Sweet and peaceful days always passed especially quickly. It seemed like in the blink of an eye, Yu Tang had been married into the Pei family for a month. The season had also entered November, and every household was busy with New Year preparations. Old Madam Pei summoned Yu Tang to help and gradually began handing over some of the Pei household’s management duties to her.
Yu Tang had the experience of her previous life. Although some matters were still her first time encountering them, adhering to the principle of following precedents when they existed and referring to customary practices when they didn’t, she handled matters with proper form. She was even favored by Old Madam Yong when, upon being praised, she modestly said “I’m just following rules and conventions.” When Old Madam Yong came to visit Old Madam Pei, she said Pei Yan had chosen the right daughter-in-law.
Old Madam Pei showed nothing on the surface but was very happy in her heart.
By mid-November, news came from the capital saying that Pei Xuan had been appointed to the position of Provincial Administration Commissioner of Shandong. Old Madam Pei was even more delighted and said privately to Nanny Chen: “Capital officials are certainly good, but at this time, being able to serve in Shandong—given A Xuan’s temperament, this is more suitable.”
Pei Chan also spoke privately to Pei Bo about this matter. He felt the Pei family was still too conservative. But Pei Bo disagreed, saying: “I think being conservative in this matter is good. Don’t forget, our family still has Third Uncle. Even if he doesn’t become an official, I’m afraid he’s not such a peaceful person. The Zhang family’s eldest son is gone. Though Elder Zhou is brilliantly talented, he lacks composure. Naturally there’s no great problem with him being a Secretary or Vice Minister in the Six Ministries, but if he were to govern a region, he would seem somewhat impetuous. The Zhang family will certainly pull Third Uncle into their schemes then.”
Having said this, he worriedly ran his hands through his hair and muttered: “What I fear now is that the Zhang family, wanting to pull Third Uncle into their schemes, will want to form a marriage alliance with our family. Our family shouldn’t have any brothers or sisters of suitable age for the Zhang family, right?”
Hearing this, Pei Chan laughed heartily, feeling Pei Bo was worrying unnecessarily, saying: “Even if the Zhang family is willing, Third Uncle would have to be willing too, right? Our family has rules—neutrality, not taking sides, is fundamental.”
Pei Bo glanced at Pei Chan disdainfully, that look identical to Pei Yan’s: “Times change. When the fire burns to your own eyebrows, can you still maintain neutrality and not take sides?”
Hearing this, Pei Chan chuckled twice. Thinking that this wasn’t something the two of them could decide anyway, and saying more here was useless, he changed the topic. He raised his eyebrows at Pei Bo and said: “Do you think Third Uncle will leave Lingan? I heard from the household servants that Third Uncle has been accompanying Third Uncle’s Wife constantly these days. I never expected Third Uncle would be like this after getting married.”
Pei Bo didn’t want to say anything to this fool Pei Chan. Hearing this, he said: “What business is it of yours! You’d be better off using this effort to study properly! Besides, aren’t Third Uncle and Third Uncle’s Wife getting along well? Our family has no such lustful types!”
“This is your only bad point.” Pei Chan also felt mentally exhausted and said, “Whatever I say to you, you’re always so serious.”
Pei Bo didn’t want to deal with him anymore.
Pei Chan had no choice but to rise and take his leave.
Exiting Pei Bo’s study, he saw Pei Jiang running inside cradling a lapful of candy.
He immediately called out to Pei Jiang and asked: “Where did the candy come from?”
Pei Jiang’s big eyes rolled around as he said: “Third Uncle’s Wife gave it. Second Uncle is now Provincial Administration Commissioner of Shandong. The clan house said we should have a small celebration—tomorrow there’ll be wine to drink.”
Whenever times like this came, these children would be let out to play and wouldn’t need to do their schoolwork.
Pei Chan played with Pei Jiang for a while before leaving.
Over there, Pei Yan was busy preparing gifts for his second brother’s new appointment. Second Madam was packing trunks for going to Shandong. Only the First Madam, holding a dark-colored sable fur hand warmer, stood on the artificial mountain in the rear garden, gazing toward the eastern courtyard, and asked her personal nanny: “Did the Young Master really say that?”
Both Pei Tong and Gu Xi were not young anymore. After Pei Yan’s wedding, the Pei and Gu families began setting the wedding date. Originally, according to the First Madam’s wishes, it would be best to set the wedding date for March next year so she would have time to prepare. But the Gu family wanted it before the year’s end, while Gu Chang hadn’t yet taken up his post. The two families looked at many dates. The most suitable date was December second, but Second Miss Pei had also set December second for her wedding… The Pei and Gu families looked for quite a while and finally chose December sixth.
The First Madam thought that Pei Tong and Pei Yan’s weddings were too close together. The two weddings would inevitably be compared. Setting aside seniority, Pei Tong was only a xiucai while Pei Yan was already a jinshi. The guests who came to congratulate and the wedding scenes would be different—Pei Tong would certainly suffer by comparison. This was why she wanted to hold the wedding in Hangzhou—hold a smaller wedding, only inviting family relatives within five degrees of mourning and some old friends who had helped Pei You in the past.
Old Madam Pei was of course unhappy.
What she hadn’t expected was that Pei Tong also disagreed.
The First Madam’s personal nanny advised her: “I think the Young Master is right. There’s a long road ahead—why must you争 争 for this moment? As long as the Young Master studies well and succeeds in the imperial examinations someday, there will be plenty of glorious days in the future. There’s no need to make Old Madam unhappy over this matter.”
The First Madam was ultimately unwilling to give in.
But word came from the Gu family side that Gu Chang planned to bring his new bride to the capital on the fourth day of the month. She either had to continue being at odds with Old Madam, or listen to Pei Tong and get the wedding done first.
The First Madam sighed and said: “Then you go personally to the Gu family and tell Miss Gu that this matter has wronged her, and I will certainly compensate her in the future.”
That nanny was immediately overjoyed but dared not show it in the slightest.
She feared the First Madam would see it, become suspicious, and change her mind again.
The nanny quickly told Pei Tong about this matter.
The weight on Pei Tong’s heart fell away. He urged the matchmaker to go with the Gu family to finalize the date.
Now the Pei household became lively again.
The First Madam also showed a long-absent smile, especially when she received a letter from her natal family saying that her eldest sister-in-law had already set out for Lingan to attend Pei Tong’s wedding. She was even more delighted and summoned a master from the silver shop to make several pieces of jewelry—some for herself to wear, and some to give to her eldest sister-in-law.
Yu Tang sent Lei Zhi to invite Nanny Chen over to ask her advice about what meeting gift to give for Pei Tong’s wedding.
Nanny Chen smiled gently and said: “You should discuss this matter with Second Madam. Although you are the clan wife, setting that aside, you and Second Madam are both acting as aunts, so it should be the same. But I suggest you do as the First Madam did for your meeting gift when you married—give jewelry of equal value. At most, add a gold bracelet or something similar. Because Young Master Chan and Young Master Bo have also reached marriageable age, their wedding dates should be within these one or two years. Playing favorites wouldn’t be quite right.”
Yu Tang nodded repeatedly and went to Second Madam’s place.
Second Madam was preparing to consult Yu Tang if Yu Tang didn’t come consult her. When Yu Tang came over, it was exactly what she wanted. She said: “I’m preparing a set of pure gold jewelry. You just need to add a jade pendant or something.”
Yu Tang returned and told Pei Yan about this matter. Pei Yan felt this was acceptable and told Yu Tang to go to his storeroom to take something: “There should be many jade pendants of good quality.”
What Pei Yan collected certainly wouldn’t be ordinary items.
But if given to Pei Tong, it would become Gu Xi’s.
Yu Tang couldn’t bear to part with them. She asked Steward Tong to spend several dozen taels of silver to buy a piece of new jade of also good quality as a meeting gift.
After Pei Yan found out, he laughed at her for quite a while.
Yu Tang was not to be outdone, saying: “Even if your things aren’t my things, they’re still our children’s things. Why should I give them to people I don’t like? No matter what you say, inner household matters are my domain. I’ve decided, and you’re not allowed to interfere.”
Pei Yan glanced at her belly, his face full of smiles as he nodded, saying: “Indeed, indeed. Why should our family’s things go to others? You did right.”
Though the two shared a bed, this was the first time they abstained from evening activities.
Because Yu Tang’s monthly courses had come.
She certainly couldn’t be pregnant.
Seeing Pei Yan like this, Yu Tang glared at him.
Watching Yu Tang’s lively and mischievous expression, he felt very satisfied in his heart.
His wife should be just like this—doing whatever she wanted to do.
This little cat Yu Tang was also becoming increasingly wild.
Moreover, her eyes were becoming more and more spirited, her bearing increasingly vibrant.
Pei Yan secretly rejoiced that he hadn’t continued hesitating and had taken the risk of marrying Yu Tang.
It showed he still had good judgment.
Pei Yan went to the accounting office full of pride and satisfaction, still pondering on the way whether he should give his senior brother Fei some advice.
It was better for husband and wife to be harmonious and happy. A few short decades—wasting time being angry at each other really wasn’t worthwhile.
But what he never expected was that on that very evening, he received a funeral notice from the Fei family.
Fei Zhiwen’s wife had already died of illness sixteen days ago.
Moreover, it said that because Madam Fei had left a testament requesting everything be kept simple, the Fei family didn’t plan to hold a grand funeral. According to Fei Zhiwen’s wishes, they were just notifying the various families with generations of friendship.
Pei Yan stood in the center of his study, unable to come to his senses for quite a while.
This was the first time he returned late for dinner.
Yu Tang was very worried and personally served him a bowl of clam soup.
Pei Yan forced himself to drink a bowl and told Yu Tang at the dinner table about Madam Fei’s passing.
Yu Tang didn’t know about the Fei family’s affairs. Hearing this, she only assumed that Fei Zhiwen and Pei Yan had very good personal relations. She even gave him advice, saying: “Although it’s a simple funeral that doesn’t require us to send people to pay condolences, you can write a letter to Official Fei to comfort him.”
Official Fei probably needed more than just a few perfunctory words of comfort at this time.
Involving Fei Zhiwen’s privacy, Pei Yan couldn’t tell Yu Tang the details. He perfunctorily nodded, but afterward still decided to act as if he knew nothing and wrote a brief letter with a few words of comfort for Fei Zhiwen.
Who knew that by the end of the month, when the Pei family was busily preparing to marry off a daughter and marry in a daughter-in-law, Zhang Ying, far away in the capital, wrote a letter to Old Madam Pei, hoping Old Madam Pei could help him persuade Pei Yan to stay in the capital for a while.
The letter said that because of his wife’s death, Fei Zhiwen was overcome with grief and had decided to retire from office.
Right now, only Pei Yan could persuade Fei Zhiwen.
Old Madam Pei naturally didn’t quite believe Zhang Ying’s words.
Others might not know, but she knew. Fei Zhiwen was twenty years older than Pei Yan and was also someone proud and arrogant. Ordinarily, for the sake of being fellow disciples, he quite took care of Pei Yan. But as for personal relations with Pei Yan—after all, the age gap was there—he might not necessarily be persuaded by Pei Yan.
Persuading Pei Yan to go to the capital was eight or nine parts out of ten wanting Pei Yan to help the Zhang family compete with the other families.
Old Madam Pei paid no attention to this letter and happily married off her grand-niece and brought her grandson’s bride into the household.