Chapter 317 — Blending In (Bonus chapter, begging for pink votes)
Purple Streets of Chang'an Page 2 of 2
"You wretch!" She pounded him with her fist. "More and more shameless."
"That depends on who it is," Song Yan said, lifting the corners of his eyes with an air of great self-importance. "With ordinary folk, I wouldn't deign to be shameless even if they asked." Chuckling, he wrapped his arms around Dou Yan. "First tell me what it is. Then we'll negotiate terms..." He stroked his chin, looking for all the world like a man weighing his gains and losses. "If the terms are tempting, then naturally anything can be discussed. If they don't move me... I'll have to think it over carefully!"
"Think it over, my foot!" Dou Yan doubled over. "Just tell me—yes or no?"
"With a lioness of the Hedong roaring at me, how dare I say no?" Song Yan grinned shamelessly.
Dou Yan could not help shaking her head, then burst into laughter again.
They teased each other a while longer before Dou Yan's expression grew serious. Leaning against Song Zhi's shoulder, she said, "Do you remember my telling you that because of my mother's death, the Dou family gave me a share of the estates as a dowry before I married? Since our wedding was arranged in such haste, that property never made it onto the dowry list. Now I have been married over a month, and I have been thinking—since I am a married woman, it would be best to keep some property in my own hands. My third cousin had always managed it for me, but he cannot very well come to the capital. I chose Zhao Liangbi to take over from him, but he is young after all. I fear he cannot command respect. I want to borrow Steward Zhong from you."
Steward Zhong was Zhong Bingxiang, the chief steward of Song Yan's shop in the Thirteen Factories of Guangdong.
Song Yan said, "Why use an ox cleaver to kill a chicken? I am rather good with accounts myself. I will help you!"
"That would be wonderful!" Dou Yan smiled with pursed lips and, with a smack, produced a thick ledger from behind her. "This is the register of the estates under my name. Familiarize yourself with it first."
At the sight of such a thick ledger, Song Yan felt a sense of foreboding. When Dou Yan said it was merely the register of the estates, his head buzzed, and he snatched up the ledger in disbelief and began flipping through it.
Baoding Prefecture
South Street, Qingyuan County: seventy-six shopfronts.
North Street, Qingyuan County: sixty-two shopfronts.
Guangji Lane: one residence, two hundred eighty-six rooms in all.
Beside the Tianwang Temple: one residence, two hundred rooms in all.
Xiujiu Street outside the Huimin Gate: one residence, one hundred ninety-two rooms in all.
Fields, hills, and ponds: four thousand seven hundred forty-six mu.
……
Taiyuan Prefecture
Yonghe Main Street: one hundred twenty-two shopfronts.
Street frontage outside the Zhongchen Shrine: thirty-three shopfronts.
Chunhua Street: one residence, seventy-nine rooms in all.
……
Ponds, hills, and woodland: fourteen thousand four hundred sixty-two mu.
……
Handan
……
Anyang
……
Qingcheng
……
The more Song Yan read, the wider his eyes grew, and the more his heart quailed.
He could not help raising his head to look at Dou Yan, his face full of disbelief.
Watching him, Dou Yan sighed inwardly, then gave a firm nod. "These are all fields, hills, ponds, rivers, and woods. There are also some gold and silver ornaments—those are in two other ledgers."
Song Yan had assumed it was at most a few thousand mu of land, a few shops, one or two large residences.
"How can this be?" he said, stunned. "Just how wealthy is the Dou family?"
No wonder his father-in-law had peeled off banknotes for Dou Chu without so much as blinking.
Dou Shi realized Song Yan had misunderstood.
"This is half the property of the Western Dou." Song Yan had seen her at her most wretched, and without reservation she told him everything that had happened that year. "...My uncle and aunt were afraid I would be cheated, so the ledger was made in triplicate." She stroked the ledger's sky-blue cover and said in a low voice, "This copy my aunt brought all the way from Qingyang..." She lowered her eyelids, and two glistening drops hung from her lashes.
Song Yan was struck dumb, his heart sawed at by a blunt knife, unable to bear the pain.
He had thought himself the most unfortunate man under heaven, but compared with Dou Yan, he felt himself fortunate indeed.
At least, when he had been in deepest despair, he had had Dou Yan by his side.
"Shouyuan!" Song Yan clasped Dou Yan tightly to his breast. "You still have me... we will be together forever... I will never make you sad..."
His embrace was warm and clean, like the air of an autumn day, rousing the spirit.
Dou Yan drew a deep breath.
"It is all in the past, and it no longer hurts as much as it did at first," she murmured, closing her eyes and nestling against Song Zhi's shoulder.
And yet—if only her mother could have lived! (To be continued)