At the clan council, the seven branches joined forces to pressure me into handing over the vast farmland my father had left behind.
“A woman inheriting the family estate? The ancestral laws will never allow it!”
I smiled and held up the iron-backed patent of nobility bestowed by the founding emperor. “Then I invite you all to see whether clan law or imperial law holds greater sway.”
When my three years of mourning were over, I surrounded the ancestral hall with private troops funded by my dowry. The clan chief trembled as he opened the genealogy.
“From this day forward, a new page shall be added to the clan register.”
“This page shall bear the name Jiang Jingshu, with no husband’s surname and no father’s name attached...”
“She is the founding ancestor of the Jiang clan’s Ninth Branch.”
