CHAPTER 231: CHAPTER 163 FINALLY GOT MARRIED

Princess Dog slept for about fourteen or fifteen hours straight, and when she finally woke up, the first thing she felt was a lightness and ease in her body. Every bone and limb seemed to have been reawakened, each muscle loose and relaxed, no longer plagued by the previous soreness and fatigue.

She couldn’t help but stretch with a great, luxurious yawn, feeling in an excellent mood. Then she saw sunlight filtering through the paper windows, casting dappled patterns on the floor. She stared blankly at the shifting light for a moment, her mind finally sharpening. Suddenly she let out a gasp—by the look of it, it was nearly noon, and she hadn’t yet paid her respects to Mistress Tsuchida. She’d likely be severely punished later.

"Princess, you’re awake?"

Her exclamation startled Ah-Chu and Ah-Xia, the two rather clueless maids, who poked their heads in, took a look, and immediately ran in happily to help her wash up and change. It was only then that Princess Dog remembered—she was now married into the Nozawa family, and there was no need to report to the mistress every morning anymore.

This was great news, but realizing it still left her a bit despondent—sleeping in till almost noon during one’s own wedding? How would she ever establish herself in her new husband’s family from now on?

She let herself be dressed and fussed over by the maids like a wooden puppet, only pulling herself together after a long moment. She hastily asked Ah-Chu and Ah-Xia, "Why didn’t you wake me up?"

Ah-Chu answered cheerfully, "That was Lord Yehua’s order. His lordship said you were too tired and told us not to disturb you."

Ah-Xia nodded vigorously by the side, her face beaming with happiness. "Lord Yehua is such a good man!"

Previously, Harano had spoken to them kindly and politely, even making sure they were fed while keeping watch at the door. The maids truly thought Harano was wonderful—a gentle and considerate master.

Princess Dog was dazed for a moment, trying hard to recall her own husband. But after such a long sleep, her memory was fuzzy again. She couldn’t remember what kind of person she had married—she only vaguely remembered him as a big bear of a man.

But since it was her husband’s command, she relaxed a bit. With Ah-Chu and Ah-Xia’s help, she washed up, finding herself curious about the soap covered in bubbles, the strange toothbrush and toothpaste, and the water basin with running water—Ah-Chu and Ah-Xia had already been taught how to use them that morning.

When in Rome, do as the Romans do; now that she was married into the Nozawa family, she ought to do things their way. She had no objection to these novel items. After washing up and having her hair neatly done, she realized her little face wasn’t smothered in a thick layer of powder anymore—Harano had ordered all her cosmetics confiscated. Left with nothing to do, she sat daydreaming in her room, not sure what to do with herself.

At this point, Harano arrived right on time, immediately asking with concern, "Did you sleep well?"

Princess Dog still didn’t quite dare look him in the face. She nodded bashfully, twisting her hands and mumbling something too quiet to catch.

Harano didn’t quite hear her, but it didn’t matter. He smiled again and asked, "You must be hungry. Shall we eat now?"

Today was the second day of the wedding ceremonies. The newlyweds were supposed to spend time together and eat as a pair. Of course, Princess Dog had no objection. Soon enough, last night’s scenario repeated itself—dishes of all kinds quickly covered the table once again.

Harano kept sending friendly signals, being extremely considerate of her feelings. Princess Dog could sense it. Seeing another lavish spread, she felt it was a bit too extravagant—she had hardly eaten this well before, living mostly on tea-soaked rice. Still, it was the wedding, maybe it was a special occasion, so she said nothing, merely rolled up her sleeves cautiously, ready to serve her husband his meal.

This, too, was a special case—it was just a wedding custom of this era. On ordinary days, things wouldn’t be so fussy, so Harano didn’t object. After she went through the motions, he invited her to sit down, and they ate side by side at the same table.

Princess Dog clearly loved the cuisine at Harano’s household. Even if she wasn’t used to meat, she was absolutely delighted by all the stir-fried vegetables and wild greens, and she adored the flavorful broths. Of course, she felt embarrassed to keep picking food in front of Harano, so she would occasionally turn slightly away, lift her sleeve to cover her mouth while chewing, and eat very slowly.

Harano never hurried her. He knew change didn’t happen overnight, so he picked out food she seemed to enjoy, gently introducing the dishes, explaining why each one tasted so good. Princess Dog listened with wide, blinking eyes, looking totally bewildered but fascinated—he found it very amusing.

After Harano talked on for quite a while, she finally hesitated, then timidly asked, "Isn’t this... a bit too extravagant?"

According to what her nurse had taught her, a good household should always be thrifty.

"Not at all," Harano replied, still warm and gentle. "If you have the means, there’s no need to scrimp on food."

His ideas were very practical. He never saw the point of pinching pennies on food, clothing, or daily life. Even though many modern people believe that ’struggling’ means living on cold water and cheap noodles, toughing it out as hard as you can and barely scraping by—nobody seems to talk about life quality. But few realize this: without good living standards, if you can’t eat well or stay warm, or keep your nutrition balanced, where would you get lasting energy?

A person who can never wake up after a night’s sleep, who still feels groggy after eight or nine hours, who exhausts themselves after just a few hours’ work—is not going to accomplish much. As the saying goes, your body is your most important asset. Compare someone who drags themselves through four or five hours’ work each day and nearly keels over, to another who’s busy for more than ten hours daily but still bounces around full of life—after ten years, how many could keep up with the latter? One in ten thousand, maybe.

So, after making sure he was personally safe, Harano went all-in to improve his living conditions and stuck to keeping fit—to guarantee he’d always have enough energy. That way, beyond getting things done day to day, he’d still have extra energy to plan for the future.

Of course, seeking a good quality of life doesn’t mean wasting money on lobsters and abalone or bear paws and monkey heads. Harano simply aimed to make every meal tasty and nutritious, making sure he always ate comfortably and healthily. In this era, that might look like extravagance, and if some modern folks saw him they’d think he was just goofing off.

Harano didn’t hide anything. Since there was nothing urgent to do, he went on to tell Princess Dog about his principles on food, clothing, and lifestyle, so that when they lived together in the future, she wouldn’t fret over every little thing—for him, that would be suffocating. Of course, people nowadays would figure these things out while dating, but that wasn’t really a thing in this era.

Princess Dog only half-understood, her expression blank. She mumbled quietly, "Is that so?"

"Of course." Harano wasn’t in a rush for her to fully understand. Seeing they were almost done with lunch, he invited, "Would you like to see the kitchen?"

Princess Dog had no objections—this was going to be her home from now on, and she was genuinely curious about what it looked like.

The two of them walked over, chatting idly along the way. After Princess Dog had watched stir-frying in iron pans, deep-frying, and sampled some of Harano’s weird and wonderful sauces, he walked her around the entire house so she’d get a feel for the space. Finally, he took her to the study to kill some time. On the way, Harano had asked Princess Dog about her hobbies and learned she liked reading—although, apparently, what she read wasn’t exactly "serious" material, more like storybooks and picture books. It was a longtime distraction from her existence as a wallflower.

In the study, Yayoi was leading a team of little maids to sort and categorize books—these new ones were all part of Princess Dog’s dowry.

The marriage was a mutual arrangement: Harano, following tradition, provided a generous bride price, and the Oda Family needed to give a suitable dowry in turn. But at this point, Harano was making a fortune selling saltpeter, so he wasn’t lacking in money and had zero interest in fancy clothes, tea sets, gold and silver jewelry, or armor and weapons. So, he had Endo Chiyoda and Maeshima Shichiro request a batch of books as part of the dowry.

The Oda Danjo Chonosuke family, for all their low standing—a mere magistrate’s lineage, widely considered rural bumpkins—still had over two hundred years’ family history and pedigree. They valued their ancient customs, but didn’t care that much about the books accumulated by generations past, so with a little hinting from Chiyoda and Shichiro, they gave up a cart and a half’s worth of books. Nobody paid much attention to what kinds—just a big, random load. Yayoi and her helpers had spent half the day already and still hadn’t sorted it all into categories.

Now, with Harano bringing Princess Dog in, Yayoi paused her work to serve them tea and snacks, then Harano invited Princess Dog to pick some books together.

Sticking close to him, Princess Dog felt too embarrassed to reach for the fluffier volumes. She only picked up a travelogue, kneeling beside him to read, while Harano focused on picking out Samurai notebooks (private diaries) and military records (battlefield accounts).

He figured since he’d managed to transmigrate once, he couldn’t just waste the opportunity and had to actually get things done. As his power expanded, his desire to change the future only grew—he wanted to prevent some of the terrible tragedies that had happened in history. But, like curing a disease, you need to find the source, so learning all he could about Japan and tracking down the root of its problems was most important. It would even affect his long-term plans—he already had a preliminary strategy. The more he learned of the past and the causes behind certain beliefs, the better. The rest was just supplementary work.

As for whether he could rule and dominate this Japan of the Middle Ages... well, he didn’t really care about being king. To simply conquer and rule felt pretty low-brow, honestly not very interesting at all—anyone who transmigrated to ancient times could lord it over a crowd for a while.

A person should aspire to more in life, and he certainly had his own ambitions.

He and Princess Dog spent the entire afternoon reading in the study, occasionally chatting or laughing. The scene felt pleasantly warm. Then they had dinner together, and spent some more time talking, getting to know each other better, finally retiring to sleep—still in separate beds.

The next morning, Princess Dog learned her lesson and woke up early. Following the etiquette her nurse had drilled into her, she carefully assisted Harano with dressing and washing, fulfilling her wifely duties. Today was the final day of the wedding rituals, and Harano took her through the last step—formally introducing her to his parents, siblings, family elders, and household retainers.

This went off without a hitch. The Nozawa family setup was extremely simple, with just a few "big cats and little dogs," and no hostility existed between the Oda and Nozawa families. The process was exceptionally smooth—nobody objected to Princess Dog joining the Nozawa family.

With that, Harano had finally completed the wedding. Before he married, he’d never imagined how complicated it would be to get married in the Japan Middle Ages. The whole process took more than half a year, and even the wedding itself stretched across three days.

People in this era were really relaxed—but, well, at least it was done. From now on, he could count himself as a married man. It was just that, for now, this wife was strictly for looking at only.