Chapter 7
By the time I reached Shen Shanliang’s room, the physician could do nothing.
His pupils had clouded gray. He lay on the bed, convulsing and vomiting blood.
Dark blood stained both the bedding and the floor.
The physician’s diagnosis was,
“Excessive wine has exhausted the liver’s vital energy, allowing a pernicious wind to enter the organs.”
In plain language, drinking had damaged his liver and caused a stroke.
He was already old. Every guest had seen how happy he was that day, drinking cup after cup until he collapsed at the banquet.
No one looked at me with suspicion.
Within moments, he stopped vomiting blood. One final shudder, and he ceased to breathe.
The silence lasted only a few seconds before wailing filled the room.
His younger brothers and nephews.
Naturally, they had attended Qinghui’s birthday feast.
Now the head of the Shen household had died without warning. His body was still warm, and their minds were already working.
His second brother cried,
“My elder brother! How could you leave us? This vast estate—how can little Qinghui protect it when he can’t even speak?”
His third nephew added,
“Uncle, rest easy. Though you’ve gone, I’ll care for Qinghui as my own younger brother.”
And so they continued.
They clamored endlessly before his body. Every word concealed a calculation.
They all wanted to use Qinghui’s infancy to seize control of the Shen fortune.
In the middle of the uproar, Prefect Li Tian arrived with his attendants.
He regarded the corpse with an anguished expression, stroked his beard, and put on a show of sighing in grief and regret.
Soon, however, he turned to the family quarrel.
With an air of fairness, he said,
“The urgent matter is for the Shen clansmen to choose a date and bury the deceased promptly. Do not grieve Master Shen’s spirit.”
“Furthermore, he leaves only one infant son. To ensure that the child is not left helpless and deprived of his estate, I shall appoint a salt commissioner to supervise the Shen salt works.”
For all his elaborate preliminaries and his pose as an impartial third party,
no one present was a fool. Everyone understood.
The prefect wanted a share of the salt business too.
The Shens immediately stopped fighting among themselves. A few exchanged glances were enough to unite them against the outsider.
Then, before Shen Shanliang’s body, they fell into a bitter quarrel with Li Tian.
It continued until nightfall.
At last, they reached an agreement.
Until Qinghui came of age, the second and third branches would take charge of the Shen businesses.
Li Tian would still send a salt commissioner to oversee the salt works.
The intensity of that supervision would depend on the subsidy the two branches donated to the prefectural office.
Taking advantage of the family’s leaderless state, Li Tian demanded a fifth of their revenue.
But even a dead centipede could still twitch.
And the Shens had a century’s foundations beneath them. How could a prefect who had only come to Guangling three years ago bully them as he pleased?
Their uncles and nephews might not be as capable or shrewd as Shen Shanliang, but they were no fools. Together, they drove the sum down, again and again.
Eventually, both sides agreed on one tenth.
Everyone was satisfied.
Only Shen Qinghui, in Nanny Qi’s arms, did not know that he had become a discarded pawn, a useless puppet.