Chapter 1205: August
Zhang Yuelu was not yet thirty. Tantai Qiong was not much older either, roughly the same age as Madam Qi.
In terms of achievements, Tantai Qiong could not be compared to Madam Qi. Yet there were objective reasons for this. Madam Qi was backed by the Earthly Preceptor and the Yao family, while Tantai Qiong’s backing was but a declining Confucian family.
The disparity in resources between the two was simply too great, so their accomplishments naturally could not be compared.
To be fair, Tantai Qiong was by no means weak. She had risen almost entirely through her own efforts to become a third-rank Youyi Daoist. Although she was a daughter-in-law of the Zhang family, her husband, Zhang Juqi, was from a minor branch. Even Zhang Juqi himself received little in the way of resources, let alone Tantai Qiong.
Before Xu Jiaorong became the Second Deputy Mansion Master, she had also been a third-rank Youyi Daoist, showing the considerable weight of someone in this rank.
Tantai Qiong was also strong-willed, as could be seen when she dared to take the issue of her daughter’s last name to the Heavenly Preceptor. Before Zhang Yuelu rose to prominence, this small household was largely held together by Tantai Qiong alone. Both Zhang Juqi and Zhang Yuelu had to listen to her without question, which in turn led to the mother-daughter conflict between them. Such a person was not very likable.
Qi Xuansu disliked her and never bothered to hide it. From this alone, one could tell that he was clearly not henpecked. After all, a man who feared his wife would not dare to fall out with his mother-in-law. Qi Xuansu was not being snobbish either. His attitude toward Sage Cihang was likewise distant, marked more by the cautious respect of a subordinate toward a superior rather than any eagerness to curry favor by leveraging that connection.
This was partly because Qi Xuansu was simply too busy, and it was partly due to his own personality.
Of course, Tantai Qiong did not like Qi Xuansu either.
No matter what, it was best for a husband and wife to be evenly matched. If one were strong and the other weak, many conflicts would arise. This balance did not necessarily mean equality of status or position. Even if one partner did not have a high rank, as long as the other partner was willing to negotiate as equals, that too constituted a form of balance.
Many times, Tantai Qiong felt deeply stifled.
Judging from her own experiences, she did not believe that a strong woman and a weak man could ever have a good future together.