Qing-er (NHZGG)

Sometimes she looks at her hands and feels the gentle calluses on her palms. No longer were they the soft, white, petal-like hands from when she lived in the Palace. The heaviest labor she had done was wringing Lao Fuo Ye's hand towels or walking throughout the Imperial City on various errands regarding various light packages. Even then, there were always maids who trailed after her like ducklings behind the mother duck. Prior to meeting XYZ and ZW, she had rarely worn the clothes of the common people or walked the streets of the capital city. It could be said that she lived in a sheltered bubble. Safe, yes, but rather bland. But it didn't occur to her to question the day to day sameness until XYZ, ZW, and later, Xiao-Jian, burst into her life. As LFY's favorite, she had the best education and the best training in history, language, art, music, and everything that made her cultured and worthy of being part of the Imperial family. For all her readings and all her logic, however, her heart still yearned for something. Perhaps because she was almost always alone; LFY's favor and her own tragic past put a space between her and everyone else. But she felt the yearning lesson a little during that night with the moon and snow with Er Kang. Perhaps that is why she clung to the idea of EK and loving him during all the years she was away from the Palace. When she returned, she wasn't expecting anything to change; nothing really changed in the Palace, after all. But change found her anyways. She was fascinated by XYZ and ZW. During the trip south with the Emperor, she became friends with them and felt the emptiness subside a little more. When they included her in their secrets, she experienced the closeness that comes with true friendship and sisterhood. When she realized that Xiao-Jian meant more to her than anyone else in her life, even LFY, she finally realized what she had wanted her whole life.

So, she looks at her hands and feels the gentle calluses and thinks of all the changes in her life. Since coming to DaLi, she has learned to take care of house and home. She learned to cook, to clean, and to manage household finances. XiaoJian was a patient teacher, but he also had his own responsibilities of running the school and keeping watch over all the Xiao family investments. So she applied her intelligence to something besides books and facts and reasoning and learned to savor the taste of a meal she prepared and take pleasure in seeing her loved ones wear the clothes she helped mend. Each day was filled with routine tasks but also with new adventures. After all, life never stays dull with XYZ around. Besides, once XiaoJian realized how well she tutored XYZ, she also had other girls from the city to teach. Her life and her heart were both finally full.

Sometimes XiaoJian catches her glancing pensively at her hands. In the beginning, he would hold them in his hands, roughened by martial arts training and strengthened by hard work, and look at her apologetically. The Xiao family was by no means poor, but it was a change from her first home. Their chairs were made of solid wood, certainly high quality wood that made for sturdy chairs, but nothing like the elaborate gold embossed ones from the Palace. He would apologize for taking her away from a life of luxury and gently kiss her fingers and each callus. He would thank her for choosing him and for sharing her life with him. She would smile at him gently and let their fingers twist together. She would tell him that she doesn't mind, that she'd gladly trade all the material wealth for the true happiness of being with him and, later, their children. She didn't think he believed her, especially when he offered to hire a maid to help her with the household tasks, an act quite uncharacteristic as he truly believed in the value of hard work. But she refused. She was capable, she said, and it was a fun adventure. Over time, XiaoJian verbalized fewer apologies, but he still held her hands in his and kisses each finger lovingly.

Over the years of their marriage, they both learned to hide less from one another. They learned to share their innermost thoughts and ideas. They had both been lonely children who had learned at a young age always to present a brave front to the world. They had to learn to allow the other to see their fears, their uncertainties, and their moments of weakness. He learned to share his plans and discuss them with her and she learned to insist on an equal partnership. So, now when XiaoJian caresses the calluses on her hands, she would remind him that they represent the couple's shared burdens. He would look at her with such tenderness that her heart overflows and she feels immense joy that only she gets to see this side of him.

Sometimes at night, as she lay wrapped in XiaoJian's embrace and listens to the strong beats of his heart, she would hold his hands in hers and trace each scar and each mark. She would marvel at how tiny her hands seem when compared with his, at how his strong hands can be so gentle with her. She remembers how his hands grasped hers tightly and anchored her to him on their wedding night and how softly he traced her face the next morning. She looks at the hands that protected them so well while they were running for their lives and feels overcome with emotion that those same hands can speak to her with such deep tenderness, love, and passion. When XiaoJian catches her holding his hand, he would draw her closer to him and press a soft kiss onto the scar on her shoulder. It became their unspoken message of love and remained a reminder of all they had conquered to be together. Qing-er would smile up at XiaoJian, a smile that he would return. More often than not, he would pull her closer, kiss her with all the love he holds for her, and then their hands would once more anchor each other.

She never regretted leaving her old life. As she sings the songs they all wrote together, she smiles at how riches and wealth means nothing but only true affection and mutual love made a home. She no longer had the hands of a privileged lady, but she had never felt so content.

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AN: I have to say that my favorite parts about the new version of HZGG are the scenes between Qing-er and XiaoJian. Sometimes I feel that their story gets overshadowed by the more dramatic ones of XYZ & YQ and ZW & EK. Qing-er in particular seems almost shadowed by the more complicated situations regarding ZW and XYZ's statuses. She has shown time and again that she has a quiet strength that makes her more than a match for XiaoJian. This is my tribute to them. Inspiration from a scene when HS brought the Shu Fang Zhai servants to try to convince his children to return home and they remarked on how roughened ZW's and Qing-er's hands had become from their travels and from working so hard in the dumpling shop.