The sycamore leaves of the Prince's Mansion were dyed translucent by the autumn sun, scattering across the corridors, creating winding golden lines on the blue bricks. Shen Weiwan nestled on the pearwood couch in the warm room, cradling the yellowed "Memoirs of My Traitorous Ancestors" in her arms. Her fingertips traced the dried specimens of croton leaves between the pages, and she suddenly burst into laughter, startling the sparrows pecking at rice grains on the windowsill.
"Madam, are you reading that 'strange book' again?" Xiao Yu put down the military newspaper in his hand. The rice paper held down by the black jade paperweight still had unfinished red ink on it. He watched Shen Weiwan laugh so hard, the pearl hairpins in her hair shimmering with light as she moved. He couldn't help but shake his head helplessly. Ever since the discovery of this Shen family's ancestral manual of deception, the style of the Prince's Mansion has become increasingly biased.
He lay sprawled on the low table, his chubby hands scribbling on rice paper with croton powder in his hands. His face was covered in powder, making him look like a kitten with a pale face from eating too much. "Mom, what are you laughing at? Did you see another funny trick to trick me?"
"Your mother is watching the good deeds of your great-grandfather's great-grandfather!" Chen Weiwan wiped away tears of laughter, turned the page to Xiao Yu, and pointed her finger at the simple drawings outlined with cinnabar. "In the second year of Jianwu, the enemy soldiers besieged the city. Our ancestors ordered the people in the city to make fake feces with soybean powder, honey, and wood ash, and piled them under the city walls. The enemy spies saw the mountain of feces and thought the city had sufficient food and grass, so they withdrew their troops overnight!"
"Poof!" Xiao Yu almost sprayed the Biluochun tea he had just put into his mouth onto the memorial. He looked at the crooked illustration of the pile of feces in the painting, then looked at Shen Weiwan's sparkling eyes. After a long while, he finally said, "General, your ancestors' imagination...Is it probably because of croton seeds?"
"That's called wisdom!" Shen Weiwan snapped the book shut, her eyes sparkling with excitement. "Think about it, next time you run into a scammer, pile a pile of fake soybean powder and feces at his door. Wouldn't he think we're so rich that we even mix soybeans in our feces? That's called 'stopping scams with feces'!"
Kengkeng immediately dropped his paintbrush and raised his little fat hand high in the air: "Mom, can soybean flour really be used to make fake poop? I want to try it too!"
Wawa was sprinkling soybean powder into Xiao Yu's inkstone when he heard this and started yelling, "Dad, will adding honey make it sweeter? I want to try it!"
Xiao Yu looked at the small mountain of soybean powder gradually accumulating in the inkstone. He lifted his daughter's collar with a look of confusion and said, "If you add any more to my ink, I'll send you to the croton fields outside the city to keep company with a scarecrow!"
Three days later, a fortune-telling stall with an apricot-yellow flag suddenly appeared on West Street. A fortune-teller, claiming to be "as powerful as a god," was reading someone's face with saliva flying: "Young lady, your forehead is black. You will suffer a bloody disaster within three days. Please ask for my 'disaster-eliminating talisman'. It costs one tael of silver each..."
Shen Weiwan squeezed into the crowd, looking at the patch on Sai Shenxian's cuff, and secretly winked at the pit beside her. Returning to the Prince's Mansion, she immediately summoned the whole family to the kitchen to start working. The carved pearwood chopping board was soon piled with soybean powder, honey, and wood ash.
"Kengkeng will be in charge of kneading the powder. Remember to knead it into a granular texture." Chen Weiwan, wearing a moon-white apron, added honey to the soybean powder. "Wawa, sift the wood ash finely and add it in. Chuntao, go get some cinnabar, and we'll mix it into a rich color."
The old housekeeper stood at the kitchen door leaning on his cane, his silver beard shaking like a reed in the autumn wind: "Madam, if this stuff gets on your clothes, you can't wash it off..."
"Don't worry, old housekeeper," Shen Weiwan used the mold to press out the shape, not caring about the powder on her fingertips. "The ancestors said that the key lies in color and texture. Look at this shiny and glossy one, how real is it?"
Xiao Yu leaned against the door frame, watching Shen Weiwan's nose stained with soybean powder, but she was unaware of it and was marveling at the fake feces. He couldn't help but laugh and said, "Madam, are you planning to transform the Prince's Mansion into a feces workshop? If the emperor wants to reward you, just give her ten carts of soybean powder."
"Your Highness, don't underestimate this fake shit," Shen Weiwan poked the formed "rich shit" with a bamboo chopstick, and said triumphantly, "Our ancestors used this trick to scare away 100,000 troops. If we use it to trick a liar, isn't that a piece of cake?"
As the sun was setting, Shen Weiwan arrived at West Street with her neatly dressed bodyguards. Sai Shenxian was trying to sell talismans to an old woman: "Old lady, your face is blessed with good fortune, but you're plagued by villains. Buy me three talismans..."
"Sir, take the shit!" Kenkeng suddenly rushed out from the crowd, holding a broken ceramic basin, and poured a basin of "rich shit" in front of the fortune-telling stall.
"Oh! Where did this wild kid come from!" Sai Shenxian jumped up, and the hem of his black Taoist robe was stained with a lot of "shit", which attracted the onlookers to burst into laughter.
Chen Weiwan strolled forward slowly, pinching her nose in disdain. "Don't blame me, sir. My son saw that you were so sage-like, so he specially sent me some 'wealthy shit' to share your good fortune." She poked the fake shit on the ground with a bamboo chopstick and raised an eyebrow. "Look at the color, the feel, it's filled with the finest soybean powder and honey. Our family is so wealthy that even shit is so precious!"
Sai Shenxian looked at the pile of "shit" that was shiny and sweet with the aroma of honey, and frowned so hard that it could kill a mosquito: "You...what do you mean by this?"
"Sir, don't you know how to tell fortunes?" Shen Weiwan raised her voice so that the people around could hear, "Calculate how much this pile of 'rich shit' is worth? My son said that if you can predict it correctly, I'll give you three pounds. Take it home and worship it to attract wealth!"
Sai Shenxian looked at the people around him who were trying to suppress their laughter, then looked at Shen Weiwan's half-smile, and suddenly realized that it was the Seventh Prince's wife who was looking for trouble with him. He hesitated and took a half step back: "This...what value can this shit have?"
"Sir, you're wrong!" Chen Weiwan suddenly raised her voice. "My ancestor, Chen Kengkeng, said that even the rich and powerful have gold and jade in their feces! Look at the weight of this soybean powder, it's equivalent to ten dan of fine rice!"
My dear, there is more to this chapter. Please click on the next page to continue reading. It will be even more exciting later!
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com
