North Wind was just a horse, and when Yuwen Tong drew him out of the stable and started grooming him vigorously, he was in utter confusion, wondering what had got into his master. As the emperor’s steed, he was held in great honor, and nobody dared trifle with him. Every day he was fed the best fodder and well groomed, and he could walk out of the stable an imposing good horse and do his master proud at any moment. It was totally unnecessary to groom him.
As a result, he gave a loud snort to express his displeasure, and he would’ve rolled his eyes upwards if he could.
“Tomorrow you and I are going to go out there and escort Brother Zhang back here. We must not lose face, so I need you to brace up and be at your best.”
While grooming North Wind, Yuwen Tong was exhorting him to be on his best behavior the next day and not to make him lose face.
Irritated beyond endurance, North Wind tried to kick Yuwen Tong. As the king of all horses in the Great Wen, he didn’t need anybody to lecture him. Didn’t his master feel that his constant chatter was rendering him far removed from his usual image of a commanding and badass master?
North Wind was exasperated at his master’s failure to live up to his expectations, but Yuwen Tong patted his horse butt and said, “If you dare embarrass me tomorrow, I’ll lock you up with a herd of female horses and let you do some serious exercise.”
North Wind, “…”
If he were able to speak, he would no doubt tell his master off.
…
After cleaning North Wind, Yuwen Tong took an inspection tour around the Infinite Fortune Palace and the imperial garden, checking every corner of them, muttering about details of the decoration that struck him as not good enough. The eunuchs following in his wake were in such horror that their backs were covered with cold sweat.
Eventually Yao Yi explained that all these arrangements had been made by Ling Zhang before he left the palace.
On hearing that it’d been Ling Zhang who’d made these arrangements, Yuwen Tong made no more comments, though still poker-faced.
Seeing he finally shut up, Yao Yi and the others were all secretly relieved. Just now Yuwen Tong had been so picky about the decorations as though he was going to get rid of them and have the artisans do it all over again. Given that the wedding ceremony was right the next day, how were they supposed to finish it on time?
Yao Yi could also tell that this was not about the quality of the decoration at all. Their emperor was probably stressing out as well due to the wedding ceremony the next day.
“Sire, if you do miss Childe Ling very much, how about we sneak out and pay him a visit?”
Yao Yi ventured a suggestion. It struck him that apart from being nervous, Yuwen Tong was also frustrated at the fact that he couldn’t see Ling Zhang this night, and Ling Zhang was the only one who could dissolve these negative emotions of his. Although by convention the two of them were not supposed to see each other the day before the wedding day, the rules were not really unchangeable, as long as nobody found out.
On hearing this, Yuwen Tong came to a halt. It was a long moment before he said, “We stick to the rules.”
He decided to respect and honor the long-standing rules and not to visit the Ling Mansion this night, despite his craving to see Ling Zhang right away. He wanted to look at him, to share with him his nervousness and excitement the day before their wedding day, to watch the hustle of everybody making preparations for their wedding, running around with bright red satin, their faces etched with delight owing to the upcoming imperial wedding. Those scenes were like blessings. The next day was the biggest day of their lives. He wanted to watch it approaching bit by bit until the selected auspicious hour of the next day, but intense as his yearning was, he managed to subdue it. It was a convention that a would-be couple should not see each other on the eve of the wedding. Some people believed that it was because such conduct was inauspicious. Previously Yuwen Tong had never taken any of these seriously, but this time around things were different. He would force himself to obey this rule. He must get his wedding an auspicious start. Under no circumstances would he allow anything bad to show up between him and Ling Zhang.
Yao Yi noticed the sign of an inward struggle flash across Yuwen Tong’s eyes during his silence. “Please forgive me for being a busybody, Sire.”
“Let’s go to the hall to take a look.”
Yuwen Tong made towards the great hall. The next day a sacrificial ceremony would be held at the highest platform in front of the hall to offer sacrifice to the gods. At this moment the place was heavily guarded. Staff members of the Ministry of Rites were checking the arrangements again and again. On his arrival, Yuwen Tong saw those decorations immediately and with that transports of rapture surged inside him in spite of himself, the image of Ling Zhang in scarlet wedding robes in the imperial bedchamber on that day reappearing in his mind. The next day, wearing the same red wedding robes, Ling Zhang would be standing there by his side. Together, they would offer sacrifice to the gods before they were officially pronounced husband and wife who were going to share joys and sorrows and live to a ripe old age in conjugal bliss.
“Sire?”
Seeing Yuwen Tong staring vacantly in that direction, Yao Yi couldn’t help but call him. On this day, first Yuwen Tong had acted tensely and fretfully, and now he was in a daze. As the captain of Yuwen Tong’s personal bodyguards, Yao Yi had never seen Yuwen Tong conduct himself so uncharacteristically before, and the reason for all this was the wedding ceremony the next day. Having been serving Yuwen Tong all along, Yao Yi better than anybody knew how strong the bond between Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang was. He was fully aware that Ling Zhang meant everything to Yuwen Tong, that nothing must go wrong at the wedding. As the captain of imperial guards, Yao Yi was very happy to see Yuwen Tong find a marriage partner like Ling Zhang, but sometimes he involuntarily feared that there might be a disaster if one day something did happen to Ling Zhang, considering Yuwen Tong’s deep affection for Ling Zhang. However, Yao Yi could do nothing but keep telling himself that he must do everything within his power to protect the two of them, especially Ling Zhang.
Yuwen Tong, who was brought back to his senses by Yao Yi’s voice, didn’t continue walking forward. He earnestly watched for a while and then pivoted around and left. He himself also knew that on this particular day he was being a little irritable and having difficulty cooling down, which was quite uncharacteristic of him. As a marshal who had hundreds of thousands of troops under his command and had fought so many fights, Yuwen Tong had long since developed the ability to retain his composure in the face of all kinds of situations, no matter how dire they were, but evidently he was really losing his cool on this day which felt like a year.
If possible, Yuwen Tong wouldn’t hesitate for a split instant to have the next day arrive sooner.
…
While Yuwen Tong in the palace was willing the next day to come sooner, Ling Zhang was thinking about the same thing, and he was just as impatient and expectant as Yuwen Tong was.
When he had left Ling Zhaowu’s courtyard house and was looking up into the sky, he wondered why this way felt so much longer than any of the previous ones, why the daytime was still not over after such a long time, and how much longer it would take for night to fall.
However, no matter how hard they willed the time to go faster, the sun in the sky was still edging westwards bit by bit, not moving any quicker than usual at all.
“Childe Ling.”
When Ling Zhang was impatiently gazing into the sky in the corridor, Jiang Yu and Zhao Jiusi showed up together.
The two of them were staying in the Ling Mansion for the time being. The next day they would accompany Ling Zhang to the palace as his advisers.
The two of them had come here to talk to Ling Zhang about the matter of supervisors. Ji Yin had transferred many stores to Ling Zhang, many of which were quite famous. Each of them had a history of at least over ten years, and the most prestigious one had been there for more than a century. They were distributed throughout the country. All these were private property of Ji Yin, the Prime Elder of the Millennium Pavilion. Some of them had been given to him by the clan after he was made the Prime Elder. Some others had been purchased by him along with the whole chains of stores after he left the Sanguan Mountains, which had cost quite a fortune. Anyway, Ji Yin had personally worked on the management modes of them, and now he had given all of them to Ling Zhang to be his trousseaus. Actually it was unnecessary for the managers and supervisors of these stores to come to the capital city, and simply adding them to the list of trousseaus would be enough, but Ji Yin on a whim had had all of them come to this city, made arrangements for them to follow the two advisers at the ceremony and accompany Ling Zhang to the palace to add to the pomp.
After being informed of this, Ling Zhang hastened to meet those general storekeepers. At the sight of them, he was amazed. There were over a hundred of them. How impressive it would be to have so many people in the wake of his advisers? No, it wouldn’t be just impressive – it’d be startling. Ling Zhang hurriedly went to confer with Ji Yin, trying to dissuade him from doing this, but the latter disagreed, insistent on including these people in the team.
Resigned, Ling Zhang had no alternative but to make compromises, allowing twenty of the over a hundred people to act as representatives. All these people were of high prestige in the cities where their stores were located, so the weight they lent to Ling Zhang’s adviser team would be enough. As for a team of a hundred men, Ling Zhang really believed that was needless.
Jiang Yu and Zhao Jiusi had orders from Ling Zhang to deal with these people and make arrangements for them to do what they were supposed to do the next day. Now the two of them had returned to report on the completion of the task.
“All arrangements for the twenty general storekeepers to participate in the ceremony have been made.”
Jiang Yu gave Ling Zhang a minute account of the twenty men’s case. After being promptly informed of the existence of the storekeepers, Ling Zhang had done a general background check on them, especially these twenty of them.
“Master Ling said he’d talk to the rest of them. Right now he’s talking with those storekeepers about the stores in various cities.”
Ling Zhang inclined his head. It would do some good for his father to handle this matter, because he would include these stores as part of their plan if possible.
“There’s also the matter of the account books. As there are too many of them, I classified them into several categories. You and His Majesty may spare some time to take a look at them after your wedding.”
Zhao Jiusi was responsible for sorting the account books. Though not as interested in commerce as Zhao Turui was, he also had some acquaintance with this kind of things, so it was within his power to separate account books into groups. Besides, after he came to know about the current situation, especially detailed information about Ling Zhang’s trousseaus, Zhao Jiusi had been in a state of shock all along, because the truth was really very different from people’s speculations. Most people believed that the Ling family’s household finances were just average, that they wouldn’t be able to provide Ling Zhang with many trousseaus. They definitely had no idea how astounding Ling Zhang’s trousseaus were. The next day, the part of the trousseaus, including those general storekeepers, which would be going with the team would only be the part that the Ling family wanted people to see. Those on the list of the trousseaus, which wouldn’t be made public, were the really shocking part. If information about those things was disclosed, it would undoubtedly send everybody dumbstruck.
Zhao Jiusi had made some inquiries about the real identity of Ji Yin. After all, he was now Ling Zhang’s adviser, and it was part of his duty to ascertain this kind of things, but he and Jiang Yu had both failed to find out anything about who Ji Yin or that mysterious clan leader really was. After that, Zhao Jiusi had come to realize that Ling Zhang’s maternal grandfather was by no means just a member of some Jianghu sect, that the identities of the two of them were definitely far more mysterious than that, which was why even people around them were kept in the dark about it. As far as they knew, nobody in the Ling family knew about the real identities of Ji Yin and that mysterious clan leader, except for the couple of main members of the Ling family and the emperor.
Zhao Jiusi was faintly depressed. He wanted to gain Ling Zhang’s trust, be privy to these things and have a part to play in them, but clearly he was not there yet. Jiang Yu, however, was much calmer than him and told him to show patience.
