Chapter 673: Sending the Dowry (2/2)
As for the furniture and decorations, any one of them was enough to shock a person. There was a pair of standing screens that were carved out of red sandalwood and inlaid with foreign glass, a pair of red sandalwood foot stools, twenty small boxes that were carved out of red sandalwood, twenty chests made of red sandalwood, a pair of large armoires made of carved red sandalwood, an intricately carved bed frame made of red sandalwood...a carved four-poster bed made of fragrant rosewood, an enclosed bed frame with a circular framed door that was carved out of fragrant rosewood, a set of carved fragrant rosewood screens inlaid with glass and a matching bed frame…
In addition, there were all sorts of curios, brush paintings, decorations, articles for daily use, and medicinal ingredients in the dowry. These items filled another few dozen chests. The most eye-catching chests were the ones containing the deeds for the estates and shops: over a hundred thousand mu in farmland, more than a dozen shops, and six residences. The residences included four three-courtyard estates and two five-courtyard estates. Then there were six farmsteads and two farmsteads next to hot springs...the properties that were worth the most money were the businesses under Xiaocao’s name: the pharmaceutical factory, the brewery and winery, the medicinal and flower teas factory, the canned goods and candied fruits workshop, the desserts shop, the medicinal cuisine shop, and ‘Blossoming Beauty’...
This was absolutely the most extravagant dowry that had ever been seen in the Great Ming Dynasty. The Yu Residence wasn’t very far from Imperial Prince Xu’s estate, but they deliberately made the dowry train take a roundabout route. The entire procession went along the western side of the city before circling back. Even after they did this, by the time the dowry first entered the prince’s estate, there were still more chests within the Yu Residence that hadn’t been carried out. This amount of dowry had long surpassed the record from when Imperial Prince Jing married off his daughter ten years ago and was now the new record for the most extravagant dowry.
For decades after, whenever people in the capital saw a dowry procession, they couldn't help but think of what happened when Princess Consort Xu got married and the grandiose dowry procession she had. Five kilometers of dowry was no longer enough to describe this occasion. Some people were incredibly envious of the Yu Family for having so much wealth to create such a dowry and being willing to part with so much. Others sourly remarked that the Yu Family was trying to make themselves look important in order to ingratiate themselves with their great patron, Imperial Prince Xu. How could these people understand that everyone in the Yu Family dearly loved this daughter of theirs and were reluctant to part with her?
After all of the dowry arrived at Imperial Prince Xu’s estate, the entire inner courtyard and front courtyard had been stuffed full with chests. The people who had come over earlier to watch the dowry procession arrive were the friends and family of Imperial Prince Jing and Xu. Naturally, their statuses and positions were quite high and they had seen quite a lot of grandiose and extravagant processions in their lives. However, when they saw this whopping dowry, they couldn’t help but become speechless either.
Zhu Junyang’s good friend made fun of him despite the risk of retaliation, “Looks you picked up a treasure here! You need to treat your future wife well. Look at how much her family loves her. If you treat her poorly, her family will definitely do all they can to get back at you ah!”
“Stop being such a wet blanket! How could he possibly be willing to treat his wife poorly? Haven't you seen how he acts around Royal Princess Jinan and how he treats her like the most precious treasure in the world? You only see this massive dowry in front of you but you didn’t see how he gave up pretty much half of his assets as a betrothal gift. If he could have, he would have wrapped himself up and sent himself to Royal Princess Jinan!” The person who replied was that fellow Lu Hao. He had seen with his own eyes just how much of a slave Zhu Junyang was for Xiaocao.
No matter how much his good friends poked fun at him, Zhu Junyang continued to keep a giant smile on his face, like a simpleton. The silly look of pure happiness on his face had truly given the people around him a whole new image. Apparently, the ‘cold-faced prince’ could also become a soft and tender gentleman ah! Royal Princess Jinan was truly very skilled to tame such a calamitous demon as Zhu Junyang!
Zhu Junyang looked at the chests of dowry but his mind was on one particular fact alone: Tomorrow, the lass would truly be considered his and his alone. His heart filled with glee. Custom dictated that the bride and groom should not see each other the three days before marriage. He had been thinking about her constantly during this time, tormenting himself. He just needed to be patient for one more day and then he could completely celebrate being hers alone! His wife, his princess consort, the person who he was going to grow old together…
On the night before the wedding, Madam Liu slept in the same room as her daughter and spoke a lot. She reminisced about their past memories, instructed her daughter on how to become a good wife and daughter-in-law, and obscurely went over the event that was going to happen on the wedding night. People in the ancient times tended to be quite conservative. Thus, Madam Liu only told her daughter to go along with her husband and to not allow him to harm herself too much!
As a modern woman who had lived for almost thirty years, Yu Xiaocao had read quite a few descriptive novels and seen some mature comics. Although she had still been an unmarried woman on that day she had her accident, she wasn’t unfamiliar with the relations between a man and a woman. If she was truly a well-bred young lady in these ancient times, judging by what Madam Liu had sketched out, she would have been completely clueless of what was to come.
The two of them finally fell asleep at a late time that night. Before the sky turned bright, Xiaocao was woken up unceremoniously. She was stuffed into a bathtub and was washed clean in a groggy stupor. After getting some sweet smelling lotion rubbed into her entire body, she was pushed into the chair at her dressing table. The complete fortune matron, who they had invited over, began using a cotton thread to clean up her face.
The complete fortune matron repeatedly praised Xiaocao when she saw her fair and tender face, which was as flawless as a chicken egg, “Look at this skin that is as beautiful as porcelain. I can’t even find a single hair. This old one has helped many noble ladies clean up but this is the first one I’ve seen such a tender face!”
As she spoke, she only symbolically went a few passes across Xiaocao’s face with the thread and then picked up the duck egg powder. She spread on a thick layer of powder and then colored Xiaocao’s lips a bright red. Following that, she colored in her eyebrows a deep black. In the end, Xiaocao resembled a geisha from a certain island country and everyone was underwhelmed by her finished makeup. Even Xiaocao’s personal maidservants couldn’t stand it——was this called makeup ah? Obviously it was clown makeup instead ah! Wutong, Yingchun, and the other maidservants all wanted to speak up but were afraid to do so.
[1] yuan fox - type of extinct fox