Chapter 248 Expectations
After struggling for a while, Lady Yu could only say, "The princess is truly extraordinary..." and then she could say nothing more.
The eldest princess did not want her daughter to be engaged too early, and Princess Chang Le was a rebellious woman who would never cook for her husband. The marriage proposal from Lady Yu was impossible to continue. After some idle chatter, she took her leave without looking back.
Qi Yuxuan breathed a slight sigh of relief after the person left.
"Only you would dare say something like that. Does that mean you're really not going to get married or remarry in the future?"
The eldest princess tapped her forehead and smiled helplessly.
“I inquired about it for you a few days ago. Pei Yan is twenty-two years old. He was betrothed as a child, but after his parents both passed away, the Qu family, the girl’s family, objected to the engagement and broke it off. Unexpectedly, he became the top scholar in the imperial examination and has a bright future. The Qu family is now eager to remarry him… As a result, many people in the capital know about this.”
"Furthermore, Pei Yan is just a top scholar. It's unknown how far he will go in the future. He probably wants to humiliate the Qu family who broke off the engagement by marrying you. Hmph, he is truly ignorant and fearless, with ambitions that are higher than the sky."
The eldest princess became somewhat angry when she mentioned the Lady of Yuhou's relationship with him. After leaving, she didn't avoid Qi Yuxuan and directly criticized Pei Yan for a long time. After she finished speaking about Pei Yan, she then talked about the Lady of Yuhou.
“If it weren’t for the fact that I had some past relationship with her, I would have seen the guests out the moment she brought it up. The reason I had you called over is because you haven’t experienced this before, so that if others try to tease you about it later, you’ll have the confidence to retort.”
"This is your own marriage, and while my advice is important, the most important thing is your own heart. For example, back then, I fell in love with the prince consort at first sight, and later I felt that he had a good character and personality, so I was willing to marry him. Otherwise, no matter how much others praised him, I would never have married him..."
Speaking of those days, the princess's tone carried a touch of girlish nostalgia, but this nostalgia came and went quickly. When she thought of her deceased husband, a faint sadness appeared in the corners of her eyes and brows.
"Although he's gone... the more than ten years I spent supporting and cherishing him were genuine. A good husband is more than just the good things about being together..."
The eldest princess carefully instructed her daughter on how to get along with her husband: when necessary, one must not yield an inch, but when necessary, one should not be overly indulgent. In short, there were two key points: first, for a stable home and harmonious marriage, mutual understanding and tolerance are essential; second, as a wife who is naturally in a subordinate position, one must stand firm. Whether it's the wealth, power, or status of one's family, or one's own abilities, only the strong can transcend right and wrong.
Qi Yuxuan nodded repeatedly as she listened, and when she looked up again, her clear eyes were already glistening with tears.
No one had ever told her these things in her past life.
She married Xie Tingzhou not long after she came of age. Her dowry consisted of only two hundred taels of silver and thirty-eight loads of furniture, bedding, clothes and other daily necessities. She even heard that since there were not thirty-eight loads, they had two extra sets of pots and pans made to make up the difference.
On the eve of her wedding, Lin Hui feigned a headache but still had Li's mother bring her a book wrapped in red cloth to teach her how to consummate the marriage...
She thought she had stopped caring about these things a long time ago, but those long-accumulated grievances seemed to have been accidentally opened up, like snow melting slowly in spring, with streams converging and eventually becoming a raging torrent that could breach all riverbanks.
The princess was still saying something, but Qi Yuxuan couldn't hear a word she was saying. She hugged the princess's soft waist and buried her face in the princess's shoulder, crying so hard she could barely breathe.
The princess was startled and quickly hugged him. Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, she heard the little girl in her arms speak in a hoarse voice, sobbing and hiccuping as she spoke:
"Mother, I... I can't bear to leave you, hiccup... I don't want to get married, okay?"
The princess, who had been somewhat flustered, breathed a sigh of relief and immediately turned the little girl in her arms around to wipe away her tears.
"not good."
"Hiccup, why?"
Princess: "I will grow old and leave one day. Even though I believe you can live well on your own, this world is harsh on women. In their eyes, it is both right and wrong for you to be single... If all else fails, as a last resort, you can marry a husband and be a decoration."
Qi Yuxuan: "But I don't care about what those people think. I just want to stay with my mother forever."
The princess pondered for a moment with difficulty, then her eyes suddenly lit up: "Then I'll find you a son-in-law, and I'll build you the Chang Le Princess Mansion. I'll throw the future prince consort into the princess mansion, and the two of us can live our own little life behind closed doors in the princess mansion?"
Qi Yuxuan slowly sat up straight, thinking that this was not a bad idea.
"Well, let's talk about it in a few years. It's still too early now."
The mother and daughter reached an agreement and smiled at each other.
Summer days are long, and the sunlight shines into the bedroom, brightening the sleeping girl's eyes and making her stir.
"Princess, wake up."
A maidservant brought in the washing utensils and was startled to find the person in the bed still fast asleep.
At this time of day, the princess would usually be up practicing the Eight Pieces of Brocade.
"What time is it?" Qi Yuxuan rubbed her eyes to adjust to the light in the room and asked.
"It's already 7:00 AM. We'll be entering the palace in a quarter of an hour."
Bi Sui lifted the beaded curtain and came in, quickly parted the bed curtains and lifted them to both sides, then dug out the person who was still dazed under the quilt.
"My dear princess, wake up! Today is the day the Empress Dowager returns to the palace. Have you forgotten?!"
"Empress Dowager..."
Qi Yuxuan's groggy mind took a while to process what had happened.
"Quickly, get me washed and dressed!"
The bedroom became lively. When she finally finished dressing up and went to the front to enter the palace with the Princess, the Princess stopped and stared intently at the phoenix-headed jade hairpin on her head.
"Yu Xuan, where did this hairpin come from? I hadn't noticed it before. Did you buy it from a shop outside?"
When the princess asked, Qi Yuxuan, without saying a word, first fumbled to pull it off, then handed it over and said:
“It was a coming-of-age gift from my cousin, the Crown Prince, before the New Year. I thought the jade was of good quality and matched my palace dress today, so I had it put on.”
Actually, she had worn it at the New Year's Eve palace banquet as well, but her attire was too formal that day, and she wasn't sitting next to the Princess. Since then, she hadn't bothered to wear the jade hairpin, afraid of losing or breaking it.
She thought that perhaps she had some unrealistic expectations of the Crown Prince, which was why she cherished the jade hairpin he gave her so much.
However, she claimed that she had already made things clear with the Crown Prince, and that they should not have any further interactions beyond that of cousins and ruler and subject.
“I remember now, I saw a hairpin of this shape more than twenty years ago, but back then it was made of blood jade…”
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