Chapter 405 — Back Then

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He liked to pin every fault on someone else's shoulders — no wonder Li Liangnian was past thirty and still had nothing to show for his life.

He cast Li Liang a silent glance from the corner of his eye.

Song Sui had no patience for this sort of family gossip and cut straight to it: "Whose child is Yigui?"

Li Liang's head snapped up, and he stared at Song Yan as though he could not believe his ears. "Whose else would she be but a child of the Song family!" Then a look of sudden understanding crossed his face, and he rushed on: "That base, shameless wretch Song Cen must have told your household that Yao Niang was dead, hasn't he? Back then the old Lord Zhenguo brought men himself to force the abortion draught down Yao Niang's throat. She hemorrhaged badly and truly did pass into unconsciousness. But Heaven had its eye on her. The old lord had brought several grown men with him, and since Yao Niang had served that beast Song Cen, they dared not look too closely; they felt for breath, found none, and withdrew. My mother nursed her without sleep or rest for the better part of a month, pouring ginseng and birds' nests down her throat as though silver meant nothing, emptying the dowry my maternal grandfather had given my mother — and only so was Yao Niang's life preserved. Then, fearing your family might come searching and find her still alive, we sold the ancestral house for a pittance, gave out that my sister had fallen gravely ill, that the Daoist priests said the yang energy of the capital was too strong and her life would not be safe there, and moved to my uncle's house in the countryside of Yuanping to stay a while. Two more years of nursing, and Yao Niang could at last rise from her bed.

"Who would have thought your father would come looking again.

"My poor sister — she was utterly infatuated with your father, wanted nothing in this world but to wait on him, and let herself be coaxed by him into lying with him again."

Here his teeth ground together once more.

"But your father had the heart of a wolf and the lungs of a dog.

"The very next day he sent my sister back and vanished without a trace.

"And as ill luck would have it, my sister was with child again.

"The physician said her body had been drained by the earlier ordeal and she could not withstand an abortion, so the child would have to be carried to term.

"I went quietly to find your father.

"At first he refused to see me. When at last he did, all he asked was how much silver I wanted.

"I was so furious I nearly struck him across the face. I went home, gathered my sister and my mother, and moved us to Persimmon Alley outside the city walls, so that when my sister's time came we would not be at a loss for a midwife.

"Little did I expect that when the child was nearly seven months along, your father came looking for us again. He said your grandfather had fallen ill and was no longer as stubborn as before, that what Yao Niang carried was a child of the Song line, that your grandfather would surely not be as unyielding once he saw it, and that Yao Niang should go back with him — perhaps, for the sake of the child, your grandfather would let her through the gate.

"I thought it better to wait until Yao Niang had given birth. If it was a boy, the Song family would certainly acknowledge both mother and child. But if it was a girl, what use had the Songs for a daughter?

"My mother and Yao Niang, though, both thought it a fine opportunity, and paid no heed to my objections. Yao Niang went off with your father to the English Guild. In a rage, I went to my uncle's house.

"Before many days had passed, my mother sent word to me: the Song family would not only refuse to acknowledge Yao Niang and the child, they had drugged her. The child was born premature, and Yao Niang's life hung by a thread.

"I set out from my uncle's house that very night, racing back to the capital.

"Halfway there I met my mother and Yao Niang, fleeing from the capital.

"Yao Niang was at her last breath, yet the child was healthy and lively — newborn, its cord not yet fallen off, and yet so tender and fair, so very beautiful. Not like other infants, all wrinkled and red as skinned monkeys.

"I fell in love with her at first sight.

"So when my mother proposed giving her away, I kept the child instead.

"And I gave her the name 'Yigui.'

"I hoped she might borrow something of the Song family's eminence, that her road through life might run smooth, that she might marry into a good house.

"Yao Niang was weak and had no milk. It was I who cooked rice paste for Yigui every day.

"Yao Niang hated Song Cen and could not bear the sight of the child. It was I who spent the silver meant for brushes, ink, paper and inkstones to hire a wet nurse for Yigui.

"After I married, Yigui stayed with my wife.

"I raised her as though she were my own daughter. Whatever my own children had, she had; whatever they did not have, she had first.

"I treasured her like a pearl and raised her to her teens — and who would have thought that at the crucial hour I would be the one to ruin her..."

Li Liang covered his face with his unbroken left hand and wept again.

Chen Jia could not help sighing inwardly.

He believed every word Li Liang said was true.

Otherwise Yigui would never have hurried off with him the moment she heard he and Li Liang were acquainted; nor would she have bowed her head for Li Liang's sake just now.

But even if it was all true, what good did it do?

If Yigui truly was Lady Jiang's daughter, then even if Li Liang had once fed her with his own flesh and blood, given how things stood now, Song Yan's temper would never let Li Liang off.

Li Liang would do better to find some way to beg Yigui to plead for him before Song Yan. No — Song Yan loathed the Li family utterly now; perhaps the more Yigui pleaded for them, the deeper Song Yan's hatred would grow.

All along the way he had never let Song Yan out of the corner of his eye, and he had noticed that whenever Song Yan was ill at ease, he would reach for Lady Dou's hand — so much did she mean to him.

Rather than plead with Song Yan, Yigui should plead with Lady Dou.

And Lady Dou, being an outsider to all this, would surely keep a cooler head than Song Yan.

But there were only the three of them in this room — himself, Li Liang, and Song Yan. How was word to be sent to Lady Dou?

Chen Jia grew anxious.

Then he heard Song Yan say to him: "Go tell Xia Lian to bring Li Yao Niang here!"

Chen Jia hurried out to pass on the word, and as he spoke he saw Duan Bing pucker his lips toward the side chamber.

Duan Binghui nodded in understanding.

Chen Jia breathed a sigh of relief, and then heard a "clatter" from inside the room.

He lifted the curtain and entered the tea room.

Song Ke had somehow made his way to Li Liang's side and kicked over the small stool Li Liang was sitting on. Li Liang crashed to the ground; unable to move half his body, he curled up on the floor like a shrimp and could not rise, moaning softly.

How had he managed to provoke Song Yan this time?

The heir of the Duke of Yingguo was famously imperturbable; today he must truly have been furious, to let his feelings show so plainly on his face.

Chen Jia muttered to himself inwardly while bending down to help Li Liang up.

Song Sui stepped his foot down on Li Liang's thumb and asked Chen Jia, "I've heard it said that if a man's thumb is ruined, he can never hold a brush again for the rest of his life. Is that so?"

Chen Jia was badly frightened.

Li Liang, however, cried out in terror: "What are you doing? Is there no law left in this world?"

Song Yan wore a faint smile, like the spring breeze of the third month, bright and gentle, and asked Li Liang in an ever clearer voice, "You still haven't told me — what difference would it make if Song Han had come?"

Li Liang and Chen Jia both froze.

The toe of Song Yan's shoe pressed down.

Li Liang let out a miserable scream.