Chapter 1 has run away

Ye Tangcai sat in front of the dressing table, staring blankly at the exquisite carved bronze mirror in front of her.

In the mirror, a gorgeous young woman in a bright red wedding dress and phoenix coronet was reflected. Ye Tangcai tilted her head, and the girl in the mirror also tilted her head. She frowned, and the girl in the mirror also frowned. It was not an illusion.

"Miss, is the coronet uncomfortable?" the maid Huiran asked with concern. "You have to wear it all day. If it's too tight or loose, you must speak up and not endure it."

Ye Tangcai's eyes finally showed some realization, but she still didn't move her gaze from the mirror. "Huiran, look, who is in the mirror?"

Huiran chuckled, "Of course, it's you, who else could it be?"

Ye Tangcai said, "Am I supposed to remarry?"

With a splutter, Qiujie, who was drinking water, almost choked, and Xiniang also almost twisted her old waist. Huiran stumbled and hurriedly said, "What remarriage? Miss is getting married for the first time... no, no, what first time, just this time!"

Xiniang laughed, "What nonsense are you talking about, the new bride just said she wants to adjust the way the ribbon is tied on the wedding dress." As she spoke, she actually went to untie the ribbon on one side and tied it into a different style. "There, this is called the 'hundred years of harmony knot.'"

Huiran looked grateful, "Thank you, Xiniang. Qiujie, take Xiniang downstairs for some tea."

Qiujie, clever as she was, had already taken out a small silver ingot from the money box and handed it to Xiniang, then led her outside to rest and have some tea.

With only the two main servants left in the room, Huiran said with a mournful face, "Miss, we can't make this kind of joke anymore. If it gets to the Zhang family's ears, it won't be good."

Ye Tangcai tried to suppress her excitement and steadied her voice as she probed, "The one I'm marrying... is Zhang Boyuan?"

"Miss, why are you saying such nonsense again?" Huiran was almost desperate, "Besides Master Boyuan, who else could it be? You can't say such things anymore!" She looked pleadingly at Ye Tangcai.

Ye Tangcai just made a sound of agreement, "Help me sit on the bed."

Huiran assisted Ye Tangcai as she requested, carefully leading her to the canopy bed.

Ye Tangcai sat down steadily, surveyed her surroundings, pondered for a while, and finally confirmed that she had been reborn and returned to the moment just before her wedding.

In her joy, Ye Tangcai also felt a bit helpless. If she had to be reborn, if only it had been one day earlier, she could have managed to break off the engagement. But in the current situation, there was only one path for her to take.

Ye Tangcai smiled helplessly.

At that moment, the pearl curtain swayed, and Qiujie walked in, sounding annoyed, "It's already so late, why hasn't he come yet? The auspicious time is approaching."

"Why are you so anxious!" Huiran scolded her, "Could he not come? It's just that something delayed him, and we should let the people outside not detain him for too long. The farewell etiquette should be done quickly."

Ye Tangcai snorted, her lips curling into a wry smile or self-mockery, because the groom really wouldn't be coming! Because something big was about to happen, right away, immediately!

After about fifteen minutes, there was suddenly a sound of footsteps outside.

Ye Tangcai involuntarily clenched her hands on her lap, and her half-closed eyes narrowed: He's here!

At that moment, the door outside creaked open, and a small head poked in, but it was a delicate young girl of twelve or thirteen. Qiujie raised the pearl curtain, "Third Miss?"

The current head of the Ye family was the old Marquis Ye Hewen.

Marquis Ye had three sons, the eldest legitimate son, the second legitimate son, and the third legitimate son. Ye Tangcai was the eldest legitimate daughter of the main branch, and the third Miss, Ye Weicai, was the legitimate daughter of the main branch.

"Is it Weicai?" Ye Tangcai called out and waved her over, "Come here, come here."

"Big sister," Ye Weicai ran to Ye Tangcai's side, her round eyes wide open, "Something happened outside, something big."

"Is the welcoming party causing too much trouble?" Huiran asked.

"No, no," Ye Weicai shook her head incessantly, "The welcoming party hasn't come, and it won't come. Because my brother-in-law and the second sister have run away!"

The second sister mentioned by Ye Weicai was the daughter of the second wife.

"What are you saying?" Qiujie exclaimed.

"Third Miss, please don't speak nonsense," Huiran was shocked, "Where did you hear such nonsense?"

"It's not nonsense, everyone outside is talking about it!" Ye Weicai said, "When you were getting ready this morning, Mother asked me and the second sister to go to the Spring Pavilion to help entertain the female guests, but on the way, she said she felt dizzy and went back to the room, so I had to go alone. I've been busy until now, and everyone is waiting for the welcoming party, but who knew, the welcoming party didn't come, and we got this news instead."

"Who spread this news? This will ruin the reputation of our Ye family and the Zhang family!" Huiran's voice trembled.

"It was a male guest," Ye Weicai looked at her timidly, "As for which guest, I don't know. At the time, everyone was waiting for the welcoming party and wondering why it hadn't arrived yet. Suddenly, someone said, 'Could it be that the ones outside the city are the real ones?' When others asked, that person said he had been on official business and had left the city yesterday, only rushing back early this morning for the banquet. Outside the city, he saw a young couple meeting near the Wishing Pavilion and leaving together on horseback. At the time, he felt it looked familiar, but couldn't remember who it was. It wasn't until he entered the city that he remembered it was Zhang Lang and the second sister, but he couldn't believe it, after all, today is your wedding day. It wasn't until the groom didn't arrive that he became suspicious."

"And then?" Huiran's voice trembled.

"Then they all chased after and asked where the second sister was. I don't know which woman had a loose tongue and said she saw the second sister carrying something and running out the door early in the morning. She thought the second sister was going out to buy something, but she didn't expect her to elope with her brother-in-law. The guests didn't mind making a big deal out of it, and the more unpleasant things were said, the more they spread the news of the groom eloping with his sister-in-law, and everyone knew about it, and they couldn't suppress it."

Ye Weicai was almost in tears as she spoke, gasping for breath, and then said, "I just ran to the second sister's room and checked, and there's nothing valuable left. It's probably true, big sister..."

Ye Tangcai's eyes were a bit blank, perhaps thinking of past life experiences, and a wave of bitterness surged in her heart, unable to express her feelings, a mix of emotions.

After a while, she slowly spoke, "Has the wedding procession arrived?"

"Not yet..." Ye Weicai said.

Ye Tangcai's black eyes gradually turned cold, and finally squeezed out the same words as in her previous life, "Go see how Grandfather is handling it, and you, Huiran, go too."

Upon hearing this, Ye Weicai ran out in a flash. Huiran left with a grim face, walked to the door, and instructed the two gatekeepers not to let anyone in before following.

Ye Tangcai took a deep breath, steadied herself first, let the situation develop step by step to that point, and then made a decision.

Outside the study, in the second room to the east—

The Marquis of Jing'an, Ye Hewen, sat with a stern face on the grand chair, separated by a yellow pear wood tea table, a woman in her forties with a sharp and beautiful face was leisurely drinking tea.

The woman was Ye Hewen's concubine, Miaoshi. Miaoshi only had one daughter, who was just sixteen and still in her boudoir.

Standing in a row below were Ye Hewen's three sons, the eldest son Ye Chengde, the second son Ye Chengxin, and the third son Ye Chenggang, each with their wives, Wen, Sun, and Luo.

"Madam! Madam! Wake up!" The maidservants' alarmed cries rang out.

It turned out that Wen, upon hearing that her son-in-law had eloped with the niece from the concubine's quarters on the day of the grand wedding, was so angry that she trembled all over. Coupled with overexertion yesterday, she caught a cold and fainted.

"Grandfather... the second miss wouldn't do such a thing." Sun knelt on the ground, tears streaming down her face, "There must be a misunderstanding. Grandfather... Grandfather..."

Ye Hewen was overwhelmed by the maidservants' cries and Sun's wailing, and finally couldn't bear it any longer, "Shut up! All of you shut up! Eldest, quickly have your wife carried out."

Ye Chengde frowned in annoyance and only called two maidservants to carry Wen out, and then slipped away on the pretext of this, as if it wasn't his daughter who had caused the trouble.

"Grandfather." At this time, a servant ran in.

"How is it, has the bridal sedan arrived?" Ye Hewen asked anxiously.

"Not yet." The servant's face looked extremely unpleasant, "I went to the Zhang family, not to mention the wedding procession, the Zhang family didn't even open the door, as if there was no wedding at all. Several guests came, but the Zhang family didn't open the door and they all left."

This time, Ye Hewen was so angry that he trembled all over, "This is outrageous! Even if that brat Zhang Boyuan ran away, the Zhang family should have sent the bridal sedan first to complete the marriage, what does that old man Zhang Zan mean?"

Miaoshi sipped her tea lightly and said coolly, "It must be that the Zhang family felt that they had lost face, and assumed that the second girl had seduced Zhang's son, so in a fit of anger, they simply called off the marriage."

"That old man dares to make things difficult for me! He's just a country bumpkin, three generations of his ancestors have been lowly peasants working the fields! I spit on him!" Ye Hewen spat fiercely.

As Ye Hewen said, the Zhang family originally came from poor farming stock, borrowed money to study, and later passed the imperial examination, just like Ye Hewen. In the end, Ye Hewen ranked seventh in the examination for scholars, while Zhang Zan ranked eighth, one place lower than him, and both were admitted to the Hanlin Academy.

Despite his lowly background and lower ranking, Ye Hewen had never looked at Zhang Zan squarely.

Who would have thought that after decades, Ye Hewen had only risen to the position of a fourth-rank supervisor of the Imperial Library, in other words, just a librarian. Meanwhile, Zhang Zan had been promoted to the position of a third-rank judge in the Ministry of Justice, greatly favored by the emperor. For this matter, Ye Hewen was extremely resentful, mocking Zhang Zan for his lack of shame and his skillful flattery, otherwise how could he have been promoted faster than him?

Later, Wen and the daughter-in-law of the Zhang family somehow became friends, and Ye Hewen was resentful, but couldn't be bothered to interfere. Later, the two women even said they wanted to become in-laws.

Ye Hewen looked down on Zhang Zan, but was also interested in the Zhang family's favor with the emperor, and since the Zhang family had proposed the marriage first, he reluctantly agreed to fulfill the Zhang family's request!

After the engagement was settled, many people secretly said that he was so lucky to have found such a good in-law.

Ye Hewen was almost driven mad, they were the prestigious Marquis of Jing'an's residence, a noble family with a hundred years of history! Did they still need to climb higher? That Zhang family was just a bunch of country bumpkins. But that old man was still polite, so he didn't bother with him.

But now, he had gone to great lengths to marry off his granddaughter, and that old man had actually closed the door and refused to welcome the bridal procession! Where was he supposed to put his face?

The servant hurriedly said, "Grandfather, since the Zhang family isn't welcoming the bridal procession, what should we do now? Should we call off the marriage and send the guests away?"

Ye Hewen's anger surged, "Damn it! If we don't enter the Zhang family's door, does that mean my granddaughter won't get married? The other day, weren't there a bunch of poor relatives who came to our house and are still staying here? I remember one of them has a son who is still unmarried. Liu Er, go and ask who is willing to marry the eldest miss, and have the groom put on new wedding attire and pay respects in the main hall!"