Chapter 18 — Spring Warmth

Once the New Year was over, someone had better remind Father of that!

So Dou Yan mused, and thus she came to her third birthday.

Father, Mother, Wang Shuying, Grandfather, Grandmother, Aunt Ding, her aunt by marriage, and several of her aunts by marriage all sent her birthday gifts, and Mother gave longevity noodles in return. The serving women of the household kowtowed in the courtyard to wish her long life, and Mother rewarded each of them with five mace of silver. They were overjoyed, happier than they were at the New Year.

When the lanterns of the Lantern Festival were taken down, the wind no longer stung the face.

It was time for the spring plowing.

Dou Yan said to herself, then began pestering Mother to go and see Grandmother.

Mother was surprised. "Didn't we see her over the New Year?"

"We never got to talk," Dou Yan said. "At the ancestral rites Grandmother stood far off in the distance; at the New Year's Eve dinner she did not say a word; and Father made me keep watch through the night with Grandfather... On the first day of the New Year, when I went to pay her my respects, she had already gone back to the farm."

"Didn't she leave you New Year's money?" Mother smiled and took a peach blossom from the crystal dish, tucking it into Dou Zhiwei's double bun. "What mischief are you plotting now?"

"No mischief," Dou Yan mumbled, though inwardly she was thinking that after Grandmother died she had left her the farm, and she had appointed capable people to manage it and poured a great deal of effort into it, so that it yielded a sure harvest in drought or flood—one of the few things in her life she was rather proud of.

In this life she had not been sent off to the farm, yet her feelings for Grandmother and for the farm ran very deep.

"I'll take you in a few days," Mother said, seeing that Dou Yan was pleased. "Once the spring plowing is finished at the various farms, your father will go with the stewards to inspect them. We'll go along with your father then."

That Grandfather disliked Grandmother was no secret in the Dou household. To avoid offending Grandfather, Mother, like everyone else in the Dou family, chose to look straight past Grandmother.

Dou Yan thought of that kind, gentle woman, and her heart ached.

Mother smiled. "Shall I take you to your uncle's house to play? It's been some time since we went back to Anxiang."

Dou Yan noticed that whenever Mother spoke of her natal family, she always liked to use the word "back," as though the Dou family were not her home at all. It seemed to be a common failing among many women. But Dou Yan was not among them.

After she married into the Wei family, she had felt only a long breath of relief, and her whole spirit had lifted; she had felt rather like one who had finally held her head high.

Perhaps it was because she had never regarded the Dou family as her natal home?

So Dou Yan pondered as she went with Mother to Anxiang.

In the countryside there were not so many rules.

Her aunt by marriage, having received word, led her two elder cousins to wait for them at the main gate.

Dou Yan already knew her eldest cousin, Zhao Biru. Her second cousin, Zhao Xiuru, was nine this year, and her youngest cousin, Zhao Zhangru, was five. The sisters all looked alike, but Zhao Xiuru was shy while Zhao Zhangru was lively; the moment she set eyes on Dou Yan she dragged her running into the house. "Nanny Peng has roasted sugar chestnuts! Mother said we had to wait for you to come before we could eat them!"

Dou Yan was pulled so hard she stumbled, and had no choice but to run inside after her.

Tuoniang hurried after them.

Everyone went through the gate amid gales of laughter.

The Zhao house stood at the head of the village. Past the black-lacquered gate with its brass rings, a horse pen lay to the left and a thatched shed to the right, piled with handcarts and furniture. The side rooms on either hand housed several families of hired hands. Through the second gate, a row of five green-brick tile-roofed rooms faced them, with three-room side wings to left and right; the window lattices were pasted with white Korean paper, and beside the steps stood an old locust tree thick enough for two arms to encircle. It was clean and tidy, spacious and imposing.

Mother and her aunt had scarcely entered the house when Zhao Zhangru came bursting in, tugging at the hem of Nanny Peng's jacket as she carried in the sugar-roasted chestnuts, and turning back to hurry Dou Yan along. "Hurry up! The chestnuts won't taste good once they're cold."

This set everyone laughing again.

Once they were finally settled, Zhao Biru and Zhao Xiuru, with all the air of elder sisters, peeled chestnuts for Dou Yan and Zhao Zhangru to eat.

Mother and her aunt sat on the heated kang and talked. "By my reckoning, our elder brother should be going into the examination hall about now, shouldn't he?"

"Mm!" Her aunt looked somewhat anxious. "If he fails again this time, it will be another three years to wait."

Mother listened and mused aloud, "I heard from Yu Daqing that you sold ten mu of good farmland a while back, sister-in-law..."

The aunt flushed and said in a low voice, "It was a loan from before the New Year. I didn't dare tell your brother. I only sold the land after your brother had gone to the capital, to make up for the earlier shortfall..." Then she spoke more quickly: "You needn't worry, sister. I still have some dowry, only it's all been entered in the registers, and I feared your brother would be displeased to learn of it, so I didn't dare touch it."

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Tomorrow it's back to work again... ~~~~(_)~~~~

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