Chapter 114 — Seeking Lodging

She at once embraced Dou Yan, and her voice could not help but grow gentle. "It is that gentleman. He has brought a swaddled infant with him, says it is his half brother, that the concubine mother has died of illness, and that he was ordered by his father to take the child home along the way."

Dou Yan steadied herself at once. She sat up straight, thought a moment, and said, "Help me dress. I will go and see."

Suxin hesitated.

Dou Yan sensed it immediately.

She said gravely, "What is it?"

Suxin faltered briefly, then said, "Uncle Duan says that although the gentleman is young, his steps are light, his bearing seems leisurely yet is upright and firm, and every movement of his hands and body is as smooth and natural as high mountains and flowing water. Plainly he has trained in some special martial art. As for the guards about him, they look ordinary, yet each is steady and self-contained, advancing and retreating with proper measure, showing no confusion at all in the pouring rain. One of them is like a precious sword shut in its sheath; a single glance from him, and his eyes carry a bleak and deadly air. He is certainly a first-rate master. Such a man would more than suffice as a drill officer of the imperial guards in the capital; how then would he stoop to serve as another man's guard? And then there is that infant, not yet a hundred days old, unable even to lift its head, yet traveling far with its elder brother. Are his family not afraid the child will not survive the jolting and die? Then the wet nurse with them, no more than eighteen or nineteen, fair-skinned, with soft, weak hands; one look and you know she has never done heavy work... These people's dress and ornaments seem ordinary, but their bearing cannot be feigned; everything about them smacks of strangeness. Uncle Duan tells us to be careful, to keep the gates shut, and not to go in and out at will. Tonight he and Brother Chen will patrol in person."

Dou Yan's expression grew grave.

Sulan, however, yawned and teased, "Maybe they are a pair of young lovers eloping! Uncle Duan is being far too careful."

"More of your nonsense," Suxin scolded her sister. "Caution keeps the ship afloat for ten thousand years. It is only men like Uncle Duan who set one's mind at ease."

Sulan stuck out her tongue.

Yet something in Dou Yan's heart seemed to have been touched, and an impulse she could not suppress rose in her.

She got down from the bed. "I want to go and look," she said, her tone exceedingly firm.

Suxin pondered for a long while, then said to Dou Yan again and again, "Then you must stay behind me."

Dou Yan nodded.

Suxin helped her dress and put a straw cape over her shoulders, then opened a tung-oil-paper umbrella and, accompanying Dou Yan through the covered corridor, came to the front courtyard.

Two black-lacquered carriages and several horses stood in the middle of the courtyard, and unfamiliar guards were braving the downpour to throw oilcloth over the horses' backs. In so heavy a rain, the horses stood there without stirring in the least.

Duan Bing was standing with a young man under the eaves of the east wing, gazing at the guards busy in the courtyard and talking.

The young man had his back to her. The sky was too dark to make out the color of his clothes; of middling height, somewhat lean, his figure stood tall as a pine, with an ape's back and a wasp's waist, his lines most graceful.

The man beside him, dressed as a scholar, however, was facing her.

He was about forty, of ordinary appearance, yet his eyes were brighter than stars, glinting with the light of wisdom.

Seeing Dou Yan, he bowed his head and said a word to the young man.

The young man and Duan Bing both turned to look at her.

Suddenly a bolt of lightning burst across the sky, lighting the courtyard bright as day.

The young man's black brows, his deep and tranquil eyes, his slightly pale face, his features exquisite to flawlessness—all came into her view.

Dou Yan felt as though that lightning had struck her; a great roar filled her head, and she knew not where she was.

Someone was calling her name in panic, supporting her shoulders with gentle yet firm hands.

"Song Yan," she murmured. "How is it that I have met Song Yan..."

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Brothers and sisters who read, the typos will have to wait until tomorrow; for today please make do with what is here. Tomorrow I am seeing my niece off at the airport, so the extra update can only be written in the afternoon.

o(n_n)o~

Begging for pink votes!

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