The seventh day of the eighth month, in the tenth year of Jinghe. Auspicious for sacrifice.
White mourning banners fluttered in the small courtyard of the Wei Residence. Ashes of joss paper rose on the wind and settled beneath the jujube tree.
Within half a day, news that Wei Nisheng was burying a servant with the rites due an elder had spread throughout the Capital.
With Prince Ning's affair occupying the Court, no one there had attention to spare.
Several newly appointed remonstrance officials at the Censorate, however, slammed their desks when they heard.
"A mere Provincial Graduate, newly distinguished in the Autumn Provincial Examination, holding a lavish funeral for a servant!
Treating him with the rites due an elder-where does that leave ritual law? Where does that leave the distinction between high and low?"
The more impatient among them had already begun grinding ink, preparing memorials of impeachment.
But there were dissenting voices, too.
Qin Yan, the Imperial College's Director of Studies, fell silent for a long time after hearing the news, then said only this:
"To Wei Nisheng, Wei An was no servant. He was as a grandfather.
If it is as though his grandfather has died, how could he not grieve?"
When those words spread, they stirred another wave of debate.
Some said Qin Yan was an old friend of Feng Yan's, so naturally he would speak in Wei Nisheng's favor.
Others said that, despite his fiery temper, Qin Yan had prized ritual law above all else throughout his life.
If he could say such a thing, he must have good reason.
Still others said that although Wei Nisheng's actions violated ritual law, they accorded with human feeling.
An orphan had been raised by an old servant. When that servant died, what was wrong with burying him