Chapter 537: A Conversation (Part Two)

"Ridiculous!"

When Zong Han heard Zong Ben's request, he first froze for a moment, then immediately flew into a towering rage, slamming his palm hard onto the tea table.

His previous good mood vanished without a trace; Zong Han's gaunt face was now filled entirely with fury. Pointing two fingers at his half-brother born of a concubine, Zong Han turned hostile on the spot: "Daydreaming! Never speak of this again!"

The matter of Zong Ben's mother's grave was a long story.

Back in the day, Zong Ben's birth had been one of those standard recurring dramas often staged in great households: the master, after drinking, favored a maidservant — unexpectedly, one shot hit its mark, and the maid became pregnant.

The master, once he'd pulled up his trousers, naturally regretted it afterward for about five… hours? After all, getting a maid's belly big wasn't exactly pleasant news.

However, since things had already come to that, Zong Ben's father — that is, the Second Master of the Zong Family — had had no intention of reneging on the debt back then. According to the master's original intent, he planned to raise the maid from household staff to the rank of concubine after Zong Ben's mother had safely given birth.

Unexpectedly, the world is fickle. Just as Zong Ben's mother was in her tenth month of pregnancy and about to go into labor, the Second Master suffered a stroke while drunk and passed away within a couple of days.

In this way, Zong Ben, born after these events, became the textbook posthumous child.

With the master having kicked the bucket, Zong Ben's mother — this awkward figure who was neither quite a maid nor a concubine, and whom the legal wife loathed as a seducer of the master — naturally did not have an easy life.

Yet, under the scornful eyes of everyone and amidst the bullying and exclusion of various factions, Mother Zong ultimately and stubbornly managed to raise Zong Ben to the age of fifteen. After that, this bitter woman who had been household staff her entire life fell ill and died in the laundry room.

After that, the young Zong Ben, unable to endure the atmosphere in the family compound, often went out and mingled among all sorts of people. Later still, Zong Ben obtained a sum of joint-stock silver, originally intended to send him away from the compound, and went to Haojing'ao to seek his fortune.

Had Zong Ben not successfully built a career in Haojing'ao, now bringing profits back to the family every year, in truth, even his qualification to enter the Zong Family's main gate today would be debatable…

Seeing Zong Han, the Eldest Son of the Main Branch, explode in anger, Zong Ben, the son of a concubine from the Second Branch, was disheartened, but this did not come as a surprise; in fact, he had already foreseen this outcome.

He had returned to the family this time with the mindset of settling everything once and for all. Among these matters, the status and treatment of his late birth mother's soul within the clan's ancestral burial grounds was the core issue today.

As the saying goes, a mother's status rises with her son. In Zong Ben's view, the trading dividends he had shared with the clan over the years were sufficient to elevate his current standing. Because the value of these dividends had already exceeded the cost of his using the Zong Family's "banner." Looked at another way, didn't this just prove his importance?

This was precisely the source of Zong Ben's confidence — for the first time in many years — to boldly raise the matter of his mother's grave with the clan. Of course, the most crucial reason among these was that a certain power base, which should not have appeared in this plane of existence, had given him courage.

So, even though he had guessed the ending, Zong Ben still made one final effort — to remind his elder brother that he was, in fact, now a man of some success: "Elder Brother, is there truly no room for discussion in this matter? Your younger brother is willing to pay silver to repair the ancestral graves and the Ancestral Hall, and hopes Elder Brother will lift his hand in allowance."

"You brat, how dare you spout more nonsense!"

Finding that Zong Ben had not desisted but remained "stubbornly clinging to his delusion," the Zong Family's eldest son Zong Han felt his clan authority had been gravely challenged. His face twisted into a savage grimace, he trembled and rasped: "How dare you be so insolent? Treating the cardinal guides and ritual teachings as nothing — do you want to rebel?"

With a "Bang!", Zong Han slammed the tea table again. This time the tea bowls on it jumped, splashing tea everywhere: "A lowly slave, a thing bought for eight taels of silver — and she is fit to enter our Zong Family's ancestral graves? She would only humiliate our ancestors! And you, this dissolute wastrel, spawn of a lowly slave, what face do you have to disregard clan rules and cardinal guides, spouting such arrogant nonsense here? Do you truly think clan law cannot deal with you?"

Zong Ben's face turned ashen, and he bowed his head deeply. At this moment, he finally and thoroughly realized that the small achievements he regarded with pride meant absolutely nothing before the clan's rites and laws.

"In that case, your younger brother takes his leave."

Utterly disheartened, Zong Ben raised his head a moment later, stood up, and walked toward the door with dejected steps. Unexpectedly, words drifting from behind him stopped him in his tracks: "When my father gave you the name 'Ben,' it was in the hope that you would conduct yourself honestly and modestly. Looking at it now, his well-meaning intentions have ultimately been trampled by an unworthy son like you."

"The Zong Family is a place of Dao learning; it cannot tolerate an arrogant wretch who acknowledges neither father nor sovereign." Zong Han's cold, sinister words continued to float over: "Zong Ben, you had best watch yourself. Do not wait for the day I rectify the family's moral standing and place righteousness above family loyalty. Know this: no one will be able to save you!"

Perhaps due to a rebound from rock bottom, Zong Ben, who had long since moved past anger and become utterly disillusioned with the family, now had his back to his clan brother. As his ears took in the string of venomous threats, his thoughts instead drifted elsewhere… What suddenly flashed before his eyes were the steel bones and molten iron flows in the Yizhou factories, the vast fertile fields crisscrossed with silver irrigation lines, the resolute young private soldiers, and that sea of silver coins.

"Hahaha, Elder Brother is right."

Zong Ben suddenly threw his head back and laughed twice. With his back to Zong Han, his face was now full of smiles, but his eyes held nothing but finality: "Yes, when that time comes, no one will be able to save… anyone."

After spitting out the last word with blurred enunciation, Zong Ben, for the first time in his life, held his head high and strode out of the Zong Family compound.

That evening, Zong Ben stayed with his companions at his own residence in the city. After he'd made money, the first thing he did was purchase property in the city, even arranging for his family dependents to live there — anyway, there was no place for him in the Zong Family compound.

Early the next morning, Zong Ben left the house and went straight to the South City Water Gate. As soon as the water gate opened, he boarded his own commercial firm's private boat, which he had long since arranged, blending into the flow of vessels leaving the city, following the Pearl River downstream, heading straight for Haojing'ao.

Haojing'ao Island in 1630 did not yet have the feel of later generations where every inch of land was worth its weight in gold; its primitive character was strong, with natural scenery everywhere. At this point in time, the Haojing'ao Peninsula, Taipa Island, and Coloane Island were still three separate islands; the latter two had not yet been connected into one by the land reclamation of later eras.

Of course, things like the artificial island near the Pearl River, the airport, the Hong Kong-Sea Pearl-Haojing'ao Bridge, and even the Friendship and Sai Van Bridges were definitely nowhere to be seen either.

Due to the arrival of the Transmigrators, Zong Ben's voyage from Guangzhou to Haojing'ao was smooth sailing. The most dangerous visible and hidden reefs on the Pearl River had already been cleared away by divers. The remaining shoals and sandbars, including the shipping channels, had all been marked with buoys.

Besides these infrastructure improvements, the river pirates along the Pearl River, who had once been as numerous as ox hairs, had now either been sent to the river bottom to feed the fish by high-speed patrol boats, or had thoroughly reformed, laid down their knives, and taken up honest labor.

In short, the waterway from the Pearl River Estuary to the Guangzhou section, apart from the water surface being broader and the river current more rapid, had already achieved the kind of order that existed in the Transmigrators' memories.

A Ming-style wooden boat traveling downstream, without having to worry about pirates and hidden reefs, moved very quickly. Zong Ben and his party had set out at the third quarter of the Fifth Watch before dawn, and by dusk, the wooden boat had already reached the outer harbor of Haojing'ao.

Haojing'ao Island was divided into inner and outer harbors. This time, because Zong Ben was in a hurry to return to Haojing'ao, he disembarked at the outer harbor.

After disembarking, he hired a sedan chair and, just barely before dark, passed through the city gate and returned to his commercial firm in Haojing'ao City.

Haojing'ao City at this point in time, if judged solely by its scale, was merely a Ming walled town with a perimeter of five or six li. However, due to trade, once inside the city, Chinese and foreigners mingled, crowds bustled, and its degree of prosperity far exceeded that of Ming cities.

The commercial firm Zong Ben had opened was named "Guangyu Hang," located at the southeastern corner of the Great Cross intersection within Haojing'ao City. The firm mainly dealt in Ming specialty goods like silk and porcelain. It seemed to have few customers, but in reality, its business was very large, because Guangyu Hang specialized exclusively in wholesale.

Seeing their master, the Shopkeeper and clerks of the shop all came forward to greet him.

The fact that Zong Ben had no status within the Zong Family did not mean he had no status in Haojing'ao City. After all, the Zong Family banner he usually operated under was sufficiently formidable, and ordinary people had no way of knowing about that pile of messy affairs inside the Zong Family.

Furthermore, because Zong Ben had mingled in the marketplace alleys in his youth, he was extremely smooth and shrewd in dealing with people, had several loyal brothers under him, and could get along with all sorts of people. So once he stepped out of that Zong Family gate, in society, he was genuinely Master Zong in name and in fact.

After entering the commercial firm, Zong Ben first inspected the stock and account books. Immediately after, he issued a rapid series of orders, dispatching several of his subordinates to deliver verbal messages to several residences in Haojing'ao City.

What verbal messages were sent out is unknown, but early the next morning, people dressed as merchants began arriving one after another to visit Master Zong.

After receiving two groups of visitors, apart from sending people out to make inquiries in all directions, Zong Ben continued organizing the stock. It was not until noon that a lookout subordinate ran in and whispered a few words in his ear. Upon hearing this, Zong Ben laughed heartily: "Good, the real principals have arrived. These are the very people I've been waiting for."

The real principals were naturally extraordinary. The group of visitors stopping outside the door of Guangyu Hang this time included, besides a Ming person sitting on a sedan chair, foreigners riding horses.

Among the visitors, excluding seven or eight attendants, the one dressed as a wealthy merchant, sitting on a sedan chair and smoking a copper smoke pipe, was a fair-skinned middle-aged Ming man. The other two foreigners on horseback: one wore a black priest's robe and was clearly a Society of Jesus missionary preaching in Haojing'ao. The other, a bearded, dark-haired middle-aged man in a splendid crewman's outfit, judging by his facial features, was almost certainly of Iberian Peninsula stock.

Very soon, Master Zong Ben, accompanied by his Shopkeeper and subordinates, came out laughing heartily to welcome them.

After ushering the honored guests into the backyard of the commercial firm, seating them, and serving tea, Master Zong first exchanged a few pleasantries with the Ming wealthy merchant. This wealthy merchant was surnamed Niu, called Niu Xijian, a business proprietor in Haojing'ao City. Besides his daily dealings in various commodities and sundries, he also had a widely known profession: foreign broker, what later generations would call a fat translator.

However, here at Zong Ben's place today, Master Niu's translating skills were not needed. After exchanging a couple of sentences with him in Cantonese, Zong Ben immediately turned his head and addressed the two foreign guests in fluent Spanish: "Brother Garcia, Captain Martinez, welcome to my commercial firm as guests. Of course, if our negotiations go smoothly today, you will very soon become the owners here."