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“The mirror does not lie,” his mother had said to him one night. Warm hands clasped his shoulders. She beamed at the small, slender face in the mirror beneath her own. “If it says you are a boy—then you are a boy.” Meng Yao, young and giggly as all children should be, laughed as she nuzzled his hair.
“You will become your father’s heir in Jinlintai,” Meng Shi went on. “You will be recognized as his son. I am sure of it, A-Yao.”
She was powdering her face for work when Meng Yao trundled up beside her, settling on her lap. He watched with fascination as the white substance slowly obscured the wrinkles casting shadows and golden candlelight over her cheeks, her lips and eyes accented by eye shadow and lipstick as red as the menstrual blood the women tended to with each moon. It never occurred to Meng Yao that it would one day happen to him. Bleeding was for courtesans, for apprentices, for old women in the marketplace who sold the dumplings and pastries his mother bought him on occasion, rather than the books sold by men to supply him with the knowledge to cultivate his qi. Perhaps it was a blessing he and his mother were kicked out before he became of age to bleed and be apprenticed himself.
You can’t change what you are, another voice, old and rueful, sneered inside him. You’ll always be the child of a whore, no matter what you tell yourself. You’ll always be scrutinized and lesser than the men around you, because you are not like them.
As Jin Guangyao peers into the mirror now, holding a puff of pale powder close to his face, he exhales sharply.
How much like his mother he looks, despite all her hopes for him and his denial of the truth.
His likeness to Meng Shi is probably what tipped off Jin Guangshan to his body in the first place. Hesitating, Jin Guangyao brings the puff back to his face.
“If you are truly to be my son,” Clan Leader Jin had said in Jinlintai’s great hall after the naming ceremony, which had sparkled only in Jin Guangyao’s dreams, “you must prove yourself first.”
“Fuqin, please tell me what this humble son can do to win your trust and approval.”
Jin Guangshan winced at his proper speech, as if his every word was a blasphemy. “I know how your kind operate. Do not try to deny it—I have seen it before. Women usurping superior men to take charge for themselves, tainting the natural order of Heaven. I have my way of confirming if my suspicions are correct and exposing anyone with untrustworthy aspirations for the throne.”
Puzzled, Jin Guangyao kept his gaze level with his father’s, willing himself not to reveal how deep his anxiety was. His mind teetered like a rockslide on the verge of a cliff, a few pebbles tinkling down into the chasm below. Since he was young, he was able to hide his body’s nature, but Clan Leader Jin’s next words confirmed all his worst fears.
“A girl—”
Jin Guangyao’s face immediately broke out in pink blotches, breaths coming ragged and fast.
“—posing as a man is not permitted in Jinlintai. I thought I made myself clear upon our first meeting. But perhaps you are a eunuch after all, given your unmatured voice and effeminate appearance—”
To witness someone musing so casually about his body, as if he wasn’t in the room, it was all too much to bear. Jin Guangyao started hyperventilating, though he willed himself not to show it. It had been years since he was confronted about his sex, but every time it made him feel terrible and scared anew.
“—the only reason you are here is because of your victory in Qishan,” Jin Guangshan was saying. “Dispatching Wen Ruohan—with your feminine wiles, I am sure I need not say how you managed it. So I need you to prove to me that you can be trusted.” Jin Guangshan lifted the teacup on his side table with agonizing slowness, letting his declaration marinate over Jin Guangyao’s pores, which oozed sweat, his chest aching with familiar pain at what an immediate refutation of Clan Leader Jin’s suspicions would do: solidify his guilt.
Jin Guangyao bowed low, raising his hands in unison. “What can this humble one do to prove that he is a loyal son, regardless of Clan Leader Jin’s suspicions?”
“Chifeng-zun,” Jin Guangshan said as he leaned forward, eyes glinting menacingly. “He trusts you. I need you to prove to me that you have him under your thumb. Then you will be useful enough to keep around. You two were very close once, were you not?” Jin Guangshan’s lips pulled up in a suggestive smirk as Jin Guangyao’s gaze flashed up. “With that, you will have my trust.”
Before the mirror in his room, Jin Guangyao dips his fingers into kohl to darken his eyelids. It was an action he had watched his mother and the other brothel women carry out countless times, though never dared to try himself. Participating in the ritual would only confirm what everyone assumed about him that, deep down, he was really a woman.
“What does fuqin wish for me to do?”
Jin Guangshan’s grin was without humor, only sadism. His pupils drilled holes into Jin Guangyao’s visage, fighting for tranquility. “It shouldn’t be too hard for someone like you—having grown up in the brothel and all—to seduce Chifeng-zun under my watch. Let me see how loyal you truly are. Then, regardless of what you pose yourself to be, I will allow you to remain in Jinlintai.”
Leaning back, Jin Guangyao inspects his face.
Well. It was a commendable make-up job, considering he’d done it only a few times in his life. And it was subtle enough to be overlooked; Nie Mingjue wasn’t the type of man who enjoyed the typical frivolities of women, after all. To ensure he did not get make-up on his clothes, the front of his robe is open. Two serrated scars smile up at him on his chest.
That day at the top of the stairs in Jinlintai, he had bound his chest to flatten it, and had not yet mastered the cadence or pitch of other boys. Having grown up around only women and girls, he had hoped that his pre-adolescence could be prolonged, that adults would continue to overlook the fact that he was not socialized in the brusque and playful manner of most boys – not to mention his rapidly changing body. But he should have known Jin Guangshan’s unmerciful rejection of him was meant to be a display to any other bastard who dared pose themself as a son.
With a few loose hairs clinging to the powder on his face, Jin Guangyao grimaces at himself.
After his mother’s death, his job as a bookkeeper allowed him to save up enough money to pay the physician to flatten his breasts – permanently. It was a miracle he could say that for himself now. Do away with the danger and discomfort of binding. Climbing the stairs to Jinlintai that day had almost been as painful as being thrown down them. But having a scarred chest brought its own troubles.
He knew his mother would forgive him for the sinful mutilation of his ancestor-given body, but if Jin Guangshan – or anyone – saw his chest, it would only confirm what they suspected: that Jin Guangyao was disgusting for having marred himself, posing as a manipulator and a fake. His cultivation wasn’t strong enough to heal the scars into unrecognition, like any other man’s…
Hands on the table, rattling the make-up implements, Jin Guangyao leans forward.
The true intent behind Jin Guangshan’s test of loyalty was clear. He wanted to see for himself whether Jin Guangyao was a woman or a man underneath his robes. That’s why he hadn’t refused Jin Guangyao’s legitimization outright, why he asked Jin Guangyao to return to Jinlintai. The humiliation and horror of it, and his desire to please his father as his mother always wished, possess him body and soul until his chest aches with the memory of a room spinning with poppy blossom odors, held down and laughing, hysterical, as knives cut into his skin.
Ascertaining the answer was just the humiliation Jin Guangshan wanted to subject him to. Asking upfront for Jin Guangyao to lift his robes and reveal himself to be a woman wasn’t out of the question, but if Jin Guangshan was wrong, it would humiliate the Jin instead. Jin Guangshan had already decided upon the truth, so with hard evidence, he would be able to manipulate and blackmail Jin Guangyao to his every whim. Or he may just expose Jin Guangyao right away to get him dishonored and exiled from Lanling.
“Gongzi, Clan Leader Nie is here to see you.”
Jin Guangyao snaps the front of his robes closed before the servant sees past him and into the mirror. He rises and ties the dai around his waist. “I will be there in a moment. Please bid Chifeng-zun to enter and get comfortable.”
Jin Guangyao had done his best to cultivate his yang energy since he was young to further masculinize his body, but the materials his mother provided him were shoddy at best, and his power was weak. As he strides out his door, to the waiting area where he asked Clan Leader Nie to meet him, Jin Guangyao fixes his face into its brightest smile.
He sweeps into the room with all the poise and purpose of a leading lady, and the thought makes him cringe. “Ah, Da-ge, thank you for joining me at such short notice. There are important matters to discuss.”
Nie Mingjue glances up at him sharply. Already grumpy and annoyed that he’d been called to Jin Guangyao for an unknown purpose, he is distrustful of the reason.
Regardless of his body’s natural state, seducing Clan Leader Nie isn’t going to be as easy as Clan Leader Jin thinks. Jin Guangyao is dressed in a sheer yellow robe, not thin enough to be see-through, but bordering on it, and Nie Mingjue narrows his eyes as Jin Guangyao strides to the opposite side of the tea table and sits down, as if aware something is different about his face, but not sure what. Even so, Clan Leader Nie is not someone Jin Guangyao had ever seen pursue another person in love, or in lust. He remained focused on his duties and saber training above all else; everything else received a stormy resting glare or a grunt in response.
Given his and Clan Leader Nie’s distance these past months since serving under Wen Ruohan and Jin Guangshan, the man still hasn’t forgiven Jin Guangyao for killing his men. As Jin Guangyao pours tea for them both – having instructed the servants not to do so, in spite of his higher status – Nie Mingjue only becomes more suspicious.
“Let’s get this over with. Why are you doing that?”
Jin Guangyao tries not to show his rigidity at the sight of the fool’s mask on the wall to his left elbow. “Doing what? Is it so strange for me to want to pour tea for my senior?”
As is typical, Nie Mingjue grunts at that, uninterested in pursuing the matter further. He takes up his cup and drinks.
Jin Guangshan had said he would be watching them, and his cultivation power wasn’t strong enough to channel through an animate object, so… The mask, with its squinting eyes and joyful, mocking smile, raised forehead wrinkles and tall, managerial hat – not unlike Jin Guangyao’s own, though more jagged – must be Jin Guangshan’s vessel for spying on them.
With the mask at the corner of his eye, Jin Guangyao offers one of his prettier smiles. It isn’t enough to squinch his eyes and clump his make-up, though it draws attention to the soft, feminine roundness of his cheeks. “Da-ge, thank you for granting an audience with someone as lowly as me. This humble one—” The words taste like venom in his mouth. “—is unworthy of your favor and attention. As I was those years ago when you promoted me.” Jin Guangyao lifts himself from his seat to reach for the Nie clan leader’s hand across the table. His stomach lurches as he does so, especially when Nie Mingjue’s lips part in bemusement and shock, at a loss for words. This kind of performance is something Jin Guangyao has never been accustomed to. No matter how many times he witnessed women do this growing up, he’d never envisioned himself as one of them. Even though the men who served under Clan Leader Nie supposed how he must have gained Clan Leader Nie’s favor (and later, Wen Ruohan’s), it was never true. He never would have revealed to them what his body was actually like by getting in bed with them. That would have led to his swift punishment and certain death.
Nie Mingjue is dumbfounded as Jin Guangyao’s hand lingers, and his eyelids fall in discernment. “Is that… make-up?”
The words feel so foreign coming from Nie Mingjue, that for a moment Jin Guangyao thinks he misheard. He just crouches there, motionless.
At length, he draws back. “Nonsense, Da-ge—”
“And around your eyes—”
“You must be hallucinating,” Jin Guangyao snaps, suddenly self-conscious. There’s no way this is going to work, he thinks wildly, resisting the urge to glance at the fool’s mask mounted on the wall, as if to beseech, as if that would convey to his father that this was a ludicrous idea all along. All he’s going to do is incur Clan Leader Nie’s wrath and get himself killed before Jin Guangshan can make a laughing stock out of him himself. Perhaps that was the original goal all along, Jin Guangyao grumps.
To his aggravation and surprise, Nie Mingjue laughs at him.
“Jin Guangyao, this is new. Just what are you trying to do?”
Embarrassed now, Jin Guangyao lifts a sleeve, hiding half of his face. “I-I hoped it would please you, Chifeng-zun,” he flounders, his pride left somewhere in one of the soddy gutters of Jinlintai’s gardens. “After all we had shared in the Unclean Realm, I wanted to appeal to your tastes…”
“Then you should know that I have no interest in such things.”
Jin Guangyao is silent. He knew it already. Of course he did. And yet, hearing the words coming from Clan Leader Nie’s lips, it’s a fresh shock, like being sprinkled by a light, cold shower after a deluge. Clan Leader Nie’s lack of interest in the virtuous appearances of femininity that normal men found enticing: Why did I think this would work on him in the first place?
“Jin Guangshan put you up to this, didn’t he?”
Jin Guangyao clams his mouth shut tight at that.
Nie Mingjue sits back, satisfied. “I see.”
“He’ll exile me if I fail,” Jin Guangyao bursts, choked with unrestrained desperation. He doesn’t know what he’s asking for. Sympathy, from Clan Leader Nie? Even if Nie Mingjue somehow took pity on him and agreed to make it appear as if he’d been seduced, that wouldn’t change the fact that he would have to reveal the truth about his body eventually, something he would rather die than do.
Maybe I won’t have to, Jin Guangyao thinks irrationally. Perhaps, if I go along with it, I won’t have to reveal what’s under my robes—to Clan Leader Nie or anyone—and later he can tell my father that—
Jin Guangyao shudders. The idea of Clan Leader Nie telling his father about his sexual escapades – with Jin Guangyao – was a ridiculous and disgusting one. But Jin Guangshan is going to demand Jin Guangyao prove it somehow. Some way. To someone like him, Jin Guangyao is only good enough to be used as a tool, a sexual object whose feminine allure and mystique – regardless of the reason behind it – would be best put to use for his own ends. If even just Clan Leader Nie is on his side –
Nie Mingjue says coldly, “If you were worried about being exiled, then you shouldn’t have killed my men.”
Jin Guangyao’s spirit leaves his body, unreachable, hovering nearby. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling; whenever he had witnessed something unpleasant or been assumed something he wasn’t, he had the uncanny sensation of viewing the insult and treachery from afar. His body performed obedience and apology for his condition so his spirit would not be hurt, to not cause trouble for those around him. A smile slides cleanly over his cheeks. “Did I have much choice, Da-ge, when you promoted me? Had I refused your benevolence, you would have lost face and been humiliated. Would you have punished me and tested my loyalty, like Clan Leader Jin, to maintain your standing?”
He continues to crawl forward like before, his slender, pale hands plastered on the table, until he is a few breaths from Nie Mingjue’s conflicted face.
“That’s—!”
“Oh, Chifeng-zun,” Jin Guangyao croons, his gaze never leaving Nie Mingjue’s, “did you really think you could hide it from me in the Unclean Realm, the way your eyes trailed after me, no matter where I went?”
To Jin Guangyao’s astonishment and delight, Nie Mingjue blanches. He is unable to tear his eyes from Jin Guangyao, something quiet and yielding behind his annoyance and disgrace. Jin Guangyao grins, for real this time, pitying and sad.
“Poor Clan Leader Nie, unable to feel desire for a woman, yet hopelessly going after the vice general he promoted almost a decade ago.”
Nie Mingjue growls at that, spitting fire as he shoves Jin Guangyao lightly on the shoulders. “You can’t fool me, Jin Guangyao. You would never be interested in the likes of me—!”
“Why not, Clan Leader Nie?” Jin Guangyao asks. His tone is meek and deferental now, mimicking himself from when he served as vice general of the Unclean Realm. A hand slithers over Nie Mingjue’s cheek. “Isn’t this what you wanted? Promoting me—you wanted someone smaller than you, able to be dominated by you, to fall into your arms and your bed.”
Please don’t think about it too much, Jin Guangyao pleads, his insides revolting at his own self-description. Please don’t see what I lack.
Again, Nie Mingjue laughs, though breathily. Jin Guangyao’s lips are by his ear.
“Meng Yao,” he mumbles huskily, and Jin Guangyao must admit his body shivers at that. “I know you don’t actually want to sleep with me.”
“Oh?” Jin Guangyao shoots back, fumbling at the other’s astute observation, but playing it off as teasing. “Why are you so sure?”
Nie Mingjue chuckles again. There’s something in that chuckle that doesn’t make sense. “Because.”
After nibbling his ear – from which Nie Mingjue groans, his teeth tracing Jin Guangyao’s neck in return – Jin Guangyao pulls back to see the man’s expression. His eyebrows are screwed in question at the man’s open-ended declaration.
Voice hoarse, swallowing quickly, Nie Mingjue says again, “Because. You could become pregnant.”
His spirit shoots back into his body with a mortifying jolt, horrid and inescapable. The pain of being recognized for his true nature, against his will – Jin Guangyao cannot stop himself. It pops out of his mouth before he can register any of the sorrow and hate he means to put in the word. “What?”
Nie Mingjue’s brown face drains of color. “Am I wrong?” He sounds short of breath.
“You knew?” It comes out as an accusation. “All this time?”
The Nie clan leader hesitates only a moment before he regains his bearings and answers boldly, “Of course I knew. The way the other men spoke of you in the forest—Jin Guangshan’s public denouncement of you—how hard you worked to appease everyone, despite how they insulted you. And…” Mingjue is shy, bashful, in admitting the last point. “The way you hold yourself is not like any man I have known.”
Jin Guangyao’s ire and self-revulsion rises in his throat, burning in his esophagus. How obvious was it?
He hisses in response, saying nothing coherent, until he notices the way Clan Leader Nie blushes as he says it.
Rather than causing rage or disgust, Nie Mingjue was not only accepting, but… allured by the knowledge of his true nature?
“Then, your promotion…” The rage recedes somewhat from Jin Guangyao’s shoulders. “It was not to get back at those who refused to acknowledge my hard work, but to offer me a chance to prove I was as good as them. Just like them…?”
“I still do not forgive you for murdering my men,” Nie Mingjue reasserts, but his voice is quiet now, as if aware they are being observed. “But I do not want you to do anything… like this to appease Jin Guangshan. Not even for me.” He gestures broadly to the make-up on Jin Guangyao’s face, the sheer gold robe, and the tea on the table between them. “You should not. That man does not deserve any honor you can give.”
At first, Jin Guangyao is instinctually incensed. “Any honor you can give,” it sounds like an insult. About his body or his heritage, he didn’t know. When Jin Guangyao considers it further, along with the honesty and openness in Nie Mingjue’s face, he knows it’s exactly the opposite.
The honor you can give a man like him is too great.
“But what should I do?” Jin Guangyao breaks out, unable to stop the tears from falling down his face now, smearing his make-up. It came out of nowhere – no. All this time, he was so afraid of Nie Mingjue finding out the truth, and now, he is trapped in the terrible knowledge that his father would stop at nothing to reveal it to everyone, regardless of how well he performed or what his anatomy really was. It feels like a manipulation tactic as he admits, “If I don’t succeed today, my father will throw me out, just like you did…”
His face is hidden from the gaze of the fool’s mask, and they’re speaking softly enough that perhaps Jin Guangshan can’t hear on the other side, but he trembles with fear. Nie Mingjue glances at it and, seeing how Jin Guangyao stiffens, confirms that to be the source of his worry.
So he caresses Jin Guangyao’s face, equally soft, though his large brown fingers are calloused and rough. “Then let’s convince him. Only—if you’re comfortable with it.”
The trepidation and hopefulness on Nie Mingjue’s face arrests Jin Guangyao’s breath.
Ever since he was young, he avoided thinking or talking about sex as much as he could – as much as one could in a brothel. The dissonance such an act had with his body… he could never imagine doing it with a man without being reduced to a woman. He could hardly imagine doing it with a woman and feeling wholly himself, either.
But the man before him, Nie Mingjue, he was someone that saw Jin Guangyao as himself. Even when Jin Guangyao betrayed him, even when Nie Mingjue couldn’t stand him, his acceptance of Jin Guangyao was deeper than that of someone who agreed with his values.
Jin Guangyao can’t imagine being that close with anyone else in his life. An awareness of his whole self, one that Jin Guangyao may never find again, no matter how kindly others may offer him space and reprieve.
Wrapping one hand around the back of Nie Mingjue’s neck, Jin Guangyao’s smile drops from his face. “Clan Leader Nie, kiss me—kiss me right now.”