When she returned to the Jintong Courtyard, Wei Changying stopped smiling the way she had been today when she had told her mother-in-law about her visit to the second uncle of her old family. She waved her hand, telling other servants to go. She only kept Mrs. Huang there to speak with, saying attentively, "Granny Huang, what do you think about what my second uncle has said? Is it true or false?"

Mrs. Huang squinted, saying, "Although the Second Master doesn't indulge and spoil the children as much as the Second Madam, he loves them very much as well, especially Wei Changjuan, the youngest daughter. From what I could tell when I was there, it seems that she has been spoiled by everyone in the second branch since she was small."

"So, it was the fifth branch of the Liu Family?" Wei Changying pondered, saying, "Wei Changjuan caused trouble for me because Liu Ruoye was using her and she didn't notice it. Wei Changjuan is too young and stupid to realize it, but my second uncle is probably aware of it. Is it possible that my second uncle is angry with Liu Ruoye who used Wei Changjuan and he wanted to save his daughter today, so he did that to kill two birds with one stone?"

Mrs. Huang said, "Young madam, do you remember when the Second Master said this, he was implying that the Fifth Madam of the Liu Family, stepmother of the Tenth Miss of the Liu Family, Mrs. Zhang, is the Second Madam from Zhiben Hall Mrs. Zhang's half-sister?"

Wei Changying pondered, saying, "Zhang Shaoqiu and Zhang Shaoguang? Seeing their names, I have guessed they are relatives."

"At the beginning of last year, people from the second branch conspired with Zhiben Hall. They loudly complained to Madam about you learning martial arts, which upset Madam. When the Second Madam brought her daughter and son here to give their congratulations, Madam praised Wei Lingyue from Zhiben Hall purposefully and gave her the agarwood bracelet she often wore." Mrs. Huang said slowly, "Later, the Second Madam wrote to Fengzhou to tell Old Madam about it, and explained to Madam that you were not disrespectful to the young master as you saw his preference as the most important thing. Only then did Madam become relieved. She then sent a pair of hairpins made of bloodstone engraved with a pair of lovebirds perching on twinned trunks to Fengzhou, implying that she wanted to make up for the misunderstanding."

Wei Changying frowned, saying, "Yes, my mother scolded me several times because of it at that time." She pondered, saying, "Granny, what do you want to say? Zhang Shaoguang... There was a rumor that Liu Ruoye coveted my husband. Of course, she said it was a rumor. But whether she really coveted him, perhaps she is the only one who knows. If these two rumors were true, wouldn’t both of them covet my husband? Didn't they fight?"

Mrs. Huang laughed, "Young Madam, you were not in the capital at that time, so things people had said got spread around and had gotten changed when you heard them. In fact, when Madam gave Wei Lingyue the agarwood bracelet, none of the families in the capital thought of our young master. Instead, they all thought of the fifth young master of the Shen Family."

"Cangji?" Wei Changying was surprised, saying, "Zhang Shaoqiu and Zhang Shaoguang's intention was to join their two families with the Shen Family by marriage, wasn't it?"

Mrs. Huang said, "That's right. At that time, even our Second Madam was thinking the same thing. If their son hadn't happened to hear the fourth young madam talking about it with someone, the Second Madam wouldn't have connected it with you, and she wouldn't have sent a letter to Fengzhou."

Wei Changying bit her lip and sneered, saying "They are sisters indeed. They even chose the same family for their daughters. Since Zhiben Hall holds grudges against our Ruiyu Hall and Ranli Hall, it's not surprising that they want to unite together. I was away in Fengzhou, but the criticism surrounding me in the capital was even more than that in Fengzhou! However, they did these things but didn't succeed, so they denied everything. Do they think they can get away with it so easily?"

"Zhang Shaoguang wanted to use our young master's position in the family to hold back Liu Xixun and to help Liu Ruowo gain power. Except for those reasons, our young master would also be the best person as a son-in-law. If they had been able to stop your marriage, it would have been a great success for them." Mrs. Huang said, "As for Zhang Shaoqiu, I thought about it a bit on the way back. This Second Madam of Zhiben Hall was Madam's good friend before she got married. They were just like how the Fourth Miss, the Third Miss, and the Fourth Miss of the Su Family are. That's why Madam believed her and deliberately used her daughter as an example. Actually, I think that if you hadn't shown your hostility towards Zhiben Hall on Princess Linchuan's birthday, I guess Madam would have told the fifth young master to marry Wei Lingyue."

Otherwise, since Madam Su had believed her best friend's words, it wasn't necessary to drag her best friend's daughter through the mud. As Mrs. Huang had said, according to Madam Su's will, she had had the intention of becoming related to Zhang Shaoqiu through their children's marriage. Regardless of their friendship, Wei Lingyue came from a similar background to Shen Cangji’s and was said by everyone in the capital to be a quiet and virtuous lady. From Madam Su's perspective, she was a good choice to be her daughter-in-law.

However, both Shen Xuan and Shen Zhou regarded family harmony as a priority. Since Wei Changying, the third daughter-in-law, didn't get along with her cousins from Zhiben Hall, if Wei Lingyue was married into the family, they would be sisters-in-law who pretended to be good with each other but actually hated each other.

If the sisters-in-law couldn't get along with each other, they would invite their husbands to go against each other. While Shen Xuan and other elders were alive, they might be able to stop them. Once they passed away, their succeeding generation would probably immediately fall apart, being unable to work together! So, no matter how nice Wei Lingyue was, since she hadn't become engaged and had already annoyed the daughter-in-law, Shen Xuan would definitely disagree with proposing marriage to Zhiben Hall. It was not like that Shen Cangji had to marry Wei Lingyue!

Under such circumstances, Madam Su could only see her giving Wei Lingyue the agarwood bracelet as a gift and nothing else. Wei Changying sneered, saying, "This is a blessing passed down from my father-in-law. Wei Lingyue doesn't seem to be as impulsive as her cousin Wei Lingzi. Having met her twice, I saw that she has always been a quiet and refined lady. If such a person really becomes my sister-in-law, I can't really do anything to her openly because of my fifth brother-in-law. In terms of secret fights, though I am not afraid of her, it is tiresome to have such a person before my view all the time."

Mrs. Huang nodded, saying, "The Family Head has great foresight, not just like an ordinary person. There are two reasons why our Family Head married you to the young master. First, he thought although the young master was young, he was outstanding. Second, he saw the courage and the capableness of the Family Head here, thinking that the Shen Family would prosper in the next two generations, so he took the initiative to propose the marriage."

As for how capable her father-in-law was, Wei Changying had no intention of talking about it. She said, "So, from what you said, I can trust what my second uncle said, can't I?"

Mrs. Huang pondered for a long time before nodding seriously, "Having done my investigation afterward and compared it with what the Second Master said this time, I think what he said was probably true."

"Then that would be it." Wei Changying sneered, turning the jade bracelet on her wrist and slowly saying, "Granny, what do you think we should do now?"

Actually, earlier in the mansion of the Wei Family, Wei Changying had determinedly decided not to say stop, so Wei Shengyi had to let Granny An keep on beating Wei Changjuan. Wei Changjuan was spoiled and had never even been slapped since she was a child, so how could she now take a beating according to the family doctrine? It hadn't taken long before her cries subsided.

Although Wei Shengyi was still struggling to cope with continuing it, he didn't want his daughter to get beaten up for nothing. However, the servants outside saw this and one of them was worried that he would get the blame afterward. So he secretly ran to the back and told Mrs. Duanmu. When Mrs. Duanmu heard that her daughter seemed to have been beaten, she was so frightened that she ran straight to the front courtyard to stop it, not thinking of anything else.

After seeing Granny An had stopped, Mrs. Duanmu saw that Wei Changjuan couldn't get up and looked so hurt that she had passed out. She was so furious that she even pointed at Wei Changying and insulted her, despite her close Granny tried to stop her and Wei Shengyi had ordered her to back off.

After all of this, the situation truly exploded.

Wei Changying had visited them today. Seemingly, she was going to apologize. But, in fact, she was to get an apology from them. She had been filled with anger. She was also very annoyed by Wei Shengyi who was playing games with her. Wei Shengyi pretended to be reasonable but actually acted calculatingly. Now that Mrs. Duanmu insulted her branch of the family, Wei Changying didn't bother to say anything anymore. Having seized on Mrs. Duanmu's slip of the tongue when talking about Old Madam Song, she grabbed her by the collar and slapped her several times, simply knocking out two of Mrs. Duanmu's teeth!

As this was happening, Wei Shengyi tried to go over to stop her, but he was held by Mrs. He. Mrs. He screamed, "The Second Master and Second Madam are going to beat our young madam together." Then, the hall was in uproar.

The brothers, Wei Changyun and Wei Changsui, who had been specially ordered to avoid Wei Changying, arrived in a hurry to force them to apart from each other. Mrs. Duanmu's face was totally swollen and Wei Shengyi's face had been badly scratched by Mrs. He.

Wei Changying was fully prepared. She had chosen strong servants to come here and had known martial arts. She only tidied her clothes slightly, calmed herself down, and became an elegant young madam again.

Seeing their parents had been treated horribly, Wei Changyun and Wei Changsui must make their cousin apologize. Even though they were afraid of Old Madam Song who supported Wei Changying, they thought they had caught Wei Changying beating her aunt and uncle in public. This was a serious offence!

However, Wei Changyun and Wei Changsui didn't realize that Wei Changying wasn't stupid. She kept saying it was Mrs. Duanmu who started to insult Old Madam Song first. She had received great care from her grandmother, so how could she just do nothing and allow this ungrateful daughter-in-law of hers to humiliate her grandmother?

The two sides had their own viewpoints. As they were arguing, Mrs. Huang came out to speak. Mrs. Huang said, "Two days ago, Duanmu Wuse, who had been married to the second son of the Minister of the Public, was divorced and returned to her family. The Duanmu Family had kept interceding with the Song Family privately. But everybody knew of Duanmu Wuse's dishonest behavior. Everyone from the Song Family was furious, insisting on getting rid of her and sending her back."

On hearing what she said, Wei Changyun and Wei Changsui looked more serious since they were not stupid.

As expected, Mrs. Huang continued, "If this incident got out, our young madam would at most be accused of being too eager to defend her elders. After all, the Second Madam, I should still call you the Second Madam for the time being. But as a daughter-in-law, you have openly insulted your mother-in-law in front of the younger generation and your husband. Insulting your mother-in-law is like cutting your connection with your husband's family. The Second Madam, you did it first. If the Old Madam were here, she would send you back home! So, our young madam's hitting you like this wouldn't be regarded as disobeying seniors in the family! If you were divorced, you would never be a senior to our young madam!"

She added, "Duanmu Wuse was divorced. If you, the Second Madam, were to be divorced as well, there would be two divorced women in a row amongst the Duanmu Family. What can you do to keep the reputation of your Duanmu family in Jinxiu County? You are not afraid that the Wei Family will hold you accountable for insulting your elders, but are you not afraid that your own family will hold you accountable for bringing shame on the family?"

Wei Changyun had always felt guilty about his parents as he had done harm to them when he was young and ignorant. Having heard that Mrs. Huang humiliated and threatened his mother with her words, he was in a rage and couldn't stop himself from retorting, "Huang Qianxiu, don't be a dog counting on your master. You keep speaking of divorce, but my father is here. When has he ever mentioned it?! You..."

"The second young master, what you said could escalate the situation even more." Mrs. Huang was calm and almost filled with kindness, saying gently, "Although the Second Master is not Old Madam's own son, doesn't he call Old Madam 'mother'? Or has the Second Master never actually seen Old Madam as his mother? No son would allow his wife to openly insult his mother yet not say a word! From what you said, the second young master, does that mean that the Second Madam is used to insulting the Old Madam, so that everyone, from the Second Master to the second young master, and even to the entire second branch, is used to hearing it? So, no one takes it seriously?"

Wei Changyun looked grim, unable to speak!

Meanwhile, the shrewd Wei Shengyi had pretended to have fainted as soon as Mrs. Huang had started to talk about the divorce of Duanmu Wuse, collapsing onto the table to avoid being questioned by Mrs. Huang.