In the height of summer, night fell over Guangling City like silk, the new moon hanging like a hook.
Beneath the window of the west chamber, Shen Tang sat alone, chin resting on her hand. Her wedding was tomorrow, yet she felt no drowsiness at all, idly moving black and white pieces back and forth across the chessboard.
The little maid Huaping rubbed her sleepy eyes, stretched, and yawned.
“Miss, why aren’t you asleep yet? You’ll have to get up early tomorrow for your hair and makeup. Our family and the Qi family are joining hands through marriage—there’s sure to be a grand celebration!”
Shen Tang’s thoughts drifted for a moment before she pulled herself back from her worries, turning to smile faintly.
“All right, I’ll sleep now.”
With the wedding day upon her, Shen Tang still found it all somewhat… hard to believe.
Who could have imagined that she would marry her third cousin, Qi Huaijing!
Though called a cousin, he was actually the nephew of her stepmother, Madam Qi—related to her only by marriage, not blood.
Shen Tang’s father had been famous for his talent from a young age, passing the xiucai examination before he turned twenty, marrying and having a daughter. After his first wife passed away early, he took a daughter of the merchant Qi family as his second wife, and in time had a son, Shen Di, and a daughter, Shen Li.
With this big, affectionate family around her, Shen Tang—the eldest daughter left behind by the first wife—had become something of a spare person.
Fortunately, her stepmother Madam Qi wasn’t unkind, and Shen Tang had always been gentle and agreeable, getting along quite well with her stepmother, brother, and sister.
But although her father studied diligently, his official career was poor. Not until he was past forty did he secure a minor eighth-rank post at the education office in Guangling City, writing books and teaching students.
Refined—and poor.
Perhaps because his own career had gone so badly, he was determined to find a promising scholar for his daughter. But after choosing and choosing until his eyes blurred, Shen Tang remained unwed at seventeen.
It was only then that Qi Huaijing came to propose marriage to Shen Tang.
Everyone was astonished.
Cousins had married each other since ancient times, and Madam Qi had indeed considered marrying her own daughters back into her increasingly prosperous natal family. But her own daughter Shen Li was still too young, and as for the Qi family’s third son, he…
It had long been said that he was to be betrothed to the little cousin of the Yue family, his maternal grandparents outside the capital.
It was only because a fortune-teller in the capital had declared that his fate was unsuited to early marriage that the matter had been delayed all this time.
This year, Qi Huaijing was nineteen.
His mother, Madam Yue, had been eagerly waiting for him to marry the Yue family’s young lady into the household. Who would have thought he would turn around and propose to the Shen family instead?
Everyone was baffled, and Shen Tang herself was rather surprised.
This third cousin was no stranger, after all.
Qi Huaijing had grown up in the Yue household in the capital. After returning to Guangling City, he studied under Shen Tang’s father for several years, and afterward often came to visit the Shen household. She and he… could barely be called childhood sweethearts.
Yet he had never once shown the slightest intention of marrying her.
In fact, just days before he came to propose, he had been sitting in the Shen family’s parlor, playing chess with his little cousin Shen Li.
Shen Li was only nine and had just learned the game—how could she beat him? Seeing herself utterly routed by her cousin, she simply began to cheat, reaching out her small hands to scatter the pieces across the board.
Qi Huaijing didn’t get angry at all; he just laughed it off.
Shen Tang had merely been watching, but after her little sister’s repeated defeats, Shen Li urged her older sister to avenge her.
Only then did Qi Huaijing look up at her with a faint smile.
“Sister Tang, do you dare?”
Shen Tang smiled inwardly. This cousin knew perfectly well that she had been skilled at chess since childhood—how could she not dare?
To avenge her sister, she rolled up her sleeves and took her seat, marshaling her forces, capturing territory, driving him into retreat after retreat until he bowed his head in surrender.
The outcome was decided, and Qi Huaijing admitted defeat with a smile, letting his young cousin stick freshly picked spring flowers in his hair—several blooms, stuck every which way.
He had an elegant bearing and striking features. With a few flowers tucked into his dark hair, he looked anything but gaudy; instead, they only set off his handsome, otherworldly air.
Amid the laughter, a strand of his bound hair came loose and fell right beside his smiling eyes. Shen Tang’s mind wavered for a moment—she wanted to reach out and touch that strand too.
But she didn’t.
She only smiled faintly, watching the two cousins play and frolic.
He wasn’t her own cousin by blood—there was a layer of family ties between them, but not blood itself.
Besides, she was old enough now that she only came out to see this cousin she’d known since childhood when her father and stepmother were both present. How could she be so forward?
Perhaps because of that momentary distraction, when Madam Qi told her a few days later that Qi Huaijing had come to ask for her hand in marriage, she nodded.
Once tonight had passed, that strand of his hair… would rest by her pillow every night.
At the thought, Shen Tang’s heart fluttered. She stroked the chess piece she had long since warmed with her touch, her heart pounding.
The next day, just as dawn broke, firecrackers sounded in the Shen family courtyard. Red silk and festive decorations went up, and the place bustled with excitement.
Since Shen Tang’s mother had died early, her aunt, Lady Song, worried that Madam Qi might shortchange her niece, and came over first thing in the morning to help.
“Tang’er, the Qi family is large and prosperous, with many people and many affairs. You’ve always been modest and careful, but from now on you must be even more diligent, and treat everyone kindly…”
Though Madam Qi was a stepmother, she had always treated Shen Tang reasonably well. Seeing her about to marry back into her own natal family, she pulled herself together and offered advice, sentence by sentence.
“Huaijing was spoiled from childhood—at home he’s like a little demon king, and no one dares cross him. In the future, if the two of you ever quarrel, you’d best give in to him a little…”
Shen Tang sat upright in the center, listening to the two elders go back and forth, nodding obediently.
In the pauses between words, Madam Qi studied her carefully.
Shen Tang had always dressed modestly and simply. Only today, in full bridal finery, did it become clear how fair her skin was—whiter than snow—how her dark hair fell like clouds, her brows like painted hills, her eyes like autumn water. She was strikingly beautiful.
Madam Qi sighed inwardly. What a pity.
Such a proper young lady from an official’s family—gentle to a fault, lacking any fierceness. Once she married into the Qi family… she might gain wealth and status, but she would likely lose peace and ease.
When Madam Qi had married Shen Tang’s father, the Qi family had been nothing more than a well-off merchant household.
But with the powerful support of the Yue family in the capital, the Qi family had grown richer by the day, and now counted among the famous wealthy households of Guangling City.
Madam Qi mused to herself: that nephew of hers, pampered since birth, was now taking Shen Tang as his wife—no doubt because he fancied her gentle, agreeable nature. In the future, she feared…
She would have a hard time managing him.
What was more, the Qi family’s father had died early, the mother was willful, the eldest legitimate brother had died young, and the second brother, born of a concubine, controlled more than half the family estate—while his wife, the second daughter-in-law, was the shrewdest household manager of them all…
Being the third daughter-in-law of the Qi family would be no easy task!