Chapter 67 — Making Amends (Bonus Update for 450 Pink Votes)

Hong Gu came in with Haitang and Qiukui, bearing tea leaves pan-fired at Baoguang Temple to cleanse the palate.

Grandmother then asked Dou Yan about his studies: "...Is it hard? Can you follow what the master explains? Will you be sitting for the examinations the year after next?" It was nothing like the quizzing of other family elders. The questions were plain, yet steeped in warm affection.

At first Dou Yan answered only out of courtesy, but gradually his expression grew solemn and his tone filled with deference, as though he were answering the Second Madam herself.

Dou Yan smiled.

A voice light as the morning breeze came to her ear: "About that day. I didn't mean to..." he murmured, his tone hurried.

"Which matter are you talking about?" Dou Yan whispered back, feigning ignorance.

"The business with Pang Jixiu..." Wu Shan hesitated a moment, his voice somewhat heavy. "I've been wanting to apologize to you..."

"Oh, that!" Dou Xin said. "Why would I blame you? If not for you, I wouldn't have known how to tell my family about such a thing. As a matter of fact, I ought to be thanking you..."

Wu Shan's mouth fell open.

Dou Xin gave him a nod.

Wu Shan's lips curved up uncontrollably, baring his white teeth, looking rather foolish.

Dou Yan fought back a smile and turned her face away.

Wu Shan beamed even more joyfully.

Across from them, Dou Huaide stared fixedly at the two of them.

Dou Ji asked Wu Shan, "What did Twelfth Brother do, that you've got him by the handle?"

Wu Shan looked at Dou Huaide and giggled. "He went in for cockfighting with someone and won a thousand taels of silver off the Chen family's Sixth Young Master."

Dou Yan was badly startled.

Wu Shan said hastily, "Don't worry, I didn't gamble along with him. I only lent Twelfth a hundred taels for his stake."

Give him an inch and he takes a mile.

She had merely thought that since Wu Shan had not made his intentions clear, there was no need for her to act as though they were sworn never to meet again, and that it was best to behave as usual day to day. Who would have guessed that Wu Shan would instantly leap all the way to "don't worry"?

Dou Yan felt at once as though she were sitting on a bed of needles.

Had she known, she would never have exchanged a single idle word with him.

Dou Yan smiled at him, then sat up straight and proper, listening to Grandmother and Dou Yan talk.

Wu Shan, however, mistook this for anger. He regretted it deeply, turning their exchange over and over in his mind, and concluded that no matter how he explained himself he could not escape suspicion. He could only stare at Dou Yan without blinking, hoping she would turn her face his way so that he might apologize to her once more.

Watched like that by Wu Shan, Dou Yan felt as though her every movement were exposed to the blazing summer sun. There was no describing how ill at ease she was.

She could not help recalling her life in her former existence.

Why had no one in her former life ever treated her this way?

If she had met such a person in her former life, would she still have married Wei Fan?

Her heart was suddenly like a runaway horse, galloping off into wild imaginings.

The old lady listened to Dou Yan and clapped her hands in praise before he had even finished. "A child like you has a boundless future ahead. Everyone says that reading is a fine thing, but without a sound body, how is one to remember what is written in all those books? And how is one to endure three days and three nights of the examinations? While you are young you should travel far and wide and see the world. Seeing the world teaches you the ways of trade and the ways of the farmer alike; when you are older and settle down to your books, the essays you write will have substance in them, and if you become an official you will know how to speak for the common people..."

"Exactly, exactly." Dou Yan was in high spirits, as though he had found a kindred soul, and he poured out his thoughts to Grandmother without pause. "Every time I see a county magistrate who cannot tell how much grain was harvested this year without his grain-and-tax secretary, I find it simply incredible—is that not handing a handle to others? Where is the dignity of office in that? So I have decided to spend a year traveling all of Zhending, to find out just how much land Zhending has, how many farming households, what the annual harvest is, and what the taxes come to."

Grandmother turned to Dou Yan and said, "Shouyuan, what is Gousheng doing now? He grew up in the fields and knows all about such things, and he is a clever one besides. Why not have him follow Boyan for the time being..."

Dou Yan could not help muttering to herself.

Gousheng is called Zhao Liangbi now, and after all that effort he has climbed from a menial in the accounts office to a second-class steward, becoming the youngest and most promising steward in the Dou household, and by all appearances he is about to be sent out to run a shop of his own—and now you want him to be Boyan's attendant? Who will help me look after my shops then?

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Sisters, brothers, this morning my eldest brother-in-law suddenly informed me and Zhi-gong that the wedding is today... tonight's update can only be postponed again...~~~~(_

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