by herself suggests the two made it back and she vanished after they separated.
Neither of them thinks that the prince let her walk all the way back to her quarters from where they would have parted, and that he would either walk her back to the apartment himself or assign someone he trusts to do it.
After all, Maomao has a history of being kidnapped, and that is an ever-present reality inside the prince’s mind.
Telling the prince or the Grand Commandant that Maomao is missing is going to set things in motion, and they don’t want to do that unnecessarily. At the same time, the prince was likely the last one to see her, so speaking to him is the inevitable next step of the investigation.
When they arrive, they pass household attendants hauling the sheets out to be laundered.
Since they’re attendants of the imperial family who come and go from this residence often, they enter without being properly greeted, and look around for the prince, who is certainly out of bed by this time.
Basen opens the door to a small dining room, where Jinshi and Maomao are sitting way too close together on the same side of the table despite there being plenty of room. Both have damp drying hair because each discovered mysterious dried substances in their hair while bathing.
“Maomao?! You’re safe! Are you all right?!” Basen exclaims.
Maomao asks, “Why are you yelling? It’s early in the morning.”
It actually isn’t very early at all. This breakfast is happening almost two hours later than when the prince normally eats, and the Ma clan attendants have already been working on a whole investigation.
Gaoshun thinks back to the dreamy looks they were giving each other at his home while they were playing with the baby, the fact Maomao never returned to her quarters after, the sheets being taken out to be laundered first thing in the morning, the damp hair indicating they bathed very thoroughly early in the morning for some reason, Maomao’s mildly hoarse voice, the fact they look a bit tired, the late breakfast, the way they’re sitting too close at the table.
Maomao wasn’t kidnapped, she snuck off and spent the night with the prince.
Basen asks, “There’s a search party. Everyone thinks you were kidnapped again.”
His father elbows him and shakes his head. “We’ll be leaving. Our apologies for the interruption.”
The prince answers, “Apologies for the misunderstanding. Can you ask the emperor if I might have an audience with him? We are otherwise taking the day off.”
Maomao says, “My dad is teaching all the medical staff about how to treat rare contagious fevers today, so I am going after breakfast.”
“Are you joking?” the prince asks.
“No, I’m a medical student.”
Jinshi pouts and asks, “You’re going to leave me at home, alone, by myself. On this, the day after…yesterday?”
They are all glad he did not say it out loud, but calling ‘today the day after yesterday’ makes him sound astoundingly stupid, so much so that Maomao stifles a bit of a laugh.
An imperial consort can’t just run around unattended, so Gaoshun sends Basen on to the emperor and waits for Maomao to finish her breakfast so he can escort her to work.
It’s really obvious to Gaoshun that the glorious event has finally taken place, and after Maomao finishes her meal, she walks with him, although he notices something a little off.
When they’ve only walked for a minute together, he stops.
“Lady Maomao?”
“I thought we agreed you weren’t going to do that.”
Gaoshun says, “Fine. Xiaomao. But please remember that people are going to regard you as being of the noble class from now on.”
“Yes? What now?”
He puts her hand on her shoulders and says, “Would you want me to tell you something important even if it was embarrassing?”
“How could anything you could possibly say to me be worse than anything else that has happened to me this week?”
Gaoshun says, “You spent all night at a man’s house and now you’re hoarse and can’t walk in a straight line. Every person you encounter with knowledge of the flesh is going to know. Master Luomen is going to know, and that is very stressful for a father. I’m sure he’ll talk to you about rare contagious fevers some other time.”
Despite being a most patient and understanding man, Gaoshun saw Luomen was actually a bit irritated with the prince over the black honey incident until he realized the prince was just stupid and not a pervert. There are fewer excuses to be made for his daughter disappearing overnight and then showing up hoarse from either yelling a lot or using her throat for something else and also crab walking.
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes. Please go home. The prince is sulking.”
“Well, we can’t have that. You really him like he’s royalty or something,” she answers.
He turns her with his hands. “Go home, Maomao.”
“But my home is that way?”
“Is it?”
Maomao says, “To be honest, I got really excited about rare contagious fevers.”
“Understandable. What woman doesn’t wish to interrupt her honeymoon to discuss rare contagious fevers?”
“If you ever get a rare contagious fever, you’re going to wish I knew more about rare contagious fevers.”
Gaoshun answers, “I am sure that I will survive.”
“You have to. Otherwise, it’s straight into the volcano with these people.”
He wonders if she realizes that she is also one of the people that he is constantly trying to keep out of trouble. There is a mental bulletin board in his head where he records the number of days since this little creature purposefully ate poison. Maybe everyone else was at risk of falling into the volcano, but she would be there, trying to figure out how to drink the lava. There’s virtually no way it’s not poisonous, right?
Maomao returns to the house, where she rejoins the prince, who has headed back to the bedroom for a nap. She puts the sleeping robe back on, and climbs into the bed, and he pulls her close.
“Does this mean you love me more than rare contagious fevers?”
“Maybe.”
“I feel so special.”
The prince says, “You never did explain why you suddenly grew much larger breasts. I feel like you have very purposefully been avoiding that question.”
“I decided I wanted to become pregnant and started taking tons of fertility treatments. My femininity was enhanced. I was a little anxious about talking about it before, but it’s easy for me to talk about difficult things with you when I consider that there’s probably still a lot of your semen floating around my insides. It’s probably a little late to be timid.”
His index finger lightly traces over her tummy. “Do you think it worked already?”
“It’s not really the right time of the month, but the chance is never zero.”
He says, “Later this afternoon, I’m going to go to the emperor and demand he let us live apart from the imperial family. I won’t take no for an answer.”
“Are you going to hurt yourself again? Because you do still have another woman’s symbol branded onto your body, and I don’t think I like that.”
“Would it make you feel better if I branded a little kitty cat on the other side?”
“No, it would not. I would find that infuriating. And then I would pack the injury with salt and watch you weep, I can’t imagine being given such a nearly perfectly beautiful body, and feeling possessed by the urge to burn it,” she warns.
“Nearly perfectly beautiful?”
“Well, I’ve glimpsed the Grand Imperial Amphibian. He does the job well, but he isn’t pretty.”
The prince says, “Yeah, and why are you hoarse again?”
“Because I will put anything in my mouth.”
He honestly finds it kind of a turn on that she thinks it’s ugly, and he wants to hear her make fun of it more so he can rub it in her face the next time it’s buried deep inside of her.
Then he remembers he was talking to her about their future. “But anyway, I am going to go to the emperor and I will work everything out, so we can live the way we want to. So you don’t need to worry.”
Maomao isn’t sure if she thinks this is really going to work out, as the emperor has made his wishes clear, but she’s not going to question his resolve either because she wants him to be successful. If everything just worked out for them from here on out, that would be such a relief. It seems like everyone else can just vaguely decide they want to be together and if it makes some sort of sense, it just happens.
Trusting in a man to work things out for her is just such a domestic thing to do, but it’s not like she can go make demands of the emperor. No one can do that, or so she thinks.
After a nap, and a walk in the garden, the prince prepares to face the emperor and demand his freedom.
He walks to the office where the Great Misunderstand happened, and where Lakan was there making his threats only a day earlier.
The emperor is sitting with a plate of flower cookies on his desk, half of which he has eaten over the course of the day, in part because they are delicious, and in part because he’s still quite unnerved by the commander of his army making threats.
Flower cookies were ordered from the main kitchen again because he didn’t get to eat any at the meeting the other day. Maomao threw one directly at his head like it was some sort of sugared shuriken, and the rest were thrown with the serving plate at Lakan.
Maomao and Lakan are very similar when they’re exasperated, as evidenced by the fact they both threw food and serving implements during the meeting because they were mad, but the emperor suspects Maomao would not appreciate being told her temper is similar to her father’s.
It seems like the misunderstanding that took place has caused everything to bubble up to the surface all at once. The emperor heard early in the morning that Maomao might be missing, and then later that no, she wasn’t missing, she spent the night with the prince. As far as he knows, they’ve slept in the same place and not done the deed before, so this wasn’t really that big of a deal, but he knows neither of them went to work because he’s nosy.
Gaoshun really has no idea what happened on his day off, but the emperor looks visibly distressed, and he’s eating constantly like a frightened little rat, just continually crunching at his desk, pausing briefly to brush crumbs off his paperwork.
“Do you think they did it?” he idly asks.
“I’m sorry. I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Gaoshun answers.
“You know what I’m talking about.”
“I am not entirely sure and would not speak to their private business.”
Yang asks, “But you suspect.”
The attendant answers, “I think this week has been a lesson in not making assumptions.”
“But if you had to make an assumption?”
Gaoshun asks, “If I may…are you all right? You seem unnerved.”
“I am fine, of course. Do I not seem fine?”
The emperor feels like Lakan knowing the secret about the prince’s identity is probably a sign that he should just tell the truth. It’s possible Lakan might have told his daughter, or that she might have figured it out on her own because she is literally just the person who solves mysteries for them because the Inspector’s Office is just so unimaginably incompetent.
What have those people even been doing?
Since the most compelling evidence to suggest a lie has been told is the strong similarity Yue has to Ah-Duo, in theory, Lakan should be the last person on earth to figure it out because he doesn’t even know they look alike. What did that man even have to be suspicious about?
Yang wants to ask Maomao if she knows because in an intimate relationship, she might naturally decide not to keep secrets from Yue. But he suspects that if Maomao knows, getting her to admit to this knowledge will be difficult, as she seems to have an odd sort of way she answers questions. His pride will not allow him to be led into the valley of misunderstandings again.
When his son arrives, the emperor wants to have a more casual discussion with him about this and that, and a bit of ‘DID IT HAPPEN’ maybe, but the prince comes in and immediately turns up the intensity level in the room.
He seems to have a whole speech ready, and it dives right into it without even properly greeting the emperor.
“Emperor, I have an urgently important matter to discuss with you. I do not wish to wait any longer to begin my life outside of the imperial family. I would beseech you to make good on the promise that you made with me. You have sons now; you do not need a brother anymore. I serve no purpose in this house, and I wish to be free to live as I might with the woman that I love.”
Yang just sits behind his desk as the young prince goes on and on and on, for ten whole minutes, explaining what a useless lump of coal he is to the imperial family, and how he didn’t want to be with them anyway because he yearns for a more honest and simple way of life.
It sort of sheds light on how he views the family, which is not great, but they did trick him into believing he was the spare heir of a man who filled the imperial harem with actual children. A wiser and more aged mind questions whether that was really the best idea, and why they stuck with it for so long.
What a surprise, he has a low opinion of the family.
On the upside, the emperor notes his son is moving with such passion and courage that emperor does not feel like he needs to ask if the deed was done. Yue has very clearly shed his strange virgin aura and obtained the confidence of a man who has used his body for carnal works.
He doesn’t really want to interrupt as it seems like Yue went to a lot of trouble to compose all these slightly insulting thoughts into such an impassioned argument, so he just listens.
“So please. Grant my request and allow me to leave the imperial family.”
“Okay.”
The prince was just so surprised by this single word that he sits down in a chair across from the desk, confused. “What do you mean, ‘okay?’”
“I mean I had already decided to grant your request. On my own. As a result of prayer and meditation.”
Yue stares at him, and says, “That doesn’t sound like you at all. Is this some sort of test?”
“No, I am trying to give you what you want. Are you not happy?”
“This feels like some sort of test or trick, and I’m distrustful of it. It’s not like you’ve ever made me a promise and then just sort of…never spoken of it again.”
The emperor drums his fingers on the desk and sighs. “You don’t believe that I would make a decision that would make you happy?”
“It seems very unbelievable to me.”
“Do you think that all these years, as your brother, I have just been here to cause you misery?”
He says, “I went into the rear palace as a teenager pretending to be a eunuch to help my older brother impregnate women so I could be released from my duties. And then I was not released from my duties. The idea you just decided to do it now is suspicious to me.”
Yang answers, “Did you expect me to listen to your passionate speech and tell you no?”
“I expected us to argue vociferously and that I would win the argument.”
“Because you are mildly combative from the confidence you have gained from laying with a woman for the first time,” Yang says, focusing intensely on his son.
“No one said that!”
“It’s very obvious from your behavior. Right, Gaoshun?”
Gaoshun does not wish to be involved in this conversation. At all. If he could disappear into the wall and escape unnoticed into the hallway, he would do so.
The prince asks, “Did you tell him?!”
The emperor exclaims, “You did know!”
Maybe, Gaoshun thinks, the volcano is the right and moral thing for everyone.
He is actually also puzzled about why the emperor is suddenly so willing to release the Moon Prince because he was previously so entrenched in his denial. The prince is not wrong; the emperor is acting very strangely.
The emperor says, “Fine. I will tell you what changed my mind. The Grand Commandant came here yesterday and threatened to depose me if I stood in the way of his daughter’s happiness. That man is very serious about his child and will do anything so she can have what she wants. She wants you, and Lakan has decided to respect that. I already have a wedding being planned for you and I would like for you to marry. Make sure you take good care of your cat, because that man will kill you.”
“Lakan. Did that.”
“Yes.”
This is all very unexpected for the prince to hear.
Yue had gotten so carried away with Maomao that he forgot her father was a terrifying and strange man, but apparently, he had decided to be in favor of what Maomao wanted. Maybe that wasn’t surprising? He’s always thought that if Maomao ever told him what she truly wanted or asked him for any favor, he would do anything that she asked, no matter what it was.
The Great Misunderstanding might have been the first time that he was ever permitted to glimpse her feelings and desires.
Still, he came to this office intent on fighting for his love, and he’s passionate and he has all of his arguments lined up, and apparently he doesn’t need them. That little ‘okay’ was wildly unsatisfying, like he wanted to earn it for himself rather than Lakan forcing the jaws of the dragon open for him.
He still kind of wants to be a jerk and show off; his blood is pumping and he feels great.
The emperor says, “Rather than giving you a new name, I have decided you will marry into the La clan. It’s the best way to make sure that once you leave, no one tries to nudge you back toward the throne. And, I would like for you to accept an appointment to the office of Prime Minister. You can support the imperial family from outside, since that’s where you want to be.”
What is actually funny about this is that since Shishou’s death, he’s been the de facto Prime Minister even though a couple of people have been appointed. What the emperor is offering him is to move to a different house on the other side of the Outer Court and do the exact same work he’s been doing…but in a different office.
Yet the Prime Minister is not expected to have nine hundred concubines, do strange ceremonies, or treat their children like future monarchs. The Prime Minister’s wife is a person who is both powerful and free. The child of the Prime Minister does not also become the Prime Minister.
“There will be an endowment of lands and financial incentives, as the La clan is very deep in debt to a brothel. Please try to keep your father-in-law out of Verdigris House. Did you know he took out a loan on basically everything he owns to buy a disease-ridden woman with dementia? What disgusting and strangely deviant behavior.”
Jinshi says, “You’re uhhhh…talking about Maomao’s mother, who contracted syphilis after being forced into prostitution because she decided not to kill Maomao in the womb.”
Yang folds his hands on his desk. “The Inspector’s Office fails me again.”
Jinshi wonders if a man who excommunicates women from his harem for the sin of turning thirty-five trying can really use this information as leverage against Lakan, who traded his wealth to take better care of the mother of his only child while she was dying. He thinks society at large would judge one of these men more harshly than the other.
Marrying into the La clan and taking their name? Kan Zuigetsu? That’s such an intimidating name, the name of a scary person. He’s not actually sure that he minds this, as he doesn’t want to be harassed by other clans once he leaves. The clans who would do this, would not do it if it meant making Lakan more powerful, so his unpleasantness has a protective property about it.
The emperor also gains the ability to place a powerful asset in Lakan’s camp that is deeply loyal to the imperial house.
He was willing to die for Maomao, so having to deal with a little more Lakan seems fine. He assumes Maomao will be annoyed at having a closer relationship to the La clan also, but there is some truth to the idea that she would be much safer that way.
“Do I get to keep Basen?”
“The Ma clan serves the imperial house. Basen’s skills will be best used serving the future emperor.”
He scowls.
The emperor says, “There’s a useful attendant in the La clan, isn’t there? That Rikuson person.”
“That man tried to steal Maomao.”
Leaning forward, the emperor, wanting to know his son’s business, studies him. “Tell me more.”
“No.”
The Unknowing Son rejects the curiosity of the Secret Father. Offensive, but not unusual.
Secret Father frowns. “I would like for you to marry Maomao immediately. Right away. As soon as possible. Gyokuyou has a dress. Preparations are in progress. Make sure the Grand Commandant is invited. Honeymoon with your new wife at the summer estate I am gifting you because I am considerate.”
Unknowing Son asks, “Do you also expect an invitation?” before giving him the tiniest little smile, to indicate he’s only joking.
The emperor picks up the last cookie on the plate, and attempting to copy Maomao’s style, throws it so it spins in the air, intending to hit the prince, who simply opens his mouth and catches it with his teeth.
He thinks it was a very impressive feat he accomplished, but there’s really no reason to do anything neat if Maomao isn’t there to watch, so he eats his cookie and tells the emperor about how Rikuson tried to steal his cat.
Notes:
I was trying to respond to all the reviews at first, but I can't.
Just know that I am so appreciative of everyone and their support of this fic. I am going through some things in my life and writing comedy is making it better.
Chapter Text
“When is your baby going to be born?”
Maomao stands holding a stack of invitations in the parlor of Verdigris House, staring at Pairin in confusion. Everyone at the palace is talking, but Maomao only knows that because Jinshi told her. She never has any idea about what anyone is gossiping about because she doesn’t want to know.
The fact that Verdigris House has also been taken by the rumor that she is pregnant is odd.
She’s sure if she does get pregnant sooner rather than later, everyone will just think they were right, and while she doesn’t want to give them that pleasure, she also wants to get that pleasure. From the Imperial Amphibian.
The weirdest thing about reaching the stage of adulthood that involves sex is that so much of her time was spent worrying about when and how to have sex, and now she can just have it whenever.
Maomao asked the prince a lot of questions about the conditions he would be willing to enjoy sexual relations with her:
If she is in the mood and he’s asleep?
“Wake me up.”
Early in the morning?
“Yes, please.”
In places beside the bedroom?
“Don’t tease me like that.”
What about really inappropriate places?
She walked past his office on her way to leave the palace and thought, ‘the amphibian is in there’ and five minutes later, she was on her knees under his desk.
Best of luck to the prince who needs to focus very hard and get a lot of work done today.
But also, she thinks he might have some sort of degradation kink because she kind of remembers now that at the beginning, her disgusted glares really seemed to do something to him. Like, he was sending her signals, and she was sending him signals, and they were not being received as intended by the target.
She was disgusted by his fascination, and he was fascinated by her disgust. A few perfectly mundane adventures later, and now she’s passing out wedding invitations and hoping he impregnates her. All perfectly normal. This must be how everyone falls in love.
But anyway.
Maomao says, “Why do you all think I’m already pregnant?”
Pairin answers, “Lihaku told us.”
“He did?”
“Sometimes, whenever I touch him, he just starts telling me things. I think some of them might be secrets. Where the troops are, how many feifas the army has, where they hide secret…catches?...of gunpowder.”
“Caches.”
“Yes, that was the word,” Pairin answers.
Lihaku has now risen to an extraordinary rank for his age and is a rising star. Maomao and Jinshi were actually just talking about him earlier that day because the prince has to find a new primary attendant for when he becomes an unprince.
Pairin does her best to explain that whenever she pleasures Lihaku he basically expels everything he is holding inside of his brain, regardless of whether or not that information is valuable.
While Pairin has probably been told enough to overthrow the government, she lacks motivation to do so and probably has not retained any of this information. Pairin is a simple woman and only really wans a few things in life and sowing government discord is fortunately not one of them, although Maomao thinks she could make an army march for her if she ever wanted to.
“There’s no baby?” Pairin says.
“No baby.”
Pairin pouts. “Well, there should be.”
“Working on it.”
“Lihaku says he heard the emperor and Kan Lakan talking about it. I assumed he was telling the truth because how could the emperor be wrong?” she asks.
Maomao answers, “Very easily, actually. You cannot believe how wrong the emperor can be.”
“Is it against the law for you to say that?”
“Probably. I forget how people who have never interacted with those people think about them sometimes,” Maomao says, wondering what it would be like to be an average person who believes the country is being run by sane and wise individuals who exercise excellent judgement at all times.
Maomao looks back to yelling at the emperor and throwing food at him and wonders how often anyone has behaved that way toward him. They all accepted they deserved it, so it was fine. And it’s not like the Ma clan attendants did anything to stop her. If anyone else started talking crazy to the royals or throwing food, Gaoshun would have drawn his sword on them.
Pairin says, “You said you’re working on it. Does that mean our little Maomao has become a woman?”
“Yes.”
“…So?”
She asks, “You want details?”
“As many as possible.”
Maomao dishes.
Pairin giggles at Maomao’s explanation of things, and says, “Oh my. He sounds impressive. I don’t think you would loan him to your big sis for an evening.”
“He would be so confused. And perhaps I don’t want to share. But it is very ugly.”
“Oh, they all are.”
“Really?”
Joka enters and says, “I don’t even need to ask what you’re talking about to know. Yes. They’re all ugly.”
“All of them?”
Joka explains, “Men are ugly. If you had a thousand of them, and you started to undress them one article of clothing at a time, maybe one out of ten would look better partially exposed than fully covered. And once you got them down to the last piece of clothing, exactly none of them would become more attractive by removing that last bit of cloth covering their male hideousness.”
It's worth noting that Joka hates men, and when Maomao was young, she wondered how a woman who was a courtesan could hate men. Then she spied on her once as a young child and saw Joka stomping on a man, telling him he was a pile of shit that deserved to be punished.
She thinks that Jinshi has a very mild case of whatever that is.
Pairin says, “It’s really fine if they’re not nice to look at. They’re fun to play with, and that’s all that really matters.”
Joka answers, “As long as you make sure the man knows you’re disgusted.”
Maomao wonders if she’s more of a Joka than a Pairin?
Pairin tells Joka, “Maomao says there’s no baby. Yet. But our sweet Maomao is a woman now.
“I could tell from how you’re walking, Maomao. You have the confidence of a woman that has absolutely ruined a man. I’m proud,” Joka answers, giving her a pat on the head.
Maomao nods. “Yes, the ruination has happened. Successfully.”
Gaoshun noticing her walking a little unsteady the morning after because of the frog, and Joka noticing her walking confidently seem like two sides of some very weird coin. She’s noticed that Jinshi seems much bolder and more confident too.
Maybe sex really is as good as everyone says it is after all?
Maomao holds out a printed invitation. “This is an invitation to my wedding day after tomorrow. You need this invitation to get past the gate. I understand if you can’t come, obviously. It’s short notice, after all.”
“A wedding? Our little Maomao?”
“Yes.”
While Maomao wasn’t sure if she cared about any sort of ceremonial thing, she tried on the dress Gyokuyou bought for her, and now she’s kind of excited. It’s so pretty. Despite not being a super girly girl who has ever fantasized a lot about a wedding, there’s something about a wedding gown that made her feel very happy.
Maomao says, “It’s just a ceremony, and a banquet. Supposedly there are not going to be a lot of people, but there are signs things are getting out of hand.”
“Are there going to be a lot of rich potential clients?” Joka asks.
“Yes, but the ceremony is in a shrine, if you could maybe put your tits up for the night. Or at least for the shrine part. If you devour men at the banquet, that’s their fault,” she answers.
Joka puts her hands on her chest and says, “I heard the emperor likes a woman who has been blessed.”
“He’s the emperor. He won’t touch a woman another man has ever breathed on,” Maomao answers.
“Well, that’s picky.”
Maomao answers, “I don’t know that he’d be interested in the kind of love you offer, Joka. He’s only ever been with silly little virgins. If you broke out your whip, he’d probably scream for his attendant.”
Poor Gaoshun! Even in her imagination, he suffers. If he had to rescue the emperor from a whip-wielding Joka? She’d probably tried to whoop both of them because she’s an ambitious girl. It would be such a terrible and awkward misunderstanding.
But who knows?
Gaoshun seems like someone who enjoys a plain bowl of rice, but Maomao has heard men like that are the spiciest. She makes a mental note to give his wife some of the shiny black candies she made. Half gift, half vengeance for dragging her across the Outer Court like a carpet.
Mischief pleases her, for she is a cat.
Somewhere, Gaoshun is eating his lunch in peace and feels strangely disturbed for a moment. It’s almost like catching a whiff of sulfur from the proverbial volcano, and he wonders if he’s losing his mind.
Maomao spends much of the early afternoon at Verdigris House, catching up with everyone, and upon returning to the palace, still has a few invitations to pass out. While she could have entrusted someone else to do this for her, she kind of enjoys seeing people’s faces when they find out she’s getting married.
The way no one at all seems surprised is surprising?
Since the most common response to this is ‘about time!’ she wonders if everyone has just been in the world with her, seeing her every day, knowing she was going to get married to Jinshi someday while she thought she was very good at keeping her feelings a secret?
Have she and Jinshi actually been very bad at keeping their private business private?
(YES.)
Unfortunately, the current apothecary, future wife, and frog tamer has a few more invitations to pass out, and so she approaches the Grand Commandant in the courtyard where he is as always sitting around drinking juice and being a public nuisance.
This recent debacle has left her wondering how busy the most powerful people in Li actually are, because it really seems like the absolute top tier in the hierarchal structure is not busy and then the layer under that is just dead from exhaustion.
Probably standard in management structures, now that she thinks about it.
“My precious petunia!”
Maomao frowns. “When did you decide to start calling me that?”
“It just came out when I was upset about that little misunderstanding and it seems to suit you.”
Petunias are actually very exotic flowers, but they’ve found favor among the upper class of Li. A generation ago, no one here would have known what a petunia is. They’re pretty and reasonably tolerate the climate, so they’re sort of invading the palace.
“How am I like a petunia? Like, specifically. If I started calling you a rubbish bin, you would want to know why, and I would tell you it’s because you’re just a container full of trash.”
He smiles and says, “Because petunias are my favorites. They make the world a lovelier place, just like my sweet daughter.”
“Ugh,” she stares at him in utter disgust as she throws a stack of invitations for him and few others in their clan, “And also, don’t threaten to murder the emperor. That’s how misunderstandings happen.”
Lakan is surprised that Maomao found out, and he wasn’t sure whether or not he wanted her to know. Well, now she knows how much her Papa loves her, and it is a lot. And he has an invitation to watch his little girl get married.
After she continues to glower at him, Lakan smirks. “There was no misunderstanding. I made sure that man knew no one in this world can stand between my daughter and her happiness. I’m excited for you to be closer to the clan.”
“It was marginally better than dying alone. I’m still going to avoid you and call you bad names when that fails,” she answers.
“You’ll still be my perfect little petunia.”
Relentless men are so exhausting, she decides as she groans and leaves. There’s an adage in her mind about women choosing men who are like their fathers, and Maomao has tried to figure out if Jinshi is like Luomen, but he’s not. In any way. She refuses to consider the other possibility, especially since she’s still trying to accept a universe where the Old Fart enthusiastically accepts the Frog Prince as his son in law.
Now she has to find some other way to disappoint Lakan. What’s left for a woman to do? She could get some tattoos or take up alcoholism, but considering her tolerance, that would get expensive fast.
Then again, she is marrying the future Prime Minister, so they’ll probably be able to avoid some embarrassing vices.
It seems like her original plan when she was first brought to the palace as a kidnapping victim to wash laundry and be as irrelevant as possible has not worked out.
Marrying into the noble class is an annoyance, like being born into the noble class, which she attempted to deny. There are probably worse inevitabilities than being expected to dress well and behave.
The Prime Minister is just a powerful civilian, and there are no laws about what she can or cannot do, so she plans on continuing to work in the infirmary. The rude Other Doctor wants to institute a rule that married women can’t see patients with contagious diseases since many contagious diseases can endanger a pregnancy.
Luomen agrees, and she’s pouting about it.
It feels like a rule made very specifically just for her. Because it was.
If she accidentally contracted the plague from a patient, the Prime Minister would be mad though, so there’s that. And probably, she also doesn’t want to be pregnant and have the plague. One at a time seems like enough.
Jinshi leaving the imperial family probably won’t change his day to day life very much. They’re moving into the Prime Minister’s Residence, which as never been lived in because the emperor built it for Shishou who obviously decided to die instead. Then there have only been short acting prime ministers since then. It’s actually bigger than the house where he actually lives now.
Being mistress of a large house sounds annoying, and like a job she doesn’t want. She wants to joke to him that he should marry someone who likes that sort of nonsense and keep her as a concubine, so she doesn’t have to deal with it. She knows not to tell that joke because the last time she suggested another woman to him he choked her and she just pretends that never happened because what the hell, Jinshi?
Being with him means this sort of life.
It wasn’t like he was going to quit the family and join her in pretending to be a commoner.
The emperor was being generous, gifting them a country estate, tons of money, and so forth, in addition to elevating the La clan. Since the La clan was going to hold the top civilian and military offices, that was quite a big deal unless one knew that Jinshi wouldn’t do the Old Fart’s bidding.
Most of the household attendants that work for Jinshi now will simply be moving to the other place too. And on a day-to-day basis, Jinshi will basically be doing the same work.
Leaving the imperial family for him mainly means escaping from expectations and ceremonial stuff, and the weird, twisted politics of the royals.
It’s mainly going to be a change for her, who lives in a tiny apartment, and has gone through various small rooms over the course of her life.
It is what it is. If she wanted Jinshi, some of this was never avoidable.
She’s going to get married in two days and they’re going to escape to their country estate for a couple of weeks, which is a nice perk not usually enjoyed by commoners. She will spend five of those days menstruating, but the world isn’t perfect.
Maomao refuses to acknowledge the hypocrisy that she loves eating rich food, occasionally wearing rich clothes, and having rich perks, but still bemoans the idea of rich life.
On no, a girl of noble birth married a man of noble birth, who has a high ranking position in the government. What an unexpected outcome. That’s definitely never happened before.
Externally, most people are not aware of the Great Misunderstanding. It’s not like Maomao could put out a public announcement to let people know she wasn’t already pregnant, but would hopefully be soon. And if she was going to make an announcement, what? Hang a notice on a bulletin board that she’s letting the Moon Prince use her vagina to empty his man bags several times a day?
To the gossip class, there was a rumor that she was pregnant, and now there are whispers of a very quick wedding. This seems to confirm the rumors rather than alleviate them, and if she does get pregnant soon, if she has a baby close enough after the wedding, people are going to ‘I told you so’ quietly over tea.
If she doesn’t, they’ll probably assume something sad happened.
Either way, her future child is definitely going to overhear at some point that his or her parents had to get married in a hurry because of a pregnancy scandal, and she will someday have to explain the Great Misunderstanding, about how Grandpa Fart and Sun Uncle are just dummies.
As she is walking back to the prince’s home where her things are mostly packed since they were moved from her place, but their things are going to be moved again in a few days, she considers what to pack for her honeymoon.
She finds the trunk with the lingerie in the bedroom, open, the tiny little garments spread out all over the place.
Jinshi is staring, contemplative, and Maomao marches in and says, “Were all your underwear in the wash or something?”
He holds the beaded bottom up. “I need to see you in this right away.”
“You already have. I was wearing Gaoshun’s robe on top of it though.”
A gasp escapes from his mouth as he ponders the fact that she yelled at him while secretly wearing the sexiest, cutest little thing. “Will you put it on for me?”
“After I have my bath tonight. Maybe. I’ll think about it.”
Jinshi reaches for silky top. “What about this?”
“Might be a little small for you. You’d look good as a scantily clad woman. The frog is a problem. He seems a big fat for the tuck maneuver.”
“He cannot be tucked, Maomao.”
Maybe it would be fun to do anyway, she decides, and as she daydreams of this strange little debauchery, he glares at her.
So what if she wants to see the frog constrained by little silk, perhaps a fine brocade, desperate for freedom? Maybe she could tie that fat ugly frog up with some pretty ribbon?
He says, “You’re thinking of something very perverted. I can tell just from your face.”
“Like you aren’t?”
“Of course I am. I discovered my wife-to-be has a trunk full of naughty things, but I think we are having very different fantasies, because one of us isn’t normal,” he answers.
Maomao lets out her villainous laugh. “You’re right. You’re weird, but it’s okay. I don’t mind.”
While she wants to be annoyed that he decided to go through her things, their personal lives are in the process of being melted together in a rather permanent way, and those things are for impressing him. The difference she feels about him violating her personal space and privacy now is different since they both know the frog is going to treat her to a free organ rotation before she sleeps.
She says, “Anyway, have you decided who your chief attendant is going to be?”
“Probably Lihaku.”
“I think that, if he accepts the posting that you should buy Pairin out for him. As a reward for him committing to your service.”
“That seems reasonable.”
She’s not going to tell him it’s because Lihaku has loose lips with Pairin. As long as he’s doing his emotional catharsis and bearing of truths at home alone with Pairin, there’s no problem. It’s only a problem if he’s doing it loudly at the Verdigris House.
The prince pauses and then hesitates, and then asks, “Pairin breastfed you, right? That’s a thing she can do. Do you think he…you know?”
“A lot of Pairin’s clients call her Mommy.”
“Is there a market for that?”
Maomao asks, “For horny, perverted men with lots of money who have issues related to or caused by their mothers? For those who need Mommy, there’s Pairin. For those perverts who need to be told they’re disappointing and need to be spanked, there’s Joka. They represent both types of Mommy Issues.”
He plops down on the bed. “I don’t have any mother issues, so I’m not some sort of weird freak.”
Maomao thinks there is roughly an eighty percent chance this man doesn’t know whose body he crawled out of to enter the world. It’s okay. He’s fine.
But he would be finer if the fat, ugly amphibian was tucked neatly behind a little lace, or tied with a pink ribbon, or otherwise restricted in a very cute way.
“The darkness just crept back into your eyes. I saw it,” he says.
Jinshi still owes Maomao, because she very unexpectedly walked into his office, said very little to him besides insulting his penis, performed fellatio while sitting under his desk, and just walked out. No explanation was given for this, and it felt like a strange dream which he liked very much, but he did not have a productive day at work.
He kept thinking about her cute little face under the desk, but he knows his cat is on such a power trip because he’s so willing. He doesn’t care about the time, place, or reason.
When Maomao starts putting the lingerie away, he whines. “Maybe we could just leave it out? I just want to look at it.”
“Nope. Someone will come here and think you’re even weirder than you are. Maybe not as weird as Lihaku, but…peculiar.”
He asks, “Maybe, you could put on a show tonight and show me all your little outfits.”
“All at once? Such avarice.”
“I love seeing you in new outfits. I think you don’t understand what that is like for a man. You are just wearing clothes. To me, it’s something magical.”
“In what way?”
The future unprince says, “Whenever I see you looking new or different, my brain paints an exact picture of you. A singular Maomao. I remember all the Maomaos. Cute laundry girl Maomao, Garden Party Maomao, Western Capital Ball Maomao, Under Desk Bad Secretary Maomao…there are so many. I even have Wounded Maomaos that I remember to encourage myself to be a better person. I care for all my little Maomaos.”
“Have you been insane all this time?” she asks.
He answers, “I think that all men think this way, except most have all kinds of women in their collection and mine are all Maomaos.”
“…and you are sure this is normal.”
“I am certain. This what a man’s mind is like.”
Maomao says, “How bizarre. And oddly unbelievable.”
“I know you used to do sixteen fake freckles, and then you decreased it to twelve after you went home the first time and then increased it back to sixteen in the Western Capitol, and then went down to ten when we returned. Now you’re not doing any, but all of my Maomaos are historically accurate and have the correct number of freckles.”
Somehow, she thinks she may have underestimated how obsessed this man actually is with her. He counted and tracked the number of freckles on her face like some ancient shaman looking at the stars to predict good or bad fortune. This is actually accurate information, which meant as far back as when he gave her his hairpin at the Garden Party, he was already creating these little monstrosities in his mind.
This man’s brain is basically just a giant rodent cage, except instead of being filled with rats, it is infested with these effigies of her that he created out of his affections and that’s just very odd to her.
Maomao asks, “What do your little Maomao’s do for you?”
“I mean, it’s my mind. They do whatever I want them to do.”
“Perverted stuff?”
“You would be offended if I told you I never fantasized about you. But also nice stuff! Whenever I’m tired and alone, I think about having a Sleepy Maomao with me so I can rest, or maybe an annoyed Maomao to tell me to keep working.”
Maybe Maomao has just never thought about how men’s fantasies actually work or how potent they are. Obviously, there is a difference in how women go about attraction and how their inner workings are set up.
Maomao puts her hands on her chest. “Do you like this Maomao better than the old versions?”
“I like all my Maomaos. Hair up, hair down, breasts up, breasts down, fancy dress and behaving, naked and feral from lust. All Maomao’s are precious to me, and I cherish them all. Like different facets of a glittering gem. I want to meet them all. I’m excited to meet Wife Maomao’s, and Mama Maomao’s someday.”
Maomao stands on her tiptoes. “You’re deranged, but cute. To be clear, my mind is a much more normal and sane place.”
“Of course, my poison-obsessed princess. Nothing unusual going on in here,” he says, putting his hands on her head.
“But anyway, I guess getting to see you grow and change in the future will be nice. Husband Jinshi is probably an all right guy. Dad Jinshi…definitely a lovable idiot. I think you would be such an imbecile if you had a daughter.”
He flashes her the biggest, dumbest smile at the idea of little Meowmeows to go with Maomao. “My brain would fall directly out of my head as intended by the gods.”
“Probably not a good idea. Your little delusions might escape and start running around like little mice, causing all kinds of mischief.”
“If there were tons of little Maomao’s running around, I would be so happy. I would take such good care of them all.”
Maomao answers, “This mental imagery is wildly disturbing to me, the Actual Maomao. I would probably use the Maomao’s in medical experiments since they are technically little versions of myself. If I ate them, I wouldn’t be breaking any rules.”
“Monster!”
She asks, “But I am curious. What is your favorite Maomao?”
Jinshi thinks for a moment. “Well, Wet and Half Naked Cave Maomao is popular among my Maomao’s for no particular reason.”
“Of course. That time I almost died from drowning must have been so erotic for you.”
“You know what I’m talking about. But normal Maomao’s? That day where we wore disguises and I pretended to be your servant. You had a light pink dress, with a dark pink jacket, and your hair was down with flowers in it. It was such a feminine and pretty look. I hold the Pink Maomao’s in very high regard. The light pink did something to me. High Ponytail Maomao does something bad to me. I can’t handle her.”
Jinshi vividly remembers a dress she wore several years ago, although Maomao herself has long forgotten anything about it. She can’t remember the color if asked or how her hair was styled, but apparently that version of herself from that day has persisted as a separate being inside of Jinshi’s brain, haunting him.
Perhaps she will get a light pink dress in order to make his little situation worse. She’s not sure if she should be trying to drive him further into the madness of his affections, but it seems like a fun thing to do.
Maomao has over the past couple of days felt a sort of tangible glee that makes her feel really good and also mildly nauseated at the same time. She thinks she might be experiencing a temporary state of intense joy brought on by life deciding to not be a disappointment.
Life is good. Is she happy? She considers whether this might be happiness: a slightly senseless man with a fat ugly frog who fervently wishes to meet every possible version of her that can exist so that he can hallucinate about them.
Maomao has no idea how to articulate her own feelings, but she is very much into these nice things she’s been feeling and wants to continue feeling them and for Jinshi to also feel them with her.
Despite being the woman in this relationship, she thinks she is least emotionally capable, but he doesn’t mind.
Maomao thinks she has inadvertently stumbled upon why some men are naturally monogamous. Surely, Basen only has Lishu’s running around in his head all day. He barely seems aware that other females exist on earth.
For a man who cheats on his lover, does it start like this, with a strange creature appearing among the wives, who will begin to invade his fantasies.
The emperor’s head is either a place of absolute chaos, or there’s nothing but Ah-Duo’s up there and everybody including Ah-Duo would be mad if that was the case.
Perhaps it is natural for men to simply collect things they like to look at, and rarely, one of them decides to fixate on one particular thing. ‘I only want Maomao’s! And the other fantasies have to leave and may never return.
Maomao is kind of curious about whether that space was empty when the first Maomao was created or if there were other things there and the first Maomao banished them. And who was the first Maomao? What made him begin this strange act of infestation?
Their conversation is interrupted by Suiren, who comes to tell them dinner will be ready soon, and glimpsing the inappropriate garments spread all over the room, asks, “Would you like me to pack those for the honeymoon?”
“Yes, please!” Jinshi quickly says.
Maomao answers, “I suppose. I think some of them might be a bit small for him but look how excited he is.”
Suiren laughs behind her sleeve, and the prince notes that it really seems like they’ve been having a lot of little jokes at his expense lately.
The future mistress of the household is just grateful to Suiren that every morning, she has a hot bath waiting for her, because the servants apparently know she wakes up filthy every da. Being able to have a hot bath in the morning to wash the funk smell off is such a nice perk. Maybe nobility isn’t so bad.
But poor Suiren, having to tell the servants to prepare a bath, knowing her master and potentially grandson is such a filthy animal at night.
There are aspects of sexuality that are a little hard to just sort of accept for Maomao. People know they’re living together and about to get married, so basically, she just moves about in a world full of people who know she is getting fucked. It’s not awkward when it’s other people; she worked in the rear palace and everyone knew what was going on back there.
But talking to her dad and knowing he knows is just so awkward.
The ‘blushing bride’ isn’t blushing because she is happy; she is blushing because it’s awkward to talk to people who knows she’s getting dick now and the purpose of a wedding is evidently to celebrate that with everyone.
‘Will there be pitter patter of little feet soon’ was a frequent question she heard while passing out the wedding invitations. How is she supposed to answer that?
‘Yes, I get pumped so full of semen every night that it oozes out of me into a pool while I sleep and I can’t join polite society until I’ve had a bath.’
But for now, dinner.
Jinshi still hasn’t repaid Maomao for not helping him with his office work, but he got carried away when he saw the lingerie, and now they have to eat, but what he really wants is to eat.
They’ve only been properly cohabitating for a few days, but so far, he’s in heaven. Even though she has lived on the same property as him, it’s very different for her to be there as his woman.
Having meals together makes him feel so warm and happy. Going to bed with her, having sex, falling asleep snuggled up, waking up and getting ready for the day together, sharing meals…he’s almost incomprehensibly happy and he can tell she’s genuinely sharing that as well.
After they finish eating, she retires to her private bath to find the beaded lingerie set out for her, surely at the prince’s request.
How demanding.
Maomao takes her bath, puts her hair up into the highest ponytail, higher than any of the High Ponytail Maomaos he has seen before. Heavy, dark eye makeup, blush, red lips, dangling gold earrings, the new perfume he bought her, and then the red silky, gold beaded lingerie.
The trunk has relocated itself to the storage room adjacent to her bath during dinner, and she digs through it for two gold fans.
Jinshi waits patiently, sitting on the edge of the bed.
When she dances across his field of vision with her little fans and her outfit, her high ponytail and sexy eyes and shiny red lips, his brain temporarily stops working.
Tiger Goddess Maomao has manifested.
“M-Maomao?!”
He reaches out, and she swats him with the fan. “I didn’t say you could touch, did I?”
She spins as he sits on the edge of the bed with such force that her very high ponytail that is almost too hot for him to bear whips him right in the face.
Of course, Jinshi loves to be teased. He loves it until he reaches his limit, and then he’s going do what he’s going to do. So, she teases, but she knows they’re just counting down the little taunts before he throws her down on the bed.
But she’s so beautiful, dancing around in her little beaded outfit, with almost all of her skin showing, the beads clattering together to make a sort of music as she twirls with her fans.
When he reaches out to grab her as she passes him again, she lightly swats his hand away with a fan again.
To him, she’s like a cat rolling around in the sun, presenting her belly, but slapping him with her paw every time he tries to touch it.
Jinshi gives her a rather sweet little smile that says he’s going to let her have her fun, but they both know the exact moment that he has been teased enough, she will know.
Maomao loves watching his eyes as his self-control and patience slowly evaporate.
After letting her do her little dance and being swatted two more times, he growls, “Maomao, have you been a goddess all this time?”
She holds a fan, covering the lower half of her face.
“I’m just a lowly peasant girl,” Maomao says, eyes cast down.
“Okay, but can I still eat your pussy?” Jinshi asks, flashing a devilish grin.
Maomao answers, “What’s in it for me?”
“I will make your thighs shake.”
She considers this but counters, “What if I just pleasure myself and don’t let you touch? I’ll let you watch.”
Does he absolutely want to watch her touch herself? Yes. But he also doesn’t wish to be excluded from the fun. He can’t threaten her in kind because him jerking his fat cock off in front of her is objectively not as nice to watch. Best case scenario, she might laugh at him and remind him that it’s ugly, which he does like. Meanwhile, she’s just pretty all over and he doesn’t think that’s fair.
A goddess has appeared before him, so it’s only reasonable that he might worship at her altar.
When she twirls by him, he grabs her by that high ponytail and gently holds her in place so he can bite her neck.
And suddenly, a knock.
Suiren’s voice calls through the door:
“My apologies, the emperor has come to request an audience with you.”
The prince answers, “Tell him I died!”
“Of course. I’m certain he’ll be sad to hear that. Should I tell him you will be alive again in the morning to receive his company?” the old woman asks.
“Yes, that is fine!”
Suiren suppresses a bit of a laugh as she turns and returns to the living room where the emperor is waiting to visit with Jinshi.
“The prince regretfully informs you that he is currently deceased, but will be alive again in the morning if you would like to meet at that time,” she says.
Emperor Yang looks out an open window, confused.
“How unfortunate that he has died, but I suppose I’ll return in the morning once his condition has improved. But really, they’ve retired for the night? The sun hasn’t even set?”
“They enjoy an early dinner and retire early in the evening,” Suiren answers.
While he was wrong about everything, the emperor thinks he was also right about everything: Maomao is a greedy woman. He feels a bit like a prophet, really.
Everyone blames him for the Great Misunderstanding, but he just got the sequence of events wrong. He’s sure she’s going to be pregnant and greedy very soon at the rate they’re going.
Notes:
Ahhh! I almost forgot!
I have a co-author on this chapter. Soul (@dykejinshi) on Twitter authored some of the dialogue in this chapter. I saw it posted on Twitter, and had to have it in my story.
Chapter 8: A Perfectly Normal Wedding Where Nothing Interesting Happened
Chapter Text
Jinshi looks around the new house, quite excited.
It’s his wedding day, after all.
Most of their things have been moved and are being unpacked, and he makes his way along to the main bedchamber to see how it’s looking for the wedding night.
There is a lot of noise even from the hallway, and when he opens the door, he finds Empress Dowager Anshi, Empress Gyokuyou, Lady Ah-Duo, and Lady Lihua.
The little princess and the princes are jumping on the new bed, yelling because they are allowed to jump on the bed.
Jinshi has no idea what is going on in this room, but like his father-brother-emperor, he views this gathering of women to be a cursed convergence. It is something inherently dangerous to anyone who is not specifically allied with whatever purpose they have come together to seek.
Anshi turns and asks, “Well, if it isn’t the future husband. You look a little nervous.”
“Good morning, Mother. Mostly about whatever all of you are doing together.”
He has no idea what Ah-Duo is doing with this crowd, but he assumes it is because she is friends with these mischievous women or because he is closer to her than any of the emperor’s other women.
Anshi says, “You’ve never heard of this tradition? What kind of family were you raised in?”
“I ask myself that often.”
“It’s a tradition for children in the family to jump on the marital bed of a couple that will marry. It’s thought their little feet invite children.”
Gyokuyou claps her hands together excitedly, and calls out, “Keep jumping if you want a cousin!”
Princess Lingli stops. “Cousin?”
Her mother says, “Yes, wouldn’t it be wonderful if your uncle and auntie had a baby of their own?”
With a scowl, the princess points at her brother, the future emperor, and asks, “A baby? Like this thing?”
To the toddler boys, there is almost no higher authority in all of the earth than Lingli, and while they were happy to play when the adults were talking, when Lingli speaks, they become quiet and sit down very politely lest their rowdiness be seen as disrespect by the Elder Princess.
Gyokuyou says, “Please stop calling him that. He’s not a thing.”
Lingli turns to her brother. “Did you hear? Mama says you’re not a thing. That means you’re nothing. Not real.”
Shortly before Jinshi went on his trip, Lingli for reasons unknown to anyone, told her toddler brother that he was actually her imaginary friend and not a real person. No one understands why she did it, but she noticed that servants won’t look him in the eyes because he is the crown prince so she told him that they can’t see him. Because he’s imaginary.
Sometimes she pretends she can’t see or hear him, or orders Lihua’s son to do the same. It’s a running gag that is quite distressing for the crown prince.
The boys are imperial princes, and they will be given every privilege and advantage imaginable, revered by all from cradle to grave. But for now, they are at the mercy of the princess, who decides what sort of day everyone is going to have when she wakes up. And evidently, whether or not they even exist on that particular day. As far as the little princes are concerned, she is a fire-haired goddess who will hug, smite, or spoil them as she sees fit.
Lingli slides off the bed and goes over to Jinshi and grabs his hand. “You don’t need a baby. You have me.”
“You already have a dad, Lingli.”
“You’re too handsome to be a dad.”
Of course, she favors her uncle as he spoils her and doesn’t ever discipline her or correct her behavior.
The emperor, invited to join this tradition, stands in the hallway immediately after arriving late to hear his precious daughter who he adores more than anything explain that Zuigetsu can’t be a dad because he’s too good looking.
Compared to who?!
This only reminds him that he made Zuigetsu, but cannot take credit for his exemplary work. All of his children are gorgeous creatures, at least on the outside; he would appreciate it if his daughter would stop trying to see how involved a toddler’s existential crisis can actually be.
The crown prince is two and a half years old and using his little mind to ponder how anyone knows if they are real or not. Surely, he will either grow up to be a great and wise philosopher, or he’ll be peculiar.
Jinshi holds his niece by her hands and lifts her up, turning to the emperor. “Did you hear that? The princess thinks I’m too handsome to be a dad.”
Yang observes this, his two very attractive babies mocking him like they both didn’t come directly out of his body. The Beautiful Ones are so aware of themselves and so ungrateful for whatever part of their pretty came from him.
They both look like their mothers, but that’s completely beside the point.
Lingli takes in the scene around her. She knows Grandmother, her parents, Lady Lihua, aka Other Brother’s Mama, but seeing the other lady standing next to Uncle?
She tilts her head, unable to accurately piece together how these people actually go together, and asks Ah-Duo, “Are you Uncle’s sister?”
“No, why?” Ah-Duo says, nervously patting her on the head.
Jinshi says, “Grandmother is my mother, and your father is my brother.”
Lingli answers, “But you look like her,” she points at Ah-Duo and then Anshi, “and not her.”
Jinshi says, “I’ve heard that before. Just a coincidence!”
“What’s a coincidence again?”
What the hell is a coincidence? Jinshi wonders, trying to figure out how to explain this to a child. He attempts to formulate an answer, and the other adults all seem to be watching him, like this is some sort of impromptu parenting test and he needs to prove himself.
Jinshi reaches into his sleeve and holds out a piece of candy. “I’ll give you candy if you stop asking questions, how about that?”
“Do you have some for Brother and Other Brother?” she says.
(Brother and Other Brother are interchangeable terms and whichever of the young princes has most recently been on her nerves is ‘Other Brother.’)
He produces two more pieces of soft candy, which Lingli distributes to the toddlers, who are grateful to their boss for getting them candy.
Her power over them only grows.
The emperor says, “Names, please. I am not fond of that ‘Other Brother’ foolishness.”
Lingli looks up at him and politely answers, “Of course, Emperor.”
The emperor sighs a bit in despair at the fact that his precocious child has discovered sarcasm. Lingli exclusively calls him ‘Emperor’ in order to provoke him because she knows he prefers being called ‘Daddy.’
Perhaps the emperor would joke that Lingli is the most powerful woman in all of the land, but he posed a slight impediment to Maomao’s romantic desires and everyone in his family turned against him and the commander of his army threatened to depose him. Not even over a matter of life and death, or political importance…just to make her happy.
Lingli decides not to torment her father further and puts her arms up to be picked up.
She was a bad little kitten, but now she is prepared to receive snuggles and affection.
The little princes remain quiet after saying a very polite thanks to the uncle-brother and sit together eating their candy without causing any fuss.
The emperor affectionately rubs his stubble on her cheek, and she complains, “Uncle’s face is never prickly.”
“That’s not something a grown man is happy about, right Zuigetsu?”
Lingli asks, “Who is Zuigetsu?”
“Me?” he says pointing to himself.
“Another name? People just call you anything,” the girl says.
Jinshi can’t really say much to that but is more concerned at being sniped by the emperor. He pouts and whines, “I didn’t even say anything to you and you’re just coming at me like that. I could grow a beard if I wanted to.”
“I doubt that.”
His statement is met with a few quiet laughs from the consortium of imperial hens and an eyeroll from the person he believes is his older brother who makes his life difficult for no reason at all.
Jinshi huffs, “I bet I can.”
The emperor answers, “A wager?”
“Fine!”
This is a stupid bet because every single person in the room, possibly including the toddlers, knows that hair does not grow on that Jinshi’s smooth little baby face. They all know he is lying. He knows they all know he is lying. And yet, he can’t leave it alone.
A bet is made, and the prince, says, “I will take my leave. I am getting married today.”
Once he leaves, Empress Gyokuyou lets out a little giggle. And then she breaks down into nearly hysterical laughter until she’s almost crying. Everyone stares at her, wondering what on earth has amused her so much.
When she manages to catch her breath, she says, “I just had a thought. In a month, Maomao will have a serum that cures baldness, and he’s going to look like a wolfman!”
Jinshi turns his head at laughter that is so loud it reaches him all the way at the end of the hall.
He throws his nose up in the air. “Keep laughing. You don’t know about my secret weapon.”
But they do. They absolutely do.
He decides he doesn’t care if they laugh.
He’s going to get married, have his wedding night, go on his honeymoon in the morning, lay around with his wife—his wife, his oh-my-goodness-we’re really-marrying wife—for two whole weeks. And then he’s going to return to a life without any of the obligations of a high ranking royal and all of the obligations of the prime minister.
Which are almost the same.
Maomao is going to be his wife, and they’re going to have a baby, and he is also going to grow a beard. Definitely.
In his current home, Maomao awakens from a nap, blissfully unaware that in a few hours, she will marry a man who has decided to grow a beard.
It’s a happy day. She’s getting married.
In many ways, it feels like her wedding feels like something is happening to her rather than a thing she decided to do on her own, but that is evidently just because her father threatened the emperor and that was kind of a big deal for everyone.
Having everything neatly settled and organized so she and Jinshi can get on with living together freely will be nice, so she has decided she can handle one evening. In total, the ceremony only takes a few minutes in the evening, and while she’s certain people at the banquet will be up drinking into the wee hours of the morning, certainly the newlyweds would be expected to leave before that.
Then after that, a honeymoon away from all this craziness.
She takes a long bath, has some tea and a snack, and then allows the wedding preparations to begin. Assisting her on this journey are Suiren, who would have glowered at her from the shadows if she didn’t get to be in charge, and Gaoshun’s wife, Lady Taomei.
Lady Taomei, despite being several years her husband’s senior, the mother of three grown children, and grandmother to several little ones, is strangely bashful about private matters despite being quite the courageous professional. She will still blush around her husband even in the company of others, and once they were spotted holding hands and it made her so nervous she shoved him into a pond.
She speaks in a quiet tone as she begins her work on Maomao’s hair. “Are you nervous about your wedding night? The first time can be painful.”
Maomao answers, “Oh, we’ve already done that.”
She gasps. “Before your wedding?!”
“Yes.”
“Did he pressure you?”
“It was my idea.”
There is Suiren, who has openly been encouraging them to fuck for at least two years, and poor Taomei, who assumes that wild dog of a man must have seduced her into surrendering her virtue. These women are grown mothers, and at least one of them is a grandmother but probably both.
Suiren says, “Of course the young master has always behaved like a perfect gentleman to the lady.”
“Of course. I would never speak against the Moon Prince.”
Taomei thinking Maomao was a sweet innocent that has been seduced and Suiren thinking her master-grandson is an angel who has never misbehaved one time in his life provide company in the presence of people who know they are probably wrong but don’t care.
They do her hair, and they paint her nails. Her makeup is perfect, and then it’s time for the prettiest dress ever, fine red silk with golden embroidery of a phoenix on it.
It’s tailored to her, and makes her look so…she doesn’t know how to describe it, but she thinks she looks a lot cuter than normal.
There’s going to be a new Maomao running around in Jinshi’s head for sure.
After having her hair bejeweled by the older women, she stands in front of the mirror and examines herself.
She’s excited to see what sort of dumb look he makes when he sees her dressed up as his bride. She thinks he will definitely have some sort of visible reaction or malfunction, and she’s dying to see it.
After they’re finished, Maomao takes out two gifts, one for each of her helpers.
Lady Taomei’s gift is a little box with ten jet black candies each individually wrapped in paper.
“Candy?”
“It’s medicinal candy. For your husband to have right before you go to bed.”
“For his health?”
“…It’ll put him in the mood.”
Taomei blushes and closes the box, sputtering out her thanks, because any gift requires gratitude.
She gives Suiren a little box with an enameled flower for her hair, but when Taomei leaves the room to watch for the carriage, Suiren whispers. “Maomao.”
“Yes?”
“Would it be possible for me to get one of those candies?”
“It’s for men.”
“Yes.”
Maomao makes it a point not to be nosy, but she’s never felt so compelled to be in someone else’s business in her life. Suiren?! A male friend? A girl needs more details! But she reminds herself that she was mad about other people being in her business.
Maomao fills her hands with the individually wrapped candies. “Let me know if you need more. I can make all kinds of things if your ‘friend’ has age-related difficulties.”
Suiren lets out a little laugh that maybe sounds a bit evil. “He’s not old or my friend, Xiaomao.”
Considering Suiren’s personality, it’s maybe not a shock that she has a little something going on, but hearing she hungers for the flesh of a younger man and still wants to crank him up beyond full power is just so ambitious.
Such a queen, really.
Maomao has been quite nervous about giving one of these candies to Jinshi because he’s already such athlete in bed. She has no idea what he would do to her if his sexual powers were temporarily boosted. Anyone who has ever met Pairin knows there is such a thing as being taken to bed so well that a woman can’t ever probably have any other hobbies besides that for the rest of her life.
She has a career, after all. She’s already putting it somewhat at risk by having baby on the brain.
Anyway, she decides if Suiren has the guts to face a young man pumped up on the black honey, she should as well.
She tucks one of the candies away in her belt to use on their wedding night.
A carriage drawn by white horses arrives for her, with an irresistibly handsome prince come to claim his bride, and trade in his title as a prince.
There are traditions where the bride’s family and especially her father might make pose some playful challenges to him reaching her, but Maomao forbade this ritual because she was worried Lakan would take it too far and set up saw traps or other deadly/dangerous booby traps all over the place.
For Jinshi, this day is the realization of many long-held dreams, and when he sees her standing in the doorway, he is a bit beside himself and too excited. He jumps out of the carriage, twists his ankle, and crashes to the ground gracelessly.
She’s standing in the doorway when he falls flat on his face in his fancy wedding outfit.
Maomao rushes over to him, and he exclaims, “It’s bad luck for your feet to touch the ground outside before the wedding. Why are you that beautiful? That’s not fair! I didn’t get a warning!”
She answers, “It’s bad luck for us to do many things we did before the wedding. I don’t think my feet touching the ground is the thing that’s going to curse us. Are you okay?”
“I’m fine!”
He stands up and his ankle says we are not fine, but he did not dream about this wedding to his sweet little Maomao to let his foot ruin his evening.
He’s just a prince at least for the next few minutes, showing up with a carriage drawn by white horses, to pick up his bride. Surely this must be a moment straight out of a girl’s fairytale dreams. Except the part where he wipes out on the ground right in front of her like some idiot.
Yet, he also knows that Maomao’s childhood dreams included things like ox bezoar, furry antlers, and poisonous mushrooms more than a happily ever after with a handsome prince. He’s sort of like a bonus that came with the ox bezoars.
Medicinal gallstones and a handsome husband? Truly, he’s the whole package.
Maomao ponders this moment, her prince coming for her and then falling out of the carriage. It’s just a really perfect moment, so them. Sometimes, they’re quite serious, but in their best moments, it’s always little laughs and mishaps.
He picks her up, and carries her, limping slightly, towards the carriage. Oh,does his ankle hurt! But he can take it.
“You really seem like you’re in pain.”
“I am not. But also, you are heavier now than you’ve ever been.”
Maomao kicks her feet happily as he carries her, limping, and says, “If I was any other woman, I would take that as an insult. But I’ve been eating good so I can have your baby. Chubby babies are the cutest, so maybe you can give me a fat baby with that fat frog.”
“You better calm down or we’re going to show up late to our wedding with messy hair.”
She says, “I spent too much time getting ready to have you ruin it.”
“But you’re too cute. What am I supposed to do about that?”
“Fall out of a carriage?”
“It’s your fault. My mind forgot how to operate my legs.”
“I’m not even the pretty one in this relationship.”
“Agree to disagree.”
“That’s a dumb thing to agree about, I want to be right.”
He lifts her up into the carriage and says, “Already talking like a wife. Look at us, bickering like a married couple. I’m so happy. Are you happy?”
“I suppose living happily ever after with someone who makes my life wonderful in every way imaginable is better than dying alone. Probably.”
Once they get into the carriage, she asks, “Let me see that ankle.”
“No, it’s not hurt.”
“I can tell it is.”
“I’m fine. I’m so excited, I can barely feel it.”
Maomao is perhaps looking forward to being married than getting married, but Jinshi is just so energized about all of it that he can barely contain himself.
The carriage ride to the shrine is short, and upon arrival, he seems to very carefully get out on the ankle he didn’t twist before reaching up to help her out onto the red rug placed so her feet don’t touch the ground.
“Your ankle doesn’t seem fine,” she whispers.
“I will cut my foot off before I let it ruin this for me,” he whispers back.
“Self-amputation rarely improves an uncomfortable social situation. There would be a lot of blood. People would be dismayed and confused. That’s ignoring the fact that it’s actually very hard to cut a part of the body off. Feet and ankles are well-attached to the rest of the body.”
The Royal Guard is neatly lined up on each side of the rug, in full ceremonial armor to pay their respects to the Moon Prince in his last minutes as the Moon Prince. To the members of the guard, it looks like they’re whispering sweet things to each other, but they are actually quietly discussing how difficult it would be for Jinshi to saw his own foot off above the ankle.
While the prince does his best to avoid the appearance of limping, his act isn’t entirely convincing because Gaoshun and Basen have both clearly noticed his injury as they stand close to the doors.
He gives them a brief nod to indicate he’s okay, and they open the giant doors for the soon-to-be-married couple.
As they continue on into the shrine, Jinshi considers that not everyone can say they have fallen out of a carriage because they loved someone so much, but it occurs to him that he’s not even the first man to jump from a carriage for Maomao and get hurt.
Up ahead, there is a table on each side of the altar, one with three members of the imperial family: the empress dowager, emperor, and empress; and one with three members of the La clan: Lakan, Luomen, and Lahan.
Maomao finds this odd, but she assumes Lahan is probably there for the sake of symmetry as having one clan more represented than the other would have been viewed as disrespectful. Lahan as an elder of the La clan is something she wants to tease him about at a later date.
Ah-Duo watches from the small select group of witnesses, mostly heads of clans, a bit of a pout that she’s not part of the ceremony, but they did lie to their son for all these years and sometimes lies have consequences, like not being able to be in the wedding tea ceremony.
Still, watching her son escape from the imperial family is quite something. Yang doesn’t let go of his favorite things easily, something he and his son share in common. All it took was many years, a lost wager, a legendary stupid misunderstanding, group outrage, and threats against his rule.
The shrine is decorated in red and white flowers, so many Maomao wonders where they got so many on such short notice, and sweet incense burns as they begin the ceremony.
Maomao looks up at the celestial altar hanging from the ceiling, and feels a bit nervous, as for some completely unknown reason, she’s concerned it might fall and crush her. Not like nothing like that ever happened here.
Life is going too well, and suddenly being crushed to death at her own wedding would really seem more thematically in line with the rest of her life so far.
They bow to the emperor’s table first, three times, and then over to the La clan.
Gaoshun and Basen watch from just inside the door as Ka Zuigetsu bends a knee and bows his head to the so-called elders of the La clan.
Yang wonders if this this is hard for his son, but Zuigetsu would bow his head to a dead squirrel if it meant getting to be married Maomao. He doesn’t care at all, and it passes from his mind as soon as it’s over.
Jinshi and Maomao serve tea, they eat meat from the same animal, they have their hair cut and knotted together. They drink wine and swap cups, so she finishes off his wine and he, hers.
A ceremonial blessing is spoken over them by the heads of each clan.
Maomao has a moment of crippling fear that Lakan will go off script and start ranting about his ‘precious petunia,’ but by some miracle, he just recites exactly what he is supposed to and nothing else, and it’s such a relief.
Luomen looks so gently happy for her as he sips his tea and watches his little girl marry, but Lakan and Lahan both have a ‘happy face’ that the attendees will later describe as ‘unsettling,’ ‘beady eyed,’ and ‘unpleasant to look at.’
Gyokuyou couldn’t be happier as she watches her sweet Maomao, once merely a servant girl under her care, marry a man who is just absolutely hopelessly in love with her. She would like to take credit for this wedding as she allowed the idiot plot to happen, and the idiot plot is largely responsible for the wedding happening.
Anshi’s quite happy for her grandson, and this event was already overdue as far as she is concerned.
The emperor is happy for his son, but annoyed he can’t call him his son, and the fact that his firstborn is literally leaving the imperial family before his very eyes is a bit sad. Ah-Duo has reminded him often these past days that it’s not like Zuigetsu is dying or going into exile. He can actually see where their son will live from his office, and obviously the emperor and Prime Minister have to work together often.
Basen is happy for his friend but is slightly bummed out that he will no longer be serving Jinshi. His new assignment involves watching over the little crown prince, which is fine, but it’s not working with his childhood friend.
Then there’s Gaoshun, who is really just happy for the couple and thinks this is going to make Zuigetsu such a happy person, and that this change is well deserved.
Maomao knows this is a very important life event she will look back on warmly, but she is also glad that she’ll probably only have to do it once in her life as its too much attention for her tastes. Besides, Jinshi is just the happiest little peach in the world. He looks like he is actively trying to suppress a boyish grin because this is all very serious, and it makes her want to bite his happy little handsome cheeks.
And then they are married.
When they proceed to the banquet, there’s a table in front of theirs for guests to bring gifts, which is mostly just silver, both in part because that was a popular gift and also because the wedding happened with virtually no notice at all.
Gaoshun brings a gift of silver to the table, and Jinshi says, “Gaoshun, I think you know my wife, Maomao, yes?”
He can’t help but smile. “We have met, yes. And Maomao, you’re quite a beautiful bride.”
Maomao’s cheeks burn a bit. “Thank you.”
Gaoshun says, “Take good care of her, Prime Minister. It’s probably important to be on your best behavior if you marry a woman who has such strong interest in poison.”
“It’s fine. My wife would never poison me,” he answers.
Maomao teases, “I don’t remember ever saying that, Husband. Poison is a very traditional way that women express their dissatisfaction with their husbands, now that I think of it.”
Jinshi nervously says, “I’ll be on my best behavior, Wife.”
Gaoshun is so happy these two strange creatures have finally married, and finds their first marital banter to be adorable even though she’s lightly teasing him with discomfort and possibly murder.
Back at their table, Gaoshun’s wife has black honey candies on her mind, and she’s blushing as she sits and considers how she might use them.
Suiren is also making plans to use her special gift.
The piece of black honey candy Maomao tucked into her belt for her wedding night has fallen on the floor, and the emperor finds it when he returns to his seat after greeting a guest.
By the time the emperor finds the candy, most of the food has been eaten, and people are dancing and getting drunk.
The newlyweds have not danced, but everyone has by now noticed that Zuigetsu has a rather sad little hobble he’s trying to hide from everyone.
The mysterious candy was right by the emperor’s table, so it stood to reason that it was dropped by someone who was allowed to be near his food, so maybe the empress. Gyokuyou has such a sweet tooth, after all.
The emperor unwraps it and finds a glistening, shiny, very black candy. It’s like nothing he’s ever seen before.
Should he, the leader of the country, eat strange candy he found on the floor?
The fact that he would never be expected to do such a thing is what makes it safe, at least in his opinion. If it was poison, there’s no way the person who dropped it might expect that he would eat it. It’s so pretty and black, and a little round drop of shiny mysterious sweetness. He’s never eaten a hard candy that was black before, and assumes it is probably a flavor he doesn’t know.
Emperor Yang decides that yes, he will eat the Floor Candy. It was well-wrapped, is unlikely to be poison, and it looks quite delicious. The blackness of it is oddly tempting to him, as if it is promising to be different than all the other hard candies he has eaten.
It’s sweet, but also slightly sour. It has quite a full flavor, unique, almost floral, and quite delicious. He thinks he could eat ten if left unattended with a pile of them, and he likes how it makes his tongue tingle.
His mother leans over, and seeing the wrapper, asks, “Do you have candy?”
“No.”
“Because it looks like you’re eating candy.”
Anshi holds her hand out under the table, and he says, “I only had one piece. It’s black. Really good. I wonder what kind it is.”
“Where did you get it? Does someone else have candy? Zuigetsu had some with him earlier, but not the kind I like.”
“I found it on the floor.”
“…and you decided to eat it?”
“Whoever dropped it couldn’t have known that I would pick it up and eat it. That is an unexpected outcome, so it’s safe,” he explains.
Anshi answers, “The emperor of Li eats candy off the floor. Lovely. I’m sure his mother is very proud.”
They are a mother and son at a family function, whispering about eating candy while their guests stuff their faces and get drunk to celebrate the union of the newly married couple. A delightfully normal moment, if one is not aware of what the emperor has in his mouth.
It only takes about five minutes for the emperor to start feeling a bit euphoric. And then, a little too euphoric. At his age, he rarely has an inopportune erection, and certainly, at a banquet for his son’s wedding while he sits next to his mother is the worst possible time and place. And it’s so sensitive. And SO hard.
What the hell?
He wonders if he could even stand up to escape without being noticed.
Anshi asks, “What is wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I can tell something is wrong.”
“Everything is fine.”
Gyokuyou is out socializing with a group of women he thinks might be courtesans because they’re crowded around Maomao teasing her.
The prince is with Basen and Lishu, getting teased by his friend about being a married man now.
It’s all perfectly cute, a perfect wedding banquet except for the fact the Secret Father has a life-changing erection.
Anshi can see him becoming increasingly uncomfortable, fidgeting in his seat, eyes a bit wide, breathing slightly labored. “Are you sure you’re all right?”
The emperor is not going to tell his mother he has an erection. That’s just never going to happen. He thinks perhaps it will simply subside if he thinks about things that do not turn him on, although he can’t imagine a bigger turnoff than having an erection while sitting beside one’s mother.
It doesn’t work.
“I…think the empress and I might retire early.”
His mother says, “You want to leave Zuigetsu’s wedding banquet before Zuigetsu? That will be perceived as disapproval. Are you unwell?”
“I am just fine. Completely fine.”
The emperor starts wondering about that strange candy he ate; maybe it really was poison? Raging, embarrassing erection seems like an odd symptom of poison, but as luck would have it, his son married into a family with two talented physicians, and one of them the emperor might be able to talk to about his unfortunate condition.
He waits for his mother to leave the table, and she does so after deciding to go join the group of women with Maomao to see what sort of fun they were getting into.
Anshi noted her son seems to be having some sort of pouty attitude problem, which she assumes is because he either feels old that his son is getting married or he’s mad about not being able to call him his son.
There’s no reason to drink fine wine and worry about all the normal stresses in life.
But by the time she leaves, Luomen has disappeared to somewhere or another.
He waves for Gaoshun, because he needs Gaoshun to go find that old man. How far could he have gone? He can barely walk.
Gaoshun is not on duty as his attendant and is instead attending as the head of the Ma clan, but he will never not answer when called, so he approaches the emperor’s table and leans down.
“What can I do?”
“I think I may have poisoned myself. I found a piece of candy on the floor, and I ate it, and now I feel…I don’t feel bad, but I feel better than I want to feel. If you know what I mean. I need you to find out who has black hard candy. It has to be someone who has been close to this table. And Luomen. I need that old man.”
“Black candy?”
An idea immediately forms in the attendant’s head, and he wants it to be false. Black is a strange color for candy because there aren’t a lot of ingredients that are black. He is very unfortunately aware of a very black, opaque and sweet substance that recently entered the custody of someone who definitely walked past the emperor’s table.
The idea the emperor just ate random candy he found on the floor is concerning, and the emperor feels judged by Gaoshun, even though the attendant doesn’t audibly question his judgement. He provides his reasoning for deciding it was probably safe to do, and Gaoshun simply nods.
These people just never say no to the volcano. It calls for them, and they answer. Every time.
Gaoshun doesn’t want to talk to Maomao about her erection-inducing black honey.
And yet he approaches her as she stands surrounded by an odd mix of royals and courtesans, who are all giving her advice, telling her what a cute bride she is, and judging from their silly little grins, maybe talking a little dirty.
He interrupts them, and says, “I apologize, but I need to speak to the bride about an urgent matter. Privately.”
Maomao is red in the cheeks and perhaps a little grateful to escape from the group.
Gaoshun pulls her aside. Really aside. So far aside that she’s confused about what he could possibly need to ask about that could be this much of a secret.
“Lady Maomao.”
“We both know I don’t answer to that name.”
“Xiaomao.”
“What can I do for you?”
Gaoshun feels embarrassed even asking, so he looks away. “Did you turn your black honey into small, hard black candies?”
“Yes, did Lady Taomei already show you?”
“Why would she…Xiaomao, what did you do? You didn’t give my wife that substance, did you?”
Maomao has no idea why Gaoshun is asking or how he knew she made candy if he didn’t find out from Taomei, and feels like she accidentally ruined her own surprise. “I misspoke. Let’s just forget about that.”
“Do you know where all of those candies are right now?”
The bride answers, “I have given some of them away as gifts.”
Maomao’s level of embarrassment about meddling in other people’s intimate business is nearly nonexistent, although that has been well known since her time in the rear palace. There is a kind of shamelessness about the way she moves through the world that’s actually a bit terrifying to him.
“Is it possible that you lost one here at the banquet?”
Losing precious ingredients doesn’t sound like her at all, but she considers the whereabouts of all her precious little candies and pats her belt for the candy that she tucked away for the wedding night.
It is gone.
Maomao says, “I had one with me. And now I don’t. I may have dropped it at some point.”
Gaoshun holds the blue paper it was wrapped in.
She sighs. “Who ate it?”
“The emperor.”
“Where did he find it?”
“On the floor.”
“The emperor found strange, mysterious candy on the floor…and ate it,” she repeats.
“Yes. To be fair, it was dropped directly behind his table, and almost no one has been permitted to get that close to him. Only people like you, who decided to disguise a deviant ingredient as candy to ensure a misunderstanding would happen.”
Maomao says, “That was for my wedding night.”
“Presumably, the emperor is not the one you hope has a vigorous evening on your wedding night.”
“You presume correctly. He was not the intended consumer of the candy. But also, what’s the purpose of having at taster taste all of the emperor’s meals if he’s just going to eat candy off the floor?”
Obviously, Gaoshun is not going to argue with the reasoning that the emperor shouldn’t have eaten the Floor Candy. The imperials had these little unguarded moments where they did rather human things, and it usually didn’t cause any issues. He feels like criticizing the emperor for eating the Floor Candy is Maomao’s way of trying to escape responsibility for causing this chaos all by herself.
Maomao says, “Relax, I know how to fix this.”
The emperor sees how Gaoshun goes directly to Maomao, and how they talk. If he asked her if she knew about the black candy, and she didn’t, that would be a short conversation. Eating Floor Candy didn’t seem like a risk, but if he knew that Maomao was probably the one who dropped it, he wouldn’t have come within a meter of the thing.
Maomao pulls Empress Gyokuyou aside, and whispers in her ear for almost two minutes, and while the empress giggles quite a lot during those two minutes, once Maomao is finished whispering, she says, “That sounds like quite a problem for the emperor. Would you like more wine?”
And then, she sighs. “Fine. But you owe me, Maomao. Next time you drug that man and arouse him in front of his mother, it can be Lady Lihua’s turn.”
“Please ask him not to eat strange food off the floor. Deeply concerned about his survival instincts,” Maomao answers.
“I will pass the message along.”
Gyokuyou makes her way to the emperor and says, “I’m afraid I’m feeling a bit faint and need to retire for the night.”
“Not feeling well? Please, allow me to accompany you.”
She walks ahead of him to conceal his little issue, toward a carriage, and once they’re far enough away, she says, “I really was having a good time, eating and drinking and celebrating my sweet Maomao getting married.”
“Do you know what’s going on?”
Gyokuyou explains about the black candy, and he’s really just too turned on to be embarrassed that he actually ate such a thing in public.
The emperor helps her up into the carriage and then sits down beside her, letting out a sigh of relief.
Gaoshun is not the carriage driver for the night, but he is driving the carriage, driving the emperor and empress away so that the emperor is not publicly embarrassed by having a noticeable erection at his own brother’s wedding. With any luck no other people will be forced to learn what has happened.
Gyokuyou looks down at his visibly tented lap and asks, “Should we drop you off at the rear palace?”
“I thought we were…”
“I was only asked to help you escape from the wedding banquet.”
“I want to go to bed with you.”
Gyokuyou says, “It’s not a good time for me.”
“It can’t be your blood. If it is, we’ll just put an extra cloth down.”
“You can’t be that wound up. It’s my fertile time. I’m not having a third child because you ate candy off the floor. That’s just not romantic. You were the one that said you needed to spread your seed out a little more.”
Yang is ready to pounce in the carriage, but he thinks Gaoshun would not appreciate it if the carriage started rocking back and forth on the very short trip back to their palace. Did he say something about something about a third child? He can’t remember. His brain doesn’t have any blood in it.
Gyokuyou is his cat: teasing, playful, beautiful, always elegant.
“Empress…”
She lets out another little laugh. “Of course I’ll take care of you, dear emperor. I was just teasing.”
When they arrive at the palace, Gaoshun hardly stops the carriage when the emperor darts inside with the empress slung over his shoulder as she squeals for him to put her down. Considering how curvaceous and tall Gyokuyou is, this is a feat of strength that Gaoshun would argue the emperor might not be capable of, but he displayed a certain youthful vigor due to the effects of the black honey.
There’s a little voice in his head that thinks back to the conversation he had with Maomao, and he’s a bit worried that his wife has come into possession of some of these candies.
There’s really only one thing Taomei might want to do with them.
Gaoshun can’t decide if he is curious or frightened, although one thing he is decided about is that he didn’t ask for interference.
At the banquet, the newly married couple, who had independently been wondering how long they had to stay at the banquet, attempts to quietly exit lest it seem like the emperor insulted them by leaving first.
Jinshi doesn’t know what’s going on, but he’s ready to go because his ankle hurts quite a lot at this point.
Lady Anshi is informed that the newlyweds have gone, and the emperor and empress slipped out as well, and she is deeply suspicious about all of it. The emperor called Gaoshun, who went to Maomao, who went to Gyokuyou, and now both couples have inexplicably vanished.
Gaoshun seems visibly anxious when he reappears, which just makes her more curious about what happened.
She summons him, and says, “Dear Gaoshun, do you know what happened here?”
“I do.”
“Speak.”
He really doesn’t want to, but he does, and she listens. She is slightly amused but also incredibly disgusted that her son was sitting there sweating because he was turned on. There are certain things a woman doesn’t need to know or want to know.
Anshi says, “Poor Zuigetsu, needing ‘help’ at his age. I wonder if posing as a eunuch affected him permanently.”
XXX
When Maomao and Jinshi make it to their marital bedchamber, they are tired, one of them is drunk, and when she pushes him down on the bed, it’s not for sex, but so she can inspect his ankle, which has swollen to a size where it no longer looks like an ankle.
The refreshments laid out for their wedding night include white tea chilling in a bed of ice, a luxury that is quickly seized for medical purposes.
“You really should have stopped walking around on this thing as soon as you got hurt, you know.”
“And ruin my own wedding? I think not. We should have danced.”
“When you’re seventy and this ankle is giving you trouble, I’m going to have a lot of ‘I told you so’s. So be prepared.”
“When I’m seventy and you’re still with me to make fun of me, it’ll be because we got married. Remember that, Maomao.”
Maomao doesn’t think sex is likely to happen since he needs to stay very still, and even if she was on top, he’s a wiggler.
Once his foot is elevated and being iced, she says, “Weddings are kind of a pain. I guess I got a husband out of it, even if he’s a little defective. I think I ordered one with fully functioning limbs. On the upside, the Old Fart didn’t make a scene and there weren’t any major issues.”
Except that she accidentally poisoned the emperor and made him get an erection in public. She doesn’t think they need to talk about it, and suspects no one else involved is ever going to discuss it either.
“I am glad that you still decided to accept me despite my shortcomings.”
“A true charity case, but I am a kind woman,” she teases.
Jinshi says, “We should do it though, right? It’s our wedding night. It’s tradition.”
“If we hadn’t already been doing it like deranged rabbits, I think this would be a letdown, but I think it’s okay if we just go to sleep tonight.”
They are interrupted by a delivery: crutches, cloth wraps, salts to soak, and medicines needed to treat an ankle sprain over the course of the honeymoon, and a handwritten note from Luomen, wishing for Jinshi to get better soon.
This is why he left the dinner, knowing his son in law had been injured and was trying to hide it.
“What a saint…” Jinshi says as Maomao gives him a little pain relief tablet to chew. “I married into a good family. Mostly.”
“We still have to deal with you-know-who.”
“He didn’t cause any issues tonight.”
“He strikes when you least expect it.”
It isn’t the wedding night either of them expected, but Jinshi does enjoy being pampered a little.
When they’re snuggled into bed in silky sleeping clothes, Maomao falls drifts off, listening to her dear husband’s heartbeat, and he stays awake for awhile, watching her sleep.
Such a peaceful ending to such an important day.
Somewhere else that night, Gyokuyou is face down on the bed, and will not be getting any sleep.
And somewhere else, Gaoshun is conceiving a fourth child that he did not ask for and certainly is not expecting.
But Maomao sleeps well, waking once during the night to snuggle up closer and enjoy the serenity and peace of sleeping with her husband.
As she nestles in, he awakens and drags his fingers through her hair.
“I had a question I wanted to ask,” he tiredly mumbles.
“What is it?” she gently asks, her voice soft and cute to him.
“Will you help me grow a beard?”
Maomao tries to imagine him with a beard and harshly answers in a surprisingly loud tone, “Never ask me that question again. Goodnight.”
Chapter 9: Honeymoon Fuck Stroke
Chapter Text
Jinshi is relaxing on a lounging seat, in a charming summer garden alongside a lake. His sprained ankle is elevated, and he has been forbidden from moving more than minimally even though it doesn’t hurt anymore.
It’s a beautiful day:
The sky is seemingly bluer than normal, filled with the fluffiest, most perfect clouds. A cool breeze blows over the lake, cooling them with fresh mountain air.
This summer retreat was a wedding gift from the emperor. Quite a nice gift, and he is honeymooning, having a little chat by the lake.
Just one problem.
“You know the honeymoon is usually just for the newly married couple, right?” he asks.
Lakan sips his juice as he sits in the lounger next to him. “Is that so?”
“Yes. This is extremely rude and inappropriate. My wife is going to be displeased.”
“I let you have two days. It’s not like I’m interrupting anything. What kind of man spends his honeymoon laid up like a cripple?”
“First of all, it’s almost healed, but she’s making me let it rest another day. And second of all, do you remember that time Maomao’s life was in danger, and I went to war for her. Where were you? At camp with a backache like a cripple. I stabbed people with my sword.”
Lakan, who is no longer wearing the back brace Basen put him in, throws his nose up in the air. “I don’t remember that.”
“Hopefully, you remember your way home soon. And then go there.”
“I’ll consider it if you call me ‘Honorable Father in Law.’ ‘Honorable Father’ if it suits you.”
Jinshi answers, “I have a list of things that I am permitted to call you and ‘honorable’ and ‘father’ are not on it.”
Lakan says, “Well, what is?”
The newlywed husband digs into his pocket for a folded paper and begins to read, “Old Fart, Fart, Geezer, Brothel Crawler, Monocled Idiot, Idiot, Imbecile, Old Bastard, Stud Horse, Smelly Old Goat— ”
Even though he has only covered half the list, the honeymoon-crashing father in law interrupts and says, “My precious petunia has so many terms of endearment for her papa. You can tell she cares very much.”
Someone else comes out from inside the house, and Jinshi twists his head.
“Rikuson? You crashed my honeymoon with Rikuson? Of all the people living on earth, you brought the one that has kissed Maomao’s hand?”
Rikuson has a tray of snacks, and while he never had a particularly serious interest in Maomao, he has enjoyed being able to trigger absolutely irrational reactions from the now former prince.
To Rikuson, the way this man complains about that one night where he kissed Maomao’s hand sounds exactly like how Lakan used to complain incessantly about how the former prince touched her shoulder four times during a game of go once. There is a sameness about these two men when it comes to Maomao. They would both be so offended if anyone mentioned it.
Also, he kind of likes to piss off the former Moon Prince. It just adds something to his day that wouldn’t be there otherwise.
Seeing the prince’s foot put up, he holds out a tray of dumplings and says, “My condolences about your ankle, Prime Minister. It’s a shame the bride was unable to dance at her wedding. I thought about offering since we had such a good time before.”
“I’m not taking the bait this time. Or your dumpling.”
Jinshi pouts so hard Rikuson thinks he looks like he has a sour orange in his mouth, and the attendant heads back inside to talk with the household attendants.
Noticeably absent: the bride.
The bride is missing.
Lakan has also noticed the lack of Maomao. He’s been sitting with his son in law for almost two hours, and there’s been no appearance of the bride nor any mention of her whereabouts.
“Where is my sweet petunia? Sleeping in?”
Jinshi says, “She went wandering early this morning and found a giant dead deer with rare mushrooms growing all around it and in the soil.”
Lakan bursts out laughing. “Your wife left you on your honeymoon for a dead deer?!” Covering his mouth with his sleeve, he whispers, “How unfortunate. I guess the rumors are true.”
“What rumors?”
“I heard someone overheard the Empress Dowager saying you have problems with your manhood.”
Jinshi doesn’t have erectile issues at all and is formidable in matters of sex, at least in his opinion. And if he did, why would he tell his mother—or the person he thinks is his mother? That would just be such a weird conversation.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with my body. If I did have a problem, you would be the last person I would discuss it with. I’d rather tell the dead deer.”
“Well, is Maomao pregnant yet?”
“Why would you even ask?”
Lakan says, “Well, on my very first try, I succeeded.”
“Grand Commandant, did that work out well for you?”
“I made Maomao. First try. So yes, it did. I was like a painter creating the greatest masterwork of all time the first and only time he ever picked up a paintbrush. You’re the one she picked, so hope your floppy ugly brush works at least well enough that the dead deer bores her less,” his father in law answers.
Jinshi really loves Maomao, but the fact she comes packaged with this man as her father is really a pain in the ass. He just showed up at their honeymoon, insulted his penis, disrespected him, brought Rikuson there so Rikuson could also annoy him, implied he had erectile dysfunction, and said his wife enjoyed the company of a dead animal more than him.
That was just the last five minutes. They’ve been sitting together for almost two hours.
His soul is crumbling on this beautiful day while Maomao is out foraging for mushrooms.
When she reappears with a basket absolutely filled with the bountiful offerings of the lakeside woodlands, expecting to find her husband resting peacefully with his book where she left him, she is greeted by a sight more unpleasant to her than the dead deer.
She’s wearing a simple light pink country-style dress, with a little apron to protect her from digging around in the dirt, and her hair is pinned up. Considering how much Jinshi loves her in this color, she expects to see him quite happy that she has returned.
Instead, he looks like he’s going to turn to dust and blow away in the wind, because that’s the kind of presence Lakan actually has.
Maomao is beyond irked to find that Lakan has appeared on her honeymoon, which is supposed to be a break from all the craziness at the palace. For some of it to follow her was simply unacceptable.
“Husband, isn’t it your job to protect me?”
Jinshi answers, “Wife, you said I had to sit in this chair until you came back and that I couldn’t get up for any reason except to use the restroom.”
Wife narrows her eyes. “Yes. Removing this man would be considered eliminating waste. It’s fine for him to go in the toilet. Although I suppose we could try to grow mushrooms on him like people do with dead logs? There are lots of fungi that enjoy growing on garbage piles.”
Lakan thinks his precious petunia is being a little rude, but then again, he did drop in on her honeymoon. Really, he was just passing along the main road from the capitol on his way to a fortification for an inspection, and the estate wasn’t too far out of the way.
Husband answers, “Darling wife, this is your parent.”
“That has nothing to do with me. You think I picked this guy?”
Jinshi answers, “I suppose that’s right. You picked me though.”
Maomao reaches into her basket, and while she’s turned away, the former prince sticks his tongue out at Lakan.
The young bride holds out hands filled with strange-looking fungi. “I also picked some top grade rare mushrooms today!”
Father? Yuck.
Husband? Yay.
Red-Stripe Blister Cap Mushrooms? YIPEEEEEEEEEE!
Maomao is just so happy, overflowing with excitement and goodwill, although she is still annoyed by Lakan’s presence. “How about if you can eat one of these, you can stay?”
Lakan asks, “Will you also eat one with me, dear daughter?”
“No, I’m currently abstaining from deadly poisons.”
A nervous laugh, and the Grand Commandant stands because he’s heard the message loud and clear that it is time for him to leave. “You’re such a good little wife. I’ll still have my eye on this rascal to make sure he takes care of you.”
“Unnecessary.”
After shooing her annoying parent off the property with his attendant, Maomao is still ecstatic about her finds.
Jinshi thinks she is just so cute when she’s this excited, and right now, the cause of that excitement is an assortment of moss, plants, and fungus she brought from the forest near the lake.
Maomao drags him inside and sits at the table and dissects mushrooms, crushes wild herbs, chattering constantly about what they can do.
He picks up a mushroom he’s never seen before and asks, “Meal, medicine, or murder?”
“It depends on how it’s prepared. It becomes more toxic as it gets hotter, so it can be eaten raw. Cooked a little, it can have mild laxative effects, which can be medicinal. Cooked a lot, it causes symptoms very similar to dysentery and even be deadly.”
“That sounds so unpleasant.”
“Yes.”
Maomao holds up a yellow shelf-like mushroom. “Chicken of the Forest. Delicious.”
“What was the proximity of this mushroom to the animal carcass?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Maomao.”
“Different part of the forest. Unrelated to the dead deer. Sheesh. You need to be more adventurous,” she says.
“Being adventurous about eating fungus? Perhaps I would hallucinate being eaten by the clouds or perhaps I would die from ‘symptoms similar to dysentery.’”
She smiles at him. “Don’t worry. I’ll cure you if you ever become ill. Or if you hurt yourself again. Since you’re my husband, I think you’re basically my responsibility now.”
“I’ll take care of you too, my dearest wife.”
Of course, they’ve been taking care of each other dutifully for years already, but even Maomao can’t fight the urge to talk sweet and call this man her husband. She’s not really someone who dreamed this sort of life, but it happened to her, and it’s all so lovely. There’s an ownership component to monogamous marriages that pleases her in some secretly dark sort of way, because he is obviously very popular among women.
Maomao owns this man, body and soul. No one else. He also owns her, but it’s not like men are falling all over themselves for her—at least in her mind. On the rare occasions that any man looks at her, it makes him irrationally jealous, and he stays mad about it in same cases for years.
Secretly, she suspects that if she had as many men admiring her as her husband has female admirers, Jinshi would actually probably just die.
That would be inconvenient for her, because she’s glad she found a man who cherishes her peculiarities.
The table is spread with all sorts of strange things, and he’s happy to listen to her explain each and every one of them. She thinks that he’s probably inadvertently probably learned a lot about various ingredients, and suspects that if he ever really needed to do so, he could probably kill someone with poison.
Jinshi says, “My ankle really feels fine today.”
“That’s because I’ve made you rest it.”
“Okay, but I’d be really happy if my wife turned her attention from my ankle to a different bone in my body. One that has been quite swollen and sensitive these past few days.”
Maomao answers, “The amphibian longs for my affections?”
“Yes. Frogs are not meant to be dry for so long. Besides, your blood is going to come soon, right? Between my ankle and your need to…bleed or whatever it is that you’re going to do, we need to make the most of our time,” he says.
‘Bleed, or whatever it is you’re going to do?’
Amazing, Maomao decides, that any children were born into the imperial harem when it was being managed by this man. Surely, as a part of his scheme to help his brother-father have more heirs, he learned how babies were made. She thinks about asking but decides it doesn’t matter because his role in their babymaking efforts is so easy in the first place. There’s no reason to cloud his mind with facts and science when she needs so little from him.
He is willing and capable of completing the task of filling her with his seed. In fact, he wants to do it right now.
“You won’t overdo it with your ankle?”
“Maomao, please.”
Maomao considers this proposition, then goes to their room for one of the special black honey candies.
When she returns, she unwraps it and says, “Open up.”
Jinshi opens his mouth, and she places it on his tongue. Of course, this moment was always coming, since he brought the black honey home to the capitol with the hopes that it might be used to help others, and happily presented it to his love in front of Luomen like some sort of deranged pervert.
He really thought she was going to use it to save lives.
It tingles on the tongue, and he finds the sweet and sour taste surprisingly pleasant.
While she puts away her bounty for now, he sucks on his candy and watches her with growing intensity.
“I will have a bath now,” she announces.
Maomao insists on being freshly bathed whenever they touch, and as she spent the morning wandering through the woods, she’s a bit sweaty and finds this makes her unpresentable. Jinshi likes the smell of her and thinks she smells more Maomao and less soap after a few hours, but she’s not hearing that sort of explanation.
He’s been sitting in a chair all morning, so he’s still pristine.
Once she is presentable, she heads to the bedroom but finds no husband there.
Odd.
All around the main rooms, back downstairs?
No husband.
Jinshi stalks her all through the house while she looks for him, like a wolf stalking a little rabbit. She seems very unaware of his presence as she moves about, and he is no longer surprised that she is prone to being kidnapped. Where is her self-awareness? Her attention to her surroundings? Her instincts? Does she simply not experience that weird feeling that she is being watched?
She’s practically begging to be snatched and carried off somewhere, so that’s what he does.
From Maomao’s perspective, Jinshi appears out of nowhere even though he has been behind her the entire time. He grabs her from behind and lifts her off the floor despite her struggles. Because he’s normally so gentle, Maomao is somehow always surprised at exactly how big and powerful his body actually is, and how much he loves to use it to just carry her around.
After a stalking game that wasn’t as gratifying as expected because the victim did not ever realize she was being hunted, he carries his prize back to the bedroom. Is he a successful predator? Is she terrible prey? They really are the most perfectly matched people in all the world as far as he’s concerned.
“You have terrible survival instincts.”
“I knew you were there!”
“You’re such a cute little liar. You know what liars get?”
A raging erection is pressing into her back, and her body responds to this by saying ‘yes, please!’ One thing she has learned about herself recently is that her body enjoys getting fucked and doesn’t need a lot of input from her brain. The amphibian has announced itself, and her body begins preparations for its arrival.
Maomao says, “Well, ‘liars get frogged,’ seems like an outrageous and inappropriate punishment for lying. Both inefficient and very perverted. Where would you get so many frogs, and would they just work full time punishing liars? Most men could punish maybe two liars per day. You’re not an imperial prince anymore. I don’t think you just get to make up laws like that anymore. Thank goodness.”
Jinshi carries her to the bedroom with her feet still dangling over the floor, like someone carrying a misbehaving cat inside, and holds her with one arm while he closes and locks the door.
He whispers in her ear, “You do realize I’m more powerful than I was before, right? As Prime Minister, I can absolutely make a law just for you. Maomao’s law. Bad kitty gets fucked. But I don’t need a law to do that, do I? I can fuck you right now, and I’m going to fuck you right now. Are you ready to get fucked, Wife?”
Maomao gets the chills from the feeling of his breath and his rather menacing tone. “Am I ready to do what? I don’t think you made your intentions clear enough.”
He bites her ear, pulling at it as punishment, and then while she was expecting to be thrown on the bed, she is surprised when he very gently lets her feet come to rest on the floor.
When she turns to face him, his pupils are dilated like an animal about to pounce, a strange, and somewhat hungry look chiseled onto his handsome face. He’s very clearly in a severely impaired state that just motivates him to relieve the need she has created, both with her presence and then also with her ‘medicine.’
Jinshi loves her so much that he’s just so torn between wanting to put her head through the headboard and also treating her like she’s the most delicate and soft and precious thing there has ever been in all the world.
She is his wife, the mother of the children they haven’t met yet. His first and only love. His Maomao. His soulmate, his partner, his best friend. The woman who saved his life, and then filled it with joy.
Maomao places her hand on his cheek, brushing her index finger over the scar on his cheek. “What are you thinking about?”
“How I want to do such terrible things to you because you are so very precious to me. I’m a man with one flower in my garden, and I want to protect it with every drop of blood in my body. Yet I also want to pluck it and devour all the petals like some sort of madman.”
It’s quite a beautiful thing to say, but he doesn’t realize how poetic it is because his brain isn’t getting a lot of blood at the moment.
Maomao says, “If I’m a flower, maybe I want my petals to be handled harshly. Forced open. To feel your lips and teeth on them.”
Whelp.
That’s all the encouragement Dear Husband needs, and onto the bed she goes.
Even though he claims to love her in sweet little country dresses, he certainly seems to hate them when he’s trying to remove hers, to the point that she hears fabric rip. This is the kind of wild, rich indulgence only a wealthy person would do. A man with a reasonable mind would never tear a new dress. She will fuss at him about this later, perhaps poking him with a needle to get her point across as she mends the garment.
But for now, it is her turned to be poked.
Jinshi finds her glistening and wet, eager for him, and he is more than happy to give her what she wants.
Maomao bites her bottom lip, because there’s brief discomfort when he enters her due to his size, but it’s best kind of pain. Feeling like she’s being split open by the Imperial Amphibian is such a good kind of ouch. She loves every form of it: the feeling that he’s too big when he first enters, the how stretched tissue seems to burn as he thrusts, a dull pressure when he is at his deepest and she feels like she might really break.
Her mind is completely depraved when it comes to her husband and his frog.
A younger version of herself would not understand at all exactly how sex-crazed she actually is for this man.
Why did it take them so long for them to start doing this?
Oh, it was her.
Oops.
He pushes himself all the way inside, and her toes curl at being so full, a cry of pleasure escaping from her lips as he pauses to suck on her neck.
“N-No marks.”
“Marks! Everywhere. I’m going to paint your skin in love bites and also…regular bites.”
When he lightly touches one of her breasts, she slaps his hand away.
“Too hard.”
“I barely touched it.”
“Well touch it less. That hurt.”
He tries again, and she gives him a look, and he just decides maybe they’re so tender he just shouldn’t touch them. She enjoys certain aspects of rough play, but she clearly doesn’t enjoy that, so he is careful not to bump her breasts to hard as he fucks her, trying to control his pace.
Jinshi loves all her little sounds: her gasps, her sighs, her little mewish moans, the way her fingernails dig into his shoulders and back when she says his name.
Maomao finds his sounds to be hot but also, he growls and grunts to the point that he really just sounds like some sort of horny animal that has traveled an unbelievable distance through frozen mountains to find a mate and is finally getting to do the mating. He always touches her like he is dying to do so, and she kind of loves how desperate he remains.
He thrusts into her particularly hard, earning a little scream, and then grabs her legs and puts them over his shoulders.
One of Maomao’s secret powers is that her legs are bizarrely flexible and he can do basically anything that he wants with them, so after railing her with her legs over his shoulders, he simply holds her open on the bed, resting his weight on his hands as he grasps her legs.
When she gets close, he leans down and says, “Does kitty want to cum?”
She bites her lip and he rolls his hips into her slowly, teasing her.
“P-Please…”
“I’ll let you cum on one condition.”
“Anything,” she hisses.
“I want to grow a beard.”
It’s like someone let all of the sex out of the room. The idea of bearded Jinshi is so unsexy and so unserious to her, although he really seems to be into it.
Jinshi sees her mood shatter and frowns. “You hate it that much?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, but, I made a bet with the emperor.”
“Are we just going to have a conversation about your family while your frog is inside of me? And it’s going to stay hard like that?”
“It’s so hard right now, I think it might stay that way forever. Which was your idea. Also, if I take it out, it’ll get cold.”
Maomao sits up on her elbows and asks, “What is your favorite feature of my body?”
“Your butt. I like your butt.”
“Okay. Now imagine it…covered in hair. So much hair that it needs to be combed. Just positively hairy. A hairy butt. What would that do for you?” she asks.
Jinshi answers, “That’s not a fair comparison. It is not normal for a woman’s rear to be covered in hair. I would accept you with a hairy butt. You truly underestimate the intensity of my longing. I’d even shave it for you, because I love you like that. But the emperor made fun of me and said I can’t grow a beard, and I need you to care about my feelings too.”
Maomao wonders if one of the consequences of him being a little high is that he’s also a bit silly in addition to be very horny. She wasn’t able to find out from Gyokuyou what affect the black honey had on the emperor, and probably, Gaoshun has also had his experience with it.
“I’m really horny, and I want a beard,” he complains.
“Why did you make a bet that you could grow a beard when you can’t?”
“Because I thought you would help me. But you’re being mean to me instead. I’ll find someone else. And who knows what they’ll give me. Probably the wrong thing, the wrong amounts…”
Maomao puts her hand over his mouth. “Letting someone else besides me do medical experiments on you is worse in my eyes than cheating. I’d rather you go out and get a mistress.”
“Then you’ll help me?”
“Fine! But as soon as you win your stupid bet, I’m coming after you with a razor and you will not resist.”
Maomao isn’t sure what’s more pathetic; the fact that he thought he could talk her into agreeing to this insane scheme by turning her on enough, or the fact that the idea of him letting some other apothecary use him in experiments causes her to feel such visceral jealousy.
How dare he even tempt her?
Jinshi has no idea how this is even physically possible, but somehow his very tiny wife flips him on the bed and gets on top and proceeds to begin bouncing on his cock while he stares up in frightened confusion at her display of might.
She digs her nails into his chest and drags them, leaving angry little cat scratches. “Listen, Zuigetsu, you’re my little lab rat.”
Marriage truly is a land of discovery, and Jinshi feels quite pleased at the moment. Not only has he practically won his bet against the emperor as he’s certain Maomao will succeed, but he’s also found a way to reliably annoy her. He loves how cute she is when she’s irritated, but it’s actually a little difficult to aggravate her. The idea he can put her in a state where she gains superstrength and wants to scratch over the possibility he would ever do experiments with someone else is so simple and obvious. He’s not sure why he didn’t think of it before now.
Maomao on top doesn’t work particularly well because of how tall his cock is in relation to her height and how much left she actually needs to achieve for it to be worthwhile, but he enjoys watching her take her aggression out on his cock.
Truly, everything has worked out in his favor.
After a while, he flips her back onto the bed and picks up where he left off before he interrupted their little session.
Maomao can’t really tell the impact the black honey has on him until he explodes inside of her and remains hard and keeps going like nothing happened, ordering her to her hands and knees so he can continue to fuck her.
“Are you just going to blast me from behind like some sort of cannon?”
“I’ve got something hot to shoot deep into you, give me a few minutes and I’ll be ready to fire again,” he teases.
She laughs. “We’re so bad at talking sexy.”
“Speak for yourself,” he says, very lightly smacking her rear.
Jinshi’s heart has been pounding in his ears since about five minutes after he started sucking on the candy. He feels light, a bit woozy, a bit silly, and so driven by a need to fuck that he feels confused at how even pumping her full of cum does not give him even a moment of relief.
He feels increasingly like an animal, desperate to finally be satisfied, but still his cock craves more and more and more.
Dizzy, heart-pounding, he pulls Maomao so her ass is right at the edge of the bed so he can thrust from a standing position as pushing off the floor gives him more power, and Maomao fists her hands in the sheets.
What sort of monster has she created?
Maomao is pleased with the results of her choice to drug her husband. Pleased several times and counting as her husband continues his good work on her, in fact. Her body is simple and does not require any manipulation of bells or whistles. She really just wants as much frog as possible, and she is getting frog, frog, and more frog.
His eyes remain dilated, and she can see from the vein pulsing in his neck that his heart is absolutely pounding. He’s like a racehorse running the most important race of his life, while high on drugs to make him run faster.
What a perfect man!
Jinshi, meanwhile, has a different thought:
Perhaps I will die from sex?
All things considered, everyone has to die, and as far as causes of death are concerned, what man doesn’t want to die this way? He can’t think of any alternatives that would be better.
It would be oddly poetic for them to wait so long to have sex and then once they do it, he drops dead because his body can’t take it.
There were still things that he wanted to do with his life, and besides that, if he dies, other men would try to comfort Maomao and keep her from being lonely without him. He imagines Rikuson being so supportive after his funeral and trying to wiggle his way into the life of a poor young widow.
His brain is hardly functional, but he still has enough energy just to have this one single thought that if he dies, Rikuson will steal her from his ghost.
He hopes if that happens, she kills him too, except instead of using the black honey, maybe those mushrooms that make people shit themselves to death.
(Rikuson is currently minding his own business.)
Maomao sees that he seems quite angry about something, and correctly assumes he’s having some nonsense thought. She almost wants to ask what he’s mad about, but she’s afraid he’ll say something stupid about growing a beard and she doesn’t want that sort of interruption.
The squeaking of the bed gets louder, and then a crack, and then the bed becomes lopsided and Maomao nearly slides off the edge.
Jinshi, having broken the bed because he was so passionately enraged about something insane his own brain made up, looks around and shoves a table and a sofa out of the way to make room for the mattress. Then he drags it, with Maomao still on top, off and flat onto the floor before climbing on with her.
Maomao taps on his nose. “Bad dog.”
He bites her fingertip and presses her down. “You’re mine. Mine. My wife.”
Yes, whatever is going on inside of his head, it is stupid, she decides.
Jinshi is so dizzy and so turned on that he wonders, when people die during sex, what actually kills them. Heart attack? Stroke? Based on how hard his heart is thumping, he thinks either of those things is possible. Perhaps he will die from a heart attack. Or a stroke. A fuck stroke. Is that a thing? Did he make it up?
Maomao starts to get a little nervous about his stamina, but just when she thinks she might have to tell him she can’t take anymore, he climaxes again, but this time, the black honey has released him from its torment, and he is able to wind down normally, flopping over onto the sweaty mattress.
And then he is gone.
Sound asleep. Nearly instantly.
Maomao looks around the room, at the furniture overturned and pushed out of place to make room for the mattress, the filthy, sweat and cum-soiled sheets, the broken bed. It looks like some sort of wild animal trashed the room.
Also, it smells like fuck in a way that no place has ever smelled like fuck before. She decides she’ll open a window just to let the pungent smell of horny man out of the room. Maomao believes that semen, while valuable, is offensive to four out of the five senses. It’s gross to look at, sticky to the touch, it tastes bad, and it smells atrocious. If it made a sound, she’s sure it would be horrible.
And yet, the idea of being so full of it makes her so very happy. Sexuality is such an odd and state to exist in.
After she lets that sweet lake breeze in, she lays down on the mattress and takes a little nap with her husband until dinner time, when a servant brings their dinner to the door.
Jinshi feels so tired when he wakes up. He has aches and soreness from exertion and feels like he came so hard and so much earlier that his soul exited his body as semen and now he’s just an empty shell, barely animated.
But thirsty.
“Water…” he croaks, like he’s just crawled through the desert.
Maomao discovers her entire crotch feels like it’s on fire from the abuse that she brought on herself and enjoyed thoroughly. She thinks maybe they get a little carried away with sex and don’t have whatever it is that normal people are doing, because she is once again barely able to walk.
Maomao manages to get the table back upright and pushes furniture back into place while Jinshi sits on the mattress, covering nothing, drinking water directly out of a pitcher like he’s dying.
When she puts the food tray down and calls for him, he seems like he can barely stand, and when he does, his legs feel like they’re made from rubber.
“Maybe after dinner, round two?” she asks, teasingly.
Her husband sweats at the thought. “M-Monster…”
“Just kidding. That was amazing.”
“I think I was going to die from a fuck stroke, but okay.”
“What’s a fuck stroke?”
“You were about to find out.”
He feels so weak he can barely eat, and Maomao is just glowing, lit with the joy of having multiple orgasms without the risk of stroke.
The prince says, “I’ll ask if the attendants can prepare a different room.”
“You can’t tell them we broke the bed. They’re going to assume it happened during sex.”
“It did happen during sex.”
“Well. Maybe we could fix it ourselves.”
Maomao doesn’t really know a lot about carpentry, and she knows the prince doesn’t have any practical skills at all, but it’s still wildly embarrassing to have to admit they fucked so much the bed broke.
Jinshi sits there on the floor next to the table, totally naked, his frog just hanging free and limp, and picks at his food before asking, “If I died, would you marry again?”
Maomao shrugs. “Statistically, that is the likely outcome. Building relationships is a hassle, but marriage provides many benefits, such as safety and financial security. If I died, would you remarry?”
“No, I would also die.”
“You’re very dramatic sometimes. I can never decide if it’s cute.”
After dinner, they manage to have their baths and move to a different room, but Jinshi seems like all the vitality has left him. He’s so tired, almost traumatized, leading Maomao to believe the dosage of black honey in the candies might be too high.
Maomao is left wondering how the emperor and Gyokuyou fared, and then she remembers that Gaoshun’s wife has ten black candies in her possession. Suiren has around that many as well.
She feels like she kind of owed the emperor, so she doesn’t feel bad for kind of poisoning him a little bit, but poor Gaoshun! She can’t imagine that very proper and polite man being driven to have sex until there’s no strength left in his body, and he is reduced to a puddle like Jinshi.
The next day, they mostly sleep.
Jinshi is still drained like he is recovering from an actual illness, and Maomao also feels exhausted from her efforts.
But on the next day when Jinshi has recovered, he and his wife start honeymooning in earnest, now that his ankle has improved. They go for walks in the forest, he teaches her how to swim even though like all cats she hates water, they visit the local village, they do some sightseeing, and of course, they stay up making love, although she doesn’t give him anymore black honey candy and he doesn’t break anymore furniture.
Maomao is kind of annoyed that her period was going to land at the end of her two week honeymoon, but as luck would have it, it never shows up at all, and the newlyweds are left to enjoy themselves with a very big question mark following them everywhere they go.
Chapter 10: Pregnant, But She Didn't Order Two
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
Two weeks after returning from the honeymoon, Luomen washes his hands in the newlywed couple’s marital bedchamber, having just completed an examination of Maomao, who is sitting on the edge of the bed, fixing her sleep robe.
She’s been throwing up all morning, so she hasn’t properly dressed for the day.
“Based on when conception likely took place, you should expect to give birth around the New Year. Let’s start supplementing with plenty of leafy greens, maybe some goatmilk, at least one egg prepared any way with each meal except raw, no raw meat, fish, or eggs, plenty of fresh fruit and lean meat. Go as easy as you can on alcohol, and absolutely no poison,” he says, realizing this is the first time he’s ever had to give that instruction.
Maomao nervously answers, “No poison? Who would poison themselves? Certainly not me!”
Luomen thinks it would normally be a bit difficult to conclusively confirm a pregnancy this early on, but Maomao has a full set of early pregnancy symptoms. Purple discoloration of the cervix, nausea, exhaustion, sore breasts…the whole collection. The most telling one is a little tan stripe forming beneath her navel that normally wouldn’t show up until later in most pregnancies.
Her belly already has a slightly less flat profile, although she doesn’t have the type of body that would keep a pregnancy secret for long in the first place.
Considering the early appearance of symptoms, their severity, and the fact that Maomao was taking fertility herbs, he wonders if she might have twins in there, which is absurd considering how small she is.
Luomen can’t imagine his poor little Maomao being that pregnant. She’s such a tiny little woman.
“I believe there is a small chance this could be a twin pregnancy based on the onset of symptoms, so let’s make sure we’re getting lots of rest and nutrition.”
“Really?”
“Mhmm. Small chance. Your symptoms seem to match a pregnancy that’s a little further along and considering the severity and the fact you were taking all those herbs, it’s possible. If that’s the case, we’ll see a difference in how your pregnancy progresses,” he answers.
Maomao sits on the edge of the bed, resting her hands on her belly. “Oh, but I didn’t order two.”
“In your own little way, you really did, actually. It probably wasn’t necessary for you to help your fertility.”
“So now it’s my fault that I got pregnant,” she jokes.
“Yes, you decided to do it. Took herbs to help you do it. Began performing the requisite action to cause it to happen. This seems like the expected outcome, and the normal relationship between action and consequence.”
There is absolutely nothing in the world that is cuter than Maomao sitting there, hands on her little tummy, pink in the cheeks, making nervous little jokes about the fact she’s definitely pregnant. It’s adorable. Luomen is not prone to the kind of absurd behaviors that her father and husband tend to engage in, but he really does just want to tell her that she’s the most adorable little mother there has ever been in all the world.
Luomen gives her a pat on the head. “It’s early, so it might be best to limit the number of people who find out for a while. Everything looks good for you, but sometimes early on things just don’t work out. It’s no one’s fault. Just something that happens sometimes.”
“Understood.”
“Are you happy?” he asks.
Maomao gives him a big crinkly-nosed grin. “It’s exciting.”
“Yes it is. My precious Maomao, a mother.”
She stands to embrace him, claiming a rare but always wonderful Dad-snuggle. They were not too affectionate as she was growing up, but they did have a little hug now and then, and when she was much younger, she lived holding onto his hand like it was a second umbilical cord.
When she imagines Jinshi with a little one constantly holding his hand, it makes her heart leap unexpectedly. Adding a twin to that picture because he has two arms? Even more disarmingly cute. She can’t take it.
“I’m so proud of you, Maomao.”
“It was very hard work. But I managed somehow.”
Luomen frowns and she says, “I regret my usage of the word ‘hard.’”
“Thank you.”
“Always mindful of my dear dad.”
Luomen steps out into the hallway outside the marital bedchamber and finds an anxious husband waiting rather impatiently.
He darts in a bit frantically, and asks, “Well?!”
Sore breasts and a missed period at the end of their honeymoon had grown to a full list of symptoms. Naturally, they strongly suspected pregnancy, but there was a world of difference between suspecting and knowing, and a certain amount of time had to pass before even a skilled doctor would be able to tell conclusively.
Over the past few days, the symptoms had become quite severe.
Two days ago, Maomao was so sick to her stomach all morning that she claimed her stomach was trying to eject itself from her body. On top of that, she’d been so incredibly tired, so she spent almost the entire day in bed. Then in the evening, right before dinner, she awoke absolutely well and incredibly energized.
She ate three entire dinners, demanded tons of sex a fully stomach, rearranged the furniture in their bedroom, and then entered a comatose like sleep only to awaken ill again and do it all again the prior day, and was on track for another insane day, sleepy and sick by day, horny and hungry by night.
Maomao teases, “Well, what? Did you have a question?”
Jinshi is exasperated by even one single second of this teasing and collapses to his knees in front of her as she sits on the edge of the bed. Resting his head on one of her knees, he says, “Maomao, don’t torment me like this. Are you?”
“Am I what?” she asks, feeling a bit mischievous.
“Pregnant. Are you pregnant?”
She shrugs. “Oh, right. We got to talking about medicine and I forgot to ask. Guess we’ll never know.”
“Maomao! Wife! Tell me. I have to know.”
Maomao plays with his hair, smirking a bit. He’s so adorable when he’s being a bit pathetic, looking like a little puppy who is begging for a treat. Sometimes when he looks like this, she is seized by the strange urge to just bite his cheeks. Why? She doesn’t know. Pathetic Jinshi is just a very bitable character, and she thinks he doesn’t mind when she takes a little nibble since he bites her all over.
But to be clear, she doesn’t bite actual puppies. That would be unsanitary, unnecessary, and unkind.
He looks up at her with his big puppy eyes, and asks, “Are you going to have my baby, Maomao?”
This question sends chills running down her back. “Hmm, I think I remember something about that. Let me think.”
He whines and wiggles a little. “Maomao!”
“Okay, okay, okay. I’ll think about telling you.”
“Maooooomaoooooooooooooooo!”
Maomao playfully says, “Stop acting like a baby. I already have one of those growing in my belly.”
Jinshi abruptly lifts her off the edge of the bed and holds her, feet dangling off the floor, hugging her so tight as he spins. “You’re pregnant?! Really pregnant!”
“Husband, no spinning! Stop spinning! Spin bad!” she says, feeling her sensitive stomach turn, moved in a very unwanted way by her husband’s outpouring of pure joy and happiness. “Wife will puke!”
Not wanting to make her sick, he gently lays her down on the bed and climbs over her so he can straddle her legs and rest both of his big hands on her tummy.
“A baby! We’re having a baby!”
He is blushing, she is blushing, it’s a moment of cuteness and realization that all their love has been quite fruitful.
Maomao says, “My dad says he thinks it could be twins.”
“We might have two babies?” he takes one hand from her tummy to place it over his chest. “My heart is aflutter.”
“I think you are expressing joy, but as a medical professional, for me hearing you say that your heart is doing anything irregular is deeply concerning,” she answers.
“I’m so happy I could die.”
“Please don’t. I will find a way to bring you back from the dead if you impregnate me and then leave me by any means. Death will not stop me from expressing my dissatisfaction and forcing you to return to your parental duties.”
Jinshi unties her sleeping robe so he can open it and touch her bare belly, and says, “How do you feel? Are you happy? I’m so happy I think I’ll explode.”
“Again, you will not explode. You will become a dutiful father who works hard to raise his child or children depending on whether I am pregnant or extra pregnant,” she warns.
He covers her belly in more than two dozen sweet little kisses. “Hi there. I’m your dad. I’m so happy you’re here!”
Jinshi talking to her pregnant tummy is so delightful that she worries her entire brain might rot into a pile of mush.
He puts her hands on top of his as they rest on her belly, and says, a bit more shyly, “Hello. I’m your mom?”
To the husband, Maomao being too shy is the cutest thing ever.
To the wife, Jinshi having absolutely energetic enthusiasm is the cutest thing ever.
Maomao remembers back when Lishu and Basen’s baby was born how happy they were and how she wanted to experience that and also to give Jinshi that joy as well. She didn’t know it was possible for her to be so filled with bliss before this moment, and this is probably nothing compared to what it’s going to be like when she finally gives birth.
She’s actually just so very glad that they’re on this path, even though it’s not the path she always saw for herself.
She’s so happy.
He’s so happy.
Belly snuggles are so sweet, so wholesome, so lovely, so beautiful, such a blissful experience that Maomao wonders if maybe she too will explode.
Jinshi is meanwhile practically high on his own joy, absolutely obsessed and enchanted by the idea that Maomao was going to have his baby. Maybe two babies, even! He just wants to lay there with her and hold her until it’s time, but he suspects she’d get annoyed with his constant presence after a while.
Maomao loves him as much as he loves her, but while he wants to just be in her personal space every minute of his waking life and also when sleeping, Maomao requires a little more free agency, time to ‘breathe in air that doesn’t smell like him’ according to her.
Such a queen. She didn’t need a man, but he convinced her she could want one and that it should be him. Which makes him a king in a way, but not literally; he very famously isn’t about that.
He loves her so much.
He’s so happy.
It’s almost too much. Almost.
Cute Husband lays with his ear against her belly. “Do you think there is one or two?”
“If my dad said it, he’s probably nearly certain even though there’s no proof. Most of his work after he originally left the rear palace was split between the Pleasure District and the nearly slum. A great percentage of that work was helping with complicated pregnancies and deliveries. After all, getting pregnant is one of the most dangerous things a woman can do. Always lots of babies in that part of town. So he’s seen twin pregnancies. Even a couple of sets of triplets.”
“Is it more dangerous to have twins rather than one baby?” he asks.
Maomao answers, “In my case, I have access to whatever extra nutrition is needed, it’s not a problem if I need to rest, and any symptoms I have will be managed by an expert. The biggest risk is that one or both of the babies would be positioned incorrectly for delivery, but Dad knows how to safely deliver surgically if there’s a complication. So it is a risk, but I am very privileged, and it is less of a risk for me than for others. Please don’t worry.”
“Why can’t I worry about my wife who is carrying my unborn babies?”
“Because your wife would find that annoying. Your part in this process was complete some weeks ago. Please leave the rest to me. I will keep you posted with any updates and allow you a reasonable amount of belly touches,” she answers.
Jinshi kisses her tummy again. “I’m so happy. I really am going to burst. You’re going to be such a good little mom. I can’t wait.”
“Well, I think you’ll be a top-quality father as well. I can already tell you care very much. It makes me feel all warm on the inside.”
Covering her whole belly in kisses, he asks, “I do have one question.”
“We can still have sex. It’s not a problem.”
Looking up, he frowns. “What makes you think that was the question?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“No.”
“Then what was it?”
Jinshi throws his nose in the air. “Fine! It was the question.”
“Mhmm. That’s what I thought. Always concerned with the Frog agenda,” she teases.
“Frog? Not even using his proper name?”
“My apologies to the Grand Imperial Amphibian…I wonder if I have to rename him now that you’re not a proper member of the imperial family? You have imperial blood still, and therefore, he also has imperial blood in him, more so when fully engorged. We could start calling it the ‘Ministerial Rod of Governance.’”
Jinshi kisses her tummy more times. “You’re so funny. I love you so much. Mom.”
Her stomach turns and she announces, “Dad, I need you to stop touching my belly. I will throw up now.”
There’s a bowl next to the bed for this purpose, and she throws up all the six bites of breakfast she had before Luomen arrived.
She really feels like she needs to lay still, and he really needs to go to work, and so out he goes to be an adult and a competent Prime Minister.
It is only after he leaves that she realizes that she forgot to tell him not to tell anyone, and she just knows his joyful little idiot brain won’t be able to contain that information.
Maomao just pukes again while Jinshi heads to a meeting with the emperor.
The emperor didn’t even reschedule his thrice-weekly meetings with him, he just blotted out ‘Prince’ and write ‘Prime Minister’ next to it on his calendar. It was so offensive to Jinshi in some sort of way, and now everyone in the court was talking about what a brilliant political move it was.
To an outsider, the emperor, who has heirs of his own now, married his brother into the La clan, thus aligning the La clan with their family, and installed the former Imperial Brother as the Prime Minister. This ultimately aligned the top military position, top civilian position, and throne around the emperor.
Jinshi is sure that even though the emperor was forced to make his move, but when he did, he played everyone including Lakan. Now everybody has to be on his side and do what he says—what a pain in the ass it is to have an older brother.
He has one of his thrice weekly meetings today, where he will report that he still has a backlog of non-urgent work that will take months to clear, and the emperor will give him shit about it like he wasn’t the one that left the position empty.
Still, nothing can ruin his mood. He feels so light and practically floats all the way to the emperor’s office.
Lihaku walks just slightly behind him; in his new role as Jinshi’s chief attendant, they’ve had some bumps in the road. Lihaku has the disadvantage of not having known the Prime Minister literally all of his life like Gaoshun and Basen, but they’re working it out.
Prime Minister La Zuigetsu has such an intimidating name, but he’s such a goofy guy sometimes. After all, when Lihaku met him, the former prince was working in the rear palace and was disguised as a eunuch, but since members of the royal family were allowed there, he wonders why the eunuch act was necessary? He’s dying to know, but even though his boss talks to him quite a lot throughout the day, Lihaku can’t find the right time to ask him why he decided to pretend he didn’t have a penis.
Lihaku gives him an update of all the important news as they walk, and then he waits outside the door as the prince enters the office now most famous for being the scene of the Great Misunderstanding.
Yang sees his son float through the door, and says, “Nice of you to join us. You’re quite late.”
“Sorry, urgent business.”
The emperor looks up at his son, who has a strange, gleeful grin seemingly frozen on his face. “What urgent business? Judging from that look on your face, you were just with your wife right before this.”
Gaoshun thinks his expression is odd as well, although since returning from the honeymoon, the Prime Minister has often been seen going here and there seemingly quite happy with the world. For someone who was actually kind of an angsty and gloomy kid, Maomao has always done him so good.
Maomao herself has actually rarely been seen at all since the honeymoon and has reportedly been sick to her stomach often. A newly married bride staying at home due to nausea would normally cause everyone to start wondering whether she might be pregnant, but for some strange reason, no one is willing to speak these thoughts out loud.
There can’t be another misunderstanding, after all.
Jinshi proudly announces, “My wife is pregnant.”
The emperor narrows his eyes and studies his son, as if analyzing the situation with more intensity that would normally be required. And then he says, “I’m not falling for this again. Everyone got mad at me last time.”
Gaoshun understands there is a very large difference in circumstance and says, “Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Gaoshun. The emperor is unable to share in my happiness because he is too busy pretending to be the victim of that other problem he caused,” Jinshi answers.
When Zuigetsu is in a good mood, sometimes he gives the emperor shit like a real little brother, a somewhat new behavior. The emperor has told Gaoshun that Zuigetsu becoming confident from having sex has made him a less likable coworker, and Gaoshun reminds him that he was the one that hired him to become Prime Minister.
Yang says, “I’m just cautious. How do we know?”
“The best doctor in this entire country did a full exam this morning and confirmed it. Also, the mother, also an accomplished medical expert, is certain, and she has actual symptoms she is pregnant. It’s a different situation than you and Lakan joining forces to become as confused as possible.”
Yang complains, “Marriage has given you too much confidence. Your personality has worsened.”
“If having one woman has made me unpleasant, imagine how it would be if I had a thousand.”
The emperor scowls.
Considering the fact that Maomao thinks she is pregnant, and a respectable doctor has confirmed it, this information seems like it’s safe. But he thought that before! They were so sure that Maomao herself was pregnant, and then she told them she was swollen from eating too many lobsters and not because there was a baby.
Now so little time later, she’s switching it up on them again.
She’s so crafty, like her father, always keeping everyone guessing.
(Maomao did not invite or purposefully encourage the previous matter and remains annoyed when she thinks about it.)
Yang asks, “Are you sure?”
“Yes. You’re going to be an uncle.”
“You’re really, really sure? If I believe you, everyone isn’t going to be mad at me in a few days and your wife isn’t going to throw food at me and yell at me?”
“Really sure.”
Yang feels his heart begin to soften at the idea that his baby was having a baby. But for real this time. Staring across the desk at his dear son, the firstborn from his youth, now sitting tall as a married man who just came from finding out he was going to be a father?
Zuigetsu hates it when the emperor gets sentimental around him; it’s so weird to have the older brother who mostly causes grief be sweet. How awkward. How uncomfortable. How cringe it really is, to see how the emperor’s eyes become wet like his emotions are really moved by this.
“You’re really going to be a father.”
“Yes. I just found out earlier, so I was late. Sorry.”
Work forgotten, Secret Father asks Unknowing Son, “How do you feel?”
“Great, actually.”
“And Maomao is well?”
“She has had a lot of nausea since we got back from the honeymoon, but I think she’s okay. Mostly resting. She has really turned into a cat because she naps all day and wakes up late hungry and full of energy and mischief. It’s so cute,” he answers.
Even though Maomao is the one that is pregnant, Gaoshun thinks at the moment that Jinshi is the one who is glowing. He just looks so happy as he and the emperor start chattering about Maomao.
Secret Father wants to know everything, and that’s all Unknowing Son wants to talk about anyway.
The emperor is so proud of him, but he also wants to pout because he wants to become a grandfather. He doesn’t want to be uncle!
Unknowing Son sees Secret Father sour, and asks, “What’s that face for?”
“I just realized that bastard Lakan is going to get to be a grandpa and I have to be uncle. An injustice.”
Jinshi blinks in confusion. “Yes, because Lakan is Maomao’s father, and you are my brother.”
“Well, the grandfather role is more senior than the uncle role.”
His son answers, “I don’t…I don’t know what you want me to do about that. You’re the emperor, the highest ranked person in this whole land.”
“But to your child, I’ll just be uncle.”
Yang decides to pivot back to happier matters. “Never mind. We need to have the prayer ceremony for Maomao. For your wife. Your pregnant wife.”
Pregnant Maomao makes everyone so contented, the Secret Grandfather, the proud daddy, and Gaoshun.
It’s customary in the imperial family for them to have a prayer vigil where the members of the families burn incense and pray when a new child has been conceived. This is less an official imperial act, and more a family tradition.
Jinshi doesn’t hate the idea of it, but he feels like whenever Maomao’s family and his mix, adverse results occur.
He says, “I’ll ask Suiren to plan a dinner. We are keeping it small. And please don’t cause problems with Lakan just because he is the grandfather and you’re the uncle. And oh, Luomen said it might be twins, so I expect this to be reflected in your gift-giving.”
“Twins? Really?”
“Yes.”
Yang really thinks his son can’t even help himself sometimes. He just has to outdo him. He can’t just have a baby. He has to have two.
Jinshi very lightheartedly jokes, “We’ll probably have two to your three, so I’ll probably catch up to you soon. If we had two daughters, I’d have more daughters than you. Or two boys, I’d have the same number of sons.”
“But I have three.”
“Three what? Sons?” Jinshi is so confused, because this is such a weird thing to be wrong about. He wonders if he’s counting the ones that died, which would be morbid, but then that number would be five since he had three deceased sons.
The emperor slipped, and he didn’t mean to slip. He was too busy frowning to keep his cool.
With a nervous laugh, his son asks, “You don’t have a secret kid no one knows about, do you?”
“Of course not.”
His nervous behavior doesn’t go unnoticed, and Jinshi asks, “If you did, you would tell me, right? The only living adult male born into your family? You wouldn’t keep a secret son from me.”
“Of course not. The idea is preposterous.”
Gaoshun remains still as a stone by the door as always, but he can practically smell the sulfuric fumes and smoke from the volcano. The boiling magma of the volcano hungers for a sacrifice, calls out for a victim to wander up to it’s peak and fall in.
But also, Gaoshun wonders if the emperor has a secret son that no one knows about? If he is keeping a secret like that, did he really slip up and drop a hint while being teased by his brother about who is better at making babies?
The emperor immediately pivots to work, like that’s going to make Secret Son forget all about the fact that he hinted there might be a third imperial son.
Whoops.
After half an afternoon of work, the emperor’s mind drifts back to the baby.
He really wants to be a grandfather!
Then he remembers something else.
“Zuigetsu.”
“Hmm?” the Prime Minister is leafing through papers, copies of reports about improvements to a bridge just south of the capitol.
“Did you eat any of those black candies that Maomao made?”
The prince remembers the ordeal and takes a deep, somewhat traumatized breath. “How do you know about those?”
“I had one.”
“Maomao…gave you sex enhancing drugs?”
“She’s done it many times before. But she didn’t give this one to me. I found it .”
“Found it? Where?”
“…on the floor.”
Jinshi tilts his head. “…Excuse me, what?”
“Look, that’s not the point. I just want to know if you ate one of those candies. The candy on the floor is not an issue.”
“Poison. You ate poison off the floor. That’s how we get rid of rats. We put sugar in poison and put it out on the floor and they run around eating it because they don’t question the free sweets on the floor,” he answers.
Surely not Zuigetsu, criticizing him for the Floor Candy incident!
The fact that Maomao didn’t tell her husband that she accidentally poisoned the emperor at their wedding is news to both Unknowing Son and Secret Father. It seems like news that the husband should know, but now that he does know it, he feels a strange sense of secondhand embarrassment. Spies have probably written letters saying the emperor will eat strange candy off the floor and that he can probably be killed this way.
Jinshi sighs. “But to answer your question. Yes. I did eat one of those. I thought I was going to die.”
“Me as well.”
“Maomao gave some to Lady Taomei, right Gaoshun?”
Gaoshun frowns, as he did not ask to be brought into this conversation and he certainly doesn’t want to talk about his sex life with these two. “Yes.”
“Did you eat one?”
The attendant answers, “My wife was given ten, and I’ve already eaten all of them.”
Emperor and Prime Minister are shocked.
“You didn’t think you were going to die?” the emperor asks.
“No. I had one every night for ten nights. I found the experience invigorating, if that can be all I say.”
Zuigetsu? Wrecked.
Yang? Wrecked.
Gaoshun? Had a great time and did it every night for ten nights in a row, still came to work every day, and the emperor realizes he did field training during most of the last three weeks for his annual combat readiness test.
Jinshi can’t imagine Gaoshun being such a fiend that he was flirting with a fuck stroke every night and then getting up and running, doing obstacle courses, practicing archery and swordsmanship, and then going home to risk fuck stroke again.
It’s incomprehensible.
What kind of a monster is this very shy and proper man who gets embarrassed if anyone sees him holding his wife’s hand in public? And Lady Taomei, letting that man come home from a hard day and then putting him to such hard work?
The emperor says, “I had heart palpitations and had to be treated by Luomen in the middle of the night.”
Jinshi is just now finding out both that Maomao accidentally poisoned the emperor and that his life was probably actually in danger a little bit. But she’s obviously not going to be punished, because whose fault is it that the emperor has the same survival instinct as a pantry rat?
But Gaoshun? Just fine. Not afraid of fuck stroke at all. Then again, Gaoshun and Basen are both incredibly physically resilient and powerful. Gaoshun is old enough that all his children are grown, but he can keep up with the fittest young recruits that are less than half his age.
Jinshi thinks he and the emperor are just the pathetic brothers who can’t take the heat.
The emperor thinks they are pathetic father and pathetic son who can’t take the heat.
Pathetic relatives, either way.
The emperor says, “Maybe we need to marry the Ma clan strength into our line? You’re all so robust. You have a granddaughter don’t you? We could introduce her to the crown prince.”
“My granddaughter is going through a bullying phase right now. It wouldn’t be a good idea. She is very strong.”
“Nonsense. I’m sure they’ll get along. I’m sure he’ll make a good impression. He’s a brave boy. I’m sure he’ll stand up for himself.”
(The crown prince recently thought there was a monster under his bed, so he asked Princess Lingli to sleep with him because he is sure the monster would fear her. Lingli agreed that yes, the monster should be afraid of her.)
Sometimes Gaoshun imagines the emperor is like an octopus with eight arms that can juggle eight different crises at one time. He’s an incredibly competent leader and wonderful emperor, but sometimes he has seven important matters he’s dealing with and one thing that is purely absurd.
His grandchildren have all been born with unusual strength and move through their early years like little monsters who can’t control themselves, breaking toys, furniture, occasionally each other’s bones, and so forth. They’re like little cannonballs as soon as they start walking. He would never speak ill of the crown prince, but he is very precious and a bit delicate by comparison, so polite and well mannered.
“Should I have my wife coordinate a play date with the empress?” Gaoshun asks.
“Yes, please.”
After a long day of work, Jinshi returns home to find Maomao feeling much better. They talk about the prayer ceremony, and Maomao thinks it doesn’t sound like fun at all, burning incense and praying.
She wonders if Jinshi is aware that the La clan is a bunch of irreligious intellectuals who don’t do anything spiritual. They visit holy places for ceremonies they are required to attend, while the imperial family is quite devout, keeping up with prayers and ceremony.
The only thing they’re going to do at a ceremony requiring moments of quiet prayer is fidget and think about whatever their unique and singular obsession is, because at birth, every member of the La clan is assigned one single thing that they will be infatuated with for the rest of their life, their own personal religion that they will practice silently until they die.
Yang drops by unannounced with flowers around the time they finish dinner, so he can be nosy about the pregnancy.
Maomao doesn’t really mind, since he is the uncle-grandfather.
Sitting on a couch beside her, he asks, “Would you mind too much if I…?”
“It’s okay, I guess,” she answers, allowing the emperor to give her belly a little pat. She’s physically placed her hands inside of his body and seen his organs, so this incursion into her space doesn’t feel entirely unfair.
After a while, the emperor says, “I was wondering if we could invite Lady Ah-Duo to the dinner and prayer ritual?”
Maomao resists including too many people in this because she is sure her family is going to embarrass her, but she sincerely believes there is a huge chance Lady Ah-Duo is the grandmother. Excluding her seems cruel, since she already didn’t get to participate in the wedding.
“I’m okay with Lady Ah-Duo and the empress because she’s the empress, obviously, but lets keep it to family other than that,” she answers.
Since she’s spent most of the day in a nauseated haze and she has babies on the brain, she doesn’t realize how suspicious it is that she would make a cutout just for Ah-Duo and no one else.
It puzzles Jinshi because they’re not the closest. Maomao is more social with Lihua, for instance.
The emperor also finds this suspicious, and when Jinshi leaves the room briefly to relieve himself, the emperor leans over and quietly asks, “Do you know, Maomao? Did your father tell you?”
In context, Maomao actually doesn’t understand what is being asked.
“Do I know what?”
“You know what I’m asking.”
“I actually don’t.”
“Do you want to know?”
“I’m good for now, thank you.”
Yang wonders if anyone really knows how hard it is to ask Maomao questions? Is there a trick to it? Gaoshun seems to know how to make her talk, but Maomao is slippery like an eel and evades any sort of traction in social interactions.
He’s not going to let this little woman Lihaku him again, as his wife calls it.
She won’t lie, but she’ll purposefully avoid understanding what the question is so there is never a way for her to answer it, and if she is forced to understand the question, she will issue vague answers whenever possible.
The emperor says, “I would like for you to show me, with your fingers, the maximum number of living sons I have in the world if all your unconfirmed suspicions are correct.”
Maomao’s face melts.
Such a direct question.
He doesn’t suggest Ah-Duo, or a missing prince. It could be that one prince is getting counted when he shouldn’t be, or there’s a missing prince somewhere, or that he’s simply testing the accuracy of her testimony.
Obviously, if he asks her if she knows about the baby swap and she doesn’t, then she will know about it.
So he found a different way to ask the question that didn’t expose the real theory he was testing.
If all her unconfirmed suspicions are correct, the emperor has three children.
She holds up three fingers and lets out a very long breath.
What follows is a furiously fast, whispered conversation that has to be over before Jinshi returns to the room.
“Did Lakan tell you?”
“I don’t talk to that man,” she defensively answers.
“He is your father, Maomao.”
“Yes, sometimes people in families decide not to tell each other important things,” she whispers.
Okay, well, that’s fair, the emperor decides. “Did you tell your husband?”
“Of course not. I wish I didn’t know. I also wish you didn’t know that I know. This is an unfortunate turn of events for me.”
They whisper quickly until Jinshi returns and shuts the door. “What are you two talking about all quiet like?” he playfully asks.
“Nothing.”
Maomao and the emperor speaking in unison is possibly the most suspicious thing he has ever witnessed in his entire life. They’re just not people who seem like they’d be able to be in sync, but sure enough, they sit nervously.
“I was just joking, but now I’m worried.”
The emperor stands and says, “Well, I’m sure Maomao needs her rest since she’s expecting, and therefore I shall take my leave. Thank you for making time for me.”
After her father in law practically runs out the door, her husband says, “It is late. Your bath should be ready. We can’t have you staying up too late.”
As they get ready for bed, taking their separate baths and putting on sleeping robes, Jinshi considers the strange, hushed conversation. He’s never seen Maomao and the emperor whisper with each other before. They looked cozy, like it was very important for him to lean in and be as quiet as possible.
He thinks back to the emperor’s strange slip-up in the office, where he implied that he had another son out in the world somewhere.
Maomao is good at solving mysteries. So if there were people who just figured it out on their own, maybe Maomao knew about the mysterious third royal son. Was she keeping another nephew from him?
Once they crawl into bed, he snuggles up to her, rubs her belly for a minute and asks, “Do you know who the emperor's mystery child is?”
Oh for fuck’s sake.
Maomao doesn’t curse often even in her own mind, but really? REALLY? Really! After all these years, she quietly had this strange theory. There was no proof of it. She wasn’t sure it was true.
“Yes. I will ask that you not force me to reveal this person’s name out of respect for the emperor.”
His eyes sparkle in the dark. “You do know. How fascinating that I married a woman that would hide someone in my family from me.”
“Yes, how fascinating, that you married a woman who doesn’t want to participate in your family’s drama.”
Jinshi rests his head on her shoulder. “Have I ever been introduced to him before?”
“No.”
This is true, people aren’t introduced to themselves. This is a great first question. She thinks that she might be able to slither out of this one after all.
“Is the mystery son older than the crown prince?”
“Yes.”
“How much older?”
“Much older.”
“So if it got out that he existed, it would be a problem, because according to our traditions and customs, the other son should be the crown prince.”
“Indeed it would.”
Well, this is a scandal waiting to happen, Jinshi decides. No wonder the Other Son is being kept a secret, although he wonders why.
“Why is the Other Son a secret?”
Maomao answers, “No one has actually told me the reason. I have my theories, but I will not speak on conjecture.”
“How did you find out?”
“I had a theory for a while. I didn’t find out it was true until earlier when the emperor was whispering at me. How did you find out?”
“The emperor accidentally let it slip during our meeting today. Inadvertently said he had three sons instead of two.”
Officially, she now considers the emperor’s question to her to be cheating, because he simply forced her to correctly answer the question he incorrectly answered earlier. It wasn’t a sophisticated interrogation technique; he just replicated his own mistake.
His wife says, “Why are you not having this conversation with the emperor?”
“I want to solve the mystery too!”
“I’m very tired and need my rest,” she announces, before immediately beginning obnoxiously fake snoring noises that communicate very clearly that she is done talking about Other Son with Other Son.
Maomao considers that maybe this family really does need prayer, because what on earth are they even doing at this point? Is she one of them now? Is she about to bring two more of these things into the world?
Notes:
Are we having fun? I'm having fun.
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