Outside Dongming Hall the torches blazed bright, and the crack of the punishment whip split the air with a chill unlike any other. The four men of the Chang family knelt on the ground before the hall, stripped to the waist to receive their punishment.

Well — when it came to family matters they were useless, but when it came to taking a beating, they were made of hard bone.

The whip lashed against flesh; as long as there was a muffled grunt, no one cried out in pain.

While the men of the Chang family took their beating and the wives of the Chang family watched the punishment, the rest of the wives of Qinwei Lane didn’t have an easy time of it either. His Majesty scolded them for not acting like proper sisters-in-law — watching such a disgraceful mess unfold and letting outsiders see it as a joke, truly failing to distinguish between family and outsiders, scheming against their own kin.

And so this pitiful group was sent to the rear palace, made to kneel in a row beneath the corridor of the Grand Dowager Consort, copying scripture together.

His Majesty really was shielding this bunch of fools. Before the censors could stir up trouble over it, he cast a wide net and swept the lot of them into the outer palace, first giving each one a round of the whip.

This was meant to say: you’ve already been beaten, so don’t go making more trouble.

Shao Shang’s roots ran shallow — there were plenty of poor families suddenly grown rich, and out there were households that flouted the rites and took a new bride every month. Even if this was rotten, it was only a surface-level shabbiness; people simply needed years to grow accustomed to it. Compared with the old aristocratic clans who truly used their minds for scheming, what the old Chang family had done here barely counted as anything at all.

That was truly how His Majesty saw it.

This was already a mercy — what one should fear was His Majesty growing too lazy to even bother with you, ignoring your rot entirely; that truly would mean the end of any way forward.

That His Majesty was now willing to treat the Chang family’s affair as a family matter to manage was also out of consideration for how hard a position this put Xiaohua in. For a clan’s internal strife to reach the point of such an open breach… ah, this wasn’t the first such case in Yandu.

How to put it — this was a case of subduing one group while absorbing them along the way; there were no shortage of bandits and mountain thieves among them, plenty who were ignorant as the blind. Those who understood how to manage a household and could see even ten mu of land ahead of them were already rare treasures.

And you couldn’t even look down on this bunch — these were people who would give up their lives for His Majesty. As for loyalty, the surface show the scholars put on was all false; it was people like these who would grind Yang Zao’s very bones to ash for him if asked.

In truth, one could read the Imperial House’s attitude straight from how the punishment was carried out: internal matters, restrained internally.

Chang Mianshen, as head of the family, was punished most severely — sentenced to fifty lashes. The Chang brothers each received twenty.

His Majesty didn’t bother asking who was right and who was wrong — asking that was pointless. That it had blown up this large was itself Chang Mianshen’s fault.

The Chang family’s old matriarch, Madam Chai, His Majesty did not summon at all. What was the use in blaming two old women — back in Shao Shang hadn’t he already dealt with them plenty of times? What they should have understood by now, they never would at this age.

The father takes the beating, but the sons pay the father’s debt: the eldest son bore fifteen lashes, the second and third sons ten each.

As for Chen Dasheng and the others, outside the palace each received five strikes of the board. Punishing them was simply because they’d stood by watching the spectacle without minding their own business — whether they’d truly done wrong, whether they were innocent, no one asked. Tonight His Majesty was angry and wanted someone beaten, and so beaten they were.

Even Chen Dazhong, Chen Dayi, and Chen Dayong were “honored” enough to be swept up in it, each taking a beating alongside the rest.

Their wives, none holding any noble title, entered the palace for the first time only to be punished with copying scripture.

Even so, when it came down to it, this was still considered an honor. In all the world, whose family’s wife, whose family’s son, got managed by His Majesty as if they were his own kin? This wasn’t punishment — it was teaching you the rules with his own hand.

Empress Dowager Jiang lived in Qinwei Lane, waited on and coaxed by several of the Chang family’s grandsons’ wives as if she were their own ancestress, and His Majesty knew this and was grateful for it. The filial duty he himself could not perform had all along been carried out in his place by the children and grandsons’ wives of the Chen family.

Whose clothes the old woman wore, whose food she ate, who accompanied her in idle chat each day, who knelt beside her before the Bodhisattva reciting scripture — His Majesty knew all of it.

Qiqian’er and Chen Dasheng, of course, put her own princely father first — but the several grandsons and grandsons’ wives of the Chen family truly were good children, treating his birth mother like their own grandmother with real filial devotion. Whenever Old Madam Jiang went to Qingque Nunnery, whenever the family had some small holiday, if there was some good thing worth savoring they made sure to send someone to deliver it to her.

And then there were the several from the Lao Dao family in Qinwei Lane — whenever Old Madam Jiang came by, they combed her hair for her, made her close-fitting garments, brought their children to keep her company and fill the place with liveliness.

Old Madam Jiang herself always said that in her whole life, the place where she’d known the most blessing and the most ease of heart was Qinwei Lane — this was the home where she meant to live out her old age.

And so, whatever a family’s children were like, whatever their faults, His Majesty saw it all clearly. But these faults he could tolerate — taking small advantages, talkativeness, stinginess, petty pride, poverty dressed up as pretension, exaggerated grievances, small calculating schemes — none of that mattered; that was simply human nature!

No one was a sage; no one could claim to be perfect. This was precisely because he had truly taken them as his own family, placed himself in the role of an elder, and upon seeing the younger generation behave badly, gathered them all together to be dealt with as one.

Though Zhang Wanru and the others remained utterly bewildered, unable to understand why the Chang family’s fight meant they had to copy scripture, copy it they still had to.

And so they all knelt obediently in a row before the female officials, heads bowed in shame, copying out those texts on womanly virtue that well-born daughters were meant to master in their chambers.

Mostly on maternal virtue, filial conduct, chastity and constancy, loyalty and righteousness, kindness and compassion, propriety, wisdom, diligence and thrift, talent and virtue — things of that sort.

The poor grandmothers of Qinwei Lane, in His Majesty’s eyes, were all without exception daughters of low, minor households. Never mind their messy ancestries — in terms of pedigree, the She family and His Majesty’s own family were, back in those days, genuine aristocratic clans, though not quite the very top tier.

Poor Ding Yuniang, with her crooked scrawl of an X, filled an entire page not even knowing what it meant. When the female official tried patiently to explain and teach her — ah, the poor woman really was half-deaf, and got so frightened she couldn’t hear a thing at all.

It was only after half a day that Empress Cao discovered there was even a half-deaf one among them. Seeing her eyes brimming with tears, there was nothing to do but have someone take her to the back to be soothed.

All of them, sinners every one!

And so — this was the treatment reserved for one’s own people.

As for Bao Shi and Xia Shi — they were the sort who inspired only loathing. Both knelt in the corner of Dongming Hall, made to watch the punishment. They were simply left there, ignored, left in the cold — that kind of disrespect, that refusal to even treat them as people, was bone-deep.

Worse by a thousandfold than a hundred lashes of the whip.

The whole group of wives had entered the palace together, knelt outside the hall to be scolded a few words through the door by His Majesty, and then several female officials had come, treated them as members of the family though vexed and furious with no other recourse, and brought them to the back to be schooled by the Mother of All Under Heaven, the Empress — leaving only these two behind. Why?

Being left behind was nothing much in itself. But it wasn’t long before several old eunuchs came out from the rear hall carrying buckets, and in the manner of driving off livestock, waved their sleeves to chase the two women off. Then the ground where the two of them had knelt was scrubbed clean with water — three times over.

No one came to exchange even a single wasted word with them; they were already terrified out of their wits.

Truly — however brazen they’d been before, from this day on they would never dare again; they had truly changed.

But who would give them the chance to turn back now?

At this point, having already begun to imagine every manner of dire consequence, Xia Shi turned to Bao Shi in a flood of tears and said, “Sister, sister — was I… was I blind before?”

Bao Shi, for her part, felt she no longer deserved to go on living in this world — an insult this bone-chillingly cold was not one she could forget even in death.

And yet she could not die to atone for her guilt either; tonight His Majesty had not even punished them formally, so how could they dare punish themselves and decide the outcome on their own?

Outside, those taking their beatings did not utter a sound, but inside Dongming Hall, it was no less than lively.

His son, his daughter-in-law, having done nothing at all, had simply been busying themselves on behalf of his sworn younger brother — what manner of sin was it that swept them up in punishment too?

There was simply no reasoning to it.

She Qingling, in a fit of anger, had brought his two little hellions into the palace with him. Once inside Dongming Hall, he’d simply set the children down on the ground and paid them no more mind.

And so — wherever Gennu’er and An’er’s little hands and toes could reach, if there was something there? Well, down it would go!

In less than the span of a few breaths, His Majesty’s favorite slender-necked lotus-patterned treasure vase had already snapped its neck.

From that moment on, the hall was filled with Zhang Minwang’s startled cries — ya ya ya ya, yo yo yo yo, ai ai ai ai…

She Qingling, however, was displeased, and gave an idle, sour remark: “Don’t breathe so loud — you’ll frighten my precious grandsons!”

Not breathe? Would that not suffocate them?

There was nothing for it — the group of eunuchs, cowed under the old ancestor’s authority, could only trail after the children in utter silence.

When small children first cause mischief, it starts as a test — to see whether it’s something they can get away with. Once the two of them saw that no one was stopping their antics, well — this place had become their own private paradise.

Before long, everything at low height had been rescued by the eunuchs up to higher ground; whatever couldn’t be saved in time was thoroughly trampled.

His Majesty was holding himself back too — he knew he was in the wrong here.

The two eldest daughters-in-law of the Chang family had been married in by Chang Mianshen specifically to secure favors in exchange for him — one couldn’t slaughter the donkey once the grinding was done, so he could only endure it.

Besides, with so many children in the world, would they all become orphans if killed off? That really would be the end of the Chang family for good.

When trouble struck the household of a meritorious official, one could deal with it neither too lightly nor too harshly.

She Qingling had already seen, from all that business with the Tan family, that Yang Zao had this habit of clinging too much to old sentiment, of hesitating and looking every which way before acting — but there was nothing to be done about it either.

This fault was bad for an emperor, but good for old vassals like themselves.

If he truly were decisive and ruthless, utterly without feeling, that would be the real disaster.

And yet he couldn’t help but be angry either — only one’s own family would throw a tantrum at an elder brother like this, and Yang Zao rather enjoyed that kind of thing.

And so he’d come to throw his temper, dumping the children onto His Majesty’s hands without another thought.

What could His Majesty do but sit there secretly delighted, holding them? When the two little hellions truly grew too unruly, he had Zhang Minwang bring some pastries to coax them.

She Qingling wasn’t having that either, and finally spoke his first words since entering the hall: “At this hour, they’d normally be long asleep by now — you want them stuffed full and unable to digest?”

Since the children’s grandfather wouldn’t allow it, His Majesty put on a show of helplessness, let out a long breath, and said, “Then bring it to Us.”

In an instant, the ear-splitting racket in the hall stopped. An’er watched, wide-eyed, as several plates of good things were brought out, swayed once before his eyes, and then were set up high, out of reach.

Back home, whatever food appeared before them had always simply been theirs.

The two children obediently opened their mouths wide, heads swiveling to follow the good things all the way to the table over there.

Wait — something was wrong here. That didn’t make sense. Wasn’t this theirs?

And so, hand in hand, the two children walked together up to Prince She and, in perfect unison, opened their mouths: “Ahh!”

Mouths were open — no need to be polite, so fill them up, the sweeter the better, and their little brotherhood would never complain.

Prince She’s hand trembled, and he quickly turned his face away.

Four eyes brimmed with shock. No, wait, Grandfather! Look at me, it’s us! Our mouths are open, we’re — we’re already so big, why won’t you praise us and give us some cake?

An’er and Gennu, thinking their grandfather simply hadn’t seen them, took each other’s little hands and switched places, walked up in front of their grandfather again, and together opened their mouths: “Ahh! Ah? Ahh…”

She Qingling gave a cough, lay back on the couch, and found a book to cover his face with.

Ah, so that’s it — grandfather must be sleepy.

And then An’er grew miserable.

Children of wealthy families spoke late, and spoke little.

As long as they weren’t with playmates, they were basically half mute. Ordinarily there were plenty of clever people around who, without a word needed, could tell from a glance that they were about to wet themselves, and the moment their mouths opened, everything was placed right in their hands or at their lips.

But these two children, having scanned the whole room, saw that everyone else was either staring at the ceiling or the floor, and concluded that this was a room full of fools.

Hm? The people here were fools — so, off to find their parents instead.

Hand in hand again, they set off toward the exit. But before they’d gone a few steps, Gennu, being a bit older, thought of how their grandfather lay bare-backed and cold, so he let go of his little brother’s hand and looked around.

Looking about, he saw several great pillars in the hall, tall stands set beneath them, and on the stands, embroidered cloths patterned with dragons in four directions, upon which sat four gilt bronze incense burners still trailing wisps of blue smoke.

To the child’s eyes, that draped cloth and a little quilt were the same sort of thing, so he looked at the cloth, then at his little brother.

An’er understood at once what this meant. He toddled over on his short little legs to beneath the tall stand, lay down flat on the ground, and Gennu climbed right on top of him.

And so the hall rang out with the milky little sounds of “hup, hup, yo yo yo…”

She Qingling could bear to watch no longer, and turned his face to the other side of the couch, his shoulders beginning to shake.

The group of eunuchs guarding them didn’t dare cry out, glancing pleadingly at His Majesty instead. His Majesty had never before seen children this small, this mischievous, and moreover capable of working together in their mischief — he simply propped his chin in his hand and watched with a smile.

He himself had never raised his own children — by the time Xiaohua and the others were around him, they were already grown and sensible.

Even the ones this young had been taught by those fools in the back to be filial before they were even weaned.

Gennu stood on his little brother’s back, hands raised high overhead, head tilted upward, motionless, like some idol praying for rain.

An’er, like a little tortoise, from time to time strained his neck to check his position, inching forward and backward with the practiced rhythm of hup, hup.

Only, the direction he thought he was going was the opposite of where he actually was, and so he ended up carrying his brother in a half-circle around the stand.

His Majesty had been in a rather foul mood — he’d only ever known Chang Mianshen to be a muddled fool when it came to matters within his own household, but who could have guessed things had gotten this bad.

And yet, however great his fury, he found himself unable to keep from laughing at the spectacle before him, though he had to hold it in.

That truly was the wild frontier of nursing infants — no crying, no fussing, just silent striving, both of them breaking into a sweat from sheer effort.

Gennu’er’s hands had begun to tremble; with great difficulty he finally hooked the draped cloth, and once their heads had worked it loose together, the little tortoise flopped flat onto the ground, leaving his brother with his feet dangling in midair — and that massive bronze burner began to sway.

This was exactly the moment Zhang Minwang had been waiting for. He rushed forward with several eunuchs to catch it, and in that same instant the cloth was yanked to the floor, and the two children tumbled into a heap together — though tough as they were, they didn’t cry, and quite nonchalantly dusted off imaginary dirt and stood themselves back up.

The moment they stood, they looked first to check Zhang Minwang’s expression, and Zhang Minwang along with a few of the little eunuchs could only feign, like covering one’s own ears while stealing a bell, that they hadn’t seen anything at all.

An’er shook his head helplessly, quite certain that today, at his young age, he had seen more fools than ever before in his life.

Having surveyed the whole room, Gennu’er dragged the cloth over to his grandfather’s side and, with great sincerity though rather shabbily, draped it over his feet.

The gesture was what mattered — one simply had to appreciate the thought.

This truly was filial devotion — he was afraid his grandfather would catch a chill.

An’er, reaching for his grandfather’s ankle, patted it a few times with his little hand, “oh, oh,” thereby completing the expression of his filial heart.

Their duty as filial grandsons discharged, the two children joined hands again, glanced once more at the table, and — realizing there was still no sign anyone meant to give them that food — set off to find their parents for reinforcement.

And so, hand in hand, they made their way to just outside the steps of Dongming Hall. Before they’d even climbed all the way out, they were startled by the faint sound of crying from Bao Shi and Xia Shi.

That instant, they also caught sight of the pitch-black darkness outside, the night beyond lit only by flickering torches. Small children, however bold, had been warned by their great-grandmother that something out there was sure to eat them up.

An’er dragged his chubby hand across his face and warned his older brother, “Wow~ooo!”

Both little claws spread wide, positively ferocious.

Well — the monster that ate children was indeed called something like “wow-ooo,” with a little something else after it. Their great-grandmother had said that thing was called a “wow-ooo-ji” — a completely baseless invention of the old woman’s, passed down through the generations regardless.

Gennu was so frightened he immediately clapped both hands over his mouth, then, realizing it wasn’t right to abandon his little brother, kept one hand over his mouth and used the other to lead his brother back, retreating to his grandfather’s side, where without disturbing anyone, he quietly sat down against the couch.

This was a strange, very tall great house. The house was bright, full of a bunch of fools, their parents were nowhere to be found, and their tummies were quite hungry besides — what to do?

After sitting for a while, unable to bear it any longer, they resolved to make one more attempt.

And so the two children looked at each other again and made their way, working together once more, up to the imperial desk — this time it was Gennu’s turn to lie down.

His Majesty watched, utterly absorbed, as though every worry had been healed away; he simply laughed and laughed, his face blooming like a great peony — a yellow one, at that.

A chubby little hand emerged from beneath the desk, feeling its way forward, a faint, broken little sound rising from his small throat, groping past the writing implements one by one.

Just as he was on the verge of reaching it, that treacherous, yellow-skinned, black-hearted man would shift the plate away again, until at last a cough came from someone over on the couch, and His Majesty finally remembered — ah, right, Grandfather was here.

So, suppressing his laughter, he moved the plate to a proper spot, and the moment An’er reached out, he got hold of it. Delighted, he gave a little “ya!” of joy and began transporting the pastries down piece by piece.

The old Chen family, being country folk by origin, whenever their great-grandmother took them out visiting, would simply hand over an entire plate of whatever food caught their interest.

And so, in no time, that whole plate of pastries — not much to begin with — was completely carried off. Not keeping a single piece for themselves, the two children carried it all back to the side of the couch. Truly filial as they were, they even set a piece down on their grandfather’s covered foot, through the draped cloth, before finally sitting down to eat.

She Qingling sat up rather smugly, took a piece of cake, and watched His Majesty with a satisfied smile while he ate. Just as His Majesty was about to burst out laughing, the wretch from outside who’d taken his punishment came in to confess his crimes before the throne.

That put an end to the laughing.

She Qingling waved a hand, and eunuchs carried a screen over to shield the couch. He gathered his two grandsons into his arms, kissed each on either side, personally poured a little water, checked with his own hand that it wasn’t too hot, and had each child drink half a cup.

This bout of mischief had left them both drenched in sweat.

The two children caused just as much mischief at home — always trailing off into some sort of chaos in this same listless, dogged way. Whenever they hit a problem they couldn’t solve, they’d go to him first; if he wasn’t there, they’d go to their great-grandmother; only if they couldn’t find her would they go to their parents.

Of course, such times were rare — ordinarily their requests were simply granted.

To put it plainly, as long as it didn’t involve Chougu, this order of preference never broke down. But the moment Chougu was involved, the whole household would erupt into an uproar fit for slaughtering chickens and sheep, and it wouldn’t stop until the fight was thoroughly finished.

At the moment, it was Chougu who’d hit Gennu; Gennu, having come out worse, complained to his little brother, and then the two brothers had teamed up to make Chougu cry.

If on some day Chougu didn’t come around, then it would be the three of them fighting the elder Tong girl across the alley, and then the Tong girl would call in reinforcements — the rest of the neighborhood girls joining in against the three of them — roughly evenly matched.

This kind of war happened every single day. Once it was over, they’d wail their way home to their mothers, get coaxed back into good spirits, go back out to be the sweetest siblings in the world for a while, and then fight again before long. Not a single family’s brood in that alley was the accommodating sort — each one wilder than the last.

Occasionally they’d also fight the children from Six Ministries Alley, though as long as they didn’t run into the bigger kids from the Ministry of War, the children of Qinwei Lane basically never lost.

Outsiders who saw the children of Qinwei Lane heading out would each hurry their own children away, refusing to let them anywhere near.

This hardly resembled the sons and daughters of noble households, did it? Truth be told, even She Qingling himself wasn’t especially good at raising children.

The reason they hadn’t gone back to the princely residence now was precisely because it broke his heart to think of the children returning to guard over that huge, run-down old garden, without even a single playmate.

Nothing like Qinwei Lane, where they didn’t even need to speak — just stand at the door and call out a few times, and before long, a crowd of pattering little legs would gather…

While the children were being coaxed on one side, on the other, someone was suffering through confessing his crimes.

His Majesty gazed at Chang Mianshen, troubled, and after a long while, suppressing his anger, asked: “You — how dare you call yourself a father?”