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Tan Ruo gave Chu Yun a confused look, Minister Song towering behind her, looked just as surprised.

"You want your...ah, brother to stay with us?" Tan Ruo repeated, eyeing the sulky Chu Hean warily.

"Just temporarily," Chu Yun clarified, "Until I can send a letter to my parents and inform them of his presence here."

Chu Hean made no comment, his gaze fixed stubbornly on his feet. 

Chu Yun\'s goal with having him stay with Tan Ruo and her wife was twofold:

First, he didn\'t want Chu Hean and Xiao Zai in the same space, afraid that it would bring about bad memories, for both of them.

Second, he hoped that by spending time in the company of a well-mannered, polite and respectful alpha, such as Tan Ruo, Chu Hean would feel a little better about the prospects of marrying one.

He did, however, realise he was asking for a lot.

After some time, Minister Song nodded stiffly, and tilted her head towards the inside of the house. "Come with me boy, I\'ll show you to your rooms."

Chu Hean threw Chu Yun one last withering glare, before following Minister Song inside her own house without another word.

Tan Ruo waited for them to leave down the hallway before pulling Chu Yun inside as well, dragging him towards a small room where there were no servants.

"What\'s the meaning of this? Honestly," she asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest and giving Chu Yun a demanding look.

Chu Yun rubbed the bridge of his nose and with a sigh admitted everything. That first disastrous encounter in the hot springs that almost resulted in his and Xiao Zai\'s estrangement, Chu Hean running to him to escape his upcoming engagement...Tan Ruo listened to it all in silence. 

But when Chu Yun finished his account she started hitting him with the large sleeves of her robe, flicking him with the excess fabric as if it were a whip.

"You have some nerve! You don\'t want the young omega to be a problem in your harmonious household so you bring him into mine!"

Chu Yun tried to defend himself, but he could see how it looked like that from Tan Ruo\'s perspective, even if that wasn\'t his intention.

She wasn\'t done with her recriminations. "Moreover, your brother comes to you with a serious concern about his future, and your first reaction is \'what a great inconvenience for me!\'"

That made Chu Yun go very still. Tan Ruo wasn\'t being fair. He cared about Chu Hean, and loved his brother deeply, he just felt that he was trying to go against something that was much bigger than him.

"I\'m sorry, is everyone forgetting that I was also pushed into an arranged marriage? Except I didn\'t run away, instead I accepted my fate with dignity."

Chu Yun still remembered his father\'s words to him. His assurances that he was proud of Chu Yun for following his duty and remaining loyal to his country, even if it wasn\'t what he, or his family had hoped or dreamed for him. 

Tan Ruo shot him another deeply unimpressed look. "I\'m sure doing that meant a lot for you, but your brother doesn\'t feel the same way. Maybe you should try to be more understanding."

Why was everyone against him?

He threw his hands up in the air. "In an ideal word Chu Hean could marry whoever he wanted, but he\'s the king\'s nephew! I didn\'t get to decide my own fate, why should he?"

Tan Ruo shook her head with a sigh. "I hope you didn\'t tell him that, because it makes you sound like a bitter concubine, who bullies the newest wife just because she herself was bullied."

That wasn\'t at all what Chu Yun was trying to do. His marriage had worked out alright, all things considered. And it even had a lower probability of working out than Chu Hean\'s marriage, who would be between a naturally compatible alpha and omega pair.

Again, Tan Ruo didn\'t look happy to hear any of this. "I don\'t consider my marriage to have a \'lower probability\' of working out than one between an alpha and an omega," she said, her voice cold.

Chu Yun\'s eyes widened. "No, that\'s not what I meant...of course-," he shut himself up abruptly, aware that he just kept digging a bigger hole for himself with each word. 

Tan Ruo made her way towards the door, stopping in the doorway, and looking back at Chu Yun. "Your brother can stay as long as he wants."

"Thank you, I apologise for troubling you and Minister Song like this," Chu Yun said, his eyes lowered.

Tan Ruo stood still, and then sighed loudly. "If you think about it, I think you\'ll realise that what you like about your own marriage, what I like about my own, is what Chu Hean fears won\'t exist in his."

"What do you mean?" Chu Yun asked, lifting his eyes.

"Equality," Tan Ruo answered, meeting his gaze. "You see yourself as your husband\'s equal, just as he sees you as his. So does my wife see me, so do I see her." Her fingers flexed on the wood of the doorway. "Do you think your brother will have that, with his future alpha husband or wife?"

She left afterwards, leaving Chu Yun alone in the room with his thoughts. 

---

Maybe prompted by Tan Ruo\'s words, Chu Yun went to pay Concubine Min a visit. 

She was out in the Pearl courtyard as always, locked in an intense battle with the weiqi board. Despite his somewhat frequent visits and lessons, she was no closer to making sense of the game. 

Even the simple rules were beyond her comprehension, to say nothing of the strategy necessary to win. And yet she persevered, determined to one day master the game.

Sitting in front of her, Chu Yun observed with relief that the bluish bruise around her eye had faded into nothing, and that there were no new ones marring her soft skin.

He couldn\'t help feeling guilty whenever he looked at her guileless face. 

"How has Sister Min been?" Chu Yun asked, supporting his chin on his palm and smiling at her.

She shrugged, flashing him a brief smile before returning her attention to the weiqi board. "Things have been well, his Majesty has forgiven my past transgressions." She seemed relieved by this, it made Chu Yun squirm. "My brothers and sisters continue to make fun of me for being slow," her brows furrowed in determination. "I\'m going to invite Bailiu for a round of weiqi just as soon as I\'m good enough."

"Gu Wei?" Chu Yun asked.

Concubine Min nodded. "He\'s the smartest of us all, if I can beat him they\'ll stop making fun of me."

Chu Yun\'s heart clenched painfully. If it was him, he would just play a round of chess with her in front of the rest of the royal harem and let her win.

"Is he mean to you too?" Chu Yun couldn\'t hold back his curiosity. Gu Wei was a great source of mystery for him, from the rumours about him and Xiao Yuan to his terrible relationship with the King.

Tan Ruo shook her head. "He\'s nice, he gives me sweets sometimes."

That was surprising to Chu Yun, Gu Wei didn\'t strike him as the kind of person to take pity on a bullied girl, although he didn\'t expect him to join in either. Mostly he imagined he\'d do his best no to get involved in the harem\'s inner struggles.

"But he says I shouldn\'t waste my time trying to play weiqi, or reading, or doing all those other things to try and be smarter," she said, frowning down at the black and white stones on the board. "Bailiu says the best thing people like us can be is pretty vases."

What an awful thing to say, and an even worse thing to feel. Chu Yun\'s thoughts immediately drifted to his brother. Did Chu Hean feel that way as well?

Min Sezhui sighed. "I didn\'t understand what he meant. How can a person be a vase?"

Chu Yun smiled despite himself. He couldn\'t imagine why someone would want to bully a girl as sweet and harmless as Min Sezhui.

She looked up into Chu Yun\'s eyes. "I didn\'t like his explanation much, though."

"What did he say?"

"He said that it\'s better for all of us in the royal harem to be just pretty to look at, but have nothing inside, like a vase." She frowned. "He said it would hurt less that way."

Unfortunately, Chu Yun could see what Gu Wei meant. In many, terrible ways, it was a relief that Min Sezhui didn\'t realise the full horror of the black eye the King had given her. What could she do to change her circumstances, either way?

"I don\'t think I understood, even with his explanation, but I think he was trying to say that we\'re only good for our looks anyway." She squared her thin shoulders.. "That\'s rich coming from him, because I overheard one of the guards telling him he liked everything about him."