Mother Cheng lifted her head dazedly, watching her daughter-in-law leave, even securing the doors and windows tightly. Only the Cheng family mother and son remained in the room, while the charcoal in the gilt bronze basin with coiling chicken head and snake body between them emitted soft crackling sounds.

Cheng Shi loosened his tensed arms, respectfully helped Mother Cheng sit on the couch, changing from his earlier cold hardness to speak gently: “Mother, you haven’t seen your son for ten years. Look at me—have I changed in appearance?”

Madam Xiao had taught him this opening line with gentle tone a full seven or eight times. He felt he had performed it quite perfectly.

Hearing these words, Mother Cheng immediately burst into tears like rain, her trembling hands reaching to stroke her son’s rough, weather-beaten face, both heartbroken and resentful: “You… you… heartless one!”

Seeing her son’s temples already touched with frost, having left as a cheerful youth in his twenties and returned as a stern, unfamiliar middle-aged general, she asked in a voice full of concern how these days had been, whether he had suffered any injuries. For a time mother and son spoke many intimate words, but after just a few consoling sentences, Mother Cheng couldn’t help complaining again.

“You are Mother’s firstborn son, flesh that fell from Mother’s body—how could Mother not think of you! Yet your heart has been given entirely to your wife, with not a bit left for this old woman!” The more Mother Cheng thought about it, the sadder she became. “In these ten years, how many bamboo slips have you sent back? Either you’re concerned about Fourth Mistress, or you write vague things I can’t understand. You… you have no idea how I’ve lived…”

Cheng Shi grinned: “I would have written Mother a few lines, but Mother can’t read.” Speaking to this point, his expression darkened. “I’m unwilling to have Ge Shi open and read what I write to Mother.”

Mother Cheng wiped tears while saying: “You look down on her that much? It’s just… such a name, isn’t it?”

Cheng Shi said heavily: “Nuo’er wasn’t even two years old when she died. She did well—just after giving birth to Second Mistress, she named her Zhuo, calling ‘Zhuo’er, Zhuo’er’ morning and night. What was her intention?”

Mother Cheng knew about this matter. Nuo and Zhuo were homophones. Ge Shi was foolish, thinking men must value sons (actually Mother Cheng herself thought this way), originally just trying to stab at Madam Xiao’s heart, but who knew the one most wounded was actually Cheng Shi.

That tiny girl was born exquisitely beautiful, with both Madam Xiao’s lovely bright eyes and Cheng Shi’s thick brows and broad forehead. At that time Cheng Shi was a first-time father, truly loving her beyond measure. With Madam Xiao weak after childbirth and the household lacking extra servant women, whenever Cheng Shi had a moment free, he would bind the swaddling clothes to his own chest and walk about everywhere. But that was exactly when the Cheng family faced their most difficult times—daily life barely sufficient for sustenance, let alone various nourishing things. Many matters couldn’t be attended to, alas—

Mother Cheng was coarse by nature. Only after many years had passed did she gradually perceive her son’s hidden heartache. But thinking further, even someone as clever as Madam Xiao said nothing at all, deliberately letting Ge Shi incur great disaster without knowing—this showed how formidable and forbearing this woman was.

“I spoke to your sister-in-law about it, but she said the name was Ge Taigong’s idea, and it wouldn’t be proper to disobey an elder.” Mother Cheng couldn’t help speaking a word for Ge Shi. Though she also disliked this daughter-in-law, this marriage was arranged by her.

Cheng Shi snorted coldly: “She only knows to use her old father as a shield. If not for Ge Taigong being honest and sincere, having helped me greatly back then, I would have had Second Brother divorce her long ago!”

“Hmph, this kind of woman—normally stirring up trouble for no reason, instigating and gossiping, wishing the whole family would have no peace so she’d be satisfied. A perfectly good home is ruined by this kind of person!” The more Cheng Shi thought about it, the angrier he became. “A few days ago I went to see Second Brother—he was full of listless energy, managing nothing, seeming like a decrepit old man…”

Mother Cheng interjected: “Second Son never liked to talk much. When he was young…”

Cheng Shi interrupted: “Not liking to talk isn’t the same as being lifeless! Though he was taciturn when young, he could still climb trees and shoot birds. When I started my enterprise, he also went about making connections everywhere—how was he inferior to others?!” As the saying goes, an elder brother is like a father—his younger siblings were like Cheng Shi’s own children. He could scold them himself, but how could he tolerate others looking down on them?

“Marrying a dispirited, loose-tongued wife who points at his nose daily saying he’s no good at this, no good at that—what can Second Brother accomplish?!” Cheng Shi slapped his palm on a small table beside the couch. The small table emitted a creaking sound. “We truly shouldn’t have coveted the Ge family’s wealth back then—we’ve harmed Second Brother!”

Mother Cheng looked at the slightly swaying black crane-patterned lacquered wooden table. This was one she had craftsmen make exactly like the one in Madam Wan’s room next door. Every time Madam Wan slapped the table, General Wan, such a towering man, would shrink into a ball kneeling on the ground, kowtowing and pleading with his old mother. She had witnessed Madam Wan losing her temper several times and envied her greatly, wishing she could manipulate her son the same way. Unfortunately, this table she never had the chance to use—now her son was using it instead.

“Speaking of it, it’s all Mother’s fault. Initially I was still hesitating, saying I wanted to observe the Ge family daughter’s character, but Mother couldn’t wait to agree!” Cheng Shi felt a bellyful of anger remembering it. At that time he had just angered his old mother by marrying Madam Xiao, so he didn’t dare overly insist regarding the Ge family marriage.

Mother Cheng felt guilty and secretly sighed—her eldest son was mature beyond his years, shouldering household responsibilities from a young age, faintly already like the family head. When difficult matters arose, she had to ask him for decisions. How could she slap tables and display authority?

“I know Mother wanted to subsidize Uncle and took a liking to Sister-in-law’s dowry! Sister-in-law even thinks it was Yuan Yi who used it. Hmph, I, Cheng Shi, stand upright between heaven and earth—no matter how low I fall, I would never use Sister-in-law’s dowry to support my wife!” Cheng Shi’s reproaches came one after another. “For the sake of the Dong family’s face, I never exposed this, yet Uncle got smug about it!”

At the mention of her brother, Mother Cheng also raised her voice: “Are we just supposed to watch your uncle’s family starve to death?!”

Mother and son shared the same temperament and appearance—when shouting, one matched the other in vigor.

Cheng Shi immediately replied impolitely: “Given the same fields, others can harvest ten measures of grain while Uncle gets only three or four. Agricultural work has always depended on diligence for good harvests. Uncle himself takes the easy jobs and fears the hard ones, and demands fine food at every meal. After eating one meal of wild vegetables and coarse grains, he comes crying to Mother—and still has the face to blame others!”

Mother Cheng struggled to defend: “Your uncle never did farm work since childhood, and he’s physically weak, so how could he…”

“The realm was in chaos—neighboring prefectures were exchanging children to eat them, yet Uncle was still precious! How old were we siblings when we started working?” Cheng Shi said coldly. “A’Xu was only four or five when she went up the mountain to dig wild vegetables. Once she was nearly carried off by a wild wolf. Not one of her ten fingers was intact from cracking, and at night she still had to learn to hold a needle, hurting so much she couldn’t sleep—but I didn’t see Mother feeling sorry for her!”

When family circumstances are difficult, the eldest son and daughter inevitably suffer most. Mother Cheng had no defense and hastily grasped at one thing: “What about Xiao Feng! He also just ate without working, yet you raised him all the way up, even had him study and married him off!”

Cheng Shi raised his voice: “When the Xiao family met disaster, how old was A’Feng? Even younger than Third Brother! By then our family at least didn’t go hungry. I couldn’t bear to make Third Brother do hard labor—would I make A’Feng work?! But how old was Uncle? How old was Cousin A’Yong? Lazy gluttons who probably can’t even recognize rice seedlings!”

Mother Cheng resentfully swallowed a breath and said: “Fine, let all that pass. But you’re still helping to reestablish the Xiao family! The Xiao family has declined to such a state—the great mansion was burned down by bandits in one fire, yet you want to rebuild it…”

“Mother need not continue!” Cheng Shi efficiently interrupted. “It must be Ge Shi who told you this—that loose-tongued woman!”

Mother Cheng turned her head away, refusing to look at her son’s eyes. Cheng Shi said disdainfully: “I’m not afraid to tell Mother—I not only helped A’Feng rebuild the Xiao family mansion, I also bought back quite a bit of the farmland the Xiao family had mortgaged and sold. Whatever old Xiao family servants could be found, I redeemed them all!”

Mother Cheng was beside herself with rage, pointing at her son: “You, you…”

Cheng Shi said proudly: “Yuan Yi said from the start she wanted to marry a man who could help her revive the Xiao family—she’d work like an ox or horse, anything. If I couldn’t do it, she’d find someone else to marry! I agreed immediately.” Remembering his wife’s difficulties back then, Cheng Shi’s face showed sympathy, his voice softening: “Yuan Yi was pitiful. The dignified Young Mistress of the Xiao family was forced to that point.”

Mother Cheng was furious at his failure to meet expectations, raising her fist to pound hard on her son’s shoulder: “You worthless thing! A second-marriage woman whose family was ruined, whose wealth was all mortgaged away—and you still treasure her so! If she didn’t marry you, this fool, who else could she marry?”

“I just treasure her!” Cheng Shi covered his faintly aching shoulder, completely unconcerned. “When I was young and first saw her at the Xiao family mansion, I treasured her immediately. Aside from her, I didn’t want to marry anyone. Fortunately the realm fell into chaos, otherwise where would I have such luck!”

Changing tack, he added: “Mother shouldn’t speak such cheap words either. Though the Xiao family declined, there were still those who wanted to marry Yuan Yi back then. Do you think she’s like A’Xi, who required so much dowry offered again and again before anyone would accept her?”

At the mention of his youngest daughter, Mother Cheng’s anger deflated—she could only sigh.

Cheng Shi continued: “Yuan Yi is a heroine among women, true to her word. These years she’s followed me through wind and rain, mountains of blades and seas of fire. How many times my life hung by a thread—only thanks to Yuan Yi could I endure!”

“Yes, yes, yes—heaven is good, earth is good, but only your wife is best of all!” Mother Cheng said spitefully. Even knowing it was true, she refused to admit defeat.

“Yuan Yi is indeed good!” Cheng Shi said loudly. “Mother, lift your head and look outside. Among those generals and marquises who’ve achieved merit and established careers now, seven out of ten were originally local strongmen and great households from their hometowns—either wealthy merchants or families of scholarly lineage. The remaining three, though born poor, were early supporters of His Majesty who established great merit as founding followers. But our family? What about us?”

Mother Cheng knew these words were not false. The Wan family next door was originally one of the great clans of the local prefecture. General Wan’s deceased father left behind substantial wealth, farmland, and quite a few retainers—this was General Wan’s capital for making his fortune.

“What does starting an enterprise depend on? People and money. Even if I could raise my arm and gather some young men, what about military pay? Provisions? When soldiers are wounded or disabled, they must be compensated and settled, right? We can’t just watch their orphans and widows starve to death—wouldn’t that chill others’ hearts? Our family was originally just a farming household with a bit of surplus grain—where could we produce such things!” Cheng Shi remembered the difficulties of those early days, his voice choking: “Though taking cities and fortresses brought captures and contributions from wealthy households, we couldn’t exhaust and plunder everything. Once we ruined our reputation, how would we differ from bandits and brigands?!”

“Our hometown especially lacked imperial destiny. Whether His Majesty or the world’s current heroes galloping across the realm—not one arose nearby.” Cheng Shi was also quite depressed about his hometown’s geographical location. He wasn’t an ambitious person—initially he just wanted to quickly find a reliable leader to follow, work hard for him in the future, and seek a career. Clearly his hometown also had beautiful mountains and rivers—why didn’t it produce a leading figure?

“Counting from when the tyrannical Emperor usurped the throne and heroes across the realm rose in righteous opposition, until I befriended General Wan—in just over ten years, how many forces that raised banners and started enterprises were extinguished without a sound? Yesterday still drinking wine and eating meat, surrounded by beautiful women, today their heads hanging beneath city gates or atop flagpoles. Wives, children, and elderly either abandoned amid the chaos or meeting violent deaths. Yuan Yi told me we couldn’t learn those bandit methods, just seeking momentary satisfaction. The great have their great methods of making trouble, the small have their small techniques of preservation.”

Cheng Shi stood up, pacing back and forth in the room, his voice growing ever louder: “Back then every penny earned had to be carefully calculated in spending—repairing armaments and city walls, recuperating the wounded and ill, recruiting talented and capable people everywhere! Our family had no great reputation—why would heroic talents come to us, if not for a good name of righteousness, cherishing the people, loving soldiers like sons?! Yuan Yi herself was unwilling to eat or dress well—even captured silks and brocades had to be exchanged for provisions. If not for this, Nuo’er… Nuo’er wouldn’t have…”

Thinking of his eldest daughter, Cheng Shi couldn’t help choking up: “Even so, while resisting bandits and invading remnant soldiers and scattered generals, while pacifying the hometown, the clans and common people of several surrounding commanderies were willing to acknowledge me. Only then did I gradually establish my foundation, avoiding the same fate as those bandits. Mother always feels I have money but refuse to give it to Mother to spend, yet doesn’t know my difficulties!”

Mother Cheng actually wasn’t greedy for wealth—it was just that after Madam Xiao entered the household, seeing her son hand everything over to Madam Xiao to manage, she felt jealous. She had heard these explanations before but always felt her son was making excuses—so quick to give money to his wife, yet resisting and evading when it came to his old mother, which made her increasingly angry. This time seeing her son’s eyes brimming with tears, she believed ninety percent of what she heard. Mother Cheng mumbled: “Later didn’t several famous generals come to recruit you?”

“Recruit?! Hmph, looking for scapegoats!” Cheng Shi said coldly. “Before meeting General Wan, how many times I suffered losses. Those with such grand titles of ‘Great General’—knowing I was humbly born, they looked down on me. The better ones would bring gold, silver, pearls, and jade saying they ‘invited me to discuss great matters together.’ The more arrogant ones only spoke empty words, not providing a single stone of provisions yet telling me to come obey their orders!”

Cheng Shi glared at Mother Cheng: “Fortunately Yuan Yi was alert and always on guard. She told me ‘charging into battle is easy, a good minister choosing a master is hard’—we must never rashly entrust our families. That’s why I always kept Mother and the others hidden in the hometown. If things went wrong, Yuan Yi and I could immediately ride light and flee. Even so, Mother still complained daily that I ‘only brought Yuan Yi along to enjoy blessings while making parents and brothers suffer hardship in the countryside’! Later when I befriended General Wan, didn’t I rush to bring you all from the countryside at full gallop!”

Mother Cheng’s thick face finally flushed with some shame. She said awkwardly: “No wonder these years Elder Brother always settled our whole family beside the Wan family.”

“Yuan Yi has vision. Those earlier so-called ‘Great Generals for Punishing Bandits’—she watched them for a few days and said they wouldn’t work. Either their eyes were bigger than their abilities with no real skill, or they were cruel and ruthless, not treating their subordinates as human. Only General Wan, though his talents might not be first-rate in the world, is generous and heroic, benevolent and magnanimous. If I help him well, combining our two strengths, we can always carve out a path in this chaotic world. If not for this, how could we have waited for the day to pledge loyalty to His Majesty?”

Speaking of his wife’s merits, Cheng Shi truly had both stronger conviction and more solid reasoning: “The Wan family is Sui County’s foremost great clan. Not counting General Wan’s retainers, Madam Wan herself has over a hundred household guards and warriors. Ordinary bandits and thieves can’t get close—protecting female family members is sufficient. Yuan Yi advised me that since we’d sworn brotherhood with General Wan, we might as well entrust our families to him—both ensuring safety and displaying sincerity, killing two birds with one stone.”

Speaking to this point, Cheng Shi paused, staring fixedly at Mother Cheng: “The Cheng family has today because Yuan Yi contributed greatly. That day in the military tent I swore a heavy oath—if I wrong Yuan Yi in this life, may I die a terrible death!”

He felt he had made his position perfectly clear. Who knew that Mother Cheng, having patiently listened to her son praise his wife for so long, had long since lost patience? She had always been a clamshell by nature, most hating when people used grand principles to pressure her. Even if her heart had submitted, her mouth refused to soften.

Mother Cheng now surged with jealous resentment, even forgetting Maternal Uncle Dong, saying bitterly: “You open your mouth ‘Yuan Yi’ and close it ‘Yuan Yi’—what about Mother? Have you ever thought whether Mother’s days are good?!”

“Eating well, dressing well, wealth and glory—what’s not good for Mother?” Unfortunately, Cheng Shi had used all his tender feelings and careful thoughts on Xiao Yuan Yi alone, completely unable to understand what exactly his mother was dissatisfied about.

Mother Cheng’s eyes nearly dripped tears: “Of five children, I loved Third Son and you most, yet after you two married, you only care for your wives. Whatever you have to say, you only tell your wives, no longer caring for Mother. Mother’s lap is empty, her heart is empty—how can that be good?!”

She was born a farm woman and didn’t fear hardship or toil. It was just that after her son started his enterprise, she was kept in the dark about everything, while conversely Madam Xiao constantly accompanied him at his side, knowing everything—making herself seem like an outsider.

Cheng Shi found Mother Cheng’s complaint incomprehensible: “When men establish households, it’s naturally this way. Even a hundred years from now, Mother will be buried with Father, while sons will be buried in the same chamber with their wives.”

After a pause, Cheng Shi saw Mother Cheng’s resentful expression and ‘very cleverly’ understood it in another direction: “Since Father passed away, Mother has been quite lonely—I know this. I wonder if Mother has someone she fancies? If so, why not remarry?” He thought as long as his mother was happy, even providing extra dowry was fine—Mother’s later years should be joyful.

Mother Cheng’s eyes, originally moistened into a South American rainforest, immediately dried into the Sahara, glaring furiously at her son like fire.

Cheng Shi still felt he was being very magnanimous: “Mother need not be embarrassed. Mother labored mentally and physically for the Cheng family—we children all see it. If Mother wants to remarry, my brothers and I have absolutely no objection. Moreover, the Cheng family population is thin. If the spirits protect us and Mother gives birth to new siblings in the future, that’s also a good thing. I will certainly treat them as full siblings!”

Mother Cheng finally could endure no more, picking up that black lacquered wooden table and heavily hurling it at Cheng Shi: “You wretch, get out! If you die first, this old body will definitely find your wife a good man to remarry and have a whole brood of new children!”

—This was the last sentence of this mother-son heart-to-heart after ten years apart.

…

On the other side, Qing Cong was gently massaging Madam Xiao’s shoulders. Hearing indistinct shouting from not far away, she smiled: “The Master and Old Madam both have loud voices. I wonder how the conversation went—I only hope Old Madam has a change of heart. A family should always be harmonious.”

Madam Xiao slightly curved her mouth corners: “Nothing more than old trivialities. Having been hard before, now it’s time for softness. I told the Master to praise Mother-in-law’s hardships back then more, speak more of how mother and son depended on each other to get by, mention me and the Xiao family less. Between birth mother and son, what can’t be overcome?”

Qing Cong’s face lit up with smiles: “The Madam is wise. This time the Master will surely succeed.”