Jin Zixuan has hurt Jiang Yanli too many times for it not to hurt when she looks at him, no matter how much he has changed, but the Jiang need an alliance and the Jin have the most money and Jin Zixuan is the heir. Jin Guangyao is Jin Guangshan's unwanted bastard son, legitimised but only because Jin Guangyao is a war hero. Jiang Yanli doesn't think he wanted to be a war hero, Jiang Yanli thinks he just wants to be a person.
Jiang Yanli wants to be a person too.
But Jin Zixuan is the heir and Jin Guangyao is unwanted. A-Cheng would never want Jin Guangyao as a brother in law. The advantages of not being a person are few, but Jiang Yanli knows how to take advantage of them. No one watches where someone who isn't a person is going. So long as she is performing her function, she is ignored. Even A-Cheng and A-Xian don't really see her.
The first letter she sends gets a perfunctory response, but it was a response and Jiang Yanli takes it for a victory. Jin Guangyao is clever and funny and vicious. Jiang Yanli delights in drawing out cutting commentary from him and delights further in sending her own back. She is, after all, the Violet Spider's daughter and venom runs in her blood. It is she who suggests the poison for Jin Guangshan. A long, drawn out, painful death for a man who refuses to acknowledge his cleverest son. Jin Guangyao refuses, but he doesn't tell anyone. When Jin Zixuan sends his proposal she writes to A-Yao first. She isn't sure why, A-Yao must have known it was coming. She is pinched, drawn, uncomfortable for the week she thinks it over. In the end, it was the only answer she could have sent, she said yes. Perhaps it was a coincidence that Jin Zixuan died on a night hunt before they could plan the wedding. Perhaps not. She knows that she could know, if she chose to ask.
She doesn't.
She writes to A-Yao, suggests perhaps they should get married, to secure the alliance. A-Yao says his father will never agree. Jiang Yanli writes to Madam Jin. Of course, she doesn't suggest the marriage immediately, the Jin are in mourning, she is not uncouth. Simply, she wishes to ensure her mother's friend is well. Can she not care for an erstwhile mother in law?
Mourning for a son takes at least a year, after all. But at least sweet A-Yao is there to support her, and oh he's so upset, he had so loved having a brother, had written about how much he'd adored dearest A-Xuan. Of course A-Xuan would want his A-Yao to take care of her.
Madam Jin does not like Jin Guangyao, the evidence of her husband's infidelity, but she does like Jiang Yanli. She exploits this flaw ruthlessly. A-Xian isn't there to talk her out of it and A-Cheng will do whatever she asks if she says it right.
Jiang Yanli gets what she wants. They see each other in person to meet with the matchmaker and decide their wedding date. Madam Jin is overjoyed to see her, A-Yao is shy. She touches his hand as they exchange gifts and ducks her head when he blushes. She can work with shy. A-Yao tells her of his father's desire to steal her brother's seal. She thinks of how easy it will be to kill his father when she lives in Lanling. She sends a message to Wei Wuxian asking what she would have to do to bring him home. 'Save the Wens' he says. She can do that.
She writes to Lan Xichen and asks if anyone has been to see Wei Wuxian and his army of Wen Cultivators. She asks if the Lan would be willing to tell her, as those sworn to the truth, if her brother was still alive and still planning to attack the Sects. He visits her in Yunmeng, invites her to come with him. She accepts. She knows why he came. She is right.
'Why A-Yao?' he asks 'you could have anyone else, why him?'
She smiles at him. 'Can’t you answer that for yourself?' she asks.
'I know why I want A-Yao, why do you want him?’
Yanli could say many things. He is beautiful, clever, cunning, devious, delightful, a 1001 different things. 'He sees me for who I am and he still likes me afterward,' she says, 'I think you understand.'
'I do,' he replies. She wonders if he thought A-Yao could only know him. They visit the Wens in the burial mounds. Yanli silently wonders why her brother felt he couldn't ask for help with this, these were clearly no dangerous cultivators. She meets A-Yuan. This is her nephew, she understands, even if Wei Wuxian doesn't. 'Lan Xichen,' she says after they have left, 'I hope you know that we are saving those people.'
'Do I have a choice?' he asks. Like he didn't already know the answer.
'I want to, so A-Yao wants to. Don't you want to help A-Yao?'
She can see him bristling at her blatant display. Good, let him bristle. He would do the right thing and he would want to do it better than her. The more people helping her brother, the easier it would be to have him at her wedding. She smiles at him. 'A-Yao will be very grateful. I will make sure to tell him.' What would he do?
'I shall tell A-Yao myself,' he responds stiffly.
She bows to him.
'You have my thanks, Lan Xichen,' she says, in a rare moment of honesty, 'you are as noble as A-Yao says.' Ah, what a pretty blush. A pity she could not marry him too.
The Wens are smuggled to a quiet piece of land on the border between Yunmeng and Gusu where no one would bother them and they could be free from the oppressive aura of the Burial Mounds. Wei Wuxian did not return to Lotus Pier, but Yanli could work on that. He was safe. Lan Wangji is often found there. Jiang Yanli works on getting Jiang Cheng to reinstate Wei Wuxian into the Jiang. An alliance with the Lan would be advantageous as well. Perhaps she should try setting up A-Cheng with one of Nie Mingjue's relatives.
The wedding. The wedding was red and gold. It was splendid, the way her brothers had always said it would be. They were there, sobbing their eyes out together, her delightful little brothers.
She sees Jin Guangshan watching her. She thinks of poisons.
Jin Guangyao tastes like peaches when they finally kiss. It had been so long in the making she had almost forgotten this was her prize. He looks at her like she is a person and she looks right back.
Together they are two people, married.
Jin Guangshan corners her a few days later. He talks about the tiger seal. His eyes are on her breasts. She tells him she will write to her brother. Her eyes dare him to touch her. She remembers the poison hidden in her things.
She goes to the kitchens and befriends the staff. She writes to her brother. She tells him to keep his seal safe or, if possible, to destroy it. She asks about his Lan Zhan, about Wen Ning and Wen Qing, about her nephew A-Yuan. She kisses A-Yao. She gets to do that now. It is very nice.
Jin Guangshan is ill. An open secret. They say it is a wasting disease, one you can only get from prostitutes. It is true, you can get it from prostitutes, but only if they poison you. It could take him years to go, if he doesn't overexert himself.
A-Yao is appointed heir. Lan Xichen visits. She tells A-Yao he can take a lover, if only he tells her first. When they finally come to an agreement she is pleased. A-Yao is happy. He has everything he had ever wanted. She gave it to him.
Jiang Yanli is not certain but she thinks she might be with child. She debates the pros and cons of letting the child meet its grandfather. She debates the pros and cons of letting A-Yao know. She ups the dose of poison.
A-Yao starts planning the celebrations for their child. Jin Guangshan dies a week before the baby comes. Jiang Yanli hoped he wasn't reincarnated as her baby. She would have to make extra sure this child was raised properly. No one needed another Jin Guangshan, least of all as her son. No one would poison her child.
Jin Ling is tiny and adorable and certainly destined to outstrip both his parents in cultivation, if his death grip on his mother's sword was anything to go by.
'We made this,' she tells A-Yao, a lovestruck smile upon her face.
'We did,' he replies, equally smitten.
After the 100 day celebration, where Jin Ling's uncles by blood or sworn brotherhood each fawn over him, Wei Wuxian invites them all to watch over him as he destroys the Stygian Tiger Seal. He has been blacking out and waking up unable to remember what he has done. It must go.
It is the dead of winter, the day Wei Wuxian destroys the seal. It could have been done sooner, he laughs, if he hadn't been worried about staying alive afterwards. No one else laughs. A-Cheng says he'll break his legs if he dares die. In a rare show, Lan Wangji agrees.
Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji return to Lotus Pier, Lan Xichen returns to Koi Tower.
'You know,' he begins while A-Yao is pouring tea, 'you are always welcome to join us, Jiang Yanli.'
'Join you?' she asks, 'we are having tea together Lan Xichen.'
'He means in bed, A-Li,' A-Yao says. Yanli smiles. 'I was waiting for you to ask,' she says before sipping her tea, 'it is impolite to assume these things.' She looks through her lashes at Lan Xichen. He blushes. She hums. 'Is this your way of inviting me?' she asks. 'why, A-Yao, he blushes so easily!'
That sweet laugh she loved so much bubbled up out of A-Yao's mouth and, not a moment later, Lan Xichen was laughing too. Jiang Yanli set down her teacup. She was smiling so hard her face hurt. She moved to Lan Xichen's side and kissed the laughter out of his mouth and A-Yao's. 'A-Li,' Xichen breathes, his hand on her hip, 'come to bed with us.' A-Yao's smile is pressed into her neck as she draws circles on his back.
'Since you asked so nicely,' she says, 'I think I shall.'
No one knows where Lan Xichen found Lan Jingyi, but a few days earlier in Koi Tower Jin Rusong was born, every inch Jin Guangyao's son. Lan Jingyi, of course, looks exactly like Lan Xichen. But it cannot be denied, when you put them together, they look like brothers.