She rose to welcome her guest and saw Madam Qi enter.

“Please remain seated. Today is your wedding day, you are the most important person, and I wouldn’t dare trouble the bride to rise and greet me,” Madam Qi joked.

She continued to explain, “I’ve been busy entertaining guests at the front and couldn’t come earlier. Young Yi was worried you might be hungry, and concerned about the cleanliness of the kitchen, so he specially asked me to bring you some food.”

As she spoke, she gestured to the servant woman beside her. The woman stepped forward and handed a food box to Lu’E.

“Thank you for your trouble, Aunt,” Ye Yaming smiled, and called for Bai Rui to pour tea.

“No need, there are still many guests to attend to at the front, and I don’t have time to stay,” Madam Qi waved her hand.

Before leaving, she added with a smile, “Yaming, do you have a connection with Princess Imperial Yuning? Princess Imperial Yuning and Consort Fan personally attended today, and repeatedly praised you in front of everyone. When you have time after your return visit, you must properly thank her.”

Princess Imperial Yuning held a noble status. All noble families in the capital would invite her to their weddings, but unless they were particularly close, she wouldn’t attend and would only send a gift.

Now that she had come to Lu Guanyi and Ye Yaming’s wedding, and had explicitly stated that she came because of the bride, everyone was shocked and adjusted their attitude toward the bride accordingly.

Initially, there had been various speculations about Lu Guanyi marrying a merchant’s daughter. Later, when those who crashed the wedding chamber said Ye Yaming was as beautiful as a celestial being, people speculated that he was bewitched by her beauty.

But regardless, everyone genuinely looked down on Ye Yaming, not believing that a merchant’s daughter could be worthy of their attention.

Yet Princess Imperial Yuning and Consort Fan had highly praised Ye Yaming’s talents in their conversation. Upon further inquiry, people learned that the widely copied works “Tea Setting,” “Tea Art,” and “Tea Ceremony” had all been written by the bride, which truly surprised everyone.

The reason people looked down on merchants’ daughters, apart from the low status of merchants, was that the term “merchant’s daughter” represented someone without family background, without education, without cultivation, and full of the stink of money.

But Ye Yaming’s books displayed her talent in every line, and the Buddhist and Taoist thoughts contained within were highly praised by the scholar-officials.

Compared to those so-called noble ladies who barely knew a few characters, she was truly talented and accomplished. To say she had “no education or cultivation” would make one a laughingstock. Before mocking others, one should bring out a few self-written books for comparison to have the confidence to mock.

“Ah?” Ye Yaming was surprised for a moment, then smiled, “Very well, Aunt, I understand.”

Madam Qi swept her eyes around the room, noticed that the furnishings were the same as in other households, and nodded with satisfaction.

Yesterday, after the Ye family prepared the bed, she had been concerned and came specifically to take a look. She discovered that everything was properly arranged according to tradition, not uniquely styled like that residence in Lin’an, which had somewhat put her mind at ease.

The reason she was only partially relieved was that she worried about Lu Guanyi causing problems, as she had witnessed how attentive he was to his wife.

Only after hearing Lu Guanyi say that Ye Yaming had specifically instructed him to follow the customs and not move anything did she feel at ease.

Because of this, she became increasingly satisfied with Ye Yaming.

After Madam Qi left, Lu’E opened the food box and arranged the dishes on the table one by one. She turned to Ye Yaming, who was washing her face, and smiled, “Miss, it’s all your favorites.”

Ye Yaming turned to look, and indeed it was. It seemed as if the food had been specially prepared according to her tastes, and did not look like the dishes prepared for the wedding banquet.

She had thought that Lu Guanyi had mentioned it to Madam Qi, and that Madam Qi had simply taken some random dishes from the kitchen.

The guests of the Marquis Xuanwu’s household were either wealthy or noble, and the kitchen wouldn’t dare tamper with the food for the guests. At most, someone might add something during the journey from the kitchen to the bridal chamber. The path from the kitchen to the new room was not short, and if someone had ill intentions, they could easily put something in the food along the way.

This was why she wasn’t comfortable eating food sent by just any servant from the Marquis Xuanwu’s household.

Lu Guanyi not only remembered that she hadn’t eaten, but also considered this point, especially ordering her favorite dishes and asking a familiar person like Madam Qi to deliver them. Ye Yaming found his thoughtfulness and attentiveness truly commendable.

She took off her wedding dress and changed into a red casual outfit before sitting at the table to eat.

Lu Guanyi probably also knew that the maids in the bridal chamber would be attending to Ye Yaming at this time and couldn’t move around freely in the Marquis’s mansion, so the food sent was enough for six or seven people.

In any household, the food for the masters and servants was naturally of different grades. It would be wasteful to throw away the master’s uneaten food, and servants didn’t mind eating what their masters left.

Ye Yaming, coming from modern times, would buy people and sign life contracts with them to ensure their loyalty due to the rules and the incompleteness of identity information in this era, making hiring people impractical and insecure. However, when interacting with her servants, she treated them like modern subordinates, giving them the respect they deserved.

Therefore, when she ate, she would first use public chopsticks to take the food she wanted onto her plate, then use her chopsticks to eat, not letting her maids eat her leftovers. In cold weather, after taking her portion, she would let her maids eat without waiting for her to finish.

The weather in the capital during the tenth lunar month was already quite cool, and everyone had begun wearing padded jackets. After taking her portion, Ye Yaming said, “Alright, you all can eat now.”

Nanny Xia hurriedly waved her hand, “Miss, we’ve just arrived at the Marquis’s mansion, we cannot be so improper. You eat first, and we’ll eat after you’re done.”

“That’s fine,” Ye Yaming didn’t say more, finishing her meal before letting the others eat.

Bai Rui set aside food for Hongye. The senior maids and Nanny Xia ate first, then called Qingzhi to go outside and switch with Hongye so she could come in to eat.

Ye Yaming had no objections to this practice.

Rules still needed to be followed.

Shortly after, Qingzhi came in and reported, “Miss, Jialin and Jiayun have brought hot water.”

The trousseau maids and servants that Ye Yaming had requested from Sun An all needed names.

She was too tired to name them one by one, and this wouldn’t be just the first batch; there might be second and third batches later.

So she took a shortcut, first uniformly giving them the generation name “Jia,” then writing various characters for the second part—some for females, some for males—folding them up and letting them draw lots. Whatever character they drew became their name.

Originally, she felt that “Jia” wasn’t elegant enough and wanted to change it to “Yi” or its homophone, but “Yi” was similar to Lu Guanyi’s name “Yi.” People in this era were very particular about name taboos, and it would be disrespectful to accidentally use the same name as the male master of the house, so Ye Yaming used the character “Jia” instead.

“Good,” Ye Yaming said, “First give them a reward, then note down their names, and ask them why they’ve brought water.”

“Yes,” Qingzhi acknowledged.