Zhen Niang (祯娘) had just produced a batch of Superior Soot from the ink-making kiln. Her hands were stained, but her heart soared. After three years of costly training, she could finally help her family. She announced her plan: go to every ink workshop in town and hire herself out as a soot burner. Before she finished speaking, her grandfather Li Jinshui (李金水) slammed his bowl to the floor and walked out.
To an outsider, his rage seemed cruel. But look closer at the Li family’s sixth branch, where a daughter suffers under her live-in son-in-law. That man eats the family’s rice, uses its resources, and secretly sells its raw lacquer while keeping a second wife elsewhere. Li Jinshui’s anger was never about money. He had spent years nurturing Zhen Niang for one reason alone: the Way of Ink.
Beyond Money
Li Jinshui had always known Zhen Niang possessed rare talent and real passion. For years, he held back from teaching her, bound by old family rules. Only after the matriarch gave permission did he pour all his knowledge into the girl. When she finally succeeded, he said nothing to her face. Instead, he walked alone to the portrait of the ink-making ancestors, lit incense, and stood there in silence. That gesture spoke louder than any praise. The entire Li family, not just Li Jinshui, measures worth not in silver coins but in skill and lineage. Though his branch had split from the main house years ago, Zhen Niang’s achievement brought tears to every elder’s eyes.
Take Li Sixth Master, the old man who handles raw lacquer orders. When Zhen Niang came asking for a requisition slip, he did not simply sign it. He pulled out a piece of ancient ink and asked her to identify it. On the surface, he seemed to be testing her. In truth, he wanted to see for himself how deep her understanding had grown. Zhen Niang did not hesitate. She smelled the ink, touched its surface, and recited its ingredients, its era, even the story of its maker. That kind of devotion cannot be faked. She reads old manuscripts for pleasure. She can trace an ink stick’s origin from a single whiff. For a family whose identity rests on three generations of ink makers, she is their greatest hope.
The Li family expects more from her than just making Soot or copying lost ancient recipes. They dream of something harder: innovation. They want her to create what no one has made before. This is why Li Jinshui exploded when she suggested becoming a hired laborer. To him, that was like watching a promising young painter decide to paint fences for a living. He was not angry at her desire to earn. He was terrified that she would trade her rare gift for a few coins and lose her spark forever. If he did not stop her, what future awaited her? A good marriage arranged by him? But look at the sixth branch’s daughter with her parasitic husband. That man pretends loyalty while building a secret second family far away. Marriage offers no protection.
The Only Armor
Li Jinshui knows the hard truth better than anyone. The sixth branch’s daughter married a man who moved into her home. He eats at her table, sleeps under her roof, and still cheats. He steals raw lacquer to sell on the side. The family gave him everything, and he gives back nothing but betrayal. That daughter, kind and obedient, cannot stop him because she has no power of her own. She never learned a craft. She never built a skill that stands on its own. Her father thought a live-in son-in-law would solve everything. Instead, it brought a wolf into the house. Li Jinshui refuses to let Zhen Niang become that daughter.
When Zhen Niang said she would work as a soot-burning helper, she was thinking only of quick money. She did not see that she was offering to bury her talent under mindless labor. Burning soot for others means following their recipes, their schedules, their limits. It means no room to experiment, no time to read old texts, no space to fail and learn. Li Jinshui threw his bowl because he saw the path she was about to walk: a path from rare craftsman to ordinary worker. He was not rejecting her desire to help the family. He was rejecting the small version of her future. A girl who can rebuild lost masterpieces should not spend her days as someone else’s hands.
The only real armor against a cruel world, Li Jinshui believes, is standing on higher ground. If Zhen Niang masters the Way of Ink, not just the technique but the art of invention, no one can bully her. No son-in-law can betray her because she will never need to take one. She will have the power to choose her own life, her own partner, her own path. That is why he trained her. That is why he endured three years of expenses. And that is why he got angry. Not because she wanted to work, but because she forgot, for one terrible moment, that she was born to be a creator, not a helper. The bowl on the floor was not a sign of disappointment. It was the sound of a grandfather refusing to let his granddaughter settle for less than everything she could become.
