Chapter 52 — Refusal
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
In his past life, Father had placed thirteenth in the second tier of the spring examinations; in this one, he was sixteenth.
Was it because the business with Wang Shuying had consumed more of his attention this time around?
Dou Yan let his thoughts wander at random.
The Second Dowager, however, was disappointed.
She said to Dou Heng, "Wanyuan's luck is truly remarkable! If you had sat the spring examinations this year as well, who knows, you might have made the list too."
Ever since the Wang Shuying affair, Dou Huaiying had been regarded by the Dou family as a good-for-nothing with neither learning nor ability. Though he had passed the metropolitan examination, been selected as a Hanlin bachelor, and elevated to the post of Shujishi, the Second Dowager still believed he owed it all to luck rather than to real scholarship.
And the Second Dowager was not the only one in the Dou household who thought so.
Dou Heng was somewhat annoyed. "Wanyuan has always been clever at his books. He simply does not read himself blind the way others do, poring over dead words. Who ever passed the metropolitan and palace examinations and was chosen as a Shujishi on luck alone?"
The Second Dowager said nothing, but in her heart she remained unconvinced.
Dou Duo, by contrast, was overjoyed.
He posted the announcement of success upon the main gate of the house, and while savoring the pride and satisfaction of seeing passersby crane their necks to look up at it, he wrote a letter to Wang Xingyi to share the good news.
Wang Xingyi's days were rather miserable.
Since last winter and through this spring, he had beaten back several incursions of the Mongols. In the northwest his prestige was for a time without equal, his patron was pleased, and the Emperor had even proposed making him Governor of Shaanxi—yet for some reason the matter had simply been left to lie.
He suspected that the business of Dou Bingheng's return to his native place had led his patron to think him insufficiently steady, still in need of another year or two of tempering.
Wang Zhibing muttered, "Had we known it would come to this, you should have hurried to the capital and explained matters to Lord Zeng."
"The facts speak for themselves. Once a man starts explaining, he has already lowered himself. Better to leave it as it is, and let everyone see that Wang Xingyi is open and aboveboard, a man who dares to act and dares to take the consequences."
So he said, and yet he still wrote to his closest friend in the capital, Guo Yan—a Hanlin expositor and the son-in-law of Zeng Yifen: "...My family is poor to such a degree, and my daughter has stumbled. Whenever I think of it, I weep until I cannot speak. By great good fortune she has been given to the seventh son of the Dou family of Beilou. Now that his principal wife has died of illness, he intends to raise her to that place. I know it is improper, but when I think that my daughter suffers for my failure to teach her, then even were it bitter gall, I would drink it."
Looking back now, the letter had done some good—but not much that was plain to see.
At the thought, Wang Xingyi clasped his hands behind his back and paced twice around the room, then instructed his son, "Set the date for this month, then!"
Raising a concubine to wife was not the same as taking a bride. There was no need for betrothal gifts or inquiries into names, no need for a bride-price or a fixed contract. One simply set out a few tables of wine at home, invited the relatives, and had the woman dress in the auspicious red of a principal wife to pour wine for the guests—and with that her status was settled anew.
Wang Zhibiao assented, and wrote a reply on his father's behalf, affixing Wang Xingyi's private seal.
Dou Duo fixed the date for the twenty-second day of the fifth month.
Dou Yan had no intention whatsoever of kowtowing to Wang Shuying, offering her tea, and calling her mother.