Both Sect Heads Wanted Out of the Marriage, So They Tried to Ruin the Town Together novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Decree Was Read After the Vows
Tang Luoyi learns at the altar that she is marrying her rival, bound to him by a red cord, and the only clean way out is for their shared town to fail honestly.
Four hundred guests watched Tang Luoyi marry a man she had met twice.
The first time, he had been apologizing to her goat.
The second time was this morning, when he had apologized to her about the goat.
Now he stood beside her on the deck of the Crooked Ferry barge, tall and silver-sashed and so polite it looked tiring.
Drummers from two rival sects stood at opposite ends of the barge, hitting their drums slightly out of time on purpose.
Luoyi was twenty-four, Mistress of Jade Kettle Hall, and until a minute ago she had believed this was a peace signing.
"Wear the red," her aunt had said at dawn, with her mouth full of pins. "It's the Silverbell flag color. A gesture."
"Why is there a veil?"
"The wind, darling."
A round woman in the black and gold robes of the Concord of Eight Peaks stepped between them.
She carried a scroll and a length of red silk cord.
She smelled faintly of fried dumplings.
She was Yu Lan, the Concord's Inspector, and she loved rules and dumplings in equal measure.
She took Luoyi's left wrist and the man's right wrist, laid them together, and wound the red cord around both, three times, tight.
"By the authority of the Concord," she read, "the Heads of Silverbell and Jade Kettle are joined."
"You may bow to each other as husband and wife."
Luoyi turned her head slowly.
"As what?" she said.
Four hundred people laughed, because they thought she was being charming.
Jiang Zhuyuan leaned toward her, which pulled her bound wrist against his.
"Mistress Tang, I'm so sorry," he said under the drums. "I thought you knew."
"Who told you I knew?"
"Everyone," he said, and looked genuinely distressed about it.
Luoyi found her aunt in the front row, waving a fan, perfectly cheerful.
Beside her sat a tiny old woman in grey silk, Zhuyuan's great-aunt, Elder Rong of Silverbell, nodding.
"It's a formality," her aunt called. "The Concord undoes these things quietly after the Autumn Fair."
"Quite quietly," said Elder Rong, and did not stop smiling.
Luoyi yanked at the cord.
It did not give.
It only dragged his hand closer, so that his knuckles rested against the inside of her wrist.
"The cord stays on until the barge docks," said the Inspector kindly.
"And the decree is read after the vows, as is traditional. It saves arguments."
She cleared her throat.
"Article one. The Ninefold River toll has been fought over by Silverbell and Jade Kettle for a hundred years. The Concord has had enough."
"Article two. The two Heads will govern Crooked Ferry together, as one household, in the Hearth House, for one hundred days."
"Article three. On the night of the Autumn Lantern Fair, the Concord will review the Hearth."
Under the cord, Zhuyuan's thumb shifted.
It came to rest on the soft inside of her wrist, right on her pulse.
Luoyi felt it there, warm and dry and very still.
She felt her own heartbeat knock against it.
"If the Hearth thrives, the marriage stands for good, and the toll is shared forever," the Inspector read.
"If the Hearth fails, the Concord ends the match on the spot, and the toll is shared forever anyway."
"If either spouse walks out before the Fair, their sect's half of the toll passes to the other."
"Jade Kettle's half pays three hundred and twelve households, Mistress."
Three hundred and twelve households were her brewers, her cooks, her carters, and the girl who washed jars.
Zhuyuan had gone a shade paler, and she saw his free hand count something on its fingers.
Silverbell, she remembered, had more than five hundred.
So neither of them could leave.
But a Hearth that failed would end the marriage cleanly, with nobody blamed.
"Failing is allowed," Luoyi said slowly.
"Failing is the Concord's second favorite outcome," said the Inspector. "Cheating is not."
"Article nine. A Hearth ruined in bad faith, by sabotage from either spouse, forfeits the toll of both sects to the Concord."
"I will be inspecting. I am extremely thorough, and I love this town."
His thumb pressed, very lightly, as her pulse jumped.
Luoyi looked down at it.
He did not move it.
He looked at her instead, with dark calm eyes, and the tips of his ears turned pink.
Her pulse went faster under his thumb, and he felt it, and she knew he felt it.
She had not planned to be a bride.
She could, however, plan to be the worst governor Crooked Ferry had ever seen.
She would fail honestly, in front of everybody, without leaving a mark a thorough woman could find.
The barge bumped the landing.
The Inspector untied the cord, and Luoyi's wrist felt cold at once, which was annoying.
"Mistress Tang," said Zhuyuan.
He held out his hand, palm up, to help her down the plank.
His face was so earnest it was almost rude.
"I promise I will do everything in my power to make this work."
Luoyi took his hand and squeezed, hard, until the bones shifted.
He did not let go.
His thumb found her pulse again.
"I'm sure you will," she said.
The Inspector handed them an iron key on the leftover red cord.
"The Hearth House has one bedroom," she said, apologetically. "The other room is full of goats."
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