By the time Zhao Si said this, she had already tried to think as high up as possible.
Unexpectedly, as soon as she finished speaking, Liu Rufang’s expression changed drastically.
“Audacious!” Liu Rufang flew into a rage. “Nonsense! Who allowed you to insult—”
“Ying’er, throw him out!” Yun Qing did not give Liu Rufang another chance to speak.
“Understood! Guards!” Ying’er glared, raised her hand, and struck twice. Instantly, eleven strong men dressed in black emerged, lifted Liu Rufang with sticks, gagged him, and beat him out.
Zhao Si watched as the dark figures carried Liu Rufang and plunged him into the crowd, thinking to herself that she was finding it increasingly difficult to make sense of Liu Rufang.
That’s right, the one who came to find fault and cause trouble for Yun Qing was Liu Rufang, and the one who wanted to stand up for Yun Qing was also Liu Rufang.
Zhao Si silently kept the name Liu Rufang in the back of her mind and turned to ask the person beside her.
“Yun Qing, you and Liu Rufang—no, Young Master Liu—are you very close?”
“Husband need not overthink it. Yun Qing has only met that person once.” Yun Qing supported Zhao Si down the platform and instructed Yan’er to lead Zhao Si along the banquet tables to toast the guests through several rounds of wine.
Following Yan’er with a golden goblet in hand, Zhao Si chimed in with, “I am Zhao Si, thank you everyone for gracing us with your presence,” while also responding to, “That’s right, the person I am marrying this time is indeed Yun Qing of Yulu Pavilion.” Drinking back and forth left and right, she consecutively downed over twenty cups.
The more Zhao Si drank, the stranger the looks the surrounding guests gave her.
When Zhao Si, clear-headed and refreshed, had finished drinking seven or eight cups with a nonagenarian old man without changing her expression, the old man stroked his knee-length white beard, pulled Zhao Si in to look her up and down, left and right, for several circles. He then swapped the wine pitcher in Yan’er’s hand with his own, filled it up for Zhao Si, and invited Zhao Si to drink with him.
The old man said, “To celebrate today’s good day, the new groom shall have another cup!”
“Thank you very much.” Zhao Si threw her head back and drank it down, the sparkling wine displaying her full flair and elegance.
Staring at the corners of Zhao Si’s lips to confirm that she had not cheated by secretly pouring the wine into her sleeves or swapping the wine for plain water, the old man burst into hearty laughter and first said, “I have been presumptuous! Presumptuous! In all the nearly ninety years I have lived, this is the first time I’ve met someone as capable of holding their liquor as Young Master Zhao.”
Then, he placed a wooden token into Zhao Si’s hand, pressed Zhao Si’s four fingers inward to help her stow it away properly, and repeatedly said, “Very well, very well! I am skilled in brewing wine. Today, having drunk the groom’s wedding wine, another year when the groom comes to the old man’s tavern, the old man will treat the groom to a jar of eighty-year-old Scholar’s Red.”
“If there is a chance, I certainly will!” Zhao Si beamed with a smile and turned to head to another table, thinking to herself that this old man was also quite frankly admirable.
Unexpectedly, the moment she turned around, the old man grabbed her sleeve once more.
“Wait, the old man has something to ask.”
“Please speak.” Zhao Si first offered apologies to the opposite table and turned around to wait for the old man to elaborate.
The old man went straight to the point.
“Does the groom happen to know the Prince of Duan?”
“The Prince of Duan?” Zhao Si faintly remembered that Yun Qing had mentioned the Prince of Duan to her earlier. To be precise, she had mentioned that grand wedding banquet of the Prince of Duan.
Zhao Si figured that since she had lost her past memories, listening to more street gossip would give her and Yun Qing more idle topics to pass the time and dispel boredom, so she pursued the question: “Why does the elder say this?”
“Mmm-hmm!” Zhao Si’s respectful form of address made the old man look very pleased. Slowly stroking his beard a couple more times, the old man deliberately raised his voice: “The Prince of Duan was born with a great capacity for liquor and proclaimed himself a wine immortal by the age of ten. This old man sees that the groom and the Prince of Duan are roughly of the same age. If there is a chance, you might make drinking buddies.”
“There is actually such a thing!” Zhao Si’s thoughts went far.
Zhao Si carefully weighed that if she could use wine as a pretext to get her foot in the door with the Prince of Duan, it would be a win-win situation for both her and Yun Qing. Instantly, her blood boiled with enthusiasm.
“Where is the Prince of Duan?”
“The Prince of Duan? The Prince of Duan will likely come to our Cengzhou before long. Our Cengzhou is the fief of the Sixth Prince. Next month is the Sixth Prince’s birthday, and the Prince of Duan might come together with the Crown Prince to celebrate the Sixth Prince’s birthday.”
Zhao Si thought to herself that the Crown Prince sounded even more formidable than the Prince of Duan, and perhaps she could also try her hand at the Crown Prince’s doorstep.
Zhao Si asked, “Why would the Crown Prince come? Is the Crown Prince good at drinking wine?”
As soon as Zhao Si asked, the people at the banquet burst into uncontrollable laughter. As the laughter subsided, a kind-hearted person spoke up to explain to Zhao Si: “The Sixth Prince and the Crown Prince share the same mother, so naturally he has to come and celebrate the Sixth Prince’s birthday. As for why the Prince of Duan is coming… well, the Prince of Duan—hmm. I heard that the one in the palace is not doing well. If things go wrong, the Prince of Duan might be this person in the future!”
The kind-hearted person pulled Zhao Si close and secretly gave her a thumbs-up against his chest, signaling that the Prince of Duan might end up becoming the emperor.
Zhao Si frowned, feeling that this path was going to be difficult to tread.
That’s right, choose the Prince of Duan, and she would fear the Crown Prince ascending the throne.
Choose the Crown Prince, and she would fear the Prince of Duan making a comeback.
Difficult! Difficult! Difficult indeed!
Zhao Si shed a hero’s tear for her enterprise failing before it even truly began.
The wine-drinking kind-hearted person cursed and swore at Zhao Si:
“Damn it all! When I die, it’ll be toes-up. A real man just goes for it! You shouldn’t be afraid of placing your bets on the wrong horse. If you actually knew which pair to bet on, how could the vegetable market ever end up running red with rolling heads? Hahahahaha.”
The banqueter laughed with wild abandon, prompting discussion to break out among the crowd:
“Don’t tell me he’s a lunatic.”
“This is just someone who drank spiked wine and is talking drunken nonsense.”
“Eight times out of ten, he’s a fraud!”
The crowd’s discussion irritated the banqueter. He stood up, slammed his palm on the table, and challenged his surroundings:
“What! Do you take what I’m saying for lies? I am the magistrate’s uncle’s wife’s father’s maternal uncle, the number one executioner of Cengzhou City!”
Listening carefully, Zhao Si also remembered that the person who drank her wedding wine included the number one executioner of Cengzhou.
Seeing that things were getting rowdy over here, Yan’er immediately summoned a few maidservants to apologize on Zhao Si’s behalf, saying, “Our groom cannot hold his liquor,” and proceeded to help Zhao Si out of the wedding hall, personally escorting and supporting her all the way to a two-story small building by the water.
Supported by Yan’er, Zhao Si walked upstairs, her steps making the wooden stair treads creak with every move.
When they reached the bridal bedchamber, Zhao Si finally saw that Yun Qing was using a finely carved wooden bed.
Zhao Si did not know what kind of wood it was, and could only see that the hollowed-out wooden panels were nested layer upon layer, hiding her Yun Qing in the deepest recesses of the woodwork.
Stepping inside with a stoop, Zhao Si first caught sight of Yun Qing’s gold-embroidered skirt hem.
“Yun Qing,” Zhao Si called out in a low voice, first making her identity clear, “I am Zhao Si. I, I am here to…”
Zhao Si naturally knew that she was here for the bridal chamber rituals. Yet, with the candles glowing brightly, the two words “bridal chamber” felt burning hot on her tongue, and she truly could not bring herself to say them.
However.
Zhao Si pinned her hopes on Yun Qing taking the initiative.
Yet Yun Qing lacked romance.
The two stared at each other across the bridal veil for a moment. Zhao Si could not figure out Yun Qing’s bottom line, little knowing that hidden behind the veil, Yun Qing could see her embarrassment with absolute clarity.
The two of them remained locked in a stalemate. It was not a contest of wills between the two of them, but rather each dealing with their own inner struggle.
Until Yun Qing made up her mind and asked Zhao Si first:
“Husband, do tell, what are you here to do?”
Zhao Si was poor with words.
“I… I am here to see Wife.”
“Is a wife simply for looking at?” Yun Qing seemed to be holding back a flare of temper.
“I… hey. That’s not what I meant.” Zhao Si looked all around and happened to spot the weighing rod for the veil on the wooden table at Yun Qing’s second layer of partitioning.
Zhao Si turned around to fetch the veil-lifting rod, flicked away Yun Qing’s bridal veil, and before Yun Qing could gather her wits, grabbed Yun Qing’s hand and leaned down to press her lips against Yun Qing’s vermilion lips.
Yun Qing went from angry to smiling, and in the end, actually hooked her arms around Zhao Si’s neck.
Zhao Si thought to herself: She was very familiar with this move! Swiftly and efficiently, she scooped up her dear wife horizontally, carried her to the couch, and before Yun Qing could speak, bit gently on Yun Qing’s earlobe, whispering privately to her: “How could your husband not know what a wife is for? Wife, a wife is meant to be cherished, meant to be loved.”