Chapter 5

Father cheerfully said that once he had some free time, he would bring his new husband out for drinks with his colleagues.

The Duke stood not far away, his face turning red and then white. Several times, he raised his sleeve to cover it.

The more people stared, the lower his head sank.

Father had returned to the capital to report on his work. He did not have much official business to handle, and he worked quickly.

Once he had finished, he did not sit around idly. Instead, he found a stack of popular romances to study.

The First Daughter-in-Law of a Noble House thoroughly satisfied him.

He was not the eldest daughter-in-law yet, but he believed there was no position he could not compete for. That seat might not belong to the same person forever.

How to Prosper Through One’s Husband: What to Do When You Marry a Wastrel suited his current circumstances even better. He did not skip a single page about how to discipline a husband.

…

After finishing the books, Father had already planned out everything he would do at the Duke’s estate.

First, he would manage the wastrel. Second, he would find a way to take over the household accounts.

He also wrote a letter to Mother, detailing the early-morning greetings, what he had seen and heard at court, and what he had learned from his reading.

At the end of the letter, he only mentioned that he had been too busy to come home for dinner that day.

After court, he planned to stop by the Imperial Academy and get started on his first task.

Just as he was leaving, an envoy from the imperial household arrived at the Duke’s estate to reprimand them. They entered through different gates and missed each other.

14

His first task was to block every back entrance to the Imperial Academy.

Father had studied there and once served as its Chancellor. He knew better than the current instructors which alleyways students used to scale the walls and which taverns hid truants.

When he was young, he could beat his classmates so thoroughly they wouldn’t dare hit him back.

Later, as Chancellor, disciplining students became even more officially sanctioned.

Returning to his old stomping grounds, he did not need to ask anyone whom he should look for first.

He caught one truant after another and handed each over to his attendants. Before long, a long line of runaway students trailed behind him.

They grumbled at one another, but not one of them escaped.

At last, they found the heir, who was passed out drunk.

With his new husband, Father was unusually gentle. He paid the tavern bill, made sure someone supported the heir properly, and played the part of a virtuous wife to perfection.

The students following them were furious enough to see red.

They assumed the heir had betrayed their hiding place and blamed him for it.

When the heir sobered up, he would have an angry pack of drinking buddies in front of him and a former Chancellor personally instructing the tutors behind him. His days were sure to be miserable.

That was for later. For now, he was still unconscious in Father’s hands.

Meanwhile, the imperial envoy had already been waiting at the Duke’s estate for a long time.

Whether the envoy had come on the Emperor’s orders or the Empress’s, this farcical wedding had finally reached the ears of someone with the authority to revoke the decree.

15

Before sunset, Father was summoned back to the Shen residence.

An imperial decree had been issued. No matter how cleverly he twisted its wording, he could not stay at the Duke’s estate any longer.

He ordered his attendants to pack his belongings and walked back to our side through the narrow lane, looking deeply regretful.

The Duke’s estate nearly set off firecrackers in celebration.

Everyone inside watched him leave as though they had just survived a catastrophe.

Mother studied him for a moment, then teased him first. “You were married for barely two days and didn’t even make it to the third-day return visit.”

Father sighed with complete sincerity. “I never got control of the household accounts.”

Mother nodded, deliberately teasing him. “You walked through the door and immediately thought about taking over the accounts. Such ambition.”

Father failed to notice her sarcasm. He puffed out his chest. “Of course. If I’d gotten my hands on the ledgers and keys, I’d have moved everything movable in that estate back home, then audited the whole place from top to bottom.”

Mother’s eyes brightened at that, then quickly dimmed. “What a shame.”

Father sighed along with her. “What a shame indeed.”

Me: “…”

What exactly were they lamenting?

I had thought my parents were both completely outrageous. But when I thought about the generations of wealth accumulated by the Duke’s estate—and remembered how much money we had just spent buying a house in the capital—my heart tightened, too.

If all that wealth had really belonged to us…

The more I thought about it, the more unbearable it became. In the end, I couldn’t help chiming in: “What a shame!”

16

In the end, the marriage arranged by the Empress was annulled.

My sister and I had escaped disaster and could still take our time choosing our own husbands.

Father’s grand disruption had truly saved his daughters from a lifetime of misery.

But he had gone too far for the court to let the matter pass without consequences.

Father had just been promoted, and now he was quickly demoted again. Almost all the benefits of his earlier achievements were stripped away.

The Duke’s estate and the Empress’s faction suffered losses, too.

For a long time, neither dared mention using marriage to recruit officials again. Both sides had taken a hit.

After selling our house in the capital, we packed our belongings and prepared to follow Father to his next posting.

The courtyard we had only just grown used to was left empty. One by one, our trunks were loaded onto the carts.

My sister still married her intended.

The whole city had heard about the Shen family’s uproar, but my future brother-in-law’s family still honored their earlier promise and came to ask for her hand. They did not use the scandal as an excuse to change their minds.

The wedding was arranged in a hurry, but none of the proper rites were left out.

After the ceremony, my brother-in-law said goodbye to his parents and followed us to Father’s new post. He would not leave my sister behind in the capital.

In the end, our family stayed together.

Father looked at the line of carts and seemed quite pleased. “This is for the best. We’re all together, far from the capital’s intrigues. Life will be much more peaceful.”

He had been one of the most outstanding men to rise from a poor family, making his own way to the rank of a third-class official.

But now we all understood: even the most remarkable son of a poor family could not overcome imperial power. A single decree had been enough to leave our whole family with nowhere to turn.

We had made it through this crisis, but who knew what would come next?

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