The imperial bodyguard called one of the elderly female servants to go to Fu Yalan’s courtyard and ask for an ornament. Fu Yalan had known from when she was at Du Xiaoli’s place that Du Yunhan and Du Xiuheng would be coming here to propose a marriage, so she had already prepared the item. She immediately pa.s.sed a box over to her wet nurse and had her follow the elderly female servant to the drawing room with the box in hand.
Upon entering the drawing room, the wet nurse bowed in greeting to Fu Guangling and raised the box above her head with both hands: “Master, here’s the Young Lady’s ornament.”
The imperial bodyguard went over, took down the box, and gave it to Fu Guangling. When Fu Guangling opened the box, what he saw inside was a jade hairpin.
This exchange of betrothal items consisted of personal items the man and woman wore on their bodies. They could be things like a jade pendant, a hairpin, a headband, and so on.
After seeing the content of the box, Fu Guangling waved his hand at the wet nurse. “All right. You can go.”
The wet nurse curtsied and turned to leave. Before leaving, she even glanced at Du Xiuheng.
Fu Guangling and Du Yunhan exchanged the betrothal items. This meant that the marriage was considered to be set. After that, the two people continued discussing the matters of the betrothal gifts and the wedding day for a while, wanting to settle these matters immediately,
This whole time, Du Xiuheng just remained seated in his seat while he drank tea. Du Yunhan and Fu Guangling had an extremely heated discussion, but Du Xiuheng was completely unable to take part in it as this was the custom of parents making all the decisions of their child’s marriage!
Regarding the betrothal gift, Fu Guangling did not have any particular requests. His daughter, Fu Yalan, was considered to be marrying into a family with a higher social cla.s.s after all. Moreover, the Prime Minister’s Manor certainly would not be giving a shameful betrothal gift.
The matter the two fathers discussed for the longest was the wedding day. Fu Yulan was already of marriageable age
, so they had more freedom to pick a date without having to go through the distressing period of waiting for her to become of age. Du Xiuheng was much better off than Han Mingyi on this point.
Additionally, Du Xiuheng wouldn’t be going to school the next year due to his scores in the Academy Compet.i.ton and because he needed to concentrate on revision for his partic.i.p.ation in the National Examination during fall next year, So, his schedule was also more flexible.
The two fathers did not understand much about wedding matters, but they felt it was enough to spend a few months preparing for it. As such, the two people slammed down their gavels and set the wedding date to be in the warm spring of March. If no auspicious date were present in March, they would look for one in April.
The planning speed of these two people was comparable to that of a rocket!
However, no one else had gone up to their prospective in-laws to propose a marriage for their child like Du Yunhan had done. It was considered outlandish in this era, so in that sense, it was understandable that they also managed to decide on a date for the wedding day abnormally quick.
“Haha, that’s settled then. We’ll have to take their birth details and get an auspicious date calculated later,” Du Yunhan said.
“All right.”
Thus, the two parties exchanged the birth details of the two people in question, and the marriage was set just like that!
“It’s already almost noon now. Why don’t we have lunch here?” Fu Guangling said.
“Next time, next time. We’ve already planned with Xiaoli to have lunch at her place. She’s probably still waiting for us to return and tell her the news about the marriage. She is even more concerned about this matter than me or her brother.” Du Yunhan gracefully turned down Fu Guangling’s offer with a smile.
“Prime Minister Du has raised a great daughter! I heard early on that Prime Minister Du is more doting toward Miss Du. To think that I’ve witnessed it personally today,” Fu Guangling said while smiling. “Since this is the case, I won’t try to keep you. If we have a chance in the future, let’s meet up to have a couple of drinks?”
“Sure! I’ve been waiting for this line of yours,” Du Yunhan said as he stood up. “Then we’ll take our leave now.”
Du Xiuheng stood up as well and bid his future father-in-law goodbye.
Fu Guangling accompanied Du Yunhan and Du Xiuheng to the main gate of his home. He watched them get into their carriage before he headed back inside. When he pa.s.sed through the gate, he remembered the adoring expression that appeared in Du Yunhan’s every time he mentioned Du Xiaoli and the way the connotations of his words reflected how much he favored his only daughter. Fu Guangling smiled and shook his head while saying with a sigh, “It’s true that there’s no limit to doting one’s daughter!”
That daughter—who was doted on boundlessly by Du Yunhan—was currently at the foot of Mt Yan, looking at the situation before her with a growing headache.
Just a moment ago, in the time it took to brew a cup of tea… Du Xiaoli was still very much lying contentedly against Silver while gazing at the blue sky and white clouds above. Then right when she decided to return, she sensed a killing intent from amidst the forest of the mountain she was at. She immediately stood up and looked vigilantly at the mountain.
Silver and Gold had also sensed the dense killing intent. They stood beside Du Xiaoli— on the left and one on the right—and let out low growls toward the forest.
Upon sensing that the killing intent was getting increasingly closer, Du Xiaoli began to calculate whether she still had the chance to leave without being noticed. However, before she came to a conclusion, she saw a black-clothed person who wore a half-mask that exposed their smooth chin jump out from the forest. Following him, 10 or so black-clothed masked men swiftly emerged and encircled the initial masked man.
Du Xiaoli looked at the half-masked man. He was unconsciously emitting a powerful aura, but his gaze was somewhat unfocused. It was apparent that he had been poisoned, but he was still using his willpower to persist. There were quite a number of slashes and wet patches on his clothes. Du Xiaoli supposed that his clothes were wet because of the blood from his wounds, which seemed serious.
Meanwhile, the eyes of each of the black-clothed men surrounding him emitted a murderous aura. This gave Du Xiaoli a first impression that these men weren’t good people.
It turned out that she had come across someone in the midst of being a.s.sa.s.sinated. Looking at the imposing aura from both parties, neither side was weak!
Du Xiaoli never imagined she would encounter such a situation, and those people never expected they would encounter her.
One of the black-clothed men looked at Du Xiaoli and stated with furrowed brows, “There’s a girl.”
“Kill her,” one of the others said.
The half-masked man had not actually noticed Du Xiaoli earlier. So when he heard the black-clothed men’s words, he glanced at her and pondered for a moment. Then he uttered somewhat astonishedly, “Du Xiaoli?”
This line caused the atmosphere of the scene to change instantly.
References
1. — 15 years old MoonWhisperer, TWIP"s Thoughts
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