Chapter 401 — Coming and Going

Jiang Xiexiu paused, then walked over and stood shoulder to shoulder with her against the pillar, tilting her face up at the sky as the other had done, and asked softly, "What are you looking at?"

Across the rectangle of sky a flock of pigeons flew, their whistles shrill, shattering the quiet of the courtyard.

Gazing up, Jiang Xieying murmured, "I was thinking... I wonder whether I will ever have the chance to see the capital's sky again."

And certain people.

She said it silently in her heart.

Her hand turned lightly the string of agarwood beads on her wrist.

Jiang Xiexiu turned her head; her gaze lingered a moment on the beads.

She still remembered: it had been the Lantern Festival, four years ago. They were still the young ladies of the Dingzhen residence then, and Song Yan, heir to the Yingzhen residence, had come to offer congratulations to their grandmother. Apart from the gifts presented to the elders, each of the sisters had received a string of agarwood prayer beads.

Cousin Hanzhu had tossed hers into her dressing case without a second thought; she herself had tucked hers happily under her pillow. But Fourteenth Sister had slipped hers onto her wrist and worn it day and night, never once taking it off.

So when the house was confiscated, their beads were all lost. Only Fourteenth Sister's had survived.

And yet, what of it?

She raised her eyes to the sky and said softly, "Our cousin's wife is beautiful. And kind, too. From the look of Cousin, he dotes on her as well. He used to be the sort who would simply walk off without a word; sending a servant round to inquire after us was already generous of him. Now he comes to fetch her every day when the office closes. He is doing very well."

Yet a haze gathered in her eyes all the same, and sourness welled up in her heart.

Jiang Xieying, meanwhile, was remembering how the sisters had hidden behind the holly bushes to watch their cousins shoot arrows, and how, when they were discovered, she and the others had fled giggling into the rockery. Thirteenth Sister, the slowest of them all, had been caught, yet she came to a halt without the least fluster, fixed her big eyes on Cousin Song without blinking, and said, "I saw that all my cousins shoot splendidly. I came specially to cheer for you."

She could not help smiling, her lips pressed together.

All that had gone before was like a lovely dream. What was the use of brooding over it now?

"Yes!" she said from the bottom of her heart. "Knowing that Cousin and the others are all doing well, I have nothing left to worry about."

Laughter and chatter drifted faintly toward them.

Jiang Xieying straightened up with a smile, gave her lapels a light brush, and said, "Thirteenth Sister, we must have guests. Shall we go out and see to them?"

Jiang Xiexiu answered with a smile, "Yes," and the two sisters went off arm in arm to the main hall.

*****

On the third day Jiang Ling returned to her parents' home for the customary visit; on the fourth day the womenfolk of the Jiang family left the capital.

When they departed, the families that had attended Jiang Ling's wedding learned that Fourth Madam Jiang had decided to keep the remaining girls in Haozhou, so that her younger brothers, still in their childhood years, would have someone to depend on.

Even so, Song Han would not let the matter drop.

He knelt in the main courtyard of the Yingzhen residence and begged Song Cen to take charge of the affair and ask for a Jiang daughter on his behalf.

In his words, to bind the two families still closer by another marriage with his mother's kin was a thing Lady Jiang, could she know of it beneath the earth, would surely find pleasing and nod her consent to.

In no time at all, Song Han's reputation for filial devotion spread far and wide.

Song Cen summoned Song Yan and his wife to the study and said to Song Han with a half-smile, "It is a pity that Xiexiu and Xieying are both already promised to others. If you want to marry your cousin, I fear you will have to wait a few years yet."

The other Jiang daughters were still young.

But Song Han said, "So long as Father agrees to let me marry a Jiang daughter, I am willing to wait a few years."

His tone was so decisive that it filled Dou Yan with misgivings.

That Song Han admired Jiang Xiexiu and wished to take her as his wife was only natural. But the Jiang family had refused him outright, and he had won himself a fine name for "filial devotion" in the bargain. So why did he still insist on marrying a Jiang daughter? And from the way he spoke, it seemed any Jiang daughter would do. Did he truly love Jiang Xiexiu, then, or was it simply that Lady Jiang had once wished to betroth Jiang Xiexiu to Song Yan?

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Brothers and sisters, here is the first update of the day.

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