Jin woke up with a start. This was the second time he’d passed out and he still wasn’t used to it. It took his mind a moment to catch up to his surroundings. His body tensed when he realized that Mei Hua wasn’t lying beside him, nor was she in the Palace. After some panicked searching, he felt her in Xifang. His son and Ye were very close to her as well putting his worries to rest.

After a relieved sigh, his face darkened.

Who gave them permission to let his Mountain Flower just wander around wherever without him knowing? It was one thing if he were awake and he knew ahead of time, but sneakily taking her out without him being aware, that was unacceptable! If he didn’t strangle Ye for this, it’d be that fairy’s good luck!

He hastily washed his face, brushed his teeth, and changed into a new set of robes. He went with a dark gray outfit, which had black threading woven into the edges of the outer rob. Black would have been better for what he wanted, but he knew Mei Hua had an adverse reaction to that color at the moment. He went with the next best thing.

It’s not that he was trying to look trendy, or that he was the type to obsess over what he wore, but he did like to make impressions. And he was currently extremely annoyed and wanted to look intimidating. He had several outfits specifically designed for that at the insistence of the Fairy Seamstress, who firmly believed that every occasion needed an outfit to match. The one he was wearing was designed to be foreboding.

After that, he made his way to Xifang by flying. He’d planned on making a spectacular entrance by messing up a bit of the Wu Family’s yard, but was intercepted by Shi Ji before he landed.

Jin glared at his son. “Get out of my way.”

“Old Man, calm down.”

“Who said I wasn’t calm?”

Shi Ji’s eye twitched. Even if his Old Man looked well behaved on the outside, his spirit was twisting in on itself in agitation. He wouldn’t say the Old Man was angry so much as throwing an internal tantrum.

“Mother’s not in any danger.”

“You know better than to let her out without me knowing.”

“We already agreed—”

“—it was assumed I’d know and have given permission beforehand!”

“Even so, if you go in there like you are and try to take her away, she’s going to get seriously angry with you.”

“What business is it of yours if she gets angry at me?”

Jin moved to go around his son, only to find his son moving with him, preventing him from going forward.

“Don’t think because you’re Mei’s boy I won’t beat you to death.” Jin threatened, pressure rolling off him in waves.

Shi Ji felt his Old Man’s crushing aura but wasn’t moved or particularly threatened. He knew his Old Man’s bottom line and that he hadn’t crossed it, so he wasn’t afraid.

“Father, I am here. I won’t let anyone harm Mother.” He paused. “Not even you.”

“What are you saying? I’m not going to harm her!”

“Do you think controlling her every move is healthy and loving then?” Shi Ji pointed out, not backing down.

“I’m not going to control her, I’m just trying to keep her safe.”

“And I’m not? Uncle Ye isn’t?”

At the mention of Ye, Jin’s face went black. “I’m going to bury that stupid fairy so far into the earth for this—”

“Old Man, this isn’t Uncle’s fault! Mother gave up so much of her freedom to be with you, she barely even protested about having an escort. If you take away even her ability to choose when and who she can visit, what does she have left? You might as well trap her inside a mountain instead of Uncle at that point!”

Jin rubbed his temples in frustration. “I’m not trying to trap your Mother! I just—”

“—you just want to monitor her every little move and never let her go anywhere without you giving permission first!” When Shi Ji saw his Old Man didn’t refute him, he continued, “Look, I understand. I do! But you can’t be this way, not if you want Mother to be even a little happy. What good is having her safe if she hates you for it?”

“At least she’d be alive.”

“She can be alive and still retain some freedom! That’s why I’m here, that’s why we agreed to the escort system!”

There was a very long silence between them, both glaring at each other and not backing down. It was Shi Ji who tried to make peace first.

“Father…” Shi Ji reached out to touch his Old Man’s arm, a pleading look in his eyes. Jin’s face scrunched in annoyance and then shook his son’s hand away.

“Fine.” Jin huffed, letting his son have the victory.

In that moment when Shi Ji reached out to him, the expression his son made was very like how his wife would look. Whenever that happened, Jin went soft and gave in. Even though Mei was now awake and well, the weakness he’d developed still remained.

His tone was heavy with sarcasm when he asked, “It should be fine for me to go down there and at least be with her. That won’t get me hated by you or her, will it?”

“Well…”

“Son, I’m already at my limit,” Jin practically spit out, “so don’t you dare try to convince me that I can’t even be with my own wife!”

This time Shi Ji backed off, even physically distancing himself. “I wasn’t going to say that! Just… just give Mother some space, will you? She’s having fun with Auntie at the moment.”

Jin glared at his son in irritation. Did Shi Ji think he didn’t know where his wife was and why? Ye surely brought Mei to Xifang, but Pei Zhi was why she’s stayed.

This time Shi Ji didn’t stop Jin from going down to Wu Manor. With his son there, he was forced to land in the yard without making a mess of anything, which left him feeling a little stuffy. Was it really so wrong to want to lightly bully the people who were taking up his wife’s precious time? It’s not like he’d planned on doing any structural damage!

The Wu Manor servants were quick on the uptake and had realized who Shi Ji had brought back with him. They all kowtowed reverently, not making a single sound as they did. If the Emperor wanted a truly formal greeting, he’d have come through the front door. Just popping in like this meant he didn’t want to be bothered, though of course if they didn’t bow then Heaven’s help them because he wouldn’t tolerate that either. To avoid this the man on the ladder jumped into a nearby bush while trying to midair kowtow and tuck and roll at the same time. His success went unnoticed by Jin as he finished in a flawless albeit leafy kowtow only somewhat out of line of the rest of the servants.

Without any sort of politeness, Jin swung open the door to the hall Mei and Pei Zhi were staying in with a clatter. He walked in, grabbed Ye by the scruff of his robe and threw him out.

“And stay out.” Jin commanded, closing the door and putting up an invisible barrier so Ye couldn’t walk back in. His son, who’d meant to follow him in, was now stuck outside with his Uncle.

Pei Zhi had long since sent her extended family and most of the servants out of the room to give her and her friend some privacy. When Jin barged in, startling everyone, there were very few people in the room. The servants who remained immediately kowtowed, while Pei Zhi stood, gave a deep curtsy, greeting him, “Lord Jin, welcome to my humble home.”

Mei Hua, on the other hand, went over to scold Jin for tossing Ye out but stopped when she saw the sour expression on his face. He looked upset. After thinking on it, she decided Ye would be fine. This wasn’t the first time he’d been tossed out, even she’d done it in the past.

Clearing her throat, she asked in a cautious but pleasant voice, “Did you sleep well?”

“I did.”

“Is…. Is that so? I would have invited you along, but you were sleeping so peacefully I didn’t want to wake you up. I hope you don’t mind…”

He snorted and turned his head away, showing he did mind.

Sighing, she leaned forward and whispered heatedly, “Don’t be like that. I really didn’t want to wake you up. How often do you get to sleep that well? And it’s not like I came alone or met a stranger. I’m with Pei Pei, in her home, what could happen to me here?”

Jin narrowed his eyes slightly, lips curving upward slightly. When she’d leaned forward, he felt the air move from her breathing and a wisp of her scent mixed with a bit of sweat from having exerted herself all day. His earlier irritation vanished and he was just glad that she was awake and talking to him.

He suddenly wrapped his arms around her, giving her a big embrace. Since his spirit couldn’t be as close as he’d like, he had to make up the difference with his physical body.

“Ah. Ah?” She stiffened in surprise before returning his embrace. Feeling embarrassed and a bit confused, she couldn’t help asking, “What’s gotten into you?”

“It’s nothing.” He mumbled before separating. “I interrupted your conversation, didn’t I?”

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“Er, yes, I guess?”

He took her by the hand and led her back to the chair she’d been sitting in. He sat down first and then motioned for her to sit on his lap.

Not counting Mei Hua, Pei Zhi and the remaining maids all stared at him in dumbfounded amazement.

“You… you can’t seriously want me to…” She sputtered, face starting to turn red.

“Why? Who’s going to tell me no?”

“I am! ME!”

She went to take a step back, so embarrassed she felt like finding a rock and hiding under it. Before she even took a full step, he’d grabbed her by the hands and pulled her into his lap in one swift motion.

“…Jin!” Mei Hua struggled for a minute, furious, but it was all in vain. She was still weak, and even when she was at full strength, she could never beat him. After realizing he really wasn’t going to let go, she stopped fighting and pursed her lips angrily.

With his chin resting shoulder, he looked at Pei Zhi and said with the utmost seriousness, “Continue.”

Pei Zhi had already sat down and was trying not to laugh.

“Pardon my impertinence, my Lord, but do you really think we can have a proper conversation with you being like this?”

“Why not? It’s not like I care what you’re talking about.”

“Jin at least let me sit in my own chair!”

“Don’t want to.”

“Think about my dignity!”

“Isn’t it an honor to sit on the lap of the Emperor?”

She almost choked on his shamelessness. “You— you— what Emperor lets himself get used as a chair?! Think about your own dignity if you won’t think about mine!”

“Hehehe… Mountain Flower, how is doting on you going to hurt my dignity? Is there anyone in the entire eastern lands that doesn’t know how much I love you? Even if you shout from the rooftops that I let myself be a chair, no one would think anything of it.”

“You thick-faced man!” Mei wanted to cry. He at least use to care about how he looked in front of other people. “If you’re going to be this ridiculous I might as well go home!”

The muffled voice of Ye could be heard from outside, “Don’t do it MeiMei, that’s just giving him what he wants!”

MeI Hua blinked and then turned to look at her husband’s face. Even though he was trying to look innocent, there was an unmistakable glint.

“You— You’re doing this to purposefully to—never mind!” She turned her face back toward Pei Zhi, eyebrows knitted together angrily, “We’ll talk about this later! I’m definitely not going home yet! So just stay here and be bored out of your mind, act like a chair and don’t you dare talk! I’m not listening if you do!” She turned abruptly to her friend, “Pei Pei!”

“Eh?! Yes?”

“You were telling me about your youngest daughter before this chair decided to interrupt!”

“Pfft—” Pei Zhi was having a very hard time controlling her laughter and only just managed. “Yes, ah! I was— goodness! Where was I? Hm… ah! My youngest was still a toddler the last time you saw her, but she’s all grown up now and married out of the family to a third son some five years ago. The young man and his family live in Xifang, so they held the wedding here.”

“So she can still visit you? Then I can see here in the future too!” Mei Hua smiled slightly and then gave her an apologetic look, “I’m sorry I couldn’t be there at her wedding... I wish I could have gone…”

“What are you even saying? As if it was your fault! Though.. I wish you could have been there too…” Pei Zhi looked sad, but only for a moment. She smiled slightly. “Luckily Duke Lin Ye and your son, Lu Shao, showed up in your place. Practically buried the house in gifts, and personally blessed the wedding.”

Mei Hua cheered up. “Good, good! They did me proud then. I’ll have to praise them for it later.”

Pei Zhi chuckled, “For any future weddings, we’ll have to wait for my grandchildren to grow up a bit more. I have a granddaughter that’s thirteen and a grandson that’s twelve that live here with me. If you wait a few years, they’ll have their own weddings you can attend. How about that?”

“Hehehe— I’ll definitely take you up on it! What about your youngest? Has she been blessed with her own little one yet? You mentioned some great grandchildren before…”

“Hn, a little girl. She turned four just last month.”

“Oh! You’re so lucky! How many daughters is this now.” Mei Hua quickly did the calculations. “Eight granddaughters, right? Ah… so jealous… I want granddaughters too…”

“Give it some time, surely once your own children marry—”

“Ha. Ha. Fairy blood isn’t any joke Pei Zhi. Maybe after a few dozen generations, when the paternal blood is watered down enough.” Mei Hua looked bitter. “But who knows how long that’ll take? I mean, look at my sons. If it weren’t for the fact that my daughter-in-law adopted some children, I’d have only one grandson. As it is, I was out for almost nineteen years and all I got was one precious grandson by blood despite have four perfectly healthy sons! And that one precious grandson came at the cost of his Mother’s dignity and pride! When I found out, I just wanted to throttle that brat--!”

Mei Hua was still feeling sore about her son’s behavior. She’d given up punishing him further, for the sake of the daughter-in-law and grandson, but the whole thing was still irritating.

“Aya! Calm down, calm down! We’ll get that boy hitched even if we have to tie him up to do it! I’m just sorry I failed to properly guide him and now things are so rushed...”

“I said before, you don’t need to feel guilty about it. You know how they are… barely even listen to me as it is… how are they going to listen to you?” Mei Hua huffed angrily. “…stinky boys, never listen, run around all day…”

Pei Zhi chuckled a bit before she took a sip of her tea and sighed. “I wish more people were like you Mei Hua.”

“Ah? How so?”

“Being excited about having granddaughters.”

Mei Hua rolled her eyes. “That again…”

“Yes well, I only mention it because of my youngest.”

“Ah?”

“Her husband is… he’s trying to take in a concubine.”

Mei Hua face blanked for a moment. “But you said she married a third son?”

In Pei Zhi’s ancestral country, only the eldest son was allowed concubines, none of the subsequent sons could have them. This was because the eldest son got the succession rights and the bulk of the inheritance. Basically, it was a waste of family resources to give the other sons concubines so they weren’t allowed. Not even if they married a woman who ended up unable to have children.

Even though Wu Tengfei was technically not the oldest, when all the men in his family died, he’d been given the succession and inheritance rights. Thus, if he’d wanted, he could have taken in concubines. But he’d turned down any offers and seemed oblivious to women outside of his wife.

When Wu Tengfei had his own children, he broke with convention and forbade all eldest sons from taking in concubines and mistresses. Not only that, all his daughters were forbidden from marrying eldest sons. Instead he found second and third sons who were successful to marry his daughters to. His eldest daughter’s husband actually married into the Wu Family instead of her marrying out.

“Yes well, his family comes from a different country. How they do things there is also different. All sons can take concubines there, as long as they’re rich enough to afford them.”

“Did you know that when you..?”

Pei Zhi hung her head.

“You knew but you let your precious daughter marry that guy anyway?!”

“She begged me, Mei Hua. She really loved him with her whole heart, and he seemed so genuine too. She’s my youngest and I’m afraid I’m soft hearted towards her… and the boy even vowed to abide by the Wu Family rules so…”

“But he’s clearly not abiding by them!!”

“No, he’s not.”

“Well then— well then— you must go and beat him up for being a dishonest scoundrel!”

Pei Zhi burst out laughing, “If only it were that simple!”

“What ‘if only’, it IS that simple! I’ll go do it for you, then you don’t have to dirty your hands, how about that?!” Mei Hua went to stand up, but Jin still had a firm hold on her.

“No, no, no—!” She waved her hand while continuing to chuckle, “Don’t go beating the boy up! My youngest already came to me in tears once today, I don’t need her coming again because you beat her husband into an ugly lump!”

“What?! You mean she’ll be upset if I beat him?!”

“Of course she will!”

“But he’s a dishonest scoundrel!”

“Even if he is, she still loves him.”

Mei Hua was actually left speechless at her friend’s declaration.

“I know, I know. But if she didn’t love him that much, would she have begged us to the point of almost being unfilial? Even when she came crying to me about what he was trying to do, she still said she loved him.” Pei Zhi pursed her lips in annoyance. “You know the excuse he’s using to take in a concubine?”

“Oh, he’s got enough heart left to at least give excuses?”

“Hah, he does seem to vaguely understand that the Wu Family women can’t just be bullied without reason.” Pei Zhi snorted in disdain. “His family, the country they come from, has their own set of rules about when and how many concubines a man can take in. Firstly, he must wait five years. Only after those five years have passed and she hasn’t given him a son—”

“Oh, I see, so even though he’s got a perfectly good daughter that doesn’t count!!”

“—then he can bring in a concubine. He can bring up to three, and then must wait another five years. If there are still no sons, he can bring in up to three more concubines. And just keep repeating until he finally gets a son.”

“Hahaha, as if bringing in more women will help him get a son! If the man is only having girls, changing the women won’t matter! The man’s body decides, not the woman’s!” Mei Hua looked extremely bitter. “They just want an excuse to have more women! Why make it so complicated?”

“Mei Hua, you’re the only one I know who says men determine the sex of the baby. Everywhere else, it’s the woman.”

“…it’s not my fault people are ignorant..” Mei Hua muttered angrily.

“I believe you in this matter, but you’d be hard pressed to find others that would. And anyway, this foolish son-in-law of mine is just using this family tradition of his as an excuse. He says his family is pressuring him. What family in all of Lanhua would go against the Wu Clan, I ask you? No, he just found a pretty girl and wants her.” Pei Zhi shook her head, regret etched into her face. “Because I was soft, I was fooled. It’s clear now he just wanted the prestige that comes from being related to the Wu Family, and now that he has it, he’s become arrogant. He mistakenly believes we’ll treat our daughters like spilled water, that we’ll view her duty to be his wife as more important than his duty to keep his word.”

“…and you’re sure I can’t beat this man up? You’re absolutely SURE?”

Pei Zhi tapped the arm of her chair. “Even if you beat him until he’s unrecognizable, even if you knock around his parents, the underlying problem remains.”

“What underlying problem is there outside of him being a scumbag?”

Pei Zhi looked at her friend hesitantly, then pressed her lips together firmly as if making up her mind. “Mei Hua, Xifang and Dongbian… all the little villages too… are a mix of people from many different countries, which have many different viewpoints and traditions. Sometimes they are similar, sometimes they are very different. Whether this or that country’s traditions are good or bad, it is hard to say. I have looked down my nose at some countries ways of doing things, and the people from those countries have looked down their noses at me.”

Mei Hua nodded slowly.

“For any major differences, Duke Lin Ye has done a good job at smoothing things over. And your Lord husband has kept out the truly malicious and cruel sorts, so such differences rarely turn violent. Even so, that does not erase the tension such differences create. My youngest marriage is an example. So if I force my son-in-law to keep his word, then I am a busybody who minds other people’s backyards. If I force his family to follow our traditions, then the Wu’s are bullies who pick on people with less status. Not to mention the resentment that son-in-law will have towards his wife’s family, and how it will worsen his relationship with my youngest.” Pei Zhi rubbed her temple. “All this, because right at the start, both families came at marriage with different expectations.”

“I understand. Lanhua suffers from disharmony because there’s no.. Hm… social cohesion?”

“Not that there is none, it’s just not very strong. What exists is because Lord Jin or Duke Lin Ye insisted on it. In all other matters, it’s been up to families like mine to muck through and figure it out.”

“And the Wu Family doesn’t want to…?”

“More like, we shouldn’t be the ones doing it. If we continue on this path, people will mistake the Wu Family as the real authority in Lanhua. That would be exceedingly bad all around for us. And while we may disagree on many things, everyone more or less agrees on this one point: the people at the top should be setting the standards for everyone below. We are not at the top, we shouldn’t be setting the standards. But who else can they turn to? The actual people at the top… ah.” Pei Zhi raised her brows slightly and glanced at Jin who hadn’t been paying any mind to their conversation. “They are not quite human, they seem to not understand the inter-relational problems humans face. The Princes are half human, and even they struggle in this regard. But Mei Hua, you are completely human…”

“Oh no.” Mei Hua groaned, suddenly understanding the point her friend was making.

“If you dislike the idea of being a ruler, than think of Lanhua as your child. We are an undisciplined child that wants to do good, but doesn’t know how. We need someone to give us the family rules, to tell us right from wrong, to guide us firmly, consistently, but with compassion. Mei Hua, this nation needs a Mother.” Pei Zhi smiled apologetically. “I’m not saying you need to anything right now. After the wedding perhaps, consider what I’ve said, what we’ve talked about.”