Chapter 3: Ritual as a Blade

“Mother, wait.”

Lady Cui stopped. Wei Mingde and Wei Shouzheng both turned toward Nisheng with frowns.

Still kneeling with his back straight, Nisheng looked past her at the plate of shriveled pastries in the corner of the altar.

“Father ordered me to kneel here before Grandfather and Mother. I would not dare disobey. But there is something I don’t understand. May I ask you about it?”

His voice was calm, betraying no emotion.

Mingde’s frown deepened. “What is it now, you wretch?”

“Since I am facing Mother…” Nisheng pointed toward the corner. “Why is there nothing before her tablet but a plate of dried-out pastries?”

Silence fell over the hall. Mingde stared. Shouzheng followed Nisheng’s gesture and saw how pitiful the offerings before Lady Lu’s tablet were. Beside them, fresh fruit lay before his grandfather’s and uncle’s tablets, with fragrant smoke curling upward. Anyone could see the difference.

The smile vanished from Lady Cui’s face, leaving her pale. Nisheng had no intention of letting her defend herself. After that kick, did she think he’d let her get away untouched? Even if he couldn’t kill her, he’d make her pay.

He continued evenly, “Though I have not studied much, I remember a verse from the Book of Songs that I learned with my brother: ‘The wings of the katydids whir in a throng; may your descendants be numerous, generation after generation.’ Mother bore my brother and me together. Our birth was a blessing, as the ancient verse says. Yet here before her tablet there is only a piece of pine and a plate of withered cakes?”

“Wei Nisheng!” Lady Cui spun around, her voice sharp. “You accursed child who stole lives! What right have you—”

“Father!” Nisheng cut across her and looked straight at Mingde. “I know my own guilt; I am a disgrace to the Wei family! But in Great Zhou, what son gives no thought to his mother? What husband gives none to his wife?

“Mother bore Father two sons and died in childbirth. The clan elders called her a benefactor; the court honored her in death, and the genealogy records her life. By our rites, a wife shares her husband’s honors, and a mother is honored through her sons. Under clan rules, one who serves the family well deserves a place in the ancestral hall, offerings and funeral honors.

“And now? Her tablet, which should be placed at the front, is shoved into a corner. Her offerings are poorer than those made to an ordinary servant woman. So I ask: where are our rules?”

The hall went deathly still. Mingde’s face shifted between pale and green as he stared at the meager offerings and the words on the tablet: ‘Our late mother, Lady Lu.’

Lu Niang had been his first wife. He had once wanted only a comfortable life of wealth and leisure, but his elder brother had died young, leaving their father’s hopes to fall on him. Lu Niang had always been part of the security he found in life; otherwise he would not have hated Nisheng so much. And now her tablet had been treated this way.

Anger rose in his eyes, directed not at Nisheng, but at Lady Cui.

“Lady Cui!”

She flinched. “Husband…” Clutching her child, she stepped back. Shoucheng’s mouth puckered; frightened, he wanted to cry but didn’t dare.

Mingde strode to Lady Lu’s tablet and pointed at the pastries. “Lu Niang was my first wife, the birth mother of Shouzheng and Nisheng, a virtuous wife honored by the court! How dare you treat her so shabbily?”

“Master, I…” Lady Cui’s lips trembled. “It was an oversight. There have been so many things to attend to lately…”

“An oversight?” Mingde sneered. “I’d say having this little son has made you forget your place! Who manages Lu Niang’s dowry estate? Who wears the jewelry she left behind? Do you think I know nothing?”

Lady Cui opened her mouth. She wanted to blame the servants, to say she simply hadn’t had time, but couldn’t. She had personally arranged and inspected the offerings, and had allowed Lady Lu’s to be neglected. She had thought no one would care about a dead woman’s tablet. Who would stand up for someone dead more than ten years? Who could have guessed the household’s despised wretch would expose her in front of everyone?

She looked instinctively to Shouzheng, hoping he would speak for her. Though she was his stepmother, she had always treated him courteously and never shortchanged him. And Lady Lu was his own mother; if he spoke, Mingde would have to listen.

But Shouzheng stared at the tips of his shoes and said nothing. What could he say? It was his mother’s tablet. However much he hated Nisheng, he couldn’t declare in public that his mother didn’t deserve offerings. What would become of his reputation if word spread? The vice director of the Imperial Academy was about to take him as a pupil; he couldn’t afford the slightest mistake now.

His silence dealt the final blow.

Nisheng remained on his knees, looking at neither Lady Cui nor Mingde, every inch a dutiful son concerned for his mother. He had used rules against rules, rites against rites. He hadn’t defied his father; he had defended the family’s honor and his mother. Even if Mingde wanted to favor Lady Cui, he had no excuse.

Mingde drew a deep breath and suppressed his anger. “Get out! Tomorrow, put Lu Niang’s offerings in order. Write an apology and burn it before her tablet. Starting tomorrow, for the next month, kneel before her tablet for three hours every afternoon to atone.”

“Yes, husband.”

Lady Cui’s face turned ashen. Her lips moved, but she dared say no more. Carrying her child, she backed out of the hall. At the door she glanced over her shoulder, glaring venomously at Nisheng, the cause of it all.

……

The hall fell quiet again. Mingde stood looking at Lady Lu’s tablet, lost in thought.

“No one is to speak of today outside this room.” The warning was for both Shouzheng and Nisheng. Neither answered.

At length Mingde turned to Nisheng. He thought little of the boy’s words; a child who had received basic instruction would naturally know some propriety. But Nisheng’s face so resembled his first wife’s, and remembering what had just happened, he felt a flicker of guilt.

“You wretch do have a little filial feeling after all… Go back when you’ve knelt long enough. It’s cold. I’ll have the steward send you a new winter coat and some charcoal.”

—

The katydid verse comes from “Zhong Si” in the Book of Songs, one of the earliest and best-known literary blessings for numerous descendants.