Chapter 159 — A Guest from Afar
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Seeing Dou Yan sizing her up, Ji Lingze nodded and smiled at her with easy grace, and took the opportunity to study Dou Yan just as thoroughly in return.
She was tall, wearing a small jacket of dark green Hangzhou silk, neither new nor old, and a horse-face skirt hemmed in goose-yellow, embroidered with cloud-scroll patterns. She stood there with the poise of a pine, her eyes as bright and dazzling as cold stars, like a plum blossom blooming proudly in the frost rather than a soft peach or pear or apricot or plum.
It was rare for a girl to carry herself with such elegance.
Ji Lingze could not help praising her inwardly, and felt a twelvefold fondness for Dou Yan.
She bent her knees in return and said with a smile, "An uninvited guest—forgive the intrusion, forgive the intrusion!"
What kind of courage did it take for a woman to cast aside reputation and even her life and run away with a man a year younger than herself?
Though she knew Dou Huaide had halted at the Hanlin Academy for her sake and had never regretted it in the least, and though she knew that after Ji Lingze married Dou Huaide the couple had been loving and happy, yet when she made that decision she surely could not have seen the road ahead.
Dou Chu was deeply curious about that twelfth sister-in-law from her former life, whom she had met only a few times and never had the chance to know well.
Little had she expected that in this life she would come to know her at her own coming-of-age ceremony.
She warmly welcomed her sixth aunt and Ji Lingze in to see Grandmother.
Grandmother held Ji Lingze's hand and praised her without cease: "This girl—how lovely she has grown!" Then she asked how old she was, how many siblings she had at home, and what she did for amusement in her spare time...
Ji shi, meanwhile, said quietly to Dou Yan, "You are of the older generation, and you have no sisters you are close to day to day. I brought Lingze along on purpose—what would you say to having her serve as the assistant at your coming-of-age ceremony?"
Her sixth aunt treated her truly as though she were her own daughter!
Dou Yan naturally agreed at once.
Ji Wan said, "Then I will tell her this evening."
"Thank you, Sixth Aunt," Dou Yan said in gratitude.
Ji shi patted her hand and said with feeling, "I have always worried about whether you were getting on well in Zhending, but now that we have met, I see I was fretting over nothing. Sometimes a girl should not be too proud and unyielding—she ought to soften when the time calls for it." There was one thing she did not say aloud.
She had parents, kin, and relatives, yet she grew like a wild vegetable in a field, all on her own. It was painful to look at.
"Your sixth aunt has the right of it," Grandmother chimed in with a smile, having finished her talk with Ji Lingze at some point. "The Wei family came to bring you a coming-of-age gift, and a single 'thank you' was all you gave them before sending them off. How do you think the Marquis would feel if he heard of it? Usually you are so quick-witted—why do you turn muddle-headed at the crucial moment?"
Since she had already decided to make a clean break with the Wei family, better to let the ties between the two households cool sooner rather than later.
Dou Xin put Grandmother off perfunctorily: "I know, I know!"
Grandmother saw through it easily. She shook her head helplessly: "This child!"
Ji Lingze spoke up to soothe Grandmother: "She is young and thin-skinned. You need not demand perfection of her—give her a couple of years and she will be fine."
Grandmother praised Ji Lingze again and again for being sensible.
Ji Lingze listened with a bright smile, and the poised refinement of a well-bred young lady came over her in a rush.
Dou Chi said to himself,
When in her former life had Dou Huaide fallen in love with Ji Lingze?
Before they eloped, there had been no sign of it at all.
In this life, would they still come to love each other?