After Becoming the Hero’s Ex-fiancée

[On the day of the Shanglin Banquet, the Senior Grand Secretary’s residence.]

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“My lady, your hair is really lovely.
It’s so black and shiny, there’s no one else in the whole of the capital with anything like it.”

The hairdresser skillfully arranged Zheng Wan’s hair into a Full Moon Fallen Fairy Ji1, and brought out her trousseau.
“For the banquet today, would you like to use the gold filigree tian-tsui2 inlaid with rubies, or would the cloud and pearl zan3?”

“Let’s go with this one.”

Zheng Wan stretched out her wrist, opened the bottom layer of her trousseau, and took out a bloodstone tortoiseshell zan from it.

The hair accessory looked a little old, and it wasn’t of the style that was currently in fashion, though the ruby at the top of the zan did look rather precious.
Even so, to Zheng Wan, who usually wore zan’s made with the finest pearls of the South China Sea and pendants of the best nephrite white jade, it was still a bit shabby in comparison.

The hairdresser didn’t press; the young lady looked like one with good temperament, but was in fact very stubborn once she had made a decision.
She placed the zan snugly in the hairdo, and took her leave.

Zheng Wan looked in the mirror and felt that her makeup was too plain and bare.
She took a brush and drew a few plum blossoms on her forehead, dotted them with thin gold leaves, and pressed on some rouge, before asking the maid behind her.

“Yanzhi, how does it look?”

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Yanzhi opened her mouth wide,

“My lady is so… so beautiful.”

Just then, Luodai entered the room, carrying in her arms the daxiushan4 that the dressmaker had made with the cloud brocade.
She smiled and said, “I’m afraid that from tomorrow onwards, this huadian5 design will be the latest trend throughout the capital.”

The corners of Zheng Wan’s lips lifted nonchalantly.

Without a further word, she got up and let Luodai and Yanzhi dress her in the daxiushan, then drape a pibo6 around her.
Zheng Wan was just about to leave the room when she noticed that Luodai seemed to be hesitating to say something.

“What’s wrong?”

“My lady has forgotten to put on pearl powder7.”

This is a pearl powder made from the finest pearls from the South China Sea; applying it on one’s face made it moist and delicate, and the young lady usually loved using it.
However, for some unknown reason, she’d not touched it recently.

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She only drew her eyebrows and painted her lips.

Zheng Wan shook her head.

“Put these powders away.
I will not be using them anymore.”

Many of the details of her dream have become hazy after she woke up, but for some reason, she remembered certain ridiculous details clearly—one of these details was that the all-powerful celestial fairies were rather disdainful of mortal makeup, and claimed that they were harmful to the face.

If that’s the case, it’s better not to use them.

“Yes, my lady.”

Luodai bobbed a curtsey; she and Yanzhi then both supported their lady, one on either side, and headed off to meet up with her mother.

The carriages of the Senior Grand Secretary’s residence were waiting at the entrance; one for Zheng Wan and her mother, another for the maidservants.
However, Zheng Wan’s father, who was supposed to accompany them, was not traveling by carriage.

“Where’s Father?”

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Madame Wang shook her head, “Your father went out after receiving a letter.
He said we should go ahead first, and he will make his way there later.”

Zheng Wan found this strange; then, she noticed that her father’s assistant was giving her a meaningful look from the side of the carriage.

She rubbed her forehead, as if she was feeling tired and wanted to rest in the carriage.
She and her mother each boarded their own carriage.
She was shortly joined by Luodai, who handed her a note.

“A message from the lord.”

Zheng Wan unfolded it; her father had indeed found a suspicious person by the grievance drum; he was rushing over, and told her not to worry.

Things were moving ahead of the schedule.

Zheng Wan was horrified; she did not understand what this expedition of events meant.

In her dream, a man who had lost his wife came to the capital to raise a grievance at the imperial court; he claimed that the Zheng family were tyrants who were guilty of ten different offences.
This event clearly took place only after the Shanglin banquet.

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Translator’s Notes: The footnotes for this chapter are rather long due to the many descriptions of clothing, accessories, and cultural references! I thought it would be nicer to give the romanisation/ transliteration of the various terms as much as possible so you can look up images of the gorgeous clothing and accessories if you want to (please do!), as opposed to just translating them as “dress” or “hairpin”.
Romanisations are typed as per normal, and transliterations are in italics.

Footnotes:

1 ji: 髻; The term for ancient Chinese hairstyles.
They often come with poetic names that are about as elaborate as their styles.
Significant styles include the Double Hooped Immortal-Seeking Ji and Flying Immortal Ji.

2 tian-tsui: 点翠; A special type of headdress making technique referred to as ‘kingfisher feather art’.
It is the art of carefully setting the bright blue feathers on the back of a kingfisher onto a base made of different patterns of metal, and then setting them with pearls, agates, jadeite, and other gemstones.
The exquisite and extravagant headpiece is extremely delicate and fragile, needing proper care and storage.

3 zan: 簪; A hairpin used to hold/ decorate hairstyles

4 daxiushan: 大袖衫; Translated as “Large Sleeve Gown”, this is a type of traditional Chinese hanfu.
The length is at least 78 inches, and the width exceeds 40 inches.
The clothing often only covers half of the women’s breast and so it is restricted to women of a certain status, such as princesses or performers, and was mainly worn for special ceremonial occasions.

5 huadian: 花钿; An ornamental red pattern usually applied to on a woman’s forehead in ancient times, also referred to as plum blossom make up

6 pibo: 披帛; a traditional Hanfu shawl, made from light fabric silk, worn wrapped around the arms and behind the back.

7 pearl powder: Pearl is documented in the ancient Chinese medical book, Ben Cao Gang Mu, the most complete and comprehensive medical book ever written in the history of traditional Chinese medicine.
It describes the ability of pearl to promote healing of the skin, stimulate new skin growth, protect the skin from sun damage and remove age spots.
Wu Ze Tian (625 AD – 705 AD), China’s only female emperor, applied and ingested pearl powder to maintain her beauty, and allegedly had radiant skin even at an old age.