Wei Rao didn’t personally hear Emperor Yuanjia decree her marriage to Lu Zhuo, but she guessed the marriage would probably be settled.

She ran back to Xing Palace in one breath, handed her steed to palace servants, then took a sedan chair to Yuquan Palace.

The weather was hot. She hadn’t felt anything while riding, but after dismounting, she began to sweat. Returning to Yuquan Palace, Wei Rao ordered water to be prepared.

Eunuch Wei and Bitao had followed to the hunting grounds and hadn’t returned yet after being left behind by Wei Rao. Liu Ya served her mistress’s bath. When Wei Rao sat in the bathtub and Liu Ya was using a soft cloth to wipe her down, she suddenly discovered an additional red mark on Wei Rao’s snow-white neck that had been hidden by her cascading black hair.

“Was the Princess bitten by mosquitoes?” Liu Ya asked regretfully. “Does it itch? It must have just been bitten. I’ll go get medicine.”

Liu Ya was already certain it was a mosquito bite and quickly walked outside the hall, instructing a small palace maid to fetch cooling ointment – medicine specifically for insect bites.

Wei Rao didn’t feel itchy. Curiously touching her neck, she didn’t feel any swelling either. She had Liu Ya hold up a mirror to show her. When she saw that faint mark, Wei Rao’s mind thundered as the scene of being pressed against the white poplar by Lu Zhuo in the forest suddenly became clear again.

It was a strange sensation, neither itchy nor not itchy. What was shameful was that despite Lu Zhuo taking such advantage of her, she didn’t dislike it.

Her body temperature rose, and Wei Rao sank into the water, exposing only her head.

“What’s wrong, Princess?” Seeing the beauty in the water’s cheeks redden and even her skin take on a peach blossom-like pale pink, Liu Ya was startled.

Wei Rao shook her head, yawned, and said: “I’m tired. Hurry up with the bath. After washing, I’ll sleep for a while.”

Thinking of other things as a distraction, her body gradually returned to normal.

Because she had ridden a horse, after bathing, Wei Rao specifically had Liu Ya massage her legs.

She lay comfortably on the bed while Liu Ya quietly and skillfully applied a layer of floral dew and began massaging.

It was a very ordinary thing, but at this moment Wei Rao was mysteriously always thinking of Lu Zhuo, thinking of how, after they married, Lu Zhuo would treat her like those little booklets. Wei Rao’s face heated up again. She should know that three years ago, when she first married Lu Zhuo, she had never entertained such wild thoughts.

“Princess, you’re not suffering from heat stroke, are you?” Liu Ya noticed her mistress’s abnormality and asked worriedly.

Wei Rao shook her head and asked Liu Ya softly, “You’re also nineteen now. Have you thought about marriage?”

Liu Ya’s face reddened slightly as she joked: “The Princess hasn’t married yet, so how could I think of such things? If I were to marry, I’d wait until after the Princess marries and her married life settles down, then ask the Princess to arrange it for us.”

Wei Rao thought to herself – yes, Liu Ya and Bitao, like her, hadn’t experienced those things. Even if she had some feelings she wanted to share, telling them would be useless.

Near noon, Eunuch Wei and Bitao finally returned with the imperial entourage, followed by two palace servants carrying a large cage containing a red-headed wild duck and a nest of ducklings.

“What’s this?” Liu Ya asked in surprise.

Bitao’s little face was red from sun exposure, but she smiled even more happily than during New Year’s, bragging to Liu Ya: “You didn’t go to the hunting grounds, so you don’t know. The Young Master went to pester the Princess again, so the Princess said that as long as the Young Master could catch a wild duck, the Princess would marry him. Not only did the Young Master catch one, he caught two in one go and even obtained marriage decrees from the Emperor and the Noble Consort. Later, the Young Master was beside himself with joy and went to catch the entire nest of wild ducks, saying he’d raise them in the lake waters around Yuquan Palace and Liubo Palace for the Princess to observe anytime.”

The Emperor decreed the marriage?

Liu Ya looked back joyfully.

Wei Rao stood at the doorway. She had come out a while ago, heard Bitao’s words, and saw the nest of red-headed wild ducks in the cage. The ducks had a complete circle of red feathers around their heads, with dark green wings. The big duck looked a bit fierce, while all the ducklings were extremely cute. This type of wild duck wouldn’t live long if kept at home, but released into Xing Palace’s natural lake waters with palace servants feeding them, they should live quite well.

“Princess, this is called heaven’s blessing. You’re destined to be my sister-in-law!”

Lu Changning’s playful words echoed in her ears. Thinking of Lu Zhuo’s mounted figure swooping to catch the ducklings, Wei Rao smiled and had the palace servants release the nest of ducks into the lake.

Yuquan Palace had a waterside pavilion. Sitting in the pavilion, one could watch the nest of ducks leisurely exploring their new home.

Soon after, Xiao Zhou Shi arrived.

Wei Rao felt guilty and hid in the inner chamber. Her mother intended to let Lu Zhuo worry for a while longer, but she had agreed to him after just one round of kissing.

Xiao Zhou Shi walked in alone.

Wei Rao sat on the bed, playing with a jade pendant in her hands, cool and clear like the color of bamboo.

She didn’t need to speak; her flushed face had already revealed her mood.

Xiao Zhou Shi sat beside the bed, looking at her daughter like this. She felt both heartache and relief – at least this time, her daughter was truly satisfied with Lu Zhuo, not acting in front of her.

“What did Lu Zhuo do to coax you so quickly?” Xiao Zhou Shi asked gently. She didn’t believe that as soon as the two met, her daughter would suggest having Lu Zhuo catch wild ducks.

Wei Rao lowered her head, her small hands turning the jade pendant even faster.

Xiao Zhou Shi smiled as she took away the jade pendant and pulled her daughter into her embrace, saying warmly and gently, “Why be shy with Mother? Mother was away from you for so long. I only learned about your first marriage after the fact. Now it’s rare that we mother and daughter can sit together and speak intimately. Raorao, tell Mother about it – consider it making up for the mother-daughter time we missed.”

Wei Rao’s heart was indeed filled with thoughts of Lu Zhuo like a little deer. She wanted to confide in someone, but there were no suitable sisters her age around.

Hearing her mother say this, Wei Rao leaned against her mother’s shoulder and said shyly: “He had Changning trick me into meeting him, and he even grabbed me onto his horse.”

Xiao Zhou Shi remembered that two years ago, Lu Zhuo had grabbed her daughter once before. But since they weren’t truly husband and wife then, if Lu Zhuo still dared to do that, either he was naturally lustful, or Lu Zhuo had already fallen for her daughter then, and impulsively did something improper.

If he dared to embrace her daughter in front of her, what wouldn’t Lu Zhuo do when the two were alone in a grove?

“Did he kiss you?” Xiao Zhou Shi hit the nail on the head.

Wei Rao closed her eyes, even her earlobes turning red.

Xiao Zhou Shi gritted her teeth: “Besides kissing you, did he do anything else more excessive?”

Wei Rao quickly shook her head. Lu Zhuo might have had that thought, but after she slapped him three times, he didn’t dare act rashly.

Xiao Zhou Shi snorted: “Good thing he knows his place. Otherwise, if he dared to take advantage of your youth and inexperience, Mother wouldn’t forgive him.”

Wei Rao had witnessed her mother’s temper. The mother in her memory was gentle as water, but she hadn’t expected that when punishing Lu Zhuo, she showed no mercy, actually making Lu Zhuo kneel under the scorching sun for a good while.

“Mother, there’s something I don’t understand.”

“What don’t you understand?”

“It’s just… when he kissed me, why couldn’t I summon any strength?” That feeling was too strange. Wei Rao couldn’t help but suspect whether Lu Zhuo had secretly drugged her with some kind of aphrodisiac – he had such things.

Hearing this, Xiao Zhou Shi’s heart ached again. Her daughter was eighteen years old. If Lu Zhuo had treated her daughter well three years ago, would her daughter only now be tasting the flavor of love, so confused and uncertain?

She moved closer to her daughter and began explaining in a low tone.

Emperor Yuanjia had verbally agreed to the marriage decree but hadn’t immediately issued the edict.

Lu Zhuo guessed that Emperor Yuanjia would formally issue the decree after returning to the capital, sending one copy to the Princess’s mansion and one to Duke Ying Mansion.

But given the Noble Consort’s attitude, Lu Zhuo couldn’t help worrying that the Noble Consort still hadn’t forgiven him and disliked him too much. Perhaps one day she would suddenly persuade Emperor Yuanjia to take back his earlier words and not marry Wei Rao to him.

Noble Consort was so favored that anything was possible.

Lu Zhuo began sending gifts to Liubo Palace and Yuquan Palace every few days – sometimes foxes he had hunted in the mountains, sometimes beautiful wildflowers he had picked that were unique to the local area, sometimes interesting folk tales from the northern regions he had collected. Though Wei Rao and her mother couldn’t see him in person, they could hear news of him almost daily.

“Raorao, remember this: men must be kept on a string. If you’re too good to him, he won’t take you seriously. If you occasionally give him the cold shoulder and make a fuss, he’ll be beside himself with worry.” Eating lychees, Xiao Zhou Shi continuously shared husband-management wisdom with her daughter. “It’s just one principle: you must put yourself before the man. You can’t put him first in everything. If you treat him like heaven, he’ll dare treat you like dirt.”

Hearing this, Wei Rao first thought of her mother and Emperor Yuanjia.

Could Emperor Yuanjia’s obsession with her mother be the result of her mother’s careful training?

But as a daughter, Wei Rao could ask her mother for advice about her romantic matters, yet felt too embarrassed to inquire about her elders’ secrets.

Before she knew it, it was July, and the morning and evening weather had become quite cool.

Emperor Yuanjia announced the departure back to the capital.

The imperial procession moved slowly. By mid-July, the convoy finally entered the capital’s city gates.

After returning to the capital, Emperor Yuanjia consecutively issued several marriage decrees, arranging one principal consort and two side consorts each for Prince Jing and Prince Fu. What the capital’s people talked about most was the Emperor bestowing Xie Hualou, the sixth daughter of the scholarly Xie family, upon Prince Jing as a side consort.

Xie Hualou had been engaged to Lu Zhuo and then had the engagement broken. Because of the old Grand Tutor’s funeral, her reputation hadn’t suffered too much damage. Of course, those with ulterior motives could still say the Xie family was faithless, but filial piety was paramount, and there would always be people who felt the Xie family was right. Emperor Yuanjia was a student of old Grand Tutor Xie, and Xie Hualou had the reputation of being the capital’s foremost talented woman. If not for the broken engagement incident, Xie Hualou could have been chosen as a proper princess consort back then.

When news reached Duchess Ying’s ears, the old lady sighed softly.

Her careful selection of Xie Hualou back then was sufficient proof of Xie Hualou’s excellence. Though the marriage between the two families didn’t work out, Duchess Ying still hoped Xie Hualou could marry a good young man. Prince Jing was the Empress’s legitimate son, naturally of noble status, so it couldn’t be said to be wrong to Xie Hualou in any way. But once Xie Hualou married into the imperial family, her future path was destined to be winding and complex.

She felt sorry for Xie Hualou, while the Empress felt Xie Hualou wasn’t worthy of her son!

“Your Majesty, Xie Hualou is a woman whose engagement was broken by Duke Ying Mansion. How can she become a daughter-in-law of the imperial family? Are our sons supposed to pick up Lu Zhuo’s rejects?” Upon learning of the decree, the Empress immediately requested an audience with Emperor Yuanjia, saying indignantly. She was very unhappy – how could Emperor Yuanjia not consult her at all about her son’s marriage? The princess consort wasn’t someone she had chosen either.

Facing his memorials, Emperor Yuanjia asked indifferently: “During April’s peony flower festival, you summoned the Xie family daughter into the palace. I thought you were quite fond of her.”

The Empress choked.

She didn’t like Xie Hualou. Calling Xie Hualou into the palace was to use her to suppress Wei Rao’s arrogance, but how could she state this reason openly?

“The Xie family daughter never stepped outside Xie Mansion before marriage. If I didn’t bestow marriage upon her after the Empress summoned her into the palace twice, how would I face the old Grand Tutor’s spirit in heaven?” Closing the memorial in his hands, Emperor Yuanjia finally glanced at the Empress. “You’re not young anymore. Think clearly about what you should and shouldn’t do in the future.”

Not young anymore?

These few short words were more infuriating than everything else he had said today. The Empress’s carefully made-up face immediately turned the color of liver.

Having dismissed the Empress, Emperor Yuanjia summoned someone to draft an edict.

Shortly after, two groups of palace servants left the imperial palace separately, heading toward the Princess’s mansion and Duke Ying Mansion.

The next day, the marriage between Wei Rao and Lu Zhuo spread like wildfire through the capital’s streets and alleys, replacing the marriages of the two princes.