Chapter 62 — Three Years

That evening.

Lady Ji was sitting in the covered walkway with Lady Bi, enjoying the cool air.

"This must be the Seventh Master's eldest daughter?" Lady Bi smiled at Dou Yan, her gaze carrying a curiosity she had not shown toward Dou Ming. "She really is a beauty."

"You flatter me, Mother Wu," Dou Yan said with easy composure, making conversation. "I don't see A-Qi anywhere."

Mother Wu laughed. "She's gone to the Dowager's with Ming and the others."

Dou Xin said, "There's always something good to eat at the Dowager's—no wonder we all keep it in mind."

"Just so, just so." Mother Wu exchanged a few more words with Dou Yan. Seeing that courtesy had been satisfied and that there was no chance to speak with Lady Ji, Dou Yan rose to take her leave.

Caishu saw her out.

On the way they ran into Wu Shan.

Dou Xin greeted him: "Why are you alone, Fourth Brother Wu?"

Wu Shan smiled. "The others are all over at the water pavilion, making plans to see Pang Jixiu off."

Dou Yan was surprised. "Seeing him off?"

Perhaps it was true, as the saying went, that your greatest rival knows you best—Dou Yan understood the Pang family's affairs better than she did her own.

In her former life, Pang Jixiu had also studied at the Dou clan school. After earning his xiucai degree he inherited the family business, sold off the pawnshop, the apothecary, and the like, and devoted himself to running taverns. Backed by the Wang family's influence, his branch establishments reached all the way to the capital, and he became a rather notable figure in the capital's commercial circles.

In this life, why would he suddenly leave the Dou family?

Wu Shan shot a glance at the servants attending them.

Dou Yan and the servants withdrew to a distance.

Only then did Wu Shan lower his voice. "Master Du says Pang Jixiu is getting on in years and his foundations are too thin. In the next two years Hui, Zhi, and the fourth brother will all be sitting for the examinations, and he can't spare the attention to give Pang Jixiu lessons of his own, so carrying on this way would only hold back Pang Jixiu's studies. He's recommending Pang Jixiu go to the Jingyun Academy in the prefecture. He also says Pang Kunbai doesn't study hard and comes in last in the monthly assessments, so it would be best to engage a private tutor at home to instruct him."

Dou Yan pressed her lips together and smiled.

In her former life, her impression of the Pang family had been that they were adaptable and unconstrained by trifles. In this life, she found their brazenness, their readiness to stoop, to have reached the point of sheer shamelessness. The less dealings one had with them, the better.

Still, this way, even if the Pang family wanted to linger on at the Dou clan school, they would have no way to do so.

Clearly, the Pang family's fuss over Wang Shuying's promotion to wife had worn the Dou family's patience to the bone.

She asked Wu Shan with a smile, "Aren't you going to sit for the examination?"

Wu Shan was the same age as Dou Huaide.

Wu Shan scratched his head. "...But I'm not as sure of myself as Eleventh Brother."

Thinking of how Wu Shan had been a jinshi in her former life, Dou Xin said, "You ought to be able to pass the county examination too."

Wu Shan's face flushed crimson at once, and he mumbled, "You... you really think I can do it..." His eyes, fixed on her, were full of hope, as though if she said he could pass the county examination, then pass it he certainly would.

Dou Yan felt ashamed.

In her former life she had truly had no impression of Wu Shan—she had no idea in what year he had earned his jinshi, let alone how he had done in the county and prefectural examinations. If he failed in this life, wouldn't Wu Shan have been made happy for nothing?

But matters had come to this point, so she had no choice but to press on. "Both Eleventh Brother and Twelfth Brother say you're a good scholar. I think you should be able to manage it." May his county examination go smoothly.

Wu Shan grinned at her, looking utterly delighted.

For some reason, Dou Yan suddenly had the feeling she had said the wrong thing.

She hastily changed the subject. "When does Pang Jixiu leave for the Jingyun Academy?"

"Right after the Mid-Autumn Festival," Wu Shan said with a smile. "We're planning to see him off at Jingfuchun..."

The two of them stood in the middle of the courtyard, trading remarks back and forth. Lady Bi looked up and, through the half-open lattice window, saw her son, who had gone and come back again, staring at Dou Yan without blinking. Whatever was said, Dou Yan smiled faintly, and her son grinned and laughed along with her—silly and foolish, with none of his usual cleverness and quickness to be seen.

Her heart gave a jump, and from the corner of her eye she glanced toward Lady Ji.

Lady Ji was instructing a young maid: "...Bring out the plum wine brewed this summer—send a jar to the old lady, and a jar to Shouyuan. The rest goes to the tea and wine office, to be brought out for the family feast at Mid-Autumn..."

Lady Bi let out a breath of relief. After a few idle words with Lady Ji she rose to take her leave, and once back in the guest rooms she summoned her son's personal senior maid. "Is the Fourth Young Master very familiar with the Fourth Miss of the West Mansion?"

The senior maid was startled, and chose her words carefully. "The Fourth Miss was raised under the Sixth Lady's roof. The Fourth Young Master gets on well with Eleventh Master and Twelfth Master and often goes to the Sixth Lady's rooms to play with them, so he runs into the Fourth Miss now and then. He is rather more familiar with her than with the Dou family's other young ladies."

The more Lady Bi observed the maid's cautious manner, the more suspicious she grew.

She questioned every servant who attended her son, and the business with Xianglu came out as well.

Lady Bi was so angry she could not speak for a long while. Then, leaning on the arm of her personal old nurse, she went to her son's quarters.

Before she had even set foot in the courtyard, she heard her son's voice reading aloud, clear and resonant.

Lady Bi was astonished.

Her son was clever, to be sure, but he had never been one to study with diligence.

Once they entered the courtyard, they found it silent, not a soul in sight.

Bi shi could not help but soften her steps.

Her son's recitation stopped, and the voice of his page boy came instead: "Fourth Young Master, take a rest! It's getting late—at this hour on any other day you'd already be abed..."

"In two years I'll be sitting the examinations alongside Eleven and the others," Wu Shan said with a laugh. "If Eleven and the rest pass and I don't, Shouyuan will likely think me hopelessly dim."

The page boy was about to urge him further.

He laughed. "No matter what, I must do better than Dou Xiu, at least."

Listening, Bi shi smiled without a sound and whispered to her personal matron: "Let's go back!" She left her son's courtyard with a light step and instructed the matron, "What happened today must not reach the Fourth Young Master's ears."

The matron assented again and again.

Over in her quarters, Ji shi was somewhat anxious and asked Wang Yu: "What was all that about, over at Wu shi's?"

Wang Yu told Ji shi everything—how Bi shi had summoned the servants attending Wu Shan for questioning, and how she had ordered that nothing be spread abroad.

Ji shi's expression relaxed.

Wang Yu smiled. "Do you perhaps think that the Wu family's Fourth Young Master and our Fourth Miss..."

Ji Guan said, "The Wu family may not be great in wealth or rank, but for generations they have been a house of letters and rites. Lord Wu and Wu shi are both people of lofty character. Shouyuan's fate has been full of hardship; if she could marry into their house, she would surely find shelter under Lord Wu and Wu shi. That would set my mind at ease far more than a distant marriage to the capital."