Chapter 304 — In a Sorry State
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
Wang Yu did not say a word to his younger brother on the matter. He knew his brother's temperament: the harder Wei Fan's circumstances, the more he would rack his brains to help him; and should Wei Fan ever rise to wealth and honor, his brother might well drift apart from him. If he knew Wang Yu held such an attitude toward the Jining Hou estate, he would surely charge over like a hotheaded youth and warn Wei Fan to his face.
Some things were best left to take their own course.
Once the Wang couple had made up their minds, the invitations from the Jining Hou estate were answered with gifts but fewer and fewer appearances.
Of course, all of that came later.
Chen Jia learned of Wang Yuan's words at the first opportunity, and he was greatly astonished.
It was precisely because he knew of the ties between Song Yan and Wang Yuan that he had risked throwing in his lot with them, yet what he had never expected was that Song Yan carried such weight in Wang Yuan's eyes.
Or was it that Song Yan stood so firm in the Emperor's favor that Wang Yuan had no choice but to yield him a measure of deference?
Chen Jia emerged from the hiding house and returned to the small courtyard he rented in the inner city of the capital.
Several of his colleagues from the Embroidered Uniform Guard were already waiting at his gate.
"Congratulations, congratulations!" They all offered their good wishes at once. "The misunderstanding with Lord Wang is cleared up, and you can serve His Majesty with all your might again!"
Given the nature of the Guard's duties, Chen Jia had long expected his colleagues to hear the news quickly, but he had not expected them to turn up at his door quite so soon.
Two years!
For two years, not one of his colleagues had dared so much as speak to him.
He took out his entire savings and treated the colleagues who had come to congratulate him to a meal at Donglaishun. Cups were raised and passed back and forth, and by the end of the drinking his memory had grown blurred; apart from recalling that everyone had pressed him about his connection to the Ying Duke's estate, he remembered nothing else.
An unfamiliar servant boy came in to attend him as he washed and dressed, claiming he had been sent by one of his colleagues.
Chen Jia did not know whether to feel sorrow or joy.
He ate his morning meal in something of a daze, then went to the office of the Guard's Northern Depot.
All along the way, people greeted him with smiling faces, and before he had even managed to see the Depot's commissioner, the personal attendant of Shi Chuan, the Guard's chief commander, appeared at the Northern Depot office, calling out cheerfully, "Which of you is Lord Chen Zanzhi? My master would have a few words with him"—and amid envious glances, Chen Jia went off to the Guard headquarters.
Shi Chuan, forsaking his usual severity, chatted amiably with him about this and that, urged him to serve well in his post from then on, and told him that if ever he suffered any grievance, he need only come to him. Then he raised his teacup in dismissal.
No promotion had been promised, but the intimacy of the gesture was plain for all to see.
Even a man as deep and calculating as Chen Jia was thrown off balance by this unbroken string of changes; it was not until he had stumbled his way out of the Guard headquarters, one foot high and one foot low, that he came back to himself.
At once he summoned several trusted brothers serving in the Guard and instructed them: "By whatever means, you must find out exactly whom the Ying Duke's heir brought with him to the manor that day."
One of them hesitated. "The Ying Duke's heir keeps his manor heavily guarded, and he has just spoken up for you, brother. If we alarm him—we truly cannot afford to offend him!"
If he meant to secure his footing before Song Yan, he had to get to the person who had stood behind that screen.
But this was a matter Chen Jia had no intention of telling anyone else.