Chapter 27: The Zhang Clan's Conspiracy

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Shen Guilan clenched the thin stack of account papers so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.

She could almost see the smug expression on Madam Zhang’s face as she took the grain, exchanged it for silver, and tucked the money into her own purse.

She could also almost see herself and her daughter, Xiuxue, living on wild greens and watery gruel just to save that half-bushel of rice.

A chill shot from the soles of her feet to the crown of her head, freezing the blood in her veins.

She did not cry. Instead, she slowly sat down on the edge of the bed and quietly waited for dawn.

The eastern sky had only just begun to pale when Shen Guilan rose.

Rather than sling over her shoulder the bamboo basket filled with embroidery, as she did every day, she carefully tucked the stack of papers stained with blood and tears, along with the old register of the clan fields, into her bodice. Then she went straight toward the village school at the eastern end of the village.

From within the school came the clear, resonant sound of children reciting their lessons.

“...Filial piety is the root of virtue, and from it all instruction arises...” Master Zhou was shaking his head and spitting as he gave Shen Yongzhi a private lesson in the Classic of Filial Piety.

Shen Guilan stood outside the half-closed school gate, her shadow stretched long and slender by the morning light.

She did not enter. She merely drew a deep breath and spoke in a voice that was not loud, yet pierced cleanly through the recitation and reached every ear inside.

“Master Zhou, may I ask you one question? My son, Shen Yongzhi, has attended your school for five years. In all that time, have I, his mother, ever personally paid you even a single coin in tuition?”

The recitation stopped abruptly.

Every pupil’s gaze shot toward the entrance.

Master Zhou had been speaking with great enthusiasm, and the interruption clearly displeased him. But when he saw that it was Shen Guilan, a trace of guilt joined the annoyance on his face. He stammered, “Ah... well...” for a long while, yet could not form a complete sentence.

Of course he had never received money from Shen Guilan. Every year, his tuition was collected from the clan funds by Madam Zhang and delivered to him personally.

Master Zhou’s silence was the clearest answer of all.

More and more villagers, drawn by the commotion, gathered around the school gate, pointing and whispering.

Shen Guilan no longer looked at him. Instead, she abruptly drew the old clan-field register from her clothing and unfolded it before everyone, like a declaration of indictment.

“In the third year of the Jingtai era, when Yongzhi entered school, the tuition was one tael and two mace of silver. The clan funds covered it in full!”

“In the fourth year of Jingtai, the tuition was one tael and two mace of silver. The clan funds covered it in full!”

She read each word with ringing force. Every syllable was like a stone cast into a tranquil pond, stirring up wave after wave.

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At last, her gaze moved slowly across Master Zhou’s increasingly pale face and then over the villagers craning their necks in the crowd. She asked, each word distinct:

“Master Zhou, let me ask you one more question. If this money came from the public clan funds, and my son stops attending school today, can it be returned to me, a widow?”

The question was viciously sharp.

If he said yes, he would be admitting that for five years he had pocketed the grain money Madam Zhang had withheld from Shen Guilan.

If he said no, he would be confirming that he and Madam Zhang had conspired to bleed a widow and her orphaned child dry.

Just then, a shrill cry tore through the quiet morning.

“Shen Guilan! You spiteful troublemaker! Are you trying to ruin my grandson’s future?”

Madam Zhang shoved through the crowd, charging forward like a hen whose tail had been stepped on.

Pointing at Shen Guilan, she launched into a tirade. “You wretched harbinger of bad luck! I have worked myself to the bone to support my grandson’s studies, hoping he would bring honor to our ancestors and glory to our family. And this is how you repay me? You dare come to the school and make a scene! Yongzhi! Yongzhi, come here! In front of the entire village, write the character for filial piety! Let your mother see what filial conduct means!”

Shen Yongzhi was already mortified beyond endurance. At his grandmother’s shout, his face turned as pale as paper.

Trembling, he walked to the front of the classroom and picked up a brush, but his wrist shook like a withered leaf in the wind.

Just as the tip of the brush was about to touch the paper, Shen Guilan moved.

With a cold laugh, she pulled another sheet of paper from her sleeve like lightning and strode forward. With a sharp slap, she pasted it beside the old clan-field register on the school gate.

It was a tuition receipt. Across it, in stark characters, were the words: “Additional tuition payment: three taels of silver.” The seal at the bottom was crooked, and the ink varied in depth. At a glance, it was clearly a forged document made afterward.

“This is the fingerprint you forced me to press, claiming it was for the additional money to be given to the teacher!” Shen Guilan’s voice was cold as frost, yet rang across the entire grounds. “One is the clan’s public account, and the other is a false document you forged yourself! Madam Zhang, ask yourself honestly: what have you been supporting—the teachings of the sages, or your own bottomless greed? What have you been forcing—Yongzhi to attend school, or to gnaw on the flesh and blood of his own mother?”

“You have not been supporting learning, but greed. You have not been forcing him to study, but to feed upon his mother!”

Those two sentences were like two resounding slaps, striking Shen Yongzhi across the face.

He let out a cry. His hand jerked, and the brush, saturated with dark ink, dragged a glaring slash across the paper before falling to the ground.

The boy could no longer withstand the immense shame and shock. He shoved through the crowd, flung down the brush, and ran away sobbing, vanishing from everyone’s sight.

Madam Zhang was utterly stunned. Her whole body trembled as she pointed at Shen Guilan, her lips quivering, yet not a single curse would come out.

Shen Guilan did not even glance at her. She turned to face all the villagers.

Slowly, she drew three taels of broken silver from her clothing.

It was the money she had saved bit by bit from countless days and nights of embroidery.

Under the astonished eyes of the crowd, she walked to the battered donation box beside the school gate. Without the slightest hesitation, she poured all three taels into it with a clatter.

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“This silver was saved from the food my daughter and I should have eaten. Today, I, Shen Guilan, donate it so that the children of poor families in our village who truly cannot afford school may enroll!”

Her voice was clear and resolute.

“I ask only that the sound of learning in our Li Family Village may henceforth ring out not for the sake of one family or one surname alone!”

Among the crowd, Chen A-Di, a boy from an impoverished household, fell to his knees with a thud and bowed deeply toward Shen Guilan.

In a corner, the ever-silent Scholar Lin watched with shining eyes. He quickly jotted something down on the paper he carried and murmured to himself.

Master Zhou’s face was ashen. He stood rooted to the spot, as though all his vitality had been drained away.

That very evening, a letter of resignation was delivered to the clan head.

On the road home, the setting sun dyed the ridges between the fields a brilliant gold.

As Shen Guilan passed the edge of her own fields, her steps suddenly halted.

Madam Zhang was there with Zheng, the village shrew, using measuring rods to point and gesture across the land. Their posture made their intentions unmistakable: having failed to destroy Shen Guilan’s reputation, they now meant to seize her property.

There was neither anger nor speech on Shen Guilan’s face.

She silently walked to the wooden stake beside the field ridge, drew out the final sheet of paper, and drove it firmly into the stake with a sharp stone.

The paper contained an excerpt from the clan regulations, copied especially for her by Wu the Bookkeeper. The characters were vigorous and powerful:

“A wife tills the land while her son studies; the property belongs to the household. Any unauthorized seizure shall be punished by a fine of three times its value!”

When she had finished, she swept away her sleeve and left.

Behind her, the evening wind suddenly rose. The paper snapped and fluttered against the wooden stake, its sound grim and murderous, like a blade slicing through the open sky.

Madam Zhang and Zheng the Shrew stared at the paper as though they had seen a ghost, rooted to the spot and unable to move.

Beneath the old locust tree at the village entrance, Scholar Lin happened to be passing by with a fellow scholar from out of town. Gazing from afar at Shen Guilan’s thin yet upright back, he praised her in a low voice.

“This woman has never studied the classics, yet she understands righteousness, conducts herself with restraint, and is worthy of serving as an example. Worthy brother, if your cousin Lin Yuanlu, who serves at the county office, is seeking a virtuous wife, he should take note of this woman.”

His companion nodded in solemn agreement.

At that very moment, Madam Zhang, having retreated from the fields in disarray, stumbled and collapsed onto the threshold of her own home. As she watched Shen Guilan disappear into the distance, the arrogance had vanished from her murky old eyes. In its place was a poisonous hatred.

Yet she still held one final trump card—the most vicious one of all.

She stared fixedly at the ground, the corners of her mouth stretching into a strange, chilling smile.

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