Agreed the first day, and preparations begun the very next — this wasn’t at all the outcome that Fang La and the others in the palace had wanted to see. It was purely a unilateral decision made by Liu Xigua herself.
The Sabre Guard had always conducted its affairs in a blunt, no-nonsense manner, a style inherited straight from the previous generation under Liu Dabiao — rarely giving anyone leverage against them, but on the rare occasions that leverage did exist, their response was simply to take the hit and stand at attention, admitting fault outright. This time, once Xigua was certain there was no way around it and the marriage could not be avoided, she had no intention of letting anyone make a spectacle of her in every other regard.
There was also the fact that there wasn’t much of a foundation of romantic feeling between her and Ning Yi. At the start of their acquaintance, Xigua had placed herself in something like the role of a “lord” over him; though she wasn’t an all-around genius, she had the virtue of being open to learning, and with her sharp mind, she was always able to pick up the bright ideas of others. Unfortunately, Ning Yi was no mere backroom strategist, and once his ideas, his thinking, his whole system of thought began to outpace her ability to absorb it, he became instead something more like a chief advisor — a Zhuge Liang type at her right hand — and later still, truly nothing more than a “comrade.”
By that point, the two of them would argue endlessly, whether discussing grand strategy or gossiping about household trivia and other people’s failings, or simply joking around. They were close, certainly — close enough that, given Xigua’s temperament, she would unhesitatingly claim Ning Yi’s poetry as her own without a second thought, which showed just how completely she trusted him, treating him as good as family. But as for the feelings, and especially the psychological readiness, needed to become husband and wife — that, to be precise, simply wasn’t there.
If he ever saw her enjoying herself, taking this whole affair seriously, how would she ever face him afterward? That was the question troubling Xigua most.
But she wasn’t an unreasonable girl either; when it came to matters of human feeling, she actually thought about things more than most people gave her credit for. Once the matter was settled, however hastily, she couldn’t help but start imagining what it might really be like to spend the rest of her life with Ning Yi. In this era, even the most open-minded woman couldn’t escape the ethics of marriage — once wed, she might truly be bound to him for the rest of her life. Thinking it over even briefly, a conclusion settled in her heart that even her own blunt, straightforward nature was reluctant to face head-on: perhaps… she wasn’t entirely unwilling.
Thinking much further down that road only became too embarrassing to bear.
But the practical contradiction remained right in front of her — was this real or fake? Right now it was fake, but if it became real later, would she come to regret having treated it so carelessly now? As a woman, if she truly found her match in life, she would of course want a proper, dignified wedding. And yet there was simply no way to hold a proper one under the current circumstances…
That night, coming back from the palace, her heart had been in complete disorder over this — until Ning Yi’s remark, “we should still have a lively celebration within the Sabre Guard,” gave her a way out. Looking back on it afterward, she couldn’t say whether Ning Yi had said it entirely off the cuff, or whether he had subconsciously calculated every angle of the situation — and Ning Yi himself probably couldn’t say for certain either.
The outside world could take care of itself; within the Sabre Guard, at least, things could still be done properly. Let everyone celebrate — openly and above board. After all, Ning Yi himself had asked for it, so she would graciously grant his wish… and so the wedding was handed over to Liu Tiannan, while Xigua herself set about holding off everyone from outside, ignoring every protest and every attempt at persuasion — she was getting married, that was that, and if Uncle Nan wanted to make it official and proper, well, there was nothing she could do about that, was there.
In the meantime, a few sensitive issues were left to simmer unresolved. What was to become of Ning Yi’s relationship with Su Tan’er, given that he was already a married matrilocal husband — how could he possibly remarry? And under what status was Xigua to marry him — regardless of whether she counted, at this point, as princess or as clan lord, Ning Yi would in either case be marrying in as a matrilocal husband. He was already a matrilocal husband once — how could he marry in again? Wouldn’t that make him one matrilocal husband with two wives, an actual case of two equal households?
It wasn’t that no one cared about this. Fang Baihua, Shao Xianying, and the other women were quite concerned indeed, but Xigua paid them no mind. By this point, killing Su Tan’er was out of the question, and sending her away wasn’t possible either. While the women fretted, Fang La too kept protesting, summoning Xigua to the throne hall to scold her, but Xigua simply held her ground: “I’m getting married — please, Sovereign and Empress, come be my father and mother for the occasion…” and said nothing more on any other point, head bowed, listening in silence.
There was nothing Fang La could do. On one hand he tried to talk Xigua out of it; on the other, he kept sending gift after gift over to the Sabre Guard — Xigua’s formal status and dowry befitting a princess, and various titles and rewards for Ning Yi as well — five or six trips a day. Outside, people debated whether, should Xigua really persist in her stubbornness, the city ought to start preparing celebrations after all. And so on, and so forth.
Things were somewhat chaotic on Ning Yi’s end too. Strictly speaking, this would be counted as his first marriage in this era. As the groom, plenty of people came to ask his opinion on things. It was all a bit rushed and slapdash, but Liu Tiannan and the others could tell that Xigua did have some genuine fondness for Ning Yi, and felt the wedding ought to be handled properly regardless. But Ning Yi’s true, official wife was still right there — asking him about wedding arrangements was practically rubbing salt in the wound. Ning Yi had no patience for anyone who came around trying to discuss the matter with him, and as for the palace eunuch who came five or six times a day bearing decrees and rewards, once Ning Yi had gotten used to him, he’d simply take the imperial edict straight from his hands and pat him on the arm: “Yes, yes, I know, no need to keep reciting it…”
Given his temperament, none of this truly bothered him much; the only reason he put on a show of frustration was for Su Tan’er and Xiao Chan’s benefit. When he ran into students outside who were curious enough to ask about the marriage, he’d have them struck twenty times on the palm with a bamboo strip without exception. Su Tan’er, who had originally worried someone from Fang La’s side might come pressure her one way or another, later found that no one bothered her at all — the whole affair had turned into such a farce within the Sabre Guard that, seeing Ning Yi so put-upon amid the general commotion outside while his own status remained unsettled, she couldn’t help laughing along, curious to see how it would all play out. Even Lu Hongti found the whole development rather entertaining.
Then, on the twelfth day of the eleventh lunar month, the wedding proceeded as scheduled, and from morning to afternoon, the whole of Xiliu Street began to buzz with excitement.
The wedding proceedings themselves were, in truth, simple, but Xiliu Street was decked out and festive as if for the New Year. Su Tan’er and the others could naturally take no part in this wedding, though it was Su Tan’er herself who ended up dressing Ning Yi in the groom’s robes; even she couldn’t help but sigh over it. “One trip to Hangzhou and now you’re a princess’s consort — what on earth has this turned into…”
Over these three days, having watched the Sabre Guard bustling with preparations, Xigua herself had come by twice to talk with her. Su Tan’er knew perfectly well this marriage was meant to be a sham, but sending her own husband off to bow before heaven and earth with another woman, and to sleep beside her that very night — none of that sat easily, no matter how she reasoned it through.
The procession to fetch the bride, and the parade through the streets afterward, was confined to the Sabre Guard’s territory along Xiliu Street. But the Sabre Guard had always been a close-knit community; every household prepared a little wine and food, a few well-wishes, and by the time the procession finally wound its way back to the main estate for the ceremony of bowing to heaven and earth before Fang La, Shao Xianying, and the others, evening was already drawing near. Lanterns and firecrackers began going off throughout the city, and the glow began to light up the whole sky.
Outside Hangzhou, in the encircling camp ten li from the city walls, Tong Guan, who was just coming out to have his meal, could see the commotion from a distance. “What’s going on over there?”
“Looks like… they’re holding some kind of celebration?”
“…Damn it.”
As the sky darkened further, fireworks rose over Xiliu Street, and amid the blossoming light and silver trees, the celebration grew ever more raucous. On the far side of the city, in what had once been the Lou family residence, Lou Shuwan, dressed in black, stepped out of her chamber and watched the commotion for a while before asking the person beside her, “What’s happening over there?”
Since the deaths of Lou Jinlin and Lou Shuwang, the Lou family’s fortunes had gone into steep decline. A starved camel is still bigger than a horse, as the saying goes, but once the city entered wartime conditions, the flow of goods within the city had already slipped beyond anything the Lou family could touch. Once people move on, even tea grows cold — and since the mourning period began, Lou Shuwan had felt this household steadily filling with the air of decay and death. Her second brother, Lou Shuweng, had already sunk entirely into ruin, drowning his days in drink and women. Lou Shuwan tried her best to keep her own mind clear, but everything around her seemed like a bog dragging her steadily down, and she had no idea what she was even supposed to do, letting the darkness swallow her up little by little…
Since that affair, the Tiger-Slaying Ascetic Qin Gulai had already left, though the Immortal Fairy of Lingshan, Wei Lingxue, remained. Compared to the withering household she served, being from the martial world, she naturally kept up her habit of gathering information from every direction. Wei Lingxue hesitated a moment now, then finally spoke. “The Sabre Guard is holding a wedding — word is… that Ning Liheng is marrying the Nation-Protecting Princess, Liu Qianqian…” (Within Fang La’s ranks, Fang Baihua held the title Nation-Pacifying Grand Princess, and Liu Xigua had been granted the title Nation-Protecting Princess.)
At the name Ning Liheng, Lou Shuwan’s hand trembled abruptly, her gaze flickering, her expression frozen for a long moment before she finally lifted her head. “Oh.” The distant glow of light crossed and flickered over her face; there was no telling what she was thinking, or whether she was thinking anything at all. After a long while, she finally turned, dazed, and went back into that cold room…
The festivities continued. In the small courtyard, Su Tan’er and the others were watching the same fireworks, eating snacks, chatting, occasionally playing a game of Gomoku. Now and then Juan’er would ask, “Miss, Xiao Chan, what do you think our master’s up to right now?” Xiao Chan would look at Su Tan’er with a wronged expression, and Su Tan’er could only roll her eyes. “Don’t even think about it!”
As for what Ning Yi was actually up to — a wedding in a mountain stronghold followed roughly the same pattern everywhere. After the ceremony of bowing to heaven and earth, it was all bowls of wine and cuts of meat, raucous carousing, and once Fang La and the other dignitaries had departed, things grew even wilder. Some stripped off their clothes and wrestled each other; some drank and cursed at the top of their lungs; Chen Fan grabbed Ning Yi’s musket to shoot an apple balanced on Qian Luoning’s head, only to end up hitting a roof tile instead, and so on.
Ning Yi managed to slip away in time, at least without getting drunk. There was still some sense of rank and propriety within the Sabre Guard after all — with Xigua getting married, no one dared get her new husband hopelessly drunk, and Liu Tiannan and the others did their best to prevent it — but by the time he finally got away, it was already quite late. Making his way through the back hall to the courtyard where the bridal chamber stood, he found it quiet, deserted.
Pushing open the door, he found the bridal chamber glowing warm and red in the light of great candles. The girl, veiled in a red bridal cloth, dressed in a red gown and red embroidered shoes, sat quietly at the edge of the bed, hands clasped in her lap. There was no telling how long she had been sitting like that, though Ning Yi at least knew it hadn’t been a short stretch of time since she’d been led in after the ceremony while he was outside dealing with everyone else.
Closing the door, Ning Yi stood there a moment, then walked over and picked up the ceremonial gold scale-rod from the table, lifting the veil. Beneath it, beneath the great phoenix crown, the girl blinked her eyes, glanced at him a few times, then lowered her head slightly. Though there wasn’t much of a blush of shyness to be seen, she was certainly no longer the sabre-wielding, world-striding Lord of the Sabre Manor, Liu Dabiao’s heir. Much as she had been three nights before, she now looked simply like a beautiful, curious, and somewhat sensible young girl.
The plan had originally been to stay open-hearted about it, to bring up a few simple, natural topics to dilute the deliberateness and awkwardness of the moment. But in that instant, Ning Yi found he had no idea what to say either…