Chapter 54 — Old Acquaintances

Grandmother observed Tuoniang for some time, and seeing that she was honest and good-natured at heart, she grew rather fond of her and genuinely wished to find her a fine match. So whenever she had a moment to spare, she would take Dou Yan strolling about the village, and whenever they came across a young man of suitable age, she could not help but look at him a little longer and ask a question or two more. Within a few days, word had gone round the village that Seventh Master Dou had asked Grandmother to find him an honest, dependable attendant, and thereafter, whenever Grandmother and Dou Yan went out, they would keep running into people who had conveniently brought their sons along to cross their path.

Grandmother was caught between laughter and exasperation, yet she could hardly explain why, and so she could only go on repeating, "There is no such thing, there is no such thing."

Naturally, no one believed it.

It was at this very time that Dou Ming encountered Zhao Liangbi.

The Zhaos and the Cuis were relatives, though precisely how they were related she had never been able to work out.

That day they were taking their evening meal in the courtyard when Zhao Liangbi's father came shuffling slowly in, his hands tucked into his sleeves and his back bent, while eight-year-old Zhao Liangbi followed sullenly behind him, his head hanging low.

"Elder Sister-in-law," Zhao Liangbi's father said, halting some distance away, a smile of studied eagerness squeezed onto his thin, dark face, "you eating?" Zhao Liangbi, meanwhile, had crouched down by the gate.

Grandmother quickly set down her bowl, called out "Third Brother," and welcomed him warmly: "Have you eaten? Join us and have a little more!" Then she called for a maid to bring a stool and another set of bowls and chopsticks.

Zhao Liangbi's father waved his hands again and again. "We have already eaten, already eaten!" Then he looked at Dou Yan and said, "This must be the Fourth Young Lady, is it not? So fair and clean-skinned—she looks like a figure out of a New Year print."

Grandmother chuckled and ordered tea and refreshments brought in.

At that, Zhao Liangbi's father bellowed at Zhao Liangbi: "You dog! What are you crouching there for? Get over here and kowtow to the Fourth Young Lady and your Elder Sister-in-law!"

Zhao Liangbi came over with a dark scowl on his face.

"This is?" Grandmother asked, looking at Zhao Liangbi's father in confusion.

"Elder Sister-in-law." Zhao Liangbi's father gave an embarrassed laugh. "A half-grown boy eats his father out of house and home. You know my wife—three hundred and sixty days of the year, she lies abed three hundred and sixty of them, and what little the fields bring in is not enough to pay for her medicine. Gousheng here—we truly cannot feed him any longer. I hear Seventh Master Dou is looking for an attendant..." He gazed at Grandmother with a face full of earnest entreaty.

Grandmother was stunned.

Dou Yan was stunned too.

In her last life, Zhao Liangbi had not appeared until she was ten. Back then, Zhao Liangbi's mother had died of illness, and his father had decided to go to Fujian with others to work as a carpenter, entrusting the thirteen-year-old Zhao Liangbi to Grandmother, while Zhao Liangbi's nine-year-old sister was given away to be a child bride... In this life, because of Tuoniang, he had appeared at the farmstead five years early.

Would fate be changed on account of this?

Dou Yan pondered.

Then she heard Zhao Liangbi's father stammer: "I know Gousheng here is no looker and has no particular talent... but for the sake of our being kin, won't you put in a word for us..."

Before he had finished speaking, Zhao Liangbi, standing awkwardly to one side, had already cried out loudly: "Father, how many times have I told you—the closer the kin, the less likely Elder Sister-in-law is to recommend anyone to the Dou family! Why can you never take that in..."

Zhao Liangbi's father gave him a furious kick. "When grown-ups are talking, children keep out of it." Then his face shifted back into an ingratiating smile for Grandmother. "Elder Sister-in-law, do not listen to the boy's nonsense. I know—you are afraid people will say you are taking advantage of the Dou family..."

"Elder Sister-in-law," Zhao Liangbi cried, cutting his father off from where he had been kicked aside, "my father cannot feed me. Keep me here at the farmstead! I can do any work at all—just give me a bowl of food and that is enough."

The father glared furiously at his son, and the son glared back at his father without the least yielding.

Grandmother laughed. "Third Brother, if you trust me, then leave the boy with me. I certainly cannot take him into the Dou household as a servant, but I can see that he is fed and clothed."

Zhao Liangbi's father was about to say something more, but Zhao Liangbi had already answered loudly, "Good!"

Grandmother cut through the tangle with a clean stroke, arranging for Zhao Liangbi and his father to go and rest, then instructing Honggu: "Third Brother and the boy surely have not had their evening meal yet. Shouyuan is here with me, and I feared she would find them dirty, so I did not dare keep them to eat. Go to the kitchen now and make them a great bowl of noodles with pork slices—plenty of pork, seven parts fat to three parts lean, laid thick over the noodles. Understand?"

Honggu nodded with a smile and went off to the kitchen.

Early the next morning, Zhao Liangbi's father set off for home carrying a basket of griddle cakes Grandmother had given him, while Zhao Liangbi, without waiting to be told, swept the courtyard clean from front to back, and then, putting down the broom, went to cut grass and feed the horses.

Dou Yan practiced her writing in her room, but her thoughts were on Cui Min.

A reception office—only households of dukes and ministers kept such a place, devoted solely to social obligations and the comings and goings of guests. In families of officials, it was handled by long-serving secretaries, and the secretaries of official families were mostly failed xiucai or juren... If in this life she did not marry into the Jining Marquis household, then where would Cui Min's prospects lie?

In her last life, Cui Min had been the backbone of the Cui family.

If Cui Min ended up doing no more than staying in his native village and becoming an obscure farmer, then what changes would come to the Cui family's future?

Should she help Cui Min?

And how should she help him?

Dou Yan bowed her head in thought.

From outside came Zhao Liangbi's sweet voice: "Young Miss, this teapot is a bit heavy. Let me carry it in for you?"

"Look at your hands—filthy." It was Haitang speaking. "If you carried this teapot in, could our young lady still drink from it?"

"Then—then I will go wash my hands." Zhao Liangbi went pattering off.

When Dou Yan saw him again, the dirt was gone even from under his fingernails, and he looked fresh and clean all over.

He bustled about briskly, helping Haitang and the others tidy the rooms.

Haitang asked him: "Is the courtyard swept clean?"

"Swept clean!"

"Have you fed the foal?"

"Fed!"

"Have the weeds been cut?"

"They've been cut."

All these chores had somehow become Zhao Liangbi's responsibility.

He had picked up the spoiled sheet of Dou Zhao's calligraphy practice and was turning it over and over, his face full of admiration. "The Fourth Young Lady's writing is truly beautiful!"

Haitang and the others covered their mouths and laughed. "Can you even read it?"

"N-no, I can't." For the first time, Zhao Liangbi—whose hide was so thick that no matter what you said to him, he would answer with a grin—turned red with shame and embarrassment.

Dou Yan's heart stirred. She asked him, "Would you like to learn to read?"

His whole face lit up. "I would! Of course I would." Then his expression dimmed again. "But my father has no money."