“Yes,” she said. “This is your older brother. Greet him first.”
“But, mother, I never saw or heard of him before,” was the reply of Kan Lang. [[150]]
“Greet him as I tell you, and afterward I will explain matters to you.” The boys then bent the knee to each other and then the mother told her son that she was a second wife; that the first wife was the mother of Ting Lang, and she was also his mother; that Ting Lang was also her son, and they were to care tenderly for each other. Then she sent a servant to find his master and invite him to come to her apartments.
When he came in she asked, “Do you know this lad?” Her husband replied, “I saw him outside the gate of the city. Who is he and what does he want here?” Then his wife said:
“You are an ungrateful man. You deserve the severest punishment Heaven can give. When I asked you if I had an ‘older sister’ you said no! My father and mother treated you as a piece of fine gold. You had nothing when you came to them. You should have told them the truth, and after marriage told me the truth. You dress in silk, satin, and broadcloth; you eat the best of the land, live in a great house, read, write, and have tens of servants to wait at your door. You go out; it is either on horse, in chair, or by cart, and ever with your outriders. You left my poor sister in sorrow and poverty for twelve long years, while [[151]]you have lived in luxury and pleasures. Twelve years for her of bitterness and death, forgotten by the man she trusted and for whom she gave her beauty of person. You with your four seasons’ clothing, she almost a beggar. Look at this your son, and think of his twelve years; ah! they have made him a stronger man, though a boy yet, than his father. Think of the long, weary way he has come seeking you; ah! the heart of an iron or a stone man must have cried out at such sorrow as has been theirs. How can you call yourself a man? How can you see my parents? Above all, how will you ever be able to look in the face of my sister, the mother of Ting Lang?” Then turning to the latter she said:
“Son, your father is not worthy, but kneel to him and make your greeting and give him your mother’s message.”
Ting Lang knelt at his father’s feet, and when the father saw him there he felt as though a knife had entered his heart. He put out his hand and said:
“My virtuous and filial son, son of my suffering wife,” and then fell back in a swoon.
The boys and the mother sprang forward and caught him and placed him in a chair, a son standing at either side of the chair, the sweet mother at the back. [[152]]
As he came to and opened his eyes and saw them thus, he took his wife’s hand and said: