Chapter 328 — Matrimonial Bonds

The next day, the one who brought tea to Zhao Liangbi was replaced by Ganlu.

Dou Yan pressed her lips together and smiled.

But Zhao Liangbi was frantic as an ant on a hot pan. That night he actually sent Ganlu to ask Suxin: "Why has elder sister stopped bringing tea to Steward Zhao and the others?"

Suxin looked at Dou Yan, who sat smiling on the kang making clothes for Song Yan, and her face turned red as a bolt of cloth. "I only did it casually because the lady went to see him. Surely you don't expect me to go waiting on him?"

She had never spoken so sharply, and Ganlu was startled out of her wits; she went off in a daze to report back to Zhao Liangbi.

When Song Yan came home, Dou Yan told him the whole story.

Song Yan put his arm around Dou Zhiwei's shoulders, kissed her cheek fondly, and said with a laugh, "You! More mischievous every day!"

Was that so?

Dou Yan thought about it, and had to admit she had indeed not been as strict with herself these past days as before.

But no sooner had the thought crossed her mind than Song Yan, still smiling, kissed her forehead and murmured in her ear, "And yet—I like you this way." Only when a woman trusts the man beside her with all her heart does she relax and pay no mind to the storms outside.

Dou Yan thought of their revels in bed these past days.

In two lifetimes she had never indulged herself so.

Indeed, she had been a little too "mischievous."

The thought flashed by, and Dou Yan was briefly startled.

Her monthly cycle. It seemed to have not come on time.

Could it be?

Her heart surged with an excitement she could scarcely contain... and then she fought desperately to suppress it...

She must not be mistaken.

For some inexplicable reason, she felt instinctively that if she made a fool of herself over a false alarm, Song Yan would be terribly hurt.

She drew deep breaths, steadying herself, yet this drew Song Zhi's attention.

"What's wrong? Are you feeling unwell somewhere?"

"No, no." In her previous life, when she had carried her children, apart from the occasional morning sickness, she had suffered no other discomfort at all. The midwife who delivered her babies had even joked, "A fortunate lady like you ought to bear a great many children."

Better to wait until two months had passed and the pregnancy could be diagnosed, then tell Song Yan—there was no hurry.

Dou Yan made up her mind, yet that night she dared not let Song Yan touch her.

He was too fierce in such matters, nothing at all like the cool and dignified man he showed the world, and she feared he might harm the child.

Song Yan would never force her, and seeing her somewhat unsettled, he held her the way one holds a child, all through the night.

Dou Yan was by nature a strong woman; in her previous life she had gone through pregnancy and childbirth all alone. Yet now in Song Zhi's arms she felt for no reason a tightness in her chest and shortness of breath—turning left, then right, now wanting water, now finding the lamplight too glaring—and she tormented Song Yan half the night before she finally drifted into a fitful sleep.

Song Yan gazed at Dou Yan curled up in his arms, his brows knitted into a deep frown.

Dou Yan must have something on her mind that she would not tell him!

The next day at noon, without betraying anything in his manner, he summoned Suxin to question her.

Suxin's mind was wholly occupied with Chen Yanzhou's words; how could she know why Dou Yan was acting so strangely? Her face flushed purple, and she stammered without producing anything coherent.

Song Yan went straight to ask Chen Yanzhou.

Chen Yanzhou laughed heartily, told Song Yan about the matter Dou Yan had brought to him, and said, "After all, she has served at her side all these years, like a sister—how could she bear to part with her?"

Song Yan went back and discussed it with Dou Yan: "Why not simply let Suxin stay at Yizhi Hall? Zhao Liangbi is a grown man—if anything comes up, he can just walk a few extra steps. Suxin need only keep you company and talk with you as she always did."

If Sulan could marry Chen He, she would naturally live at Yizhi Hall as well; arranged thus, Dou Zhiwei's life would be just as before, unchanged in any way.

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Brothers and sisters who read this, I no longer even have the strength to complain... ~~~~( _