Chapter 19 — The Marriage
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Mother was much worried about her family's finances; Dou Fan, however, cracked sugar-roasted chestnuts and ate them with an air of unconcern.
In the last life, even after Mother hanged herself, Uncle had still passed the imperial examination. In this life everything was kept from him, and he had only to travel light—could he possibly fail to pass? Surely not.
So long as Uncle passed the examination, all those past expenses would naturally be earned back!
These chestnuts must have been stored in a cellar through the winter; they had lost their moisture and were dry as dust from being roasted in sugar, yet something was better than nothing—she was a three-year-old child now, and what could a three-year-old child do? She had an abundance of leisure.
Dou Yan nibbled at the chestnuts in tiny, deliberate bites, letting the crumbs fall all over the ground.
Aunt began to speak with Mother about her marriage: "It was only a verbal agreement, after all. I think you should talk it over with your father-in-law and ask him to find some person of standing to settle the matter with the Wei family."
Dou Yan's chewing paused; only after a long moment did she slowly resume.
Aunt's reasoning was not without merit.
In the last life, after Mother's sudden death, Father had taken Wang Shuying to wife within a hundred days, while Uncle's family had hurried off to his post. Father was wholly devoted to his studies; once the mourning period for Mother was over, he at once sat for the provincial examination, became a juren, and then the following spring sat for the metropolitan examination, became a jinshi, was promoted to Shujishi, and took up observation of affairs in the Ministry of Personnel. By then the Wang family had already moved to the capital. Wang Shuying's mother, Lady Xu, longing for her daughter, granddaughter, and grandson, begged Father to bring them all to the capital for a reunion. Having obtained Grandfather's consent, Father took Wang Shuying, Dou Ming, and Dou Xiao to the capital... and who then still remembered her betrothal to the Wei family?
It was not until Grandfather and Grandmother had died one after the other and she was sent to the capital that Father suddenly realized she had grown into a young woman of marriageable age. Recalling the engagement to the Wei family, he sent men to discuss it with them. But the Wei family hemmed and hawed and never gave a clear answer.
Even now Dou Yan could remember how frightened and unsettled she had been.
With Father alive and well, her uncles of the Eastern Dou could never have taken her in; Uncle was far away in the northwest; and her stepmother had never stinted on her food, clothing, or expenses—yet whenever Wang Shuying's gaze chanced to fall on her, it seemed to carry a trace of something cruel and vicious, like a wolf about to devour its prey, as though she wished to swallow her whole in a single gulp. But look again, and she had already regained her former calm composure, still wearing that appearance of serene nobility.
As the saying goes: whatever is unnatural is monstrous.
She had no idea what Wang Shuying was really scheming.
She lived every day in terror and trembling, afraid that in one unguarded moment catastrophe would be waiting to fall on her head.