Chapter 128 — Thanks
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
"A token of my thanks?"
Of course Dou Yan would accept it with pleasure.
If she did not, and Song Yan misunderstood her as someone who did not know how to appreciate a kindness, and thus fixed her in his mind, she felt she would probably not sleep easy at night.
"I shall not presume to refuse." She rose with a smile and curtsied to Song Yan. "Please convey my 'thanks' to your honored mother on my behalf, young master."
"No need for such courtesy, Fourth Miss Dou," Song Yan said with a smile, his jade-white face seeming all the more clear and lustrous in the dimly lit hall.
No wonder so many people liked to look at him!
Dou Yan muttered inwardly, smiling as she watched Song's attendants carry things in and out.
Just how many "humble gifts" had he brought?
Looking at the gift boxes piled as high as a small hill, Dou Yan felt a faint headache coming on.
But she resolved not to say another word to Song Yan—say nothing and you err not; say much and err much; who knew which remark might touch a raw nerve. She felt there was no need at all, nor any point in racking her brains to guess at Song's reactions. After all, one of them was in the capital, the other in Zhending, and once this matter blew over, there would be nothing between them at all.
Dou Yan sat there drinking her tea, calm and unhurried.
Though Song Yan considered glancing at someone from the corner of one's eye a cowardly and ill-mannered habit, he could not help but steal a glance at Dou Yan from the corner of his eye.
Someone who could remain so composed in his presence was truly... a rarity!
He thought of that overcast, rainy day.
Her brilliant eyes, her confident smile of one who knew the outcome beforehand...
How had she done it?
He had been trained by renowned masters since childhood, and that was why he could remain calmer and more self-possessed than most people.
She was only a year or two older than he, raised in the inner chambers, who had never once left Zhending County... and then there was that business with his eldest uncle—how had she even thought to blacken her own name? Not to mention his grandmother and mother; even his father and the family's advisors had not dared to say for certain which stratagem would work...
Song Yan suddenly found himself utterly curious about the girl before him.
With whom had she studied?
Was Chen Yanzhou really just her accountant?
And then, her father and stepmother were in the capital, yet her half-sister by a different mother lived with her in Zhending—had her stepmother truly been as the outside world claimed, that because of poor health she could not manage the household, and so had entrusted her and her sister to the care of the Second Dowager of the Eastern Dou?
She seemed to be surrounded by countless mysteries!
He was somewhat impatient to know everything about her.
Song Ke added, "When I came, my grandmother—that is, Lady Mei—she bade me convey her 'thanks' to you as well, for saving the womenfolk of the Jiang family."
Dou Yan was taken aback.
She had guessed that Song Yan would tell his mother about this when he returned, but she had never expected that the Jiangs would tell Lady Mei.
Song Yan looked at her. For some inexplicable reason, his heart felt glad, as though he were a child again who had answered his tutor's question correctly and won his mother's praise.