A/n: trigger warning for this chap includes;
A character using the word 'cutsleeve' as an insult,
homophobic language,
Angry bouts of yelling,
Character's intense self-loathing
And a character's sexuality crisis
You have been warned
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Jiang Cheng's Pov:
One would think that a man who was in his late thirties should have himself figured out. Afterall, that's three decades of life experience. So surely, Jiang Cheng shouldn't be having a crisis over anything at this age, right?
Right?
No. The answer is a definite, no.
See, it started out with a (totally) harmless conversation:
"You know *Qixi jie is in two months time, the letters will be flooding in very soon." Shu Jinghua reminded, smirking slightly when Jiang Cheng made an annoyed grunt sound. Unfortunate.
As the both of them are conversing, two servants wheel in a cart with three tall stacks of papers. They stop the cart in front of the desks, and with great struggle they worked together to empty out everything and placed them neatly in rows. Quietly, the servants left with the cart.
Jiang Cheng took one look at the workload and massaged his forehead with his left hand. "Could we not bring this up right now?" He said, wanting to change the topic, "The less we talk, the quicker we will finish today's paperwork." He glared pointedly at the stack of papers placed in front of him and his advisor.
Madam Shu's small smirk was replaced with a knowing one. She acts oblivious to the sudden change of topics and picks up the first report and an ink brush. "Is there by any chance someone special has caught leader Jiang's eye?"
Jiang Cheng purposefully ignored her and started his work. However, Jinghua is relentless in her questions and doesn't leave him alone, much to his chagrin.
"Will you be attending the festival?"
"No." He was too busy.
"Are you hoping someone will write to you?"
"No." There wouldn't be a point, the maidens who write to him might not even fit his requirements.
"Do you plan on writing letters to anyone?"
"No." Yes...but he shouldn't...
After that question, Madam Shu became quiet, too focused on her paperwork to continue her inquries. Somehow even though she was the one talking the most, Madam Shu had already finished looking through four reports while Jiang Cheng was still on his first.
Jiang Cheng sighed internally and hoped she would drop their conversation altogether.
Because heaven forbid that he lets himself be vulnerable for a change and sort out his damn feelings.
"What about Master Hua? Are you thinking of writing a letter to him?" Jinghua asked suddenly, much, much later.
The ink brush that Jiang Cheng had been holding jerked to a halt, causing a large spot to form on the paper. A lump formed in his throat and he had trouble forcing out his words, "W-what? Master who?"
Jiang Cheng guessed that his advisor wasn't even aware of her own question. They had underestimated how truly heavy the workload was (and what they had now doesn't even make up for the rest of the week), and it was a taxing ordeal on the both of them afterall.
To prove his point, Jinghua suppressed a yawn with the back of her hand. She dries the ink with her breath then closes the booklet, and moves on to the next one. "Hm, I recall his birth name was *Hua Yuan. While his courtesy name is *Yongrui. His cultivation is quite high, and I have heard that he is a very polite and charming fellow."
She opens yet another booklet and begins marking, as if the papers she holds in her hands listed Master Hua's attributes. "I think you two will get along, swimmingly." This time, she glances up from her paper and sends Jiang Cheng a supportive smile.
The panic settled within him before the dread did. She noticed me looking at him? Shit. I thought I was being subtle. What does she think of me now? Who else saw me gazing at him?
(Observing, Jiang Cheng mentally corrects himself, I was simply observing Master Hua.)
Stubbornly ignoring the red flush on his cheeks, Jiang Cheng snaps at his advisor, "What the hell are you talking about?"
Madam Shu smiled teasingly, brave enough to even dare to test Jiang Cheng's fury. "Don't play coy, I saw how you looked at him during last month's conference." This, this question Jiang Cheng knows was asked on purpose to gauge a reaction out of him, and Jinghua succeeded.
Jiang Cheng was no doubt red in the face now, and his need to defend his pride and ego broke the last of his restraints over his temper, "So what if I was looking at him? It is not like there was some--some connection or anything!"
Jinghua peered up at Jiang Cheng through her lashes. Her facial expression was the definition of 'I don't believe a word you say'.
Jiang Cheng drops the brush in his hand and lurched to his feet. "There wasn't!" He insisted, fists clenched tightly at his sides, "Shu Jinghua! I am not a fucking cutsleeve like you, I am normal because I like women like I am supposed to!"
A moment passes, and he blinks. Once, twice.
His heart plunges down--low, low, low--into the pit of his stomach, the moment the implications of his words caught up with his brain. His apology gets stuck in the back of his throat, unable to leave his shruken espohagus.
The papers crumpled beneath Jinghua's iron grip on them and she stilled in her seat, her face carefully neutral--and it so closely resembles how his father used to look at him when Jiang Fengmian wasn't pleased with him.
His advisor was known for her endless patience when it came to dealing with the worst of Jiang Cheng's tantrums, but her silence now was disconcerting--and Jiang Cheng was fucking terrified of what she'll say next.
Fear enveloped him, akin to when the *Core Crusher posed over him all those years ago to crush his golden core. Yet somehow, this fear was five times as worse. For a moment, he cowardly thought that the older woman will hit him like his mother would have.
Then, Shu Jinghua's face falls and her ever, perfect posture slouches over--as if all the air in her lungs had holes in them and deflated like ruined lanterns.
"Is that......what you think of me...?" Her voice sounds so broken and sad, like she's had this talk before (and she probably had) but it's as if Jiang Cheng's reaction is hurting her the most. "Do you think that there is something wrong with me? Because I like women instead of men?"
Jiang Cheng doesn't respond, his face remains impassive.
"Aren't I and my wife cutsleeves, too? Not to mention your brother and your brother in-law." Madam Shu asked emotionlessly. Her eyes pierce a hole into his head when she gazes up at him. "Are you--forget it. This one apologises for insinuating that leader Jiang is a cutsleeve."
Jiang Cheng couldn't understand the tone she was using. Is she furious? Disappointed? His heart jumped into his throat, thumping loudly in his head and he can't hear what his advisor said next. His ears caught the tail end of Madam Shu dismissing herself, and he watches as she gets up to leave.
His hand itches to stop her, but he just can't fucking move. His panic threatens to consume him, and he internally prayed to the heavens that Madam Shu could understand that what he said was out of anger and pride.
But the heavens do not hear him. They do not even pay him mind.
I'm sorry, I didn't mean it! Don't leave me, too!, His heart screamed but it was hopeless. He had hurt Madam Shu and she had left him too.
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Jiang Cheng woke up in his bed feeling sickly. His eyes were red-rimmed and puffy from weeping in his sleep. He felt rotten and ashamed, the words he had yelled heartlessly at Madam Shu replayed in his head all night.
'Do you think that there is something wrong with me? Because I like women instead of men?'
Was that what Jiang Cheng really thought of her and Madam Yan? His brother was a cutsleeve too, and was married to a man. Is he repulsed by Wei Ying?
Jiang Cheng had lost his parents when he was so young, having Madam Shu in his life is the closest thing he has to a parent. Hell, she was a better mother to him than Yu Ziyuan ever was. Could he truly be disgusted by her?
He cradled his empty stomach, having skipped dinner because he had lost his appetite. Madam Shu would have scolded him and made him eat his food, like he was some stubborn child. Thus, now he felt even more guilty.
'I saw how you looked at him during last month's conference.'
This memory freezes Jiang Cheng momentarily. He had denied ever looking at Master Hua with any feelings behind it, but of course that had been a lie. It also wasn't the first time someone has caught him staring at a boy for far too long.
He's had many crushes growing up. His crushes on girls had been more obvious and simple to tell; when he sees a pretty girl it makes his heart race and he fumbles over his words.
When it came to crushes on boys...well, he never dared let himself dwell on them. He remembers a time when his father had caught him staring at a male disciple from a neighbouring clan. The boy had such a pretty smile.
He remembers the sensation well; his heart had fluttered when the boy took his hand and gave him a paper dragonfly. "It's for you!" The boy had said then ran off, and Jiang Cheng had been so flustered.
Jiang Cheng had moved to run after him, but his father had grabbed his shoulder and stared at him in the eyes. He bitterly realises that that was the longest his father had ever looked him in the eye.
He was only eleven years old then but he vividly remembers the disapproval in his father's face, followed by his words: "You are the sect heir, you cannot risk engaging in relationships with men. It is your duty in the future, to be able to find a woman and produce an heir for the continuity of the sect. Do not let me catch you looking at another boy like that ever again."
Jiang Cheng had nearly forgotten about that boy and the fact that he never got to learn his name. If things had been different and his father hadn't taken him away so early, would he have become good friends with that boy? Would their relationship had blossomed to more than just friendship?
His mouth twists at that thought and he hears his heart pounding in his chest. He clenches his fist around the fabric at his stomach, "Am I......a cutsleeve?..." He asks no one in particular, but he already knows the answer.
At that moment, tears prick his eyes and he is unable to stop the flow of tears down his cheeks. He buries his face in a pillow to suppress the sounds of his sobbing. His tears immediately pools on the surface of his pillow.
What do I do now? I can't like men, what will happen to the future of the clan if I can't produce an heir? Is the Jiang sect doomed to be lost to time? What will other people think of me?
He stares down at his palms--his fingers calloused and scars all over--as if they held the answers to his dilemma. He feels like he can't breathe, his lungs shrinking in on themselves; and no matter how he claws and tugs at his robes, he feels that he's suffocating.
The truth weighed heavy on his heart and his guilt consumed him again as he has a revelation that Shu Jinghua is right. He sighed shakingly, rubbing his forehead with his hands and the remainder of his tears away.
He leaves his bed and pulls on new robes.
He knows what he must do.
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A/n:
Qīxī jié 七夕节--chinese valentines day
Hua Yuan, 花园--literally means garden. I got lazy with the names, I'm sorry
Yongrui 永瑞--eternal years is the meaning of the name i found on google. But the meaning i chose to go with is 'eternal luck'. 永 yong meaning eternal, and 瑞 ruì meaning luck.
*In case you forgot, Core Crusher was the title given to Wen Zhuliu (who, again, if you forgot is an actual MDZS character), who was the Wen's personal attack dog. He had the ability to crush people's golden cores by literally ripping the cores out of people's chests and well, crushing them.
OTHER NOTES ON THIS CHAP:
i accidentally wrote in previous chaps that Lwj was jiang cheng's only bro-in law but then I remembered that: shit i forgot xichen!
Lxc is alive but he's still depressed and in seclusion
If you can't tell from this story as a whole, i hate jiang fengmian just as much as i hate yu ziyuan. Yes, madam yu was abusive towards her children, but fengmian wasn't any better since he was very neglectful and passive. And if you didn't know, that's still considered as child abuse.
ANNOUNCEMENT!!!:
Apologies for the incomplete chap, the full chap 8 was taking much longer than i expected to write but i don't want to write it half-assed just so i can finish it. The original chap 8 deals with serious issues so i'm trying to write it the best that i can.
Part 2 of jc's crisis is about him having a crisis and chap 9 will be about him doing something about his revelations.
On that note, i'll be very busy for the next couple of weeks and i doubt that there will be any more updates after this one.
Hence, i will go on a hiatus. Sorry. The hiatus will end when i publish chap 9.