A Flower’s Shade Read Free Page B

and melted almost immediately. On account of the old master's extraordinary proclivities, the hall was packed with stunning beauties, a genuine universe of women. Whether it was light work or heavy work—women did it; even the Estate gardeners were women. Women were everywhere, every manner of woman running in and out of the Great Hall, this way and that, as if nobody knew quite what they were about.
    The great gates, otherwise kept closed, were opened in honor of the grave occasion. Everyone was accustomed to coming in through the small side doors. Now, as soon as one came in through the great gates, one encountered a mourning canopy made of white cloth and held up by great thick shoots of tortoise-shell bamboo. This foyer led to the sedan chair hall and from there on to the main hall. Long, broad wooden boards had been set up, forming a walkway between the halls. The courtyard floor had thus been raised level with the Great Hall, and one could take in everything for a considerable distance at a glance. The floor had become like a long level road, spacious and magnificent. All the carpenters of the little town had been summoned to construct this floor, and it had taken them all day and all night. Uncounted quantities of wood had been used, and the air was filled with the crisp smell of newly sawn wood.
    All kinds of suspicious-looking men appeared one after the other at the great gates, having swiftly covered a considerable distance to attend the mourning, each of them a representative from some branch of the clan. They were dressed in long grey gowns, with muddy shoes, standing beneath umbrellas of oilcloth or of paper, casting furtive looks this way and that. The Zhen family was one branch of a very large clan, and it was obvious that for many this was their first opportunity to cross the threshold of this Estate, redolent with its legend. As they came in, they were dazed by the Estate's mystique.
    An old man known as Seventh Grandfather, thronged by a number of clan members who looked like country gentlemen, entered the Zhen Estate. Of all members of the Zhen Clan, Seventh Grandfather held the most senior position. When he appeared, it always meant that the clan was on the brink of a momentous decision. In fact, when the news of Old Master Zhen's demise had reached them, the Zhen Family had held a meeting in the ancestral hall directly. After much noisy deliberation, it had been unanimously decided that Seventh Grandfather would announce to the heiress Miss Yu the decision they had taken on her behalf.
    The Zhen clan's ancestral hall was in Yaoshan Village, at three miles' distance from the small town. In life, Old Master Zhen had seldom bothered much about his clansmen, and even on the days of ancestral worship, he had generally been too lazy to make an appearance. He was naturally rebellious against the feudal and Confucian order, and he harbored no warm feelings for his clansmen. But since he owned a great many fields in the countryside, he gave some money every year to the clan, and so they didn't dare offend him either. Ever since Naixiang's attack, the clan had held a number of meetings discussing what was to be done regarding the inheritance of Old Master Zhen's enormous property. Naixiang was incapacitated, and Old Master Zhen had no other male descendants. According to the old ways, Old Master Zhen's only daughter Miss Yu, being a woman, could not inherit property. The clan had been in agreement about the matter: Old Master Zhen ought to select an honest, able nephew or other young male relative and adopt him. That man could then take on the management of the Zhen Estate in due time.
    This subject had been tactfully broached, provoking on each case a violent dressing-down from Old Master Zhen. "I'm not dead yet, but you have the nerve to stand there and make calculations about my property!" Recklessly, Old Master Zhen heaped scorn on his clansmen until they blushed to the roots of their hair, standing