Spare the rod, spoil the child

“Spare the rod, spoil the child” functions in the story as Shen Tang’s blunt justification for using physical intimidation in education. The expression appears when she accepts a month-long tutoring arrangement with Elder Sister Liang and decides that Second Young Master Zhou will not be allowed to drive her away through obstinacy. Its significance lies less in a general endorsement of punishment than in the way Shen Tang converts a traditional maxim into an immediate threat, a method, and a test of authority.

Meaning and Immediate Context

Shen Tang agrees to visit Elder Sister Liang’s household at her own convenience for one month. The arrangement is difficult because the intended student, Second Young Master Zhou, is already an adult with deeply established habits, and he has several ideas for making his new tutor beg to leave. The saying enters at precisely this point of resistance: rather than treating his age and stubbornness as reasons to retreat, Shen Tang decides that his conduct requires a method strong enough to overcome it.

The expression therefore carries a practical, almost tactical meaning in the scene. Shen Tang reasons that an adult who is already set in his ways must be made to understand what it means to be afraid. The proverb supplies the verbal logic for that decision, while her conduct supplies its material form. She is not merely discussing discipline in the abstract; she has already chosen confrontation as the foundation of the tutoring relationship.

The Ruler as a Disciplinary Instrument

The maxim becomes concrete when Shen Yu notices the ruler in Shen Tang’s hand and asks whether she is serious. The ruler is a small but decisive object: it transforms the proverb from inherited language into a visible instrument of enforcement. Shen Tang’s approach is presented as intentional rather than accidental or playful. She means to use fear to establish behavioral limits, especially because persuasion alone appears unlikely to move someone whose habits are already fixed.

The scene also gives the expression an ironic edge. A saying traditionally associated with correcting children is applied to an adult student, making the contrast between Second Young Master Zhou’s status and Shen Tang’s proposed treatment part of the humor and tension. Her method reverses the expected hierarchy: although he is old enough to resist instruction and confident enough to plot against the tutor, she arrives prepared to make him submit to rules through the very prospect of punishment.

Discipline, Resistance, and Authority

Within the wider pattern of the story, the expression belongs to a recurring language of regulation. The marriage arrangement imposes a three-meter distance clause and prohibits physical contact except when necessary; the film crew operates under strict closed management and forbids unauthorized news during filming; Gu Huaian can demand a thousand-word self-criticism from Shen Tang. Against these forms of formal or institutional discipline, Shen Tang’s invocation of the rod represents a more personal and improvised technology of control.

That contrast clarifies her position. Shen Tang is not simply a passive recipient of rules. She can be subject to contractual restrictions, production regulations, and demands for self-examination, yet she also creates her own disciplinary framework when placed in charge of Second Young Master Zhou. The proverb gives her authority a recognizable moral vocabulary, but the ruler and the threat of fear reveal its coercive mechanism. Education here is imagined as a struggle over who gets to define acceptable conduct and who must bear the consequences of refusal.

Narrative Function and Tone

The expression helps establish Shen Tang’s characteristic mixture of practicality, audacity, and comic directness. She does not romanticize the tutoring task or pretend that patience will automatically reform an adult who is determined to resist. Instead, she identifies fear as the quickest route to obedience and prepares to act on that conclusion. Shen Yu’s moment of silence and disbelief emphasizes how startlingly literal her plan is.

As a narrative device, the proverb also foreshadows a confrontation rather than resolving one. Second Young Master Zhou wants the tutor to leave; Shen Tang intends to make him afraid enough to behave. Their opposing objectives give the expression dramatic force, because its truth will be tested through action. The maxim thus marks the beginning of a contest in which tutoring becomes discipline, discipline becomes resistance, and the ruler becomes the emblem of Shen Tang’s refusal to be intimidated by the household she has entered.