Dawn had only just broken, mist still drifting faintly in the air. Sitting on the steps before the small building, Jin’er spoke these words earnestly, her tone carrying both a note of hurt and a note of sternness. Ning Yi had always operated by his own set of principles when it came to how he handled things, and there weren’t many occasions that could leave him genuinely at a loss for words—but this time, he felt there really wasn’t much he could say in his own defense.
It wasn’t entirely guilt or being moved to sentiment, either. On the matter of Yun Zhu, and of Tan’er, he’d, in truth, already given the whole thing careful consideration some time ago—but no matter how he’d reasoned it through, none of it made for a suitable excuse to offer up now.
He fell silent for a good while, then glanced over at Jin’er, still sitting there earnestly, and said with a smile, “So, you’ve fallen for Yun Zhu, then?”
Jin’er had been bracing herself for him to reflect, perhaps sit there feeling guilty for a while—instead, Ning Yi simply turned the question right back on her. She blinked, startled. “Mm.” After a moment, she added, “Regardless of everything, I don’t want Sister Yun Zhu to spend the rest of her life alone. She’s… she’s so good, whoever wrongs her deserves whatever karma comes to them! You clearly have no future with her anyway, so you might as well get lost sooner rather than later…”
“You’re the one with no future with her, if anything…”
“I…” Jin’er’s expression faltered for a moment. “Regardless… regardless, I’ll stay by Sister Yun Zhu’s side. I love her…”
This kind of thing was, after all, somewhat taboo in nature, and even with Jin’er’s bold personality, having just worked up the courage to lay it all out to Ning Yi, she found she couldn’t manage to declare things with quite as much conviction just now.
Ning Yi nodded. “All right.”
“You’ve got nothing to say to that?”
“You genuinely care about her—that’s a good thing.” Ning Yi smiled faintly. “Besides, Yun Zhu doesn’t like women anyway…”
“You…” Jin’er glared at him furiously for a moment, then let out a “hmph” and made to get up and leave, but Ning Yi reached out and tugged gently at her sleeve. “I may have made some mistakes.”
Though there was still a smile on his face, his manner this time carried none of his usual provoking edge, and Jin’er finally, reluctantly, sat back down. After a moment, Ning Yi went on. “I thought about your Sister Yun Zhu before, thought about it for quite a while, and eventually made a decision—but looking at it now, I’m not sure it was the right one.”
That had been back when Yun Zhu had first opened her heart to him. He’d already given the matter serious thought even then. Around the same time, the Su family’s cloth troubles had also come to a head; he’d stepped in to help, and over the course of more than a year working alongside Su Tan’er, real affection had naturally developed between them as well. Back then, he’d even raised the matter with Old Qin and Kang Xian, uncertain how best to handle the situation.
He was a man of decisive temperament; if he genuinely felt nothing for someone, no matter how beautiful she might be, he simply wouldn’t spare her a second glance. In his previous life, holding a position of real power, he’d had no shortage of women around him—as far as sheer looks went, women from the modern age, groomed and cared for since childhood, could easily rival or surpass Yun Zhu and Tan’er both, in no small number. Of course, such comparisons weren’t really so clear-cut, coming down more to differences in style than anything else—and in Ning Yi’s case, his affection now stemmed mainly from character and temperament; the appeal of looks alone actually played a relatively small part in it.
With both women’s positions laid out clearly before him, and no way to resolve things decisively, his temperament being what it was, he’d spent a few days troubled by it, then ultimately treated it as simply a practical problem to be managed. A practical problem meant not searching for excuses, not dwelling on his own difficulties—the situation was simply what it was, no point wallowing in self-pity, just find a workable solution and move forward. It was much the same attitude he’d taken when he’d laid his cards on the table with the Wu family—whatever the reasoning behind it, the situation was simply what it was now; you scheme against me, I scheme against you, you act dishonorably and I’ll come after your whole family, and greed unchecked only invites ruin—but dwelling on any of that accomplished nothing. The reality was, at this point, the decisive move had already been made and there was no undoing it; you could hardly expect mercy at this stage. Once things had reached this point, all that was left was figuring out how to move forward from here.
People generally found it hard to make clean choices in matters of the heart, and Ning Yi was certainly no exception to that tendency. If a situation truly proved unworkable, he could act with more resolve than most, cutting his losses decisively—but the situation here wasn’t nearly so dire, leaving plenty of room for maneuvering and compromise.
In all honesty, he did recognize that a man’s inconstancy was fundamentally unfair to the women involved. He’d considered, too, that had things between him and Yun Zhu developed more quickly, before he’d formed any real attachment to the Su family, he might well have left the Su household and Jiangning altogether to start fresh somewhere else with her. And if his relationship with Tan’er had developed faster instead, there might never have been any further possibility between him and Yun Zhu at all. But things were as they were now, and there was little use dwelling on what might have been.
Parting from either Yun Zhu or Tan’er now would be difficult in either case, so he’d simply let things stand as they were, and sought solutions in other directions instead. Tan’er, in truth, was a woman of considerable capability, and given Yun Zhu’s own temperament, there was really no need for her to formally enter the Su household at all—he could fulfill his responsibilities as her partner and husband in other ways instead. To that end, he’d actually spoken with Yun Zhu about it directly, explaining that he likely couldn’t leave the Su family, laying out the awkward situations the two of them would inevitably face if they stayed together, and telling her at the time that if she genuinely wanted a formal status, he wasn’t entirely without options for that either. If either side of things ever came to the point of forcing him to make a decision, he could, of course, still make that decision when the time came.
And so things had naturally continued on this course ever since. Hearing Jin’er lay all this out so earnestly now, Ning Yi did feel, naturally, both moved and inclined toward some self-reflection. Whatever the case, he genuinely had made some mistakes along the way, and there was a real debt owed to Yun Zhu that he couldn’t deny—though most of the finer details weren’t really something he could go into with Jin’er here. He only added, with a touch more seriousness than before, “But I won’t let your Sister Yun Zhu end up unhappy. I’ve made promises, and I intend to see those responsibilities through. Jin’er, that you genuinely want what’s best for her—I’m grateful for that too…”
“You… you haven’t reflected on anything at all!”
Ning Yi reined in his moment of seriousness, looking at Jin’er with a teasing air. “But you can’t exactly make your Sister Yun Zhu’s heart any happier either, can you?”
“Who says I can’t…”
“Yun Zhu doesn’t like women…”
“But staying with you, Sister Yun Zhu will never truly be happy—she just doesn’t say it. She can’t even enter your household, has no formal standing at all, and what woman doesn’t care about that?” Jin’er gave a soft snort. “I already said, I’ll admit you’re a decent enough man in other respects, but you can’t solve this problem, and everything else is just empty words!”
“It’s not that there’s no solution, just that it’s a difficult one—forcing through a formal status might well end up bringing more unhappiness in the end. Of course, I’m not saying I’ll insist on having everything perfectly resolved at some point either. But I’ve told your Sister Yun Zhu already—I’m a matrilocal son-in-law, I can’t even enter my own family’s ancestral shrine. Honestly, I’ve got no real interest in the Su family’s ancestral shrine either, and frankly it would sound rather pathetic if I did. Your Sister Yun Zhu wouldn’t particularly want that kind of status anyway… But I’ve promised her that when I die, we’ll be buried together in the same grave, never separated. You think formal status matters most—but I think this, in the end, might be even better…”
“Er…” Jin’er stared at him, wide-eyed, stunned for a long moment. “You’re talking nonsense, how could that even…”
“I’m not dying anytime soon.” Ning Yi laughed. “There are still plenty of years ahead. People will come to understand, eventually. If I’m truly determined to do something, the Su family won’t be able to stop me. The only real difficulty will probably be my own wife, but by then, she’ll be seventy or eighty years old, and I imagine she’ll have come to terms with it by then…”
He paused, then shook his head. “It’s far too early to be talking about any of this now, though. Ha, like her if you want to like her, wear men’s clothes if you want to, I’m certainly not stopping you. If you can keep your Sister Yun Zhu happy, that would make me happy too. But let me tell you now, I’m quite confident about this—Brother Yuan, you don’t stand a chance, you’ll only end up heartbroken for the rest of your life…”
Ning Yi’s utterly nonchalant attitude left Jin’er thinking this man was truly infuriating. She fumed for a good while before gritting her teeth and saying, “Just you wait and see!” She’d originally felt quite anxious about admitting her feelings for Yun Zhu, but since Ning Yi was being so thoroughly maddening about it, she decided she no longer had any reason to feel embarrassed about it at all. Having delivered her parting shot, she turned and stalked back inside. Ning Yi watched her retreating figure and couldn’t help but laugh again.
It was said that women were often naturally inclined toward bisexuality; Ning Yi certainly wasn’t any kind of authority on the matter, but whether what Jin’er felt for Yun Zhu constituted genuine romantic love was, in truth, hard to say for certain. One thing, though, was beyond doubt—she truly cared about this elder sister figure of hers, worried for her, stood up for her. Had the other party been a man, Ning Yi would naturally have felt some resentment over it, but with it being Jin’er, someone capable of feeling this kind of familial, almost blood-deep affection for Yun Zhu, he found it, in truth, rather a good thing.
Yun Zhu had lost both her parents and had no other family left; after leaving Jinfeng Tower, she’d had only Hutao to rely on, and it was only after her relationship with Ning Yi had become settled, giving her heart something to anchor to, that she’d finally arranged for Hutao to marry. Later, when Ning Yi had suggested she take Old Qin as her adoptive father, that had ultimately been more a matter of mutual benefit—even with Old Qin’s kindness and genuine regard for Yun Zhu, it would still be difficult for that relationship to become truly familial in the deepest sense. Jin’er was different—the two of them could rely on each other day and night, and if Yun Zhu could have another person to anchor herself to in this way, Ning Yi found himself genuinely glad of it.
Formal status might be difficult to give her, but in every other respect, he’d already resolved to treat Yun Zhu well, and he would naturally see that resolve through. Given Yun Zhu’s temperament, even if Jin’er really were a man, it would be difficult to sway her affections away—and since the two of them were both women, without any such inclination herself, there was little real risk of Jin’er somehow turning her into a lesbian too. If that ever actually happened, well, perhaps it would only prove his own failure as a partner… With Jin’er staying devotedly by her side, wholeheartedly looking out for her, why shouldn’t he be generous about it? If anything, it would serve as a useful reminder to himself to keep treating Yun Zhu well—after all, there was now an entertainingly jealous rival lurking nearby, watching him like a hawk.
He chuckled to himself over this for a while, then headed inside to the sitting room, where he relayed the plans for the spring outing to Yun Zhu and Jin’er both. “Brother Yuan can come along too, when the time comes…”
Ning Yi had used all sorts of odd nicknames for Jin’er over the course of their usual bickering, and calling her “Brother Yuan” this time didn’t particularly bother Yun Zhu at all—she simply took her younger sister’s hand with a smile and said, “Jin’er will naturally be coming along with me.”
That morning, back home, Ning Yi found himself smiling to himself over the whole affair while eating breakfast, unable to help laughing a little. When Tan’er asked what had happened, he said with a grin, “I have a friend… she’s a woman…”
“Hm?” Su Tan’er’s smile carried a flicker of interest mixed with faint wariness, and Xiao Chan, Juan’er, and Xing’er all gathered around as well. Only then did Ning Yi realize what he’d started, and after a moment’s pause, meeting their eyes, said, “Well… she likes women.”
“Ah?” Tan’er’s expression and those of the three maids all shifted at once into something rather bewildered. Xiao Chan whispered to Xing’er beside her, “Likes… not that kind of liking, right…?”
“Of course it is…”
Su Tan’er put on a slightly scholarly air. “Actually… actually this kind of thing does happen sometimes…” In truth, she didn’t really know much about it either.
“Mm, my lady, I think Juan’er likes Xiao Chan too, you know…”
“Actually, the person she likes is Sister Xing’er…”
The room erupted into a burst of chattering and teasing, everyone laughing and joking together, occasionally blushing furiously in the process. And as the Qingming Festival drew nearer, two days later, Qin Siyuan’s second son, Qin Shaoqian, finally returned home as well…