Chapter 111 — The Restaurant (Bonus Update for 1,050 Pink Votes)

He Yu had been certain of it. Yet Ji Yong spoke with such conviction, and he had, after all, only met Dou Zhiwei a handful of times, so he began to feel less sure.

Seeing this, Ji Yong pressed his advantage. "Isn't it just that you want someone to lean on? A decent man doesn't eat the bread of a divided house, and a decent woman doesn't wear the clothes she was wed in. Can't you amount to something on your own? Leaning on a woman to fight your brothers..."

He Yu's ears burned scarlet with shame. He protested, "What nonsense are you talking? The Fourth Miss Dou is a very fine person..."

"Oh, certainly," Ji Yong said scornfully. "Those two old cypresses outside the Imperial College gate are fine too. Why don't you dig them up and take them home?"

"You..." He Yu was stung into fury. "When did the Dou family's affairs become the Ji family's to champion?"

"I'm not like you. Apart from being Old He the Grand Secretary's son, you've nothing else to your name." Ji Yong spoke proudly. "I am Ji Jianming of Yixing. What has the Ji family to do with me? If I want to take an interest, I take an interest. If I don't, they're just strangers on the road."

Insufferably arrogant!

He Yu was left speechless, yet somehow, all at once, he felt a desire to make a friend of Ji Yong.

He mumbled, "If I wanted to lean on a woman, there are plenty to be had. It needn't be the Fourth Miss Dou. I've no wish to make trouble for her... And the Wei family is no good either..."

Seeing He Yu's sincerity, Ji Yong knew he had softened, and his own tone eased. "I know. I was only trying to provoke you. The Wei family is indeed no good—broken down and threadbare. If Dou Yan married into it, she'd likely be worked like a beast of burden to help them fill their empty coffers. Compared with your family, it's the difference between heaven and earth. But the problem is that Dou Chuxin is bound by her late mother's dying wish. You can't simply disregard her will, can you?" He sighed heavily and said with melancholy, "She lost her mother young and scraped by under her stepmother's roof, trembling every step. She had to watch the faces of the elders in the eastern branch too. It's been hard enough for her already. And now with you kicking up such a fuss—think about it, how could anything good come to her? Never mind anything else; the spit of those inner-courtyard women alone would be enough to drown her."

He Yu lowered his head and said nothing for a long while.

He couldn't bear to give up Dou Yan, could he?

Watching him, Ji Yong cursed He Yu a thousand times over in his heart, and only then did the nameless fire in his chest subside a little. "Say something, will you! The Wei family has now decided neither to return the token to the Dou family nor to hand it to your He family—the highest bidder wins. Haven't you stirred up enough trouble already? When your father decides it's not worth it and walks away, what becomes of Dou Yan? What has she done? Her father became your father's disciple, and now she's caught a plague god she can't shake off... Are you even a man? At worst, I'll help you deal with your brothers in the future..."

He Yu gritted his teeth and asked Ji Yong, "If I withdraw, will the Fourth Miss Dou marry Wei Fan?" His tone still carried a note of reluctance; he did not ask how Ji Yong would help him against his brothers, only what was to become of Dou Zhiwei.

For no reason he could name, Ji Yong felt a stab of discomfort. "Of course she'll marry Wei Fan! Who else would she marry?"

"Good!" He Yu said loudly. "I accept this!" He was brisk and decisive, and there was a manly spirit in it.

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By this time Chen Yanzhou had returned to Zhending. Standing in Dou Yan's flower house, he gazed at a peony in bud before him and said with some worry, "If the Wei family comes to seek a match, will the young miss truly consent to this marriage?"

Dou Yan rinsed the long, slender leaves of the cymbidium with a watering can and answered obliquely, "The medicinal herbs I had you send to the Marquis of Jining—did they accept them?"

"They did," Chen Yanzhou said. "But from the look of the Marquis of Jining... it seemed quite ordinary..."

Before leaving, Dou Yan had had him take two thirty-year-old ginseng roots to the Marquis of Jining. He had thought the roots carried deep meaning, yet the Marquis had merely smiled, thanked him, and had them put away. He had assumed the Marquis had not grasped Dou Zhiwei's intent and had pointed it out a few times, which only made the Marquis look rather disdainful.

"As long as they were delivered, that's enough," Dou Yan said carelessly, setting down the watering can. "Whether they're of use is their affair."

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As for the rule that a three-foot child may not enter the inner chambers, you may think of those parks where few people go: when the caretakers are lax, it is easy enough to slip through the cracks. As for whether Ji Yong's conduct conforms to the standards of a heir's son, you will know in due course.

o(n_n)o~

ps: Begging for pink votes...

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