Chapter 347 — Midnight

The Dou family sent several matrons along with the carriage, and Wei Wan escorted Tian-shi back to the Jining Marquis household.

Wei Fan, having got word of it, was already waiting at the hanging-flower gate.

"How could Mother suddenly faint?" He hurried forward, lifted the curtain, and asked Wei Wan, "Is it serious? What did the physician say?"

Because the Dou family's matron was still beside the carriage, Tian-shi had no choice but to go on feigning unconsciousness.

Wei Wan only laughed coldly, several times over, and said, "Go ask your wife!"

What did this have to do with Dou Ming?

Wei Fan was dumbfounded.

The sight of him made Wei Wan's blood rise. She shoved her brother aside and, supported by her personal maid, climbed down from the carriage.

The Wei family's serving women hurried to bring a soft sedan over.

Wei Wan directed them to lift Tian-shi onto it, then dismissed the Dou family's serving women, and together with Matron Jin and the rest escorted the sedan through the hanging-flower gate, never once glancing at Wei Fan from the corner of her eye the whole way, as though he were a stranger.

Wei Fan felt a misery he could not put into words.

He followed Wei Wan silently into the eastern wing, and while she settled Tian-shi, he sat with his head bowed on a grand master's chair in the main room, waiting for her to come out.

Seeing her brother in such a spineless state, Wei Wan was both angry and helpless. She recounted the visit to Locust Tree Lane with embellishments, and said, "Mother is out of danger now. The one she frets over most is you. Go and see her." Then she added, "If you could keep your wife in hand, how would Mother have suffered such humiliation at the Dou family's hands?"

Wei Fan went purple with rage and turned to stride out.

Wei Wan quickly caught hold of him. "Where are you going?"

"I am going to divorce Dou Ming!" Wei Fan said, beside himself with fury. "I would rather be alone all my life than stay with a woman with a viper's heart!"

"Nonsense!" Wei Wan shouted. "What sort of family is the Dou family? Do you think Dou Ming is yours to divorce at will? If you divorce your wife, where does that leave Mother? I thought you had married and grown sensible — why are you still behaving like a child?"

This matter, after all, concerned Tian-shi; to speak of it was to drag her into it.

Wei Fan hung his head and said nothing, utterly deflated.

Wei Wan's heart ached at the sight, and her voice softened. "Don't worry too much. Mother said she will teach her the rules herself. So long as she obeys, she is not beyond saving."

What else could be done?

Wei Fan was consumed with regret.

Wei Wan took his hand. "Enough. Let us not talk of these miserable things. Let us go and see Mother, and sit with her awhile."

Wei Fan nodded, and went with Wei Wan into the wing.

Meanwhile Dou Ming, resting in Tian-shi's inner chamber, heard the commotion. She quickly sent Nurse Zhou out to learn what had happened, and when she heard that Tian-shi and Wei Wan had gone to Locust Tree Lane to scold her, only to be left speechless by the Dou family's people and faint dead away, she trembled with rage and cried shrilly, "I must have been blind! I took my mother-in-law for a kind and good-hearted woman, but she is nothing but a sting in the wasp's tail, and she must needs put on an air of virtue and propriety. She disgusts me a hundred times, a thousand times more than those who speak their malice outright!" Then she asked, "And the Marquis? Has my sister-in-law dragged him off again for a private talk?"

Dou Ming had a little maid leak word of her miscarriage to the servant boy attending Wei Fan, and Wei Fan indeed came running, past grievances forgotten. He not only consulted the physician about which medicines to use, but personally inspected the herbs once they were bought before letting Nurse Zhou brew them. His attentiveness gave her, who had just lost a child, a measure of comfort.

But this tenderness lasted less than half an hour. Wei Fan was called out by his servant boy, and did not return.

Nurse Zhou urged her, "Madam, your health is still frail; you should not trouble yourself with these matters. Whatever tricks the Dowager and the eldest young madam may get up to, the fact remains that they cost you your little son. The Dou family will not let them run wild."

Dou Ming was not appeased. She instructed Nurse Zhou, "Find a way to send word to Willow Leaf Lane and tell my grandmother what has happened to me."

Nurse Zhou, too, felt the Wei family had gone too far. She nodded and said, "Yes," and quietly sent someone to carry the message to Willow Leaf Lane.

Far away in the east of the city, at the Ying mansion, Dou Yan knew nothing of what had happened at the Jining Marquis household.

Song Yan had been counting the days of her pregnancy almost on his fingers. The moment she reached three months, he invited Wang Benju, the imperial physician of the Imperial Medical Academy most skilled in gynecology, to the house to take Dou Yan's pulse. When the pregnancy was confirmed beyond any doubt, Wang Benju had not yet taken his leave before Song Yan sent men to Longhua Temple Lane and Cat Lane with the good news. As a result, before the miscarriage-preventing medicine Wang Benju prescribed had even been decocted, Dou Huaiying arrived with great bundles of tonics, drank Song Yan into a stupor, and clapped him on the shoulder, pressing a stack of silver notes into his hand, telling him to take good care of Dou Yan and on no account to make her angry; and that even if he lay alone night after night, he was not to carry on at home, for there were plenty of private courtyards in the lanes around North Zen Temple — whatever it took, the child must be brought safely into the world first.

Dou Yan did not know whether to laugh or cry.

In the evening, Song Yan came home; after washing up, he leaned against the head of the bed reading, as was his habit.

She lay on his shoulder, her arms around his waist, and asked, "I hear there are many private courtyards near North Zen Temple?"

Those little rascals — all they knew was how to curry favor with Dou Yan. The words had barely left his mouth before they carried them straight to her, so that Yizhi Hall now had no secrets at all from Dou Yan.

Song Yan cursed them inwardly, though in his heart he knew perfectly well that it was all his own doing, having spoiled them. Yet he did not feel angry; he found it amusing instead.

His eyes were fixed on the book, but his mind was entirely on his waist — Dou Yan's hand, fine as congealed cream, slightly cool, was stroking his waist, her fingertips drifting downward now and then, pausing a moment, as if hesitating whether to go further.

"That's right!" he said absently. "And they are all like Zhao Zishu — a sheep's head hung up while dog's meat is sold — and each with its own specialty. A fine place to while away the time."

Dou Yan bit his ear and whispered, "Then do you want to go?"

"Of course I do!" Song Yan put down his book and said with a straight face. "Any man would want to go!"

For some reason, though it was only a jest between husband and wife, and though Dou Yan was quite certain Song Yan would go to such places, hearing him say it still left her uneasy; she even felt a little dejected, and lay down, asking him, "Is Zhao Zishu the star there?"

Just as a gentleman of fashion in the capital must be able to recite the new dishes at the Drunken Immortal Tower, so must he know which courtyards in the North Zen Temple lanes are most in vogue. Song Yan seldom set foot in North Zen Temple, but he had heard what made each of the most talked-of courtyards in those lanes distinctive, and he meant to banter with Dou Yan and pass judgment on them all. But when he turned his head, he caught the flicker of embarrassment in her eyes, and the smile on her face had lost its earlier sweetness.

Could it be that Dou Yan was jealous?