The Swapped Heir Came Home Hungry novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: The Genealogy Book
The Jiang genealogy book was kept in the ancestral hall, in a camphor box.
Nobody under the age of sixty had ever seen it opened.
Grandfather had himself wheeled up to the incense table at noon, with the shareholders gone and the corridors cleared.
The butler ground the ink. Linchuan stood at the left, Anzhi at the right, and Yuan a pace behind, with Madam Su.
"Hold the book flat," said Grandfather.
Anzhi did.
The old man took the brush in a hand that trembled and steadied it with the other.
He wrote under his dead son's name, in tall black characters:
Jiang Anzhi. Born the fourteenth of September. Returned in the autumn.
The ink shone.
"Grandfather," said Anzhi, in a small voice. "Can I keep my Wei name too? It's the one Ma gave me. I'd like to be both."
"You may be as many people as you can feed," said Grandfather. "Now. The next line."
He dipped the brush again.
Yuan, who had been standing absolutely still, said, "Grandfather, you don't have to."
"I don't have to do anything. I'm eighty-four." Grandfather wrote a second line, a little below the first.
Jiang Yuan. Raised in this house. Grandson.
"Blood is a fact," he said, "and a name in this book is a place at the table. I have never confused them."
"Zhongping did. That was his whole crime."
He laid the brush down. "Both of you will sit at my left, and neither of you will ever again be asked which is real."
Yuan bowed so low that his forehead touched the incense table.
Nobody looked at his shaking shoulders.
When it was done, Madam Su stepped forward.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of The Swapped Heir Came Home Hungry are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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