When Zhao Cheng served as an instructor, he had always been gentle, so the students weren’t afraid of him. A student named Gan Xing smiled and said, “Although we don’t know why you insisted on leaving the capital before the New Year, since it’s you, sir, we’re willing to follow. But being able to celebrate New Year in the capital, we’re still very happy.”

Zhao Cheng’s expression softened. “You’ve all worked hard. Let’s return to the capital first, and after the New Year, we’ll go on our study tour.”

The students happily agreed and immediately turned around their carriages, mule carts, and donkey carts. “We’d better hurry then—today is already the twenty-eighth.”

Zhao Cheng replied, “We can make it. It’s not far from here.”

The group hurried along, arriving in the capital on the morning of the thirtieth.

Upon entering the capital, Zhao Cheng had the students return to their respective homes. Those without family in Luoyang went directly to the Imperial Academy.

The Imperial Academy had many students from other regions. The student holiday ran from the fifteenth of the twelfth month to the nineteenth of the first month—over a month. However, some students were poor and chose not to return home for New Year.

The Imperial Academy allowed students to remain on campus. After the holiday began, Zhao Hanzhang had personally visited them, then instructed various departments to accommodate the students, allowing them to rotate through different departments and find part-time temporary work.

The Imperial Academy also provided them with a subsidy. Though not much, it was enough to keep them from starving, and the students were all very grateful.

Of course, there were also wealthy students who stayed behind. Because the Imperial Academy had a good learning atmosphere, they chose to live there as well, so the Academy was still quite lively at this time.

Zhao Cheng needed to take his luggage home first. Just as he had walked a few steps, someone rushed out from a restaurant by the city gate, looking at him with delight. “Young master has returned! Young master has really returned! Sanniang didn’t lie—she told this humble one to wait for you at the East Gate, and I actually did wait for you to return!”

He enthusiastically stepped forward to lead Zhao Cheng’s horse.

Zhao Cheng’s face darkened as he asked, “Where is Sanniang now?”

The servant paused before replying, “I don’t know that. Although the court has sealed its records, Sanniang is still very busy. Just yesterday she went to the military camp to encourage the officers and soldiers. I don’t know if she’s in the capital today or has left.”

He was just a household slave of the Zhao family—how could he know Zhao Hanzhang’s whereabouts?

Everything he knew about Zhao Hanzhang’s schedule was after the fact, either heard at home or read in the newspapers.

Did he have the nerve to investigate Zhao Hanzhang’s real-time movements?

Zhao Cheng thought about it and realized this made sense, so he asked, “What about Father?”

This he knew. The servant happily replied, “The master is at home.”

Zhao Hu was still sulking at home. However, probably realizing that crying that day had been too embarrassing, he hadn’t gone out for five days despite usually enjoying lively gatherings.

Not only did he not go out, but he also canceled the New Year banquet he had prepared to hold grandly a month ago.

This broke the hearts of many merchants and workers.

So when Zhao Cheng looked for his father, he found him at home without fail.

When Zhao Hu saw his son suddenly appear, he was so shocked he stood up from his reclining chair. Halfway up, he came to his senses and slowly bent down to sit back, suppressing his excited expression and trying to adopt a casual tone: “You’re back?”

Zhao Cheng looked at his father, who had been domineering all his life, softly said “Mm,” bowed, and asked, “Does Father know where Sanniang is now?”

Zhao Hu countered with a question: “When are you leaving?”

Zhao Cheng paused for quite a while before saying, “After the Lantern Festival.”

The expression on Zhao Hu’s face became much more animated. After thinking carefully, he said, “She should be in the palace. I heard the observatory has been built. With Tinghan away, she’s interested in both calendars and stars, so she’ll definitely go look. This year’s palace banquet is being held in Deyang Hall. It was supposed to be hosted by you, but you ran off, so she temporarily asked He Xun from Jiangnan to substitute. He’s new and a southerner—many people don’t accept him. To prevent things from going wrong, she’ll definitely be supervising in the palace.”

Zhao Cheng looked up at the sky. “At this hour, won’t she come home to change into formal attire?”

Zhao Hu waved his hand dismissively. “She’ll just take it to the palace. Who could stop her?”

Zhao Cheng thought about it and agreed. He immediately reached out and asked Zhao Hu for the palace entry token.

As the former Imperial Academy Chancellor, Zhao Cheng had previously had palace entry privileges, but now that he had resigned from office and his official token had been confiscated, he naturally couldn’t enter the palace.

After being enfeoffed as a marquis, Zhao Hu also had a token.

Seeing his son reach out for the token, Zhao Hu desperately wanted to show off and mock him, but just as the words were about to leave his mouth, he remembered what Zhao Hanzhang had said before leaving that day: “Seventh Great-Uncle resents Uncle Cheng for treating students as his own children, showing compassionate understanding even to opponents, yet being unwilling to forgive you. But you’ve forgotten—the foundation for asking someone’s forgiveness is that the wrongdoer realizes they were wrong and apologizes.”

“But even now, you don’t think you did anything wrong. All your concessions are just to ease father-son conflicts. What’s more ridiculous is that your concessions are what you consider concessions. You think that giving Uncle Cheng money, buying him books, buying things you think he’d like means he should forgive you. But you’ve forgotten—whether past or present, everything has been forced upon him by you. The things he’s asked you for, you haven’t given him a single one. And the things you’ve given him are all things he never asked for, never even glanced at.”

Zhao Hu had just finished crying then, his voice still hoarse, but this didn’t stop him from wanting to argue with Zhao Hanzhang.

But Zhao Hanzhang was eloquent, and facing the battle-worn Zhao Hu, she continued before he could speak: “You find it strange why Uncle Cheng is so tolerant of others yet so harsh toward you. After he became Imperial Academy Chancellor, there were famous scholars who openly cursed him as unworthy of his position, yet he could generously not hold it against them. When people in court attacked him, he quickly forgave them. Why is he harsh only toward you?”

Zhao Hu felt these words struck his heart, so he nodded. “Yes, why?”

“Because people have the strictest requirements for their closest relatives. The same harmful act—when done by outsiders, it may hurt the bones, but when done by close relatives, it pierces the heart,” Zhao Hanzhang said. “Therefore, harm from close relatives is the most unforgivable.”

“Uncle Cheng has never been willing to forgive you—not because he’s unfilial, and not because he’s narrow-minded, but because the one who hurt him was someone he loved and cherished most dearly, which makes it impossible to let go.” She continued, “Seventh Great-Uncle, if you truly want to ease the father-son conflict, you must first know where you went wrong.”

“Where did I go wrong?” Zhao Hu turned to ask Zhao Song. “Men should marry when they come of age. When he reached the right age, he should have married and had children. Was that wrong? Or is Zhengér not good enough?”

“If I hadn’t insisted back then, would he have such a clever and bright son as Zhengér?”

Zhao Hanzhang turned and left. She knew she was wasting her breath—there was a reason why Zhao Hu and his son had been at odds for years.

Wasn’t Zhao Ming clever?

Wasn’t Zhao Song perceptive?

Yet neither could reconcile the two. Why did she think she could?

Zhao Hanzhang raised her hand and slapped herself, then mounted her horse and rode away.

Seeing her slap her own face, Zhao Hu flinched backward and couldn’t help looking at Zhao Song again.

After more than ten years, Zhao Song had long given up trying. Ignoring Zhao Hu’s puzzled gaze, he waved his hand and left as well.

Zhao Hu was utterly perplexed. Even today, he still didn’t understand, but this didn’t prevent him from taking Zhao Hanzhang’s words to heart.

Rarely, when Zhao Cheng reached out to ask him for something, Zhao Hu forcefully suppressed his pride and mockery and had someone fetch the token.

Zhao Cheng’s expression visibly softened, which made Zhao Hu freeze. It had been many years since father and son had spoken so amiably to each other.

So making Zhao Cheng amiable was this simple?

Just give him what he wanted?

—