Marrying The Imperial Elder Chapter 1

In winter, the daylight hours are short. Many women accustomed to doing work would be busier during the day, trying to finish eye-straining tasks before the sun went down.

Old Lady Zhen was like this. Although she was staying in an inn outside, she was not someone who could sit still. She found a spot by the window, and with the light coming in from outside, did her needlework.

Just then, Madam Li from the next room came over to borrow a needle and thread to mend her husband’s clothes. She pulled a chair over and sat beside Old Lady Zhen. The two chatted idly, and Madam Li asked, “I see you’re also heading to the capital, are you taking your granddaughter to visit relatives?”

It wasn’t that Madam Li was being nosy. It was mainly because there were few travelers in winter, and Old Lady Zhen’s group was somewhat strange, old and young together. Although there were maidservants and stewards, there wasn’t a single head of the household man present, which inevitably seemed odd. Especially the young granddaughter, she was truly delicately beautiful, like something painted, enough to brighten anyone’s eyes at a glance.

Madam Li’s husband was in business, and she herself was fairly shrewd. When they first met, she did not dare ask too deeply in case she touched on painful matters. After a few days of interaction, seeing that Old Lady Zhen and her granddaughter both had lively, open personalities, she finally gathered the courage to ask.

Little did she know, Old Lady Zhen had been waiting for someone to ask all along, she had been holding it in the whole journey. If not for the maid watching her, she would have started showing off long ago. Now that Madam Li finally asked, she immediately stopped her needlework, stuffed it into the sewing basket, and said modestly but proudly: “Our ancestors were all farmers. How could we possibly have relatives in the capital? This time it’s just that the girl’s father has been promoted and is entering the capital for office, and he specially sent people to fetch us, grandmother and granddaughter… Actually, I’ve said it before, I’m just an old woman who has never left home my whole life. I probably won’t be used to the capital even if I go. But the girl’s father was worried, sent people several times, and I also couldn’t rest assured about their family, so I had no choice but to come along for the trip…”

Madam Li was startled: she, she really hadn’t realized that Old Lady Zhen actually had a son who was an official in the capital!

Surprised as she was, Madam Li quickly began flattering her: “I already thought you had such good fortune, and now it turns out you really do. People like us simply cannot compare…”

As she spoke, she inevitably asked a few more questions about the official, Old Master Zhen.

Old Lady Zhen’s proudest achievement in life was this son. Hearing this, she immediately straightened her back, full of energy, and began speaking in great detail. She said that when her son was born he had a big forehead, a good memory, and could memorize books; then he met a good teacher who took him in as a disciple…

Before she could finish talking about how her son became a xiucai, a juren, a jinshi, and later was sent out as an official, suddenly there was a clap of thunder outside the window. The weather changed abruptly, and the sky was already turning dark.

Old Lady Zhen no longer cared about talking about her son. She quickly stood up from her chair, leaned out the window, and shouted: “Second girl! Second girl! It’s raining! Hurry up and come upstairs!”

Madam Li paused and looked outside as well: “Your daughter is still downstairs?”

“That’s right! Just like her mother, always so troublesome!” Speaking of her daughter-in-law, Old Lady Zhen immediately looked displeased, with a whole stomach full of complaints. “You don’t know, my daughter-in-law has a terrible temper. She gave birth to two daughters in a row. If it were any other family’s mother-in-law, she would have already been taught a lesson. I didn’t do anything to her, just said a few words, and she started showing me a cold face and throwing a tantrum. When she gave birth to the second girl, the second girl’s father had just passed the jinshi exam. She got into a fight with me, took the eldest girl, and ran all the way to the capital, leaving this little milk baby second girl with me! At that time I said: if it were a grandson, I would definitely raise him, but it turned out to be a girl. When she was little she cried a lot, and when she grew up she’s still troublesome…”

As she spoke, she remembered how quiet it was downstairs. Old Lady Zhen was so angry that she forgot all about maintaining the dignified airs of an official’s matriarch. Hands on hips, she shouted, “Are you coming up or not?! If you still don’t come up, then tonight you can just sleep in the stables with that horse of yours!”

Only then did a voice drift up from below—

“Coming, coming! If you keep rushing me like this, before I get there you’ll have already hurried the rain down first!”

The young girl’s voice was crisp and clear, tender as the buds on branches in early spring, so fresh and soft it seemed one could squeeze juice from it.

Hearing this, Madam Li could not help but laugh as well. “Your family’s young lady truly has a lively temperament.”

Old Lady Zhen replied, “Oh my, don’t praise her! This girl has such a strange temper!” Though she said this, her voice carried a smile.

While the two women upstairs chatted, the Zhen family’s young daughter, Zhen Tingyun, was curled up in the stable talking to the horse. She looked about thirteen or fourteen years old, with apricot-shaped eyes, a delicate nose, glossy lips, and a touch of baby fat still lingering on her face. Two shallow dimples rested at her cheeks. Today she wore a rose-pink jacket, making her look sweet and lovely, like a flower bud upon a branch.

Though Zhen Tingyun had verbally answered Old Lady Zhen, her movements remained entirely unhurried. She casually fed the remaining half of a carrot in her hand to the horse and stroked its head. “In a few more days we’ll arrive in the capital, so you have to behave yourself and stop running around…” She continued to mutter on, “Look how well I treat you, feeding you apples and carrots every day. If you belonged to another family, who knows, maybe you wouldn’t even get enough grass to eat.”

Whether the horse truly possessed some spirit or not, after being fed, petted, and nagged at by her like this, it soon lowered its head docilely and rubbed its forehead against the little girl’s palm.

The touch made Zhen Tingyun feel a bit ticklish, and she laughed twice before reluctantly standing to leave. “Alright then, Malantou, you behave yourself. I’ll come see you again later…”

Zhen Tingyun left the stable while turning back every few steps. Though it looked as though a heavy rain was about to fall outside, she was not especially anxious and instead felt rather calm inside.

Actually, when Father Zhen first sent people to bring her and her grandmother to the capital, Zhen Tingyun had felt somewhat uneasy. She had grown up in the countryside with her grandmother since childhood. Not only had she never seen her parents, she had never even met the elder sister and younger brother who lived beside them. People said that because Old Lady Zhen favored sons over daughters, and because Madam Pei had consecutively given birth to two daughters, she had suffered greatly during her confinement after childbirth. In anger, she simply took the elder daughter and went to the capital to join her husband. At first, perhaps they thought the younger daughter had only just been born and was too difficult to bring along. Later on, Father Zhen was posted to remote places, while Old Lady Zhen was unwilling to leave her homeland, making it inconvenient to bring only the daughter over.

After all this back and forth, by the time Father Zhen was promoted and transferred back into the capital, Zhen Tingyun, his daughter, had still never met her own parents. Naturally, she could not help feeling nervous.

As a result of this anxiety, Zhen Tingyun fell mildly ill and had a strange dream.

In the dream, she entered the capital with her grandmother. After a hurried journey, they finally met her parents and family. Father Zhen was kind and easygoing, Madam Pei gentle on the outside but strong within, her elder sister both talented and beautiful, and her younger brother clever and sensible. They appeared to be an affectionate and harmonious family, except that she and her grandmother were extra people awkwardly added into it.

Grandmother had spent most of her life in the countryside and naturally knew nothing of the capital’s rules. After arriving in the capital, she could neither manage the household nor socialize outside, and could only stay cooped up at home. Yet she and Madam Pei had never gotten along as mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, and being shut up together only bred more resentment. In the end, because of many incidents, she and Father Zhen became estranged as mother and son. After falling seriously ill, she simply passed away.

As for Zhen Tingyun, she fared even worse. Because she had an elder sister who was talented, beautiful, and especially beloved by others, Zhen Tingyun, the wild country girl from the countryside, was compared straight into the mud. Her father did not dote on her, her mother did not love her, her younger brother disliked her for being coarse and stupid, and even her cousins from her maternal uncle’s family disliked speaking with her. Naturally, the Zhen Tingyun in the dream refused to accept this. Again and again she tried to prove herself, yet repeatedly made mistakes and embarrassed herself, earning only increasingly disappointed looks from her family. After Grandmother died, there was even less room for her in the Zhen household. Father Zhen was unwilling to let such a disgraceful younger daughter damage the family reputation, so he simply sent people to escort Zhen Tingyun back to her hometown, intending to entrust clan elders there with arranging a marriage for her so she could spend the rest of her life quietly in the countryside. The dream-Zhen Tingyun was furious. Before leaving, she ran to argue with her parents and quarrel with her elder sister. Somehow, she ended up running outside and was killed.

Yet even after she died, the dream did not end.

In the dream, she saw the Zhen family grieve for a while over the death of their unfilial daughter. Soon afterward came the joyful news that Yan Wang Shizi had been established as Imperial Crown Brother*. The entire Zhen family rejoiced, once Yan Wang Shizi became the Imperial Crown Brother, her elder sister Zhen Yiyun, as the consort, would naturally become Crown Princess and would likely soon become Empress. Only at this point did the beautiful and talented Zhen Yiyun finally relax. Looking at herself in the mirror dressed in the grand ceremonial robes of a Crown Princess, she could not help smiling.
* It is a historical title given to the younger brother of an emperor, officially designating him as the next in line to the throne

With no one beside her, Zhen Yiyun was finally able to say aloud to the mirror all the words she had long kept bottled up in her heart. “I originally thought the female lead’s halo would be something incredible, but turns out it’s only this much.” Then, smugly pleased with herself, she recounted one by one all the things she had done after transmigrating into the novel.

According to her, they were all living inside a storybook.

According to her, in the original version of the story, Zhen Tingyun had been the pampered female protagonist. Madam Pei could not bear to leave behind her younger daughter and brought both daughters to the capital together. Because the journey was rushed, the younger daughter even fell ill along the way, causing Father Zhen and Madam Pei to feel all the more guilty and cherish her dearly. Since childhood, Zhen Tingyun had been lovely as jade and snow, clever and bright. Whenever she occasionally stayed at her maternal grandparents’ home, she became especially beloved by her eldest maternal aunt, and she was betrothed early to her eldest cousin. She and her eldest cousin grew up together as childhood sweethearts, and after marriage they loved each other deeply. Later, her eldest cousin rose to the position of Grand Secretary, becoming a first-rank official, and she too received the title of a first-rank noble lady. The two shared one life and one partner, envied by all.

However, once Zhen Yiyun transmigrated into the story, she felt that a female lead like Zhen Tingyun, someone who relied only on luck and on being doted upon, was utterly worthless. Unwilling to be overshadowed by such a useless heroine, she simply devised methods to make Madam Pei abandon Zhen Tingyun and take only her alone to the capital. Several times Father Zhen and Madam Pei wanted to bring Old Lady Zhen and Zhen Tingyun over, but she always secretly interfered and made them abandon the idea. In this way, she could seize all of Zhen Tingyun’s opportunities for herself: staying at the maternal grandparents’ home, growing up as childhood sweethearts with the eldest cousin, taking away the famous teachers and the reputation for talent that originally belonged to Zhen Tingyun. Only after entering the capital and deciding that Zhen Tingyun no longer posed any threat did Zhen Yiyun stop obstructing people from fetching Old Lady Zhen and Zhen Tingyun. Instead, she put on the appearance of a kind and lovable elder sister, and even had the fine horse Father Zhen had gifted her given away instead, saying it was a present for her younger sister.

In the end, however, the horse was lost along the journey.

Because of this, Zhen Yiyun became convinced that she and Zhen Tingyun were fated to clash, like two kings who could not coexist. Thus she once again conceived schemes to frame Zhen Tingyun… Naturally, with the advantage of knowing the plot, Zhen Yiyun repeatedly triumphed over the completely ignorant Zhen Tingyun, who had only just arrived in the capital from the countryside. She drove Zhen Tingyun into ever greater humiliation and misery, until everyone despised her, and in the end she died violently in the streets. Meanwhile, Zhen Yiyun broadened her horizons and no longer thought much of her eldest cousin. Borrowing the momentum around her, she married the future emperor, Yan Wang Shizi, and thus embarked upon her own road of wealth and glory.

…

It was like a dream from Nanke, neither wholly real nor wholly false.

Zhen Tingyun had practically been frightened awake by the scenes in the dream. After waking, the very first thing she did was go check on the horse.

This horse absolutely could not go missing. If it did, wouldn’t Zhen Yiyun just have another excuse to torment people?