Chapter 197 — Schemes
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Dou Ming leapt to her feet. "Have you lost your mind?" Her eyes were wide, her face a mask of disbelief as she stared at Wang Shuying.
Wang Shuying gave a cold laugh. "Do I look like I've lost my mind?" And then she told her how she had borrowed Dou Ming's name to invite Wei Fan to the house. "If you weren't so sure he'd come running whenever you called, would you have dared arrange to meet him at Puji Temple?"
Dou Ming shrieked, "What kind of mother are you? Can't you stand to see me happy? You'd actually egg me on to do such a thing?!" Then she remembered how Ji Yong had threatened her, and how she dared not breathe a word of it to anyone, and she was seized all at once by fear and grievance, her voice rising shriller still. "You don't know anything! You don't know anything! All day long you do nothing but watch your own feet as you walk, and you never once care about my affairs..."
Her daughter's words cut Wang Shuying to the quick, and her tears came flooding out. "How am I a woman who does nothing but watch her own feet? If not for you, would I have swallowed my pride and stayed in the Dou household? If not for you, would I have gone to sound out the Marquis of Jining? If not for you, would I be standing here now, accused by you? All these years you've blamed me for not being the kind of mother who could bring you honor, but have you ever thought—without me, could you have stood firm in the Dou household? Without me, could you be the legitimate daughter of Dou Juan? And what is so wrong with my wanting you to marry the Marquis of Jining?
"Marriage is meant to join two families in harmony. Your sister is weeping and wailing that she won't have him—are we not allowed to pick up what she discards?
"You blame me for speaking harshly—then go find someone who speaks gently!
"Your eldest aunt's words are gentle enough, but do you know what match the Gao family has proposed for you? That man lost his father at the age of two. His widowed mother, relying on her own brothers, scraped to raise him. Now he's nothing but a provincial graduate—he still has to pass the metropolitan exam, still has to wait for appointment, still has to curry favor with superiors and grease the palms of subordinates. Are you prepared to pour your entire dowry down that hole? If it were only to support that widowed mother, I'd have nothing to say. But don't forget—he has an uncle too, and that whole family is watching and waiting for this nephew to rise, so they can be repaid for the kindness of raising him!
"Your grandmother's words are gentle enough, but she wants to marry you to Tan-ge. With your dowry, so long as Tan-ge doesn't take the silver to gamble at dice, you and Tan-ge could spend your whole lives eating and drinking without a care, watching Nan-ge's moods.
"Your second aunt's words are gentle enough too, but every time she sees me she asks: 'Ming-jie's sister has come into half the Western Dou fortune, and you have no son at your knee. Rather than leave it to a concubine's son or an adopted heir, why not leave it to Ming-jie? I hear Shouyuan's name brings in fifty thousand taels a year. When Ming-jie marries, the bridegroom's family will naturally have to prepare a dowry of a hundred thousand taels for her.' That is her way of telling me that if your dowry comes to less than a hundred thousand taels, she will not consent to the match..."
"You—stop! Stop it!" Dou Ming flung herself face-down on the bed and wept aloud. "Stop it!"
Looking at her daughter, heartbroken beyond comfort, Wang Shuying felt a pang of regret that she had spoken too harshly.