I Became The Stepmother of My Ex-husband

Chapter 63: Congratulated the Emperor

For the imperial court, New Year's Eve was not the most important festival. The first day of the New Year was.

Early morning on the first day of the New Year, the entire capital was filled with an unusual atmosphere. The east was still dark, and each mansion were lit up. In front of Chengtian Gate, officials in full dress were waiting. Giving congratulations to the Emperor on the morning of the first day was the most solemn event of the year. On this day, a hundred court officials came to congratulate and all nations came to worship. This was the might of the great power.

Congratulatory ceremony in the morning of the New Year, was done very cautiously. According to customs all titled women also need to enter the palace to meet the Empress and the Empress Dowager, but the inner palace was empty, the Emperor has not yet established the Empress, then the titled women's congratulatory ceremony were much simpler. Therefore, to suffer from dawn till the sun hit three pole (around noon) was enough.

Today, Lin Wei Xi had been tossed around since dawn to wear the court's attire and dress. She put on a Qin Wangfei's ceremonial dà shān (大衫), her hair wearing a jiǔ dí crown (九翟冠). The inside was lined with plain muslin, a deep green jū yī (鞠衣) was tied up on top it, the chest was embroidered luxuriously with gold thread to form cloud and phoenix pattern. After hanging the jade pendant and ornaments on the jū yī, she put on a wide and grand red (红色) silk weave (纻丝) dà shān on the outermost part, and finally put on a long xiá pèi (霞帔), with a gold pendant hanging on the bottom. When the whole body was finished, there were five or six layers inside out. In between there were many jade pendants and colored ribbons hanging. The long sleeves of the red dà shān were almost reach the floor. The deep green jū yī and the jade pendant on the inside were peeping through. Not to mention the head, jiǔ dí crown was decorated with real gold, silver, jade and precious stones. Lin Wei Xi puts on this glamorous body, she looks noble and awe-inspiring, but the heaviness behind the nobility was also real.

(TN: I struggled for hours with this one paragraph alone, I don't know how to explain the dress, some of the English words just doesn't make sense. In the end I gave up and give you the visual instead and I found the exact match for the dress. )

Although heavy, but the Central Plains was known as the country of etiquette. These cumbersome details were the best power. Every detail on the ceremonial dress, even a small embroidery, symbolized status and order. When Lin Wei Xi stood in the main hall for congratulatory ceremony the accumulation of these details made her looks majestic and magnificent.

Lin Wei Xi belonged to outside titled woman, but now there was no concubine in the palace, she was also the consort of Yan Wang, even though she was the youngest, the other Wangfei dare not let her stand behind. Lin Wei Xi tried to decline to no avail, so she stood in the first row of all the titled women, dignifiedly and solemnly led the crowd to hold the congratulatory ceremony, faintly as the head of all titled women.

In fact, the ceremony had been simplified a lot. After all, compared to the Empress Dowager, the Empress was the real ceremonial focus. It was reasonable to say that the Emperor was young and hasn't establish the Empress yet, the congratulatory ceremony of the womenfolk should be cancelled. However, First Assistant Zhang was very persistent with these elaborate rules. Not only was he critical of the manners of many officials, even the Emperor was not immune, and if there's a little bit of mistake with the Emperor's lecture every ten days, people could get impeached. Men were like this, of course Lin Wei Xi and the other womenfolk had to follow suit.

Last night to send the old and welcomed the new, everyone were sleeping late, and today at dawn they already got up and put on their ceremonial dresses. After that, they wore a dozen catties (1 catty = 500gr) of clothes to attend the long and cumbersome congratulatory ceremony. Standing and kneeling didn't know how many times they were tossed around. After this whole set, Lin Wei Xi and the other young people were still alright, but many of the elderly titled madams couldn't stand it anymore. When the ceremony was over, the Empress Dowager Qian at the top also breathed a sigh of relief, and quickly let someone help her to rest at the back.