Chapter 332 — Pomegranates
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 2 of 4
Song Yan had already gone on earnestly: "If you trust me, then whenever you meet with something difficult, you must tell me."
He lowered his eyes, and a fleeting shadow of loneliness passed through them.
When he raised them again, there was only warm laughter in his gaze.
"I am reading the *Illustrated Exposition of the Changes* by Chen Yan, formerly Grand Secretary of the Grand Secretariat." He straightened up and showed Dou Yan the cover of the book.
The warmth of his body, too, faded with the distance between them until it was scarcely perceptible.
Dou Yan felt as though her heart were being cut with a knife.
Song Yan was so clever a man, and they were so close in body and flesh—how could she possibly hide anything from him?
His playing the deaf and dumb was simply his way of respecting her wishes.
And yet she, wretched creature, had flattered herself that she was sparing him pain.
She could not help but cling tightly to his arm, wanting to hold on to that warmth.
"Yantang, I—I may be with child!" Dou Yan's face flushed to a burning red. Her head bowed, her eyes fixed on the camellias painted in gold lacquer on the kang table, she murmured the words.
"What?" Song Chu did not understand at first. "You may be with what?"
Dou Yan's blush spread from her face to her very neck.
Twice a life she had lived, and this was the first time she had ever been so embarrassed.
The last time, the news of her pregnancy had been spread entirely by the physician.
But looking at Song Yan's anxious, urgent expression, she had no choice but to murmur once more: "My—my monthly courses have not come for some time now..."
Song Yan froze for a moment before it dawned on him.
A moment later, a wave of enormous joy struck him.
"Shouyuan," he cried, leaping up and dropping down from the kang to crouch before Dou Zhiwei. "Is it true? Is it really true?"
Holding Dou Zhiwei's hand, Song Yan gazed up at Dou Yan, his eyes bright and sparkling, brilliant as stars.
"It may be," Dou Chi did not dare speak with certainty. "We'll have to wait a few days, until a physician has felt her pulse, before we know…"
Song Yan gave a rather foolish laugh, then suddenly let out an "ah" and, a flicker of nervousness in his expression, asked her in a low voice, "Then—did I hurt you yesterday?" As he spoke, a trace of self-reproach crept into his face. "I should have thought of it sooner… I truly shouldn't have treated you that way yesterday…"
Most men would never have noticed such things.
Dou Qu said, "This matter is not yet certain. Perhaps I have guessed wrongly."
"How could anyone guess wrongly about such a thing?" Song Yan assumed Dou Ci was only trying to comfort her.
Dou Yan had no choice but to say, "Sometimes, when one longs for a child very much, the longing itself can produce a false appearance of pregnancy…"
Song Yan chuckled and asked softly, "So Shouyuan wants a child of ours very badly too, does she?"
Was that an answer to the question, or wasn't it?
Dou Yan broke out in a sweat.
What on earth was he going on about?
Yet this conjecture filled Song Yan with immense delight.
He carried on down the same road on his own: "Even if it's wrong, it doesn't matter. We'll have a child soon enough—think of it as practice."
Dou Yan was caught between laughter and tears.
Song Yan had already risen, fairly brimming with excitement. "When can we send for a physician to feel your pulse? I'll sleep in the study tonight! Are you hungry? What would you like to eat? When Dong Qi's wife was with child, he begged the people at the Wine and Vinegar Bureau to get plums for him. It's winter now—I wonder whether the bureau still has any plums left over from brewing. I'll have to go to the Wine and Vinegar Bureau tomorrow…"
Wasn't that a rather enormous leap of thought?
Dou Yan was somewhat dumbfounded, yet something inside her bubbled up like spring water, a feeling wondrous beyond words.