Chapter 204 — Light and Quick

Suxin laughed softly. "The Seventh Master has shut her up in the rear servants' quarters."

Dou Xin nodded.

She had long since decided not to meddle in her father's household affairs. Whatever end Wang Shuying came to was no concern of hers. She felt relieved of a great weight now, and even the air seemed to carry a certain freshness.

Dou Yan went to her aunt's room.

Her aunt had not yet slept, and was quietly grieving there, while Zhao Zhangru clumsily tried to comfort her mother.

At the sight of Dou Yan, she let out a long breath of relief and hastily yielded the place at the head of the bed to her.

"What is to become of you!" Her aunt clutched Dou Zhiwei's hand and began to weep in a low voice.

Dou Yan's eyes stung, and she too shed tears.

She felt guilty for having kept her aunt in the dark.

After some thought, Dou Yan decided to tell her aunt the truth of the matter.

Her aunt was left staring, mouth agape. Zhao Zhangru, however, as though she feared the world was not already in sufficient disorder, gave Dou Yan a thumbs-up. Her aunt could not bring herself to blame Dou Yan, and scolded her daughter instead: "If you keep carrying on like this, I will tell your father and have you kneel in the ancestral hall as punishment." Then she could not help asking Dou Yan, "Is what you say true? Was it because you did not wish to marry into the Wei family that you let them arrange for Ming to marry in your place? You are not making this up to comfort me, are you?" Her eyes were full of doubt.

The matter had come too suddenly, and her aunt had not thought it through. Once she returned to her room and turned the affair over carefully in her mind, she began to see a thing or two.

She simply could not fathom why the Fifth Madam would do such a thing.

Dou Yan decided to simply tell her aunt about the Ji family.

Her aunt did not come back to herself for a long while.

Zhao Zhangru, meanwhile, was muttering off to the side: "Why do I never get such good fortune!"

Her aunt gave her daughter a sharp smack on the head and said gravely, "You did right! The Ji family knew full well you were betrothed, yet still came to seek your hand. Their intentions were not upright. Even if that Ji Jianming were the finest man alive, we could not ally ourselves with that family." At this point she thought of Madam Ji, and wanted to ask Dou Yan whether Madam Ji knew of the matter, then felt that even if she asked, what good would it do—on one side was her natal family, on the other her husband's, and Madam Ji was caught in a hard place too. Thinking of how Dou Yan, young as she was, had wolves before her and tigers behind, and having dodged one only to face another, she blamed herself and her husband for failing to shelter this poor ill-fated niece. Her heart ached all at once, and with reddened eyes she said, "What will become of you hereafter?"

"What is so good about marrying?" Dou Yan wished her aunt would not grieve so. "Look at my mother..." She said with a grin, "Did you not win me half the West Dou estate? Are you still afraid I shall have nothing to eat? As for the great matter of marriage, I shall take my time and choose one who pleases me."

Her aunt thought it over and found the reasoning sound.

After all, Dou Chi lacked for neither food nor clothing, and need not marry into a great house. So long as the man's character was good and he and Dou Yan were of one mind, it would be a fine match.

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Coming out from her aunt's room, Dou Yan felt her steps grow much lighter.

She laughed. "I mean to have a good sleep. Fifth Aunt has surely arranged for someone to get the Jining Marquis dead drunk. Tomorrow morning is the crux, and I must gather my strength to deal with them."

Suxin smiled with pursed lips and attended Dou Yan to bed.

Dou Yan was too elated to sleep, tossing and turning.

One moment she was thinking which of her several nephews or grand-nephews was the most honest and good-hearted, and that she might as well raise him in her own rooms. She would learn from the lesson of Wei and Rui, and in her spare time keep him company, tend to his daily needs, sit with him over his books, and bring him up into a filial, good child.

The next moment she thought, why did the Dou family have so many sons? If only she could raise a few girls in her rooms, how wonderful that would be! In spring she would lead them out to tread the green, in summer to boat on the lake, in autumn to climb the hills, in winter to huddle under the quilts and tell old tales. When they married, she could give them generous dowries to fill their trousseaus, and when they had children of their own, they would bring a flock of little girls and boys back to visit her.

And the next moment she thought that in doing so she might show favoritism and stir up trouble. Better to set aside a sum of silver to reward those sons of the Dou clan who distinguished themselves in the clan school, or to buy a farmstead to settle the widowed and childless, the orphaned and the young... She did not know whether the court had any restrictions in such matters. When she returned to Zhending, she would have to discuss it with Old Chen.

Though she could not lay hands on that half of the West Dou silver, if she spent it on the sons and daughters of the Dou family, surely no one in the Dou clan would dare stand up and stop her.

Handled properly, she could live very freely within the Dou household!

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A rough draft for now; I will fix the typos later.

o(n_n)o~

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