After returning from the ice sports competition, Ren Yaoying temporarily moved back to Fangfei Courtyard, unwilling to come out and face people.

Lin Shi mentioned to Old Madam Ren several times about wanting Ren Yaoyu to move back to Ronghua Garden, but Old Madam Ren played deaf and dumb, pretending not to hear.

The Spring Festival quickly arrived. Though winter in Yan Bei was very cold, it still couldn’t dampen people’s enthusiasm for visiting and paying New Year respects.

There was a custom for married women who lived close to their natal homes to return on the second day of the New Year to pay respects.

Eldest Madam Wang Shi’s natal family was in Wuzhou, further north, normally a day and night’s journey from White Crane Town. Now, with heavy snow blocking the roads, traveling north was even more difficult. Combined with the busy New Year affairs, she had rarely returned to her natal home for New Year visits since marrying into the Ren family.

Fifth Madam Lin Shi, however, began preparing to go to Yunyang City on New Year’s Day itself. Yunyang City was only a two-hour carriage ride from White Crane Town, easily manageable as a day trip.

Old Madam Ren’s legitimate daughter, Ren Shijia, had returned on the second day last year, but this year she was pregnant and needed to rest, so she had sent word early that she wouldn’t return to White Crane Town this year. Ren Shijia also had difficulty bearing children—she had lost two previous pregnancies, and though the third was born, it was stillborn. Now that she was pregnant again with great difficulty, the Lin family naturally took it very seriously, especially since Ren Shijia was nearly thirty, and childbirth would become more dangerous with age.

The eldest daughter of the Ren family’s first branch, Ren Yaoichi, had married the legitimate son of the second branch of the Gu family of Jiangning Textile Manufacturing and hadn’t returned to Yan Bei for two years.

The second daughter of the first branch’s concubine line, Ren Yaoqin, had been matched by the Second Old Master of the Eastern Residence and married to the capital, becoming the second wife of a fifth-rank Ministry of Revenue official surnamed Yan. Official Yan was sixteen years older than Ren Yaoqin, and his eldest son by his first wife was only one year younger than Ren Yaoqin. However, the Yan family had imperial connections—the current emperor’s birth mother came from the Yan family, so even though Official Yan was only a distant branch of the Yan family’s legitimate line, he could still hold a proper fifth-rank position in the capital.

In her previous life, when Ren Yaoqi first arrived in the capital, she had sent people to find this second sister whom she barely remembered, only to be told that Ren Yaoqin had been dead for a year. When asked about the cause of death, the Yan family members were evasive. Later, Ren Yaoqi asked Master Pei to help investigate and learned that Ren Yaoqin had become involved with her stepson, the Yan family’s eldest young master. When the Yan family discovered this, she died by suicide in shame and anger. This matter had originally been handled by Fourth Master Ren Shixi and his wife, who were stationed in the capital, and Ren Yaoqi, far away in Yan Bei, had heard no news of it at all.

On the second day of the New Year, when the Ren Yaoqi sisters went to pay respects to Li Shi, Eldest Madam happened to send someone to ask Li Shi if she needed a carriage prepared to go out. Li Shi declined.

“Mother, aren’t you going to maternal grandfather’s house to pay New Year respects this year either? You haven’t gone for several years now,” Ren Yaoqi asked with a smile after Eldest Madam’s person left.

Li Shi shook her head and hadn’t yet answered when Ren Yaohua scoffed, “Go back for what? To drink the northwest wind? Who knows if they’ve pawned the house again this year! Then Mother would have to redeem it for them again…”

“Shut your mouth!” Li Shi suddenly shouted.

Ren Yaohua looked at Li Shi and couldn’t help but stop mid-sentence.

Li Shi’s face flushed red, her eyes rimmed with red, her expression showing both embarrassment and some humiliation. Li Shi rarely lost her temper with her daughters, usually even being completely obedient to them.

But she also had her bottom line—she couldn’t tolerate anyone speaking disrespectfully about her natal family. One reason Li Shi wasn’t favored by Old Madam Ren, besides her inability to bear sons, was that when Old Madam Ren once scolded her and made veiled attacks on her mother, Li Shi had talked back.

Seeing Li Shi trembling with anger, Ren Yaoqi tugged at Ren Yaohua and pulled her to kneel together before Li Shi. This time, Ren Yaohua obediently followed Ren Yaoqi in kneeling, because she could see that her words had truly hurt her mother’s heart.

“Remember this! The Li family bloodline will not tolerate insult from anyone, because no one is worthy of it!” Li Shi took a deep breath and said slowly.

Her voice carried a kind of pride and sense of superiority over others that she had never shown before. Though her father and brothers were unreliable, and her own life wasn’t satisfactory, she couldn’t erase this innate sense of superiority carved into her bones.

“Your daughter remembers,” Ren Yaoqi said, gently tugging at Ren Yaohua, who lowered her head and repeated the words in a muffled voice.

“All of you go out. Hua’er will reflect behind closed doors today!” Li Shi said with rare firmness.

Ren Yaoqi helped Ren Yaohua up, and both acknowledged and withdrew.

After her daughters left, Li Shi stood dazed for a moment, then covered her face and collapsed onto the kang.

Nanny Zhou came forward to comfort her, but seeing tears flowing through Li Shi’s fingers, her own eyes also moistened. In the end, she silently wept alongside her.

After the master and servant had their cry, Nanny Zhou saw that Li Shi was feeling better and came forward to wipe her tears.

“This servant will have someone bring hot water for you to wash your face,” Nanny Zhou sighed softly. “Third Miss meant no harm. Please don’t be too upset.”

Li Shi choked out, “She came from my body, Li family blood flows in her veins too. If others look down on them, so be it, but she…”

Nanny Zhou stepped forward and held the sobbing Li Shi in her arms, gently patting her back to comfort her. Li Shi wiped away her tears, feeling somewhat embarrassed, “Nanny, I’m not a child anymore.”

Nanny Zhou smiled and sighed, “This old servant watched the County Princess grow up. In my eyes, you’re the same as Third Miss and Fifth Miss.”

Having left the main room, Ren Yaoqi looked at Ren Yaohua, who wore a sullen expression, and said softly, “Third Sister, you know Mother can’t bear to hear such things. Please never say them again.”

Ren Yaohua glanced sideways at Ren Yaoqi and snorted lightly.

Ren Yaoqi shook her head and was about to say something more when Ren Yaohua spoke, “Isn’t it that you like whatever Father likes, and dislike whatever Father dislikes? Father doesn’t like Uncle. If you speak well of our maternal family, aren’t you afraid Father will be angry?”

Ren Yaoqi thought for a moment, then looked at Ren Yaohua teasingly, “Could it be that in Third Sister’s eyes, Father is such an unreasonable person? That he would even interfere with whom we like?”

Ren Yaohua said angrily, “You… glib-tongued, using clever words!”

Ren Yaoqi made a face, “You… incoherent!”

Ren Yaohua’s mouth twitched. “You’re childish!”

Ren Yaoqi laughed softly, then restrained her laughter and said seriously, “Father doesn’t look down on Grandfather and Uncle, it’s just that…”

“It’s just that Uncle flattered Father by praising his paintings, then tricked him into making a replica of an ancient painting, but in the end pawned Father’s painting to a gambling house as if it were the real thing!” Ren Yaohua interrupted.

Ren Yaoqi fell silent.

Ren Yaohua was right. Ren Shimin was angry about this incident and had sworn to break off relations with their uncle.

“I don’t want to look down on Grandfather and Uncle, but I can’t understand how, when their family couldn’t even afford food, they could still mortgage their house just to buy a cricket. If Mother hadn’t redeemed the house, even Grandmother would have had to sleep on the streets with them! I can’t understand even more how, when they couldn’t even afford maids, women servants, or attendants, they still kept a theater troupe at home! Everything that could be pawned had been pawned long ago, leaving them destitute, yet they could still happily walk birds, fight dogs, and sing operas! They still think of themselves as imperial princes, but haven’t noticed that the world outside has long since changed!”

Ren Yaoqi was silent again.

She had no way to refute Ren Yaohua’s words, because what she said was the truth.

Some people had been accustomed to being superior their entire lives and simply didn’t know how ordinary people lived, because no one had ever taught them.

Their maternal grandfather was named Li Qian. Li was the imperial surname. Before being demoted to Yan Bei, he had been true imperial nobility, the Prince Xian personally enfeoffed by the previous emperor.

Now he was merely a commoner in Yan Bei, and his descendants for generations were forbidden from entering the capital without imperial summons.

Ren Yaoqi didn’t bear the surname Li, so in her previous life, she also couldn’t understand her grandfather’s and uncle’s behavior.

But she remembered that in her previous life, after her father died, all relatives, including the Ren family, refused to collect his body. Only her uncle dared to bring the martial artists from his theater troupe to carry her father’s corpse back, selling Grandfather’s beloved cricket “Ever-Victorious General” to pay for the burial.

It was also that unreliable uncle who, after she was abandoned by the Ren family, followed her mother’s dying wishes and risked execution to chase her back to the capital, wanting to steal her away from the Pei family.

In the end, she had gently refused him and persuaded him to return to Yan Bei. That was the first time she knew that a man in his thirties could cry with tears and snot flowing everywhere, completely disregarding his image.

As the saying goes, adversity reveals true friends, and hardship shows genuine affection.

Ren Yaoqi couldn’t tell Ren Yaohua these things. She could only sigh and turn toward her western wing room.

Many things about human warmth and coldness could only be understood through experience.

Lin Shi didn’t return until the sixth day. Upon her return, she was immediately summoned to Ronghua Garden by Old Madam Ren. Of course, it wasn’t to scold her for returning late, but to ask about Ren Shijia’s condition. Though Old Madam Ren had arranged for people to care for her daughter early on, she still worried about her.

Yun Wenfang was nowhere to be seen during the New Year period. Qiu Yun said he had returned to Yunyang City to pay respects to his elders, though whether this was true was unclear.

On the Lantern Festival, White Crane Town was very lively. Several wealthy families had funded a temple fair. Ren Yaoting from the Eastern Residence invited Han You to see the lantern festival that evening, and the Han family unexpectedly agreed. The second Madam came to invite Ren Yaoqi and her sisters to go together.

Li Shi hoped that Ren Yaohua and Ren Yaoqi could go out more to meet people, as Ren Yaohua was nearly of marriageable age.

In the end, Ren Yaoqi, Ren Yaohua, and Ren Yaoyu went together, while Ren Yaoyin and Ren Yaoying didn’t go out.