Chapter 406 — A Glaring Look

Dou Yan looked toward Song Yan.

Song Yan's brows were knit into a deep furrow, his handsome lips pressed tightly together, a look of violence tinged with something sinister.

Dou Yan could not help stepping forward to smooth his brow, as though by doing so she might wipe away the shadows gathering in his heart.

Song Yan took her hand and said softly, "It's nothing." Then in a whisper he told Dou Yan what Li Liang had said.

Dou Zhiwei's brows furrowed as well.

No wonder Yigui was so timid. Plainly Li Yaoniang had beaten the fear into her since childhood.

She said softly to Song Yan, "Go out first. Let me talk to Yigui."

Song Yan gave her hand a squeeze and left the side chamber.

Dou Yan took out a handkerchief and wiped Yigui's tears.

Only then did Yigui notice that Song Yan was no longer in the room.

She asked Dou Yan, "Is what he said true?"

Dou Yan nodded.

Yigui wept silently for a while, then said in a low voice, "Am I very heartless... She is gone. I am sad... but more than that, I feel relief..."

Dou Yan said warmly, "Even if we kept only a cat or a dog, and it died suddenly, we would feel grief. Yet you feel relief — plainly she must have done something to wound you. That is not your fault."

A flicker of gratitude passed through Yigui's eyes. She lowered her head and sobbed quietly again.

Dou Yan held her as one would soothe a child.

She said hurriedly, "I'm all right... Be careful of the child in your belly..." Her voice was soft as a March breeze, and seven parts like Song Yan's.

Dou Zhiwei's heart softened at once.

She released Yigui and patted her hand lightly. "Would you like to tell me about Li Yaoniang?"

Yigui said nothing.

The room fell silent, and all at once the air turned oppressive.

Dou Yan felt she had been too eager, and was just about to find another topic when Yigui said, head down: "She did not like me, and she did not like others to know I was her daughter. When I was small, whenever guests came to the house, she would stuff me into the wardrobe; when I grew a little older, she would shut me in the side room and never once let me appear before anyone. But that day she suddenly wanted to take me to the temple to burn incense, and even gave me a pretty set of clothes to change into. Yet when we got to the temple, she told me to stand in the main hall and wait for her, and then vanished herself, I know not where. Someone came with sweets to coax me into going home with him; another pulled at me and said I was his niece who had gone astray — if I had not fooled a little novice monk at the temple, I would have been carried off by force that day...

"Later she made pastries for me to eat.

"From the time I was small, she had never once made me anything to eat. I pretended to knock a dish to the floor, and Little Yellow ran over, snatched a piece of pastry, and dashed off. I chased it outside, and there I saw Little Yellow lying twisted on the ground... She said the butcher had sold her bad meat..."

Dou Yan was so angry she drank two mouthfuls of tea in a row.

Thank heaven Li Yaoniang was dead. Otherwise she would surely have urged Song Yan to give her a proper settling.

"When she wanted to marry me to Wei Bairui, she went on about how good Wei Bairui was, how I would live in comfort if I married him. When I saw Bairui, he was always neatly dressed, and though he wore a Daoist robe of pongee silk, he claimed that he could put down ten taels of silver at a time to buy her things and curry favor with her — so I knew he was an empty shell. Even so, I felt relief, and I married him gladly..."

Dou Yan suddenly thought of her former life, when she too had gladly married Wei Fan.

Only Yigui's fate had been rougher than hers.

Her eyes grew moist at once.

"It's all right now, all right," Dou Yan said, unable to keep herself from putting an arm around Yigui's shoulder and comforting her in a low voice. "Yantang is your own elder brother. If trouble comes, he will protect you." Then she added, "I am your sister-in-law. If there is anything you would rather not tell him, you may tell me, and we will surely see justice done for you."

Yigui faltered, "Am I — am I really a daughter of the Song family?"

"Of course!" Dou Yan said, with absolute finality. "Don't you think you look a great deal like the Heir Apparent?"

She shook her head. "The Heir Apparent is ever so much better looking than I am!" Then she murmured, "Sometimes I hide under the covers and cry, wishing I were somebody else's child, that I'd been carried off and she'd found me, and that the moment I opened my eyes, my real parents would come looking for me..."

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