Ink Burns

Chapter 112 A smooth ceremony

We changed from water to land transportation, and after arriving at the Tanggu Port in Tianjin, we took a horse team and a sedan chair to arrive in the capital in the early morning of March 21st.

It was just daybreak and we were almost there on the auspicious day.

Time was urgent and there was no time for the wedding procession to rest. Liu's fifth cousin who was the Shaoqing of Honglu Temple in Beijing and the Xue family's wedding procession went to the Shanhai city wall in Gyeonggi to meet them.

Shan Yue got off the boat and took a sedan chair. Due to days of running around, her knees went weak when her feet touched the ground and she almost fell to the ground.

Qiutou, who was leaning against Shanyue's shoulder, immediately put her arm around Shanyue.

The wedding dress was too big, so this little incident went unnoticed.

Shan Yue lowered her head and entered a larger wedding sedan.

The music troupe marched around the thirteen main alleys of the old city, with forty musical instruments and singing echoing throughout the capital.

The onlookers exclaimed in amazement: "What a grand ceremony! Whose wedding is this?"

"The Xue family of Dongsi Swallow Interconnection!"

"Hey! That censor?"

"Yes, yes, that is the censor!"

Adjectives are swallowed whole, which is never a good thing to think about.

Shan Yue calmed down, held his breath, and listened attentively. There was constant noise in his ears, but there was no useful information.

Shan Yue lowered her eyes slightly: At least I know that Censor Xue is famous.

It's not a good reputation though.

There was a crack in the curtains of the wedding sedan, and Qiu Tao reached out her arm stealthily: "Put it under your tongue, it looks like a piece of ginseng!"

Shanyue half lifted the red veil and reached out to take it.

It is a black linen bag.

When I opened it, I saw three slices of ginseng soaked in candy.

"Who gave it to you?" Shan Yue asked.

Qiu Tao leaned against the sedan chair and shook her head. After shaking her head, she realized that Shan Yue couldn't see it. She whispered, "I don't know. Just before I got on the sedan chair, a young man in black stuffed it into my hand."

Shanyue didn't plan to eat it. He immediately put the ginseng slices back, put them into his sleeve pocket, and then bit the tip of his tongue hard.

Pain can always trump fatigue.

If not, then it doesn't hurt enough.

She definitely doesn't need any ginseng from unknown sources.

The Great Wei Dynasty got married at dusk. After the wedding procession circled the city until everyone knew about it, they finally entered Dongsi Hutong with gongs and drums, and entered from the main gate. Under the mountain moon, the wedding sedan chair was stuffed with a thin and silky red silk in the hands. Amid the lively and complicated suona sounds and the dim sunlight, they stepped over the three-inch-high threshold of the Xue Mansion and entered the main hall.

Shan Yue stepped on the soft sheepskin mat, as if falling into a gorgeous trap of wealth and splendor.

The other side of the red silk was held up by another person.

When he stood still, he heard a voice saying "Bow to Heaven and Earth", and Shan Yue knelt down and kowtowed.

"Bow to my parents twice" - Shan Yue turned around and was about to kowtow, but heard a low and contemptuous male voice beside him: "Go, bring up my mother's tablet, and ask Madam Zhu to leave."

The noisy voices in the hall suddenly stopped.

Xue Changfeng's face darkened: "Absurd!" He pointed at his eldest son with one hand: "On the day of your great wedding, you are so disobedient and unfilial. Even if I go to Qianning Palace today, I will sue you for being unfilial!"

According to the laws of the Wei Dynasty, the crime of being unfilial was extremely serious and would be punished with hard labor, caning, exile, or even capital punishment.

Xue Xiao just chuckled: "Unfilial? I'll only judge you as 'unfilial' if I ask you to leave the hall as well." Madam Zhu sat in the hall, her eyelashes trembling, and she quickly assessed the possibility that Xue Xiao would be judged as "unfilial". In an instant, she figured it out: the Wei law did not specify whether "stepmother" was included in the category of unfilial, but it did specify that the successor wife should perform the concubine ceremony in front of the original wife's tablet.
What does it matter if you lose your dignity?
The important thing is to complete this marriage!
Madam Zhu decisively reached out and held the corner of Xue Changfeng's sleeve, showing a decent and light smile: "It is right. Censor Xue wants to kowtow to his biological mother. This is reasonable in the world."

Without waiting for Xue Changfeng's response, Madam Zhu had already gathered her skirt and moved down, then loudly called for the maid to go to the ancestral hall to bring back the tablet of her late madam, wiped it clean with a silk handkerchief herself, and placed it on the table in the hall with both hands.

She was elegant and graceful throughout, without any sign of embarrassment or confusion.

There was a lot of discussion in the hall, and most people were praising Madam Zhu for her virtue, generosity, and her sense of propriety and her ability to advance and retreat.

The red veil swayed before her eyes, and the tassels with beads swayed in the breeze.

Even though the red veil blocked her expression, Shanyue was still accustomed to hiding her joy and anger in her heart. She just lowered her eyes slightly and curled the corners of her mouth vaguely: If she is really virtuous, why didn't she think of this in advance?

The tablet is brought into the hall and the marriage continues.

The couple bowed to each other, Shan Yue bowed slightly, and with her lowered eyes, she saw a dark crown on the back of the head.

Unfilial bird, you stooped even deeper than she did.

After the ceremony, two people with full fortune took empty sacks for rice and spread them on the ground one by one. The person who praised the ceremony swung a hammer and struck a gong, and with a "dong" sound, he shouted, "Pass the bag - pass it on!"

The groom walked on the sack first, and Shanyue followed behind him, picking up the sack that he had passed and carrying it to the front, and in this way they took turns walking to the bed in the bridal chamber.

The newlyweds do not step on the ground, and the bride does not bring soil from her mother's family to her husband's family, which also means continuing the family line.

The blessed man led Shanyue to sit down, and deliberately left a corner of his clothes at his side. The groom sat down, meaning to "suppress the bride", but he saw a slender and well-proportioned hand with distinct bones tearing the corner of the clothes away.

"Don't do these things."

The male voice was deep.

His tone was not loud, but everyone immediately stopped what they were doing and listened to him carefully.

Putting aside the human voices and noisy gongs and drums, the male voice can be heard clearly. It is low but not dragging, and the pronunciation is clean and sharp. There is no habit of swallowing the ending sound in the Beijing dialect. The natural sound is like a beam covered with gravel, or like sandpaper rubbing back and forth on wood.

Shan Yue frowned.

This voice seems familiar.

Xue Xiao spoke in a cold voice. The Xue family members and the friends of the Tong family who were making trouble in the bridal chamber did not dare to speak again. For a moment, they did not know what to do next. After a while, they heard a voice coming from the southeast corner timidly: "Are you going to take off the bride's veil?"

The red veil slipped off.

His gaze was sunken in the bright red for a long time, and then suddenly met the candlelight as bright as daylight. Shanyue suppressed the instinct to blink, and sat calmly beside the west bed, his eyes slowly sweeping through the room full of pearls, jade, and gold: they were all noble ladies dressed in gorgeous clothes, with high buns on their heads, flower hairpins on their heads, their faces were all painted white to a yellowish color, but their lips were red to a dark red color.

It wasn't the face she remembered.

She was judging them, and they were judging her as well.

".I heard that she is a girl from the Liu family in Songjiang Prefecture, and her family background is pretty good."

"What can you say? You are a branch of the Liu family! My father is just a failed scholar!"

"That's not bad, Xue. With such a good reputation as an official, it's good to have a decent girl marry him."

"You know what? If we wait another month, Princess Yuehe of the Kangning County King's family will be out of mourning. It may not be impossible to marry her!"

Like a few noisy crickets, chewing on the weeds quietly.

Shan Yue finally shifted her gaze to the right - her married husband.

　There are also updates.

　　The description and steps of the wedding were borrowed from the book "Miscellaneous Memories of Mountain Life".

　　(End of this chapter)