Chapter 31 — Eavesdropping
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
"Of course she must stay with the Dou family!" Wang Zhibing and Dou Duo said in unison.
"No, no!" Wang Shuying shook her head, her expression panicked. "She is still so small—I cannot leave her with the Dou family..."
But could she be taken back to the Wang family?
Even if the Wangs agreed, the Dous would never agree to it!
Wang Zhibing looked at his sister, who wore the air of a hen shielding her chick, and felt a headache coming on.
With such a thing having happened in their family, the neighbors had long been gossiping behind their backs. Now that Father had been restored to office, even more people knew of their family; by then it would not be merely tiny Nanwa Township—likely the whole of Zhending Prefecture would be pointing fingers at them from behind. Not only would Father lose face, but in the future the children would find it hard to hold their heads up in Nanwa. That was why, before coming, Father had agreed with him that they would quietly take his sister home, and once Father had settled in, the whole family would follow him to his post and never return to Nanwa again.
He had also been thinking that after a few years, when the storm had blown over, he would arrange a good match for his sister.
But what was the meaning of dragging this child along with them?
Would his sister still be able to marry in the future?
Even at the most generous, supposing the Dou family were willing to let his sister take the child, and Father agreed to raise her, how would they explain the child's origins when relatives and friends asked?
They had left Nanwa precisely to escape those rumors and whispers. If they claimed the child was his sister's, then his sister's past could no longer be concealed—would they not have moved for nothing?
To avoid all that, they could only say the child was his, or that she was the child of his younger brother, Wang Zhishao.
But the child had come at the wrong time.
To say she was his—he had not been home for years. To say she was his brother's—his brother's wife had just given birth to a plump baby boy, barely a month old... Could they say she was found?
These thoughts flashed through his mind in an instant, but after all, this was their own family matter, not something to be discussed in front of Dou Duo.
Wang Zhibing had no choice but to say to Wang Shuying in a low voice, "There are some things we should discuss at home."
Wang Shuying dared not go home with her brother.
In her situation, a wife sent back to her natal family was either consigned to a nunnery or married off to some distant place—she feared she would never have another chance to see her daughter.
Dou Yan still had her uncle and the stewardess her mother had left behind to look after her, but her own daughter was all alone with nothing. She could not entrust her daughter's future to that Fifth Miss of the Zhu family whom she had never met or dealt with.
And where was Dou Huaiying?
Wang Shuying looked all around.
Why was he not here?
He had always been soft-hearted; he would never stand by and watch mother and daughter be torn apart.
"No!" She took two steps back, putting some distance between herself and her brother, and a trace of wariness showed in her eyes as she looked at him. "Until Ming's future is settled, I will not go home with you, Brother!" With that, she shot a look at Qiongfang, who stood at the door of the hall, then turned tearfully to plead with Dou Duo: "Old Master, Ming has been frail since birth—she did not even have the strength to suckle. The doctors and the old nurses of many years all said she might not live long. It was I who, with every handful of filth and every drop of piss, raised her with such care to this age. How can I simply hand her over to someone else? I beg you, for Ming's sake, let me take her with me!"