9.
“Why would I avoid you? I just don’t want to go out…”
Before I could finish, he abruptly sat down in front of me, his nose almost touching mine.
“Is it because you’re embarrassed? Hm? Anyone would have reacted that way. After all, fire and water are merciless.”
He smiled faintly, his nose high-bridged and his features sharply defined.
“Why did you climb over the wall into my house?” I asked, blinking.
“You’re always saying you’re stupid. I never believed you, but now I see you really are. I like you. Haven’t you noticed?” he said softly.
I clutched my chest, sure I must have misheard.
He liked me? Why? He was a prince, after all; he didn’t need to rely on my eldest brother’s influence. Though he wasn’t as handsome as my brothers, he was still a true man, strong and upright.
I remembered talking with him about the fighting on the border. His calculating expression was still vivid in my mind. He was such a fine general—why would he like me?
“Hasn’t your older sister ever taught you? When a gentleman says he likes you, you’re supposed to lower your head bashfully and ask, ‘Do you like me enough to want to marry me?’ That’s the right thing to do.”
“No, she never taught me that.”
“I want to marry you.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re sincere and purehearted!”
I spent the whole night in a daze. For the first time, I couldn’t sleep for a reason other than my older sister being away.
When I woke the next morning and saw the jade pendant engraved with his name by my bedside, I knew it hadn’t been a dream.
The next day, just after noon, he came to my house and spent half the day with my father in the study.
When he left, Father summoned me.
Mother and Father sat in their chairs, their expressions unreadable.
“Prince Hoài says he wants to marry you. Tell me, do you like him?”
Father called me over, took my hand, and asked.
“I don’t know.” I didn’t know what it meant to like someone. I’d never liked anyone before.
“I think he’s sincere, too. Why don’t you spend some time with him and see how it goes? If you still don’t like him then, you can call it off.”
After Father said that, he began coming to see me often.
Sometimes we rode horses, sometimes we strolled through the streets, and sometimes I watched him practice his sword. The days suddenly began to fly by.
Only my three brothers never gave him a warm welcome. My second and third elder brothers were busy preparing for the imperial exams and would occasionally stop him, making excuses to keep him out of the house.
My eldest brother would merely give him a cold, contemptuous look, then slam the door shut. He even raised several fierce dogs around the wall.
Father would have the servants lead the dogs away, while I sat in the veranda, giggling as I watched the commotion.
Triệu Thập An’s face darkened, and stayed that way until after New Year.
In February, my second and third elder brothers both sat for the imperial exams. My second brother passed and placed third. Our family held a banquet. Though my brothers remained stony-faced, for the first time they opened the door and let him in.
He got drunk and proposed to me, only to be thrown out again.
Father asked if I liked him.
I remembered what my older sister had said: Every day is an ordinary day, but because he’s in it, that day becomes wonderfully special. “Father, I think I like him.”
He could patiently sit with me and talk about all sorts of nonsense. He bought me snacks and never called me stupid. The way he looked at me—wasn’t it just as my older sister had said? In his heart and in his eyes, there was only me.
Father told him to send someone to formally ask for my hand, but he went to the emperor instead.
But my eldest brother sent the emperor away.
He said just one very harsh thing: “When you meddle in someone else’s marriage, do you ever consider that one day your own family might become related to mine by marriage?”
The emperor slunk away.
I heard Mother and Father say that my eldest brother still remembered how the emperor had once told Lord Tống to fabricate a story about a loyal maidservant, making my older sister so angry that she left.
One night, Triệu Thập An suddenly came to my room, frowned, and asked if I wanted to marry him.
I nodded. Of course I did.
He said that if he waited for my brothers to approve the match, he might have to wait until my older sister came back. But he couldn’t wait any longer. If we didn’t marry, he would have to go to the border. It was unsettled there, and foreign enemies often invaded.
There was only one way to get my brothers to agree.
So he and I made love before marriage.
10.
At the end of March, when he learned I was pregnant, he immediately went to the palace and knelt for three days, enduring a beating.
My three elder brothers had no choice. In the end, they grudgingly agreed to the marriage.
In June, I married into the prince’s residence. He said he would take me to the border. I spent my days eating and sleeping, sleeping and eating, and I was very quick-tempered.
I said I didn’t want to go with him; I wanted to wait for my older sister to come home.
He frowned and coaxed me, saying that once we reached the border, he would find my older sister for me, so she could stay by my side every day.
I didn’t believe him. If he could really find my older sister, why would he put up with so much disrespect from my brothers?
At the end of July, my second brother finally got married. My second sister-in-law came from a humble family, but she was a good person, gentle by nature, and very filial to her parents.
Mother said that at first my second sister-in-law’s father had opposed the match, and my eldest brother had gone in person to persuade him.
I knew my eldest brother had suffered deeply, so since my second brother loved her, he had to help persuade their father, no matter what.
Even though Triệu Thập An had become our son-in-law, and my parents loved him dearly, my brothers still never treated him well.
Whenever he came to our house, he often ended up drunk or being mocked by my eldest brother. He was a skilled fighter, but when it came to words, he couldn’t compete with my brothers.
Hân said he was at a disadvantage because he hadn’t studied much, and that he read by lamplight every night. Watching his serious expression, I couldn’t help smiling.
At winter solstice that year, I ate dumplings for lunch. Just as I lay down, a maid came to report that my second brother’s wife had sent word: my eldest sister had returned.
For a moment, I didn’t understand. Who was my eldest sister?
The maid said, “Isn’t she the older sister the princess consort misses every day?”
I threw on a cloak, without even having time to put on my shoes.
When I reached the house, I stood by the door and secretly listened. The people inside were talking unhurriedly, in a cheerful, pleasant voice. Wasn’t that my older sister?
I lifted the curtain. My older sister was sitting on the bed, looking just as she always had.
It was my older sister. In the end, she hadn’t abandoned us. She had come back.
That day, Triệu Thập An secretly told me that the look in my eldest brother’s eyes when he gazed at my older sister wasn’t innocent at all. He definitely wanted to marry her.
Everyone in the family knew. Only my older sister didn’t!
My older sister left our home when she married. I gave her the money I’d saved up—all of it was the betrothal gifts I’d put aside for her.
Triệu Thập An had prepared two estates for my older sister and told me to give her both deeds.
He told me that an estate was the most practical thing; if they ever quarreled, my sister would still have somewhere to live.
My older sister looked at the box of silver and stroked my hair.
Her eyes glistened, but no tears fell.
She said, “Our Bảo Châu has grown up. You’re about to be a mother. Seeing you find someone who loves and protects you—I can’t tell you how happy it makes me.”
“The prince treats you sincerely. All you need to do is treat him the way you treat your family. He’s a member of the royal family, and all he sees is treacherous hearts and the coldness of royal kinship. It’s only when he comes to our home that he can relax.”
“Our family treats him only as a son-in-law. No one sees him as a prince. You’re husband and wife, so it should be that way between the two of you, too. Just remember: no matter what, he’s your husband.”
I understood what my older sister meant.
Then I told my older sister how the emperor and Steward Tống had ruined her marriage to my eldest brother.
My older sister narrowed her eyes with a smile, then nodded after a long while.
“I didn’t understand the situation. Your eldest brother would never say something like that.”
Later, just as he’d hoped, my eldest brother married my older sister.
With only a wall between us, our home grew lively.
My older sister asked my eldest brother to build her a swing beneath the big locust tree.
Just two days later, the swing was up.
Another day, my older sister said she wanted an opening cut into the wall so it would be easier for me to visit my family.
My eldest brother went to Triệu Thập An with a long face. The two of them spent the whole day taking things apart and finally cut a hole in the wall.
My older sister wasn’t satisfied with the hole. My eldest brother was good at being an official, but he didn’t know how to install a door, so my third elder brother had to do it himself.
My older sister found one thing after another for my eldest brother to do every day. He never objected, and every time he did something for her, he looked pleased.
I asked my older sister why she did that.
She said, “Maybe this is the only way he’ll feel that I love him!”
Later, I gave birth to Triệu Đại Bảo. Less than a year later, my second sister-in-law gave birth to Ôn Nhu, and six months after that, my older sister gave birth to Triêu Vinh.
Our home became livelier than ever. My parents cared for their grandchildren every day, and they seemed to grow much younger.
Aside from going to court, my eldest brother hardly ever left the house.
My eldest brother always did my older sister’s eyebrows and combed her hair.
Who in Dongjing didn’t envy my older sister?
I thought I finally knew what I wanted. Maybe it was a life just like this!
My parents in good health; the children mischievous but carefree and happy; my brothers, my older sister, and I all finding the people we loved. Every day was an ordinary day, yet every day became extraordinary because that person was by our side.
May every true love be kept safe and sound. May the person you love be someone who loves you in return.
[THE END]