The Heir

Сhарtеr 148: Fаmilу

Zhen Niang did nоt find Маdаm Sun’s аctions wrong. Аftеr all, the mаin branch оf thе fаmilу wаs сurrently in а weak position. As thе sаying gоes, оnе shоuld nоt harbоr ill intеntiоns tоwаrd othеrs, but one must alsо guаrd agаinst them. A mothеr taking prеcautiоns fоr hеr сhildrеn’s sаkе could nеvеr be а mistаkе.

Hоwevеr, Мadam Sun’s intеntiоns werе not that simplе.

After pоndеring thеse thоughts, Zhen Niang set thеm аsidе. It was nоthing mаjоr. Аftеrwаrd, she wеnt tо the Ink Wоrkshoр to inspеct еvеrуthing. Thе gооds tо be shippеd to Nanjing were alrеady pаcked, аnd then shе rеturned hоme.

Unexpectedly, as soon as she reached the doorstep, she saw Du Shi’s mother, Shen Shi, peering around outside the gate but not knocking.

“Auntie, here to see my sister-in-law?” Zhen Niang asked from behind, startling Shen Shi, who jumped in fright. Turning around and seeing Zhen Niang, she replied with a somewhat embarrassed expression, “Ah, it’s Zhen Niang. Yes, just here for a visit.”

“Then why didn’t you knock?” Zhen Niang asked with a smile before calling out to have the gate opened. Li Liujin opened the door and greeted Zhen Niang warmly. However, upon seeing Shen Shi, his expression turned somewhat sour, and he only offered a perfunctory greeting: “Madam Shen is here.”

It wasn’t that Li Liujin was being rude, but Shen Shi often visited the Li family’s eighth branch every few days. Each time, she either borrowed money or took things away. Over time, it became rather tiresome.

Thus, his tone was not particularly friendly.

“Ah, it’s the New Year, so I came to see the little one,” Shen Shi replied awkwardly. The “little one” she referred to was naturally the newborn child of the Li family.

Hearing this, Li Liujin secretly rolled his eyes. This Shen Shi always had various excuses for her visits. On the third day of the New Year, Du Shi had just taken the child to the Shen family to pay her respects. At the time, his own wife had accompanied them. And what happened? The New Year’s red envelopes Shen Shi gave to the two children contained only one copper coin each.

While one shouldn’t judge the amount of money in a New Year’s red envelope for children, it at least reflected an attitude. Moreover, Shen Shi had taken so much from the Li family over the years. Giving just one copper coin during the New Year was simply unacceptable.

When they returned home, his wife had complained about that one copper coin so much that his ears were nearly calloused. She said she had never seen such a maternal family that only took and never gave.

Therefore, Li Liujin had little goodwill toward Shen Shi. And today, without a doubt, Shen Shi had come to borrow money due to the hardships of the year, yet she insisted it was to see the little one. What an excuse.

“Auntie, please come inside,” Zhen Niang politely invited Shen Shi.

As soon as the two entered the house, they were greeted by the fragrant aroma of bean yellow. Zhen Niang took a deep breath and knew that her family must be preparing oil-flour Bean Yellow Cakes for her journey to Nanjing the next day.

“What’s that smell? It’s strangely fragrant,” Shen Shi remarked beside her.

“It should be oil-flour Bean Yellow Cakes. I’m returning to Nanjing tomorrow, and these will be my provisions for the journey. Auntie, you can take a couple to try later,” Zhen Niang replied. Li Liujin could afford to be cold toward Shen Shi—at worst, it could be said that a servant lacked manners.

But she couldn’t. After all, Shen Shi was her sister-in-law’s mother. Even if not for her sake, she had to consider her sister-in-law’s feelings. Besides, Zhen Niang had been in Nanjing all last year and wasn’t very familiar with the Shen family’s affairs. Therefore, she had to fulfill the proper courtesies.

“Mhm, good, good,” Shen Shi replied with a smile.As they spoke, the two circled around and entered the kitchen. Sure enough, Aunt Zheng was busy with Liu Jin Sao, while the eldest sister-in-law, with a baby just a few months old strapped to her back, was also helping.

"Zhen Niang is back?" Du Shi smiled warmly at the sight of Zhen Niang, but when she turned and saw her own mother, a hint of helplessness appeared on her face. "Mother, you're here."

"Ah, yes," Shen Shi responded, looking awkward and hesitant, as if she had something to say but couldn't quite bring herself to say it.

"Eldest sister-in-law, let me handle this. Why don't you go talk with Auntie?" Zhen Niang chimed in.

"Alright," Du Shi replied, standing up and tugging at Shen Shi's sleeve. The two of them left the kitchen and headed to a corner nearby. Standing there, Zhen Niang could see through the kitchen window as her eldest sister-in-law took money from her purse and pressed it into Shen Shi's hand.

Frowning, Zhen Niang turned to Zheng Shi and asked, "Auntie, haven't Shen Shi's two brothers returned yet?"

"How could they dare come back? The arrest warrants from the yamen haven't been withdrawn yet. But recently, there's been a pregnant woman at the Shen household. Shen Shi told others she was a distant relative's daughter-in-law who came to stay with her during her pregnancy. But I don't think that's the case. What kind of good life does the Shen family have now? Why would any distant relative send their daughter-in-law here to rest during pregnancy? I suspect it's probably a wife one of the brothers took outside. Now that she's pregnant, they quietly sent her back. Shen Shi can't tell outsiders the truth, afraid they'd ask about her brothers' whereabouts, so she claims it's a distant relative's daughter-in-law." Liu Jin Sao interjected from the side.

"Oh," Zhen Niang nodded. That made sense, and she didn't press further. Shen Shi had no means of livelihood to begin with, and now with an extra pregnant woman in the household, expenses must have increased again. No wonder she came to borrow money.

Those Shen brothers really were worthless.

As they were chatting, Du Shi soon escorted Shen Shi out. Remembering her earlier promise, Zhen Niang wrapped up a few freshly steamed oil noodles and Bean Yellow Cakes and brought them over.

"Auntie, take these to try," Zhen Niang said, handing the cakes to Shen Shi.

"Ah, thank you, they smell wonderful," Shen Shi replied eagerly.

"Zhen Niang..." Du Shi looked at her sister-in-law, her eyes slightly red.

Zhen Niang smiled and shook her head, then cupped her hands in farewell before turning and heading into the inner room to find her mother. Meanwhile, Du Shi continued to see Shen Shi out.

"Listen, when you get to Nanjing, take on more of the ink workshop responsibilities. You should also handle more of the external networking and relationships. After all, Zhen Niang is a young woman, and many things aren't convenient for her. You can't just pile everything on her shoulders. That girl is strong-willed—no matter how difficult or unfair things get, she won't utter a word of complaint. You have to think of her."

Just as Zhen Niang was about to knock on the door of the east room, she heard Zhao Shi inside, giving instructions to her father.

"I know, I just can't bear to leave you. Why don't you come with us to Nanjing? After all, Zheng Shi and our eldest son are here to take care of things at home," Li Jingfu said, sounding a bit whiny."You think I don't want to? It's just that the old master's health seems to have declined recently, and his nighttime coughing fits are getting worse. How can I rest easy? After all, you're not going to Nanjing forever. And when I have free time, I'll go stay in Nanjing too," said Zhao Shi. Then, raising her voice, she added, "I must remind you—Nanjing is that kind of pleasure-seeking world. You better keep your wits about you and don't go getting any wild ideas."

"Ah, ah, ah, you—don't even bring that up now. Even back when I was reckless, I never had any wild ideas," said Li Jingfu. As he spoke, from inside the room came Zhao Shi's sudden exclamation of "Oh!" followed by a scolding "You devil!" and then the sounds of intimacy.

Even though Zhen Niang considered herself worldly from movies and TV shows in her past life, she still felt her cheeks flush at this moment. Clearly, now was not the time to disturb her parents. She quietly retreated.

Xi Ge'er was nowhere to be seen—likely off running wild again with Brother Run and Tianyou. As for her eldest brother, with the workers on holiday during the New Year, he, as the owner, had to watch over the oil workshop and wouldn't return until evening.

Zhen Niang then went to the main house and saw Wu Shi sitting by the door, holding Little Official Xiao with a contented smile.

"Grandma, where's Grandfather?" Zhen Niang asked.

"He's in the small Ink Workshop at the back, of course. Ever since you gave him that ink last time, he's been obsessed with it. That old man—he's been fixated on ink his whole life, and you, girl, are just like him," Wu Shi chattered on, pulling Zhen Niang aside to talk for a while longer, mostly about survival philosophies like not pushing oneself too hard when outside.

Zhen Niang kept her grandmother company for a bit before standing up. "Grandma, I'm going to the small Ink Workshop to see Grandfather."

"Mhm, go ahead. Chat with him more—you're the only one in the family who can hold a conversation with your grandfather about ink," Wu Shi said with a smile. Whenever the two of them talked about ink, no one else could get a word in.

"Okay," Zhen Niang replied and headed to the small Ink Workshop in the backyard.

The small Ink Workshop in the backyard was originally a storage room but had been converted by Old Master Li himself. It had two rooms: one for smoke generation and the other for Ink Mixing and ink making.

When Zhen Niang entered the small Ink Workshop, she saw her grandfather boiling glue.

However, what puzzled Zhen Niang was that usually, the glue for a single type of ink was singular. But now, she saw several types of glue laid out beside him: deer antler glue, cowhide glue, fish bladder glue, and others.

"Grandfather, why are you boiling so many types of glue?" Zhen Niang asked curiously. This had never happened in previous ink-making processes. Typically, glue was supposed to be pure, and only when adding various auxiliary materials did it become diverse. She had never heard of using multiple types of glue—wouldn't that make it too mixed?

"Zhen Niang, you're here. I'm just experimenting. I've been studying the ink you brought back last time. Our Li family's Four Harmonies Ink—it's profound. One jin of soot pigment, three qian of raw lacquer, two qian of cooked lacquer, supplemented with ingredients added to the glue—all of that is good. But I've tried making it several times, and the quality is still far from that of the Four Harmonies Ink. I've been thinking and thinking but can't figure out why. But look at the cross-section of this ink..." Old Shopkeeper Li said, handing Zhen Niang a half-piece of ink.Zhen Niang drew a sharp breath—her grandfather was truly willing to go all out. The ink stick left by Master Qi for her to study had actually been broken by her own grandfather.

"Grandfather, you broke it. How am I supposed to explain this to Grandfather Qi? He only said it was for us to study, not that he was giving it to us," Zhen Niang exclaimed in astonishment.

"That old fellow has always been like this. If he said that, he won’t ask for the ink back. At most, once we’ve figured out the method for this Four-Ink Mixing, we’ll explain the recipe to him. That old man never makes a losing deal," Old Shopkeeper Li huffed, his beard bristling. Though his words were blunt, the more he spoke this way, the more it revealed that the two had once been on very good terms.

Meanwhile, Zhen Niang carefully examined the cross-section. The broken surface of the ancient ink was deep and glossy, firm yet radiant, with a texture as fine as rhinoceros horn and a quality as warm as jade—these were the hallmarks of top-tier ancient ink. But upon closer inspection, she noticed that the fine, dense grain seemed to have a flowing sensation. What was going on? The entire cross-section of the ink appeared to have a sense of movement.

"Grandfather, this ink... could it be because of the glue?" Zhen Niang couldn’t help but ask.

"I’m not entirely sure yet. I suspect this flowing sensation is precisely due to the blending of different types of glue, but I haven’t fully grasped it yet," Old Master Li remarked with a hint of sigh.

It’s often said that times progress, but with skills being lost generation after generation, sometimes the people of today truly fall short of the ancients.