The deafening sound of gongs and drums, the piercing notes of suona horns, echoed through the entire imperial capital.

Along both sides of the main avenue of the Zhou imperial capital, the common people all raised their heads to watch the wedding procession.

At the very front of the procession, Xiao Mo rode a bright red horse as he moved forward.

In Zhou, the custom of receiving the bride was broadly the same as in ordinary households, except that after entering the palace, the marriage procedures followed the rules of the imperial house.

So even though Xiao Mo was the emperor, he still had to ride out on horseback to receive the bride.

And for the vast majority of the people of the Zhou imperial capital, this might be the only chance in their entire lives to see their emperor with their own eyes.

“So that’s His Majesty?”

“His Majesty is so good-looking.”

“Who said His Majesty is six feet tall and two hundred pounds? His Majesty is obviously this good-looking.”

“Exactly. I think His Majesty looks so good—like a Confucian scholar.”

“But I think His Majesty looks more like a general who wages war on the battlefield.”

“I want to marry His Majesty too.”

“What are you all saying? Watch your words, watch your words!”

“Stop discussing His Majesty. Aren’t you afraid of getting your head chopped off?”

Many women, seeing Xiao Mo in his groom’s attire, had eyes full of wavering springlike feeling.

In their impressions, they had always thought the current emperor was a potbellied man.

Who would have thought he would be this good-looking?

Beyond the women, many scholars were also surprised.

Because they had long heard that His Majesty was obsessed with cultivating immortality, and they had even heard that His Majesty spent his days drunk and lost on palace maids’ bellies.

Yet just from His Majesty’s bearing and vigorous complexion, he did not look like someone indulging in wine and lust at all.

And just as the palace’s wedding procession gradually left the imperial palace, the Palace of Spiritual Heart’s party also arrived at Lion Bridge Village and the Qin embassy residence.

Led by the lady-officials of the Palace of Spiritual Heart, the two brides entered their sedan chairs and set out together toward Zhou Mountain.

This mountain lay outside the capital of Zhou, and was the origin of Zhou’s dragon vein.

Zhou’s founding ancestor had walked out from this mountain and, relying on his own two hands, carved out a vast foundation.

How important this mountain was to Zhou needed no explanation.

Originally, by normal procedure, the groom would go to the bride’s home to receive her.

But because the two consorts held equal rank, going to either place first would be inappropriate and would spark talk.

So the Ministry of Rites and the Palace of Spiritual Heart, following ancient rite, set a new procedure: Yan Ruxue and Qin Siyao, the two noble consorts, would wait at the foot of Zhou Mountain.

And His Majesty would also go to Zhou Mountain, receiving both noble consorts together.

After that, His Majesty only needed to lead the two noble consorts around Zhou Mountain once, and finally offer a stick of incense.

That would count as announcing the marriage to Heaven and Earth and to the ancestors, completing the receiving of the brides.

In this way, no one would be offended.

Half an hour later, the palace wedding procession arrived at the mountain’s foot.

The two sedan chairs had also already stopped there, waiting for Xiao Mo’s arrival.

Xiao Mo dismounted and walked to the space between the two sedan chairs.

Following the procedure everyone had already memorized, Madam Yan stepped forward, slightly lifted the sedan chair curtain, and used red flower silk to lead her daughter out.

And because Qin Mujiu’s relatives were all in Qin and had not come to Zhou, Empress Dowager Yan led Qin Mujiu out of the sedan chair instead.

“Your Majesty, my Ruxue is entrusted to you.” Madam Yan held back tears as she pleaded with Xiao Mo.

“Your Majesty, Mujiu has come from Qin to Zhou. In this foreign land, from now on, this will be Mujiu’s home. Your Majesty must treat her well.” Empress Dowager Yan also urged.

“Please rest assured.” Xiao Mo clasped his hands and bowed. “Whether it is Ruxue or Mujiu, I will treat them with true sincerity and never fail them.”

The words were not wrong.

But when Xiao Mo said “treat them with true sincerity and never fail them” to two women at once, it still felt, somehow, a little strange.

Madam Yan and Empress Dowager Yan passed the red silk in their hands into Xiao Mo’s hands.

Xiao Mo held one length of red silk in his left hand and one in his right.

And the red silk in each woman’s hands was like a red thread, both pointing toward him at once.

Xiao Mo raised his head and looked at his two wives.

Even though both wore red veils, Xiao Mo could still faintly sense their shy, lowered heads.

“So these are my wives?”

That thought suddenly surfaced in Xiao Mo’s mind.

In his heart, Xiao Mo had always felt that marriage was something very far away for him.

And perhaps because he had not fully prepared himself to be responsible for another woman, or perhaps because he worried whether he could take care of someone, he had carried a faint fear.

But when this truly happened—

It seemed marriage was not, after all, that frightening.

“Your Majesty, it is time to pay respects at Zhou Mountain.”

The Minister of Rites, Yan Zhen, stepped forward and spoke softly to Xiao Mo.

Xiao Mo nodded, leading the two consorts by their red silk as they circled at the foot of Zhou Mountain.

They walked one circuit at the mountain’s foot. When Xiao Mo led the two consorts back to their original place, the Ministry of Rites had already set up the altar.

Xiao Mo and the two consorts lit three sticks of thin incense. He stood at the very front, with Yan Ruxue and Qin Siyao behind him at his left and right.

“Bow!”

Within the court music, Xiao Mo, Qin Siyao, and Yan Ruxue bent at the waist together and paid respects to Zhou Mountain.

And the moment the three of them straightened, a band of multicolored radiance rose from Zhou Mountain’s summit, connecting to the Zhou imperial palace—like a rainbow after rain, yet several times more beautiful.

Immediately after, dragon cries that shook the clouds rolled out for hundreds of miles.

A hundred birds circled through the sky without ceasing, their chirping noisy yet filled with joy.

The common people in the city, seeing this colored radiance, shouted that it was an auspicious sign. Their hearts were both astonished and delighted.

But in Xiao Mo’s eyes, this was merely a small trick—something the Ministry of Rites had some cultivators on the mountain perform.

After all, on a wedding day this joyous, it would not do to produce no auspicious sign at all.

The other civil and military officials all thought the same.

Even the Ministry of Rites officials looked toward their superior, thinking: Didn’t the Minister say that asking immortals to produce auspicious signs was far too fake?

Yet the Minister said it was fake, but in the end he still had it done—and with such a grand display.

Only the Minister of Rites, Yan Zhen, stared blankly at the auspicious signs.

They all assumed the auspicious signs were something Yan Zhen had arranged.

But in truth, Yan Zhen knew nothing. He had not invited any cultivators to put on a false show at all.

Which meant—

These auspicious signs were real!

Could it be that His Majesty marrying his daughter, along with Qin’s princess, would truly bring Great Zhou a restoration?

After paying respects at Zhou Mountain, Madam Yan and Empress Dowager Yan each led Yan Ruxue and Qin Siyao back into the sedan chairs.

As the suona horns and gongs and drums sounded again, Xiao Mo swung himself onto his horse, and the wedding procession returned to the imperial capital.

“They’re here, they’re here!”

“His Majesty and the two royal consorts are here!”

“Look—”

At the gates of the imperial city, the common people lined the road to welcome them.

Behind Xiao Mo, two sedan chairs advanced side by side.

Seeing those two sedan chairs, many men’s eyes filled with envy.

After all, that Miss Yan was not only hailed as Zhou’s number one talented woman, but also Zhou’s number one beauty.

And Qin’s eldest princess was said to be no less beautiful than Miss Yan.

Now His Majesty had embraced two beauties at once—how could they not envy him?

Women’s thoughts were both similar to men’s and the opposite.

What women envied were the two noble consorts in the sedan chairs.

They thought: if the one His Majesty was marrying were them, how happy they would be.

As the wedding procession gradually approached the imperial palace—

A Ministry of Rites official knocked on the wooden door of a separate courtyard residence in the imperial city.

The door opened, and a woman in plain hemp clothing stood before the official.

On the woman’s shoulder, a winged “big dumpling” lay quietly.

“Greetings, Master Wangxin.” The Ministry of Rites official clasped his hands and bowed. “Today, we will be relying on Master Wangxin.”

“Mmm.” Wangxin nodded. “Trouble you to lead the way.”

“Master Wangxin, this way, please.”

The Ministry of Rites official invited Wangxin into a carriage, then mounted another horse himself.

In less than a quarter hour, Wangxin was brought to the base of a tall tower.

Wangxin stepped down from the carriage and, with Hundun, climbed the tower alone.

Today was the great joyful day of the ruler of Zhou.

Today, Wangxin would pray and chant scriptures for him.

After reaching the top, Wangxin sat upon a meditation cushion. In the room, there was only Wangxin.

“Migu Migu.”

Hundun rubbed against Wangxin’s thigh.

“You mean—what if the one getting married really is Xiao Mo?” Wangxin asked.

“Migu!” Hundun nodded its chubby little body.

“Even if it really is Xiao Mo, that’s fine.” Wangxin’s eyes blinked lightly. “Him taking a wife and having children—isn’t that a good thing?”

“Migu...” Hundun shook its chubby body.

“What about me?”

Wangxin thought for a moment. Her clear eyes held a gentle light.

“I’m fine too.”

“If that ruler of Zhou truly is Xiao Mo, and Xiao Mo is marrying another woman... my heart does feel a little empty.”

“But it’s fine.”

“As long as Xiao Mo is doing well, I’ll be doing well too.”

“As long as I can find him, and quietly watch him... that will be enough.”

“Migu!” Hundun fluttered its wings, climbed onto its master’s head, and kept patting her head, as if angry at her for not living up to expectations. “Migu Migu!”

“I really think that. I’m not lying...”

Wangxin lowered her head gently. Her small hand unconsciously pinched her skirt hem as she spoke slowly.

“I really...”

“am not lying.”

Under the escort of the people—

The palace wedding procession had already entered the imperial palace.

And at that very moment, the sound of chanting Buddhist scriptures spread from a tall tower within the imperial capital.

The chanting was ethereal and solemn—like a woman’s voice, and like a man’s voice, and like a whole assembly of monks chanting together.

As the chanting spread through the high air, golden Buddhist lotuses drifted across the sky above the imperial capital.

The lotuses formed a golden river of lotus blossoms, and a sacred aura spread to every corner of the imperial capital.

Xiao Mo lifted his head and glanced toward the direction the chanting came from.

For some reason, Xiao Mo felt that this voice carried a hint of familiarity.

But putting that aside—this monk invited by the Ministry of Rites could, with chanting alone, produce such a phenomenon. It showed the other party’s cultivation was indeed not low.

Xiao Mo felt that the eminent monk was, at minimum, in the Immortal Realm.

After one stick of incense’s time, the sedan chairs stopped before the ancestral temple.

Xiao Mo led Yan Ruxue and Qin Siyao into the ancestral temple to pay respects to Zhou’s ancestors.

The Director of the Directorate of Celestial Observation burned the birthdates and eight characters of Xiao Mo and the two women before the ancestors’ spirit tablets, seeking the ancestors’ blessing and protection.

After paying respects to the ancestors, Xiao Mo and the civil and military officials first arrived at the square before the Heaven Sacrifice Altar.

They stood separated to the left and right, all gazing toward the square’s great gate.

And at the very front of the civil and military officials, Xiao Mo also looked toward the gate, waiting in stillness.

“The hall-bowing rite! Begin!”

As soon as the hour of Wei arrived, the voice of the Minister of Rites, Yan Zhen, rang out across the square.

The great gate of the square opened with a boom.

Yan Ruxue and Qin Siyao, guided by Empress Dowager Yan and Madam Yan, entered.

Beneath their long skirts, the long legs of the two noble consorts stepped forward, their four-direction steps elegant and dignified.

Behind them, a total of eight palace maids carried the trailing hems of their ground-sweeping skirts.

Spring sunlight shone upon their red wedding finery, and that gentle sunlight seemed to be stamped into a vivid red like phoenix flowers.

Seeing this, everyone could not help but marvel—so it turned out that spring sunlight truly had color.

Below the Heaven Sacrifice Altar, Empress Dowager Yan and Madam Yan, for the last time, placed the red silk into Xiao Mo’s hands.

Xiao Mo turned around, guiding the two consorts step by step toward the Heaven Sacrifice Altar.

On the Heaven Sacrifice Altar, the Minister of Rites, Yan Zhen—who presided over the wedding—approached Xiao Mo with both hands holding a jade tray.

On the jade tray was the edict Xiao Mo had personally written.

Xiao Mo took up the edict he had written and read it word by word, his voice solemn as it entered every person’s ears:

“I, Xiao Mo, receive the mandate of august Heaven, inherit the enterprise of the ancestors, govern the seven sacrifices, and oversee the myriad directions.

“Now, on a day when Heaven and Earth join in virtue, at a time when the ancestral temple extends its blessing, I follow the system of the six rites, uphold the ceremony of paired jades, and take in marriage Yan-shi’s virtuous lady Ruxue, and Qin’s Eldest Princess Mujiu.

“The two women gather spiritual refinement and rare grace; chaste, quiet, proper, and upright—fit to serve as models for the inner court.

“Thus: Yan-shi, whose household is famed for pure splendor, nurtured by poetry and rites, gentle and gracious as a rule; and Princess Mujiu of Qin, refined of noble line, wise and orchid-hearted, with far-reaching bearing.

“I, by the system of the Rites of Zhou for women’s offices, and with reference to [N O V E L I G H T] the marriage instruments of the Spring and Autumn, do hereby, together, confer the rank of noble consort.

“Consort Xue is granted residence in the Hall of Congealed Snow; Consort Mu is granted residence in the Hall of Holding Wine. Each is bestowed a golden register and purple cord, and enjoys the honor of nine plumes and four phoenixes.

“May the two consorts cultivate their nature in seclusion and chastity, serve ruler and elders with gentle obedience, harmonize the six palaces with speech, countenance, skill, and appearance, lead the concubines with respect, frugality, humility, and softness, extend the imperial heirs to secure the state’s foundation, and together assist the governance of the inner palace, coordinating the matters of the women’s quarters, so that the inner court is solemn and the standard of women shines clear.

“May the two consorts shine together like sun and moon, be treasured alike as sacred vessels; aid the meals morning and evening to display filial devotion, weave and encourage sericulture to broaden instruction, set refined music of palace and merchants to harmonize the realm, so that the women under Heaven look up to the exemplary virtue of the inner chambers, the people of the nine provinces are bathed in the noble sound of the royal house, and Great Zhou becomes well-ordered in household and state, with grand blessings continued forever.”

When Xiao Mo finished reading, he set the edict down, and the auspicious hour had just arrived.

Yan Zhen stepped forward and called loudly, “The auspicious hour has arrived! Begin the bows!”

Sili came forward holding a jade tray, with thin incense sticks placed upon it.

Xiao Mo, Yan Ruxue, and Qin Siyao each took three sticks of thin incense.

At the same time, ceremonial music rose.

“First bow, to Heaven and Earth!”

The three lit the thin incense and bowed to Heaven and Earth.

“Second bow, to the honored elder!”

Because Madam Yan and Yan Zhen were ministers and could not receive the bow of an emperor, Empress Dowager Yan stepped forward and stood at the three’s side.

The three bent and bowed, paying respects to the honored elder.

“Spouses bow to each other!”

Yan Ruxue and Qin Siyao stood together facing Xiao Mo, and the three bent and bowed.

“Three bows are complete!”

“With a hundred officials as witness, and Heaven and Earth as proof!”

“From this day forth!”

“The rite is complete!”