Father Wen's final choice of his daughter Wen Ye was much more surprising than Mrs. Shen's.
At night, he stayed in the main courtyard.
Said to Shen: "I thought Ye'er would choose the Wu family."
The Shen family has a complicated situation and is not suitable for marriage. The Xu family is too high-class. Once you enter the family, you will have to be careful and cautious every day.
Father Wen had carefully observed Wu's son and found him to be talented, gentle, and filial.
Apart from the slight surprise when she first found out, Shen has now gradually understood Xiao Wenye's thoughts.
As a concubine's daughter, she has always had different thoughts from others. Things that others care about and are jealous of, such as the title of a second wife and having second children, are all beneficial to her.
Even if Wen Ye treats her stepson as sincerely as her own son in the future, the people in the Duke's Mansion might not completely believe it. However, for Wen Ye, this is exactly what she wants. She wants to have a child as late as possible, and it would be best if she doesn't have to have any children at all.
Shen glanced at Father Wen and said, "Although the Wu family's son is good, the Xu family is better in the end."
It is obvious who to choose between the scholar from a poor family and the second master of the Duke's Mansion.
What Shen didn't say was that his cousin who had lived at home for more than ten years was always a trouble.
After all, a cousin is different from an ordinary concubine.
If Wen Ye married him, this trouble alone would be enough to give her a lot of trouble.
As for why I didn't tell Wen's father about this, it was very simple. No man in the world would understand this kind of thing. In their eyes, taking a cousin who had fallen on hard times as a concubine was a very common thing.
Looking at the entire Shengjing City, there are three or four families that the Shen family knows of.
They only need to enjoy the concubine's beauty and gentleness. The rest will be managed by the mistress of the house. If it is not handled properly, it will be the mistress's fault.
Shen once again glanced at Father Wen, who was looking down in deep thought.
Compared to those romantic men, Father Wen is already much better than others. But even so, Shen knows that apart from this, Father Wen is no different from other men in the world.
Fortunately, when she was a young girl, she had an older brother who was easily bored with old things and was obsessed with women. After being influenced by him for many years, Shen never had any expectations for love between men and women.
The night before her wedding, her mother taught her to be respectful to her parents-in-law, gentle to her husband, and kind to her illegitimate children, and she did just that.
After several decades, he encountered Wen Ye, a thorn in his side.
But no matter how shocked, angry, or annoyed you are at first, you will eventually return to silence.
Shen's eyes dimmed slightly. At the root of it, perhaps there was a trace of yearning in her heart...
Father Wen thought of Duke Xu, who had come to him to 'encounter' him by chance when he resigned from his post. Even though he no longer had any intention of currying favor with him, he was still somewhat excited when he learned that he was going to become a relative of the Duke's Mansion.
He no longer had any ambition to advance to a higher position, but he still had two sons serving as officials in the court.
With such a capable brother-in-law, your career in officialdom will be smoother in the future.
Therefore, Father Wen nodded and said, "Let's do it this way. I'll give Ye'er more dowry later. After all, the other party is the Duke's Mansion."
The Duke's Mansion is prominent, and the two brothers have a deep affection for each other. Although the old Duke and his wife in the mansion have passed away for many years, Duke Xu has never thought of separating his younger brother from them.
This is also one of the reasons why many ladies from aristocratic families are willing to marry their daughters to Xu Yuejia as a second wife.
Shen said, "When the second and third girls got married, they were given the same amount as ordinary concubines' daughters. For Wen Ye, we should double it."
But even if it is double, it cannot surpass that of a legitimate daughter. Otherwise, the rules will be disrupted and outsiders will laugh at her.
Father Wen had no opinion on this, and only said, "Madam, please make the arrangements."
After the Wen and Xu families reached a tacit understanding on the marriage in private, Lady Lu, the wife of the Duke, arranged a scene in which the couple went to Puqing Temple in the suburbs to burn incense and happened to meet Shen, who was going to Puqing Temple with her daughter-in-law and concubine's daughter.
The natural result was that the two of them hit it off at first sight. Not long after returning from Puqing Temple, the news that the Wen and Xu families were discussing marriage spread.
This news shocked many ladies from aristocratic families in Shengjing.
What exactly are this Duke and his wife thinking? Xu Yuejia's first wife was not of high birth. It was said that she was the daughter of an old general of the Duke. She was raised in the Xu family for a few years when she was young and had a childhood friendship with Xu Yuejia.
After marrying into the Xu family, the first wife, Mrs. Qi, seldom went out, saying that she was not in good health. Sure enough, she passed away within a year, leaving behind only one son.
Those who once envied her began to secretly rejoice in her misfortune. In the eyes of some women who admired Xu Yuejia, this was just because Qi was unlucky.
If they had married them, they would not have lived like this, giving other women the opportunity to become stepmothers to their sons.
There were also other families who could not bear to see the harmony in the Duke's Mansion, and had a very dark thought that perhaps the Duke's wife did it on purpose because she did not want her younger brothers and sisters to surpass her. In the first time, she took advantage of their childhood friendship and let her brother-in-law marry the daughter of a military commander of humble origin. In the second time, although she chose the daughter of the Wen family, the Minister of the Ministry of Rites, she was a concubine's daughter.
Only the wife of the Earl of Yongcheng looked deeply ashamed after finding out. She was slightly surprised for a moment that Lu had finally chosen her daughter-in-law's concubine's sister, but she soon understood.
She believed in Lu's character. As the eldest daughter of the Ding'an Marquisate, how could she be so narrow-minded? She chose the concubine of the Wen family probably for the sake of her nephew who was less than two years old. She was afraid that the concubine's family background was too high, and when she had her own children in the future, she would not be able to tolerate Xu Yuxuan, the eldest son born to the first wife.
No matter what people outside talked about, the marriage between the Wen and the two families was finally settled before the end of summer.
Taking Wen Ye's age into consideration, the wedding date was not set for after the New Year, but in late autumn and early winter, which was less than three months away.
Fortunately, Shen had already prepared Wen Ye's dowry when the other two concubines got married, so now it was just a matter of adding or subtracting some things.
The deposit given to the second and third girls was three thousand taels each, and Shen doubled the amount for Wen Ye, to six thousand taels. The same was true for the rest of the dowry.
After Wen Ye received the six thousand taels, he always felt that it was unreal.
She had never seen so much silver in her two lives. Here, the annual food expenses for an ordinary family were no more than two or three taels.
How long would it take an ordinary family to earn six thousand taels?
Wen Ye made a rough calculation and suddenly felt that he was very lucky to be reborn into the Wen family. He would not have to worry about food, clothing and other necessities for the rest of his life.
With the six thousand taels of silver given by Shen, Wen Ye returned the more than three hundred taels of silver that she was going to return to her aunt and younger sister before getting married.
Aunt Chang was extremely reluctant, but Wen Ye persuaded her, "Aunt, you are all thinking about me, what about my younger sister? She is a good student, so she has to go to the bookstore to buy books frequently. You and I both know how expensive the books there are, and mother has already given me so much, which is enough for me."
What she didn't finish saying was that after she married into the Duke's Mansion, her monthly allowance would definitely be higher than it was now, so she wouldn't have to worry about having no money.
Seeing Wen Ye's insistence, Aunt Chang couldn't convince her: "But you are about to get married, and apart from this silver, Aunt Chang has nothing valuable to give you for your makeup."
As he spoke, the circles around his eyes turned red again.
Wen Ye stared at the woman in front of her. This was her biological mother in this life, and she had loved her sincerely for twenty years. It would be a lie to say that she had no feelings in her heart.
That's why she couldn't take the money.
All his life, Wen Ye was a spendthrift. His monthly allowance was always spent by the end of the month. The money that Aunt Chang and Wen Ran saved was saved from their monthly allowances and the bonuses that Wen Ran received when he performed well in his studies.
Wen Ye never learned to be truly humble in his entire life, but he also never took what others deserved.
Even if the other party is her biological mother and sister.
Wen Ye was willing to accept and give back the care and love that Aunt Chang and Wen Ran showed her on a daily basis, but she was not blessed enough to enjoy this kind of almost self-destructive kindness.
You can say she is heartless, but if she keeps too many emotions towards people in her heart, she will be tired.
Since Wen Ye has decided to be a salted fish in this life, then half of her heart must always be filled with herself, completely her.
Facing Aunt Chang's "tear killer", Wen Ye thought for a moment and got it.
She said, "Why don't you make me a winter coat? The ones in the wedding dowry that my mother prepared were all embroidered by embroiderers. I want a coat made by you personally."
It takes more than two months to make a set of winter clothes, which is not tiring at all.
When Aunt Chang heard this, not only did her heart warm up, but the redness in her eyes also faded. She said, "If you want it, I will definitely do it for you."
After solving the problem with Aunt Chang, Wen Ye said, "As for my younger sister, I will make a list of books later and use her reward money to buy them. It will be like adding makeup to my wardrobe."
The books on the list that Mr. Xuetang compiled for Wen Ran were all relatively expensive, with each book costing at least several taels. But it was different for the books she liked to read, where she could buy three or four for one tael. Buying one for five taels of silver was enough to keep her interested for a while.
Aunt Chang thought Wen Ye was talking about the Four Books and Five Classics, so she readily agreed.
The tense atmosphere of preparation for the marriage in Hengwu Courtyard did not last long. The second daughter of the Wen family, who was to marry far away in Xianzhou, finally arrived in Beijing with her husband after his promotion.
Of course, the ones who were nervous were Concubine Chang and her maids. Apart from mending two stitches on her wedding dress, Wen Ye continued to live her life as usual, just waiting to get married in two months.
Although Wen Hui was born out of wedlock, she was unable to return to her parents' home for six years after her marriage.
Therefore, when she sent the message to the Wen family, Shen agreed to her request to return to her parents' home the next day without much hesitation. At the same time, she also sent letters to the Yongcheng Earl's Mansion and the husband's home of Aunt Gui's daughter, asking them to come together the next day.
Upon learning that her daughter could return home, the usually low-key Aunt Gui cried with joy. Since her daughter got married, they had very few opportunities to see each other.
But Wen Ye, who always avoided trouble, was in a mediocre mood, or even not very good.
Wen Hui's biological mother, Aunt Bai, died of illness less than a year after Wen Hui got married. Recalling the various "grudges" between herself and Wen Hui in the past, Wen Ye believed that Wen Hui's return to her parents' home this time was mostly to cause trouble for her.
With this thought in mind, the day after tomorrow soon arrived.
All the married daughters of the Wen family returned to their parents' home and gathered together under the pretext of welcoming Wen Hui's family.
Needless to say, Wen Yuwan brought her twin children along on this trip, as well as herself. The remaining two were too young, so they were left at home and looked after by their trusted nannies.
The husband that Shen chose for Wen Lan was the youngest son of Wang, the Minister of Works. The Wang family had five sons, none of whom were born out of wedlock. The youngest son's aptitude for studying was not as good as his older brothers, but fortunately he was loved by his family and was a down-to-earth person, so his life would not be too bad in the future.
Wen Lan's personality is like Aunt Gui's, she is timid, and she cannot handle a complicated family. This kind of family with simple population and good atmosphere is more suitable for her.
Time has proved that the husband's family chosen by Shen for Wen Lan was a good one. After she got married, her husband was considerate and her sisters-in-law were harmonious. As the youngest daughter-in-law, she had four sisters-in-law above her, so she only needed to live her own life well.
After five years of marriage, she had a son and a daughter. Her husband only took a concubine as a concubine when she was pregnant. For Wen Lan, such a married life was already extremely happy.
Therefore, Aunt Gui often warned Wenlan to be filial to her stepmother Shen. If she had been treated harshly by her stepmother, she would not have such a good life now.
Wen Ye has a decent relationship with Wen Lan, and is happy for her to see that she is doing well.
Wenlan is a little more plump than when she was a girl, but she is still as timid and speaks in a soft voice.
After meeting Aunt Gui, Wen Lan walked up to Wen Ye and whispered, "Fourth sister, congratulations."
The congratulations were naturally for her upcoming marriage into the Duke's Mansion.
Wen Ye always accepts sincere blessings calmly. She said, "Thank you."
"Humph!" A rather sharp female voice suddenly interrupted the two of them, "She's just marrying and becoming a stepmother. What's there to congratulate about?"
Wen Ye lazily looked away, and a familiar face appeared in front of him. It was beautiful, but also held its head high and chest puffed out, much like a victorious rooster.
The other party glared at him: "What are you looking at!"
Wen Ye's eyebrows jumped. It's been six years, why is he still...not smart?
Wen Ye was too lazy to argue with Wen Hui, so he said casually, "Yes, I am not as good as you. You, Wen Hui, are the best."
After Wen Hui got married, she gave birth to three sons in six years. She was very confident. In addition, her husband's family respected her and her husband was ambitious. Leaving Beijing for several years not only did not calm her temper, but it became even worse than before she got married.
In a fit of rage, he spoke without thinking: "If it weren't for you, I would have -"
Wen Ye interrupted her immediately: "If it weren't for me, you would have gone to hell by now."
After saying that, he glanced at the two boys beside her and the one in the nanny's arms behind her, and said quietly, "Maybe if she works harder, she can trick a handsome ghost, have a ghost marriage with him, and give birth to a few more little ghosts."
Wen Lan, who had been afraid of ghosts since childhood, shuddered.
I thought to myself, Fourth Sister’s mouth is still so powerful.
Wen Hui, who has always been good at talking to Wen Ye since she was a child, said: "......"
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