Chapter 405 — Back Then
Purple Streets of Chang'an · Page 1 of 4
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He liked to pin every fault on someone else's shoulders — no wonder Li Liangnian was past thirty and still had nothing to show for his life.
He cast Li Liang a silent glance from the corner of his eye.
Song Sui had no patience for this sort of family gossip and cut straight to it: "Whose child is Yigui?"
Li Liang's head snapped up, and he stared at Song Yan as though he could not believe his ears. "Whose else would she be but a child of the Song family!" Then a look of sudden understanding crossed his face, and he rushed on: "That base, shameless wretch Song Cen must have told your household that Yao Niang was dead, hasn't he? Back then the old Lord Zhenguo brought men himself to force the abortion draught down Yao Niang's throat. She hemorrhaged badly and truly did pass into unconsciousness. But Heaven had its eye on her. The old lord had brought several grown men with him, and since Yao Niang had served that beast Song Cen, they dared not look too closely; they felt for breath, found none, and withdrew. My mother nursed her without sleep or rest for the better part of a month, pouring ginseng and birds' nests down her throat as though silver meant nothing, emptying the dowry my maternal grandfather had given my mother — and only so was Yao Niang's life preserved. Then, fearing your family might come searching and find her still alive, we sold the ancestral house for a pittance, gave out that my sister had fallen gravely ill, that the Daoist priests said the yang energy of the capital was too strong and her life would not be safe there, and moved to my uncle's house in the countryside of Yuanping to stay a while. Two more years of nursing, and Yao Niang could at last rise from her bed.
"Who would have thought your father would come looking again.
"My poor sister — she was utterly infatuated with your father, wanted nothing in this world but to wait on him, and let herself be coaxed by him into lying with him again."
Here his teeth ground together once more.
"But your father had the heart of a wolf and the lungs of a dog.
"The very next day he sent my sister back and vanished without a trace.
"And as ill luck would have it, my sister was with child again.
"The physician said her body had been drained by the earlier ordeal and she could not withstand an abortion, so the child would have to be carried to term.
"I went quietly to find your father.
"At first he refused to see me. When at last he did, all he asked was how much silver I wanted.
"I was so furious I nearly struck him across the face. I went home, gathered my sister and my mother, and moved us to Persimmon Alley outside the city walls, so that when my sister's time came we would not be at a loss for a midwife.
"Little did I expect that when the child was nearly seven months along, your father came looking for us again. He said your grandfather had fallen ill and was no longer as stubborn as before, that what Yao Niang carried was a child of the Song line, that your grandfather would surely not be as unyielding once he saw it, and that Yao Niang should go back with him — perhaps, for the sake of the child, your grandfather would let her through the gate.
"I thought it better to wait until Yao Niang had given birth. If it was a boy, the Song family would certainly acknowledge both mother and child. But if it was a girl, what use had the Songs for a daughter?
"My mother and Yao Niang, though, both thought it a fine opportunity, and paid no heed to my objections. Yao Niang went off with your father to the English Guild. In a rage, I went to my uncle's house.
"Before many days had passed, my mother sent word to me: the Song family would not only refuse to acknowledge Yao Niang and the child, they had drugged her. The child was born premature, and Yao Niang's life hung by a thread.
"I set out from my uncle's house that very night, racing back to the capital.
"Halfway there I met my mother and Yao Niang, fleeing from the capital.