Concubine Wei felt that Pei Bao'er had become a fool when she went out for a few years and came back, but the Pei family didn't think so, especially Pei Fei, the fourth lady of Pei.

Two days before Pei Baoer returned to Beijing, before the news came out, Pei's family learned about the situation from Pei Zimeng's family letter in advance. Pei Shangshu and Mrs. Pei both thought that Pei Baoer had just come back, and she was unaccustomed to the water and soil, and she was unwell, so she closed her door and didn't even go back to her parents' house. After all, this third lady was delicate and weak before she left the palace, and after marrying into the palace, she was sick for three days, and everyone was used to it.

After a few days, before Mrs. Pei could speak, the Yang family couldn't sit still.

Especially after Pei Yan was grounded, she smashed this and that in the boudoir when she had nothing to do, although the noise was forced by her to be shut up, it still faintly spread a little. After all, the objects smashed by the fourth lady have to be registered in the treasury if they want to be replaced, and the person in charge of the treasury is the loyal servant of the big house Ke, and Ke and Yang have never been very opposed.

After a few more days, when Pei Bao'er started to walk around and still didn't come to Pei's mansion, Old Madam Pei also began to secretly suspect her. She even called her second son in private, and muttered to Pei Shangshu for a long time, worried that he had acted inappropriately in the court recently, and maybe he offended his son-in-law, so he deliberately hung their family?

Pei Shangshu looked innocent.

Recently, the triennial Golden Palace, which is also the first imperial examination since the funeral of the first emperor, has just been successfully concluded, and a number of young talents have been selected, among which several are from the poor countryside or the regent has specially mentioned the name, to be reasonable, his errand should be very suitable for his son-in-law's mind.

Unless, the Beidi mission has been negotiating inappropriate conditions, and Princess Medea is doing mischief in the capital, which makes him dissatisfied?

Pei Shangshu thought that he had found the trick, and was going to go back the next day to train the people under the training, so that they could use their extraordinary negotiation skills to solve this mess. Unexpectedly, his old lady's slightly cloudy eyes suddenly opened, which startled him a lot.

"Mother, you are ......"

Old Madam Pei waved her hand at him, and called the tall maid who was waiting outside the door in.

"Qinglian, is Old Madam Zhang's birthday coming this month? You go and look through the list of congratulatory gifts from previous years......"

The maid Qinglian was stunned for a moment, and then she realized who Mrs. Pei was talking about, but it was not the third aunt's grandmother's family.

However, over the years, Pei Zhang's two families have had very few contacts, and the relationship is not close, and she can't remember the birthdays of important people in the other party's house. Why is it so good to suddenly bring up this stubble?

Because the pioneer Mrs. Zhang died not long after giving birth to the dragon and phoenix fetus, the Pei family was worried that no one would take care of their grandchildren, and they were even more worried that no one would manage their son's relationships, so they married the Yang family after just a year of filial piety.

Although the Yang family is only a family of petty officials and has a shallow foundation, Father Yang and Master Pei are the same year, and the age difference between Pei Shangshu and the Yang family is not big, and they can be regarded as half childhood sweethearts.

This Yang family is also competitive, and the second month after entering the door, he found out the happy pulse, and then gave birth to four ladies. It's just one thing, Siniangzi was born prematurely, and she landed before she was eight months old. The strange thing is that when I went to wash the third day, I looked at this little lady, although the cry was not very loud, but she looked very energetic, not at all like the wilting appearance of a premature baby.

The Zhang family was not very satisfied with the son-in-law's urgent remarriage, and they were even more suspicious when they saw the "premature baby" from the Yang family of their stepfamily.

Grandma Zhang's second grandmother had a pungent temperament, and she was very upset about her sister-in-law who died early, and said in private: "What premature birth? But no woman who has given birth to or raised can see that eighty percent of the female dolls are full-term. My poor sister-in-law said that the postpartum wind was gone, who knows what the truth is? Knowing people and knowing faces but not knowing their hearts, if this man has changed his mind......"

There is no impermeable wall in the world, and Grandma Zhang didn't plan to hide it, so it reached the ears of the Pei family. The Pei family was naturally unhappy, feeling that the Zhang family was opening their mouths and slandering out of thin air, destroying their reputation in the clear stream.

Because the Zhang family is a medical family, the current Zhang Yuan envoy - Zhang's father, who is Pei Baoer's maternal grandfather - has already achieved the court judgment back then, and he is young and promising. At that time, Qu Zhaorong favored the sixth palace, and Zhang Yuan was sentenced by the first emperor to take care of Qu Zhaorong's birth, but there was an accident, which led to Qu Zhaorong's premature birth, and now King Kang has also become a sick man since he was born. The first emperor was furious, and the Zhang Yuan judgment at that time was also implicated.

Although Master Pei is gone, his two sons have already entered the court as officials. Among them, Pei Boguang was the imperial attendant of the first emperor, and it was very cheap to intercede for the Zhang family. However, Pei Boguang was stunned and didn't say a word, he didn't help, and the Pei family didn't seem to know about it at all, and there was no movement at all.

The exact reason for this is unknown. Anyway, the first emperor felt sorry for his favorite concubine and suffered, and Long Yan was furious and sentenced Zhang Yuan to be demoted, or demoted two levels in a row. It wasn't until later that I slowly boiled up my qualifications and went up again.

All in all, the Liangzi of the Pei and Zhang families is finally settled.

The two families are both decent people, and they can't do things that fight and ridicule each other face-to-face, so they don't have much contact with each other from now on. There are still New Year's gifts to each other during the New Year's holidays, but they are all perfunctory. But if there is any happy event in the Pei family, most of the Zhang family will not come, which means the meaning of the ceremony. Vice versa.

Even if two families receive an invitation from a third family, they have to weigh the possibility of going to another house to decide whether to move forward. Over the years, an indescribable tacit understanding has also been formed.

Therefore, Mrs. Pei has not been to the door of the Zhang family for many years, let alone to attend the birthday banquet of her old in-laws' family.

She only vaguely remembered that it seemed that it was in this month, after asking Qinglian to check the list of congratulatory gifts in previous years, it was indeed the second half of this month, that is, six days later.

Old Madam Pei was in a good mood, waved her well-maintained hand, and ordered, "Go and prepare a congratulatory gift!" ”

The servant woman who was in charge of the relationship hurriedly came to say: "Old lady, the congratulatory gifts have been prepared, this is the gift list......"

Old Madam Pei glanced at it, and immediately frowned, and was about to reprimand the servant, but after thinking about it, she closed her voice again.

She cleared her throat, "Prepare a new gift." Qinglian, you are in charge of this, you must take care of it. ”

Pei Zhongming was shocked by the divine command of his mother, and was about to slip away while she was pointing out the country, but he didn't expect to be locked by her lightning-like gaze, and he was stunned to call him to stay, and he still had something to explain.

"Mother, from the Zhang family, you have been ...... all these years Why ...... all of a sudden?"

Speaking of the Zhang family, Pei Zhongming couldn't help but think of the pale and delicate face that he couldn't remember clearly, and after thinking about it again, he was a little speechless.

Old Madam Pei glared at him, and said slowly: "I'm old and it's inconvenient to move around, so I don't go to my in-laws' house to visit." This year happens to be the 60th birthday of the in-laws, so it is natural to prepare a generous gift. It's you, your two fathers-in-law are both officials in the court, how can you favor one over the other? Although the Tai Hospital is in the imperial city, it is not cheap to meet, you should also come to the door from time to time to greet one or two. ”

Pei Zhongming's face twitched.

Well, my own wife can really talk nonsense with her eyes open. Obviously, Mrs. Zhang was in good spirits when she was fiftieth birthday, but didn't she go? I don't interact with the Zhang family, except for the intentional or unintentional influence of the Yang family, isn't it also a hint from her?

But he can't help it, filial piety is greater than the sky, his mother relies on the old and sells the old, and he can only admit it honestly.

"The mother's lesson is that the son must pay attention in the future."

He is not a fool, so he can naturally see that his mother regrets it.

When it came to Mrs. Zhang's birthday, Mrs. Pei was still a little nervous when she went out, and there was a hint of uncertainty. As a result, when I arrived at Zhang's Mansion, I learned from the little maid who led the way that the princess regent had arrived half an hour ago. So Mrs. Pei regretted it even more, thinking that the relationship between the third lady and the Zhang family was not close, so it didn't matter if she won over this in-law, but she didn't expect that in the end, the third lady valued the Zhang family to a higher extent than the Pei family.

Because she felt that the Yang family was probably a little embarrassed by the Zhang family, she only brought out the eldest daughter-in-law of the Ke family. When she reached the age of kissing, she also brought a few, including the four ladies who begged her to go out of the house after "the wind and cold first recovered", as well as one girl in the big room and one in the third room, which is considered a bowl of water.

Hearing the news, several girls had different expressions. Pei Yan was the oldest of them, and compared to the undisguised excitement that bloomed in the other two eyes, she was the most calm.

Old Madam Pei looked very satisfied, but Ke Shi, who was following beside her, didn't dare to let go.

You know, a dog that bites doesn't bark!

Ke Shi had heard a little about Pei Yan's strange appearance a few days ago, because she was in charge of the backyard affairs, she had many ears and eyes, and she also had a faint guess in her heart. Knowing that her mother-in-law was going to bring her and a few little ladies to Zhangfu to "meet" the third aunt and grandmother who refused to go to her mother's house, Ke was worried that something would happen, not only to make Pei's mansion gloomy, but also to bring the reputation of the sixth lady who had not yet said goodbye.

Several people entered the flower hall and greeted a group of surprised female dependents, including the Zhang family and Pei Baoer, Ke Shi noticed that Pei Yan's eyes were not quite right when she looked at the princess. So, she made up her mind that today's entertainment was secondary, and she had to keep a firm eye on these four ladies no matter what.

As a result, she soon found that she had underestimated everyone's enthusiasm and curiosity about the resumption of contact between the Pei and Zhang families.

During the banquet, greetings, toasts, inquiring about news, all kinds of people, etc., noisy, Ke Shi just came back to his senses, and found that Pei Yan on the next seat was gone.

Ke quietly asked the maidservant to call the sixth lady out and asked about Pei Yan's whereabouts, but the sixth lady looked ignorant: "The fourth sister said that she had eaten too much tea and went to change her clothes." ”

"When did you go?"

"It's been a while, strange, why hasn't she come back?"

Ke Shi had a bad premonition, sent his daughter back to the banquet, and went to the clean room to look for it, but learned from the maid of the Zhang family that there was no little lady who looked similar to Pei Yan at all.

Her temples began to throb suddenly, and an unlikely conjecture came to her mind, and she almost screamed.

Fortunately, as the wife of the Pei family, Ke Shiqiang made up his mind, called a male servant of the Zhang family who was passing by, looked at the other party dressed like a steward or something, and was about to be well-informed, so he euphemistically asked if the regent was coming.

Ke Shi originally just asked with a fluke mentality, she always felt that the third aunt and grandmother might not have returned to the capital for many years, thanking the deceased biological mother, but a busy person like the regent was a cold-hearted and cold-hearted person, and it was probably impossible to come together. If he hadn't come, her fears might not have been true.

However, the man in charge nodded.

"That's right, the prince came with the princess today, and it seems to be in the master's study at this time."

Ke's heart jumped, and when she went back to the flower hall, Pei Yan was still nowhere to be seen, and she was even more cold in her heart, and she always felt that it was not good to have a big event.

She wanted to check it out, but Zhang Yuan's study was obviously in the outer courtyard, how could she rush there as a foreign lady?

If she is closer to the daughters of the Zhang family, she can quietly ask them to help and arrange a few people to lead the way to find someone, but in the eyes of the Zhang family, where can she say words of pleading.

Confessing to your mother-in-law is even worse. Not to mention that Mrs. Pei has always loved Pei Yan, whether she will believe her words or not. Even if they really believe it, based on the above two obstacles, they still can't go to find someone! In case she guesses wrong, not only will she be embarrassed in front of the Zhang family, but she is afraid that her mother-in-law will not be able to spare her after she goes back.

After thinking about it, Ke's wandering gaze finally fell on Pei Bao'er, who was sitting in the banquet and swallowing wine slowly.