After Chun Wan saw Nanny Zhong off, Zhou Shaojin excitedly paced back and forth in her room twice.

In the future when her sister married into the Liao family, it certainly wouldn’t be as difficult as in the previous life.

However, how should she speak to Old Madam Guo about this matter?

Zhou Shaojin became somewhat troubled again.

Especially since when Madam Fang had previously proposed having the two uncles from the primary branch help guide her brother-in-law’s father on examination essays when he participated in the spring examinations, Old Madam Guo had agreed…

While she was worrying, Nanny Lü came over and said with a smile, “Elder Song has agreed to let Madam Song and Young Master Song visit our residence. We’ll change to a painted pleasure boat this afternoon and travel through the night. We’ll be able to return to Jinling tomorrow afternoon!”

Though it was pleasant outside, home was one’s own place. The joy of returning home was evident in her words.

Images of her sister, grandmother, and others flashed through Zhou Shaojin’s mind, and her heart immediately began leaping with excitement.

“I’ll have Chun Wan and the others pack everything right away.” She excitedly called for Chun Wan and began organizing things, temporarily putting aside her worries about how to advocate for Liao Shaotang.

After changing boats, Elder Song brought Huang Yijun to see them off. Upon receiving the news, the Gao, Liu, and Liao families all sent people to see them off as well. The dock was extremely lively and noisy for a long while. Only after the painted pleasure boat departed from the Zhenjiang dock and disappeared from view did those people exchange pleasantries and leave.

The happiest person was probably Song Sen. He scurried about in Zhou Shaojin’s room, picking up her fragrance powder box and asking, “Sister Zhou, what is this?”

Zhou Shaojin answered that it was a fragrance powder box.

He turned it over and over in his hands, saying, “How is it different from my mother’s and my sister’s?”

After a while, he opened the tall cabinet at the head of Zhou Shaojin’s bed to look inside.

Chun Wan scooped him up in one motion.

He ran over and hugged Zhou Shaojin’s waist, continuously calling “Sister Zhou” and saying, “Sister Chun Wan is bullying me!”

This made Chun Wan so angry her face turned pale.

Zhou Shaojin gently told him, “I am female and you are male. It’s wrong for you to randomly open my cabinets to look. Chun Wan was right to stop you!”

Song Sen’s face fell.

Zhou Shaojin then asked him, “I need to go pay my respects to Old Madam. Do you want to come with me?”

“Yes, yes, yes.” Song Sen quickly said, as if as long as he could be with Zhou Shaojin, he’d be happy doing anything.

Zhou Shaojin shook her head helplessly and brought Song Sen to Old Madam Guo’s quarters.

Old Madam Guo’s quarters had already been tidied up. Old Madam Guo was chatting with Madam Song. Seeing the two enter, Madam Song immediately stood up and said with a rueful smile, “This child disappears in the blink of an eye. I thought he must have gone to you and quickly sent his wet nurse to look for him.”

“He’s just too bored.” Zhou Shaojin politely made excuses for Song Sen, saying, “I can at least keep you and Old Madam company in conversation, but Young Master Song doesn’t even have anyone to talk to. The fact that he can obediently stay on the boat without clamoring to go ashore or making a fuss about fishing is already quite good.”

Mothers who dote on their children are all the same throughout the world.

Madam Song felt Zhou Shaojin’s words were absolutely right. She not only thought Zhou Shaojin’s words made sense, but her gaze toward her son also softened considerably. She felt that her son, as Zhou Shaojin said, was comparatively very obedient.

She smiled and exchanged a few polite words with Zhou Shaojin before sitting back down with her son.

Old Madam Guo then asked her, “Have you taken all your belongings? If you haven’t finished packing, it doesn’t matter. It’s our family’s boat. When they clean the cabin and discover anything that doesn’t belong to the boat, they’ll naturally have a steward notify us.”

Zhou Shaojin smiled. “I originally wanted to say ‘I’ve taken all my belongings,’ but hearing you say that, I can only answer ‘I should have taken all my belongings,’ otherwise if the boat’s steward discovers I’ve left something on the boat, you’d have to laugh at me.”

She was usually serious and had never made such jokes before. Old Madam Guo was initially stunned, then broke into hearty laughter.

Zhou Shaojin smiled with pressed lips.

It seemed that making witty remarks wasn’t such a difficult thing after all!

Because Madam Song was present, Cheng Chi had his evening meal in his own cabin.

That night, thinking that tomorrow she would be able to see her sister, grandmother, and others, Zhou Shaojin was so excited she couldn’t sleep. She repeatedly asked Chun Wan, who was keeping night watch, “Have all the gifts I bought been sorted out? Did I miss anyone? There weren’t any mistakes, were there?”

Chun Wan could only answer her repeatedly, “Everything has been sorted out and placed in boxes with paper labels stuck on the outside. There absolutely won’t be any mistakes. The list has also been carefully checked against the list you wrote for me earlier. There won’t be any errors.”

Zhou Shaojin nodded. She didn’t fall asleep until nearly dawn.

Naturally she woke late the next day.

Fortunately, everyone was preparing for disembarkation. Apart from Song Sen coming to look for Zhou Shaojin twice and being stopped outside her cabin door both times, no one else noticed.

After the midday meal, not only Zhou Shaojin but even Chun Wan and the others couldn’t sit still. The entire painted pleasure boat overflowed with the joy of returning home and seeing relatives. They even encountered the covered boat the Cheng family had sent to meet them along the way. Everyone’s emotions reached their peak, and the feeling of going home became even stronger. When they passed Jiangbei Bridge, everyone spontaneously cheered.

Zhou Shaojin suddenly understood why people in Jinling called Jiangbei Bridge the first bridge of Jinling.

As soon as you saw this bridge, you knew you had returned to Jinling. This was Jinling’s landmark, the location of home.

Zhou Shaojin stood before the boat window, watching the painted pleasure boat slowly pass under Jiangbei Bridge, watching the bridge gradually recede behind them.

Unlike when leaving Jinling with her unease about the future, returning to Jinling, her heart was peaceful and serene.

Only now did she realize that having lived two lives, regardless of what harm Jinling had once caused her, she still loved this great city the same.

The pedestrians on the road bustled about. When they left, they wore summer single-layer garments; when they returned, they wore winter padded clothes. Yet the prosperity of the markets remained the same. But when Zhou Shaojin lifted the curtain to look out again, she felt less of her former joy and curiosity, and more composure and ease.

Was it because she had seen more impressive things?

But just before her rebirth, she had lived in the capital. In terms of city size, what in the entire country could compare to the capital besides the capital itself? Why hadn’t she felt this way then?

It wasn’t until the sedan chair entered through the side gate of the Cheng residence in Nine Happiness Lane, with familiar scenes passing before her eyes one by one, that she finally understood—this had nothing to do with the size of the city or the complexity of the scenery, but rather that her mindset and her perspective on things had changed greatly. Before, she had gone from one residence to another, and no matter how beautiful the scenery, it was only so-so. This time, following Old Madam Guo and Uncle Chi, she had seen the magnificent Buddhist scenery of Mount Putuo, witnessed the spectacular Qiantang River tide, observed Hangzhou Prefecture’s prosperity, ridden on sand boats, visited Yutai’s branch offices, drunk tea brewed with Zhongling Spring water… Only then did she know just how vast this world truly was and how insignificant she herself was.

Those hardships she had once experienced seemed at this moment to become less painful.

As Zhou Shaojin was thinking, the sedan chair stopped. The sedan curtain was lifted by the accompanying servant woman the Cheng family had sent. Before Listening Rain Pavilion stood people dressed in red and green, but she immediately saw her sister supporting their grandmother with a token gesture.

She wore a peach-red cloud brocade jacket with a large kingfisher-feather flower in her hair. She looked gentle and graceful.

Zhou Shaojin’s tears fell unexpectedly.

“Sister!” She threw herself into her sister’s arms without caring about anything else.

All thoughts of vastness and insignificance vanished like smoke. At this moment she only wanted to depend on her most beloved sister.

Zhou Chujin held her sister whom she hadn’t seen for over four months. Tears couldn’t help streaming down her face.

This was the first time her sister had ever left her side since growing up. Traveling by boat and horse carried three parts danger. From the day her sister departed, she had burned three sticks of incense before the Buddha every day, praying for the Buddha to bless her with safety and smooth travels.

Everyone was surprised.

The Second Branch’s Old Madam Tang raised her eyebrows and said with pointed meaning, “This child—she went out on a trip with Sister-in-law and shows no improvement. With so many elders present here, she goes and throws herself into her sister’s arms crying as if she’s been wronged.”

Upon hearing this, Old Madam Guan immediately frowned. But before she could speak, Old Madam Guo was already smiling and saying, “When a child sees her mother, she’ll cry three times even if nothing’s wrong. The Fourth Branch is like her natal family. For a young child to cry when seeing her mother is perfectly normal. You’re an elder—don’t fuss over such things. Shaojin, come give your maternal great-aunt a kowtow. Besides me, she’s your eldest living elder.”

Old Madam Tang’s face alternated between pale and flushed, very uncomfortable.

She hadn’t expected Old Madam Guo to protect Zhou Shaojin so much, and even less had she expected that upon entering, Old Madam Guo would immediately lock horns with her, not yielding in the slightest.

Zhou Shaojin realized with alarm that she had lost her composure, but inexplicably, she no longer felt her former fear—only embarrassment at her breach of propriety.

She quickly wiped away her tears and walked properly to the cushion someone had placed before Old Madam Tang. She bent her knees slightly, about to kowtow to Old Madam Tang.

Hong Shi quickly stepped forward and pulled Zhou Shaojin back, laughing, “You child, the elders make one joke and you take it seriously?” As she spoke, she glanced at Nanny Shi who had placed the cushion, then put her arm around Zhou Shaojin. “It’s good that you’ve returned safely! Your grandmother and sister have been thinking of you every day!”

Of course Old Madam Guo hadn’t truly intended to make Zhou Shaojin kneel. Seeing Hong Shi step in to resolve the situation, she didn’t pursue the matter further. Instead, she introduced Madam Song to everyone. “…We encountered each other by chance on the road and only then learned she was the wife of Grand Secretary and Minister of Revenue Song. Now that First Master also serves in the cabinet, Madam Song is hardly an outsider, so I invited Madam Song to visit our home.”

The Song family was very simple. Song Jingran’s mind wasn’t focused on domestic matters, and given his personality, Madam Song hadn’t clearly seen the undercurrents between Old Madam Guo and Old Madam Tang just now. She stepped forward with a smile to pay her respects to the old madams and madams of each branch of the Cheng family.

Cheng Chi, who had escorted his mother inside, stood at the periphery, coldly observing the cluster of people not far away, feeling quite disdainful in his heart.

So many years had passed, yet the Second Branch showed no progress whatsoever, always engaging in verbal sparring. Then there was the Third Branch, forever fence-sitters, thinking they could stay above it all by saying nothing. The Fourth Branch was no better—they went through life with one eye open and one closed, papering over problems. They still weren’t as good as the Fifth Branch, which wanted what it wanted and did what it wanted to do…

He ordered Huai Shan somewhat irritably, “Let’s go back.”

Huai Shan said, “Aren’t you going to pay your respects to the Old Ancestor?”

“I just returned.” Cheng Chi said lazily. “I’m a bit tired. I’ll go tomorrow!”

Huai Shan assented.

The group bypassed Listening Rain Pavilion and returned to Cold Jade Mountain Lodge.