Dòu Zhāo said unclear whether he was jealous or envious, his blood and energy all surged to his chest, feeling extremely uncomfortable, as if he would do something regrettable if he looked at his son for another moment.

  "Take the token to Young Master," she instructed Cui Leng, "and pass on my message: from now on, not only matters in Young Master's quarters, but also those in Second Master's and Sister Yin's quarters will all be handled by Zhu Shi."

  "Mother!" Wei Ge'er raised his head and felt a sense of unusual abnormality.

  "Madam, no!" Zhu's voice was shrill and her face turned pale in an instant.

  It's actually the person I chose myself, very transparent.

  With her by their side, she can also prevent those evil tricks.

  Dong Zhao closed his eyes and waved his hand: "I'm tired, I want to rest for a while, you all go down!"

  "Madam!" Zhu's eyes welled up with tears as she kowtowed to Dou Zhao with a "thud, thud, thud".

  Wei Geer stared at Zhu Shi in confusion.

  Dong Zhao waved his hand again and turned away.

  "Madam, rest assured that even if I were to sacrifice my own life, I will take good care of the young master and miss." Zhu said softly, bowing her head again before retreating with Yu Ge.

  The house fell silent, with a chill and loneliness like after someone had left the building.

  Sorrow creeps into one's heart.

  If Wei Tingyu was a bit more capable and willing to take on the responsibilities of being a man, how would she, as a woman who stayed at home, have taken charge of managing the affairs of the Wei estate? And how would she have neglected the unusual behavior of her two children?

  If grandma had cared a bit more about her two grandsons and didn't always think of asking for divine intervention, how would the two children have treated Zhu as their closest relative despite having no blood relation?

  Or did she choose the wrong person from the start?

  If Madam Zhu was a greedy, arrogant and ill-mannered person who liked to stir up trouble with her words, her two sons would not have remembered her so fondly.

  But how could she let someone like him stay by her son's side and teach her son?

  She doesn't even know who to blame!

  Every time at this moment, Duan Zhao would think of his deceased mother.

  She's so young, how could her mother bear to leave her alone and go?

  If her mother were still alive, teaching her how to be a good wife and a good mother, wouldn't she have avoided so much suffering and detours, and the children wouldn't have become estranged from her either?

  This is an unanswerable question.

  Dou Zhao only felt a wave of fatigue spreading throughout his body.

  She covered her head with a quilt and buried herself in a quietness.

  In a daze, she heard a sound of sobbing rising and falling, wanting to open her eyes to take a look, but her eyelids felt as heavy as a thousand pounds, unable to lift them up. Then there was Wei Tingyu crying softly in her ear "You're leaving, what am I going to do". A moment later, the voice changed to that of Guo's wife, "Don't worry, Yu'er is my grandson-in-law, I will definitely keep him safe and sound".

  Am I dead?

  Dong Zhaohard worked hard to open his eyes, and found himself sitting on the kang, with sunlight shining on the accumulated snow in the yard, reflecting through the frosted Korean paper window into the room, which was a snowy brightness.

  A pretty young woman with a red mole at the corner of her mouth sat opposite her, playing with a skipping rope. There were also four or five maidservants aged between ten and fifteen sitting in front of the kang doing needlework.

  They all wore fine cotton jackets, coarse cloth skirts, or wore small silver buttons, or inserted silver hairpins, simple and elegant, revealing the innocence of a young girl, making people smile involuntarily.

  The people in the house were all unfamiliar, yet felt extremely close.

  In the past at her natal home in Zhen Ding County, when winter arrived, their family's maidservant would dress like this.

  She had entered the dream again.

  Dong Zhao giggled and slid down from the kang, wanting to see what the little maids were doing with their needlework, but her feet couldn't touch the ground, and she ended up hanging on the edge of the kang.

  Several little maidservants smiled with pursed lips.

  The pretty young woman hastily helped her down from the kang, muttering to herself: "What does Fourth Miss want? I've already told Nurse! Nurse will go and get it for you."

  It turned out that she was her wet nurse!

  Dong Zhaonan couldn't help but laugh.

  The previous milk sister was a white and chubby steamed bun, this time it's a delicate branch flower, I wonder what it will be like next time?

  She ran to those little maids who were doing needlework, and suddenly found herself much smaller, the tables, chairs, and stools that used to be ordinary in her eyes were now more than twice as tall.

  Wow! This dream is incredibly vivid!

  The little maids who were sewing looked up and smiled at her kindly.

  The older ones were sewing shoe soles, the younger ones were doing embroidery, each with skilled hands, it was clear that they were accustomed to doing these tasks.

  A chill wind blew in.

  Dou Zhao raised his head and saw that the warm curtain had been lifted, and several maidservants were surrounding a woman who walked in.

  The people in the house stood up one after another and paid their respects to the woman, addressing her as "Seventh Granny".

  Dòu Zhāo stared at her blankly.

  At the age of eighteen or nineteen, she was of medium build and slender, with a long face, willow-leaf eyebrows, cherry lips, wearing a peach-red embroidered jacket with a subtle pattern, which set off her skin as white as snow, and she was more delicate than flowers.

  This is her mother!

  I don't look like my mother at all.

  She was tall and slender, with a curvaceous figure, an oval face, long eyebrows that reached her temples, full red lips, and skin as white as snow. Her eyes were slightly sharp when looking at people, giving off an air of elegance that was intimidating. She looked just like her father, as if they had been molded from the same template. When she first married into the Jin'ning Marquis's household, in order to make herself appear more gentle and soft, she trimmed her long eyebrows into willow-leaf shaped ones, and would often lower her eyelids when speaking with people, managing to feign a hint of her mother's delicate beauty.

  Her mother walked over with a smile.

  She saw more clearly now.

  Her mother's face was as white and delicate as fine jade, without a single blemish, looking extremely beautiful.

  She bent down and tweaked Zhao's nose, joking: "Shou girl, what? Don't recognize your mother?"

  How old is she?

  Is it her milk name?

  She never knew she had such a milk name.

  Tears suddenly fell.

  She randomly hugged her mother's thigh.

  "Mother, mother!"

  Cried like a helpless child.

  "Oh dear!" Her mother didn't sense her sadness at all, and asked the wet nurse with a smile, "What's wrong with Shougu? She just started crying for no reason?" There was not a hint of suspicion or blame towards the wet nurse, clearly showing that she trusted her very much.

  "Just now it was fine." The wet nurse also found it strange and could only say, "Perhaps she saw you? Daughters always cry when they see their mothers, whether there's something wrong or not."

  "Is it?" Her mother lifted her onto the kang, "This child has cried all over my skirt."

  Dong Zhao was stunned on the spot.

  Isn't a mother supposed to worry about why her child is crying? Why does she worry most about her skirt...

  Is she really her own mother?

  Her eyes widened.

  There were still two lines of sparkling tears on her small face.

  The mother let out a hearty laugh, pulled out her handkerchief to help wipe away the tears, and said to the wet nurse, "This child is silly!" Then she gently hugged her, kissed her little face, and said, "Your father will be back soon, are you happy?" Her eyes and eyebrows were overflowing with uncontrollable joy.

  Dòu Zhāo let out an "ah" and was about to jump up.

  How could she have forgotten something so important!

  What happened between her parents back then, she didn't know the details. However, according to what Nuo said, her father met his stepmother when he went to Kyoto for the imperial examination. Poor mother knew nothing, seeing her father's letter saying he wanted to travel in Kyoto, not suspecting anything, just waiting anxiously at home every day, worrying that her father didn't have enough money to spend, thinking of secretly sending her own maid Yu Daqing to send some silver to her father, but later somehow got found out by her grandfather, and was scolded, only then did she stop.

  The provincial examination was in August, and snow had already fallen outside. At this time, it should have been deep winter, but Father had not returned yet. However, Grandfather was still alive, and he couldn't spend the New Year outside, which means that warning Mother was still timely.

  Her mother held Dou Zhao tightly in her arms, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn't get up. In a panic, she cried out loudly "Mother!"

  "What's wrong with Shou Gu today?" Mother looked at the wet nurse with a severe gaze, bewildered by her daughter's unusual fuss.

  The wet nurse's expression became somewhat tense: "I slept with the fourth young lady until dawn, had a bowl of millet porridge, a meat bun, and a flower roll..."

  "Didn't I say that every morning when you get up, you should first give Shougu a cup of warm water?" Mother interrupted the wet nurse in a low voice, "Did you give her water this morning?"

  "Drink, drink!" The wet nurse hastily said, no longer with the ease of earlier, "I did as you instructed, first using a quilt to keep warm, and had Fourth Miss wear a close-fitting jacket, then served Fourth Miss a warm water..."

  What's the point of saying these now?

  She followed her grandmother to the countryside farm until she was twelve years old, in summer she went fishing with the children of the farm workers, when thirsty drank water from the small river, in winter went to the mountain to catch sparrows, when hungry roasted and ate the sparrows, and still managed to live a good life into adulthood.

  "Mother... " Dou Zhao shook her mother, wanting to tell her that "Father is bringing a woman back", but as soon as the words left her mouth, she felt like something was stuck in her throat, and the clear sentence turned into an ambiguous "Father... Woman..." two words.

  Jian Douzhao opened her mouth to speak, and her mother turned around, smiling at her, patiently saying: "Shou Nainai, what do you want to say?"

  "Mother," Du Zhao said with difficulty, "Father... woman..." This time the words were clearer, but still not clear.

  She was so anxious that she broke out in a sweat on her forehead.

  Mother's eyebrows opened with a smile, directly ignoring the two words "woman", and happily said: "It turns out that our Shou girl also misses her father! Gao Sheng sent a message back, saying that your father will arrive in two days, and he bought many New Year's firecrackers, lanterns, incense, and candles. They are the firecrackers from Kyoto! They can burst into thousands of purple and red colors, not to mention Zhending County, even Zhending Prefecture doesn't have them for sale..."

  At this time, who cares about firecrackers!

  Dong Zhaohui couldn't help but repeatedly say "dad", "woman".

  Mother's expression gradually solidified, and she said seriously: "Shou Gu, what do you want to say?"

  Dong Zhaoru let out a deep breath and said slowly: "Father, father, brought, back, woman..."

  A childish voice, yet clear and loud.

  As if she had been slapped in the face, her mother's face showed a look of shock, suspicion and dismay.

  The wet nurse and the maids exchanged glances, their faces pale with fright.

  The house was in complete silence.

  The curtain was flung to one side with a rustling sound, and a little maid with three braids rushed in panting: "Seventh Lady, Seventh Master is back, Seventh Master has returned from the capital..."

  "Really!" Mother's face lit up with joy, she lifted her skirt and ran out, took two steps, stopped, thought for a moment, turned around and came back to hug Du Zhao, "Let's go pick up Dad together!"

  It seems like Mother has become suspicious.

  Dou Zhaosong let out a sigh of relief, hugged his mother's neck and loudly responded with "good".

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  Recommend and collect!

  O(∩_∩)O~

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