Chapter 193 — A Direct Strike

Old Master Ji took no notice. "A great man takes his revenge and his gratifications as they come; when it is time to strike, he strikes. A man like you wants to carry off another man's wife yet dares not raise his hand. In the end you'll fail at both. You must fix this lesson firmly in your mind. It is the same at court. What is it, after all, that you want to do? Bring benefit to the realm? Or only seek your own advantage? A man's skin must be thick and his heart black if he is to accomplish great things. Purity and loftiness and nothing else, and you are fit for nothing better than a scholar of the Hanlin Academy. Flattery and compliance and nothing else, and you are fit for nothing better than a petty clerk in one of the Six Ministries. To hold the realm in one's breast and direct the affairs of the empire, one must not be bound by the gain or loss of a single city or a single prefecture..."

Ji Yong nodded like a chicken pecking at rice.

Old Master Ji drew himself up, his brows raised in high satisfaction.

For the first time he felt the dignity proper to an elder.

It seemed there were indeed some things that truly could not be scrupled over too closely.

Though Dou Yan had once been betrothed to the Wei family, she could keep Ji Yong in hand. This was the right match!

As the thought flashed through his mind, Old Master Ji's whiskers fairly curled upward.

With Dou Yan to watch over Ji Yong, would he not in future live like a normal man, beget sons and daughters, and seek a career in officialdom?

Old Master Ji took Ji Yong with him and went to see Dou Bingheng.

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Dou Yan soon sensed that things had changed.

First there was her Fifth Aunt, who had worn such a forced smile. Her smile now grew genuine and glad; not only did she no longer press her about the Dou Ming affair, she had taken charge of the household accounts of the Huai Tree Alley residence, and was even in the mood to jest now and then with the maids and serving-women about her.

Second there was the Second Old Madam. Her illness had quickly mended, and each time Dou Yan came to pay her respects, the old lady's gaze was full of lovingkindness and indulgence. She would often take Dou Yan's hand and look her up and down, saying to Nurse Liu and the others, "Shouyuan is too plainly dressed; she must have a few proper pieces of jewelry." Then she would have Nurse Liu bring her own mirror-case and toilet-box, and would bestow on her now a gold hairpin, now a string of jasper beads, favoring her beyond the common measure.

Then there was her Sixth Aunt. A few days before, she had asked Dou Yan in perplexity, "Do you know what has happened? Dou Ming has been sent back to the Crane Cry Temple Alley residence to be kept under watch. When the Wei family came to discuss the betrothal gifts, your Fifth Aunt actually said you were still young and that the wedding could wait a while. I asked your Fifth Aunt what had happened. She hemmed and hawed and would tell me nothing, only that I should wait quietly and look forward to drinking the wedding wine." But these last two days she seemed a different person, so absent-minded that she hardly seemed to know herself, and rather as if she were a little afraid to face Dou Yan. When she saw her she no longer took her arm and chatted as warmly as before, but avoided her, and did not even dare to meet her eyes...

The whole of Huai Tree Alley seemed to have been set to rights again after a violent storm, and everyone had returned to their former quiet composure, going about their business at their leisure.

Under what circumstances would her Sixth Aunt feel ashamed to face her?

As things stood, there was only her marriage.

Her Sixth Aunt had approved of her clamoring to break off the betrothal with the Wei family. Though her Fifth Uncle and her father both wished her to marry into that family, the matter had not yet been finally decided, and besides, it was not a thing her Sixth Aunt could decide. She could not possibly feel ashamed before her over such a matter.

Then what was it?

She did not know why, but Ji Yong's image suddenly rose before her mind's eye.

He had orchestrated with his own hands the secret dealings between Dou Ming and Wei Fan, and after that he had never again appeared before her.

That made no sense!

Could it be...

Dou Zhiwei's heart began to pound wildly.

No, impossible!

The Ji family placed great hopes in Ji Yong; they could not possibly let him take as his wife a young woman with such a "flaw."

And without the Ji family's support, Ji Yong could never have moved the Dou family.

Besides, her Sixth Aunt had always held that only a man who treated her with the wholehearted sincerity of Wu Shan, and whose character and learning had something to recommend them, could be a fit match for her. Ji Yong, for all his brilliance, was flighty by nature and had no steadiness in him; any woman who married him would have a hard life of it. He was no good choice for a husband...

Dou Yan called out loudly for "Suxin." "Go and make careful inquiry for me—whom has my Fifth Uncle seen these last few days? What has he said?"

If her guess was right, this matter must have won the approval of everyone in the Dou family, high and low. Otherwise her Fifth Aunt would not be so relieved of her burden, nor would the Second Old Madam eye her with such approval every time.

Dou Yan's brows drew tight together.

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Brothers and sisters, here is the installment for the sixth of May, made up at last.

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