The Substitute Groom Refuses to Leave novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Useful Farewell
A substitute groom chooses to marry a general who recognizes him immediately.
Wen Shuqiao arrived at his wedding with shoes for leaving it.
His uncle had tied them to the sedan's outside handle.
The blue cloth toes knocked together whenever the bearers stopped.
Everyone in the general's courtyard could see them.
Shuqiao had objected before departure.
His uncle had called them a thoughtful provision.
At twenty-seven, Shuqiao knew what thoughtfulness cost in his family.
Usually it cost him an afternoon and somebody else nothing.
He climbed out before a servant could help him.
The shoes hit his wedding hat.
A laugh came from behind a pillar.
Shuqiao unhooked the shoes and held them with considerable dignity.
"Those are useful," said the man waiting on the steps.
General Han Yunting wore red without gold embroidery.
His shoulders filled the doorway, and his left boot looked unusually soft.
Shuqiao had seen him before, at a poetry supper.
He wished he hadn't remembered that particular supper so clearly.
"My family considers every possibility," Shuqiao said.
"They haven't sent your outdoor coat."
"This is a wedding."
Yunting glanced at the dangling shoes.
"I was checking."
The man behind the pillar laughed openly now.
Shuqiao regretted preparing a speech about accepting undeserved hardship.
The general didn't appear to recognize hardship when it stood before him.
He was thirty-three, the invitation had said.
His face was browned from outdoor work, with a small shaving nick beside his mouth.
Shuqiao looked away from the nick.
"Your intended spouse couldn't come," he said.
"So I see."
"I agreed to spare both households an embarrassment."
Yunting stepped down and took the shoes.
"Then you should have a chair before any further sacrifices."
A servant brought a stool.
Another brought tea.
The general put the shoes beside the stool, carefully facing outward.
Shuqiao refused to sit.
His cousin had called the general a provincial brute.
His uncle had called the substitute marriage an opportunity to prove filial devotion.
Neither had mentioned refreshments.
"You don't understand," Shuqiao said.
"I can fetch a higher chair."
"The difficulty isn't the furniture."
"Good," Yunting said.
"We borrowed most of it."
The household servants stopped pretending not to listen.
Shuqiao felt his ears warming beneath his hat.
He had expected anger, perhaps an insult he could withstand impressively.
Instead, the general was checking whether the stool wobbled.
"There is something you should hear privately," Shuqiao said.
Yunting sent the servants back to their work.
The man behind the pillar departed with obvious regret.
The courtyard remained open to the street.
Shuqiao lowered his voice.
"I am not the man described in your betrothal exchange."
"You can leave," Yunting said.
Shuqiao stared at him.
He hadn't even reached the honorable part.
"I have already come," Shuqiao said.
"The bearers are still here."
"They have been paid," Shuqiao said.
"I'll pay them again."
The general spoke without irritation.
That made the offer much harder to defeat.
Shuqiao wanted this marriage to mean something beyond his uncle's convenience.
He had wanted that since agreeing to it.
Nobody at home had asked what he hoped to find here.
Now a man was asking, and he had brought a farewell speech.
"If I leave, my family will call you rejected twice," Shuqiao said.
"They've called me worse over dinner."
Yunting moved the tea into reach.
"You don't owe me a wedding to improve their conversation."
Shuqiao sat.
He drank because refusing excellent tea on principle would have been foolish.
The general waited without examining him.
That courtesy hurt more than Shuqiao expected.
He had spent the journey preparing to be useful.
He hadn't prepared to be free.
"If I stay," he said, "I won't be your family's apology."
"We haven't asked for one."
"Nor a temporary substitute."
Yunting took the shoes off the stool beside him.
"Then I'll have your name used during the ceremony."
Shuqiao stood and straightened his sleeves.
"My name is Wen Shuqiao."
"I know," Yunting said.
He offered his hand before the witnesses returned.
"You tried to rescue my manners at the poetry supper."
The general's mouth moved at the corner.
"Your cousin's portrait was taller."
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