Chapter 254 — Dejected

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She propped her chin on her elbow and watched Song Yan, a flicker of teasing laughter lurking at the corners of her eyes and brows.

Under her gaze Song Yan grew ill at ease. "What is it?" he asked.

Dou Yan blinked and asked him with a smile, "Of the Four Books and Five Classics, you really chose the *Spring and Autumn Annals* to study?"

Song Yan cleared his throat and said with a solemn face, "Of course it is true! The *Spring and Autumn Annals* is subtle in words and profound in meaning, every character a barb of censure; reading it does great good in setting one right—especially the *Zuo Tradition*, whose diction is direct and whose flavor runs deep. Even when it records armed conflict, it never loses a certain gentle, cultivated grace; feeling and music are both there in full..."

"That is well, then!" Someone had once said that the louder a voice, the guiltier the conscience. Dou Xin nodded and cut short Song Yan's praises. "My father has read widely. Though by the Emperor's command he lectures the princes on the *Book of Changes*, yet like my sixth uncle, what he loves most is the *Spring and Autumn Annals*. My sixth uncle excels in the *Zuo Tradition*, my father in the *Guliang Tradition*. Since you like the *Spring and Autumn*, my father and sixth uncle will have one more person to converse with in pure talk. They will surely be delighted!"

As she spoke, her gaze rested all the while on Song Yan's face, and the more she looked, the more she felt his expression was somewhat stiff.

Dou Qu turned away, and drawing aside the carriage curtain to look out, murmured, "Young Master, are we taking the North Street of the Imperial City this time?"

Song Yan gave an absent-minded "mm," but inwardly he was smiling bitterly without end.

Had he known it would come to this, he should have said that what he loved was the *Doctrine of the Mean*, which Lord Zhongyi excelled in.

Now look at the mess. To curry favor with his father-in-law, he had said he chose to study the *Spring and Autumn Annals*... If his father-in-law should summon him to examine his learning, how could this half-filled jug of his stand against the scholarship of a man who had passed the metropolitan and palace examinations? And there was still Dou Bingheng, master of the *Zuo Tradition*, glaring at him like a tiger watching its prey from the side... Would he not be exposed on the spot?

And the likelihood of such a thing was rather high.

It was like a man skilled at chess suddenly meeting another who loved the game—they were bound to try a few moves against each other.

Deception, at any hour, rouses more anger than avoidance ever could!

Was this not lifting a stone only to drop it on one's own foot?

He could not help rubbing his chin.

Before his father-in-law discovered anything, he had to think of a way to make amends!

But however he made amends, he could not have someone else answer his father-in-law's questions in his place!

Especially when his father-in-law meant to test the depth of his learning.

The safest course, of course, was to apply himself diligently to the *Spring and Autumn Annals* from this very moment... But scholarship was not like laying bricks and piling tiles, where money alone would do. And it took time to buy the stone and hire the masons! He was facing the predicament of being examined at any moment.

At this thought, Song Yan sighed to himself in secret.

Out of the corner of her eye Dou Yan caught his slightly frozen expression and nearly burst out laughing.

She had known long ago that this fellow was a clever little rogue!

He was only fifteen or sixteen. Every day he had to practice martial arts and drill in riding and archery, and in earlier years he had followed the Duke of Dingguo into the field to be tempered in real battle. Even if he never slept a single hour in all twelve of the day's double hours, the three volumes of the *Spring and Autumn Annals*, several hundred thousand characters, could not possibly be read through entirely—let alone understood!

The moment she heard it, she knew the fellow was flattering her father.

Yet for some reason her father and uncle had actually believed him!

Now let us see how he gets himself down from this!

Dou Yan suddenly thought of her previous life, when she had just married Wei Fan—truly it was "none asked how deep the brows were painted; the little sister-in-law tasted the broth she washed her hands to make." A boundless bitterness rose in her heart, and when she looked at Song Yan again, there was no trace of jest left in her.

She pointed toward the Wanping county office and asked Song Yan, "Is it the Shicha Lake once we go past here? I hear many people have moved there to live nowadays. My fifth uncle's old residence was bought by himself, and who would have thought he would live there twenty-odd years at a stretch. Now he has taken a wife and had children and added grandsons besides, so it has grown rather cramped. My fifth uncle urged my sixth uncle to move house together with him, but my sixth uncle thought it would put him too far from my father and be inconvenient, so he refused, and my fifth uncle was left sheepish with nothing more to say." She said this with pursed lips and a smile. "I see you are rather fond of Sister Jing. If only they would move over—it would halve the distance between us." She hoped to divert Song Yan's attention.

Song Yan laughed at her words. "Ever since I was small I envied my eldest uncle's house for its many brothers and sisters. When I was little I once made a fuss and begged Mother to give me another little sister, which made her laugh till she bent double..." Perhaps the memory of childhood had come to him, for his smile was full of reminiscence.

Since Dou Yan had decided to marry Song Yan, she must find out why Song Cen wanted Song Yan dead. Otherwise, would she not be sitting on the rim of a volcano day and night, never knowing when it might spew its lava and destroy heaven and earth, reducing everything to ashes?

Hearing Song Yan's words, her heart stirred, and she smiled. "How old was the Second Master then?"

"Two or three..." Song Dan said. "I do not remember very clearly. I only know that by then Tian'en could already run."

At that time, Jiang-shi had not been so advanced in years!

"Why would a good mother want to give you another little sister?" Dou Chu looked exceedingly curious.

Song Yan said with some embarrassment, "Later my grandmother scolded me, saying children are bestowed by the Bodhisattva, not something one has simply by asking. But I did once donate a thousand taels of silver to the Puji Temple over the matter."

Dou Yan could not help but burst out with a "pfft" of laughter.

Song Yan's face could not quite hold its composure; he nudged her with his elbow, said "Hey," and went on, "I know it was a bit foolish, but you need not laugh like that! Have you never done anything foolish from childhood up?"

"I do not think you foolish at all," Dou Xin said, unable to stop laughing. "I just find it rather interesting. Did your mother say nothing about it?"