“He wouldn’t accept anything else!”

“You-- he-- that--” Mei Hua sputtered, pointing between the two of them, so irritated she couldn’t find the right words.

“Mountain Flower, it’s not like I was eager to do it or anything.” He grumbled in annoyance, looking like someone who’d been unjustly accused. “He pestered me for days, I wasn’t able to eat without him interrupting me. It was like I was being haunted! And anyway, look at him, he healed just fine. Unless I really did kill him, there’s no way I could do any permanent damage.” He gave a sulking sniff and muttered, “...even though I beat him, who really got punished? It was me, huh, but here I’m being treated like a criminal…”

“Alright, alright, nevermind. I shouldn’t have asked.” Mei Hua rolled her eyes and then gazed at her still-kneeling son.

Drumming her fingers restlessly on her lap, she wondered if she was going to be “haunted” like Jin had been.

Really, she thought, only Jin’s sons could find a way to make disciplining worse on the parent than the child. Why can’t these stinky boys just let her have a nice heartwarming reunion? Why must it always turn out like this?!

Feeling glum and annoyed, she asked Shan Hui somewhat sourly, “Are you really going to keep insisting I punish you until you’re satisfied?”

“Mother almost died. How can this son only accept a simple beating as recompense?”

She frowned deeply and starting thinking hard. She didn’t want to be haunted by her own son! The silence stretched out as she thought of what to do. Suddenly, her drumming fingers stopped and her face relaxed.

If she phrased it right… yes. She’d thought of something that might work.

“Son,” Mei Hua spoke calmly, “When you say you are the source, do you mean to take the guilt away from those that harmed our family? That you should be punished in their place?”

Shan Hui looked up sharply, “No Mother. This son will never let those bas-- those criminals get away with what they did. Even if this son is at fault, they weren’t forced to commit any crime, that they did freely and without remorse.”

“Good, good. I’m relieved that you're at least that sensible.” She relaxed further. “Would you agree that a punishment should fit the crime? An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? A person shouldn’t be punished more than he deserves, nor should he be let off easily for serious offenses?”

Shan Hui nodded slowly, uncertain where his Mother was going with this.

“Excellent. Then let’s consider your actual crime.”

“...actual crime…?”

“En. It could be said that, though your actions were overly zealous, it still displayed the markings of filial piety. You were angry at someone trying to use you to control your family and harm your friends. Lets use your siblings as an example. If your brothers had misbehaved for a similar reason, you wouldn’t count that against them, would you?”

Shan Hui furrowed his brow. “If Mother is trying to rationalize--”

“No, no, I’m not trying to rationalize your punishment away, I’m giving it context. Lets say your brothers got into a fight on behalf of the family. They shouldn’t have fought, but their hearts were in the right place. You wouldn’t hold that against them, would you?”

“...this son would not.” He admittedly begrudgingly.

“If you were to pinpoint where they went wrong, it would not be their attitude or heart, but how they went about expressing those things, correct?”

Shan Hui nodded.

“Then, in your case, the problem is not the heart behind what you did, which was just a strong sense of filial piety, but how you went about expressing it, yes?”

He nodded again, somewhat uncertain this time.

“Therefore, physical violence wouldn’t be an appropriate punishment for this crime. That would be like punishing the eye by stabbing the foot.”

“It… would?”

“Hn, obviously. Will beatings wipe away the past action? Will beatings keep a similar action from happening in the future? In both cases, no. The past can not be changed, and for the future to change… well, that requires education not a beating. Don’t you agree?”

Shan Hui looked at his Mother blankly. This conversation was going in a direction he hadn’t expected.

“Aya, son, think about it carefully! If the heart is in the right place, but the action is wrong, then all you need is to correct future actions! For that, simple education is all that’s required. Once you’re properly educated, you won’t make the same mistake again. What’s more, if you know how to act properly, you can hold your head high in the future, knowing that your actions are honorable and worthy of your family. Should someone lash out at you after all that, you will know with absolute certainty the fault is wholly on them.”

“...well that’s…”

She frowned disapprovingly, “You still object? Then, should I accept the blame too?”

“Eh??”

“Am I not also at fault for raising you improperly? Your lack of both manners and etiquette caused the entire family to suffer. The Mother is responsible for teaching her children how to behave, in which case I am also responsib--”

“Mother don’t blame yourself!” Shan Hui cut in, a horrified look on his face.

“Bah, can’t I? If you insist that hurting the girl is the cause of all this, isn’t my failing to train you even more to blame? I am only using the reasoning you used, so how can I be wrong?”

Shan Hui’s mouth fell open slightly, stunned at how she’d used his own logic against him. “No, but Mother, you were the one who was harmed! You were the victim. To blame yourself is-- is--”

“Is what? Many people have been foolish in their youth and had it catch up to them when they were older. Am I an exception? You were my first child, what did I know about parenting? If I was to make any mistakes, it would have been with you. It’s only natural my parental failings would catch up to me…” Mei Hua lowered her head, suddenly looking sorrowful, her shoulders drooping slightly.

Shan Hui shuffled forward on his knees and grabbed her hands anxiously. “No, no, no, Mother, please don’t-- please don’t blame yourself! It’s this son, this son is at fault!”

Mei Hua glanced at her son mournfully. “How can I not blame myself? You said it was your disobedience that caused all this. How can you be disobedient except if I didn’t raise you right? Even now... even now when I’m trying to correct you, you refuse to listen… no respect for your parents… surely, I’m a failure as a mother… can't even discipline my son correctly...” She sniffled pitifully.

“That’s… that’s not…” Shan Hui sputtered before going silent. It occurred to him that if he kept arguing, he was only proving her point and she’d just keep blaming herself. He didn’t want his confession to cause his Mother to feel awful, especially since she was the victim in all this.

After getting this far, he let go of her hands and scooting back, kowtowing again with his head to the floor. “This son apologizes for arguing and being unfilial a second time. This son will wholeheartedly accept whatever Mother decides.”

Jin almost choked on the tea he was in the middle of drinking at his son’s surrender. How many times had he tried arguing with this brat, bringing up all the same points, but was ignored? How bitter was every meal with this stupid son hanging onto him, demanding abuse for something that wasn’t even his fault?! This kind of parental bias was really unfair!

Mei Hua’s eyes glinted in triumph but her face remained sober. She raised both her hands, palms facing up. An instant later, a thick book was lying where there was once only air. Shan Hui was facing the floor and didn’t see what she’d done, though if he had, he would have been only slightly surprised. Because of Shi Ji, everyone had a pocket space for storing things, so his Mother would have likely been given one too.

“Huang Shan Hui,” She said solemnly, “Remember that you agreed to my correction wholeheartedly. Now sit up and take the punishment that your Mother has decided for you, and don’t go back on your words today.”

“This son accepts Mother’s instruction.” Shan Hui sat back up and, seeing the book in her hand being held out to him, accepted it. The cover read: ‘Lanhua Imperial Family Rules: Etiquette & Protocol for Princes’

There was a long pause as Shan Hui digested what he was holding.

“This son didn’t know there was such a book. It’s very… thick.”

Mei Hua looked at her son with the utmost innocence, “Before you were a Prince of a wilderness, now you are Prince of a nation. Your position is not what it once was, so naturally there are rules you need to follow.”

“R-right…” He glanced at the innocent expression on his Mother’s face and then down at the book in his hands and felt… yes, whatever was in this book, it was likely worse than a thousand beatings. She was not letting him off lightly just by refusing to harm his body. Instead she was using a mental torture.

He bowed at the waist respectfully to his Mother, “This son will take what’s taught in this book to heart and will show through his actions his filial piety to Mother this day forward.”

“Very good,” Mei Hua smiled gently, “We are having a family meal at dinner tonight. I’ll be giving your brothers a similar book. I would like them to see it’s benefits through your behavior. So until dinner is called, I advise you to spend time studying what’s written. Do you understand?”

Shan Hua hesitated and then nodded, knowing he was being dismissed. He got up off his knees and bowed again, clasping the book in his hands so tightly his knuckles were white.

“This son looks forward to dinner then.” He said politely and then spun on his heel and left the room.

Mei Hua and Jin sat in silence for several minutes.

“Is he out of earshot?” She asked in a low voice.

“Yes, he’s heading over to his own place.”

She exhaled noisily and slumped in her chair.

“That was more punishment for me than for him!” She stated, grabbed the tea in front of her and drank it noisily.

“He was worse with me.” Jin said stiffly. “He always favored you over me.”

“It’s not like I haven’t tried to get them to treat you better,” She said with some exasperation. She set the tea cup down, tucked her hand under her chin and grinned impishly, “On the upside, I was really wondering how I’d convince any of our sons to read and follow that manuel. But now that Shan Hui has agreed to do it, the others will naturally follow. That’s good for you. There’s a section all about respecting the Patriarch of the family.”

Jin brightened noticeably. “Is that so? Then all that harassment was well worth it.”

“Honestly though,” Mei Hua gave a small sigh, “How could he think I’d blame him? Even if what he did was wrong, did we really deserve to have assassins sent after us for that single moment of stupidity?”

“The East has always had a problem with applying virtues.”

“Hm… The merchants on that side were always meaner...” She paused. “What ever happened to the Gong Family anyway?”

“Ah, unfortunately, much of the family was destroyed during the war.”

“Oh… even the girl?”

“Even the girl.” Seeing his wife looking a little disheartened, he asked, “Do you feel sorry for her?”

“Of course, she’d only just become an adult when I met her. Even if she wasn’t exactly innocent, it doesn’t mean I wanted her to die.” She wrinkled her nose, “Just like I didn’t want Shan Hui to break her bones for some poorly thought out scheming.”

“You’re more generous than I am.” He snorted disdainfully.

“I take it you don’t feel sorry for her?”

“Of course not. The Gong Family were decent until her father got in charge. In such a short span of time, he managed to corrupt that family into something almost unrecognizable.”

“But the daughter isn’t the father.”

He laughed sarcastically, “That’s true. She was her own person. She learned well from her parents, building upon their wickedness and finding new ways to be evil.”

Mei Hua raised her eyebrows, “Did she really turn out that badly?”

“Hn. Many people rejoiced at her death.”

Mei Hua drank tea silently for a while, contemplating.

“Jin, is the East better off after you took over?”

“Of course it is.” He raised his chin arrogantly, “Before I took them over, all they did was start wars with each other. Because of their belief of ‘might makes right’ they hadn’t had a dynasty last more than two hundred years. They were in a state of constant turmoil. Death, destruction, and poverty were normal. But now I am the strongest, so they don’t dare fight and make trouble. Their people live in peace, because I am watching over them.”