A Young Cousin Comes to the Duke's Estate

Jiang Xuesui lost her mother when she was three. As the saying goes, when a mother dies, the uncles come.

Sure enough, three days later, her three uncles came all the way from the capital to take her in.

Jiang Xuesui was a girl, and her father found it difficult to raise her on his own. Meanwhile, her maternal family, the Duke of Xiangguo's household, had several cousins who could play with her and study alongside her.

Like her grandmother, her aunts were kind and doted on the younger generation.

Once Jiang Xuesui moved to the Duke of Xiangguo's household, her father could devote himself to serving the people as an official.

And so little Jiang Xuesui left her father for the capital. On her first day at the Duke of Xiangguo's residence, everything went well.

Her grandmother was loving, her aunts were warm toward her, and her cousins were delighted to have her there.

Only her eldest cousin, Wen Qiao, was no good. Taciturn and stern-faced, he would rather play with a puppy than speak to her, and he wouldn't even look her in the eye.

Jiang Xuesui couldn't be bothered with someone so dull and humorless.

*

Jiang Xuesui stayed at the Duke of Xiangguo's residence until she came of age.

That year, her father rose to become the chief minister and received a large residence in the capital from the emperor.

Now that she had a home of her own in the capital, it was only natural for her to return to her father's side.

Jiang Xuesui was the chief minister's daughter and had been raised in the Duke of Xiangguo's household, a family renowned for its virtue and generations of scholarship. The noblewomen in the palace therefore began considering her marriage prospects.

One day, Jiang Xuesui went to Bodhi Temple to burn incense. First she met the crown prince, then Prince Cheng. Each handed her a marriage token, but she refused them both and pointed to Wen Qiao, who was standing beneath the temple gate. "Your Highnesses, I have long admired my cousin. If I am to marry, I will marry him and no one else."

To Jiang Xuesui, it was just a glib excuse to politely turn them down.

But after Wen Qiao passed the imperial examinations as the top candidate and went to her father to ask for her hand, he said, "At the behest of my grandmother, father, and mother, and to honor my cousin's longstanding admiration for me, I have come to ask my uncle for Xuesui's hand in marriage."

Hidden behind a screen in the hall, Jiang Xuesui panicked. Forgetting all decorum, she rushed out and snapped, "Wen Qiao, doesn't putting it that way make it sound as though I went around telling my grandmother, uncles, and aunts about it, forcing you to marry me?"

"Was that not what happened?" Wen Qiao looked puzzled and bewildered. "Perhaps I should repeat to your father what you said to the two princes that day. If you didn't mean it, why not set the record straight now?"

Fine, fine. Just wonderful.

Jiang Xuesui had no choice but to swallow her grievance.

If she admitted she hadn't meant it, her father, a steadfast man devoted to his sovereign and country, would surely take her to the palace to apologize to the emperor and empress.

So, in a fit of pique, she said, "Father, I agree to this marriage."

After they were married, she'd show him what it meant to make her suffer.

*

After the wedding, their days were filled with passionate nights, and their nights with the rustle of silk curtains.

Jiang Xuesui began to sense that something was amiss. She sat up, drew back the bed curtains, and peered out at Wen Qiao as he fastened his belt. "Did you deliberately provoke me into agreeing to marry you that day?"

Wen Qiao gazed at her and slowly uttered a single word: "Yes." Then he sat on the edge of the bed and draped her robe over her. "We have known each other since childhood. Of course, no one in this world understands your nature better than I do."

Theme: In this mortal world, every season is warm.