Chapter Text
« Have I told you just how infuriating a-Jiu and his cursed spawn are ? » Chen Qingxu complained, after loudly slurping the chicken broth in which thickly sliced carrots, diced turnips, cabbage leaves and shredded onions were busy swimming.
« Quite frankly, Mistress Chen » Yinghua amiably answered, « we have lost count of how many times you swore you were done with this lineage. »
« And you nonetheless kept supporting them » Tanhua mildly pointed.
The heavy blue-painted porcelain bowl clattered as the frumpy zhongyong female gracelessly put it back on her wooden tray.
« Yeah, sometimes this wretched one really wondered if she has earned her fame as one of the foremost minds in the jianghu » she groused. « Whenever I am near them, I am suddenly contemplating thoroughly illogical and emotional schemes as the best path to tread in the future, and that is so far from smart, it’s terrifying. »
The former courtesans made sympathetic noises. It sounded more genuine than all the sweet words they uttered between the walls of the Warm Red Pavilion, as they were stuck with a human-clothed pig so deprived of the ability to attract womanfolk that he was reduced to pay through the nose in order for flowers to endure his presence.
Chen Qingxu mournfully stared at the contents of her bowl. A cabbage leaf was pitifully bobbing over the broth’s oily surface, on the verge of sinking and join the soggy onion rings.
« Fuck » she dropped, « this Mistress Alchemist just might be drunk. I am feeling far too maudlin to be wholly sober. »
« Not a single tear of liquor was near the pot when I cooked the soup » Yinghua righteously defended herself.
« I am drunk » the frumpy zhongyong woman insisted. « My eyeballs are swirling in my skull, just look at them if you don’t believe me ! And I want a-Yao. He needs cuddles when I tuck him in bed. Did I hug him ? Ancestors, I think I forgot. »
« You absolutely didn’t » Tanhua reassured in her most soothing voice, her dark gaze firmly affixed on the Mistress Alchemist’s own eyeballs – that weren’t swirling at all. « You kissed his forehead and both cheeks before sending him to bed with Yuan’er, and they surely are sharing the same cot right now, so you don’t have to worry about one of your boys not being provided on the physical affection front. »
« So they have all their needs satisfied but what about me ? » Chen Qingxu whined. « Shite, I want to sniff a-Jiu. He smells like home, even when he’s a white-eyed arsehole who’s driving me round the bend. Why is he home ? He’s pissing me off so much ... »
Tanhua left her seat in order to crouch behind the Mistress Alchemist, folding her hands over the freckled woman’s belly and resting her head in the dip of Chen Qingxu’s shoulder.
« Oh, you’re too nice. Why are you doing that ? » the Ling Shu Peak Lord wondered, reeking of confusion. « I am not throwing taels at you, you’re supposed to be a freed lady since you’re not at the Warm Red Pavilion anymore. »
« I am a freed lady » the oldest woman in the room acknowledged, « and a friend of mine has just expressed the dire need for an embrace. Who am I to deny her ? »
« You are really too nice » Chen Qingxu concluded, and she wasn’t wiggling out of the hug. « And I am far too drunk. In spite of not having a drop of wine in my mouth. Mayhaps it’s because my brain hates me for all the arguing earlier ? It happens sometimes, when I have talked a lot, my grey matter throws a fit because people are exhausting and my thought patterns get so scrambled, worse than eggs in a heated pan. Do we have eggs in the pantry, by the way ? »
« We don’t » Yinghua answered. « They don’t last, so that’s among the first foodstuffs you consume when going anywhere. Do you wish for me to buy some when I will finally gather the courage to search for groceries in the town near ? »
« A-Yao loves scrambled eggs at breakfast » Chen Qingxu revealed with all the gravitas of an high priestess preaching to her flock. « And I want to bake red bean cakes for a-Jiu tomorrow. »
« Oh ho ? » Tanhua hummed.
« He’s a little fucker » the Mistress Alchemist sighed, « but he’s depressed because Yuan’er delivered a nasty hit in his sensitive parts and I cannot be properly angry when he’s not in the mood to do more than lay down on his pillows without even yelling back. Cakes will help. He loves sugary treats. »
« We know that » the aged former courtesan softly reminded as she stroked the freckled woman’s belly, just like she would stroke a hopelessly pampered and plump kitten’s tummy as it stretched on her lap.
Chen Qingxu lifted her bowl to her lips anew and noisily slurped more broth. Soaked bits of turnip bumped against her lips, and she swallowed them too.
Food was always nice when you were feeling at rock bottom. When you were too busy digesting to remember the many reasons you had to be miserable, the world weighted so much less heavy on your back. It wouldn’t scratch at your wrists so badly, and it would release its chokehold on your neck and you could afford to breathe a smidge more deeply.
And Chen Qingxu wasn’t interested in brooding over Shen Jiu and Yuan’er quarreling, or fretting over the possibility of this brute Liu Qingge somewhere in the countryside, hot on her trail in spite of her efforts to prevent him from following her to the little estate. Wait, she still had a secrecy array to draw… paint it all over the walls of a-Jiu’s new house, then she would have to synchronize it with a-Jiu’s will because it was his house and he ought to have the last word on whoever could enter or remember how to find the place, and then activate the array…
Ah well, it could wait for a little while. Chen Qingxu was exhausted by her traveling there, and by the unwanted flood of negative emotion caused by the two members of the Shen lineage, her feet and her brain were murdering her and she was useless in such a state.
So she would finish her soup, and she would indulge in a long cuddling session with Tanhua – oh, would Yinghua agree to enter the embrace ? She had soft skin, that would be nice – and she would sleep until it was time for dinner tomorrow. Then, she would be somewhat functional again, and Shen Jiu also might.
Yuan’er was another story entirely. He was a brat, and little kids with one single number to their age were hellishingly good at retaining a grudge, especially when they were precocious because that meant they understood much more than their fellows born in the same year yet coupled that with all the emotional control of a self-centered half-pint who still struggled to accept another person would have a very different viewpoint, courtesy of not having the same life experiences.
On the other hand, Yuan’er had seemed very protective and doting towards a-Yao, that might serve as a calming influence ? At least one unambiguously positive result to this mess, the boys appeared to enjoy each other’s company – Chen Qingxu was certain she had perceived the beginning of a bond weaving itself into existence between her masterwork and a-Jiu’s offspring.
A bond born in dramatic circumstances, that sounded just like her and a-Jiu. When the father was a tiger, the son would be a tiger indeed.