Chapter 75 Lost

The wedding procession walked back from Wang's house with music and drums, and there were onlookers on both sides of the road.

The prime minister's marriage is a rare and happy event, and everyone came out to share in the joy.

Xu Bing was wearing a red robe with a large red silk flower hanging on his chest, and he was sitting on the horse with his head held high.

Wang Tingyue was sitting in the bridal sedan with her veil covering her head and an apple in her hand. When she heard the cheers outside, she couldn't help but curl up the corners of her mouth.

Some people didn't know who the girl in the sedan chair was, so they asked quietly, "Whose family is the bride from? Her family must be quite wealthy!"

There were sixty-four dowry boxes at the back, packed so full that the wheels of the people carrying them were bent.

In fact, most of these things were dowries left by Mrs. Wang, and the rest were prepared by Wang Ke for his daughter before he died.

He felt that he owed his daughter too much. If he had not made a poor choice in choosing the right person and arranged the marriage for her, her daughter would not have been implicated and still not be able to get married in her twenties.

However, Wang Ke was an honest official and did not have much savings. The little money he had was used to compensate his daughter, leaving him with no money to help his two sons get promoted. Now his eldest son only holds a sinecure of the sixth rank, and his youngest son is a teacher at Pingshan Academy.

However, the Wang brothers never resented their sister. On the contrary, they had a very good relationship and they also loved their eldest sister.

The bridal sedan soon arrived at the gate of Xu's residence. A lucky person read the marriage certificate, and then a lucky person lifted the curtain and took the bride off the sedan.

A blessed person is one who has parents above him, children below him, a healthy husband, and a happy family.

The lucky person who lifted the curtain of the sedan chair was the wife of the Minister of Rites. Her surname was Liu and she was a mellow-looking woman with a cheerful personality. She loved doing this job the most and never refused anyone who asked her to do it. In her words, "This is because they think highly of me and want me to share in their good fortune!"

She lifted the curtain with a smile on her face, held Wang Tingyue's arm and helped her down, then led her step by step to Xu Bing and let the bride hold the other end of the silk.

Xu Bing slowly brought her into the house, jumped over the saddle, stepped over the fire basin, and finally got married in the hall in front of all the relatives and friends.

When Song Yuzhu arrived, it happened to be the time for worshipping heaven and earth. Xu Bing saw him from afar and immediately knelt down to worship.

Song Yuzhu waved his hand and asked him to complete the ceremony first.

After worshiping heaven and earth, the rewards from the palace arrived, including two pairs of round-bellied vases with double handles for fertility and good fortune, two jade ruyi handles, two pairs of coral ornaments, ten pairs of jade bowls, ten pairs of jade plates, eight pairs of jade hairpins and some cloth... These things were all in pairs, for good luck.

The ministers all sighed that Xu Xiang’s relationship with the emperor was indeed special, and this reward was quite generous.

After Xu Bing and his wife thanked the emperor, they followed the procedure and entered the bridal chamber. After Xu Bing sent his wife back, he hurried back to the front yard and found Song Yuzhu and her group in the side hall.

"Greetings to His Majesty!"

Song Yuzhu held the wedding candy in her mouth and said with a smile: "Hurry up and get up, Xu Xiang looks particularly energetic today."

Xu Bing's face turned red. "Your Majesty, please stop teasing me. I have set up a separate table for you in the main hall. Please move over there."

Song Yuzhu waved her hand and said, "I won't drink any more wine. They can't eat if I'm here. Let Zhao Xiao drink two glasses for me."

"Why."

"Okay, go and greet the guests. I'll be back soon."

Before leaving, Song Yuzhu grabbed Zhao Xiao's arm and told him, "Drink less. If you drink too much, you'll get a headache again."

Zhao Xiao sent him to the carriage and said, "That's a relief."

After the emperor left, the others relaxed a lot, especially the military officers, a bunch of rough guys, who were drinking and clamoring as if they were at war.

It's rare for us to get together like this on weekdays, so today we didn't talk about business but just competed in drinking. After drinking so much, we all blew the jar.

In comparison, the civil officials were much more polite. They were used to intrigue among themselves in the court on weekdays. Now that they had the chance to sit together, they couldn't help but make a few remarks, making the atmosphere a little awkward.

There are also some people who show their true colors after drinking a little bit of alcohol, and what they say becomes more and more incoherent.

"If you ask me, Prime Minister Xu should marry a young and beautiful lady. What's the point of marrying an old lady like this?" It was Sun Zizhen who spoke again. He relied on his age and others ignored him, and became more and more outrageous.

The councillor sitting at the same table tugged at his sleeve and said, "Lord Sun, on such a happy day, don't say these things..."

"Hic, am I wrong? If you marry a young and beautiful woman, you can enjoy her more. If you marry an old woman, she might not even lay eggs."

"You've had too much to drink. Can I take you to rest?"

"Don't pull me, I'm not drunk, I can drink a lot." Sun Ying stood up stumblingly.

Seeing this, the people at the next table couldn't help but laugh in a low voice: "He really knows how to enjoy himself. Some time ago, he married a sixteen-year-old girl, who is younger than his granddaughter. He has no shame at his age."

In fact, Sun Zi Zheng has been harping on Wang Tingyue's age, and there is another hidden story.

When Wang Tingyue finished her mourning period, she was already in her twenties. A matchmaker arranged for an official to remarry her, among whom was Sun Zizheng.

At that time, Sun Zizheng was already over fifty years old, several years older than Wang Ke. How could he push his daughter into the fire pit? He ordered the servant to beat the unreliable matchmaker out with a stick.

When Sun Ying heard about this, he was furious. He thought to himself, is this girl from the Wang family really a fairy? Is it unfair for her to marry a third-rank official as his wife? !

Later, Wang Tingyue's marriage never took place, which was also due to his handiwork. He secretly sent people to disrupt several matchmaking attempts.

He was secretly proud of himself after Wang Ke was tortured to death and Wang Tingyue became an old maid. He wanted to take this opportunity to make her his concubine and make her regret not agreeing to marry him.

Who would have thought that Zhang Qikai would intervene and introduce the person to Xu Bing directly? But he couldn't afford to offend this fake person, Sun Zizheng, and he hated him so much that he could only say that the grapes were sour.

Seeing that he was getting more and more outrageous, the officials at the same table either lowered their heads to eat or made excuses to go to the toilet. Who dared to sit with such a person? He would die without knowing how he died!

On such a happy day, other people didn't want him to cause trouble, so they quickly called the servants in the mansion and helped Sun Zizheng to rest nearby.

"Don't pull me, I can walk!"

"Is this how Prime Minister Xu treats guests?"

"What's so good about Wang Tingyue? How can she be worthy of you, Prime Minister Xu... I'll send you a few fresh-looking girls to try someday, and you'll know that this old and ugly woman is boring."

It happened that Liu Yanzi came out of the side hall after dinner. When she walked into the yard, she saw two servants supporting the staggering Sun Zizhen towards her, and heard the old man still muttering dirty words.

Liu Yanzi gave him a cold look and turned away.

*

After leaving Xu's house, Song Yuzhu did not return to the palace, but went home for a walk. Tongtong's first birthday was in two days, and he planned to officially confer the title of princess on his sister.

When Song Yuzhu first brought his parents to Beijing, he mentioned this to them. Not only did he want to confer the title of princess, but he also wanted to posthumously confer the title of Empress Dowager on Song Bai and Jiang Rong.

However, Song Bai and his wife rejected it outright. Jiang Rong said, "Tongtong is still young. If we make her a princess so early, I'm afraid we won't be able to suppress her good fortune."

As for the two of them, they did not want to be the Emperor and Empress Dowager. They felt that just leading an ordinary life with their children was good enough.

Song Yuzhu respected her parents' wishes and felt that being filial to them was more important than any empty reputation.

The weather was a little warmer today. When I came, Tongtong was playing with Xiaomei's daughter in the yard.

Song Yutong, who is almost one year old, can already walk a few steps with the help of something. Song Ping'er beside her clapped her hands and encouraged her: "Come on, Tongtong!"

Xiaomei held her daughter and whispered, "What did mother teach you at home?"

Ping'er stammered, "No, you can't call me Tongtong by my name. You have to call me Miss."

Xiaomei nodded.

Ping'er tilted her head and said, "But I am the older sister." She was too young and couldn't tell the difference between an older sister and a young lady.

Song Yuzhu said: "Children don't care about that, just call them whatever you want."

When Xiaomei saw him coming, she immediately knelt down and kowtowed: "Your Highness!"

Ping Er followed suit and stuck out her butt: "Greetings, Your Majesty."

Song Yuzhu found her cute, so she reached out to pick up Ping'er and pinched her apple-like face, thinking back to the time when she was the one who delivered this little girl.

Song Yutong, who was standing next to him, saw him and also stretched out his two short hands to ask for a hug.

Song Yuzhu teased her deliberately: "If you call me brother, I will hug you."

"Dee...dee...dee..." Song Yutong shouted incoherently.

Song Yuzhu reached out and picked up his sister as well, and the two little girls giggled in his arms.

Jiang Rong came out of the house upon hearing the noise and quickly ran over to say, "Put it down quickly, don't let the child fall."

"fine."

"If she falls, she'll be in trouble." Jiang Rong took Song Yutong over, and Xiaomei also picked up her own daughter and left.

"How come you have time to come here today?" The mother and her two children entered the house.

"Xu Xiang got married, I went to take a look."

"I had forgotten about this. No wonder your father said he wanted to go to a wedding this morning."

Song Yuzhu: "How are the preparations for my sister's first birthday party going?"

"Everything is ready. We have prepared ten tables for the banquet. We only need to invite some close relatives to have a meal."

Song Yuzhu nodded. Given their special status, it would not be appropriate to invite ministers from the court.

"Our little Tongtong is almost one year old." Song Yuzhu picked up her sister and tickled her.

The little girl laughed and kept shouting, "Hey, hey, hey!"

Jiang Rong was surprised and said, "Oh my, Tongtong can actually call me brother now."

Xiao Tongtong hugged Song Yuzhu's neck and raised her head proudly, as if to say, "Look how great I am!" This made everyone in the room laugh.

*

On the other side, Xiaomei took her daughter out of the Song Mansion and the two walked home.

After Song Quan became the housekeeper, Song Yuzhu released him from slavery and gave him a two-story house, which was not far from the Song family and could be reached in a quarter of an hour on foot.

On weekdays, the couple worked in the mansion during the day and went home to rest in the evening.

The two of them walked to the door of the cloth shop. Xiaomei remembered that her daughter's shoes were a little small, so she went in to get two pieces of cloth and made some in her spare time in the evening.

While choosing the fabric, Ping'er stood by alone, playing and waiting.

When Xiaomei paid the silver and took the cloth to leave, she suddenly found that her daughter was missing!

Her head buzzed and she almost fell to the ground. She quickly asked the guy next to her: "Have you seen my daughter?!"

The guy shook his head, he was so busy cutting the cloth that he didn't notice the child next to him.

Xiaomei quickly ran out of the cloth shop and looked around, but there was no sign of the child anywhere on the crowded street!

She ran to the shop next door and asked, "Sister-in-law, have you seen a little girl this big, wearing a red coat and skirt?"

Everyone in the shop shook their heads.

It's freezing outside. How would such a little child survive if he got kidnapped?

Xiaomei was so anxious that she burst into tears. After asking around without success, she could only rush back to the Song Mansion to ask her husband for help.

The servant at the door saw her coming back and asked, "Sister Meizi, why are you back again?"

"Quick, go and help me call Song Quan, Ping'er is missing!"

(End of this chapter)