Chapter 4: The Living Despise Him, the Dead Pave His Way

The footsteps outside the ancestral hall gradually faded. Wei Nisheng remained on his knees. He was used to kneeling here by now.

Ever since he was four, whenever something “good” happened in the family, he had been hauled in to kneel in atonement. For what? For bringing death to his mother and kin.

He remembered the first time, the year Shouzheng began his education. His father hired a tutor, set out an incense table, paid respects to Confucius and held a lively feast for his colleagues. After the guests left, Nisheng had only just crawled into bed when someone dragged him out, carried him to the hall and dumped him on the icy bricks.

He had been small and afraid someone would check on him, so he knelt all night. By midnight his knees were purple and stiff, and no one had asked after him. At last Wei An came secretly through the dark, carried him back and spent half the night applying hot towels to his knees.

Later, Nisheng realized that once everyone left, nobody came back to check. His so-called atonement was a formality for the benefit of the living. After that, he merely made a show of it. This time was no exception.

As soon as the sounds outside died away, he stood, rubbed his knees and flexed his legs. Why kneel like a fool when nobody checked? His body was still growing; if he damaged his knees for life, who would suffer the pain for him? His father? Shouzheng? Lady Cui? They would be delighted to see him crippled.

He didn’t rush out, though. Too little time had passed. If a loose-tongued servant saw him, word would reach Lady Cui and give her another excuse to make trouble.

He turned to examine the room where the Wei ancestors were honored. Dim candlelight made the gold letters on their tablets flicker like countless eyes watching from the dark. The highest tablet was old, thick with dust, its characters blurred.

The Weis of Julu had risen only two generations ago. The family led by the historical Wei Zheng in Tang Taizong’s day had already declined by the time of Wu Zetian’s Zhou. Further back, Nisheng’s ancestors had been peasants.

His grandfather Wei Zheng was the very model of a poor hero in the examination novels Nisheng had read in his former life. As a young man, too poor to fill a cooking pot, he had heard that study could change his fate. With a few strings of coins scraped together by his clan, he had passed his examinations one after another.

Nisheng moved closer and read the tablet: “Spirit tablet of Lord Wei Zheng, posthumously honored as Grand Master of Splendid Happiness, Grand Tutor, Minister of Revenue and Grand Secretary of Wuying Hall, with the posthumous title Wenduan.”

The tablet was new, its lacquer gleaming, its gold-traced characters bright in the candlelight. Here was the true pillar of the Wei family. How hard must it have been for a peasant to climb so high? Nisheng couldn’t imagine. He did know that his father’s position in the Ministry of Works rested entirely on the influence his grandfather had left behind.

Beside it stood the tablet of his eldest uncle, Wei Mingyuan. A provincial graduate at fourteen, first in the classics at seventeen—nearly everyone had said the Wei family had a son destined for the Hanlin Academy, with a limitless future. A place there meant being groomed for high office. But at seventeen, a serious illness had killed him, childless. His grandfather’s eldest and most promising son had died before him.

Looking at the tablet, Nisheng began to understand why his grandfather had been so delighted to hear of the twins. His eldest son was dead; now his second had two sons, and the elder branch could have an heir.

Next came the tablet of his mother in this life. The same withered pastries, the same dusty corner. What he had won for her would not be put right until tomorrow.

He stood there a long time. Grandfather, uncle, mother. Three tablets, three dead people.

He almost laughed. In the vast Wei residence, had any of the living—his father, elder brother, stepmother, or the servants filling the courtyards—ever treated him like a human being? His father saw an enemy, his brother a source of bad luck, his stepmother an obstacle who would one day claim part of the estate. The servants called him Second Young Master to his face; behind his back, there was no insult they hadn’t spread.

Yet he owed his survival to the dead. Ten years ago, his grandfather’s lingering authority had won him his first mouthful of milk. Just now, before his father and Lady Cui, he had relied on his mother: her tablet, her standing as first wife, her merit in bearing twin sons. Without that tablet, his words would have been a joke.

And there was his uncle. His father hated him for supposedly killing his grandfather and mother. But seen another way, without his birth the elder branch would have had no heir at all. The clan might not say it aloud, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t considered it. Had Wei Mingyuan lived, he would surely have entered the Hanlin Academy by now. Would Nisheng’s father ever have become head of the family?

The living hated him enough to wish him dead. The dead were paving his way. His grandfather’s authority had preserved his life; his mother’s standing had given him a blade to strike back; his uncle’s lack of an heir might become his path forward.

He took three sticks of incense and lit them at a candle. First he bowed three times before his grandfather’s tablet and placed the incense. Then he bowed respectfully three times before his mother’s.

“Grandfather, I owe you my life. While you were here, the Wei family was a house of integrity and honor. Since you left, how much of that remains? You can see for yourself from heaven. From now on, I won’t bring you shame.”

Last he went to his uncle’s tablet. A provincial graduate at fourteen, first in the classics at seventeen, first in the metropolitan examination. The Wei family’s perfect heir—and the path Nisheng himself had to follow.

He knelt slowly and touched his forehead to the floor. Once, twice, three times. Then he rose, dusted his knees and walked toward the door.

After two steps he stopped and looked back. Three tablets stood quietly on the altar, incense smoke curling around them.

In the Wei family, his elder brother was the light and he was the shadow. But no light could hide a shadow forever.

Nisheng pushed open the door. Snow was still falling, and Wei An was still waiting outside.