On the eve of the wedding, the capital was ablaze with festive red silk. In the fitting room on the third floor of Jinxiu Pavilion, twelve ram-horn palace lanterns illuminated the walls. The wedding gown, painstakingly crafted by top embroiderers over three days and nights, hung on a rosewood frame. Tribute brocade from the South China Sea shone with a pearlescent sheen. Ninety-nine phoenixes embroidered with gold thread spread their wings in the candlelight, ready to take flight. Each phoenix's eye was studded with a black pearl the size of a millet grain, swaying gently in the breeze, shimmering like fireflies on a summer night.
Chen Weiwan lifted her skirt and spun in a circle, the lotus-embroidered hem sweeping across the blue bricks, making a rustling sound. Chuntao's hands trembled as she held the bronze mirror, her eyes wide. "Miss, look at these phoenix feathers; every feather looks alive! With your face, you're like the goddess of the underworld descended to earth!"
"Xuannv?" Chen Weiwan pinched the pearl tassels hanging from the hem of her skirt, and deliberately tilted her head to look at the person in the mirror, "I think you look like a little female monkey who stole a peacock's clothes, and your tail hasn't grown out yet." She teased, but her fingertips couldn't help but stroke the jade belt with golden phoenix pattern around her waist - in her previous life, she didn't even have a complete wedding dress. When she got married, she wore a lilac-colored skirt that Shen Ruorou disliked as old. Now, this glittering and colorful brocade made her heart burn.
"Miss!" Chuntao suddenly rushed to the window, clinging to the carved window frame and exclaiming, "Liu Ruolin has come with her men! And she's carrying a gilded food box, like a tigress on patrol!"
Chen Weiwan raised her eyebrows and lightly stroked Fenghuang's eyes with her fingertips. Her obsidian eyes reflected her sly smile: "You came just in time. My wedding dress is still short of a few 'living background boards' that can sneeze." She leaned close to Chuntao's ear and whispered a few words. The maid's eyes lit up after hearing it, and she ran out on tiptoe as if she had received an imperial decree. The hem of her skirt brought up a gust of wind when it swept across the threshold.
A moment later, the carved wooden door of the fitting room banged open, and in burst Liu Ruolin, accompanied by four noble ladies, made everyone hold their noses, as if they had stepped in dog shit. She wore a striking pomegranate red dress with gold embroidery, three times more vibrant than Shen Weiwan's wedding gown. Pointing at the wedding dress on the hanger, she screamed, "Shen Weiwan! How dare you use bright red! Don't you know that only the Empress can wear the scarlet golden phoenix?"
Shen Weiwan blinked in feigned surprise, her long eyelashes casting fan-shaped shadows under the palace lanterns. "Ah? Isn't red a color for weddings? Could it be that Miss Liu's family also used such a bright color for funerals?" She paused, deliberately looking up and down at the other person's skirt. "Oh, I see. Maybe Miss Liu wanted to practice wearing mourning clothes in advance."
"You're looking for death!" Liu Ruolin's face flushed red with anger, her nails practically digging into her palms. Lin Wanyue, standing beside her, quickly stepped in front of her, offering a false smile. "Don't be angry, sister. Sister Chen just doesn't know the rules. We're here to deliver wedding cakes, and we've asked the kitchen to add double the sweet osmanthus sugar." As she spoke, she leaned forward, deliberately rubbing the gilded food box against the wedding dress, the gilded corners threatening to scratch the brocade.
Shen Weiwan was prepared. She tiptoed back half a step, pretending to adjust the hem of her skirt with a deft lift of her hand. Lin Wanyue's pounce missed, and the food box clattered to the ground, sending the date paste wedding cakes tumbling all over the floor. Even more remarkable was the fact that as she rose, her hair, adorned with pearls and jade, swept across the hem of Shen Weiwan's skirt—where Chuntao had already sprinkled a layer of fine pepper, imported from the Western Regions, which now stirred up a red mist.
"A-choo! A-choo!" Lin Wanyue burst into tears, her carefully drawn eyebrows reduced to two crooked black lines. Liu Ruolin and the other ladies were unable to dodge and inhaled the powder. The dressing room was suddenly filled with sneezes, like a swarm of wasps whose nest had been disturbed.
Shen Weiwan covered her nose and jumped back two steps, her face full of "innocence": "Oh my, what's wrong with you sisters?" She leaned close to the wedding dress and sniffed it, her fingertips touching the phoenix's wings, "Could it be that my wedding dress is too fragrant and attracted the 'sneezing spirit'?" The palace lanterns reflected a smile in her eyes, "Hmm~ It does have a special fragrance, like... like pepper mixed with stupidity."
"You...A-choo! You did something to the hem of my skirt!" Liu Ruolin shouted angrily, covering her red and swollen nose, her voice as hoarse as a broken gong.
"God knows!" Chen Weiwan raised her hands, her jade bracelets jingling in the light. "This wedding dress is the treasure of Jinxiu Pavilion. I'm in so much pain, how can I bear to touch it?" She suddenly moved closer to Liu Ruolin, tilting her head in pretended worry. "But sisters, why do you sneeze when you get close to me? Could it be... allergic to gold thread?" She clapped her hands. "Oh! I heard from the Imperial Hospital that people who are allergic to gold thread will never be able to wear good clothes in their lives!"
"You're talking nonsense!" a fat-faced lady retorted with a scream, and then she sneezed loudly again, and her double chin shook like a meat bun just out of the pot.
Chen Weiwan shrugged, lifted her skirt, and walked around them, examining them as if they were treasures. "Tsk, tsk, you're so cute when you sneeze, like toads in the fields after the rain, puffing up and down, except you're missing a tongue to lick mosquitoes." She pulled out a handkerchief embroidered with piglets and pretended to wipe away tears. "What a pity for these wedding cakes! I wanted to give you a taste, but now it seems... I'd better feed them to the piglets at the orphanage. Even their sneezes are prettier than yours."
At that moment, a figure flashed by, and Xiao Yu entered, waving a folding fan painted with black bamboo. The Hetian jade on his belt buckle shone softly under the lamplight. He glanced at the wedding cakes rolling around on the floor and the weeping ladies, raising an eyebrow and saying, "I heard a sneeze downstairs and thought a weasel had entered Jinxiu Pavilion. It turns out someone sent the princess a 'sneezing gift.'" He walked over to Shen Weiwan and calmly used his folding fan to clear away the remaining powder mist. "This gift is quite unique! It saves me from buying firecrackers."
Liu Ruolin grabbed a life-saving straw and tumbled to Xiao Yu's feet: "Your Highness! You have to make a decision for us! Shen Weiwan... Achoo! Using witchcraft to harm us!"
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