A jingle was scrawled crookedly on the oil paper in charcoal pencil, and at the end was a drawing of a little man wielding a hoe, staring blankly at a tombstone, with a sun with its mouth wide open next to it:
"The daughter of the firstborn is very enthusiastic in treasure hunting,
Carrying the ghost picture, digging the pit,
Three hoes and two hoes clink,
Clods of earth flew and birds flew away in fright.
I thought I had dug up a golden gourd.
Digging up the soil, I was dumbfounded——
Great grandfather’s tomb!
Old General, you are so naughty.
No one can match his ability to trap women.
Ten thousand ounces of gold can be turned into stone tablets.
The lady was so angry that she slapped her legs.
The housekeeper knelt down and called out to his ancestors.
The servant covered his mouth and bent over with laughter!
Chen Weiwan was so amused she crumpled the oil paper into a ball and threw it at the sycamore tree, startling a flock of sparrows returning to their nests. "That storyteller should be a constable at the Six Gates. He has a sharper nose than a dog! He must have bribed the servants in the mansion!"
At dusk, a message came from the palace. A young eunuch, holding a bright yellow envelope, ran breathlessly: "Seventh Imperial Concubine, His Majesty has sent an urgent letter!"
Shen Weiwan opened it and saw a few ink lumps on the edge of the letter. The emperor's handwriting was flying and flamboyant:
"My daughter-in-law, I heard you dug deep in the general's mansion and unearthed your ancestral tomb? Excellent! Tomorrow I'll have the Ministry of Works craft a gilded plaque inscribed 'Filial Daughter Digging Graves' and give you a jade plaque inscribed 'Little Treasure Digger'! Also: Next time you dig for treasure, be sure to call me along. I'll bring the Imperial Guards to carry your hoes, and I guarantee you'll dig faster than the servants. If you unearth the old general's private money, we'll split it in half!"
Shen Weiwan laughed so hard that she slapped the table and handed the letter to Xiao Yu who had just entered the room. The teacup on the table swayed with laughter: "Look at your father, he's not serious at all! He even thought of 'filial daughter digging graves'! Next time, I really should let him dig up our own ancestral graves and see if there are any surprises!"
Xiao Yu finished reading the letter and shook his head helplessly. He rubbed his fingertips over the crooked hoe pattern the emperor had drawn at the end of the letter. "I finally understand why my father always said you two are the same kind. Your digging skills are equally matched. Next time, I'm afraid you'll tear up the tiles of the palace to find treasure."
From then on, the General's Mansion became a laughing stock that spread throughout the capital. The vendor selling candied haws composed a new song and sang it from street to street, his candied haws hanging from a pole:
"A strange thing happened in the general's mansion.
The lady was laughing her teeth off while searching for treasure.
Using the ghost map to dig at the tree roots,
After three diggings and two diggings, I found the stone tablet.
The tomb of ancestors is engraved on the stele.
The old housekeeper, his legs are weak,
Kneeling in front of the grave and calling out "ancestors",
The young lady scratched her head and sighed:
'My father's map is too abstract,
Ten thousand ounces of gold is a joke! '"
As Chen Weiwan listened to the ballads drifting from beyond the wall, she instead had Chuntao carefully frame the sheepskin painting and hang it on the most prominent pearwood screen in her boudoir. Whenever she saw the crooked cinnabar circles on the painting, she remembered her wet nurse's words from her childhood: before her father left for battle, he would pinch her cheek to amuse her, promising to bury her a "huge treasure." Although she didn't unearth any gold ingots, this unexpected "treasure" brought her closer to her great-grandfather, whom she had never met. It also made her feel that the father she had never met had never left her, but had simply given her a laughable reunion in the most absurd of ways.
After all, there was only one father in the entire Dasheng Dynasty who could paint his ancestral tomb like a treasure map to appease his daughter. And naturally, the only legitimate daughter who could use this "treasure map" to dig up the ancestral tomb was Shen Weiwan. This hilarious maneuver would surely delight the people of the capital, making them laugh from the moment the autumn leaves fell to the moment the spring flowers bloomed.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
