My Fabulous Forty-Something Father Becomes a Bride - Chapter 7
Chapter 7
When the greetings were over, Father asked the time and nodded in satisfaction.
They had finished earlier than expected. There was ample time for breakfast before he left.
Father and the Duke departed one after the other and boarded their carriages for court.
Father’s steps were brisk enough to stir a breeze. The Duke’s legs were unsteady beneath him.
Not long after their carriages left, the household brought out a third one.
The Duchess climbed inside and sped straight toward the inner palace in search of the Empress.
Morning court proceeded as usual. The Emperor was shirking his duties again and did not appear.
Many officials cast peculiar glances at Father, but he stood calm and upright, entirely at ease.
When someone asked, he openly admitted that he had married into another family as a bride—and that his new husband was a wastrel young enough to be his son.
He even laughed as he promised colleagues who had missed the wedding that he would hold another banquet soon and introduce his new spouse.
The Duke, meanwhile, repeatedly hid his mortified face behind his sleeve.
Father had only recently returned to the capital to report on his commission, so his official workload was not especially heavy. He was also, as always, highly efficient.
When he finished his duties, he resumed his frantic studies. The titles on his reading list included:
*The Principal Wife of a Great House.* Hmm—excellent, excellent. He might not be the senior daughter-in-law yet, but he could study for the position and compete for it. Father had always believed in learning from his betters.
*A Wife Rises with Her Husband: What to Do After Marrying a Wastrel.* Hmm—excellent, excellent. There were surely one or two useful methods for training a husband in there.
And so on.
After reading widely, Father finally understood how to conduct himself as the young mistress of a ducal household.
His first priority was reforming the wastrel.
His second was seizing control of the household accounts.
Father wrote Mother a letter detailing everything he had done that day and all the wisdom he had gleaned from his extensive reading.
In summary, he would not have time to come home for dinner.
After leaving the government offices, he needed to go straight to the Imperial Academy and begin work on his first priority.
In his hurry to reach the Academy, Father passed the imperial messenger on the way to reprimand the ducal household without either noticing the other.
The Imperial Academy was Father’s happy old home. He had spent several wonderful years there.
As a student, he had beaten every classmate who challenged him. As an instructor, he had gained the even greater pleasure of tormenting his pupils.
Returning to his old grounds, he knew precisely what to do.
With practiced ease, he blocked every escape route, then tracked down the students who had slipped out of class.
By the time he finally found the dandy, a long chain of truant students trailed behind him.
Father treated his new husband very gently—so gently that it became frightening. He performed the role of a virtuous wife to perfection and even settled the young man’s bill for him.
The students behind Father, tied together in a line with rope, glared furiously.
Once the young dandy sobered up and returned, he would face enraged drinking companions who believed he had betrayed them, along with instructors who had received the former Chancellor’s personal instruction in the secret arts of discipline.
But that came later and need not detain us.
For now, the young man was still barely conscious, while the imperial messenger had been waiting at the ducal estate for quite some time.
Whether the messenger came from the Emperor or the Empress hardly mattered. Father’s outrageous conduct had attracted the throne’s attention.
An imperial order could not be disobeyed.
That evening, Father packed his things, gathered his people, and returned to the Yu residence.
He heaved sigh after sigh, full of regret.
The ducal household stopped just short of setting off firecrackers to celebrate his departure.
“You didn’t even last until the customary third-day return visit,” Mother said.
“I hadn’t seized control of the household accounts yet,” Father lamented.
“Very ambitious of you.”
“Of course! If I’d gained control, I would have emptied the whole ducal estate to support our family, then audited them so thoroughly that the authorities would confiscate everything left.”
Mother’s eyes lit up, then immediately dimmed. “What a pity.”
Father sighed. “A great pity.”
Me: “…”
Wait. What exactly were the two of them regretting?
I thought of the ducal household’s wealth. Then I imagined it belonging to us… and pain lanced through my heart.
“What a pity!”
The marriage decree quietly disappeared into nothing.
Thanks to Father’s spectacular performance, my sister and I escaped a calamity that would have ruined half our lives.
Yet his actions had gone far beyond propriety and offended many at court. The promotion he had just received was soon taken away, leaving him at his former rank.
Of course, life also became less comfortable for the Duke’s family and for the Empress. Both sides withdrew from public notice for a time, equally battered by the affair.
Our family sold the house we had only just purchased in the capital. We packed our belongings once more and prepared to follow Father to another provincial posting.
My sister had chosen a good man. Even after Father destroyed our family’s reputation, her future husband’s family still honored the match.
They married in a hurried ceremony in the capital. My brother-in-law bade farewell to his parents, then joined Father, Mother, and me on the journey to Father’s new post.
Father beamed. “Good, good. The whole family is together, and we’re far from this nest of trouble.”
Father had risen higher than almost any man born to a poor family, yet when imperial power bore down upon him, he still had no control over his own fate.
For now, we had survived this crisis.
What waited on the road ahead, no one could say.
