Married Thrice to Salted Fish

Chapter 1

Nan'an Hou Mansion, inside the bridal chamber on the eve of the wedding.

The two matrons of honor finished their assignments and took the maidservants of the Hou Mansion to file out of the inner room. They hadn’t even made it past the door before they were impatiently gossiping in whispers.

“I’ve already lived the greater part of my lifetime and I’ve never seen such a beautiful man.”

“It’s a pity he’s been married off to an invalid.”

“What do you mean ‘a pity’? He’s married to the Hou Mansion’s Young Master. If it weren’t for his Eight Characters managing to fit perfectly for a Chong Xi to Young Master Hou, would Master Hou and Madam Hou deign to even consider the son of a fifth rank Imperial Hospital Yuan Pan?”

“What you say is reasonable. Whether this is a blessing or a curse, only time will tell.”

……

In the middle of their conversation, the matron of honor arrived at the outer room. Before pulling close the two doors, she glanced inside. Amidst the festive, bright red, the young man, newly married into the Hou Mansion, with the bridal veil covering his face, sat quietly like a jade carving on the bridal bed.

The door slowly closed, leaving only the rejoicing newly-married couple in the bridal chamber.

The surrounding area became quiet, and Lin Qingyu’s back which had been stiff the entire day finally relaxed. He moved his body a bit and the tassels hanging on the bridal veil swayed along with him.

Wearing a bridal veil was really inconvenient. When a female bride is married, the bridal veil on her head must be lifted off by her husband. Presumably, this was also the case for when a male bride is married.

However, he was afraid that his husband was incapble of doing this.

His… “Husband”.

Lin Qingyu raised his hand to take the bridal veil off himself. His vision finally opened up. He looked around at the light gauze curtains, the red canopy and the warm quilts. Finally, he turned his attention to the sleeping man on the bed — Young Master Hou of Nan’an Hou Mansion, Lu Wancheng.

Under the candlelight, Lin Qingyu expressionlessly sized up Lu Wancheng.

Lu Wancheng had on a crimson wedding robe. His brows were like distant mountains. His lashes were long and thick, his cheeks were hallowed out and his lips were as pale as paper. Though his eyes were tightly closed and his body broken by illness, it could still be seen that he was gifted with extremely good-looking features.

From today onwards, this person was his husband.

Although he was a man, he became the wife of another man — He was the first male wife “formally and legally married” in the Dayu Dynasty.

How completely ridiculous.

He’d been preparing for the examination of the Imperial Medical Office for three years. If he were to pass the examination, he would become a medical officer just like his father. Even if he weren’t to enter the palace, he could open a pharmacy in the capital and be an ordinary doctor.

It was a pity that just as he was preparing to go all out for this major undertaking, the Empress called his father to appear before her and said, “I hear that you have a son, born on March 11, on the Year of Guiwei, at Chen Shi. Is this true?”

After getting the affirmative answer from Father Lin, the Empress asked the Emperor to confer a marriage upon the Lin Family and betroth Lin Qingyu to Nan’an Hou’s eldest son, Lu Wancheng.