Female Lead Quits Chapter 9
Since A-niang Mentioned This Matter, Su Yuan Didn’t Avoid It Either; After All, She Wasn’t a Pure Maiden
Since A-niang mentioned this matter, Su Yuan didn’t avoid it either; after all, she wasn’t a pure maiden. With more than a lifetime’s worth of memories, she understood her own desires.
“Your daughter just wants to find a quiet home. Whether my husband is a scholar or a martialist, a high-grade or low-grade official, is unimportant. As long as he keeps his hands clean, looks pleasing to the eye, has an easy-going temperament, and can get along with me, then it’s sufficient enough.
Mother Su wasn’t sure whether her daughter understood this matter properly or not – which unmarried lady would casually talk about what kind of person they wanted to marry? Although this was a private conversation between mother and daughter, this silly girl didn’t stumble over her words at all nor did her face turn red; even if they were talking about others, normally when it came to marriages, anyone would feel slightly embarrassed.
The daughter was very magnanimous; the mother, on the other hand, felt a bit embarrassed and even deliberately lowered her voice.
“Well, there’s no need to rush this. You’re still young, so what you like now may not be liked in the future, but A-niang has noted down your requirements. If there’s anyone suitable, I’d definitely pay attention to him. If you find anyone you like, come tell me and your father.”
Her daughter’s preferences were simple; he just needed to have a good appearance, a good temper, and clean family background.
Whether someone looked well varied from person to person; in the end, A-yuan had the final say. As for the other two, even if her daughter hadn’t mentioned them, as parents they also had these requirements; in addition, these were the most basic requirements. If he had a bad temper and came from an unclean background, they wouldn’t even spare him a glance.
Excluding the requirements A-yuan mentioned, she and her husband had also discussed beforehand that their son-in-law had to be capable of taking responsibility and afford a home.
His background shouldn’t be too weak; he definitely shouldn’t be from a poor, humble family like Wife Sun. If he was just as shallow-minded and had just as narrow horizons as her, he’d definitely bring trouble to A-yuan if they lived together in the future.
He also needed to be proficient in a particular field; he had to be excellent in poetry, painting, or chess. If he was an excellent calligrapher, then they could accept that too. In any case, he needed a presentable skill. If every aspect of him was mediocre, their days together would definitely be boring.
The most important point was this person had to treat A-yuan well. Although marriage between a man and a woman followed the orders of their parents and the words of their matchmaker, it was necessary for them to interact with each other for a while before marriage. Only after A-yuan decided he was suitable should the ceremony be arranged.
Actually, A-yuan would frequently encounter noble young masters with similar family backgrounds; maybe they weren’t able to exchange many words, but she could still see their appearances clearly. A-yuan could decide whether they were pleasing to the eye or suitable or not.
In the end, Mother Su still underestimated her daughter. If she attended a banquet at someone else’s home, then she’d only momentarily greet those young masters around the same age as her; although she could see what they looked like, they never exchanged more than a few words.
But Su Yuan left her residence more than just a few times. When she was wearing women’s clothing, she’d only wander the markets and stalls, visit small villages, and explore temples.
However, when she changed into men’s clothing, the places she’d visited were far more disorderly. She’d been to all kinds of restaurants, teahouses, theatres, and even gambling houses. Of course, she was always dressed in disguise; even with men’s clothing, she couldn’t possibly enter those areas wearing a plain face.
Places with people from different trades held the most information. Which family’s master doted on his concubine and destroyed his wife, which family’s Madam wore a kind face but hid a bitter heart, which family’s noble young master acted vulgar, which family caused a person’s death…
Not every residence’s fence could be pierced deep, so it’s inevitable for some news to leak out. Of course, everything has bits of truth and lies in them – you can’t deem them fake, but you can’t fully believe them either.
Through these places, Su Yuan indeed managed to understand more about a lot of people; half of it through the information she heard and the other half witnessed through her own two eyes.
In the theatre looking for their friends, in the restaurant attending a private meeting, in the gambling house getting their money swindled, on the streets acting like a hero saving a beauty or buying slaves…
All from the same environment, yet all of them different.
Su Yuan understood her behaviour and work style – not many people could accept it; those upright people were definitely unable to spend their lives with her. She really did need someone like her diedie; carefree and easygoing in terms of speech and rules, thick-skinned, magnanimous, and didn’t have any bad habits.
Su Yuan wasn’t strictly just attracted to appearance; when it came to something as big as marriage, she still believed someone’s character to be more important than their face.
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Even though she was conferred as a princess, Su Yuan’s life didn’t seem to change all that much; except for those in the residence, nobody else cared who the Emperor conferred the princess title to. All they cared about was the drafting list.
There were so many refined ladies this year; most of them hoped to enter the Eastern Palace, but not many of them would have their wishes granted as only one could become Crown Princess.
The novel’s plot could now be considered completely disrupted. The Third Prince survived, so now the throne had nothing to do with the male lead; as the female lead, she held even less desire to marry into the royal family. Even if there were any palace conflicts, they’d have nothing to do with her.
In the end, Prime Minister Zuo’s eldest granddaughter became Crown Princess and Duke Lu’s daughter born from the first wife and a lady from the noble Jiangnan Family became the Crown Prince’s concubines; in addition to these three, five other refined ladies also entered the Eastern Palace.
Eight people entered the Eastern Palace in one go – one as the main wife, the others as concubines. Wherever there are people, wherever those from the Jiangnan Family would be. One could imagine the kind of drama that’d play out in the future.
Considering their attitudes, it seemed Su Changqing’s family were determined on squeezing Su Rong into the palace harem; the palace nanny taught her zither, chess, calligraphy and painting. Even at such a young age, she began learning how to take good care of her health.
From what she heard, her Third Auntie had begun grinding pearls to powder and mixing it with egg whites and honey as a skin-nourishing plaster for Su Rong; not only was it used for her face, it was also used on her body.
Whether Su Rong’s skin turned any finer was almost impossible to tell with all the cosmetics, but the fact that her family was financially tight was true. During this year’s summer, she was still wearing last year’s old clothes, unable to add new clothes to her collection.
Actually, compared to the others even in previous years, Su Changqing’s family had relatively larger expenses. Who told them to have so many children born from the first wife? Because of this, none of the children could be treated any worse than their siblings.
The Duke of Qi residence began with military service; Third Uncle also decided to walk on the path of a military commander, so the arrangements he settled on for her younger male cousins all related to martial arts. The principle of poor scholars and wealthy martialists weren’t used to fool people. To become a martialist was indeed more costly than becoming a scholar; in addition, the costs couldn’t be spent frugally.
For so much money to be spent this year on Su Rong, Su Changqing’s family was probably going to struggle to make ends meet.
Third Auntie didn’t have A-niang’s ability to manage money and her maternal family wasn’t wealthy either; if she wanted to expand her financial resources, she’d have to use Concubine Wu to her advantage.
In the end, they were all elders – Su Yuan was just an onlooker from the sidelines; there was no need to speak about this to others.
But who told Third Auntie to offend so many people? In previous years she liked to show off; this year all her clothing and jewellery were old, easily allowing people to guess her situation. In private, everyone discussed this; even Su Yuan overheard a few on several different occasions.
Although one couldn’t write ‘Su’ with just one stroke, these two families were still separated; the fact that there was discord between the two was also well-known. People never talked about Su Changqing’s financial matters in front of Su Changping’s family, nor did Su Yuan care enough to find the source of related rumours, so there was no need to go remind Auntie.
She could neither send them money nor gift them pearl powders, so why should she bother going over to suffer from their resentment?
Fortunately, although the families in the Duke of Qi residence lived together, the families and property had already been properly separated; no matter how Su Changqing’s family liked to torment themselves, it was their own business. She wasn’t motivated or aspired enough to stop them.
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Time was like a (1) white steed flitting past a crack; in a flash, years of spring and summer passed.
When Dong-lang was six, he officially attended school. Father Su was strict in this aspect and had directly sent his son to Baiyun Academy; although this academy had produced many successful candidates in the Imperial Provincial and Civil Service Exams, their rules were notoriously strict. They didn’t allow boys serving in scholars’ studies to attend and they only allowed students to stay at home two days every month.
This six-year-old rascal went in to study, and although dirty clothing was washed by the academy servants, cleaning up his room, making his bed, and organising his books all required this little fellow to do himself.
Not to mention young masters in ancient times, even six-year-old boys in modern times were pampered and had parents to help them clean up – why would they do these things themselves?
It wasn’t easy to be a young man; wanting to manage household affairs and provide for a family was also difficult.
In another month would be Su Yuan’s hairpin initiation. Now, Mother and Father Su’s top priority was to arrange their daughter’s face reading; even the birth of the Eastern Palace’s eldest son born from the first wife wasn’t as important as this.
But soon, Father Su wasn’t able to look after his daughter anymore; the current Emperor, Father Su’s father-in-law and an old man who’d just become a grandfather, wanted to abdicate and become the Emperor Emeritus – he wanted the Crown Prince to become the Emperor.
It was reasonable as even if the Emperor hadn’t become muddle-headed yet, his bones were becoming increasingly wearier; even if he didn’t abdicate, perhaps the prince would be enthroned anyways after a few years.
Looking at the history books, few Emperors were tired of their position; many of them felt their lives weren’t long enough, that their reigns as Emperor weren’t long enough.
Su Changping knew his brother-in-law wasn’t the kind to be overly-suspicious, but human temperament had always been easy to change; to suddenly desire an abdication and give up the throne to his heir would inevitably make people feel uneasy – who knew if he was being over-suspicious and wanted to test the Crown Prince and ministers?
Only after three rejections and three yields, did the ministers believe in it. No matter what, the imperial order for the abdication and the imperial decree for the throne’s demise had both passed; the ministers could only complete their errands according to the orders.
A few days away from Su Yuan’s hairpin initiation, the dynasty ushered in its first Emperor Emeritus and the Empress became the Empress Dowager. This couple left the Crown Prince and Princess in the palace and ran off to live on the Capital’s outskirts.
It was really… Unconventional. Starting from the period of the world’s first written records, nobody had seen this kind of Emperor; not to mention the natives, even the transmigrated Su Yuan hadn’t expected such a development.
At first, she was even worried that even though her cousin avoided death, the relationship between the heavenly father and son may not harmoniously continue; in the end, (2) her face was slapped by her auntie and uncle. The other didn’t have a strong appetite for power; with one imperial order, he let go of the throne and left directly and efficiently.
Previously, when she observed the relationship between her aunt and uncle, although it appeared affectionate, she always felt it was because of the many benefits that came from it; looking at it now, it could be considered as this era’s true love, right? It was rare for an Emperor to walk to this step.
There shouldn’t be any difference between her uncle or cousin being Emperor, but who told Su Yuan to favour her cousin more?
These past few years, they’ve been interacting like a close pair of cousins; when the elder cousin became Emperor, the younger cousin also rose with the tide. She went from a (3) first-grade infanta to a first-grade princess, her title still Anle.
This decree was delivered during Su Yuan’s hairpin initiation. She jumped from being the new emperor’s cousin to the new emperor’s soror. After the new Emperor ascended the throne, he hadn’t even rewarded his brothers before he conferred a princess.
Fine. This time, even the Fourth-Ranked Imperial Concubine couldn’t accept her courtesy, only the Empress and Imperial Consort; however, there wasn’t an Imperial Consort in the palace, only an Empress.
Being an infanta and being a princess was different. When she was an infanta, every year she was able to receive an imperial salary; now she was a princess, not only was her salary higher than before, she even received her own residence.
This residence was ready-made and was originally a prince’s residence; unfortunately, the prince wasn’t able to leave behind a biological or stepson. All his residences and property now belonged to the imperial family.
Since it changed from a prince’s residence to a princess’ residence, there was naturally nothing to say about the specifications; at least it was bigger than the Duke of Qi residence and although it was a little barren inside, there was no need for major renovations. According to Father Su, it’d take only two or three months before it can be cleaned out.
How the princess’ residence was to be cleaned up was up to the court. Among the six ministries, only the Ministry of Works was in charge of this matter; since Father Su was the Chief Minister, then if he said it’d take two or three months to clean up, the people beneath him could only complete it faster than that, not slower.
(1) White steed flitting past a crack – meaning time flew by quickly
(2) Slapped in the face – a surprising act that offends or insults someone (it’s used more casually/jokingly in this chapter)
(3) First-grade infanta, first-grade princess – in the last chapter, I used ‘princess’ instead of ‘infanta’ was a Spanish/Portuguese term for a princess. Who would’ve thought the author would change her ranking to an actual princess orz
T/N: This is the last chapter I’ll be translating ^^ I enjoyed translating the previous few chapters, no matter how frustrated I got from how long each chapter was haha
Make sure to check out ‘The Mystery of Zhang Gong’ and ‘Of Mountains and Rivers’ :DD I do enjoy translating those (BL) novels! Anyways, thank you guys so much for reading up until now! Adios~ <3
