That Kind of Guy, That Kind of Girl

**That Kind of Guy, That Kind of Girl** is the thirty-ninth chapter of *Iron Widow*.

## Synopsis

The counterattack to reclaim Zhou province is officially announced. The night before the battle, Zetian and Shimin launch an attack of their own. They abduct An Lushan, restrain him in one of the testing chambers, and, with a camera set up to record his every word, they interrogate him about the piloting system. Specifically, how the system is rigged against girls. When he refuses to answer, they begin waterboarding him with liquor. When he still refuses to talk, Zetian lies and says that they have An Lushan's son as a hostage, even showing him a doctored image to "prove" it. An Lushan then breaks and tells them that the yin seat in a Chrysalis is designed to have less active input and more passive input, meaning that whoever is in the yin seat (in other words, the female pilot) has less control over the Chrysalis and functions more as a qi battery than a co-pilot. Shimin is stunned by this revelation because it means that Wende really was his Balanced Match; her death was caused by the pilot system itself. Zetian realizes that this means the existing Balanced Matches are not actually *balanced*: the girl in the match has to be stronger than the boy in order to overcome the artificial imbalance and be perceived as "equal". Zetian demands to know why the system was designed this way. An Lushan explains that the army needed to be sure the boys would survive, because if they were worried about being killed by girls they would be too scared to pilot. Zetian points out that the girls are scared, but An Lushan replies that girls know how to sacrifice. He says that the girls knew what they were getting into and chose to do so. Zetian retorts that their families were the ones who chose for them. Disgusted and infuriated, Zetian and Shimin drown An Lushan in alcohol.

They return to their suite and are greeted by Yizhi, who's frying some buns for dinner. Zetian shows him the footage of An Lushan. He watches it calmly up until the confession, at which point he looks up in shock. Shimin finally accepts that none of those girls' deaths were his fault, tears flowing down his face. Zetian takes his hand and tells him that he was being used, and Yizhi wipes his tears away and reminds him that his battles protected people. A line of paper lanterns drifts by the window, sent up by the other pilots partying along the Great Wall. Yizhi watches the lanterns, but Shimin watches Yizhi. He brushes away some flour from Yizhi's jaw before apologizing and pulling back. Yizhi tells him not to be sorry, calls him handsome, and winks at him. The two boys stare into each other's eyes as Zetian watches in anticipation. Shimin glances over to Zetian with a look of guilt, but she just makes a triangle shape with her fingers and nods. Shimin grabs Yizhi and kisses him. When they break the kiss, they both reach out in sync and pull Zetian closer.

## Character List

### Appearing

* An Lushan
* Gao Yizhi
* Li Shimin
* Wu Zetian

### Mentioned

* Sima Yi
* Wende
* Yang Guang
* Zhuge Liang

## Places and Terms Mentioned

### Places

* Great Wall
* Huaxia
* Sui province
* Sui-Tang frontier
* Tang province
* Tiger Cage training camp
* Zhou province

### Terms

* Balanced Match
* Chrysalis
* Hundun
* Pilot
* Qi
* Spirit armor
* Spirit pressure
* Yin and Yang

## Trivia

* Final appearance of An Lushan.
* Shimin and Yizhi kiss for the first time.