CHAPTER 1509: CHAPTER 1516: FEI’ER’S BRIDAL GIFTS (5)

Embroidery was a task that came naturally to Fei’er, so during this month, she stopped going to the fabric store entirely. Instead, she stayed at home with Nanny Xi, embroidering her bright red wedding dress, the wedding quilt, the wedding curtain, and so on. Liuli and Liuzhu, as well as Yuan Chun, Ying Chun, Tan Chun, Xi Chun, and others were also by her side, working from dawn to dusk to make purses.

When the grand wedding arrives, there will certainly be many guests, and the purses necessary for rewards will need to be made by the thousands, at least eight hundred or so. Consequently, everyone in the household who had a moment to spare was busy making purses.

Mu Zhongqing had already prepared a generous bridal dowry for his daughter, most of which consisted of the bridal price brought over by Duke Li Guo’s Mansion. Besides those gifts, he had also prepared some on his own, such as the Bafu Restaurant, Agriculture Cloth Village, the Bafu Dim Sum Shop, and the manor at the Suburbs of the Capital City hunting ground. These properties that Cai Wei had given to him were all included in Fei’er’s bridal dowry.

Cai Wei had also prepared a thick portion of bridal gifts for Fei’er. The richness of this dowry was no less impressive than that of a princess: top-grade mutton fat jade decorations, four boxes of jewelry; top-grade jade jewelry and decorations, each also in four boxes; black, white, purple, pink, gold, and pearls—one bushel of each; a bushel of dragon pearls the size of longan fruit; four stems of three hundred-year-old ginseng; in addition, four jars each of fruit wine and flower wine produced from her space; four bolts of Floating Light Brocade, Brocade, Shu Brocade, and Soft Yarn Gauze each; forty pelts each of top-quality snow wolf skin, sable fur, otter rabbit skin, and fox fur; also, forty thousand taels of silver, and eight thousand taels of gold...

The generosity of her sister greatly moved Fei’er. In fact, she had always felt somewhat inferior in this marriage, not only because her birth status was not comparable to Mo Ziqi’s, but also because she believed her family could not produce a dowry that matched the bridal price from the Duke Li Guo Mansion, which might lead to others looking down on her after her marriage.

However, the timely gesture from her sister restored her confidence, allowing her to marry into the Duke Li Guo Mansion with a heart full of self-assurance!

While one family revels in joy, another may harbor sorrows. Here, the Mu Family was bustling with joy, happily making preparations for the wedding of their daughter; but inside the Palace, Princess Zhao Yue hadn’t eaten for several days, lying on the couch, heartbroken to the point of near death.

The man she had longed for was about to wed, and yet, the bride was not her; such pain was unimaginable to others. When Empress Dowager Mo visited her again and saw her in such a state of complete despair, then heard from the palace maids that the princess had not eaten anything, the Empress Dowager couldn’t help but sit beside the couch and shed tears.

"Yu’er, since Zi Qi doesn’t hold you in his heart, why must you persist in this futile affection? Why insist on hanging from this one tree?"

Upon hearing this, Nangong Yu slowly opened her eyes and said with quiet tears, "Imperial Mother, I understand all that you say, which is why I haven’t been pestering others, but just suffering in silence on my own..."

Empress Dowager Mo said, "What good does being sad do? Even if you were to wear yourself away with sorrow, Zi Qi will not turn back, so you might as well forget about him. You are the only legitimate princess of the Great Jin Nation; your elder brother will surely find you a suitable husband."

"There’s no need, Mother. My cousin once treated me so well, but now even he despises me; who else would possibly hold me in high regard?"

Nangong Yu turned her face away in distress and sobbed, "I am someone who has lost my honor; originally, I shouldn’t even hope to marry, let alone expect a man as outstanding as my cousin, who deserves an untainted lady from a prestigious family. It’s just my own wishful thinking that has left me feeling foolish."

Her self-deprecation pained Empress Dowager Mo, who tried to console her daughter, "Yu’er, you are a golden branch and jade leaf; even if there’s a slight blemish, no ordinary woman could match you. Do not belittle yourself. I promise you, as your mother, I will find you a worthy man to be your husband!"