Chapter 244 — Entering the Door
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
By this time the Yingzhen Ducal Residence was crowded with guests.
Song Cen stood in the main hall exchanging pleasantries with the friends and relatives who had come to witness the ceremony, his face aching from smiling so much.
Seizing a spare moment, he asked Li Xian, the steward of the household office who was attending him in his rounds of courtesy, in a low voice, "Has Master Tao not returned yet?"
How the Dou family's Fourth Miss had suddenly come to have an extra chest of silver drafts as her dowry—Song Cen had not even needed to give the order before Tao Jun went off on his own to make inquiries. Yet from yesterday to today no definite word had come, and Song Cen was deeply uneasy, feeling as though he had overlooked something, though try as he might he could not think what it was. It left him as though standing at the edge of a cliff, with no firm ground beneath his feet.
Li Xian hastened to say, "Master Tao has not returned. But I have already set a man to wait in Master Tao's rooms, so that the moment he comes back he may be brought to see you."
Song Cen gave a slight nod, and caught sight of Lu Fuli approaching, his hair and beard wholly white.
He readjusted his spirits, went forward with a warm smile, called out "Second Uncle," and made his bow.
Although Lu Fuli was second in seniority, the elder brother above him had died young at the age of eight, so he was in truth the eldest son of the Lu family. When he heard that Song Cen had taken a wife of very substantial means for Song Yan, Lu Fuli was not nearly as pleased as his grandson Lu Zhan had supposed.
He drew Song Cen out to a quiet side corridor and asked him in a low voice, "What sort of person is the Dou family's Fourth Miss—have you gone to inquire into it yourself?"
Song Cen was somewhat impatient.
This was already the third time Lu Fuli had asked him so.
The first time was when the Lu family heard that he was seeking the Dou family's Fourth Miss as a wife for Song Yan, and had come over especially to ask for the details; the second was when he went to deliver the wedding invitations to the Lu household.
"Second Uncle," Song Cen said with faint indignation, "Yantang is my son—would I do him harm?"
At this Lu Fuli frowned and said, "Do you take me for an uncle who meddles too far? I only see so great a house as the Yingzhen Ducal Residence with no one to preside over its household affairs, and I fear you may in a moment of folly have chosen the wrong person..."
Displeasure showed at the corners of Song Cen's eyes and brows.
Lu Fuli could not help sighing inwardly. It came to him that Song Cen too was taking a daughter-in-law and was about to become a father-in-law himself; he could not forever be watching over him as though he were a child. So he swallowed the words he had not finished and turned to his own misgivings: "Has no word come from the Qianqing Palace, the Kunning Palace, or the Cining Palace?"
In former times, when the heir of the Yingzhen Ducal Residence, or his eldest son by the wife, or his eldest grandson by the wife, took a wife, the palace would always send down gifts.
"None!" Speaking of this, Song Cen too grew uneasy, and said in a low voice, "I hear the Emperor's health is not good; perhaps the palace has no heart for such things?" But in his heart he was wondering whether the Emperor, angered that he had so suddenly arranged a match for Song Yan, meant to take this occasion to give him a stern lesson.
Lu Fuli said, "Can you guess why?"
"How could one presume to fathom the Sovereign's mind at will!" Song Cen's words were spoken most high-mindedly, and they left Lu Fuli deeply uncomfortable.
Once the Dou family's Fourth Miss entered the house, the Song and Lu families would likely drift further apart.
Had he known it would come to this,
Lu Fuli sighed and returned to the main hall.
Song Cen, however, had no wish to force any more smiles and pleasantries upon the guests.