"Not right now," he says, smiling in a way that's... sadder, a way more true than many of the smiles Jin Ling may have seen from this particular man. This man who studiously ignores Fairy, but is aware of the dog trailing after Jin Ling.
The dog will go where his nephew goes. He doesn't need to worry about it: that's simply factual. Everyone's told him it's so.
They walk, in this nothingness of bursts of coloured lights and ribbons of mist and shadow, born again as further twisting rainbows that pull and whisper and plead, give up, Jin Ling, stay, let go, don't leave.
"Your father was a complete donkey to your mother for years," he says, "He dressed well, overdressed in my opinion, and he was a good cultivator, and he knew it. Stalked around like a peacock proud of his feathers, which annoyed me and your maternal uncle, because be a peacock, but don't make our sister suffer for your vanity. Which he did, for many years, until he finally put his head on better, I suppose."
Grudging words, but he quirks up the corner of his mouth, takes an edge off what seems to be a complaint that's long since lost its weight.
"He was a good husband. Your mother loved him very much, more than he deserve for a long time, and more than he deserved because he didn't have the chance to love her more and better. I'm sorry about that, to you, to him, and to her." Softer, that statement, and the unfortunate reality: Jin Ling can feel his sincerity, the sorrow that dives deep into his marrow, the fondness mixed with sickened guilt and acceptance and a grief still percolating for him, he of the sixteen years of darkness, sixteen years without light.
His love for Yanli, his ache for her loss, his guilt at his own inability to stop it, to have controlled it all, even knowing now why he had not, where he'd overlooked, where he'd been played as much as he played Chenqing, that suffuses him. Bittersweet, that warmth, where Jin Ling finds it curling around him.
no subject
The dog will go where his nephew goes. He doesn't need to worry about it: that's simply factual. Everyone's told him it's so.
They walk, in this nothingness of bursts of coloured lights and ribbons of mist and shadow, born again as further twisting rainbows that pull and whisper and plead, give up, Jin Ling, stay, let go, don't leave.
"Your father was a complete donkey to your mother for years," he says, "He dressed well, overdressed in my opinion, and he was a good cultivator, and he knew it. Stalked around like a peacock proud of his feathers, which annoyed me and your maternal uncle, because be a peacock, but don't make our sister suffer for your vanity. Which he did, for many years, until he finally put his head on better, I suppose."
Grudging words, but he quirks up the corner of his mouth, takes an edge off what seems to be a complaint that's long since lost its weight.
"He was a good husband. Your mother loved him very much, more than he deserve for a long time, and more than he deserved because he didn't have the chance to love her more and better. I'm sorry about that, to you, to him, and to her." Softer, that statement, and the unfortunate reality: Jin Ling can feel his sincerity, the sorrow that dives deep into his marrow, the fondness mixed with sickened guilt and acceptance and a grief still percolating for him, he of the sixteen years of darkness, sixteen years without light.
His love for Yanli, his ache for her loss, his guilt at his own inability to stop it, to have controlled it all, even knowing now why he had not, where he'd overlooked, where he'd been played as much as he played Chenqing, that suffuses him. Bittersweet, that warmth, where Jin Ling finds it curling around him.