Aunt Zhong came chasing out with a stick. Seeing her son caught in one grab, she breathed a huge sigh of relief. “Thanks to the County Magistrate, otherwise he would have broken something again. This little rascal is so mischievous—if I don’t beat him for a day, he’ll climb on the roof and tear off tiles. He ruined all the happiness characters I bought from outside.”

Aunt Zhong reached out, and Zhao Erlang handed the child over. Only then did he look at what the boy was clutching.

A piece of red paper with a double-happiness character he was extremely familiar with.

This character was complex but had structure. Originally Zhao Erlang didn’t recognize it, but after seeing it every day for several months straight, anyone would recognize it.

One could say this double-happiness character had the highest recognition rate among Luoyang’s common people, no less than the two characters for “Luoyang.”

The reason for this was entirely due to an idea Zhao Hanzhang gave to Zhao Zheng.

The county office promoted marriage and childbirth. Not only did they introduce potential partners to single soldiers in the military camps, they also frequently organized blind date events for unmarried eligible young people in the city.

As long as a match was made, the county office would give things.

At first, Zhao Erlang was very generous in giving them a pair of towels, wooden basins, wooden buckets and similar items.

When forming a new household, these things all needed to be newly acquired. The county office giving them reduced their post-wedding expenses. Even if just for that pair of wooden basins and buckets, people would work hard to achieve success and get married.

But later finances became tight. Moreover, after Zhao Hanzhang announced her wedding date, there was a follow-the-trend effect. More and more people chose to form families before the new year, to the point where the Luoyang county office couldn’t even afford to give out a pair of towels.

Having already promised this, forget about the stubborn Zhao Erlang—even Zhao Zheng was unwilling to go back on his word. They said that as long as people got married the county office would give something, so they had to produce something. They couldn’t break faith with the people.

Because Zhao Erlang thought about it day and night, worrying about it during the day and taking his worries home at night, Zhao Hanzhang had no choice but to rack her brains along with them, thinking about how to give the newlyweds a gift that was both economical and auspicious.

Finally, seeing the wedding preparations Wang Shi and Ji Yuan and others were making for her, she realized that in this era, pasting double-happiness characters at weddings was not yet popular.

So with a grand stroke, Zhao Hanzhang wrote out a double-happiness character for Zhao Zheng.

From then on, the county office officials who wrote well gained an additional task: writing two double-happiness characters for couples who came to register their marriage.

This had nothing whatsoever to do with Zhao Erlang. Even if he lived another hundred years, he could never enter that select group. So he happily became hands-off.

But how could two double-happiness characters be enough?

Thanks to the Zhao paper mill, paper was not expensive now. Even red paper was affordable for ordinary people.

Spend two copper coins to buy a large sheet of red paper, cut it into sixteen pieces, then spend twenty coins to hire someone with good calligraphy to write the double-happiness characters. If one wasn’t too particular about such things, it could be even cheaper.

Take the cut red paper and squat at the school entrance, find a student who looked very smart, and slip them two eggs or a few flatbreads to have them write sixteen double-happiness characters.

If unwilling to prepare those items, just spend three to five coins—still cheaper than specially hiring a teacher to write the characters.

Once this practice became popular, vendors immediately set up stalls selling double-happiness characters. They were very clever—not only selling double-happiness characters but also fortune characters. They operated on thin margins with high volume. One double-happiness or fortune character cost only one coin, and the calligraphy wasn’t bad. This turned out cheaper than buying red paper and hiring someone to write it yourself.

So many newlyweds would buy them to paste throughout their homes along with the double-happiness characters given by the county office, covering even a drafty thatched cottage. This added an auspicious atmosphere even to the humblest dwelling.

Now, whenever one saw a household with double-happiness characters pasted up, one knew happy events were approaching.

So seeing the red paper in Fang Dalang’s hand, Zhao Erlang had a head full of questions. “Aunt Zhong, your family has happy events too? Could it be you’re remarrying?”

Aunt Zhong’s mouth fell open.

The bailiffs behind Zhao Erlang immediately crowded forward, chattering, “Aunt, don’t be upset. Our County Magistrate is just purely curious, not saying you and Uncle Fang aren’t getting along well. But your family has three young children—they can neither take wives nor marry out. How could you be pasting happiness characters?”

Aunt Zhong knew their magistrate was different from ordinary people. She was only surprised for a moment before moving past it to explain. “The General is getting married. This is a great happy occasion, so the family is also pasting some happiness characters for good luck.”

Cases like Aunt Zhong’s were simple applications of the trend. In the city, some merchants and wealthy families not only specially made red lanterns to hang in front of their homes or shops, they also used red silk to hang at their doorways—truly lavish.

Most households bought some red cloth, red paper-cuts, and happiness characters to paste up.

With the Zhao residence as the center, Luoyang city began decorating at an extremely fast pace. Red was everywhere. No matter where one went, one could feel the joyous atmosphere.

In the countryside where Zhao Erlang could not see, they had decorated even earlier. Even the big tree at the village entrance had red cloth strips tied around it.

There was a rumor in the countryside that Zhao Hanzhang looked extremely beautiful in red, like a Mysterious Maiden descended from the Nine Heavens. Therefore she loved red very much. So to express their love and blessings for her, the country people would cut a strip of red cloth to tie on trees or under eaves.

At this moment, unaware of the rumors, Zhao Hanzhang was trying on her wedding garments.

The style and color of her wedding garments were not decided by her herself. Or rather, because she had reached her current position, her wedding was no longer simply between her and Fu Tinghan.

These wedding garments were decided after mutual negotiations between Wang Shi, the Zhao clan members, and the court ministers.

In recent years due to warfare, some places promoted white wedding garments to pray for peace and stability.

Wang Shi had seen them and thought white also looked very nice. Mainly the symbolism was good. She hoped her daughter could have a peaceful life, so she initially proposed white wedding garments.

Influenced by later generations, Zhao Hanzhang felt red also looked very nice. However, if her mother liked her wearing white, she didn’t mind either.

She felt neither she nor Fu Tinghan cared much about this, so she mentioned it to Fu Tinghan.

Who knew that Fu Tinghan, who usually let her make decisions, would suddenly say, “You should wear black. Black robes and crimson skirts also conform to traditional wedding attire.”

Zhao Hanzhang looked at him in surprise. “But my mother wants me to wear white.”

Fu Tinghan rarely insisted. “You look better in black.”

He paused, then said, “I’ll also wear black.”

Mentioning this point, his eyes seemed to hold light. “I’ve asked—current wedding garments are still primarily black. We wearing black doesn’t violate any prohibitions.”

Since Professor Fu rarely had something to insist on, Zhao Hanzhang naturally had to support him. So she wanted to wear traditional wedding garments.

Wang Shi hesitated for a while but still agreed to her daughter’s request.

But Ji Yuan and her trusted ministers disagreed.

They believed traditional wedding garments were insufficient to express Zhao Hanzhang’s current status, so changes were needed.

This change here, that change there—the resulting wedding garments became increasingly familiar. Zhao Song couldn’t sit still and jumped out, refusing to agree to more changes. Any more changes and would Zhao Hanzhang and Fu Tinghan be wearing wedding garments to ascend the throne on the spot?

Those wedding garments looked just like the young emperor’s ceremonial robes. Were they trying to be like Sima Zhao?