Nian Chujiu clenched her fist. Endure!
She forcibly suppressed the anger that was about to burst from her chest. Even her voice softened deliberately.
“If you insist on sending a pink bridal sedan to carry me through the side gate of the Marquis’s Manor…”
Nian Chujiu looked at Gu Jiangzhi and spoke slowly. “Then I won’t bring a single coin in dowry.”
She paused, then delivered each word with crystal clarity. “From now on, you’ll support me.”
Gu Jiangzhi froze. He remembered her saying, “Isn’t the Gu family just interested in my Nian family’s substantial dowry?”
Who was she looking down on? He wanted her to know that his feelings for her were sincere! His inability to make her his principal wife was entirely for the sake of the bigger picture. It had nothing to do with her dowry!
With that thought, he lifted his chin and loudly declared, “Fine! I’ll go back immediately and inform my mother.”
“Mingyue, see Young Master Gu out.” Nian Chujiu turned slightly to one side and no longer looked at him. She merely brushed the corner of her eye lightly with her fingertips. The daylight was dim, casting shadows into her eyes and making them appear dark and unreadable.
Gu Jiangzhi still wanted to offer some words of comfort, but Mingyue had already stepped forward quietly, positioning herself between him and Nian Chujiu. Lowering her head respectfully, she said, “Young Master Gu, this way please.”
Awkwardly, he took one last look at Nian Chujiu’s slender yet stubborn figure, cupped his hands in farewell, and said, “Miss Nian, I will never let you down.”
Boom! A clap of thunder exploded above the small courtyard.
A flash of pale lightning illuminated heaven and earth in an instant, along with Nian Chujiu’s utterly expressionless profile.
Startled by the thunder, Gu Jiangzhi’s shoulders trembled. He wondered whether Miss Nian had even heard what he had just said. Rain poured down in torrents. He didn’t have time to think further before Mingyue hurried him out the gate. She hadn’t even given him an umbrella!
With a bang, Mingyue shut the door behind him and opened her own oil-paper umbrella overhead.
You dare ask our young lady to become a concubine, and you still think you deserve an umbrella? Hmph!
She turned and headed back to the main hall. Seeing her mistress sitting alone in thought, she asked cautiously, “Miss, are you really going to become Young Master Gu’s concubine?”
She quickly added, “The Old Madam and Madam would be heartbroken. Miss, you mustn’t do anything rash.”
Nian Chujiu looked up and replied, “It’s only a delaying tactic.”
The weight hanging over Mingyue’s heart finally lifted. Privately, she cursed Gu Jiangzhi several more times. She had been Nian Chujiu’s personal maid since childhood, and their bond was far deeper than that of ordinary mistress and servant. By custom, when her mistress married, she would be the first maid to accompany her as part of the dowry. Wherever her mistress went, she would go too. Long ago, she had already regarded Gu Jiangzhi as her future master. She had even imagined countless times how she would serve both husband and wife, help her mistress manage the household, and navigate the delicate balance between them. Who could have guessed that, in the end, things would turn out so disgracefully?
Nian Chujiu remained seated in silence for a long while, sorting through the threads of everything that had happened. The shadows of her previous life loomed over her heart. Before she realized it, her entire body was covered in sweat, and her heart pounded uncontrollably.
Dozens of lives hung by a thread. She was still terrified.
“Miss, the First Master, Second Master, and Third Master have arrived.”
As soon as Mingyue finished speaking, Nian Chujiu saw her father, Nian Weiqing, and the others step through the doorway.
Nian Weiqing wore a dark-blue silk robe with a jade ornament hanging from his waist, carrying the steady, authoritative bearing of the family patriarch. “Jiaojiao, what exactly was Gu Jiangzhi’s attitude?”
Before Nian Chujiu could answer, her second uncle, Nian Weijing, who had followed close behind, spoke first. “What attitude could he possibly have? He thinks our Nian family does not influence the capital. It’s utterly shameless!”
Her third uncle, Nian Weidong, dressed in a plain green scholar’s robe stained with traces of ink, looked every bit the refined and slender literati. “If this marriage can’t happen, then so be it. We don’t care for it anyway.”
“Father, Second Uncle, Third Uncle, please sit.” Nian Chujiu greeted each of them formally, had Mingyue serve tea, then took her place below the seat of honor. After a moment’s consideration, she decided to get straight to the point. “Father, Second Uncle, Third Uncle, a great disaster is about to befall the Nian family.”
She laid out the Gu family’s schemes one by one: withdrawing protection, driving them out, framing them…
With every sentence she spoke, the expressions of Nian Weiqing and the others grew increasingly grave.
“That can’t be possible, can it?” Nian Weiqing asked, half-believing, half-doubtful. “Is there no law or justice left?”
“That’s exactly what Gu Jiangzhi just said.” Nian Chujiu turned toward Mingyue. “If you don’t believe me, ask Mingyue.”
Mingyue was bewildered. Wasn’t this what Miss said herself? Young Master Gu had even protested his innocence. But if Miss said it was Gu Jiangzhi who’d said it, then that was how it would be.
She nodded. “Young Master Gu did indeed say so.”
Nian Chujiu knew she had to convince her elders to trust her completely.
“The Gu family has only recently been granted a marquisate. If they wanted to crush a merchant family like ours, would it be any harder than crushing an ant?”
Meanwhile, at Marquis Zhongyonh’s Manor, Madam Jin had long since been anxiously waiting in the inner courtyard.
Upon learning that Gu Jiangzhi had returned, Madam Jin immediately sent someone to summon her son. The moment he arrived, she anxiously asked: “Well? Did that girl from the Nian family agree?”
Gu Jiangzhi had changed into dry clothes before coming over, though his hair was still damp and clinging to his forehead.
Casually pouring himself a cup of cold water, he drained it in one gulp and replied happily, “Miss Nian agreed to become a concubine.”
Hearing this, Madam Jin couldn’t help but sneer arrogantly. She had thought the Nian family possessed some backbone. Now that the Gu family had risen to become a marquis’s household, Nian Chujiu would crawl into their noble gates if she had to. She had spent so much effort planning backup measures to pressure and manipulate the Nian family into submission. It seemed none of them would be necessary after all. The sigh of relief had barely left her chest when her son added another sentence. The words struck like a thunderbolt.
“Miss Nian said she won’t bring a single coin of dowry into the household.”
The mouthful of water Madam Jin had just taken immediately went down the wrong way. She coughed violently, her face turning red.
Gu Jiangzhi hurried over to pat her back, still rambling on excitedly. “Miss Nian really looks down on our Gu family too much. She actually thinks we’re after the Nian family’s dowry.”
“I want her to know that even without a dowry, my feelings for her remain exactly the same. I…”
“Silence!” Madam Jin violently slapped his hand away. Her voice rose sharply, shrill and piercing. “Without a dowry, what right does she have to enter the gates of my Marquis’s Manor?”
Gu Jiangzhi froze where he stood, staring blankly at his mother’s twisted expression. “Mother, didn’t you say that as long as I married Miss Lu first, you’d allow Miss Nian to enter the household?”
“Idiot!” The two words were practically squeezed out through Madam Jin’s clenched teeth.
Gu Jiangzhi grew anxious. “Mother, you know I like Miss Nian!”
“What is love worth? How many taels of silver is it worth?” Madam Jin spat, then, seeing her son’s face turn pale, deliberately lowered her voice. “Our Gu family may have the appearance of a marquis’s household, but from the front gate to the treasury, it’s riddled with holes!”
She pointed at the worn, patchy walls around the room. “Without the Nian family’s real gold and silver flowing in, our marquis’s estate couldn’t even afford to buy a carriage! Foolish boy, you have no idea how expensive life is because you’ve never managed a household!”
Gu Jiangzhi muttered instinctively, “But didn’t His Majesty just grant us the title and those estates? How could we still…”
“The title? The estates?” Madam Jin looked as though she had heard the biggest joke in the world. “Can a title be scraped for rice? Can it be squeezed for cooking oil? Those few hundred acres of poor farmland outside the capital, don’t they require money for seed? Doesn’t hiring people to cultivate them cost money?”
Her finger almost poked Gu Jiangzhi in the forehead. “My son, what the Emperor granted us was prestige and face!”
There was a saying in the capital: Throw a stone into a crowd, and you’ll hit ten nobles; nine will be marquises, and one will be an earl.
The Yan Kingdom had only recently been established, and the new dynasty was poor. For those who had helped found the dynasty, the Emperor could reward them with honorary titles and land, but he had no silver to bestow. As a result, the capital was filled with impoverished newly created nobles.
The Gu family, though elevated to marquis status, was a particularly awkward case.
First, Gu Jiangzhi’s paternal aunt, Gu Ruying, had been sold into the Dongli household as a maid when she was young. Through a series of fortunate accidents, she became the master’s bedchamber attendant, and later rose to become an imperial consort.
Second, Gu Jiangzhi’s grandfather, Gu Yaozu, had once presented Dongli Jing with a century-old ginseng root. By sheer coincidence, an assassination attempt occurred that same day. Amid the chaos, Gu Yaozu failed to escape and, by another coincidence, ended up taking a knife for Dongli Jing.
Later, when Dongli Jing became Emperor, he naturally rewarded the man who had saved his life with a marquisate.
It sounded impressive. In reality, it was practically worthless. Other than this residence giving them a place to live, they were still desperately poor.
“In this enormous marquis’s estate,” Madam Jin said through heavy breaths, “there are only four servants in total! Does that seem reasonable to you?”
“Without money, you can’t take a single step forward! We’re still a long way from living the life of wealth and luxury we want.”