Chapter 376 — The Search

Before long Gan Lu came in and reported, "Madam, it has all been found out. It turns out she had an uncle, a full brother, and a younger male cousin. The uncle drowned in a pond while drunk; the brother died of illness at fifteen; the cousin was born with asthma and died at three."

Dou Yan nodded and dismissed Gan Lu.

The next day she had the little maids whose names bore the character "Fu" sit down to knot cords together with Jin Gui and Yin Gui.

Fuye and another little girl named Fufeng were the best at it; Fufeng especially — not only could she tie the ordinary plum-blossom knots, she could even work the very intricate bat knots and butterfly knots with great delicacy and beauty, so that Yin Gui, who was already thirteen and had always thought her own needlework quite good, was filled with admiration.

Dou Xin asked Fufeng, "Your hands are nimble, I see. Apart from knotting cords, what other needlework can you do?"

Fufeng was thrilled, and said, her face flushed crimson, "I can also make frog buttons. All kinds of buttons — double butterflies, crabapple blossoms. None of them give me any trouble."

"Oh!" Dou Xin gazed at her with a smile and said, "Who did you learn from?"

"From my grandmother," Fufeng said proudly. "My grandmother once worked in a great household; she knows about everything, and she even knows how to deliver babies. In our family... it is my grandmother who has the final say. It was her idea that I come into the household this time, saying there might be a chance to serve the Madam. It is my good fortune; she told me to obey the Madam and do my duties well, and that in time I would have good days of my own."

Dou Xin nodded, her gaze sweeping over the little maids' faces, and said slowly, "Your grandmother spoke truly. Serve well, and your mistress will not treat you ill."

Jin Gui and Yin Gui and the others smiled sheepishly, but Fuye, Fufeng, and a little maid named Fuxue curtsied to Dou Yan and answered respectfully, "We will not fail the Madam's teaching." Seeing this, Jin Gui and Yin Gui hurriedly scrambled to their feet and joined Fuye and the rest in a jumble of voices, saying things like "we will not fail the Madam's teaching."

Dou Xin said "Good," sat a while longer, then left the sitting room for the study.

She had Gan Lu summon Chen Yanzhou, and handed him a slip of paper bearing the names Fufeng, Fuye, and Fuxue: "Do me a good turn and look into the histories of these three families."

Chen Yanzhou folded the slip into a small square and tucked it into his sleeve, and said with some excitement, "Madam, I have discovered that Steward Li has a younger brother who, lame from childhood and unable to walk, begged the old Duke for the grace of having his name struck from the household register, learned tailoring from others, and opened a tailor's shop in Wanping County. Before Madam Jiang passed away, the Duke of Ying's household often patronized his shop, giving him small jobs. But ever since Madam Jiang's death, that tailor's shop has never again received a single job from the Duke of Ying's household."

Dou Yan was greatly surprised.

She had assumed that after Madam Jiang became the Duke of Ying's wife, she would have used people from the Jiang family... She had never expected that Madam Jiang also used people from the Song family.

Dou Yan said in a low voice, "Did you get to speak with that tailor Li?"

"I did," said Chen Yanzhou. "Steward Li had only one son, who once served in the reception office of the Duke of Ying's outer court; his daughter-in-law was a second-class maid in the Madam's chambers. He had two grandsons: the elder served in the Duke of Ying's study, the younger was apprenticed in a pastry shop in the capital. On the day the Duke of Ying's household met with disaster, apart from the grandson apprenticed in the pastry shop, the son, the daughter-in-law, and the elder grandson all fell ill and died. When I went looking, Tailor Li turned white with a fright for no apparent reason; I bluffed him a little, and so discovered that Steward Li's younger grandson, after his grandfather and parents met with disaster one after another, believed his grandfather and parents must have committed some crime, and in his terror fled overnight to Tailor Li, who arranged for him to go south with others aboard a seagoing ship..."

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Sisters and brothers, these past few days I have had to go to an internet cafe to get online, so typos are not being corrected in time. Please forgive me.

Here is today's second update — please vote pink tickets!

o(n_n)o~