The New Year was rather somber because Zhong Qingyi was absent. The journey from the border to Xifeng took two months, and even with the fastest horses, it would take at least half a month to receive a letter. Song Zhuiyan only received three letters in total, which was not a pleasant thing.
On the Lantern Festival, the Zhang family had a happy event: Zhao Zhongnian, who had been missing for two years, suddenly returned. He was perfectly normal, but he walked with a limp in his left leg.
Upon hearing the news, Zhang Qingyu, heavily pregnant, returned to her parents' home. Seeing Zhao Zhongnian, who seemed to have aged considerably, she was overcome with grief.
"Uncle Zhao, where have you been these past two years? What exactly happened back then?" Zhang Qingyu burst into tears, thinking about the hardships of the past two years, and realized even more the importance of Uncle Zhao.
Zhao Zhongnian patted her shoulder. He had only been gone for two years, and he hadn't expected to come back. The eldest young lady was already married, and the second young lady was pregnant with someone else's child. Right now, only the young master was doing well, attending school and not making any mistakes.
Back then, he saw that the two young ladies and the young master were useless at everything and relied on him to support them. They were always causing him trouble. To be honest, he was tired of that kind of life and thought that once he found the other members of the Zhang family, he would find a way to leave.
Later, he followed Xi Feng's army to the capital. When he arrived in the capital, he couldn't find anyone. By a twist of fate, he got involved in the family affairs of a down-on-his-luck official and almost lost his life.
Fortunately, he was lucky and only lost one leg, saving his life. Now that he is alive and back, seeing the two young ladies and the young master again, he felt very guilty. He had watched these three children grow up, and he felt bad that they were living in such a bad state.
"How could the eldest young lady marry into a merchant family? And what about the second young lady?" Zhao Zhongnian was heartbroken. Who could have imagined that so many things would happen as soon as he went out? If he had known this would happen, why did he bother going out to look for people?
"Although we are from a merchant family, my husband treats me very well. I think it's good. The Zhang family is no longer a prominent family, so what right do I have to be picky? I was already twenty when I got married." Zhang Qingyu showed no resentment and was very frank.
“My second sister made a mistake out of confusion, and she has only herself to blame. She can’t blame anyone else. Uncle Zhao, you don’t need to blame yourself. You’ve done enough for us three siblings. You don’t owe us anything. We are very happy that you’re back.”
Zhao Zhongnian nodded heavily, his eyes stinging with tears. "After saying goodbye to Bai Pingfeng that day, I wanted to find a chance to enter the city, but with war raging on both sides, I couldn't find an opportunity. I figured the capital was in chaos, and the Zhang family couldn't possibly be coming back, so I decided to try looking in the nearby prefectural city."
So he left the capital and headed to the nearest prefecture. Unexpectedly, he encountered two groups of people fighting on the way. He heard screams from afar and thought it was better to avoid trouble, so he was about to take a detour.
He hid in a bush for a while and was about to leave when his legs were suddenly grabbed. It was a little girl covered in blood who begged him for help, "Help, help me, please save my mother and my brother."
"The girl was thirteen or fourteen years old, about the same age as the two young ladies back then. When I heard her say that she also had a mother and a younger brother, I immediately thought of the scene when we fled back then."
She also thought of how bravely Song Zhuiyan rushed forward to save people without hesitation, carrying a knife, and how little Song Tantan ran over to kill the soldiers. If it weren't for their kindness in saving people, how could the Zhang siblings have survived until now?
He was seriously injured at the time and was almost killed. He was only saved because Miss Song treated him with medicine.
After struggling for a while, he finally couldn't bring himself to stay out of it, so he grabbed his knife and went to save the people. It was a wealthy family with many guards, but there were too many bandits and the guards were already at their limit. Fortunately, Zhao Zhongnian appeared at the critical moment.
After Zhao Zhongnian fought desperately, he finally managed to fight his way out and escape with the family of three, under the cover of the remaining guards.
The journey was fraught with danger, as the bandits pursued them relentlessly. Later, Zhao Zhongnian was nearly killed by the bandits while protecting the mother and her two children, but he was spared. In the end, the father arrived with his men to rescue him.
"I was badly injured at the time and was unconscious for more than half a month before I woke up. After waking up, I was bedridden and couldn't get out of bed. My left leg was slashed, which damaged the tendons and veins. It took more than a year before I could walk again." In short, my leg was lame.
The man Zhao Zhongnian saved was a low-ranking official in the capital, a sixth-grade official. However, he was a man of the Prince Xian and had fled the capital with his family to Jiangnan. Zhao Zhongnian had been recuperating in Jiangnan.
After saying that, he took out several silver notes from his bag. "This is the retirement money that sir gave me, plus several hundred taels of silver." There were a thousand taels of silver notes, three hundred taels of silver in cash, and a horse.
Originally, the other party wanted to keep him to work, but Zhao Zhongnian felt that he was too old and had a limp, so he didn't want to work for another master. After this incident, he missed the two young ladies and the young master very much. Only then did he realize that he had long regarded the three children as his own.
So he said to the man, “I have family waiting for me to return home. I was looking for them, but now I don’t want to. I just want to go home and reunite with my children.”
Knowing that he was determined to leave, the official gave him a thousand taels of silver notes and silver as a reward. He originally wanted to give more, but his family had experienced some turmoil and did not have much silver on hand, so this was all he could do.
Zhao Zhongnian declined several times, but eventually accepted it. Having farmed for four years, he knew how hard it was to earn money. He had three children at home waiting for him to support, and he himself had suffered two serious injuries. In addition, he was getting old and needed money to support himself in his old age.
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