Every last one of you calls it "stewardship," but what you truly seek is to extinguish the ancestral rites!

"Today, I am being insolent!"

At those words, Wei Mingde's face turned livid, and he pointed at Wei Nisheng.

"Wei! Ni! Sheng! Do you have any regard for..."

Before he could finish, Wei He raised a hand to stop him. "Enough."

Wei Mingde reluctantly shut his mouth, his chest heaving.

Wei He turned toward Wei Nisheng, his gaze deep, but his tone softened. Stroking his beard, he assumed the air of an elder indulging an ignorant junior.

"Child, you are young. There are things you do not understand. Having the clan manage your property is a rule, not something aimed at you alone."

"If you do not believe me, you may consult the clan rules.

For generations, an adopted heir's property has been managed by the clan until he comes of age.

Our ancestors passed down this rule to protect young children and prevent others from swindling them."

As he spoke, Wei He's tone grew gentler still. He was coaxing Wei Nisheng because of his youth.

"Of course, you need not worry. The clan will not treat you unfairly.

Thirty percent of the proceeds will be enough for your food, clothing, and daily expenses.

Once you come of age, all the property will be returned to you, without a penny missing."

Several clan elders nodded in agreement.

"Yes, yes! The clan head speaks soundly."

"Child, you are still young. You do not understand these things."

"You will understand when you grow up. The clan is doing this for your own good."

"Surely you do not think we would harm you?"

Wei Nisheng looked at them, at their hypocritical faces, and sneered inwardly.

His gaze swept over Wei He's face, then Wei Mingde's, then the clan elders chiming in with them.

"How beautifully the clan head speaks," Wei Nisheng began slowly. His voice was quiet, but every word rang clear. "Thirty percent of the proceeds, enough for food, clothing, and daily expenses."

"But I would like to ask: what about the other seventy percent?"

Wei He's smile stiffened.

Without giving him time to react, Wei Nisheng continued, "That seventy percent goes to the clan.

What does the clan use it for? Repairing the Ancestral Hall? Relieving the poor? Or..." He looked at Wei Mingde, his lips curling in mockery. "Does it line certain people's pockets?"

Hearing this, Wei Mingde sprang to his feet and roared, "You unfilial wretch! Stop spewing bloody slander!"

He pointed at Wei Nisheng, his finger nearly jabbing him in the face. "Who do you think you are? How dare you question me here?"

"I will tell you right now: I have the final say over this property!"

Wei He's expression darkened as well. Abandoning even the word "child," he rebuked him directly. "Wei Nisheng, you have gone too far.

You are a junior, yet you behave so insolently before all these elders. What propriety is this?"

Wei Nisheng watched them with icy eyes.

These jackals and wolves had finally stopped pretending.

"Heh, heh, heh." Wei Nisheng drew a deep breath. "I have gone too far? Very well."

"Then let me ask another question. Where is the property the clan managed over the past ten years? Where did it all go?"

Wei He froze.

Wei Mingde froze too.

The clan elders exchanged looks, unable to utter a word.

There were no accounts.

There were no records.

The five thousand six hundred taels earned over the past ten years had long since been divided among them, down to the last coin.

"In any case, this is clan law! Clan rules! It is stewardship! You would not understand even if we explained it!" Wei He said coldly.

"Good. What a fine excuse: I would not understand." Wei Nisheng took a deep breath and said slowly, "I am the lineage heir, not a helpless child for you to carve up like fish and meat!"

"Since you wish to discuss ritual and law, I shall discuss them properly with you esteemed elders!

With that, Wei Nisheng stepped forward. His eyes swept over everyone present. His voice was quiet, but each word rang clear.

"Having been adopted as the eldest branch's son, according to ritual, I am the head of that branch's lineage, its legitimate heir whose place endures unchanged through a hundred generations."

"What you seek to divide today is not merely an orphan's property. It is the ancestral temple's sacrificial sustenance, the mantle handed down by our forebears!"

At this opening, Wei He's expression changed, and he tried to interrupt. "Wei Nisheng! You..."

Wei Nisheng ignored him and continued, "The Book of Rites: Great Treatise states: 'A founding branch son becomes an ancestor; his successor becomes the greater lineage head; the successor to one's father becomes the lesser lineage head.'"

"My adoptive father was the former Eldest Legitimate Son, inheriting the founding branch's succession. Now that I am his heir, I am the greater lineage head of this eldest branch, whose place remains unchanged through a hundred generations!"

His gaze cut like a blade, stabbing straight at Wei He. "The greater lineage head is honored by the entire clan.

When I entered this branch as its heir, three sticks of incense and a written document proclaimed it to our ancestors.

In the genealogy, my branch was severed from my birth father and grafted onto the true root of the eldest branch!"

"Clan elders, if you wish to speak of youth, though my years are few, my standing is senior."

"Though you are older, you are collateral sons of lesser lineages. Though I am young, I am the heir of the greater lineage."

"And you? Heh."

"As collateral sons, you scheme for the lineage heir's property. You seek to let the secondary usurp the legitimate, to have the branches hack down the root!"

"I, Wei Nisheng, dare ask you all today: whose rituals and laws, of what dynasty, permit this?"

"Must the dignified eldest branch of the Wei have its succession extinguished at your hands?!

The last words exploded like thunder.

There was no escaping it. That single charge-[As collateral sons, you scheme for the lineage heir's property, letting the secondary usurp the legitimate and the branches hack down the root]-

Was far too grave a label to bear.

So grave that Wei He, the clan elders, and Wei Mingde all blanched in fright.

This was no laughing matter. Within this branch of the Julu Wei, Wei Zheng had been the senior head of the Wei Family!

Even the clan head, Wei He, was only Wei Zheng's younger cousin, while Wei Mingde was Wei Zheng's second son. Had the eldest branch remained sonless, they might have had an excuse.

But now Wei Nisheng had already been adopted into the eldest branch. Did that not make this...

Collateral sons scheming for the lineage heir's property, the secondary usurping the legitimate, the branches hacking down the root?!

One Wei Family Clan Elder was clearly frightened by those words and hurriedly said,

"Child, child! The clan is merely managing the property, not scheming for the lineage heir's estate! You must not make such reckless accusations!"

The other clan elders chimed in, speaking over one another.

"Yes, yes! Your words are too harsh!"

"We are only following the rules. We harbor no such intention!"

"What does a little child know of ritual and law? Stop talking nonsense!"

Watching their reactions, Wei Nisheng sneered. "You know better than anyone whether I have spoken falsely!"

"Every last one of you calls it 'stewardship,' but what you truly seek is to extinguish the ancestral rites!"

At last, Wei He could bear no more. He slammed his palm onto the table and said in a grim voice,

"Wei Nisheng! Do not take a mile when given an inch! Stewardship is stewardship. What is this nonsense about extinguishing ancestral rites? Stop spreading alarmist accusations!"

Wei Nisheng looked at the clan head, his gaze cold as frost. "Just now, you spoke of 'stewardship' and 'dividing the property.' I heard every word clearly."

"You accuse me of alarmism. Then may I ask: from which classic does this 'stewardship' derive?"

Wei He choked on his words, and Wei Nisheng pressed his advantage.

"The Household and Marriage Statutes in the Zhou Criminal Statutes clearly state: when a household's line is extinguished, if there is no person legally entitled to inherit, its property passes to the authorities. This is called 'official custodianship.'

If there is a lawful heir, the property must be placed under that heir's control, and relatives may not interfere."

"Today, my eldest branch is not extinguished, and I am here to Continue the Ancestral Line. What grounds are there for this 'stewardship'?"

Wei Nisheng's gaze swept over them as he enunciated each word. "You keep claiming that you fear I am too young to preserve the estate, yet every sentence comes back to land deeds."

"When Hu Shibi, a renowned minister of the former Tang, judged the case of an uncle plotting to swallow his young nephew's property, he said: 'If the wealth of helpless orphans is left for their relatives to plunder, not only does humanity cease to stand, but where, then, does the law of the realm remain?'"

"How does your conduct today differ from that greedy, ruthless uncle's in the precedent?"

"Is this not..." Wei Nisheng's voice rose again, ringing like metal striking stone. "Stewardship in name, but the extinguishing of ancestral rites in truth!"

"If you divide the Eldest Branch Estate today with mere words, and I later die of hunger and cold, cutting off its ancestral incense, how will you face my grandfather beneath the earth after your deaths?!"

Each charge Wei Nisheng leveled was harsher than the last!

Wei He's face turned deathly pale. He wanted to argue, but no words came.

Wei Mingde trembled all over, whether from rage or fear was unclear.

The clan elders lowered their heads, not daring to look at him.

Wei Nisheng continued, "The Book of Rites: Tan Gong states: 'In mourning, one takes no thought for one's dwelling, for there is no ancestral temple.'

It means that even with abundant wealth, if the foundation of the ancestral temple is destroyed, what home can one claim, though one lives in a splendid mansion?"

"The eldest branch's wealth is the foundation of its ancestral temple. My father died young, leaving only this modest estate to fund the sacrifices."

"You invoke the name of 'elders' while committing outright seizure. Are you not forcing my eldest branch's temple into ruin and its rites into extinction?"

He looked at Wei He, each word a blade, a sword. "Comprehensive Institutions records these words from the Jin scholar He Xun's Treatise on Lineage: 'The greater lineage is the root of the lineage's succession. Clansmen may not use their kinship to lord over its head.'"

"Though you are my uncles, after my adoption and the Lineage Separation, you belong to a different branch from me, the eldest branch's lineage heir."

"You disregard our common root and instead seek to seize the property that keeps me fed. How is that different from strangers robbing and murdering a traveler?"

"The sages established ritual precisely to prevent kin from slaughtering kin. What you have done today is intolerable to ritual and law, and intolerable to Heaven's principles!"

When he finished, the entire room fell silent as crows and sparrows gone mute.

Apart from Wei He and Wei Mingde, the other clan elders had already bowed their heads, not daring to look at him. Some were even furtively wiping away sweat.

Wei Nisheng looked at them. He felt not the slightest pleasure, only a chill that pierced his bones.

These were his clansmen.

These were his "esteemed elders."

He drew a deep breath and said slowly, "If I yield today, not only will the eldest branch lose all its wealth, but everyone under Heaven will think that 'adoption into a lineage' is nothing but an empty fiction!

And every helpless orphan in generations to come may be bullied by powerful clans!"

"I am a fully legitimate adopted son. By law, I am entitled to the entire estate; by ritual, I must inherit the lineage and its ancestral rites."

"If I retreat one step today, ritual and law throughout the realm will retreat ten!"

"If you wish to seize my wealth, first strip me of my standing. If you wish to divide my estate, first destroy my genealogy."

"As long as I remain the eldest branch's son, every blade of grass and every tree belonging to it is a sacred vessel of the ancestral temple, holy and inviolable, beyond the touch of secondary offspring!"

With that, he turned to Wei Mingde, his gaze resolute as iron. "Did you not say that you had the final say over the property?!

Then I will tell you today: you and I now stand as the lesser lineage and the greater lineage."

"In matters of kinship, I owe you the courtesy of a son or nephew. But in matters of property and lineage, I am the master of the eldest branch, and all of you are guests!"

"For the sake of our flesh-and-blood ties, I will allow you to leave this Ancestral Hall intact."

"But if you speak again of 'stewardship' or 'dividing the property'..."

As his words fell, Wei Nisheng raised his foot and kicked over the low table before him.

Then he strode out of the side chamber and straight into the Ancestral Hall. Taking one in each hand, he gathered up the spirit tablets of his grandfather Wei Zheng and his eldest uncle Wei Mingyuan, then turned around.

His gaze swept over everyone present: Wei He, Wei Mingde, Cui Shi, Wei Shouzheng, and all those clan elders.

"I, Wei Nisheng, will sound the Petition Drum in the Capital and bring my accusation before the Prefectural Office, even if it costs me my place as adopted heir!"

"I would like to see which carries greater weight: the laws of Great Zhou, or that private agreement in your hands!

Let everyone witness this grand performance of the Wei Family-'stewardship' in name, but the extinguishing of ancestral rites in truth!!!"