The next evening, Wei Wuxian invited me to the dining hall.
It wasn't a formal gathering—just the four of us: Wei Wuxian, Lan Wangji, Ming Yu, and me. A rare moment of peace, stolen between schemes and secrets.
The lantern light was soft, casting gold across the dishes spread out before us—pickled lotus root, roasted duck, wine, and something that might have once been a vegetable but now resembled artistic chaos.
We were laughing.
Actually laughing.
It started when I brought up Yufei's most recent humiliation—how she'd tried to reposition herself beside Wei Wuxian during the tribute ceremony and ended up nearly knocked over by a servant carrying incense ash.
"She looked like someone dumped ghost powder on her," I said between bites. "And the way she tried to act like nothing happened? Legendary."
Wei Wuxian snorted into his wine. "She's been flinching every time she sees incense since."
I leaned back and shook my head. "Honestly, you guys are ruthless. Ming Yu stealing flower pots, Lan Zhan doing that sleeve-adjusting thing like it meant everything... You've all outdone me. My revenge plot is subtle. Refined. But you?" I grinned. "You're absolutely terrifying."
Ming Yu chuckled, eyes warm as he poured me another cup of wine. "She started first."
I raised a brow. "Says the man who delivered a full emotional confession while holding a vase of peonies."
"She needed to hear it," he said, completely deadpan.
Wei Wuxian laughed so hard he nearly dropped his chopsticks. "I still can't believe you said something first. I've seen you take arrows in the chest and grunt less."
Even Lan Wangji looked amused.
I lifted my cup.
"To chaos," I said. "And to driving one particular woman absolutely insane."
Ming Yu clinked his cup against mine.
Just as I was about to take another bite of sweet lotus, a knock echoed through the dining hall.
A palace guard stepped inside, bowed, and held out a sealed box with the letter on top.
"A parcel for Advisor Liu," he announced. "Delivered from the southern border—your master's personal courier."
We all stilled.
Ming Yu rose and took the box and the letter. "Thank you."
The soldier bowed again and left.
Ming Yu opened it carefully, unfolding the first letter with that signature calm that only made me more anxious.
"What is it?" I asked, already regretting everything.
He scanned the page, and his brow creased—not in worry. In quiet, unmistakable judgment.
"It's from my master," he said. "He's asking how the training is going."
My stomach dropped. "Oh no."
Wei Wuxian choked on his drink. "You mean the training we absolutely haven't been doing because we've been too busy staging emotional theater in public?"
Ming Yu nodded solemnly.
I groaned and pressed a hand to my face. "We were supposed to be saving the world, not psychologically dismantling Yufei one flower pot at a time."
Lan Wangji, bless him, actually sipped his tea harder.
Ming Yu pulled out a second scroll—thicker, heavier, sealed in pale blue silk.
"He also sent these," he added. "A compilation of every record he could find… about the Goddess of Water."
I blinked. "Wait—seriously?"
He laid the scrolls out across the table.
Dozens of them. Old. Some brittle. Some newer, ink still fresh.
"Guess we're not just playing consort and concubine anymore," I muttered.
I looked at Ming Yu. "Should we… start again? The training, I mean?"
He glanced at me.
Then offered a small, crooked smile.
I sighed dramatically. "Fine. Back to work. I'll trade my hairpins for sword drills."
Wei Wuxian leaned back and raised his cup. "To suffering."
Lan Wangji gave him a look.
****
The training temple was quiet—eerily so.
Outside, the wind moved through the pines with graceful ease.
Inside, I couldn't move a single drop of water.
I sat cross-legged on the cold stone floor, eyes locked on the ceremonial basin in front of me. My fingers were outstretched. My focus sharp. My soul practically screaming at the surface.
Nothing.
Not a ripple. Not a shimmer. Not even a pity droplet.
Last time, I made the water actually ripple. Like something ancient waking up inside me.
Now?
The water might as well have been laughing.
I groaned and dropped my arms. "I swear this bowl is mocking me."
Across from me, Ming Yu had been watching quietly. Patient as ever. He stood now, brushing dust from his robes, and walked over with that maddening calm of his.
"You've been trying too hard," he said gently. "Sometimes effort becomes resistance."
"Sometimes resistance feels like failure."
He offered the faintest smile. "Then it's time we change tactics."
I looked up, confused. "What do you mean?"
He nodded toward the stack of scrolls piled neatly at the edge of the altar.
"Let's take a break. Read. The answers might be in history, not just in you."
I hesitated, then sighed and nodded. "Fine. But if one of those scrolls tells me I need to fast for a month and chant underwater, I'm out."
We moved to the corner of the temple, spreading the scrolls out across the floor. Some were pristine. Others looked like they'd been rescued from the belly of a storm.
Ming Yu reached for the oldest among them—bound in fraying silver thread and darkened at the edges like it had survived fire.
He unrolled it slowly, reverently, scanning the ancient script.
And then… his body stilled.
His expression changed—softened, tightened. I wasn't sure which.
"What is it?" I asked, watching him closely.
He didn't answer at first. Just kept reading, eyes darting across the faded characters, his grip tightening on the parchment.
"Ming Yu?" I pressed, suddenly uneasy. "What's wrong?"
He looked at me then, and there was something strange in his face—shock, yes. But more than that. Something heavy. Something personal.
Ming Yu was still reading, lips moving in silence, but I was frozen on one sentence he'd just translated aloud:
"The Goddess of Water, though revered and reborn through time, cannot bear an heir. Her reincarnation is not of blood, and thus cannot pass it on."
I blinked.
Hard.
Excuse me, what?
I stared at the scroll, then at Ming Yu, then back at the scroll like it might change its mind if I glared hard enough.
My inner monologue—usually snarky, occasionally unhinged—shifted into full sarcastic overdrive.
Oh. Okay. Cool.
So I'm basically the spiritual embodiment of a water deity, gifted with supernatural potential, fated to possibly save kingdoms… and also permanently on spiritual birth control?
Not like I was planning a baby shower in the middle of this political disaster. I'm not even from this world. My biggest parenting achievement back home was keeping a succulent alive for four months.
Still… having the option stripped from me?
To know I couldn't? That even the possibility was off the table?
That hit differently.
It wasn't about the baby. It was about the choice. The potential.
And suddenly knowing it was never mine to begin with?
That felt… hollow.
I let out a slow breath and rubbed my temples.
Then my brain—traitorous and inconvenient as ever—decided now was the perfect time to replay that night with Ming Yu.
The heat. The desperation.
The definitely not barrier-protected intimacy.
We weren't exactly thinking about the consequences.
I remember waking up afterward, staring at the ceiling like, "Oh god, what if I get pregnant in an ancient kingdom with no prenatal care and the baby comes out looking like Ming Yu and I have to pretend it's Wei Wuxian's?"
I even spent two weeks lowkey panicking and doing math in my head, mentally googling "how early would symptoms start in an alternate reality," and wondering if a divine pregnancy would feel different.
And then—my period came.
Right on schedule.
I remember being relieved. Weirdly disappointed. Definitely confused.
And now?
Now I knew why.
No child. Not now. Not ever. Not for me.
Because this wasn't my body.
It was someone else's.
Ming Yu's voice broke the silence—quiet, careful.
"…You're upset."
I blinked, forcing my eyes to focus on him.
He was watching me—not with pity, but with concern. The kind that came from knowing someone too well. The kind that saw straight through me even when I tried to hide behind a wall of sarcasm and emotionally repressed humor.
"I'm fine," I lied.
He didn't respond.
Just waited.
I sighed and looked down at the scroll again.
"It's not like I wanted kids," I muttered. "That was never part of the plan. But finding out I couldn't even if I did? That part kinda sucks."
"Well," I said dryly, "at least now we don't have to worry that I might be… pregnant."
The temple door slammed open.
"What?!"
Wei Wuxian burst in like he'd just been launched from a catapult, eyes wild, robes half in disarray. Lan Wangji followed behind him in his usual calm silence, but even he raised a single brow.
"Are you—wait, are you pregnant?!" Wei Wuxian gasped, already spiraling.
I stared at him.
Deadpan.
Then wordlessly picked up the scroll and hurled it at his face.
He caught it—barely—and fumbled it open like it might explode.
Wei Wuxian scanned the text, his grin fading into something more serious. His eyes flicked up, this time full of understanding.
"Oh," he said quietly. "You… can't."
"Right," I muttered. "Glad we cleared that up."
Wei Wuxian was still holding the scroll, his usual smirk long gone.
Then Lan Wangji spoke.
Quiet. Precise.
"...That is a problem."
I turned to him slowly.
If he weren't Lan Wangji—my favorite, impossibly perfect, jawline-carved-by-the-heavens Lan Wangji—I would have absolutely hurled another scroll at his head.
Instead, I narrowed my eyes and said, very sweetly, "I'm sorry, what exactly is the problem?"
He looked at me. Calm as ever.
And then, sensing the immediate emotional danger radiating off me like a firestorm, he… wisely shut up.
But Wei Wuxian, as always, had no such self-preservation instincts.
He cleared his throat and said, "Because… eventually, I'm going to need a child."
I blinked.
Hard.
Then looked at him like he had just sprouted antlers and started reciting poetry in ancient Klingon.
"I'm sorry," I said slowly, "but didn't you say—very clearly, I might add—that you had no intention of becoming king? That you didn't want heirs, thrones, or all the political baggage that came with it?"
Wei Wuxian had the decency to look guilty.
"That was before I found out the Wang family killed my mother," he muttered. "If I'm going to bring them down, I need the crown. And that means I need a male heir."
I stared at him.
Absolutely stunned.
The temple was silent.
Even the wind outside was like: I'm gonna sit this one out.
"So," I said slowly, my voice flat, "even if I could get pregnant, were you… actually expecting me to bear your child?"
He looked like a child who'd broken a priceless vase and was now realizing glue wasn't going to cut it.
"I—I didn't think that far yet."
I reached for the nearest scroll.
Lan Wangji, behind him, shifted his weight ever so slightly—probably deciding whether intervening was worth the risk to his sleeves.