Chapter 274 — Don't Even Think About It

Dou Yan listened with a smile, watching her quietly. Her clear gaze was not only limpid but carried the detached, all-seeing air of one who looked down upon the ways of the world, and it made Madam Dong deeply uncomfortable. Her words lost the fluency they had had a moment before. "...My mother-in-law has no other way..."

No other way—and so she shows me her displeasure before all the serving women of the Yingzhenguo Estate?

No other way—and so she sends her daughter-in-law to plead weakness and curry favor with both sides?

Dou Yan had seen plenty of this sort—one face to your face, another behind your back.

It was only a pity about Madam Dong. She had actually believed the two of them might become sisters-in-law who could chat about the weather together.

Dou Yan sipped her tea at her ease, treating Madam Dong as no more than a fly buzzing at her ear.

Madam Dong soon became aware of her awkward position.

Embarrassed, she broke off. It occurred to her that her father- and mother-in-law had already curried favor with the Duke of Yingguo, and while they lived there was nothing to worry about; but when the household came into her hands, she would have to deal with Dou Yan. And not only her—her son and grandson too would likely need Song Yan's patronage. Gritting her teeth, she dropped to her knees before Dou Zhiwei with a "thud," and said, her face burning with shame, "Sister-in-law, I know you are unhappy, and I apologize to you on my mother-in-law's behalf. If you still have it in your heart to forgive, I will apologize to you before the whole household later..."

Dou Yan shot a glance at Suxin.

Suxin stepped forward at once and helped Madam Dong to her feet.

"Elder Sister-in-law, you make too much of it," Dou Yan said, setting down her teacup and taking out a handkerchief to wipe her hands. "I am not one to haggle over trifles. I can see that you and your mother-in-law are both clever women, so I will not make things hard for you—rather than have the two of you kneel and beg my pardon before every servant in the house, till masters no longer look like masters and servants no longer look like servants, you would do better to hand me the tally tokens your father-in-law gave you." She smiled warmly. "The affairs of the household need not trouble Eldest Aunt any longer; I will see to them properly myself."

To Madam Dong's eyes, that smile was unbearably galling.

She gaped, and only after a long while managed, "That... that hardly seems right..."

Dou Yan's expression changed in an instant, and she brought her palm down on the kang table with a "smack" that set the cups on it chiming and clinking: "Do you take me for a fool? You want to eat from the bowl while eyeing the pot—but that depends on whether you have the ability! To curry favor with both sides—not a chance! Either you hand over the tally tokens, and we may still part with some goodwill between us, or you do as my father-in-law bids and keep trying to make trouble for me. But let me tell you plainly: do not imagine that holding the Duke of Yingguo's tally tokens makes you mistress of the Yingzhen Estate, free to do whatever you please. If you make me unhappy, do not blame me later for giving no quarter and leaving you nowhere to show your faces!"

How could there be such a coarse woman in this world?

Was the Dou family not a house of letters and propriety?

How had they raised a girl like this?

Madam Dong nearly fainted.

"You—you—you..." she stammered, pointing at Dou Yan, her face ashen, at a loss for words.

Dou Yan gave a cold laugh and took up her tea.

Suxin called out loudly, "Seeing the guest out!"

Madam Dong fled in disarray.

Dou Yan instructed Suxin, "Take the tea she drank and the cup she used to the flower hall in the upper courtyard—spill it in my own courtyard and it would dirty my floor!" She meant to humiliate the elder madam and her daughter-in-law, and also to make everyone understand that the elder madam was merely blustering: this household was still hers to command.

Smiling, Suxin summoned a young servant and had him carry the cup Madam Dong had drunk from on a tray to the flower hall.

This time the elder madam was truly beside herself with anger: "So utterly ungrateful! So utterly ungrateful! Is she not afraid the Lord of Zhenguo will take a dislike to her?"

Madam Dong said hesitantly, "Money gives a person courage. I doubt the Dou girl much fears how the Lord of Zhenguo might treat her—otherwise, when Second Uncle summoned her to talk, she would never have dared to drag her feet and only go when he was about to set out!"

Yes—at the time she had only thought it strange, and had never considered it from that angle.

This niece-in-law would not be moved by soft words or hard; clearly she was not easy to deal with.

She could not help pressing a hand to her brow.

She felt as though she had taken a scalding hot potato into her hands.

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Sisters and brothers, here is the make-up update for July 6!

o(n_n)o~

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