Chapter 55 — Entering the Door (Pink Ticket 270 Bonus Update)

From outside came a clatter of banging on the gate, echoing across the courtyard.

Grandmother was startled. Liu Sihai, the hired hand who lodged in the west wing, had already seized a wooden bar and gone to the gate.

"Who is it?" he asked warily.

"It's the Seventh Master," the man outside called loudly. "Open up, quickly."

Liu Sihai hastily dropped the wooden bar and pulled the gate open with a creak.

Dou Huaiying and Gao Sheng came in out of the rain.

"What's happened?" Grandmother, who had thrown a coat over her shoulders and stood at the door of the main room, paid no heed to the downpour and hurried forward to meet them.

"Nothing, nothing," Dou Huaiying said. His clothes were soaked through; though midsummer weather was hot, the night rain was still cold on the skin. His lips were a little pale. "I came to see Shouyuan."

Deep suspicion showed in Grandmother's eyes, but she asked nothing. She told the old serving woman to boil water and sent Honggu next door to the wealthy Lang family to borrow two changes of clothes.

By the time Father had cleaned himself up, the rain had grown heavier still. The sky hung low and heavy, as though it could bear no more weight and might collapse at any moment.

Dou Yan sat on the kang, drowsy, her head nodding like a fisherman's float.

She took Father's arrival with indifference.

In the dead of night, in such pouring rain, a careless moment and one could catch a chill, or even fall gravely ill and die; and it would put the household he came to visit in a frenzy, hunting out dry clothes for him, boiling water, setting out tea and cakes. Childish and willful. So inconsiderate—how could such a man be a father?

More than that, she felt that whatever the quarrel between Father and Wang Shuying, to come fleeing out like this was sheer weakness and incapacity.

Father, however, seemed wholly unaware of this. He smiled and rubbed Dou Zhiwei's head, asking her softly, "Are you used to living at the farmstead?"

"Used to it!" Dou Yan turned her head away and knocked his hand aside. "Everyone treats me very well."

Dou Huaiying glanced around the rough, simple furnishings of the room and thought his eldest daughter rather heartless.

He stood before the kang and was silent a long while.

Dou Yan badly wanted to sleep. Since Father said nothing, she had to speak: "Papa, aren't you going to sleep?"

Dou Huaiying made no answer. After a moment he slowly sat down beside Dou Zhiwei and asked her in a low voice, "Do you—do you still remember your mother?"

Dou Yan was taken aback, and her expression gradually grew grave.

"I still remember your mother," he murmured, a glint of moisture flickering at the corners of his eyes. "The day she married me, she wore an emerald ring on her hand, a gold setting wrought in the shape of a crabapple blossom..."

Dou Yan turned her face away, and sorrow slowly welled up from the bottom of her heart... Father left before dawn. Dou Yan gazed at the sky, clear as water after the rain, and stood dazed for a moment.

Once the grief has passed, perhaps one finds more courage to face life's disappointments.

She went back inside and practiced her calligraphy.

Zhao Liangbi busied himself helping her tidy the study.

She said to Zhao Liangbi, "Shall I give you a name?"

Zhao Qibi was both delighted and anxious.

Delighted that he would no longer be called Gousheng; anxious lest Dou Chushi, in a fit of whimsy, give him a name like Gousheng—one that could never be changed afterward!

"How about Liangbi?" Dou Yan wrote his name on the paper. "It means fine jade. I hope you will conduct yourself as beautifully and modestly as fine jade."

Zhao Liangbi was overjoyed and carried the paper bearing his name about, showing it off to everyone.

Within a single day, everyone at the farmstead knew that Gousheng was now called Zhao Liangbi.

Grandmother too praised the name as well chosen, and said she would take her to play at the temple in a few days. But alas, Father's leave was over; he came to fetch Dou Yan back and told Grandmother, "If there is anything you need, send word to Sixth Brother. While I am in the capital, he will look after you and Shouyuan."

Grandmother nodded and did not take this to heart.

She had lived alone at the farmstead for over twenty years without mishap, and she believed that whatever might come in the future, she would never go seeking help from the Dou family.

Dou Fan made a request of Father: "You must bring Zhao Liangbi back with us."

Father asked who Zhao Liangbi was.

Grandmother told Father how he had come to be there.

When Father heard that Dou Yan had chosen the name Zhao Liangbi, he nodded. "Then bring him back."

And so Zhao Liangbi made his appearance at the Dou household ahead of time.

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