Chapter 461 — Struck

Miao Anping ground his teeth with a squeak. "What is this, then? I only made a few harmless remarks about the Song family. Is Song Han going to hold it against me for a thousand years? Not only did he refuse to help, he even pushed out one of his own guards to slap me in the face. He takes me for some penniless relation come to cadge a meal!"

Song Han knew nothing about the matter at all.

Miao Anping's face went livid with rage. Leng Heng glanced at the Miao siblings and said, "Whatever quarrel you two have, leave me out of it," then swept out in a swirl of sleeves.

Miao Anping leapt up as though dropped into a cauldron of boiling oil, cursed Miao Zhi up hill and down dale, and demanded she go to Song Cen and get the man replaced.

Miao Zhi wept buckets, yet she sat there and would not budge.

How could things fall out so neatly? Her brother had only just said he meant to seek the constable's post in Jurong, and a guard who had come down from Zhending with Dou Yan had got the appointment... If there was no trickery in it, she would not believe it on any account.

Song Han thought the same.

He loathed Miao Anping, but Miao Anping was his wife's brother after all, and for him to be slapped in the face this way left Song Han equally without face.

Song Han gazed toward Yizhi Hall, his heart churning like water at a rolling boil.

Inside Yizhi Hall, the guard who had won the post was kneeling and knocking his head to Dou Yan in thanks.

Dou Xin said, "This has nothing to do with me. It was all the heir's idea. If you want to give thanks, go give thanks to the heir!"

The guard was quick-witted and flattering. "Without the lady, how would the heir ever know men like us? The heir I must thank, and the lady I must thank as well."

This set everyone in high good humor.

Dou Yan rewarded him with fifty taels of silver to have an official uniform made and to grease the palms of his superiors.

The guard thanked them again and again before withdrawing.

Back in the east side courtyard, he asked Gao Xing's wife to help him lay out several tables of wine and invited the Yizhi Hall guards to drink. Everyone made merry for two days.

Dou Yan, for her part, was turning something over in her mind: since Song Yan had tacitly consented to the match between Jiang Yan and Chen Jia, that last thin membrane of pretense had to be pierced.

Judging by Chen Jia's Xuanqing Sect, they had probably never even considered such a thing. As for Jiang Yan's side, soundings would have to be taken first. And besides, a girl is married upward and a bride taken downward; it has always been the man's family that proposes and the woman's that receives. For the woman's family to propose would be to bow a head lower.

She thought it over and over, and the only fit go-between was Jiang Ling.

Dou Yan invited Jiang Ling to the house to hear a performance of opera, and let slip a hint or two.

Jiang Ling was a clever woman and understood at once. She smiled and said, "Leave this matter to me!"

Back home, she summoned Yao Er's wife to go and make conversation.

By the time Tao Er's wife came out of the Wu house, she was so dazed she could scarcely tell north from south.

The moment she was through the door she seized Tao Er. "Pinch me, quick—am I dreaming?"

Tao Er laughed. "What's got into you?"

Scarcely had the words left his mouth when Chen Jia returned from the yamen.

Tao Er's wife gave a start and said hurriedly, "My lord, today the mistress of the Wu house invited me to their residence to talk."

Chen Jia reflected that if it were not for the matter of Jiang Yan, why would Jiang Ling have summoned his household's old nurse for a word? His heart tightened, though his face showed no ripple. "What did the mistress of the Wu house want with you?"

Tao Er's wife said nothing.

Chen Jia called her into the study.

Only then did Tao Er's wife say, "The young lady of the Yingzhen Wardens' household wishes to marry again, and the mistress of the Wu house called me in to ask about your family affairs, my lord."

Chen Jia spat a mouthful of tea straight out, spraying Tao Er's wife full in the face.

"What did you say?" he said, aghast. "The mistress of the Wu house summoned you to ask about my family affairs?"

Tao Er's wife wiped the tea from her face and laughed. "That's right! The mistress of the Wu house also said she had been asked to do so by Lady Dou."

Chen Jia's jaw all but dropped off his face.

He paced round and round the study, turning over what Tao Er's wife had said.

Could it be that the Song family meant to betroth Jiang Yan to him, and had set the mistress of the Wu house to sound him out?

But that was impossible!

He knew well enough what stock he came from. Even if the Song family had picked the wrong man, they would never settle on him—so how had he caught Lady Dou's eye?

Surely the Song family had not got the idea that he and Jiang Yan were passing things to each other in secret?

If that were so, he was in dire straits.

He himself did not care—he was a grown man, and at worst he would be laughed at as a toad dreaming of swan's flesh; there might even be some who admired his ambition!

But what of Jiang Yan?

She would likely never wash that stain from her name so long as she lived!

Best he go to Lady Dou and talk it over, and clear up this misunderstanding?

Chen Jia considered this, one foot already over the threshold, yet the other simply would not lift.

He had the chance to marry Jiang Yan... delicate and gentle, a Jiang Yan like a flower of spring!

Chen Jia's heart grew warm.

If he let this chance slip, he would never have Jiang Yan for his wife.

Should he go, or should he not?

He stood upon the threshold, and for the first time in his life he had no idea what to do.

******

Jiang Yan, meanwhile, was having a heart-to-heart with Jiang Ling.

She stared at Jiang Ling in astonishment, so frantic that tears were on the verge of falling. "Twelfth Sister, there truly is nothing between Lord Chen and me! Why will none of you believe it?" Then she began to swear an oath. "If there is any illicit feeling between Lord Chen and me, may thunder strike me..."

Jiang Ling gave a start and clapped a hand over her mouth, stopping the words before they could leave it.

"My little ancestor, you dare swear an oath like that?" she said, aghast. "I only thought Lord Chen was a decent man, and since you knew him, the notion of making a match came into my head. And here you are, cursing yourself instead." With that she let go. "Had I known it would come to this, I would not have troubled myself."

Jiang Yan's face filled with guilt. "I know it was for my sake, Sister. It is only that I wish to marry no one. Lord Chen may be good, but he is not fated to be mine."

Jiang Ling had not expected such an answer. Her expression turned solemn. "How can you think that?"

Jiang Yan lowered her eyelids and said softly, "What man would look favorably upon me once he learns what befell me? Ever since I failed to hang myself in that inn, I have known that my life is settled as it is. How would I dare dream of anything else?"

Jiang Ling said, "And if Lord Chen were to come and propose?"

"Impossible." Jiang Yan shook her head like a rattle-drum.

"But what if Lord Chen truly did come to propose?" Jiang Ling would not give up, and asked once more.

In all this world, no one knew her circumstances better than Chen Jia. If Chen Jia were still willing to come and propose... did that not mean that Chen Jia did not disdain her?

Jiang Yan's heart stirred, and in an instant all was in turmoil.

For a long while she said nothing.