Chapter 58: Married Away
The banquet happening off the platform was still a peaceful and joyful affair, with laughter and copious drinking.
Yaoying gathered her skirt and exited the hall through the pavilion behind the corridor, when she suddenly felt a sharp, knife-like line of sight fall on her body. Apprehension spread in her heart and she swept a glance in her peripheral vision.
By chance, she met the eyes of the other party.
With braided hair draped over his shoulders, wearing the round-collared embroidered brocade robe of a foreigner, it was a man with a high nose, dark eyes, broad shoulders, and strong body. He was carelessly drinking as his eyes looked her up and down.
It was as if he was sizing up his prey.
Under the candlelight, his deep eyes seemed to glow with a faint golden color.
Yaoying promptly withdrew her eyes and walked out of the hall with quickened steps, a vague uneasiness surging in her heart.
Xie Qing followed behind her and said, “That man is Tribal Chief Yelu’s son.”
Yaoying closed her eyes, her palms ice-cold.
Tribal Chief Yelu was old, his sons in their prime.
She walked briskly down the long steps. A shadow appeared diagonal to them. A large, rough hand reaching out to grip her hand.
Yaoying raised her head.
Li Xuanzhen grabbed her hand, gnashing his teeth: “Where is Yun niang?”
The moonlight shone down, enveloping Yaoying’s upturned, pretty face.
Li Xuanzhen glowered at her angrily and was suddenly stunned.
Yaoying’s face was calm, her eyes as dark as the abyss under the moonlight. A few beads of crimson blood were splattered on her smooth cheeks.
The bloodstains were gorgeous, setting off her skin paler than snow.
Akin to a flower blooming in a dense fog; a graceful silhouette leisurely stretching in the indistinct haziness of the rising moon.
Quiet and exquisite.
Bright and beautiful.
Carrying a bit of charm.
Li Xuanzhen’s fingers trembled.
Yaoying coldly said: “Crown Prince ought to go ask His Majesty. The one who took Zhu Luyun was not me.”
Li Xuanzhen looked down at her, his phoenix eyes upturned, the pupils gloomy: “Seventh younger sister is so calculating; dealing with me first then with His Majesty.”
Yaoying smiled faintly, “Eldest brother, a Hu tribe such as the Yelu tribe will not be faithful and true to the Wei empire. Even if they are related by marriage to the Wei empire, they may still rebel at any time. Rcing Zhu Luyun to marry off, this move is very inauspicious for me. Of course I have to take the opportunity to ask His Majesty for some payment.”
She broke away from Li Xuanzhen’s hand.
“The deal you and I made was for me to offer to marry on my own accord. Now that the marriage decree has been given and you got what you wanted, I did not do anything to break the contract, did I?”
Yaoying knew that the Eastern Palace did not dare to divulge the deal between them.
So, she might as well exploit the deal to its fullest extent.
Li Xuanzhen loosened his grip.
Yaoying walked past him.
Li Xuanzhen’s voice came from behind her, “Seventh younger sister, I will not let you see Li Zhongqian before you and Tribal Chief Yelu are married.”
Yaoying stopped in her tracks, her back still turned on her eldest brother.
“Li Xuanzhen, I already knew it would be like this.”
When the deal was first made, Wei Ming had hinted that she was only allowed to send someone to confirm that Li Zhongqian was still alive. She was not allowed to meet with Li Zhongqian.
The last time she saw her brother was when she sent him off to battle. Her elder brother took away the new saddle she had bought him, waving his golden hammer at her heroically.
This was also good. Seeing each other would only be adding to the sadness.
Yaoying smiled. Without turning back to plead with Li Xuanzhen, she walked away.
Leaving the sound of footsteps behind her, Li Xuanzhen’s tall figure chased after her. Clutching her hand again, he dragged her whole body over.
He looked at Yaoying, his eyes deeper than the night: “Seventh younger sister, do you regret it?”
Yaoying’s eyes signaled Xie Qing, who was ready to draw his sword, that he did not need to come forward. She raised her head and looked at Li Xuanzhen: “Your Highness the Crown Prince, I have no regrets.”
She paused for a moment and said softly, “I only regret that when I first saw you at Chibi, I thought you were a good man who helped the weak at the expense of the strong, Changsheng gege1.”
Li Xuanzhen seemed to be pricked by something, and his expression abruptly became fierce.
“I told you, do not call me that!”
Yaoying laughed lightly and pried off Li Xuanzhen’s cold fingers little by little: “Your Highness, be at ease. I will never mention this name again. The Yang Changsheng I knew six years ago is already dead.”
She flicked her sleeve and turned to leave.
Li Xuanzhen stayed where he was, his fingers pinching deep into his palm.
The Central Secretariat drafted the enthroning edict that very night. For the next few days, the court officials and the Yelu tribe haggled over how many cavalry the Yelu tribe would contribute and when the marriage would take place. The Yelu tribe soon compromised, saying that they could make concessions as long as the Seventh Princess married.
Within a few days, the wedding decree was officially issued.
The dowry prepared for Princess Fukang became Yaoying’s. Because Yaoying was now a di princess and the court wanted to win over the Yelu tribe, Li De issued an imperial decree for the trousseau to be thickened a few points. Zheng Biyu and Noble Consort Xue would be responsible for arranging this.
Yaoying did not ask about the dowry, but only asked Zheng Biyu to help her find some Hu maids who could speak Hu language.
“There are different languages in the grassland and several different tribal dialects under the Turkic language, so find some more maids who speak Hu. Tell them that if they are willing to go with me to the Yelu tribe, they will be innocent people from now on.”
The Hu maidservants kept by the palace and the noble families were all female slaves, with low status. In their lifetime, they could never get rid of their lowly background.
Zheng Biyu said, “Since they are female slaves, they can only obey orders. Why do you need to get rid of their status for them?”
Yaoying did not explain much.
When her maids Chun Ru and the others heard that she was going to take Hu maids to marry, they knelt down and begged her to take them too: “Why does Princess not take us but brings those lowly Hu maidservants instead?”
Yaoying sighed.
Because she didn’t know what would happen to her after she married into the Yelu tribe.
Even if she was the princess of the Great Wei, when the Yelu tribe was annexed by other tribes, she would be nothing but the spoils of war to the other tribes.
She was unable to protect her own maids, so why bring them along with her on this road of no return?
The Hu maidservants were taken by Hu merchants and sold as slaves. Many of them missed their homeland and wanted to return to it, but their statuses were too low to leave, unable to escape from their background. If she had to take a few maidservants to the Yelu tribe, she might as well pick a few Hu maidservants.
Everyone would take what they needed.
Chun Ru and the others cried their hearts out.
Yaoying was not softhearted.
Two days later, Zheng Biyu sent people to lead the selected Hu maidservants to the wangfu. All of them were delicate and pretty and handy. Of the two youngest, one was named Tali, the other Ayi.
Yaoying asked them one by one, and confirmed that they were all free from their female slave identity and had requested to return to their hometowns on their own accord to follow her, so she ordered the Chief Historian to tidy up a house for them to stay.
Before the big wedding, Tribal Chief Yelu personally led the campaign, letting it be known he was offering the heads of the Ashina clan to the Great Wei.
The Wei empire successfully allied with the Hu tribes.
With the help of the armored horses of the various Hu tribes, the Wei army broke through without resistance, recovering Huizhou and Shanzhou in two months. They defiled 20,000 enemies and rescued a large number of Han Chinese who had been captured as slaves. The several Hu tribes in Liangzhou fled at the mere sight of their forces.
In another half month, Tribal Chief Yelu executed the He clan’s chief and sent the He clan’s severed heads back to Chang’an, asking the Wei empire to honor its promise.
The Ministry of Rites set the wedding date.