Chapter 284 — Disappointment

She could not help frowning. "Where is the Marquis?" she asked.

The young servant answered deferentially at once, "The Marquis heard that a fire had broken out at the Ying Ducal Estate. It so happened that neither the Duke of Ying nor his heir was at home, and the flames had already spread to the inner quarters. The Marquis was beside himself with worry and went to the Ying Ducal Estate..."

Before he had even finished speaking, Dou Ming's face had turned as black as the bottom of a pot. She spun on her heel and left the study.

Zhu'er, the first-rank maid Dou Ming had recently promoted, hurried to say, "Madam, the Ying Ducal Estate and the Jining Marquisate are kin, after all. At a time like this everyone will be going to pay their respects. Why doesn't Madam go too, to look in on the Fourth Young Madam? You could even come home together with the Marquis!"

This Zhu'er had once served at her maternal grandmother's side. Zhenzhu, Zhenzhu—every time she called the girl Zhu'er, it felt to her as though she were saying Zhenzhu, and she was especially fond of the name. Seeing how quick and clever Zhu'er was, she had asked for the girl specifically.

At these words Dou Ming's face fell. "I'm not going!" she said. "If he wants to go, he can go himself. He needn't think I'll go curry favor with Dou Yan!" She was so aggrieved she was on the verge of tears.

Zhu'er sighed to herself and did not dare say more. She attended Dou Ming while she washed and changed her clothes.

Dou Ming waited and waited, until it was nearly time for the evening meal, before Wei Fan finally returned.

Sourness welled up in her heart, and her tone was none too pleasant. "Why are you only back now?"

Wei Fan started. "You know that the Fourth Young Lady's household had a fire?"

The Fourth Young Lady, the Fourth Young Lady—he had married her now, and by propriety he ought to call Dou Chusheng "sister-in-law." Even if past matters made him embarrassed, he might at least address her as "Madam." But no—he insisted on calling her "the Fourth Young Lady," as though he were still unmarried!

Dou Ming's heart soured further.

"Could you call her something else?" Her eyes went wide. "People will think my sister is still unwed!" As she spoke, the look in Wei Fan's eyes that day when he turned to gaze toward Dou Yan's residence suddenly rose before her, and something came surging up in her breast like a raging tide. She could not help saying, "Do you still think of my sister as unmarried? Is that why, the moment you heard Song Yantang was not at home, you rushed over? Well? Did you get to speak with my sister? Did she pour out to you how frightened she was..."

"What nonsense are you talking?" Even Wei Fan, for all his good temper, lost it at such baseless accusations. "Do you even know what you're saying? I never saw your sister. I only went to pay my respects, as kin are bound to do. How could you think such a thing? You were never like this before. How have you become this way now?"

He was deeply disappointed, yet despite himself he thought of the spirited, radiant look on Dou Yan's face.

Today, at the Ying Ducal Estate, Wei Fan had caught an accidental glimpse of Dou Yan seeing off guests—her tall, slender figure, her brisk, bright smile, her poised and unhurried bearing. He had stopped in his tracks without meaning to, and his heart had grown inexplicably heavy. Though he had already waited nearly an hour, and that aide of hers, the one surnamed Liao, had said Song Yantang would be back before long, he no longer had the heart to linger at the Ying Ducal Estate.

He had come home in a daze, only to be met not with gentle, tender words, nor with lighthearted cheer, but with Dou Ming's senseless accusations. Dou Zhiwei's openheartedness seemed all the more precious by contrast.

Thinking of all this, he felt it was utterly pointless. He lifted his foot and strode out.

Dou Ming panicked.

She rushed forward and blocked Wei Fan's way. "You're not allowed to go! If you go, I—I... I'll never speak to you again!"

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Sisters, brothers, posting the draft first.

o(n_n)o~

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