Ritual Law as a Blade

"Wait, Mother."

Cui Shi stopped in her tracks.

Wei Mingde and Wei Shouzheng both frowned and looked over.

Wei Nisheng remained kneeling, his back straight. He did not look at Cui Shi; his gaze passed over her and settled on the plate of dried-out pastries in the corner of the offering table.

"Father ordered me to kneel here before Grandfather and Mother. As your son, I dare not disobey."

"It is just..." Wei Nisheng's voice was calm, betraying no emotion.

"There is something I do not understand, and I would like to ask Father."

Wei Mingde's brow furrowed deeper, his voice plainly impatient.

"What is it now, you Sinful Son?"

"Since I am kneeling before Mother..." Wei Nisheng raised a hand and pointed toward the corner. "I would like to ask..."

"Why is there only a plate of dried-out pastries before Mother's spirit tablet?"

His words fell, and the ancestral hall went silent.

Wei Mingde froze.

Wei Shouzheng froze as well, instinctively looking where he pointed.

Sure enough, the offerings before Lu Shi's spirit tablet were shamefully paltry.

Beside it, plump fresh fruit stood before their grandfather's and eldest uncle's tablets, with wisps of incense smoke curling upward.

The contrast was so stark that anyone with eyes could see something was wrong.

Cui Shi, who had been smiling only moments ago, instantly turned deathly pale.

But Wei Nisheng had no intention of giving her a chance to defend herself.

Did she think she could kick me and get away with it? What a joke! Even if this doesn't kill her, I'll strip a layer of skin off her.

He continued at an unhurried pace.

"Though I have not pursued my studies, I still remember a verse from the Book of Songs, from when I began learning alongside my elder brother: 'The crickets' wings, how they hum in throngs. May your descendants flourish, in unbroken lines.'

"Mother bore my brother and me as twins. Our twin birth was an auspicious sign, just as the ancient teachings said."

"Yet here in this ancestral hall, all that stands before Mother's spirit tablet is a piece of pinewood and a plate of dried-out pastries?"

"Wei Nisheng!" Cui Shi spun around, her voice shrill. "You Sinful Son who traded away her life! What right do you have..."

"Father!" Wei Nisheng cut her off, looking straight past Cui Shi at Wei Mingde.

"Ni Sheng knows his own sins and rightly bears the shame of the Wei Family!"

"But in our Great Zhou, is there a son who does not care for his mother? A husband who does not care for his wife?"

"Mother bore Father two sons and died in childbirth.

"The clan elders called her a woman of merit. The court bestowed honors upon her in mourning, and the clan genealogy recorded her life.

"Under our dynasty's rites, a wife shares her husband's honor, and a mother is esteemed through her sons.

"Under our clan rules, those who have rendered service to the clan shall enter the ancestral hall, receive sacrifices, and enjoy the honors due to the departed."

"But what has happened instead?"

"Mother's tablet, which should have stood at the front, has been shoved into a corner. Her offerings are poorer than those given in remembrance of an ordinary serving woman."

"And so, I would like to ask..."

"Where are those rules now?!"

His words fell into deathly silence.

Wei Mingde's face alternated between ashen and livid.

He looked at that corner, at that pitiful plate of offerings, at the words "Our late mother, Lu Shi" inscribed on the tablet.

Lu Niang had been his first wife. He had originally wanted nothing more than to live a comfortable life of wealth and leisure.

But his eldest brother had died young, and all his father's expectations had suddenly come crashing down upon him.

Yet Lu Niang had always been part of the security he held in his heart.

Otherwise, he would never have hated Wei Nisheng so much.

But now her spirit tablet had been treated with such contempt...

Anger gradually welled up in Wei Mingde's eyes.

It was not anger at Wei Nisheng.

It was anger at Cui Shi.

"Cui Shi!"

That shout made Cui Shi tremble from head to toe.

"Husband..."

She instinctively clutched the child tighter and took half a step back.

Frightened in her arms, Wei Shoucheng puckered his mouth, wanting to cry but not daring to.

Wei Mingde strode to Lu Shi's spirit tablet and pointed at the plate of dried-out pastries.

"Lu Niang was my first wife, the birth mother of Shouzheng and Ni Sheng, a virtuous woman honored by the court!"

"How-how dare you treat her so miserably?!"

"Master, I..." Cui Shi's face was ghastly pale, her lips trembling. "It was only an oversight. There have been so many household matters lately, I..."

"An oversight?" Wei Mingde sneered. "I think bearing this little child has made you forget your place!"

"Who manages the estate Lu Niang brought as her dowry? Who wears the jewelry she left behind now? Do you really think I know nothing?!"

Cui Shi opened her mouth. She wanted to explain, to blame the servants, to say she simply had not found the time yet, but she could not get the words out.

She had personally arranged and inspected the ancestral hall's offerings. Lu Shi's meager offerings had also been left that way with her tacit approval.

She had thought no one would care about a dead woman's spirit tablet. Who would stand up for a woman who had been dead for over ten years?

Who could have imagined that the Sinful Son everyone in the household loathed would expose it before them all today?

At that thought, Cui Shi instinctively looked toward Wei Shouzheng, hoping he would say something on her behalf.

Though she was his stepmother, she had always treated Wei Shouzheng courteously and had never slighted him.

Besides, Wei Shouzheng was also Lu Shi's own son. If he spoke, Wei Mingde would have to give his words some weight.

Unfortunately...

Wei Shouzheng simply stared at the tips of his shoes without saying a word.

What could he say? That was his own mother's spirit tablet.

However much he hated Wei Nisheng, he could not publicly declare that his mother did not deserve offerings.

If word got out, would he have any reputation left?

The deputy director of the Imperial College was about to accept him as a disciple. He could not afford even the slightest misstep now.

At that moment, Wei Shouzheng's silence became the killing blow.

Wei Nisheng remained kneeling where he was.

He looked neither at Cui Shi nor at Wei Mingde.

He wore the very image of a filial son concerned for his mother.

He had fought rules with rules, ritual law with ritual law.

He had not defied his father. On the contrary, he was defending the Wei Family's dignity and his mother.

Even if his father wanted to show favoritism, he could find no excuse.

Then Wei Mingde took a deep breath, suppressed his anger, and said coldly:

"Get out of here! Tomorrow, make up all of Lu Niang's offerings, then write a confession of your wrongdoing and burn it before her spirit!"

"Starting tomorrow, for the next month, you will kneel before Lu Niang's tablet for three full hours after noon each day to atone."

"Yes, husband."

Cui Shi's face was ashen. Her lips moved, but in the end, she did not dare say anything more.

Holding the child, she retreated from the ancestral hall one step at a time.

Just before leaving, she turned back and shot a venomous look at Wei Nisheng, the culprit behind it all.

After Cui Shi left, the ancestral hall fell quiet again.

Wei Mingde stood there, looking at Lu Shi's spirit tablet, his thoughts unreadable.

"No one is to speak of what happened today outside this hall."

Those words were meant for Wei Shouzheng, and for Wei Nisheng as well.

Neither answered.

After a long while, Wei Mingde turned around.

His gaze fell upon Wei Nisheng, but he did not give it much thought.

After all, the boy had received some early schooling. It was only natural that he knew the rites.

Yet as he looked at Wei Nisheng's face, so like his first wife's, and remembered what had just happened, a trace of guilt stirred within him.

"You Sinful Son... at least you have a little filial devotion."

"Go back once you have finished kneeling."

"The weather is getting cold. I will have the steward send a new winter garment and some charcoal to your room."

"The crickets' wings, how they hum in throngs. May your descendants flourish, in unbroken lines" comes from "Airs of the States: Zhou Nan: Crickets" in the Book of Songs.

It is one of the earliest and most classic auspicious symbols in Chinese literary history, blessing the recipient with many descendants.