Chapter 353 — Friends

One glance told him the mood between the two of them was off. He hastily put on a look of surprise and gave a little "Oh!" Then, "What are you two doing, standing out here talking?" He bowed to Dou Huaide and said with a smile, "I heard my brother-in-law had come, so I told the kitchen to roast that venison the palace sent over a few days ago. We still have a jar of pear-blossom wine in the house too—a gift from the Emperor himself. It is mellow and full-bodied, and nothing goes better with roast meat. The plum blossoms in the back garden have opened as well. What say you and I go to the warm pavilion among the rear flowers and drink a cup or two together?"

Dou Huaide said yes again and again, and beat a rather undignified retreat alongside Song Yan to the warm pavilion in the rear garden.

After seeing Dou Huaide off and returning to the room, Song Yan let a young maid help him change his clothes, and said to Dou Yan with a smile, "What did my brother-in-law say to you? Just look at you—puffed up like a angry toad."

Dou Yan knew very well how to talk to Song Yan. Some things had only happened in her former life; for now they were no more than the first faint signs.

She leaned back against the big bolster cushion, one page of her book curled between her fingers, her brows knitted.

Song Yan changed his clothes and rinsed his mouth, then sat down on the edge of the kang and brushed the few stray strands of hair that had fallen by Dou Yan's ear back behind her. "Didn't I tell you I would handle everything?" he said gently. "What is there to fret over?"

Dou Yan thought for a moment, then dismissed the maids around them. Leaning against Song Yan's shoulder, she told him about Dou Huaide and Ji Lingze.

"Do you want my help?" Song Yan asked. His tone was utterly cold, completely unlike the tenderness he showed her, and it reminded her of that former life—of him standing beneath the eaves, cold and remote, surrounded by his guards.

Dou Yan shivered and said hurriedly, "No need for your help—you would only make more work than there was to begin with."

"Looking down on me?" Song Yan pinched her cheek.

It was that she feared he would strike too hard and ruin Dou Huaide's happiness. After all, in her former life, the two of them had been a deeply loving couple.

"Aren't there still my Sixth Uncle and Sixth Aunt?" Dou Yan clung to his arm. "We can't go meddling in their place, can we?"

Best to let this matter take its natural course.

If there was fate between them, they would come together of their own accord; if not, then without her interference they would simply part ways.

"But that woman is a widow, after all..." said Song Yan.

"And I was a woman whose betrothal was broken off!" Dou Yan was afraid that if Ji Lingze truly did become her sister-in-law, Song Yan would look down on her.

"That was because Wei Fan had no eye for quality!" Song Yan took it as a matter of course. "I just happened to scoop up a bargain. Do you think everyone has my good fortune?"

Dou Yan was beside herself with delight, her spirits soaring. She complained, "That Zixian—to curry favor with another woman, he actually filched things from his own sister's storeroom!"

Zixian was Dou Huaide's courtesy name.

Song Yan could not have cared less what sort of woman Dou Huaide brought home to marry. All he wanted was for Dou Yan to be in good spirits.

Now that Dou Yan's mood had cleared, he kept teasing her. "A pity he is my brother-in-law, or I would have gone and demanded the things back. How about this—I open up my own storeroom, and you pick out a few pieces you fancy and put them in yours?"

Dou Yan played along, feigning astonishment. "Isn't what's yours mine? I always thought what was yours was mine! Why would I move my own things back and forth?"

Song Yan laughed heartily, his smile as radiant as summer sunlight, and for a moment Dou Yan was struck dumb.

His laughter grew even more unrestrained. He took her in his arms and murmured by her ear, "Let me have a look!"

"At what?" Dou Chu did not understand at first.

Song Yan slipped his hand inside her garments and stroked her belly gently. "Let me have a look—at our child!"

Her waist was still slender, her belly still flat; there was nothing to be seen.

Dou Yan hesitated a little.

Song Yan knelt down before her and undid the front of her garments.

Her skin, white as jade, was exposed to the winter air, and Dou Yan felt a little cold.

Song Yan had already bent down and pressed a gentle kiss to her belly.

The warm softness of his lips made her tremble, yet the reverent expression on his face, eyes lowered, left her heart pounding and her eyes brimming with hot tears.

She held Song Yan's head tightly against her, feeling as though she had fallen into a honey pot—sweet from head to toe.

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A few days away from home, and the house looked as though a plague of locusts had swept through. From yesterday to today I have been setting it to rights, and only now does it look like itself again.

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Super Clumsy Pig, who came with me to the annual meeting, said, "Who told you to be a mother..."

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