Chapter 48 - Chapter 41: A Scholar for a Bride

💍 Chapter 41: A Scholar for a Bride

🌍 August 21st, 97 BCE — High Summer 🔥

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Wedding Illustration: https://drive.google.com/file/d/13S7oZuWK_JvoSLUL7Yv4AXoF_eDfZROW/view?usp=drive_link

Too bad Webnovel doesn't let me embed pictures in here like other sites do. 😉 

Despite all Junjie had accomplished—fortifying the valley, jump-starting an economy from dirt and stubbornness, opening a storefront in the city—his parents still had one steady complaint: marriage. His mother, Lianhua, in particular, never let it rest.

"Build all the walls you like," she muttered while crushing herbs with the pestle, "but if no one inherits them, what's the point?"

On his next run to the city, Junjie gave in. He told himself it was practical—check the storefront's ledger, let the chatty cousin of a retired merchant handle the shop's fees so the city stayed curious-but-complacent, and restock what the valley couldn't yet make: parchment and ink, rare spices, lamp oil, seed stock. Maybe... pass by the matchmakers. Perhaps... glance at the slave pens, where hard luck had turned people into inventory. He hated that part. But the city was full of broken stories, and not all chains were iron.

He wasn't expecting to find her.

⚖️ The Slave Market

She sat apart at the edge of the slave pens, wrapped in a cloak that had once been expensive and was now a damp rag. Fever glazed her eyes, but her spine stayed straight and her chin lifted. The slavers stood well away, as if she might spit plague. Most buyers didn't linger. She looked like a bad bet.

Nano's voice brushed Junjie's ear from the bracer hidden beneath his sleeve—cool, clinical, and very much not for other people. Vitals elevated. Infection present but localized. Genetic stability: excellent. Western craniofacial markers. Latin phoneme pattern audible. Malnutrition: moderate. Prognosis with treatment: favorable.

A slaver barked at her in the local tongue. She turned her head and answered in crisp, furious Latin, the consonants clean despite the fever:

"Aufer manum, mercennarie. Nondum mortua sum—et tuo pretio indignissima."

Nano translated in Junjie's ear, even as his father's old caravan memories caught half of it: Take your hand away, hireling. I am not dead yet—and your price is an insult.

The slaver scowled. "She curses in foreigner-talk all day," he muttered, keeping his distance anyway. "Sick. No one wants sick. Take her for half a gold and save me the feed."

Junjie studied her. Fever burned her eyes glassy, but calculation lingered there too. She wasn't broken—just bruised by fate.

"Half a gold," he said.

"Done," the slaver spat, far too quickly.

Junjie didn't haggle. He signed the ledger, lifted her himself, and was startled at how light she felt.

⛵ The River Journey

They left at dusk from the riverside dock, poles bumping against the bank as the crew shoved off. Lanterns shimmered on the water; reeds whispered as they cleared the city's stink and drifted into countryside murk.

The captain gave Junjie a sharp look when he carried the fevered woman past the hold and into the aft cabin. But Junjie ignored it. He eased her onto the bench, then slid in beside her, his arm firm around her shoulders to keep her upright.

Her head lolled against him, fever-heat seeping through her cloak. Still, she blinked stubbornly at the small round window, eyes glassy but hungry to see. Junjie tilted her slightly so she could catch the view—the dark shapes of farmhouses drifting by, lanterns bobbing along the banks, reeds combing the current, and above it all a scatter of stars half-buried in smoke.

Then, without warning, the boat lifted from the water, the oars and poles useless in midair. Lanterns swung, reflecting across the cabin in dizzying patterns, as the Gull of the Mountain banked slowly, wings catching the wind. Out the porthole, the valley unfolded beneath them—fields and rivers, forests and cliffs—like a tapestry unrolled by some unseen hand. Claudia gasped, gripping Junjie's arm as the ship rose higher, floating over the dark countryside.

The boat's rhythm—push, glide, push—shifted into a gentle hum of engine and wind. It lulled her fever-slow thoughts even as her eyes drank in the unseen geography. She whispered something in Latin, too faint for the crew but clear in his ear: "Somnium est." A dream.

The crew outside moved as if nothing odd had happened. Junjie said nothing. The captain said nothing. The ship sailed on a breath of night.

By the time faint lights showed far below and the wind fell away, she had folded into herself and gone slack. They touched down near Junjie's home past midnight. Lanterns bobbed like low stars. Strong hands carried her inside.

"Quick, quick," Junjie's mother said, already bustling with basin and blankets. "Inside."

🌿 Recovery & Whispered Worries

The first days were broth and sleep, cool cloths and whispered voices she half understood. Fever tugged her under, then flung her back up for breaths at a time, long enough to smell mint and bone broth, to feel a hand at her forehead, to stare at a beam of wood and wonder if it would melt.

"'Aqua... parum salis,' she murmured once—water... with a little salt—and Junjie's mother, who knew a little caravan Latin, paused, added more salt, and was rewarded with the faintest nod of approval."

Sometimes, when she surfaced, she saw Junjie's parents bent close in quiet talk. Their words blurred in the valley dialect—tones too quick to follow—but the rhythm of their voices lulled her back down.

What she didn't catch was the thread of concern.

"She's Western," his father muttered. "Educated. Not like the market girls. A sharp tongue can stir trouble."

"She's half-dead with fever," his mother replied. "Illness humbles the proud. Let her grow strong before we judge."

At her next waking, Junjie knelt beside her. He tried first in his own tongue, then, carefully, in Latin: "Mihi nomen est Junjie. Hic tutus es. My name is Junjie. You are safe here."

Her eyes sharpened, just for a moment. "Claudia Marcia Aurelia. Aqua... more water."

By the third day, the fever broke. By the fourth, another fever gripped her—the valley's strange sickness, the "Blessing." She endured it with clenched teeth and bright eyes, and when it passed she rose hungrier and sturdier than before.

On the seventh morning she steadied the porridge bowl with tidy hands and ate like a soldier. "Gratias ago," she told his mother.

The older woman smiled and clapped her hands once, brisk. "Walk. Air is medicine."

🌄 First Steps Into the Valley

They went slowly. Morning light rinsed the valley clean. Claudia halted at the threshold of the courtyard, astonished.

The north wall rose like a pale mountain, four watchtowers stabbing against the sky. Beyond it, she saw the stone ribs of the valley pressing in on either side, enclosing the settlement like a fortress in the mountains. For a woman who had known only scattered oases in the Basin, the sight was bewildering—planned, permanent, and strong.

Inside the walls, order unfolded. From the courtyard gate she glimpsed rows of other little courtyards, each walled and neat, tiled roofs peeking out like siblings bowing toward the sun. Narrow paths wound between them, paved with river stones, where children darted like minnows and women carried baskets strung with herbs. It felt too organized, too alive, to be chance.

When they walked further south, the neighborhood opened to a busier hum. Workshops lined the lanes, doors already flung wide, hammers and chisels ringing out in chorus. Past that, green fields striped the valley floor, furrows drinking from the steady river that gleamed like polished glass. In the distance, hulking shapes of furnaces and cranes hunched against the southern sky, black silhouettes softened by dawn mist.

Claudia stopped, steadying herself with one hand on the wall. It wasn't just a village. It was an entire world folded into stone, walled, hidden, and thriving where no map claimed a settlement.

"Non est somnium," she whispered. Not a dream.

"No," Junjie said softly at her side. "Home."

A boy's wooden hoop nearly clipped her ankle. She caught it smoothly, handed it back with a faint smile, and the boy bolted off grinning, chest puffed as if blessed by royalty. Claudia lingered at the sight, dazed.

She drew in a breath, tasting pine smoke, river water, and warm stone. Awe prickled through her fever-dulled senses. This was no ragged encampment clinging to survival. It was hidden strength—an oasis reborn as a fortress, a secret civilization carved into the bones of the mountains. And somehow, she had been carried into its heart.

📜 Letters and Lessons

That night his father unrolled a stiff sheet of parchment at dinner. "The shop in the city needs reply. Your words—" he tapped the parchment "—read like a ledger. No merchant warms to a ledger."

"They are facts," Junjie protested.

"Facts dressed properly earn twice the coin."

Claudia reached for the letter. "Licet? May I?"

She skimmed, then rewrote Junjie's blunt line: Shipment of salt and tinctures will arrive on the next market day.

Into: From our mountain workshops we send you the white salt of kings' tables and tinctures brewed with care, a small taste of what steady partnership may bring.

She handed it back. "The facts are the same. But one builds trust, the other builds walls."

His father grunted. "The girl is right. Keep her."

"Mother," Junjie muttered, but Claudia only smirked, dipping the quill again. Together they drafted a reply: his facts, her polish.

Nano whispered in Junjie's ear, smug: Projected merchant receptivity increased by 27%. Junjie ignored him but smiled anyway.

💐 Courtship Spark — Mother Spills the Beans

Two mornings later, when the house was quiet, Junjie's mother sat with Claudia by the hearth. She spoke slowly, in the half-Latin she had picked up on caravans.

"My son... strong hands. Good heart." She touched her own chest, then gestured toward the courtyard where Junjie's footsteps faded. "He... buy you. For... wife."

The words startled Claudia, but she masked it. She spent the day quietly considering. Bought. A wife. It could have been a chain. Instead, she was in a warm courtyard, clothed, fed, and treated with dignity. The fever was gone, her strength returning. Whatever the intent, this family had rescued her from the pens. Pragmatic, yes—but not cruel.

When Junjie returned in the evening, dust on his sleeves from the forge, Claudia was ready.

He set down a basket of tools, wiped his brow, and found her waiting by the hearth. She tilted her head, studying him like an appraiser eyeing fine wares.

"So," she said in careful local tongue, flavored with Latin. "Your mother tells me you... buy wife."

Junjie nearly dropped the hammer in his hand. "She—she told you that?"

Claudia's lips curved into the faintest smile. "Mm. And I have decided... I will inspect purchase." Her gaze flicked down, then up again, wicked as a spark.

He flushed, stammered, utterly undone. "Inspect—? I—well—"

She laughed softly, the sound lighter than any words. "Relax, philosopher-king. If I must be wife, then I choose to be one with eyes open. We will see if you are worth the price."

Junjie had faced storms, bandits, and stone that cracked only under fire. None of it had left him so defenseless as the gleam in her eyes.

🚶 The Valley's Works

They walked beyond the quiet courtyards and tidy fields, Junjie guiding her with the steadiness of a man showing not merely places, but proofs of what his people had built. Claudia, still gathering strength, followed with eyes wide, each turn revealing more than she thought the mountains could hide.

At the valley's head rose the great dam, vast as any Roman wall, holding back a glittering lake that mirrored the sky. Spillways thundered white water into channels below, where four mills drank from the flow. Grainstones rumbled, saws screeched through timber, looms clattered in tireless rhythm, and forge hammers rose and fell with mechanical heartbeat. Rome had watermills, yes—but never four in concert, never such deliberate harnessing of a river. Here, nature itself bent to human order, and Claudia felt her breath quicken.

Past the mills stretched the valley's fire-works. A three-story furnace breathed white smoke and glowed at its seams, ore carts feeding it without pause. Rows of kilns baked pottery and tiles, their mouths flickering orange, while glassblowers teased molten bubbles into vessels that gleamed like captured stars. Claudia paused, struck—Rome knew such crafts, but here they burned together, a single blazing heart. Junjie did not boast. He only watched her see it, and the works spoke for him.

Then came the beast. Claudia blinked at the hulking shape—half beetle, half manta ray, its round "eyes" staring blankly like a drowned horror risen to fly. Junjie called it the Ore-Eater. With a hum it skimmed the ridges, dropped into a cliffside vein, and chewed through rock as though it were crusted bread. When the first nodules clattered into its belly she laughed despite herself, hair tangled with dust, cheeks flushed. "Roma would envy such a beast," she whispered. Junjie only smiled, steady at the tiller, as if praise itself were ore.

Last, the forest. The skeletal ship hovered, ribs spread wide, paw clamped around a pine trunk. A hidden saw whined, slicing through clean while the grip held fast. With a twist the tree swung horizontal, fed through rollers that stripped branches, bark, and crown in a storm of green. A perfect log dropped into a neat pile, then another, and another, until the Wyrmwood looked less like a machine than a dragon feeding. Claudia shivered, awe prickling along her skin.

By the time they turned back toward the quiet lanes of the valley, Claudia's head swam with smoke, sawdust, and the relentless hum of invention. She had walked through a place that bent rivers, split stone, tamed forests, and made fire itself serve. Junjie said little, but pride lit his eyes. Claudia touched the warm stone of the bridge as they crossed, heart unsteady.

"Roma would respect this," she murmured.

Junjie's mouth curved. "That is enough for me."

🌸 The Courtship

Junjie did not stumble or stammer. When he brought flowers, they were whole, vibrant, arranged with surprising care.

"They'll wilt in two days," Claudia observed, lips twitching. "Do you often invest in doomed projects?"

"Frequently," he said dryly. "Ask the river—it fights me still."

"Then teach me the river," she countered.

Their game began. She teased his accent, stretched out her Latin so he'd frown and concentrate, and corrected him with a scholar's precision. He let her, patient as stone, until his mother chuckled, "You sound like a drunk senator." Claudia laughed so hard she nearly spilled the ink.

As she grew stronger, they walked farther. Out of the family's little courtyard, past the neat rows of tiled houses, she noticed the villagers: men hauling timber with ease, children racing faster than seemed possible, women at the looms working tirelessly. Something was different here, and it set her mind alight with questions. But she asked none yet—not while the game of courtship kept her busy.

At the Spring Festival, he offered his hand without hesitation. His steps were firm, practiced, his grip steady. She laughed anyway, not because he faltered, but because the joy of it surprised her. Lantern light gleamed in his dark eyes, and for a moment she felt the whole valley watching—expectant, approving.

Later, when the music ebbed and the crowd thinned, she found herself beside him under the paper lanterns strung like stars between rooftops. His hand lingered a heartbeat longer than custom allowed. She didn't pull away. Instead she tilted her head, smiling as if to say she was in no rush—that she wanted him to work for it.

The night ended with no promises spoken, but every glance and brush of fingers hinted at what was coming next.

✨ The Gull in the Mountain Flight

Weeks later, he led her down to the docks. "Not a walk today," he said, eyes bright. "Something better."

The Gull skimmed the river, its wings catching the last of the sunlight. Claudia gripped the bench beside him, astonished not at the ship's motion but at the view spilling open beneath her.

The valley stretched long and green, its ordered courtyards neat as tiles in a mosaic. Paths wound like threads between them, smoke trailing from chimneys in lazy columns. To the south, stone bridges arched across the river—true arches, proud and clean, not rough planks like border towns used. Her heart gave a strange lurch. Roma fecit talia... Rome builds such things.

Junjie's hands were steady at the tiller, but his eyes flicked sideways, catching her awe. He smiled and nudged the ship higher.

From above she saw more: the workshops ringing the water's edge, fields tilled in precise strips, and far in the distance the valley's heart—a vast stone dam spanning the river, holding back a glittering lake that mirrored the sky. The scale of it stole her breath.

"You... you built this?" she asked, Latin thick on her tongue.

Junjie tilted his head, half-shrug, half-pride. "We build. All of us."

Her gaze lingered on the dam, the sweep of the wall, the power it tamed. "Roma could boast no better," she murmured.

They rose over the ridges, pine forests rolling beneath, the mountains leaning close. He dipped the bow, just enough to startle her with a sudden flash of a waterfall, white against dark rock. She clutched his arm, laughing despite herself. His arm stayed firm beneath her grip, steady as the ship.

By the time they turned home, dusk had folded into evening. Stars pricked the velvet sky above, and below the valley had transformed: lanterns twinkled along paths, bridges glowed like chains of gold, and the dam shimmered in moonlight like a second wall of marble.

Claudia leaned close, her voice soft. "Dei immortales... non est somnium. Not a dream."

When they landed and the Gull's wings stilled, Junjie did not fumble. His voice was quiet but certain:

"Would you stay? As wife."

Claudia's smile came easily, as though it had been waiting the whole flight. "Yes. Not because your mother insists. Because you listen. You build. Walls, ships... and perhaps even people."

💍 The Wedding

They were married in the village square, beneath the high stone arch Junjie had raised when the valley was first claimed. Lanterns swung from ropes strung between houses, flowers looped along the railings, and every craft sent a gift: the tailors a silk shawl embroidered with vines, the potters a blue-glazed bowl, the smiths a set of polished hinges "for a door that lasts as long as marriage." Children scattered petals down the steps until the ground looked like spring itself had come early.

Junjie stood in clean robes, steady but taut, the expression of a man who had outrun fire and famine and only now allowed himself to rest. When he tried to thank everyone, words knotted in his throat.

Claudia touched his sleeve. "May I?"

She spoke in the valley tongue—not perfect, but brave. She thanked the weavers and smiths by name, praised bread and iron nails with equal weight, and lifted her blue-glazed bowl high as if it were gold. She promised to learn quickly, asked to be corrected gently, and teased that if she deserved scolding, it should be loud enough for even the goats to hear. The elders laughed, the crowd warmed.

"Your son builds walls and water," she finished. "I will try to build words that keep peace across them."

The cheer that rose was not louder than for Junjie—just warmer, wrapping her in the valley's acceptance.

Then the feast began. Four great boars turned slowly over open fires, their skins crackling, fat dripping into the flames. The smell filled the square, mixing with fresh bread, honey-cakes, and wine poured from hillside vines. Musicians struck up drums and flutes, dancers clapped in circles, and laughter rolled louder than the river.

By nightfall, when the last lanterns bobbed like stars above the square, the valley knew its leader had found his queen—and that their future, once only survival, now felt like abundance.

✨ Integration

Claudia split her days between the apothecary and Junjie's worktable. With his mother she refined remedies; with Junjie she shaped letters until even his father muttered, "That will get a reply."

When the valley traders prepared their little ship, she went down with Junjie to see them off. Salt stacked in waxed jars, glass that caught the light in jewel tones, bottles of tinctures sealed in clay, and furs heavy with the scent of pine and musk. 

Claudia lingered as the valley traders sorted a purse of mixed coin. Each piece was weighed, dipped in a narrow cylinder of water, then struck on stone until the ring or clunk declared its truth. When a dull disc was shoved aside, she leaned closer to Junjie and whispered, lips curved, "You make it look like augury—priests listening for omens in a bowl. But it is only numbers and sound."

Junjie's mouth twitched. "Numbers are the only omens I trust."

She smiled at that, and the traders smiled too, though they pretended to be busy with their scales.

Claudia handled the bargaining with practiced ease. Her Latin, her Greek, even her halting scraps of the traders' own dialect — all carried enough charm to lower prices and raise smiles. The guards muttered that the men would have given her the ship if she had pressed harder.

On the walk back, passing the slaver's pens, one man jeered. Claudia did not break stride. Regal on Junjie's arm, she tilted her chin, released a soft, disdainful hmm — and his jaw fell open as if she had stolen the words from his throat.

The guards caught one another's eyes, silent until the pair was well past. Then they grinned, low voices carrying the tale home: how the Roman bride silenced a slaver with nothing more than her bearing. By nightfall, the story was everywhere.

Later, on the balcony, lanterns drifting downriver below, Claudia leaned against Junjie. "You built a civilization from a valley floor. Don't sell yourself short."

"I only wanted my people not to starve."

"Then I'll see they never starve for words."

And so it was — two hands on different levers, pulling the same weight, shaping one future.

A queen, though no crown named her so.

And a builder, content to let her voice carry farther than stone ever could.