Chapter 432 — Divergent

"All pursuits are of low rank; only learning stands high." Song Han hastened to say, "How could I think learning unimportant? It is only that the world is shallow-eyed, and study yields no visible fruit without ten or twenty years of toil. I feared others would sneer, and so did as I did merely to keep up appearances before outsiders."

Song Cen was well pleased with this answer and nodded slightly. "Tomorrow I shall enter the palace to give thanks, and I will put in a word for you before His Majesty. Your marriage was, after all, bestowed by the palace. With a post that can be named aloud, the match will be like brocade upon brocade, and all the more honorable."

Song Han bowed his head respectfully and said "Yes," secretly breathing a sigh of relief.

Yet Song Cen's conscience was not quite easy.

The Empress Dowager Yi had always looked askance at Consort Miao, finding fault with everything about her, and treated her with the utmost harshness. Song Han had married Consort Miao's grandniece—who could say whether the Empress Dowager would take a dislike to him on that account? If he truly incurred the Empress Dowager's enmity, that would be trouble indeed!

At this thought his head split with pain, and he called loudly for Tao Jun.

It was Zeng Wu who came in.

He approached with a fawning smile and made his bow to Song Cen. "Master Tao went out and has not yet returned!"

Song Cen frowned.

This Tao Jun grew more dilatory by the day in handling affairs.

Was it because he had grown old?

Ought he to change to another adviser?

Song Cen stood there pondering.

Ever since he and Song Yan had fallen out, Tao Jun's schemes against Song Yan had all been mild and had produced no marked effect. Plainly he still feared Song Yan as the heir of the Yingzhenguo Estate and dared not act with a free hand. In the past Song Cen had overlooked this, and that was why Song Yan had grown stronger day by day.

Let him go, and change to another adviser, and no one would hold him back any longer.

Song Cen nodded to himself and went to the study.

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Song Yan, meanwhile, was sitting in the main hall of the eastern wing of the Dou family's upper court at Yunqi Temple. His father-in-law had long since taken his son in his arms and was smiling so broadly that his eyes curved like crescent moons and his teeth showed.

"Tell me, how is this child so docile?" Dou Huaiying now hurried home from the yamen the moment he was free to hold his grandson, and once he had him in his arms could not bear to put him down. "I remember when Shouyuan was this age, she cried every day, cried at every hour, cried until my temples throbbed. I had no choice but to take refuge in the study in the outer court, and only after she was half a year old did I dare come near her and see clearly what she looked like." He concluded at last, "Yuanheng must take after you in temper!"

Song Yan was delighted beyond measure.

Yet before his father-in-law he feared to lose his composure and dared not let his joy show on his face, and could only say with a reserved smile, "You flatter me, Father-in-law!"

Dou Yan, having finished arranging Song Yan's room, lifted the curtain and came in, and heard every word of this. Of a sudden she felt a pang of reflection.

Some come to understanding early, and some late. Her father and Wei Fan both belonged to the late sort: though they were no longer young when they married, they were still children at heart, and even after becoming fathers needed a long while to grow used to it; and so at the sound of a child's crying they could only keep their distance. That, too, had to do with a person's temperament. Song Yan was the very opposite: he never shrank from a difficulty, but must always get to the bottom of a thing before he let it be. When the child cried in the middle of the night, he would ask whether it was hungry or wet, whether he held it too stiffly and made it uncomfortable; and after a few such times the child slept especially sweetly in his arms. She tended the child herself, yet with Song Yan's help she found it easier by far than in her former life, when a whole troop of nurses and maids and old women had crowded round.

She gave a light cough, smiling.

Dou Huaiying looked a little sheepish.

Song Yan hastened to say, "All finished, are you? Father-in-law was just telling me stories of your childhood. I never dreamed you were such a mischievous child."

He was eager to cover for his father-in-law, and won at once a grateful look from the old man.

Dou Yan was amused. "All done," she answered, and went to take the child.

Dou Huaiying dodged aside and fended off her hands. "The child is sleeping soundly. What if you take him and wake him? Let me hold him."

The old gentleman had held him near two hours already, and thought nothing of his aching arms.

Dou Yan cast Song Yan a helpless, pleading glance.

Song Yan looked away as though he had seen nothing, and bent his head to his tea.

The wretch—he knew only how to curry favor with his father-in-law!

Dou Yan glared at Song Yan.

Song Yan muttered to himself.

At a child's full-month, the wife's family receives the grandson to show him the house, and the son-in-law, having delivered him, must take his leave.

That he could stay the night in the Yunqi Temple alley was owing solely to his having won his father-in-law's favor.

At such a moment he had no choice but to play the fool.

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Sisters, here is today's update.

o(n_n)o~