Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The red candles had burned halfway down by the time Pei Guanli pushed the door open and stepped inside.

Through my bridal veil, I saw a pair of black official boots stop in front of the bed.

He did not lift the veil right away. Instead, he set a cup of hot tea by my hand. “Drink a little.”

I didn’t dare move, because the matchmaker had said that on a bride’s first night in her husband’s home, she was not to act on her own unless her husband spoke.

Pei Guanli paused, then said in an even voice, “No one is watching you.”

I still didn’t move. He seemed to sigh, then crouched down and asked through the red veil, “Song Zhining, are you hungry?”

I clenched my sleeve, and my stomach growled.

I wanted to crawl under the bed right then and there, but Pei Guanli did not laugh.

He got up and left. A short while later, he returned carrying a food box. Inside were lotus root stuffed with osmanthus syrup, shredded chicken wontons, crab roe pastries, and a small plate of neatly sliced honeyed mandarins.

My fingers stilled. “This is…”

Pei Guanli held the food box out to me. “The dishes from the wedding banquet went cold. These were made fresh.”

I muttered softly, “But Nanny said a bride shouldn’t eat too much on her wedding night.”

Pei Guanli handed me the chopsticks. “Nanny also said the husband should lift the veil first.”

I froze.

His voice was very calm. “So you don’t have to listen to anything she said.”

Slowly, I lifted a corner of the veil and saw him standing there in his wedding robes, worn properly and without a crease out of place.

For a man who observed propriety more than anyone, he said such improper things more naturally than anyone else.

I took the chopsticks and tentatively ate a wonton. The heat rising from it made my eyes burn.

Pei Guanli looked at my reddened eyes. “Does it taste bad?”

I shook my head.

“Then why are you crying?”

I tried and tried to hold it in, but in the end, I couldn’t.

“My mother said that after I married into your family, I had to obey the rules at every moment.”

Pei Guanli lowered his eyes to look at me. After a long moment, he took a sheet of paper from his sleeve and placed it before me.

The handwriting on the page was elegant and upright. There were only three lines.

“One: Madam is not allowed to go hungry.”

“Two: Madam is not allowed to cry herself to sleep.”

“Three: If Madam and propriety come into conflict, Madam takes precedence.”

I stared at it for a while, then looked up and asked him, “Lord Pei, are these rules too?”

Pei Guanli looked at me and nodded. “Yes. The rules of my household.”

I thought Pei Guanli was only comforting me on our wedding night.

It was not until the homecoming banquet three days later that I learned the most terrifying thing about him was not that he followed rules. It was that when he favored someone, he truly put that favoritism into action.

That day, I wore an apricot-colored ruqun.

Before I could leave, an old nanny of the Pei Family stopped me, frowning as she looked me over. “Madam, the color is too light. It isn’t dignified enough.”

I was just about to lower my head and admit fault when Pei Guanli walked over from beneath the corridor.

He glanced at my skirt and said only, “It looks very good.”

The old nanny froze. “My lord, I’m afraid this color is not in accordance with propriety.”

Pei Guanli looked steadily at her. “Which rule?”

For a moment, the nanny could not answer.

Pei Guanli’s expression remained calm. “Great Zhou Wedding Rites records only that attire for a bride’s return visit should be clean and proper. It does not say it should be dark. Apricot is clean and proper. There is nothing inappropriate about it.”

The nanny’s face went pale.

I stood where I was, realizing for the first time that reading many books could also be used to protect someone.

In the carriage, I couldn’t help asking, “Were you helping me just now?”

Pei Guanli was reading a book of rites. At my question, his hand paused on the page, and he denied it at once. “No.”

I felt a little disappointed. In the next moment, he added, “She was indeed wrong.”

I tilted my head to look at him. He did not look at me, but the tips of his ears slowly turned red. “I was merely correcting an error.”

I smiled. “Oh. Correcting an error.”

He lowered his head to his book and did not turn the page for a very long time.

…

At the homecoming banquet, my father’s face was flushed from drink.

Now that he had climbed into a marriage connection with the Pei Family, he all but wanted to set me on the banquet table for everyone to appraise.

After several rounds of wine, he raised his cup and walked up to Pei Guanli in front of everyone. “This daughter of mine has been spoiled by her mother since she was little. She doesn’t know many rules. If she does anything improper in the future, my worthy son-in-law, you may discipline her as you see fit.”

Every relative at the banquet looked toward me.

The spoon in my hand tapped lightly against the rim of my bowl.

I knew what my father meant.

He was afraid the Pei Family would look down on me for being born to a merchant household, so he degraded me first to make himself seem sensible.

It had been the same at home.

If a guest praised me for being clever, he would say, “What use is cleverness in a girl?”

If a shopkeeper said I was good with accounts, he would say, “It’s only petty cleverness. Nothing worthy of mention.”

As if by stepping on me first, no one else would mind that I did not stand high enough.

I was just about to lower my head when Pei Guanli set down his chopsticks. The banquet instantly fell silent.

He looked at my father, his tone still courteous. “Father-in-law, mind your words.”

My father’s smile froze.

Pei Guanli was neither servile nor overbearing. “Zhining entered the Pei Family as my proper wife, not as a student. I married her not to discipline her, and certainly not so others could borrow my name to belittle her.”

For a moment, no one in the hall spoke. The redness in my father’s face drained away bit by bit.

Yet Pei Guanli sounded as though he were merely reciting a line from the rites.

“According to propriety, husband and wife stand as equals. She stands beside me, not beneath me.”

When Pei Guanli spoke of rules, no one could outargue him.

But he had chosen to explain those rules for my sake.