Chapter 187 — Again (Requesting Pink Tickets)

If the wedding date could be pushed back, so much the better for her plans.

Dou Huaiying frowned at this and said, "Have you heard something? Set your mind at ease; I will see justice done for you in this matter. As for that woman Wang, I certainly will not let the matter slide so lightly. She has gone too far this time!"

"Father must not go believing every rumor the wind blows your way," Dou Yan said. "You ought at least to hear what the Seventh Lady has to say for herself. Perhaps it is all a misunderstanding?"

She still needed Wang Shuying to deal with Wei Wan!

If something happened to Wang Shuying, would her plans not be thrown into disarray once more?

"You need not speak up for her," Dou Huaiying said, resentment in his eyes. "The faults of the past were all mine. She did not wish to return to her maiden home, and it is only right that I make it up to her with money. But this business chills the heart..."

Faced with a father who always contrived to be inopportune, Dou Yan was caught between laughter and tears.

She said hurriedly, "Has Father ever considered that the Seventh Lady has been supporting the household for no short time now? I am in Zhending and she is in the capital; our wells do not trouble each other's rivers. And I am to be married soon, after which I shall be lucky to return to my maiden home twice a year. What benefit is there to her in doing such a thing?"

Dou Shi was struck dumb.

Dou Yan said gently, "Do not be so quick to believe every rumor. You might as well have a good talk with the Seventh Lady and find out who it is that set her on this course. Dou Ming is no longer a child, and you must leave her a little dignity."

She remembered. In her previous life, it was at this time that Gao Mingzhu came to grief, and by the following spring, Wang Xingyi had selected for Dou Ming a young provincial graduate of humble origins named Liu Qingzhuo as her husband. Four years later, Liu Qingzhuo passed the metropolitan examination. For all that he was brilliant and upright, and had always treated Dou Ming with respect, Dou Ming remained lukewarm toward him and provoked his widowed mother, who had raised him to greatness, in a hundred different ways. Liu Qingzhuo was tormented by it. Before her rebirth, he had been clamoring to divorce his wife.

At that time, however, Wang Xingyi was already a Grand Secretary of the Grand Secretariat, whereas in this life he was merely the Grand Coordinator of Yunnan. Who knew whether he would ever have occasion to learn of Liu Qingzhuo's existence, or whether Liu Qingzhuo might ever become Dou Ming's husband.

Hearing Dou Zhiwei's hint, Dou Huaiying indeed fell to thinking seriously: "These years she has never set foot outside the inner gate... yet this year she says she was invited by the wife of the Heir Apparent of the Duke of Jingguo to hear the Buddhist law at the Puji Temple..." As he spoke, he thought of Wei Wan, and then of the attitude the Wei family had shown Dou Zhiwei before, and his face suddenly turned rather ugly. In his heart he wondered, could it be Wei Wan...

He could not sit still a moment longer. He exchanged a few absent-minded words with Dou Yan, then rose and took his leave.

Dou Yan breathed a sigh of relief, praying only that Ji Yong and Song Yan would not stir up more trouble.

The days that followed passed quietly and calmly, and she spent them all accompanying the Matriarch about the city of the capital.

Then Dou Ming came running over and pointed at Dou Zhiwei's nose, shouting, "What did you say to Father? Father is going to divorce Mother? Are you pleased with yourself now?"

Suxin gave a cold "Hmph."

A flicker of fear passed through Dou Yan's eyes, and then, as though to cover it over, she grew all the more imperious: "Do not forget that you are to be married soon. If your stepmother is divorced on your account, you will be just as shamed. Then we shall see whether the Wei family still acknowledges you as a daughter-in-law."

A marriage alliance is made to join two families in amity. At the Dou family's level, divorcing a wife was out of the question; in the end, she would merely be shut away in a nunnery.

Dou Yan did not believe a word of what Dou Ming said, but she went all the same to see the Second Matriarch and told her everything Dou Ming had said, one and all, then said with an air of injury, "I have been here only a few days; I do not even know which way the gate of the Yunqi Temple alley faces, and yet this matter has been laid at my door. I am not willing to bear such injustice. Will you send someone to escort me back to Zhending? I will simply be married from there."

"A little miss like you, talking of 'marrying' this and 'marrying' that," the Second Matriarch scolded her fondly. "This is a matter for your elders to decide. A little miss like you must never say such things again."

Dou Yan answered in a small voice.

The Second Matriarch summoned Dou Ming.

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Sisters, brothers, here is the supplement to the May 3rd update.

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ps: I have lost track of how many debts I owe... it seems I shall have to go back and study arithmetic again...