Chapter 128 — Thanks
Purple Streets of Chang'an Page 1 of 2
"A token of my thanks?"
Of course Dou Yan would accept it with pleasure.
If she did not, and Song Yan misunderstood her as someone who did not know how to appreciate a kindness, and thus fixed her in his mind, she felt she would probably not sleep easy at night.
"I shall not presume to refuse." She rose with a smile and curtsied to Song Yan. "Please convey my 'thanks' to your honored mother on my behalf, young master."
"No need for such courtesy, Fourth Miss Dou," Song Yan said with a smile, his jade-white face seeming all the more clear and lustrous in the dimly lit hall.
No wonder so many people liked to look at him!
Dou Yan muttered inwardly, smiling as she watched Song's attendants carry things in and out.
Just how many "humble gifts" had he brought?
Looking at the gift boxes piled as high as a small hill, Dou Yan felt a faint headache coming on.
But she resolved not to say another word to Song Yan—say nothing and you err not; say much and err much; who knew which remark might touch a raw nerve. She felt there was no need at all, nor any point in racking her brains to guess at Song's reactions. After all, one of them was in the capital, the other in Zhending, and once this matter blew over, there would be nothing between them at all.
Dou Yan sat there drinking her tea, calm and unhurried.
Though Song Yan considered glancing at someone from the corner of one's eye a cowardly and ill-mannered habit, he could not help but steal a glance at Dou Yan from the corner of his eye.
Someone who could remain so composed in his presence was truly... a rarity!
He thought of that overcast, rainy day.
Her brilliant eyes, her confident smile of one who knew the outcome beforehand...
How had she done it?
He had been trained by renowned masters since childhood, and that was why he could remain calmer and more self-possessed than most people.
She was only a year or two older than he, raised in the inner chambers, who had never once left Zhending County... and then there was that business with his eldest uncle—how had she even thought to blacken her own name? Not to mention his grandmother and mother; even his father and the family's advisors had not dared to say for certain which stratagem would work...
Song Yan suddenly found himself utterly curious about the girl before him.
With whom had she studied?
Was Chen Yanzhou really just her accountant?
And then, her father and stepmother were in the capital, yet her half-sister by a different mother lived with her in Zhending—had her stepmother truly been as the outside world claimed, that because of poor health she could not manage the household, and so had entrusted her and her sister to the care of the Second Dowager of the Eastern Dou?
She seemed to be surrounded by countless mysteries!
He was somewhat impatient to know everything about her.
Song Ke added, "When I came, my grandmother—that is, Lady Mei—she bade me convey her 'thanks' to you as well, for saving the womenfolk of the Jiang family."
Dou Yan was taken aback.
She had guessed that Song Yan would tell his mother about this when he returned, but she had never expected that the Jiangs would tell Lady Mei.
Song Yan looked at her. For some inexplicable reason, his heart felt glad, as though he were a child again who had answered his tutor's question correctly and won his mother's praise.
He smiled. "When my mother saw that your stratagem had worked, she was overjoyed. She told my grandmother that she had discovered a female Zhuge Liang. It is only a pity the occasion is not right; otherwise she would certainly have offered you a cup of humble wine, and it would surely have made a fine tale." As he spoke, his smile gradually faded. "When I came, my grandmother also asked me to bring you a message. She said she ought to thank you properly, but that she is a person without good fortune. Fearing she might implicate you, she would not add to your troubles." His expression turned somewhat bitter. "You may not yet know what you have done... The moment my grandmother heard that my eldest uncle had died, she had poison prepared—for if the women of the household were exiled, in the end they would become either official courtesans or military camp women, unable to live and unable to die, and those men would even cry out whose household's womenfolk they were to lure in customers. The baser a man's station, the more he delights in..." Here he could not go on. His voice choked once more.
They had probably never imagined they would be wiped out, whole clans and all?
After the Prince of Liao ascended the throne, several families of once-illustrious nobility had been exterminated, root and branch.
Such things had last happened in the reign of the founding Emperor.
Nearly everyone in the capital had rushed off to watch the spectacle.
She had heard the serving women speak of it.
There were too many people; the executioners hacked until their blades were blunted and their arms grew weak, and sometimes it took several strokes to kill a person. The victims were of course a bloody pulp, but those waiting their turn watched helplessly as their young daughters, even their pregnant wives, died so miserably, and most of them broke down. Some would ceaselessly kowtow to the presiding official, even clamoring to expose the crimes of their fathers and brothers, begging only for a quick death; every foul emotion of man was laid bare—to speak of dignity was pointless, for they had not even the barest moral底线 left.
If she were Lady Mei, she too would have led all the women of the household to take their own lives.
"Say no more!" A foul breath caught in Dou Zhiwei's chest. She glared at Song Yan. "Why are you telling me all this? I do not wish to hear it!"
Indeed!
Why was he telling her all this?
She was still an unmarried young lady!
Song Ke felt rather alarmed.
Or perhaps it was because he himself had a weight on his heart.
While he was busy helping his grandmother, aunts, and cousins pack their bags, he had not felt it; but once he was idle, he could hold it back no longer.
Looking at Dou Yan's disgusted expression, he suddenly found the way she glared at him very beautiful.
Her large eyes were bright and spirited, her long brows slightly knit, her whole face a picture of impatience.
Yes—impatience.
Not fear, not alarm, not even suspicion, but precisely what she had said: she disliked hearing such things, and so she was impatient with them.
Calm, candid, utterly unafraid… and that was why, even with circumstances so dire, she had been able to scheme coolly and rationally, to calculate without a single misstep and force him to surrender with his hands bound.
Could it be that in his heart he had long since decided she was a woman who could not be frightened by him?
Song Yan's gaze as he looked at Dou Zhiwei turned strange.
Dou Yan's heart began to pound.
Why was Song Yan looking at her like that?
Had he discovered something?
Or had something occurred to him that had to do with her?
Whichever it was, she truly did not want any further entanglement with him.
Dou Yan asked him, "Have you eaten lunch?"
Song Yan was slightly taken aback.
The change of subject was both stiff and abrupt.
He could not help glancing up at the sun outside.
It seemed there was still the better part of an hour before noon.
Then he remembered that the one speaking to him was Dou Yan, and so did not find the question stupid; his tone was mild as he replied, "The food at the farmstead is all very good!"
Good or not, she only wanted an excuse not to sit here listening to him go on about the Jiang family.
The more she knew, the harder it would be to extricate herself.