[Ancient Romance] The Biao Cousin Arrives at the Duke's Mansion
Author: Xuehe Tongzi (Snow Crane Boy) [Completed]
Blurb:
Jiang Xuesui lost her mother at age three. As the saying goes: "When a mother dies, wait for the uncle."
Sure enough, three days later, her three uncles from the capital came for her.
Jiang Xuesui was a young girl, and her father found it inconvenient to raise her alone. Her maternal family, the Duke Xiangguo's Mansion, had several female cousins who could play with her, study, and practice calligraphy.
Her aunts and grandmother were all kind-hearted people who doted on their juniors.
With Jiang Xuesui going to the Duke Xiangguo's Mansion, her father could focus on being a good official, bringing benefit to the people.
And so, the little Jiang Xuesui bid farewell to her father and entered the capital. On her first day at the Duke Xiangguo's Mansion, everything was fine.
Her grandmother was loving, her aunts warm, and her cousins delighted in her company.
Only the eldest cousin, Wen Qiao—silent, cold-faced, and aloof—was unpleasant. He would rather play with a puppy than exchange even a single word with her, nor would he look her straight in the eye.
Such a dull and boring person; Jiang Xuesui couldn't be bothered with him.
*
Jiang Xuesui lived at the Duke Xiangguo's Mansion all the way until the year she came of age at fifteen.
That year, her father was promoted to Grand Secretary and awarded a large mansion in the capital by the emperor.
Now that she had her own home in the capital, she naturally returned to her father's side.
As the daughter of the Grand Secretary and raised in the virtuous, scholarly Duke Xiangguo's Mansion, the nobles in the palace began to take an interest in her marriage.
One day, Jiang Xuesui went to burn incense at Bodhi Temple. First she encountered the Crown Prince, then Prince Cheng. Two marriage proposals were handed to her, but she discarded both without taking them. Pointing at Wen Qiao, who stood below the mountain gate, she said: "Your Highnesses, this subject's daughter has long admired my elder cousin. If I am to marry, I will marry none other than him."
In Jiang Xuesui's view, this was nothing more than a jest to decline the suitors.
But when Wen Qiao, after attaining the title of Principal Graduate, came to propose to her father, he said: "Acting on the orders of my grandmother, father, and mother, and also to fulfill the meaning of my cousin's long-standing admiration for me, I have come to ask for Xuesui's hand."
Jiang Xuesui, who was eavesdropping from behind a screen in the hall, grew anxious. Completely forgetting modesty, she rushed out and said with hostility: "Wen Qiao, saying it like that makes it seem as if I went to Grandmother and my uncles and aunts to blather on, forcing you into marrying me!"
"Is it not so?" Wen Qiao looked confused and bewildered. "Perhaps I should recount to my uncle exactly what my cousin said to Their Highnesses that day. If it was merely insincere words, why not clarify it today?"
Fine, fine! Fine your big head!
Jiang Xuesui had no choice but to swallow her grievance.
If she admitted it was insincere, her father, with his loyal and upright nature, would surely take her to the palace to confess to the emperor and empress.
So she said in a fit of pique: "Father, I accept this marriage."
After the wedding, she would certainly find ways to torment him.
*
After marriage, spring nights seemed too short, and the brocade curtains swayed every evening.
Jiang Xuesui sensed something amiss. She got up, parted the bed curtains, stuck her head out, and stared at Wen Qiao, who was fastening his belt. "That day, you deliberately provoked me into accepting the marriage, didn't you?"
Wen Qiao gazed at her, slowly uttered a single "Yes," then sat on the edge of the bed and draped a robe over her shoulders. "We've known each other since childhood, so naturally I am the one in this world who knows your temperament best."
Content Tags: Childhood Sweethearts, Sweet Story, Growth, Lighthearted, Daily Life, Marriage First Then Love
Protagonist’s Perspective: Jiang Xuesui and Wen Qiao
One-Line Summary: I love you, but a lifetime is too short.
Theme: The world of mortals, all four seasons warm.
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A Little Girl of the Jiang Clan
The first spring rain of the fourth year of Zhengshi fell on the fields outside Sujing City.
Three-year-old Jiang Xuesui held her mother Wen Xincheng's hand tightly and chanted in a childish, soft, and sweet voice: "With a blue bamboo hat and a green straw cloak, I need not return in slanting wind and fine rain." ①
Mother and daughter stood on the path between the fields, their gaze sweeping over the deep and light shades of green.
The seedlings in the fields were growing splendidly.
This spring rain had come at exactly the right time.
The busy figures of farmers were like woven threads, among them Jiang Xuesui's father—the current Prefect of Sujing City, Jiang Shaohua.
Agriculture was tied to the people's livelihood, so every spring plowing season, Jiang Shaohua paid particular attention to the land, seedlings, and weather.
Today he had come to the fields again to inspect the people's sentiments, asking about rent, the price of seedlings, the number of oxen, and so forth.
Jiang Shaohua often became so absorbed in his official duties that he forgot to eat and sleep. Wen Xincheng worried about her husband becoming thinner and thinner. Ignoring the wet nurse's and maidservants' advice, she brought a food box to find him.
Jiang Xuesui had also followed her. In the carriage, she poked her little head out to look around. Now, if not for holding her mother's hand, she would surely have run behind her father to scare him.
"You mustn't run wild, Yuanyuan," Wen Xincheng called her daughter's childhood name. "If you trample the tender seedlings in the field, your father will be angry with you."
"Why would Father be angry? Are the seedlings more precious than Yuanyuan?"
Jiang Xuesui tilted her head up to look at her mother's pale, beautiful face with a puzzled expression.