Work Text:
Rong Shanbao should have been preparing for her husband’s upcoming selection. She had, after all, reached the age when, even for a member of the Rong family, even for the future head of the clan, she was expected to choose a husband. But instead of preparing to welcome dozens of young masters from respectable families, Rong Shanbao was sneaking through the darkness with her lover, a man of uncertain past whose life she had saved nearly a year earlier, toward the Ancestral Hall. Under cover of night, they crept in to exchange their marriage vows.
Rong Shanbao had no intention of becoming a bargaining chip in any family power struggle. She would not marry any of the men who came to ask for her hand, not only because she knew their motives were impure and untrustworthy, but above all because she had already given her heart to someone else. Lu Fusheng had fallen at her feet, surrounded by blood and death, and she had saved him. She nursed him back to health, and he swore his loyalty to her. He had wanted to serve her as a mere attendant, but Rong Shanbao kept him by her side and, in the end… fell in love with him.
She loved the honesty in his bright eyes. His sweet lips and gentle praise. His brilliant mind, able to foresee an opponent’s moves five steps ahead. The way he challenged her, and how he never backed away from any challenge or threat. Time and again she had relied on him, and time and again he had never betrayed her trust. In a life like hers, that meant more than anyone could imagine. In a family like the Rongs, she had wanted to believe her sisters were loyal to her, that they were not scheming behind her back or waiting to plunge a blade into her heart the moment she let them too close. But Lu Fusheng had opened her eyes to what she had refused to see.
Her home was a nest of snakes. Her family had never been perfect, she had known that for a long time, but now, looking closer, she could see how many cracks ran through the delicate porcelain of their ideal image.
Yet it was not only Lu Fusheng’s impact on the balance of power within the family that mattered to her. What finally made her decide to defy her grandmother and marry him was the way he treated her youngest sister. Yunwan was a child in the body of an almost grown woman, yet Lu Fusheng never hesitated to sit on the floor and build little windmills with her. He spoke to her in a gentle, calm, patient voice, teaching her slowly. He said that no matter at what stage of development Wanwan had stopped, they should try to help her grow at her own pace. Rong Shanbao had long wanted to see her sister as more than just a child, but whenever she looked at her and her childish behavior, she could not help but see only that. It did not matter to her that Yunwan was physically older than Rong Shanbao had been when she herself was forced to take up the role of heir to the family. After their mother’s death, it had been her responsibility…
Lu Fusheng, however, had been her greatest support. Rong Shanbao had no intention of giving him up. No matter what punishment she might face later, once they were married her grandmother could rage all she wanted, but she could neither separate them nor force her into another marriage. A husband’s fate lay solely in his wife’s hands. That, too, was one of the Rong family’s laws.
So when they bowed to each other for the third time and spent their wedding night undisturbed, Rong Shanbao fell asleep content, unconcerned with whatever trouble this would bring the next morning. After all, in less than a week young masters from many noble families were due to arrive to seek her hand…
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When the time came, Old Madame Rong did not cancel the event. The entire region was already talking about it; to call off something so grand would require explanations, and she had no intention of giving any.
From the day of the wedding, Rong Shanbao and Lu Fusheng were practically inseparable. They slept in the same bed every night, to the point that dark circles began to form beneath Rong Shanbao’s eyes from exhaustion. But she was, after all, known as one of the cleverest young ladies of her generation, and she soon devised a perfect solution to two problems at once.
Dozens of young masters arrived at the estate. She had appropriate trials prepared to test their character and… their abilities. When only a handful of candidates remained, Rong Shanbao hosted a small banquet and invited them all. She herself dressed almost ceremonially and even prepared matching robes for Lu Fusheng. That day, she introduced him to them as her lawful husband.
“In that case, I must inform you all that the competition you are participating in is not to determine my future husband,” she said calmly and solemnly, as if stating something as natural as the sun rising in the east or rain falling to the ground. “It is to choose a concubine for my husband.”
The women of the Rong family were allowed to have more than one husband in their lifetime, and divorce brought them no shame, but they could not have both a husband and a concubine. Likewise, a husband of the Rong family could not keep a concubine… but nowhere was it written that he could not have a male one.
This solution served Rong Shanbao in two ways at once. First, she would not have to turn all the young masters away, only for them to return the following year with renewed marriage proposals. And second… her husband was young, full of life and energy. It would be far easier and more convenient for her if he had someone else to receive some of that attention and vitality, especially now, when she was almost certain that their first child was already growing in her womb. And it had been less than two months since the wedding.
“I have no objections,” Yan Bailuo said calmly after Rong Shanbao’s announcement.
Bai Yingsheng blushed faintly, lowering his gaze to the teacup before him, and then also confirmed that he had no objections to continuing in the selection, no longer for a husband, but for a concubine of the Rong family.
In the end, Rong Shanbao accepted three concubines for her husband: Yan Bailuo, Bai Yingsheng, and, to everyone’s surprise, Wen Can, her own cousin. He was determined never to leave the Rong estate, even if it meant becoming her husband’s concubine; being that close to Rong Shanbao was enough for him, and he had no intention of giving up such a chance.
Life went on. Tea bushes grew and flowers bloomed. Children were born and raised, and the love between Rong Shanbao and her husband Lu Fuzheng took the form of five small, beautiful, rosy-cheeked children, growing up surrounded by one mother, one father, and three affectionate, loving uncles, often limping or wincing whenever they tried to sit down.