Jingyi leans into Yuan's embrace and tries to pull himself together. He can't voice how afraid he is that something bad could happen to Zizhen if Zizhen was going the very place Jin Ling was. However, what would they do if both men got hurt? They'd just begged his precious romantic to walk into the lion's den.

"Y- yeah.. and he'll make sure Jin Ling's okay," he says instead, trying to comfort the very person trying to comfort him. He wipes at his tears and gives Yuan a watery smile. It doesn't work and he ends up just wrapping his arms tighter around Yuan to cry on his shoulder instead.

~~~

A Ouyang? What the hell? On top of everything else, he now had to deal with an unexpected pest from his ex-fiancé's family! There is no justice in the world.

"Get a place set at the table for him and a glass for wine, then send him in," he sighs heavily. He will play the host but he was going to encourage this Ouyang young master to hurry it along back to Baling. Now wasn't the time for this nonsense.

Except then he spots just which Ouyang it was he was dealing with. Jiang Cheng's dour expression lifts seeing Zizhen. He stands, though there's more effort behind the act than there should and gives a tired polite bow. "Ouyang-gongzi, I wasn't expecting you."