A Measure of Peace
Bai Jiyun's eyes flew wide open.
"What does a child know, spouting such nonsense! I did not hand silver to the Clan Head's household to buy our peace. Besides, that was decided long ago—your grandfather the Duke and the Crown Prince discussed it with the clan elders themselves. It was a promise made when we sent our holiday gifts, that it would be settled together!"
"The Duke always said that since the Clan Head's household was the most prosperous branch within the clan, it was only right that they lend their strength to the clan. All this while, it was the Duke who settled every matter within the clan! The Clan Head sent us here not because he asked the clan to help, but because he feared that in the midst of mourning, the Duke's household might not have the means to send anyone—so he said the Duke would surely wish for the clan to flourish, for only then could our own Bai family prosper further. The Clan Head was worried the Duke's household might be too consumed by grief to spare a thought for the clan's affairs, too overwhelmed to spare a single hand—that is why he sent us! A witless girl who knows nothing—what manner of insolence is this toward your elders?"
Bai Jiyun was a man who prized his dignity above all, but he was no fool. He was not so senseless as to repeat, before all these onlookers, the threats he had made to Lady Dong in private and invite the condemnation of the crowd.
He had to elevate the Duke. He had to state plainly that the Clan Head had sent him out of consideration for the Duke's devotion to the clan's prosperity and future.
"Jinchi! Step back! What are you doing before the spirit tablets of the Duke's household?"
Bai Jindong pulled Bai Jinchi back, then pressed both hands forward, offering incense to Bai Jiyun.
"Eldest Uncle. Please offer incense for Grandfather, Father, my uncles, and all our brothers and sisters."
Bai Jiyun glanced once at Bai Jinchi, whom Bai Jindong was holding back, and muttered under his breath.
"An ill-bred girl."
"What did you say?"
Bai Jinchi lunged forward to demand an answer, but Bai Jindong seized her wrist and held her fast.
Bai Jiyun took the incense and bowed three times. But as he moved to plant the incense, the three sticks in his hand snapped all at once.
"Snapped…"
"Why did the incense break?"
"This is… clearly the Duke refusing that man's offering!"
The commoners murmured among themselves, then all surged forward to see for themselves.
Bai Jiyun's face darkened. He lifted his head and looked up at the black spirit tablet of Duke Bai Weiting—and in that instant, dread flooded over him. He stumbled back two steps.
They said not to speak of strange forces and unsettled spirits. Yet he had come to this house before the Duke's body had even gone cold, to extort the bereaved family of the Duke's household. With so much already weighing on his conscience, how could he not tremble now that the incense had broken in his hands?
Bai Jinxiu, watching as Bai Jindong handed over the incense, bowed her head and said nothing.
"The incense must have gotten damp. Eldest Uncle, please offer it again."
Bai Jindong, suppressing a smile with her head lowered, handed Bai Jiyun three fresh sticks.
"Eldest Uncle, offer the incense!"
Bai Jiyun forced down the fear gnawing at him and bowed three times, full of ceremony. But just as he moved to plant the incense a second time, the sticks snapped once more and dropped to the floor. Bai Jiyun jerked backward in fright.
"Didn't I tell you? Grandfather never once spoke of such a thing. As if he would ever order us to hand over everything we own to the clan!"
Bai Jinchi dropped to her knees with a thud and wailed before the spirit hall.
"Grandfather! Grandfather, have you come back? The people of the main branch are tormenting us, a household of women. Is that why you've returned—returned for our sake? Is that why you refuse to accept the incense that man offers?"
The candles in the spirit hall suddenly began to flicker violently. The shadows of the spirit tablets thrown against the wall swayed with them. Wind rushed in from the entrance, and the onlookers felt their hearts begin to pound.
"The Duke has descended in spirit."
"It's the Duke—he has come back in spirit!"
"Duke!"
The commoners outside the gates abruptly fell to their knees, weeping and wailing, and the Bai family's servants knelt as well, crying out for the Duke through their tears.
Bai Jiyun, his face drained of color, stepped back another two paces, still clutching the broken incense.
Bai Jinchi knelt before the spirit hall and bowed deeply, with all her weight.
"Grandfather! Prince Xin slanders us and the main branch presses upon us, and the family the Duke's household has left behind cannot take a single step forward. Grandfather, show us the road—tell us where we are to go!"
"How utterly shameless can the main branch be!"
An old man's voice, as resonant as a tolling bell, rang out, and Bai Jiyun whirled around in shock.
Old Steward Gao came hobbling toward them, supported by a servant. The whites of his eyes were streaked red with burst vessels, and his face was black with fury.
He had rushed here in desperation. When he saw how restless the Duke's soul appeared, his heart had leapt clean into his throat. Trembling with rage, he jabbed a finger at Bai Jiyun and roared.
"Have you any shame at all? Any? Answer me!"
"Old… Old Steward Gao?"
Bai Jiyun called to him feebly.
Old Steward Gao struck his cane against the stone floor, thud after thud.
"I managed the ledgers of the Duke's household for years—I know better than anyone how much it has given to the main branch! Counting every year's income and every gift bestowed by His Majesty, the Duke provided for every single member of the clan, one by one. Half of all revenue always went to the main branch!"
Having said this much, Old Steward Gao sank to his knees before the spirit hall, beating his chest, his voice choking with sobs.
"Did this old servant not beg the Duke and the Crown Prince, time and again! Rice given by the peck is remembered as a kindness, but rice given by the word will surely return as resentment! You raised the main branch's arrogance with your own hands. Every time they opened their mouths, they demanded all four hundred fifty thousand taels of silver from the Duke's household! All these years, the Duke's household has handed over half of every year's harvest to the main branch—and where, I ask you, is this four hundred fifty thousand taels supposed to come from?
"When the Duke's household could not produce the silver, these people pressed upon the Crown Prince's Lady until she was forced to sell every shop, every farm, every field the household owned! Once it is all sold, how are the hundred-plus retainers of the Duke's household meant to live? It is all this old servant's fault… I should have pressed my honest counsel to the very end! This old servant… this old servant betrayed the Duke's trust. I have wronged every soul in this family. Let me die here and now!"
With that, Old Steward Gao staggered to his feet and hurled himself toward the wooden table of the spirit hall, intending to dash his skull against it.
"Old Steward Gao!"
Bai Jinxiu, eyes wide, threw both arms out to stop him—and tumbled to the ground along with him.
The spirit hall erupted into chaos in an instant. Restraining the old steward, helping Bai Jinxiu up—there was no end to the commotion.
The commoners, their emotions at a boil, cried out one after another.
"What ill fortune has dogged the Duke's household! How are the family he left behind meant to go on living? To hound two lives of the Duke's household into the grave in a single day! Do they not fear the working of karma? Do they not fear a bolt of lightning from a clear sky?"
"Bah! Shameless wretches! The Duke's household sits in the deepest mourning, and the main branch neither helps the bereaved nor lifts a finger—instead they descend like highwaymen to seize the estate!"
"Their greed knows no end! The Duke's household gave half its yearly income to the clan—what family could sink this low? The Duke was too gentle of heart, and it was his kindness that fed the arrogance of those wolves. Is that not how this calamity has come upon the family he left behind?"
"The way I see it, those people think the Duke's household is easy pickings now that it has no men. The men of the Duke's household gave their very lives for the country, for the people—and these shameless clansmen torment the widows and orphans at a time like this!"
Sensing the fury of the crowd, Bai Jiyun retreated to stand beside his two cousins, still reeling, his wits scattered by what had just happened—by the moment when the Duke himself had supposedly descended in spirit.
"What is the meaning of this commotion?"
Lady Dong, the Crown Prince's Lady of the Duke's household, entered slowly toward the mourning hall, supported by Bai Jingyan. The quiet majesty she carried pressed upon the crowd like a weight.
"What is all this uproar? You will startle the Grand Princess!"
Old Steward Gao bowed deeply, at a loss.
"Crown Princess! This old servant failed to offer his counsel with full loyalty. This old servant is not even worthy to be a servant of the Duke's household!"
Lady Dong walked to him and gently helped the old steward, whose eyes were rimmed with red, back to his feet.
"Old Steward Gao, what are you saying? Your family has followed our Duke's household faithfully since the days of the great-great-grandfather, generation after generation! How could I not know how your ancestors gave their strength to this house, down through the years?"
"Crown Princess!"
Tears streaming down his face, Old Steward Gao sobbed too hard to speak another word.
"To buy fields for the clan and repair the ancestral hall, the tombs, and the school, we would have to strip the Duke's household bare just to scrape together the silver. But I, Lady Dong, swear it here before this hall: even if I must give up every last piece of my own dowry, I will see that the loyal servants of this household are clothed and fed. So long as I have a mouthful of rice to eat, not one soul of the Duke's household will ever go hungry."
"Crown Princess!"
"Crown Princess!"
The servants and retainers of the Bai family dropped to their knees as one, thanking Lady Dong for her boundless grace.
Lady Dong was a woman who governed a household, but she was wise, and she had steel in her.
Bai Jingyan looked at her mother, unable to contain her admiration. A moment ago, when Bai Jingyan had moved to step forward herself, her mother had held her back. Only after Old Steward Gao had nearly killed himself, and only after the crowd's fury had been fully roused, did her mother slowly come forward and settle everything.
Now that her mother had declared before the entire spirit hall that her own dowry would feed the Bai family's loyal servants, even if the relatives of the main branch later went back to Suyang and saw the Duke's household's servants living as comfortably as ever, they would have nothing to say. They would never dare lay a hand on the dowry of a daughter-in-law of the Bai family.
And if they did—who, then, would ever marry into the Bai family's sons?
Bai Jingyan had laid the groundwork, and her mother had built it into something flawless. There was so much to learn from her mother in this single day alone.
"For the sake of the clan, our Duke's household has emptied itself to raise the silver. But the words one least wishes to hear are the very words one must say first, so…"
Lady Dong looked steadily at Bai Jiyun and went on, each word clear and unhurried.
"To lend our strength to the clan, this household pledged even its family trade. So do not for a moment think of reaching for the dowry of the family we have lost. With that dowry I must raise our daughters, and feed the loyal retainers and servants who serve this house! All that the bereaved of this household ask is this: that when we return to Suyang, the clan grants us a measure of peace."
Bai Jiyun and his two cousins ought to have protested if only for the honor of the clan—but remembering the candles that had flickered wildly in the wind, and the incense that had snapped twice, they shut their mouths tight.
Honor was the very root by which a clan planted its feet in this world.
The women and children left behind by the Duke's household would have to live leaning on the clan from this day forward—yet they had never imagined that their kin would disregard even that root, and draw such a thorough line between themselves and the clan.
If Bai Jiyun's father, the current Clan Head, ever learned of this, he would likely fly into a rage and swear to break his son's legs.
"It matters nothing to me if we give up everything the Duke's household owns. Thank heaven the women of this family brought dowries with them. Surely you don't think we'd fail to feed our children and the loyal retainers of this house!"
Fifth Madam Ji, her belly heavy as a hill, came to the spirit hall supported by her maid, and bowed respectfully to Lady Dong.
"If the silver can buy a road to survival for the family we've lost—if the clan will only not drive us to our deaths—then what does it matter if we hand over every last thing? And it isn't only Eldest Sister's dowry. There is mine as well. Sister, if the people of this household stand together, there is no hardship we cannot overcome!"
Fourth Madam Wang, who had been leaning against her son's coffin, drained of any will to live, spoke in a hushed voice.
"My dowry is here as well!"
"And mine! It may not be as much as Eldest Sister's, but mine could fill ten li of red chests in its own right. On the day I married, the porters carrying my dowry came through our gates from dawn until dusk!"
Third Madam Li had come running at the news, her voice arriving before she did.
It had always been said that a woman who married prized her dowry more dearly than her own life. When the main branch had pressed the Duke's household to give up everything and buy its safety, the wives of the household had vied with one another to offer their dowries to raise the children and servants left behind.
What a contrast it made. What courage these women of the Duke's household possessed—and beside them, how base and low the clan of Suyang appeared.
Even among common folk, households where the men had died and only women and children remained were beyond counting. Yet those women could not keep what their husbands had left behind. In most cases, the clan took it.
And now, even in a family as venerable as the Bais, there were clansmen this vile.