Chapter 493 — Celebration

Miao Anping came staggering out of the tavern, drunk as a lord.

The fists fell everywhere on his vital spots; clearly, someone meant to kill him.

His head cleared at once. Pleading for mercy, he bellowed, "I am the elder brother-in-law of the Second Master of the Yingzhen Ducal Estate! Let me go, and I will give you money—money, or power, whatever you want—I swear I will not go back on my word!"

His attackers paid him no heed.

Cold dread seeped through Miao Anping. He shook with terror—and then he lost control of his bladder.

Then came a clatter of hurried footsteps, someone shouting, "Over here!"—and a group charged in to fight the men who wanted Miao Anping dead.

Miao Anping tore the black cloth bag from his head and saw that both sides wore black masks and coarse short jackets, so that he could not tell friend from foe at all.

He scrambled out of the alley on hands and knees.

Passersby shrieked at the sight of him.

Some recognized him and hurried away at a distance.

Miao Anping stumbled home.

The house was thrown into an uproar, and Mother Miao clutched her son and wept a river of tears. "What happened? Who was so bold as to bully you? I will have your father go to the yamen and report this at once! If Magistrate Xie does not give us satisfaction, we will take our grievance all the way to the palace and see to it that he loses his post!"

Miao Anping was speechless with fury. He shoved his mother aside. "What do you know?" Then he cupped his hands to his father and said, "Someone is trying to murder me!"

He told them the whole story.

The Miaos looked at one another, at a loss—whom had Miao Anping offended, and who had saved him, and why would anyone save him?

And Miao Anping, recalling the fists that had landed on him, felt a lingering chill of dread. He could sit still no longer. He rose and said, "No. I must go find Sixth Sister and have her think of something for me!"

Miao Fu was still seething over Miao Zhi's falling-out with Song Han, and snorted. "What can she do? Without the Yingzhen Ducal Estate, she is nothing—not worth a dog's fart."

"What do you know!" Miao Anping had no patience to argue with his father. "Sixth Sister lives on the Yingzhen Ducal Estate's farmstead now, under the Heir's protection. So long as she keeps her virtue, she is a thousand times better off than she ever was with Song Han." With that, heedless of his father's bulging eyes and huffing, he went off to the farmstead where Miao Zhi lived.

However worthless this brother of hers might be, he was still her own flesh and blood. Faced with a matter of life and death, Miao Zhi could not simply stand by.

Her heart pounded as she heard him out, and she went to beg Dou Yan: "My brother is a troublemaker. You need only send two guards to watch over him, so that no one can waylay him in the dark. As for the rest—just pretend you never saw it."

Miao Zhi wanted only to keep Miao Anping alive.

Dou Yan thought it over, then reminded her, "Even if I set two guards over your brother, that cannot last forever. I think the one who tied the knot must be the one to untie it—you would do better to have your brother go to the Second Master."

At first Miao Zhi did not grasp Dou Zhiwei's meaning. Only when she was seated in the carriage back to the farmstead did it come to her.

She could not help an "Ai yo!" and ordered the driver, "Back to Four Lane Alley."

The carriage turned. They had gone nearly half an hour when Miao Zhi's dejected voice came again from within: "Never mind. Let us go back to the farmstead after all!"

The driver turned the carriage again.

Miao Zhi flung herself onto the great bolster and wept without a sound, grinding her teeth in fury.

All she had done was squeeze a few hundred taels out of him, and he could take a man's life for it—what coldness of heart that showed. If she went on wearing him down like this, one day she might well lose her life.

No, she had to find a way to get away from Song Han quickly.

As Miao Zhi sat brooding in the carriage, word came from the Crane Cry Temple Lane: "The Seventh Master says you are to bring Yuanheng with you when you come."

History had not strayed far from its course. Dou Huaide had passed the provincial examination, and Dou Huaiying resolved to seize the occasion to invite every Dou in the capital to the house for a merry gathering.

Dou Xin accepted the invitation and said to Gao Sheng's wife, who had brought it: "Go back and tell my father that I am off duty that day, and the Heir and I will certainly be there."

Gao Sheng's wife answered with a beaming smile, and Dou Yan had someone take her to see Gao Xing.

Song Yan saw the invitation and Dou Chu choosing gifts for Dou Huaide in the storehouse. "I wonder whether Sixth Uncle and Sixth Aunt will live to regret it—Eleventh Brother failed this time."

In the end Dou Yong did pass the imperial examination, though Sixth Aunt and Sixth Uncle did not know it yet.

After Dou Yan arrived at Crane Cry Temple Lane, she could not help studying Sixth Aunt's expression.

Seeing this, Ji Shi tweaked her nose and laughed. "You clever little thing—a mother yourself now, and still so mischievous!"

Dou Chiyou rubbed his nose and retorted, "How am I mischievous?"

"As if I do not know what you are thinking!" Ji Shi scolded fondly. "You are afraid I will see that your Twelfth Brother has passed and that your Sixth Uncle and I will regret it, are you not? Your Twelfth Brother was adopted under your father's name precisely to carry on the household. Now that he has it in him to do so, I am too delighted to regret anything!" She added, "And I believe your Eleventh Brother is diligent and hardworking too, and will surely not betray those ten years of studying by a cold window."

Dou Yan was moved. She took Ji Shi's arm and said with a grin, "Sixth Aunt, your heart is so broad. There is so much I must learn from you."

"Save your flattery!" Ji Shi patted her hand and spoke with her of intimate matters.

A maid came in to announce, "The mistresses and young ladies of Elm Tree Lane have arrived with their sons and daughters."

Ji Shi and Dou Yan went out to greet the guests.

After the exchanges of long-separated greetings, they went to the flower hall.

Ji Shi and the Fifth Madam walked at the front, discussing which of the capital's official families had sons who had passed the provincial examination this time, while Dou Yan and the others followed behind.

Guo Shi shot a glance at Dou Yan.

Dou Chi slipped back a few steps without making a sound. The others went into the flower hall, while the two of them stood talking under the covered walkway outside it.

"I did as you said," she murmured. "Mother-in-law told me to take both of Bai Shi's sons into my rooms to raise, and I refused. Whose sons they are is whose sons they are. Their birth mother is still alive. However well I treat them, I am only their legal mother. Rather than fight Bai Shi over them, I would sooner treat mother and sons kindly, and put my energy into Pin Yuan instead--raise her well, find her a good match. They will not dare slight me either way."

Dou Yan smiled faintly. "Just so! A life is only a few short decades. Why drive yourself so hard?"

Guo Shi nodded again and again, and, laughing, arm in arm with Dou Yan, she entered the flower hall.

Presently the eldest cousin-in-law and the rest arrived, and the flower hall grew lively.

Then Gao Sheng's wife came in, her face strange, and whispered at Dou Yan's ear: "Fourth Aunt, Young Master Ji wishes to see you!"

Ji Yong?

Dou Yan was greatly surprised. She said a few words to Ji Shi and went to the study in the front courtyard.

Ji Yong wore a straight-cut robe of sapphire blue, belted at the waist with a silk cord of the same color. On his handsome face his two sword-straight brows were knit tight, and he was pacing the room in visible anxiety.