Chapter 195 — Changes
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 4 of 4
"Of course they must be sent," Wei Wan snapped before Wei Fan could speak, and earned herself a glare. "We're about to break off the engagement—what is there to send gifts for? It's the Wang family you should be thinking of. I hear Lady Wang has caught a chill and is poorly; you ought to go and call on her."
Wei Wan's temper had been fierce of late, so he dared not argue and obediently went to the Marquis of Yan'an's house to inquire after the invalid.
Fortunately the two families were always in and out of one another's houses, and the Marquis of Yan'an's household thought nothing of it.
Once out of the Wang family's gate, Wei Fan made a show of buying realgar wine, tea, zongzi, and the like from the shops along the street, and had them delivered to the Hening Temple alley.
Dou Yan had accompanied the Second Madam Dowager on an outing to the Sansheng Nunnery, and Dou Huaiying had been summoned to the palace to expound the classics; neither was at home.
"And where is the Fifth Young Lady?"
If he had come with gifts, surely he ought to make his presence known to the Dou family.
Gao Sheng was rather surprised, but smiled nonetheless. "The Fifth Young Lady has gone with the mistress to the Liuye alley."
Wei Fan was briefly taken aback.
He had heard from Dou Ming that because her mother was displeased that Dou Yan had not called on her maternal grandmother after arriving in the capital, she had complained about it before the old lady; the old lady, vexed, had spoken a few sharp words about Dou Chi in front of outsiders, which had enraged her father. Her mother had now been packed off to the Dou family's estate in Wanping.
"My mother-in-law—has she returned?" he asked Gao Sheng.
After all, Wei Fan was a son-in-law of the Dou family; it was plausible he should know such things.
Gao Sheng thought nothing of it. "Lord Wang has won great merit again in Yunnan, and the Emperor has graciously conferred a hereditary chiliarchy on the Wang family's eldest uncle. The Wangs are holding a great banquet, and the old madam of the Wang family sent word especially inviting the mistress to join the celebration, so the master brought the Seventh Madam back."
So that was it.
Wei Fan said "Oh," and had his attendant hand the gift list to Gao Xing; on the road he repeatedly warned the attendant not to breathe a word of this to Wei Wan, and only then returned to the Marquis of Jining's residence.
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Sisters and brothers, here is the make-up update for the seventh of May.
ps: I've seen your comments saying the plot has been moving too slowly these past few days, and I've reflected on it too—I'll try to pick up the pace. But truly, there's no way to break off the engagement with the sort of domineering flourish you all describe. In the eyes of the world, Dou Yan is, after all, only a girl of a dozen or so years; she cannot simply refuse to marry, so she has no choice but to devise a once-and-for-all solution.
Then there's the question everyone keeps debating: why not have Song Yan or Ji Yong help? Let me offer an analogy. Suppose there is a woman—in ancient times an engagement counted as marriage; even if the family were stripped of its property, a daughter already betrothed was considered another family's, and would not be condemned with them. But let us speak only of modern times. A woman wants to break off her engagement, and she says to a male friend, "I don't want to marry my fiance anymore. Help me—get rid of him for me." I'm confident that nine out of ten men would think, 'Does this woman have her eye on me?' and the tenth would think, 'She's hinting that I should court her, isn't she...' If it were a man saying, "I don't want to marry my fiancee anymore. Help me, get rid of her for me," nine out of ten would think, 'Is this fellow trying to have a foot in two boats?' and the tenth, a woman, would think, 'This man must have fallen for me...'
We truly aren't trying to play at anything ambiguous here.
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