Since her daughter had said there was no problem, Marchioness Anle did not wait any longer. The very next day, she hosted a banquet, using it as an excuse to send an invitation to the Second Madam of the Marquis of Ningguo’s household.
Upon receiving the invitation from the Anle Marquis’s residence, the Second Madam of the Ningguo Marquis’s household was somewhat puzzled. She had never been particularly close to Marchioness Anle—why would she send an invitation specifically to her alone?
Still, she came.
At the banquet, amid pleasant conversation, Marchioness Anle finally found the opportunity to bring up her daughter. She even had Ye Su summoned and asked her to pay her respects to the Second Madam of the Ningguo Marquis’s household.
Ye Su offered the Second Madam a proper salute with a composed smile, addressing her, “Greetings to Madam Liu.”
The Second Madam, whose maiden surname was Liu, was a well-preserved woman who appeared to be in her forties. She quickly gestured for Ye Su to rise. “You are too courteous, Third Miss Ye. Please, do get up.”
From the way Marchioness Anle had been engaging her in conversation since her arrival—warm and amiable, yet subtly probing about her eldest son—to the appearance of Ye Su, any perceptive person would immediately piece it together.
If there was one thing that weighed most heavily on Madam Liu’s mind, it was her eldest legitimate son, Meng Zixu.
Her son had left the capital to pursue his studies at the age of eight, entering the most renowned Meiyan Academy in the realm and studying under a famous master surnamed Bian.
During his years of study, he occasionally met the master’s legitimate daughter, and the two gradually developed feelings for each other. The Bian family was a distinguished and scholarly clan in the region, and the Meng couple was pleased with the match, so they betrothed their son to the Bian family’s daughter.
But fortune is fickle. One day, while traveling to a banquet with her mother, the young Miss Bian was waylaid by bandits. Their carriage tumbled down a cliff, and both mother and daughter perished.
Upon receiving the tragic news, Meng Zixu was grief-stricken. Madam Liu had initially assumed her son’s sorrow would fade with time.
But to her surprise, her son refused to discuss marriage ever again. Fortunately, his studies did not suffer—if anything, he seemed to channel his grief into motivation.
Within three years, Meng Zixu successfully passed the imperial examinations with a second-rank result.
Before the Marquis of Ningguo’s household could even pull strings on his behalf, he voluntarily requested an out-of-capital post to gain experience, and after that, he rarely returned to the capital. This made it inconvenient for Madam Liu to press her son about marriage.
Her son was now twenty-nine and still unmarried. Madam Liu had long been beside herself with worry. Now that she had received the signal from Marchioness Anle, however, she hesitated.
She had heard the rumors about this Third Miss Ye having an ill-fated destiny—both of her previous fiancés had met with misfortune.
But then she reconsidered: hadn’t her own son’s fiancée also passed away? If someone were to claim her son was cursed to harm his wives, she would not take it lightly either. With that thought, she felt a sense of shared sympathy.
Moreover, a little inquiry would reveal that the heir of Duke Zhenguo had fallen from his horse during a martial contest with another. The death of Marquis Jinheng’s son was even more absurd—calling it a case of reaping what one sows would not be an exaggeration. It would be unfair to blame Ye Su for that.
Having convinced herself, Madam Liu began to carefully appraise Ye Su.
Ye Su was different from the typical young ladies of the capital.
Influenced by the aesthetic of the previous emperor’s reign, when palace consorts favored slender figures, the capital had for decades grown accustomed to women being “willowy of waist and light of form.”
Ye Su, however, possessed a naturally fuller figure. She stood half a head taller than Madam Liu, with a voluptuous build, delicate skin, well-proportioned curves, and striking, luminous features.
Yet the more Madam Liu looked, the more satisfied she became. She promptly removed a jade bracelet from her wrist and gently took Ye Su’s hand.
In a warm voice, she said, “I didn’t know I would be meeting Third Miss today, so I hadn’t prepared a proper gift. Please, take this bracelet as a little trinket to play with.”
The jade bracelet was clearly of the finest quality—it was the best piece of jewelry Madam Liu was wearing. Ye Su felt embarrassed to accept such a valuable gift.
She quickly declined. “No need, Madam Liu. I wouldn’t dare accept it.”
But Madam Liu insisted, slipping the bracelet onto Ye Su’s wrist, and then asked gently, “What pastimes does Third Miss enjoy at home?”
Since the other party insisted, Ye Su stopped refusing and replied, “Nothing much. My favorite thing is tending to flowers in the residence, and when I have time, I help my mother manage household affairs.”
Growing flowers was true enough. As for managing household affairs, Marchioness Anle had personally taught her when she was in her early teens, but after Ye Su had learned, she rarely involved herself.
Still, since she was being asked, she naturally said such things. Growing flowers showed a refined hobby, while helping her mother manage household affairs demonstrated that Marchioness Anle had raised her daughter well.
Ye Su answered in a steady, composed manner, neither shyly hanging her head nor being overly forward. Madam Liu grew even more pleased.
If her son married, his wife would immediately have to shoulder the responsibility of managing the household and handling social obligations. The way Ye Su conducted herself was, in Madam Liu’s eyes, extremely satisfactory.
Holding Ye Su’s hand, Madam Liu turned to Marchioness Anle with a beaming smile and praised, “So the Marchioness’s household was hiding such a fine young lady! I had rarely seen her before, but now that I have, I find her truly delightful.”
Ye Su watched her mother reply with a smile of her own: “I felt an immediate warmth from you, Madam. My Su’er has such an open, generous nature, much like yourself—I thought you two would get along splendidly, so I wanted to have her come out and meet you. And indeed, she has proven me right.”
Watching the two women exchange pleasantries, Ye Su kept her smile unchanged while inwardly feeling rather bored.
Was this how clever people talked? Nothing was ever said directly, yet somehow everything was communicated.
Ye Su knew that the marriage could not possibly be settled on the very first day—this initial meeting was merely a mutual probing.
If both parties were interested and reached a private consensus, only then would the man’s family send someone to formally propose.
Though it seemed things were already fairly secure?
Sure enough, after Madam Liu returned home and discussed the matter with her husband, within just three days they dispatched an official matchmaker to propose.
After several rounds of back-and-forth, the two families verbally agreed to the betrothal, awaiting only the formal betrothal gifts from the groom’s family.
Meanwhile, the Meng couple sent a servant to deliver a letter to their son, informing him that they had arranged a marriage for him in the capital.
In terms of family standing, Ye Su was actually marrying beneath her station, for the other party was merely the second branch of the Marquis of Ningguo’s household, without any claim to the hereditary title.
With his future wife’s family being a marquis household and his father-in-law being the maternal uncle of the emperor, this was a rare and excellent match for Meng Zixu. The Meng couple thought that after all these years, their son should have moved past his grief by now.
To their surprise, half a month after sending the letter, a reply from Meng Zixu arrived—a refusal.
Not only that, in his letter he stated that he had already promised his esteemed teacher that he would marry his second daughter.
Second daughter? The Meng couple was bewildered.
Wasn’t that the younger sister of his former betrothed who had died? Back then, because she was too young to accompany her mother and elder sister, she had escaped the tragedy.
In recent years, their son’s letters had indeed occasionally mentioned his teacher’s family, and also the younger generation of the Bian family, including this former sister-in-law-to-be.
But they had only assumed their son was being nostalgic and maintaining normal relations with his teacher. How old was that girl now? Barely fourteen or fifteen.
Had he written to explain earlier, perhaps the Meng couple would have acquiesced. But ten days ago, they had already agreed to the marriage with the Marquis Anle’s household—how could they go back on their word now?
No matter how renowned the Bian family was, how could it compare to the power and influence of a marquis household?
Second Master Meng and his wife dared not confess the truth to the Marquis Anle’s household. Instead, they directly wrote back to scold their son, reminding him that marriages were decided by parents through a matchmaker.
A marriage their son had arranged for himself without their consent naturally did not count. They ordered Meng Zixu to request leave from the Ministry of Personnel and return to the capital to wed the young lady of the Ye family.