To Be A Virtuous Wife

1

The early morning at Duan Wang Fu[1] was not different from any other day. In the kitchen, the servants moved to and fro without any hint of hurry. Ma pozi,[2] after delivering the required pastries to the neiyuan,[3] came back to the kitchen with a group of yahuan[4] but her face wasn't looking very well.

"Hey, old sister, what's wrong? Why does your face looks terrible?" Another pozi, wearing a dark buttoned jia'ao[5], handed a cup of tea over to the other woman and exclaimed in shock: "Didn't you just go to the zhengyuan[6] to deliver the cheese, how come ... ..."

"Don't even mention it. Wang fei[7] just woke up this morning. Rough labor servants like us couldn't even enter the yard. We only saw one of wang fei's attendants, Yin Liu guniang,[8]" When she spoke to that point, Ma pozi took a long swallow of tea, looked around at the surroundings and lowered her voice to whipser, "I saw that the expressions of the people of zhengyuan weren't right, so I hurried back."

Hearing this, the pozi who wore the lined jacket sighed. With an attitude composed half being a spectator and half pitying, she said: "They hadn't even finished taking down the red canopies[9] hanging in the fu yet."

Wang fei had just married into the fu for less than two months. After the wedding night, wang ye[10] hadn't stepped a foot into the zhengyuan. In the last few days of sickness, wang ye had only sat for a period before leaving. No wonder the people of zhengyuan weren't looking very well. She once had the luck to see wang fei. She had been dignified and her appearance had also been beautiful. She didn't know which of those aspects wang ye didn't like.

"Don't say nonsense, I just saw one of Feng ce fei's[11] yahuan come over." Both of them knew the words that Ma pozi didn't say. They stopped talking and went back to their duties.

In the zhengyuan, a host of yahuan carefully waited upon the wang fei in her morning ablutions. A piece of first-rate silk brushed over fingertips that were as thin as green onions before being set to the side.

There wasn't a hint of anger on the face of Qu Qing Ju, unlike the past few days as her black silk flowing freely. She lazily took off her wrist a green jade bracelet before casually throwing it into a carved mahagony box: "This color is too old-fashioned."

Upon hearing this, Jin Zhan paused slightly before waving her hand at the female attendants behind her. Several other boxes were brought before Qu Qing Ju. Inside, there were pairs of different bracelets. Gold-wrought, pearl-encrusted, jade, of all colors and none of them were ordinary.

Her gaze swept across the rows of bracelets. In the end, her final choice was an exquisitely carved blood-red jade bracelet that, when contrasted against the pale wrist, was unspeakably beautiful.

Seeing the situation, Jin Zhan's expression slightly changed . In the past, wang fei had resented the phoenix-blood jade bangle[12] as being too garish and never worn it. Today, she had picked this jade at first glance. Thinking about the days since marrying into the wang fu, she felt bitterness in her heart. Before marriage, wang fei's personality had been warm and gentle. This would have been a virtue, but in a marriage into the Imperial family, that personality was a handicap.

Noticing Jin Zhan's expression, Qu Qing Ju smiled faintly. She stood and spread her arms to let the maids dress her in her handpicked wide-sleeved silk dress.[13] It was made from the highest quality of white brocade embroidered with Shu-style[14] red plum blossoms. When the cloth swayed, it was as though there were real plum blossoms swaying in the wind.

At the waist, there were a spice bag embroidered with a two blossoming lotus flowers on a single stem and a jade-beaded laozi.[15] The long soft hair was coiled up into a fei xian ji.[16] A vibrant red peach blossom was drawn on the brow. Eyebrows like willow leaves. Lips as red as cherries. Just a glimpse was enough to be unspeakably bewitching.