Chapter 190 — A Heart-to-Heart

If that were truly so, Wei Wan could not withstand such a scandal either; the Dou and Wei families could only join hands to suppress the disgrace and arrange her marriage to Wei Fan as quickly as possible…

That bastard—he could not stay quiet for a single moment.

Dou Yan made Dou Huaiying promise her: "If Wei Wan does not come to the door in person to apologize, then no matter what, you must not agree to marry me off. A daughter is married out with her head held high; a wife is taken in with the head bowed. If the Wei family will not bow its head even now, what kind of life could I have if I married into them?"

So long as his daughter did not clamor for a broken engagement, Dou Huaiying was easy to deal with—and besides, Dou Yan had hit upon the very same thought as he.

He nodded again and again, and laughed. "Do you take your father for a child who understands nothing?"

Even if he did understand, it was probably only a limited understanding.

Dou Yan giggled, ate sweet potatoes with her father, and chatted with him a while, until the father who had not slept all night began to show a little weariness. Only then did she rise to take her leave.

Dou Huaiying saw her to the main gate, reminding her to mind adding or shedding clothes as the weather changed, and telling her to come back and visit whenever she had the time.

Dou Yan's eyes grew moist; she forced out a smile and waved goodbye to her father.

The carriage turned onto the street below the Drum Tower.

Chen Yanzhou climbed into the carriage.

Dou Yan told him what was worrying him.

Chen Yanzhou was dumbstruck. After a long moment he said, "No, surely not? The Fifth Young Lady cannot be that foolish, can she? If it ever comes to light, her position will be dire..."

"If she could control her temper, she would not be the Dou Ming she is now," Dou Yan said. "You must assign reliable people to watch her movements, lest she stir up something beyond repair."

"I understand." Chen Yanzhou nodded gravely.

Dou Yan asked him, "How goes the business on that side?"

Since she knew her father would never come forward on her behalf, she naturally had other arrangements in place.

Her reason for having that heart-to-heart with her father was to lay the groundwork, so that when the blow fell he would not be too flustered.

Chen Yanzhou smiled. "It is going very smoothly. The Fifth Madam should learn of it before long."

Dou Yan nodded slightly.

Only by leaving the Dou family with no room to save face would they perhaps, in their fury, break off the engagement and explain matters to the Wei family.

When the Wang and Hua families were discussing a match, she had Chen Yanzhou bribe an old serving woman at Wang Yu's side to carry messages for her.

Wang Yu indeed sent trusted people to Weizhou to make careful inquiries into the Hua family's eldest son, and discovered that although he was clean in the matter of women, his temper was exceedingly violent, and he beat and crippled people at the slightest provocation. Even his own wet nurse, after a single quarrel with him, was beaten until she lay paralyzed in bed.

How could he possibly agree to marry his own sister to such a man?

With Wang Yu's influence in the Wang family, the matter naturally fell through.

Dou Yan then bribed an old serving woman at the side of the Marchioness of Ting'an, and, pretending to let a slip of the tongue, complained to those around Wei Wan that "what the Wang family had their eye on was in fact the Marquis of Jining, only they were a step too late; the Marquis is already betrothed, and the Madam searched high and low and looked this way and that, but could find no one to compare with the Marquis of Jining."

Recalling that the Wang family had just refused the Hua family, Wei Wan would certainly be moved.

So long as she made any move at all, Dou had people whispering in the Fifth Madam's ear that the Wei family had long since come to an agreement with the Wang family, and were only waiting to break off the engagement with the Dou family before concluding the match with the Wangs.

Because word that the Wei family meant to break off with the Dou family had already spread far and wide, once the Dou family caught even a scrap of it, and the Fifth Madam then heard the rumor that the Wei family meant to ally with the Wang family, she would take it for granted that everyone knew of the affair, and that they were merely keeping it from the Dou family alone.

Having suffered such humiliation, would the Dou family go about shouting it from the rooftops?

In this way, whether or not the match between the Wei and Wang families came to pass in the end, no harm would come to Wang Qingyuan, and Dou would have achieved her aim of breaking off the engagement.

She had not expected, however, that the Wei family would ask the Marchioness of Ting'an to help arrange the match.

In her previous life, the Wei family had asked the wife of Zhang Jiming, Second Master of the Jingzhenguo Estate.

Or perhaps it was because in this life Dou Bingheng had entered the Grand Secretariat, and the standing of the matchmaker had risen with the tide?

Then the Marchioness of Ting'an would simply have to be put out—once it was clear that the Dou and Wei families were about to set a wedding date, even if she lamented that her daughter and Wei Fan were not fated to be, she could not possibly say, "If only the Wei and Dou families would break off the engagement, I would give my daughter to Wei Fan"...

But that Wang Qingyuan need not marry the Hua family's eldest son could be counted a kind of compensation!

Dou Yan turned these thoughts over and returned to the Huai Tree Alley.

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Making up for the extra update of May 5th.

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