With so many people around, it would be awkward to force Wei Ping to go back. So Wei Wenshi didn't say anything more and just let her granddaughter help her back to her room.
Back at Songhe Residence, Caidie helped Wei Wenshi to the couch and gave her two soft pillows to lean against comfortably before sitting down by the bed.
"Grandma, let me massage your legs!"
Wei Wenshi smiled and said, "Good girl," and then enjoyed her granddaughter's filial piety.
After a moment, Lady Weiwen asked, "Caidie, where is your father?"
Cai Die, who was massaging her legs, suddenly stopped, pursed her lips, and seemed to find it difficult to answer.
Wei Wenshi roughly guessed what had happened and said with utter disdain to her cheap son-in-law, "I knew it. Your father must have caused trouble again and upset your mother, which is why she brought you to Shengjing in such a hurry."
"What trouble has he gotten himself into this time?"
Faced with her grandmother's persistent questioning, Cai Die knew she couldn't avoid it, so she simply told the truth: "Grandmother, my family... my family is starving..."
Before she could even finish speaking, Cai Die started crying, feeling wronged.
Wei Wen straightened up and patted her shoulder to comfort her, then asked curiously, "Before the Wei family of Wu County had this trouble, didn't I send someone to deliver silver notes to your mother every month?"
In those years, Madam Wei Wen was incredibly generous, perhaps to make up for the debts she had accumulated over the decades. Every month, she would send Wei Ping several hundred taels of silver notes, sometimes nearly a thousand taels! She had thought that Wei Ping could save up ten thousand or eight thousand taels over the years, apart from his daily expenses, but she never expected that he would squander even more than her Wu County Wei family.
"Could it be that your father went gambling?" Wei Wenshi guessed wildly.
Cai Die shook her head with tears in her eyes: "No, but three months ago, my father wanted to learn how to do business, so he took ten thousand taels of silver and went to Tongzhou by boat. He originally wanted to buy a batch of porcelain to sell, but who would have thought that after my father left, we would never hear from him again..."
"And then?" Wei Wen asked anxiously.
"Half a month ago, my father suddenly returned home, but he was dressed in rags and had no money. He had to beg for food all the way back to Wu County!"
"What about the ten thousand taels?"
“My father said that they encountered pirates on the boat and all their valuables were stolen. It was a miracle that they survived. My mother was furious and took me out of the house. We went to Shengjing according to the address my grandmother left before she left.”
Upon hearing this, Lady Wei was furious.
After the Wei family's misfortune, she had considered asking Wei Ping for some money to buy a small courtyard and settle down if she couldn't find someone to rely on from the second branch of the family. Now it seems that even that last resort has been blocked. It looks like she'll have to live at the mercy of the second branch for the rest of her life.
However, thinking about it, Wei Ping couldn't be blamed for this. Wei Wen sighed heavily: "If your mother had grown up in the Wei family, she wouldn't have had to suffer all this, and she wouldn't have met your father and his ilk."
“Grandmother, Mother doesn’t blame you for this,” Cai Die said obediently.
Wei Wen looked at her with slight surprise: "Your mother told you that she didn't blame me, her mother?"
“Grandmother, Mother only blames her own bad luck and has never blamed you. Mother knows your situation back then. If you had kept her in the Wei family, you might not even have been able to keep your own position. Then the mistress of the Wei family would have been replaced, and how would Mother have fared well?”
These words were naturally made up on the spot. After all, she couldn't repeat the things her mother used to say to her grandmother whenever she was unhappy at home.
These words of understanding were truly appreciated by Wei Wenshi. After hearing them, she felt even more ashamed of having such a good daughter and granddaughter, and she stretched out her arms to embrace Cai Die.
"Good child, don't be afraid. It's a good thing for you that your mother is leaving your father. From now on, you will love your maternal grandmother more, as well as your uncle, aunt, and cousins!"
“I’m not afraid of my maternal grandmother, but… but if my mother doesn’t want my father anymore, I don’t want to take my father’s surname anymore. Can I take my maternal grandmother’s and mother’s surname?”
Madam Wei slowly released Cai Die, looking at her with slight surprise, and then suddenly smiled kindly: "Alright, from now on you will be just like your fourth sister, both of you are your grandmother's own granddaughters!"
Having taken the Wei family name, she is now a descendant of the Wei family. After all, she is flesh and blood of my own daughter, which is better than those people from the second branch who have no relation to me whatsoever!
Thinking this to herself, Madam Wei Wen knew that the whole family would still have to rely on the second branch of the family in the future, so she didn't speak too harshly. She stroked Wei Caidie's hair and said affectionately:
"Although our Wu County Wei family is gone, fortunately your second uncle has established himself in the capital. From now on, you and your mother can just stay here peacefully. With your grandmother and your eldest and second uncles around, no one will dare to bully you!"
"By the way, you're seventeen now, a few months older than Third Sister. Grandma should start looking for a suitable person for you..."
As Wei Wenshi muttered to herself, Wei Caidie blushed. She was willing to take the Wei family name and become the Wei family's granddaughter, all for the sake of a good future.
The Wei family has wronged her mother, and it's time for them to repay some of what they owe her.
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