After You

Chapter 4

'Wife', the word that can make Lan Xichen shiver. Not for his own self but for the one that he loves. He knew that there will be a time that both of them have to look for their own spouse and when that time comes, he knew could either let Jiang Cheng go and move on with his own life or he'll just love him in secret like he always have been in the dark while being happy for him.

There are also times that he wished he was born a woman so that he could just volunteer to be Jiang Cheng's wife. It didn't really matter if Jiang Cheng doesn't love him, he just wants to be beside him. But then again, if he really born as a woman, would he even have a chance to meet Jiang Cheng? No, he doesn't. Women who are born in the Lan clan was treasured as they should always be. They were kept away from the part of the mountain where the males stay, so there was no way he could meet Jiang Cheng if he was a woman.

But if the gods would allow him, he just wants nothing more than having the person he loves in his arms. To feel what being loved by someone who you are will to spend your whole life with was.

Realizing it, somehow he was grateful. He was able to be a person who could make his heartbeat, filling him with little joy but enough to make his life bring more colors.

Bad thoughts entered his mind again, they were dragging him away from what he wanted for so long. They were those ones that always hunt him, the ones who stop him from obtaining his happiness.

Who was he to the gods to have his wish granted? He was a sinner. Just by having a feeling for a man was already a sin, not to mention his ways of separating Jiang Cheng with Nie Huaisang and Wei Wuxian. In addition,  he was to the to kill his remaining sworn brother.

His eyes traveled to Jiang Cheng from the elder and their gazes lock. To him, the years that he hasn't seen Jiang Cheng was paid by simple their eyes meeting. It sent his heart to flutter causing him to smile warmly to the younger man, almost forgetting his heartache.

Jiang Cheng's eyes then gazed back to the elder, the simple action made Lan Xichen nervous. "Very well," Jiang Cheng stated and once again his heart sunk, this time more painful. "You all know what what I look for the next mistress of Lotus Pier," he added.

"Yes, of course," the elder answered. Everyone knows what the sect leader Jiang wants for his future wife, it was one of the reasons why he hasn't have a woman beside him up till the very day. "Sect leader Jiang doesn't have to trouble himself, we'll do the rest."

He watched a Jiang Cheng nod and the others to take a breath of relief. They all thought Jiang Cheng was going to turn down the idea which commonly happens but didn't happen. It surprisingly didn't happen. Sandu Shengshuo didn't decline but instead welcomed the idea.

Everyone already left while he remained seated, trying to make both his mind and heart to accept the fact that in the future that Jiang Cheng would get married and will have a family of his own. A future that he was not included except being in the back where he could nowhere be near his beloved.

It was always those thoughts that hunted him even in his younger years. Not only was he afraid that Jiang Cheng will have someone by his side that was not him but also he was afraid for himself. Him, being alone for the rest of his living days. He knows that he won't be able to love anyone other than Jiang Cheng,  so, to not hurt anyone else because of his own selfishness, he pledge to himself that he won't take anyone to take Jiang Cheng's place in his heart and not to get married unless it was the person that he had always cherished in his life.

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After months of finding a maiden that meets the qualifications for being the next mistress of Lotus Pier was still on-going. Although there we're a lot of maidens that did meet the requirements not to mention even the daughters of other sect leaders were qualified, the man himself was the problem.