The Grand Wedding
Mu Mingtang’s merciless threat to cut off her own hair and become a nun if her dowry was less than Jiang Mingwei’s enraged Madam Jiang, but what could she do about it?
Mu Mingtang had no father, no mother, nothing that could be used as a threat against her. Who knew if she would actually do what she said? The emperor had decreed before the imperial court that the second young miss of the Jiang family was to become the Princess of Qiyang. If anything were to happen to Mu Mingtang during this crucial time, they would not be able to find another substitute.
The risk was too great. The Jiang family could not afford to let Mu Mingtang escape from the marriage after what Jiang Mingwei had done.
On that same night, when Madam Jiang told Jiang Honghao about Mu Mingtang’s demand, he grit his teeth and said, “Compared to the future of our family, money is nothing. Just do what she said and give her the same dowry as Mingwei. It is worth obtaining the highest position of the Three Grand Ministers in exchange.”
Although she was reluctant, Madam Jiang could not refute Jiang Honghao’s words. The next day, Mu Mingtang’s dowry was prepared.
Madam Jiang became infertile after giving birth to Jiang Mingwei, and the concubines in the back courtyard also failed to give him a son, so Jiang Honghao had given up early on and devoted himself to his official duties instead.
Now, his sole child and daughter was going to become a princess and possibly even the empress. Not even having ten sons could compare to this.
One could imagine how lavish Jiang Mingwei’s dowry was. However, the Jiang family possessed only so much wealth, and with the addition of Mu Mingtang’s dowry, they had no choice but to divide Jiang Mingwei’s dowry in half and give it to Mu Mingtang.
Madam Jiang didn’t dare tell Jiang Mingwei about this. On the day before Jiang Mingwei and Mu Mingtang’s wedding, after looking at the shortened dowry lists, Madam Jiang could only swallow back her resentment with a very forced smile.
Prince Qiyang was higher in seniority than Prince Jin, so Mu Mingtang’s wedding was held first. On the day of the wedding, Mu Mingtang sat on the bed with a phoenix crown on her head and listened silently to the respectable old lady brushed her hair and sprouted auspicious words that were as hollow as the rest of the wedding pretenses.
The phoenix crown was heavy, but Mu Mingtang kept her back straight as she waited for the wedding procession to begin.
Which woman didn’t dream of having a grand wedding? This was something that would only happen once in her lifetime. The groom was in a coma and everyone else was treating it like a joke, but so what? If no one was going to bother helping her make this wedding worthwhile, she would do it herself. No matter what the other people did, she would ensure that her wedding ceremony was as perfect as it could possibly be.
When the auspicious hour arrived, the meeting party stopped in front of the Jiang Manor. With the help of a maidservant, Mu Mingtang got on the sedan chair.
Xie Xuanchen was still in a coma, so he obviously couldn’t attend the wedding. Even though they had managed to cut out most of the steps of the ceremony, there were some parts that couldn’t be ignored. In the end, Xie Xuanji, as a groomsman, completed them in Xie Xuechen’s place.
The sedan chair went around the capital until it drew near the Qiyang Manor. Sitting in the rocky sedan chair, Mu Mingtang thought to herself that the Jiang family had really given their all to make this show an extravagant one. From the perspective of the commoners and outsiders, this was truly a procession worthy of a princess.
The sound of the music and firecrackers only got louder the further she was from the Jiang Manor. It was as though they were trying to hide something, and it didn’t take a lot of thinking to guess what they were trying to hide. She was getting closer to the Qiyang Manor. No one dared to get close to the Qiyang Manor, so the streets on either side were without a single pedestrian and cleaner than a cemetery. The loud music was a way to add festivity to this dreary ambiance.
This was the place where she would live for the rest of her life. When the sedan chair stopped moving, Mu Mingtang took a deep breath and slowly alighted.
The Qiyang Manor seemed to exist in a different world from the bustling atmosphere of the Jiang Manor and the streets around it. Mu Mingtang’s head was covered by a red cloth, so she could not see her surroundings, but she could at least hear it. The absence of noise. If it weren’t for the high saddle she stepped over and smooth bricks beneath her feet as she walked through the main gate, she would have thought that she had stepped inside a dead city.
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