Chapter 17 — The Autumn Fan

Nurse Yu called softly, "Seventh Madam."

Mother did not so much as stir the corner of an eye. "The New Year is nearly here, and I'm afraid it won't be easy to hire people. You'd better put extra effort into the furnishings for the new rooms, and help hurry along those stewards in the outer courtyard."

"Yes!" Nurse Yu answered helplessly and withdrew.

Mother set aside the abacus and gathered Dou Yan into her arms with a smile. "Come, let's go admire the plum blossoms."

Dou Yan smiled brightly.

Time is the best medicine; no matter how painful the wound, given enough time it will slowly scab over and heal.

Mother, I will stay by your side always.

To ease your loneliness, to soothe your wounds.

Gazing at Mother's jade-white face, Dou Yan swore this secretly in her heart, then, grinning, took Mother's hand and skipped off with her to the rear garden.

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That evening Tuoniang told Dou Yan, "Nurse Yu went nowhere at all; she only met with the stewards and stewards' wives of the household."

Then who was that man?

Dou Yan chewed her finger and pondered.

As it turned out, early the next morning her aunt arrived with her eldest cousin, Zhao Biru, to deliver New Year gifts to the Dou family.

"In this freezing cold!" Mother hurried her aunt and eldest cousin into the inner chamber, personally helped her aunt up onto the heated kang, and took the hot tea from the maid's hands to offer her respectfully. "You could have sent a steward; why come in person!"

Her aunt looked to be in her early thirties, wearing a sapphire-blue robe with a full-sleeved jacket woven with gold, and a pair of hairpins of red gold inlaid with jade gourds. Of medium height, slightly plump, with fair skin and eyes that curved like crescents when she smiled, she seemed exceedingly kind.

She clapped her hands toward Dou Yan in Tuoniang's arms. "Come, come sit with your aunt."

Mother lifted Dou Yan onto the kang.

Zhao Biru, meanwhile, bent her knee and made a curtsy to Mother.

Mother embraced Zhao Biru. "Eldest girl has grown taller again—she's nearly as tall as I am."

Her aunt scolded fondly, "She grows only in height, not in sense—what use is that!"

Zhao Biru smiled shyly.

At this time Zhao Biru was only eleven, with long hands and long legs and skin whiter than snow, already showing the graceful beauty she would have as a grown woman.

Mother drew her onto the kang, and everyone sat around the kang table eating pastries and talking.

"...Your elder brother has failed the spring examinations twice running. This time he's gritted his teeth to place on the golden list—he won't even speak to me," her aunt said with a laugh. "I was bored at home, so I brought Biru along to visit you." Then she asked, "How have you been these days?"

Mother glossed over the truth: "The same as before. Busy in circles all day, and I couldn't say with what."

Her aunt smiled and said nothing, took a sip of tea, and said to Zhao Biru, "Since we're here, go and play with your cousin off to the side."

Zhao Biru answered softly, "Yes," and obediently climbed down from the kang.

Mother was slightly taken aback.

Her aunt said, "I have something to tell you." A certain gravity showed on her face.

Mother answered "Yes," and already a glimmer of tears could be seen in her eyes.

Dou Yan thought of Nurse Yu by the lotus pond, and the man in the official-green Lu silk robe.

Once out of the inner chamber, she shook off Zhao Biru's hand and darted like a wisp of smoke toward the main gate.

Outside the main gate, the man in the official-green Lu silk robe was speaking with one of Dou Juan's stewards. Behind him stood a flatbed cart piled high with goods, and servants were streaming back and forth, carrying the cart's contents into the house.

So the man was the Zhao family's steward after all.

Dou Yan went thumping and thudding back to the second gate, where she ran into Zhao Biru, who had chased her all this way and was drenched in sweat.

"You—what are you running for?" Zhao Biru clutched her belly and gasped for breath. "How are you faster than a rabbit?"

Dou Yan thought back to their first meeting.

Zhao Biru had held her teacup with elegance, gazing at her with a smile both gentle and unmistakably proud: "After our aunt passed away, Father and Mother wanted to bring you into our home to keep us sisters company, but you refused. Not only did you bite Mother in front of the Dou household, you cried, 'I won't go to your house!' Mother had no choice but to come home disappointed..."

At the time, Dou Yan had felt that Zhao Biru's words were like an autumn fan—impossible to say exactly why, but vaguely discomforting and out of place.

But now... she was no longer so sure.

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No chapter is missing—I just skipped around a bit in the writing. I didn't expect everyone to find it so hard to get used to... ⊙﹏⊙b sweat...

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