Chapter 209 — A Misstep
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
The sky was just beginning to pale. Dou Yan stood beneath the covered walkway, yet her posture was like that of a plum tree defying the cold—proud and standing apart, always carrying a trace of aloofness, and also like the quiet, distant green hills, gazing at him in tranquil serenity.
The past spun before him like a revolving lantern, each scene surfacing in his mind one after another.
The dazzling brilliance of their first meeting, the generosity and magnanimity of their second; the helping hand that came racing through the starry night in a time of peril, the silent, gentle care that soothed like spring rain in moments of sorrow; and the dreamless sleep after a day's labor in the chrysanthemum fields, the sudden clarity of gazing at distant villages from atop a wild peach tree—all of it drifted through his heart like the breeze of this autumn morning.
Dou Zhiwei's goodness had always been like rain moistening things silently—easy to overlook in a careless moment, yet equally easy to feel in a careless moment.
Song Yan was suddenly seized with agitation.
What was Dou Yan thinking at this moment?
Had he, too, overlooked something in a careless moment?
Song Yan turned and strode toward Dou Yan.
Dou Zhiwei's face gradually grew clear in his field of vision.
The jet-black hair, the pale white face, the long brows sweeping toward the temples, and those lips red and tender as blossoms, the smiling eyes and brows—all of it gradually came alive.
"Dou Yan," he said, his eyes wide and fixed on her without blinking, "if we are fated, could we become husband and wife?"
The pale fish-belly white at the horizon had at some point turned a faint purple, as if the resplendent rays hidden behind the clouds could scarcely wait and were already baring a sliver of their edge.
Song Zhi's face, in the morning light, took on a lustrous sheen like the finest jade, and his jet-black eyes sparkled like stars in the night sky.
Dou Yan gazed at the elegant youth before her, long since stripped of his callow air, who had at some point grown a full head taller than her, and could not help but feel a moment of trance.
If they were fated, could they become husband and wife?
Surely not?
Whether in the past life or this one, they were never people of the same road.
He was destined to be the focus of everyone's gaze; even in times of adversity, he would declare his presence in some other form. She, for her part, loved to plant flowers and tend grasses, imagining herself a flowering tree, following the turning of the four seasons—sprouting in spring, growing in summer, harvesting in autumn, storing in winter.
One was a cloud atop the peak, the other a tree in the forest; they could ever only gaze at each other from afar.
Yet in the clear light of this autumn morning, beneath the youth's brilliant, expectant gaze, she could not bring herself to refuse him so bluntly.
She thought for a moment, then smiled. "If we could become husband and wife, then of course we are fated!"
Only they could probably never have such a fate!
But Song Zhi's face—
A shallow smile rippled in the depths of his eyes.
He gazed deeply at Dou Yan for a moment, said not a word, then turned and strode from the main courtyard.
Watching his steady, vigorous steps, Dou Yan felt, for no reason she could name, a touch of unease rise in her heart.
Had she said something wrong?
Dou Yan carefully replayed their exchange in her mind.
The bell and drum of Yunqi Temple announcing the dawn rang out melodiously; the air still carried the chill of mid-autumn, yet the morning glow had already quietly spread across half the sky.
Song Yan left the Dou family residence with a buoyancy he himself found somewhat inexplicable.