Gong Mengshu's home is in the south of Mingcheng. The people of Mingcheng are virtually divided into the northern and southern districts according to the situation of wealth and poverty. Most of the people in the northern area were eunuchs and nobles, while the poor people lived mostly in the southern area. The yellow rickshaw bypassed most of the streets and alleys of Mingcheng, and Gong Mengshu saw the gray tiles and white walls of his house appear in front of him from a distance. Gong Mengshu got out of the rickshaw and gave the driver the money, and then gently pushed the door into the house.

The room was as noisy as every time she came back. Father Gong Hongwen was reprimanding his ten-year-old brother, Erniang Wu was wiping tears on the side, seeing her enter the house, her younger brother Gong Qilin hurriedly rushed forward to ask for help: "Sister-" reached out and hugged Gong Mengshu's waist, and refused to let go again.

"Let go!" Gong Hongwen caught up and ordered Gong Qilin not to pester Gong Mengshu, insisting on hitting his palm as punishment. Gong Qilin howled and cried, taking advantage of the situation to wipe his tears and snot on Gong Mengshu's waist and abdomen. Gong Mengshu comforted his little brother Gong Qilin, who was crying, and asked his father Gong Hongwen helplessly: "Dad, what's wrong with this?" Her little brother has always been naughty, often causing trouble, and has the posture of a little bully at a young age.

"You ask this stinky boy," Gong Hongwen shook his gray beard, and was furious: "If you don't study at home, while I'm not here, I sneak out and go to the fields by the river with a bunch of woolly dolls, and don't learn to steal sweet potatoes from others, and as a result, a boy who can't know how to water next door stumbles and falls into deep water.

Gong Mengshu shook his head when he heard this, looked at his younger brother Gong Qilin disapprovingly and said, "Little brother, it's wrong for you this time, it's very dangerous like this, do you know?"

Gong Hongwen saw that Gong Mengshu also said the same, so he pulled Gong Qilin, took out the ring ruler and hit his palm, Gong Qilin howled in pain and cried non-stop.

Seeing this, Erniang Wu rushed over, grabbed Gong Hongwen's arm and cried and shouted: "Don't beat the child, if you want to beat me to death first! Isn't it just a trivial matter? The child who fell into the water was his own accident, and what happened to our Qilin! Besides, isn't it okay? Master, why are you so ruthless! The palms and backs of your hands are full of meat!" As he spoke, he pulled Gong Qilin and hid behind him, why didn't he let Gong Hongwen beat the child.

Gong Hongwen snorted angrily and wanted to pull people, Gong Mengshu felt that the child needed to be punished for doing something wrong, but seeing that Erniang was protecting his younger brother to death, and his father was so angry that his beard was shaking, he sighed in his heart, so he played a round and said: "Dad, don't be angry, the younger brother should know his mistake, you spare him——"

Gong Hongwen is a private school teacher, and since he was a child, he has strictly followed the education method of his ancestors "filial piety under the stick", but because he is an old man, he is also very doting on the only male member of the Gong family. But Erniang Wu refused to give up, and rushed forward to fight with Gong Hongwen, and for a while the crying in the house rang out.

Gong Mengshu sighed when she saw this, put the snacks she brought to her father Erniang and her younger brother on the table, and then quietly went to the backyard to see her mother Wu Peisi with a bottle in her arms. In the east wing, Wu Peisi was wearing a plain old cotton jacket and a long black skirt, half-kneeling on the cushion with her eyes slightly closed and chanting Buddha, her voice was hoarse, she couldn't stop coughing, and she didn't even raise her head when she saw someone coming in.

Gong Mengshu quietly entered the house, stood aside and remained silent, only staring at her mother with pity eyes. Wu Peisi sensed that there was someone in the house, and when she opened her eyes, she saw that it was Gong Mengshu, and Xiuya, who was originally silent, had a smile on her face, "Girl, are you back?" Wu Peisi said, coughing and about to get up from the futon, Gong Mengshu hurriedly went over to help her mother get up.

Wu Peisi sat on the chair, looked at the bottle that Gong Mengshu brought back, barely stopped coughing and said slowly, "What is this?"

"Yes, I asked someone to bring you the Beiping autumn pear ointment, which relieves cough and moistens the lungs," Gong Mengshu said and was about to pour the ointment for Wu Peisi, but was stopped by Wu Peisi.

"Mother is fine, you don't have to bother so much every time, you make a special trip to buy this and that, it's not easy for you, this family thanks to your frequent relief, otherwise relying on your father's allowance, it is not enough for your second mother to buy a new set of clothes-" Wu Peisi smiled bitterly.

"Mother, forget it, I want to open a little, don't worry about Erniang, I'm not at home, you have to take care of yourself and be less angry!" Gong Mengshu stared at Wu Peisi's emaciated face, feeling a little blocked in his heart.

"Alas, how can I have the heart to worry about her, if only she didn't trouble me every day," Wu Peisi said and coughed again.

Gong Mengshu was silent, she didn't know Erniang's behavior on weekdays, but since her father let Erniang enter the door, she had to call Wu Erniang a son. She knew that her mother and father had a deep relationship, and after her mother gave birth to her, the family of three also lived a happy life for a while. It's a pity that my father couldn't stand the instigation of the three aunts and six mothers-in-law, and said that "there are three unfilial pieties, and no queen is the greatest", so he asked the daughter of the oil shop next door, Wu, to pass the door. My mother was also against it at the beginning, but what was the use? I still couldn't stop my father from marrying Erniang into the door.

Gong Mengshu knew that his mother's heart died when his father married Erniang, and for so many years, he had been hiding in the east wing and reciting Buddha, and he didn't even take two steps at the door.

Gong Mengshu carefully kneaded her mother's thin back, and out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of her mother's cloud-like sideburns, and at some point a few traces of gray hair appeared, her heart was sour, and she whispered to her mother: "Mother, anyway, in the future, I will never allow my husband to marry someone else." ”