Chapter 37: Shattering the Eldest Son’s Face with a Kneel, Overturning the Ancestral Hall with a Single Pawn Ticket

At the first light of dawn, the chill crept into the house through the gaps in the doors and windows.

Shen Guilan exhaled a puff of white mist and habitually reached for the loose brick in the corner of the wall. Her fingertips touched empty space, and the cold bit into her skin. Her heart sank instantly. The hole in the wall was empty.

Her face remained impassive, as if she had merely wiped away some wall dust, and she turned toward the stove. Her movements were agile and unhurried, but her eyes, usually gentle, were now cold as ice. She pushed aside the ashes at the base of the stove, pulled out a loose brick, and retrieved an old ledger wrapped in oil paper from a secret compartment. Tucked inside the ledger was the five silver coins she had earned over the past three months—money she had saved, stitch by stitch, through countless sleepless nights, meant as capital for her daughter Xiuwei and herself to start an embroidery workshop.

Now, the money was gone.

Shen Guilan glanced toward the corner of the room, her gaze landing on a pair of mud-stained men’s shoes. The mud was a dark, reddish hue—the kind of red clay found only in town. Her eldest son, Shen Yongzhi, had worn those very shoes when he returned home last night. Her eyes traveled upward to the cuffs of the outer robe draped over the chair back; a few tiny, pale yellow crumbs clung to the fabric, accompanied by the faint, sweet scent of osmanthus. Those were osmanthus cakes from the "Fortune Gambling House," a delicacy not sold anywhere else.

She understood everything.

A cold smirk tugged at the corner of Shen Guilan’s mouth. She did not cry, nor did she scold. She silently returned to her room, rummaged through her sewing basket, and found a pawn ticket from two days ago, when she had traded an old silver hairpin for silk thread. She picked up her finest embroidery needle, dipped it into the ink already ground in her inkstone, and, holding her breath, used a practiced hand to write a line of small characters in the blank margin of the pawn ticket: "Shen Yongzhi pawned one cotton robe for five silver coins." The handwriting was nearly identical to that of the gambling house clerk.

Once finished, she tucked the fake pawn ticket into the most prominent page of the ledger, shoved the ledger back under the stove, and acted as if nothing had happened.

At midday, the courtyard gate was kicked open. Shen Yongzhi burst in, his hair disheveled, and threw himself onto his knees, slapping the ground as he wailed, "Mother! Are you trying to drive me to my death? You took my food money to subsidize my sister! You are cursing your own brother and harming your son!"

His voice was shrill, his wailing heart-wrenching, and the neighbors immediately poked their heads out to look. Shen Guilan walked slowly out of the kitchen, carrying a bowl of freshly cooked wild vegetable porridge.

There was no anger or panic on her face; she simply watched her son rolling on the ground. "You say I am cursing you?" she asked, her voice flat.

"Who else could it be? You took all the money in the house to pay for Xiuwei’s dowry! I can’t even afford a steamed bun!" Shen Yongzhi cried even harder, putting on a show of profound grievance.

Shen Guilan did not argue. She turned and went into the house, and a moment later, she slammed the ledger onto the eight-immortal table in the main hall. The ledger lay open, directly exposing the pawn ticket tucked inside.

"Then tell me, did you or did you not take the five silver coins I worked so hard to save yesterday, go to the Fortune Gambling House, pawn your cotton robe, and gamble the money away?"

Shen Yongzhi was suddenly silenced, as if someone had gripped his throat. He stared at the pawn ticket, his face shifting from red to white, then to a sickly green. He stammered, "No... that’s not true! This is a fake! Where did you get this fake thing?"

"Fake?" Shen Guilan sneered, her voice low but sharp enough to cut. "You deny it? Fine, I will bring people here to confront you."

No sooner had she spoken than the gate was kicked open again. Zhao the Bucktooth, a local loan shark, stormed in, his face full of brawn, carrying a tattered cotton robe. "Shen Yongzhi! You owe me three silver coins; when are you going to pay? You tore up the pawn ticket and thought you could welch on your debt?"

Behind him trailed Xiaocui, a young maid from the gambling house. She shrank back by the doorway, but under Zhao’s glare, she trembled and said, "He... he lost everything last night, and he insisted on eating the most expensive osmanthus cakes in our house, saying... saying his mother’s family was wealthy and he would pay us back sooner or later..."

The courtyard erupted. The villagers chimed in, pointing and scolding Shen Yongzhi.

In front of everyone, Shen Guilan held up the pawn ticket and took another paper from her daughter Xiuwei—it was a bill she had secretly copied from the gambling house’s ledger when she had asked Liu the blacksmith to go to town the day before. Comparing the two, the handwriting, the amount, and the time all matched perfectly.

Shen Guilan’s voice rang out, clear and loud, reaching every corner of the courtyard: "I, Shen Guilan, lost my husband early. I did not remarry, nor did I divide the family estate. These five silver coins are my hard-earned blood and sweat. Shen Yongzhi, as the eldest son, does no work, steals his mother’s coffin money to gamble, loses it all, and then has the audacity to turn the tables and say I am cursing him? Fellow villagers, according to the Thirteenth Article of the Shen Family Rules, what is the punishment for stealing from one’s own mother and then slandering her?"

In the crowd, the clan elder, Old Man Sun, turned pale and tried to mediate, but Liu the blacksmith, known for his fiery temper, slapped his hand against the wall. "He deserves to be punished! Stealing from his own mother to gamble is lower than a thief! If we don’t discipline such an unfilial son, the Shen family will lose all face!"

"Punish him!"
"Open the ancestral hall! We must open the ancestral hall!"

The crowd shouted in unison, their voices drowning out the clan elder. He had no choice but to nod with a dark expression: "Open... open the ancestral hall."

At dusk, the candles in the Shen ancestral hall flickered, casting shifting shadows over the ancestral tablets. Shen Guilan, dressed in plain white, stood in the center, holding a lantern with an expressionless face. Shen Yongzhi was held up by two clansmen; his legs gave way, and he fell heavily onto the cold bluestone floor.

"Read it." Shen Guilan pulled a piece of paper from her sleeve and threw it before him.

Shen Yongzhi picked it up, trembling. On the paper were four large characters: "Vow of the Unfilial Son." His lips quivered, and under Shen Guilan’s icy gaze, he read word by word: "I, Shen Yongzhi, son of the eldest branch, have neglected my duties, gambled, and stolen money. I lost five silver coins, and afterward, I felt no remorse and falsely accused my own mother... I am willing to accept punishment, to kneel for three full days, and I voluntarily renounce my right of inheritance as the eldest son. If I commit such an offense again, I am willing to be expelled from the clan and have my name removed from the family register forever!"

With every sentence he read, his body shook. Outside the hall, onlookers watched—some with disdain, some with sighs, some with schadenfreude. In the corner, Shen Yongzhi’s grandmother, Madam Zhang, was shaking with rage, her nails digging into her palms, but the moment she met Shen Guilan’s terrifyingly cold eyes, she dared not utter a word.

Once he finished reading, Shen Guilan turned to face the ancestral tablets, her voice as cold as a blade: "Ancestors, hear me. It is not that I am heartless and wish to air our dirty laundry. It is because you have spoiled him too much, and that is how such a wastrel was raised!"

Deep into the night, snow began to fall. Outside the hall, the wind was piercingly cold. Shen Yongzhi knelt on the stone floor, his knees turning purple from the cold, and he could only sob in secret.

Just as he was about to freeze, a soft sound came from behind the woodpile. A tall silhouette appeared silently at the door. It was Gu Changshan, the hunter, draped in animal skins. He did not enter the hall; he bent down to place a warm, small clay pot on the threshold and then pulled a piece of roasted rabbit meat wrapped in oil paper from his tunic and pushed it through the gap in the door.

Without a word, he turned and vanished into the wind and snow.

Behind the window of the hall, Shen Guilan saw it all. She recognized the fine scratches on the clay pot—a secret signal among hunters that meant, "I am here, do not worry."

She gently touched the embroidered piece with a returning pattern she had finished but had not yet sent, and whispered, "You guard against the wind and snow outside; I will clean up the filth within the family—this battle is far from over."

Inside and outside the ancestral hall, there was a deathly silence, like the quiet before a storm. Only Shen Guilan knew that tonight, it was merely a foolish son who had knelt; the person who truly protected him, and perhaps even directed him, would never let it end here.