Chapter 228 — One by One (Double Update, Begging for Pink Tickets)
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Ji Yong's release from his study was owed to his participation in the compilation of the *Grand Lessons of Wenhua*—he could hardly have gone on refusing to report for duty at the office, after all.
Yet his heart remained hollow, and nothing he did could rouse his spirits.
How had he and Dou Yan come to such a pass?
Where exactly had it all gone wrong?
Was he too obstinate? Or was Dou Yan too unbending?
Ji Yong sat in the spacious, brightly lit beamless hall of the Imperial Archive, idly leafing through the daily records of Emperor Taizong, while the bits and pieces of his acquaintance with Dou Yan flipped through his mind like pictures, one after another.
There was the time she had teased him, "Go on, be careful and bring home nothing better than a tong jinshi"; the time she had said in disappointment, "I don't want you to turn out like Dou Ming"; the time she had lashed out in fury, "We are done—not a word between us ever again."... Yet whenever he recalled them, they were warm, joyful, brimming with life and endless delight. Not like his great-grandfather's study, where every emotion carried a calculation that could be turned this way or that, where every calculation had a predictable outcome, and life seemed fixed in its mold, each day repeating the one before.
In that moment, Ji Yong wanted to see Dou Yan as he had never wanted anything before.
He wanted to know whether she would erupt in thunderous rage, or whether she would blink those cold-star eyes of hers and take the measure of Dou Huaiying with an icy stare...
Ji Yong closed the daily records and smiled at the eunuch attending nearby: "I suddenly feel dreadfully dizzy. Might the eunuch-father find me a place to lie down, and then bring me a cup of malt-sugar water..."
A eunuch of the imperial palace—was he for a mere seventh-rank compiler to order about!
The eunuch rolled his eyes and said in a sour, mocking tone: "Since the compiler is unwell, perhaps he should come back another time to borrow Emperor Taizong's daily records?"
Ji Yong signed the lending register, left the Imperial Archive, and went straight to the Yunqi Temple alley.
※※※※※
Dou Yan sat on the large kang by the window, a kesi headband she was making for her grandmother in her hands, not having set a single stitch for the longest while.
Suxin came in carrying autumn pears and sweet melons, and at the sight of her, could not help sighing long and deep in her heart.
When Dou Yan had spoken with Song Yan, she had stood by the floor pillar under the side gallery.
The young lady did not wish to marry. But the heir had been utterly sincere with her, and the young lady surely understood that in her heart. She must be afraid that after she married, the heir would change his mind midway, just as the master had done with the late Lady Zhao in those years—and that was why she wavered so, torn between gain and loss.
Though the heir was younger than the young lady, he had always conducted himself with steadiness; several times he had come to Zhending to visit her, each time by some clever ruse, without letting anyone catch on. If the young lady married him, she could not say what else might come of it, but with a husband's house like the Ying Duke's Estate at her back, the dowry in her name could certainly be recovered. And afterward, even if she and the heir could not get on together, she could find a quiet country estate to settle in—still better than days like these, paying off this one and then having to placate that one. By then the heir would be the young lady's husband, and she would need only to manage him well.
She sighed in her heart, then smiled and took the needlework from Dou Zhiwei's hands, saying: "You have been at your needlework for days on end. Mind your eyes—better to rest a while. There is no hurry; you can have some fruit and take it up again. It is still early yet before the New Year!"