I Cried at the Chairman's Funeral for Money novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Leverage

At seven a maid knocked and said the Second Madam wished to see him in the guest wing.

Shen Ke had slept an hour, and spent the rest of the night remembering a locked room.

The Second Aunt sat on the carved bed in a plum silk jacket, with the camphor trunk at her feet and a teacup in her hand.

She did not ask him to sit.

"I'll be brief, back-row boy," she said. "Look at this."

She held out her phone.

On the screen, small and grainy but entirely clear, were two men on the floor of a lamp-lit room with their mouths together.

One of them had his fist in the other's open shirt.

"This house is in mourning," said the Second Aunt. "A hired mourner has defiled the heir in the sutra room, in the second week, forty paces from the tablet. The clan elders would take that very seriously."

"It was a kiss," said Shen Ke.

"It was a breach of the forty-nine days. It makes my nephew unfilial, and it makes you a thief."

She sipped her tea.

"Of course, it need never be seen. I am a kind woman."

"What do you want?"

"Two million yuan, in cash, today." She nodded at the trunk. "I'll even carry it for you. And a first-class ticket to Chengdu on the noon train, where Madam Lu has a position waiting."

Shen Ke looked at the trunk, and then at her.

Two million would have cleared the old master's dialysis for a decade and the troupe's rent for longer.

He found, to his surprise, that he didn't have to think.

"No," he said.

"Do you understand what I can do to you?"

"Show it to the elders," said Shen Ke. "It shows two men in a room. It doesn't show who started it."

The Second Aunt's eyebrows rose slightly.

"I started it," he lied, steadily. "I am a hired boy, and he is a grieving man, and I took advantage."

"You are very sure of yourself."

"No, Second Madam. I'm very sure of him."

He bowed to her, correctly, and walked out.

In the corridor his knees shook, and he put a hand on the wall.

He found Hanzhou in the study, standing at the desk with a pen in his hand.

"She has a photograph," said Shen Ke, closing the door. "Two million and a train."

Hanzhou's face did not change.

"What did you say?" he asked.

"I said no. I also told her I'd started it."

"You did not start it."

"It was a convenient lie," said Shen Ke.

"I am not convenient," said Hanzhou. His voice went very quiet. "I broke the term. Not you. I will say so to the elders myself."

"That's what she wants. She wants you humbled on the wrong day."

"Then we will pick the right day."

A knock sounded, and Qin Wanyi put her head round the door, then slipped in and shut it behind her.

She looked from one of them to the other and said nothing about the distance.

"I have something," she said. "I held it until I knew whose side you were on."

She laid a folded slip of bank paper on the desk.

"The condolence cash. Every guest signed the hall book, with the gift beside the name, and I added it last night. It comes to one million six hundred thousand."

← Chapter 9 · All chapters · Chapter 11 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend