CHAPTER 309: CHAPTER 155: BRINGING SECOND YOUNG MADAM HOME (PART 2)

Mrs. Lin gently patted her back while persuading, "Madam, please don’t be sad! young master has always been smart and not uneducated. He left with plenty of silver, so he must be doing fine out there! You are his birth mother, how could he not miss you! Maybe he’ll come back after a while! Please stop grieving!"

Second Madam Shi snorted and said: "It would be great if he did come back, I’ll agree to whatever he says! Whoever dares to object, I’ll fight them tooth and nail! Alas, no matter how good it is out there, how can it compare to being at home? Poor boy, he’s never suffered since he was a child, now in the bitter cold, who knows what hardships he’s enduring!"

As she spoke, she couldn’t help but become angry again: "Fengju has always promised to help me find him and bring him back, but I don’t even know if he really cares, it’s been two years without a single piece of news! Hmph, I’m starting to doubt his intentions!"

"Oh my, Madam!" Mrs. Lin was shocked and quickly soothed her: "You mustn’t think that way! How could young master be such a person? If the young master knew what you said, he would be so upset! In this vast sea of people, the world is so big, isn’t it easy to hide someone? I think, young master must be alright. If there really was something wrong, our Shi family has shops everywhere, even without them, we have friends. If anything happened, young master could simply have someone send word, and nothing could be more convenient than that!"

"True enough!" Second Madam Shi’s heart was momentarily filled with resentment and complained about Shi Fengju, yet she also felt remorse and stopped mentioning it. Instead, she sighed about her own hard fate, feeling pity for her son who was suffering outside, while Mrs. Lin had no choice but to keep consoling her.

"After all is said and done, it’s all Jingyi’s fault!" Second Madam Shi’s eyes glinted coldly, the sadness suddenly replaced by a face full of hatred. She slammed her hand on the tea table beside her and said bitterly: "That unworthy thing, she can’t even manage her own husband, how does she qualify as a wife! If she showed some spirit, had some use, my Fengming would never have left home. It’s all because she’s useless!"

As Second Madam Shi continued, she became angrier and angrier, "The husband is not home, and instead of properly staying at home to pray for his safety and serve her in-laws, she runs back to her natal family to enjoy comfort! Tomorrow morning, have someone go to her house, bring her back to me!"

"Yes, Madam!" Mrs. Lin quickly agreed, thinking to herself that Second Grandma Shi’s behavior was indeed disgraceful; how could one as a daughter-in-law spend several months at her natal family without returning?

"Go first thing in the morning, don’t forget! No matter what, they have to bring her back! As a mother-in-law, I must thoroughly teach her the rules, lest when Fengming returns, she chases him away again! I can’t endure anymore turmoil!" Finding an excuse to vent, Second Madam Shi harshly scolded Second Grandma Zhou, feeling much better, and let the matter rest for the night without further discussion.

Second Grandma Zhou’s home was in Jinhe County of Linzhou Prefecture, which, although under a different prefecture from Qingzhou, was not far from Qingzhou City – a quick carriage ride was only an hour and a half away.

Mrs. Lin personally undertook this arduous task. The eastern sky had just begun to show the first glimpse of dawn, with Venus still high in the sky, when she wrapped herself in thick winter clothes, put on a warm hat, and led four or five maids and matrons on a carriage ride to Jinhe County.

Soon, Mrs. Lin and her party arrived at the Zhou family home. The doorman’s face changed slightly upon hearing "Shi family from Qingzhou," and he hurriedly wore a smile, inviting them to the sitting room to warm up by the fire and have some tea, while hastily sending word to Master Zhou, Mrs. Zhou, and young master Zhou and others.

The Zhou family, while not as wealthy as the Shi family, was renowned in Jinhe County. They owned six to seven hundred acres of good farmland, but their mountain estates stretched for dozens of miles. Traveling by carriage through their mountain forests, it would take an hour to get out! With oil trees and tea trees planted extensively in their mountain estates, the Zhou family was well-known for their oil and tea seed oil, not only in Jinhe County, but also throughout Linzhou Prefecture and Qingzhou.

Now, due to the marriage relationship with the Shi family, almost all of the Zhou family’s oil and tea seed oil were provided to the Shi family business, making them one of the top suppliers for these commodities. Therefore, they also had the standing to be on an equal footing with the Shi family, without fear of the Shi family’s wealth and power.

The doorman hurriedly communicated this to Mrs. Yang at the inner gate. As Mrs. Yang went to report, Second Grandma Zhou Jingyi had just gotten out of bed and was greeting her mother and chatting when she heard the news, both mother and daughter changed color.

"They dare to come!" Mrs. Zhou protecting her calf, slammed the table in anger and said: "Throw them out! Tell them to go back and tell their in-laws’ mother: wait until she disciplines her own son, and let her son come in person! My daughter is not to be mistreated and humiliated!"

Then she asked sternly, "Has the master and young master been informed of this affair?"

Mrs. Yang quickly replied: "Not yet, I rushed over to report to Madam and Miss as soon as I heard from the doorman!"

"Hmm," Mrs. Zhou nodded in satisfaction, gestured impatiently, "What are you waiting for? Go on then! No need to be polite to them! If they refuse to leave, throw them out!" Speaking fiercely: "Does the Zhou family look easy to bully? They even dare to come to our door demanding people! My daughter wasn’t married off to become a lonely widow! If I had known the Shi family’s second son was such an unreliable person, to heaven with their wealth, my Zhou family wouldn’t care for it! Sigh, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree: how outstanding the Shi family’s elder son is, yet how could the second son be so unreliable!"

Mrs. Yang agreed and was just about to proceed as told, but Zhou Jingyi hesitated and quickly called Mrs. Yang to stop, turning to her mother with hesitation, "Mother, is this really alright?"

Mrs. Zhou, seeing her daughter not siding with her, glared and said sternly, "What, truly ’outgoing daughters are like water splashed out’? I’m standing up for you, but you’re siding with your in-laws?"