Chapter 132 — Meeting
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Song Yan was helping his mother take stock of the summer rents delivered from the family's estates, and had no intention of going to see Gu Yu.
"Brother Tianci, are all your affairs settled?" With the Jiang family in trouble, the Songs could hardly shirk their duty to lend a hand. Gu Yu had gone to the palace several times to see his aunt, and Empress Wan had warned him not to act rashly, telling him that the Songs would surely have to grease a good many palms, and that he should not go looking for Song Yan for the time being, lest he see something he ought not to see and only plant a seed of estrangement in the Songs' hearts. If Song Yan needed his help with anything, he would send for him. Only then had he stopped dropping by every few days as he once had.
Now that the Jiang family affair had drawn to a close, he naturally had no more scruples.
"More or less settled." Song Yan went with him into the adjoining reception room. "What brings you here today?"
Gu Yu had first studied letters and martial arts under Song Zhiren. The change in him had made people sit up and take notice; after the Earl of Yunyang came in person to thank the Song family, he had taken Gu Yu home and hired tutors for him there.
"I told them I was coming to see you." Gu Yu sat down on the arhat bed without ceremony, picked an apple off the small table beside it, and bit into it with a loud crunch. "Where did this fruit come from? How is it so awful?" He promptly called out loudly to his page, "Baique! Go home and fetch that basket of pears I carried off from the palace a few days ago." Turning back to Song Yan, he said, "Newly in season, autumn pears—not to be had on the market yet. Not very sweet, but plenty juicy. A touch better than these dried-out things of yours."
The fellow was a past master of eating, drinking, and making merry, and Song Yan could not be bothered to squabble with him. He called a page to go with Baique to the Earl of Yunyang's residence to fetch the pears.
Gu Yu leaned over at an angle and asked Song Yan in a low voice, "Still no word from the Prince of Liao?"
"My father and the Third Imperial Son-in-Law are deliberating the matter," Song Yan said.
Gu Yu gave a dismissive snort. "If you ask me, there's no need for your uncle to step in at all. You and I can just go to Liaodong ourselves. The two of us standing there—so what if he's a prince now? If he won't give us face, we'll black both his eyes just the same. Who's afraid of whom?"
Song Yan thought much the same.
But his father was running himself ragged over it, and he could hardly throw cold water on the man's efforts. Even his mother said, "It's rare to see your father so intent on a thing—let him try. There are several of your maternal grandfather's old subordinates over there; when your uncles go, they'll look after things more or less. You just keep your eyes open. If nothing comes of your father's efforts, it will be no great loss for you to go to Liaodong yourself. Your uncles will likely be a month or two on the road—not so swift as you riding hard, who could reach Liaodong ahead of them."
This, however, was not something he could say in front of Gu Yu. He said only, "Is this a matter fists can settle? Don't forget—it was the Emperor who issued the decree!"
"True enough!" Gu Yu frowned. "Even my aunt finds it strange. She says the Emperor was never such a suspicious man before." He glanced this way and that, and seeing no one about, lowered his voice even further. "Yesterday the Emperor suddenly pointed at my aunt and asked, 'Who are you? How did you get into my palace?'"
Song Yan's heart gave a lurch.
He had long heard that the Emperor's memory was failing. But to not even recognize the Empress...
"Who told you this?" His voice was a little tight.