Foreigner Of Time [Book II]

48

After bidding goodbye and leaving from mom's place, I kept the walking stick in the wooden case as she instructed, preventing anyone else from seeing it.

Once I returned to the bedroom, I took out the walking stick and kept it in my inventory instead, leaving the empty wooden case around.

Lying on the bed with my arms behind my head and one leg crossed over the other, I thought about what might happen during the birthday banquet.

If I had only thought of her as Jennie's mother and cared for her because of that, after our interaction today, I sincerely thought of her as my own mother too.

For one thing, I felt heartache for her for having to face this incoming marriage crisis at her age, and for the other, I found that she was not as fragile as me and Jennie had thought her to be.

No woman in the first wife's position for a family like this could be that simple. 

I had also learned some of life's wisdom from mom too.  

I couldn't help but think, why does mom want me to be the last to present the beast-head walking stick during the birthday banquet?

Could it be for a finishing effect?

Or could mother have already foreseen something?

Will father going to bring that child back on the day of the birthday banquet?

Then that old jerk would be going way overboard, right?

Did he think that he could force mom to accept this child because she couldn't say too much in front of a crowd?

Does he not want his face anymore?  

I was already getting mad at that thought, but I did not forget Jennie's previous judgement.

She said that if it was a boy, father would not bring the child back so soon. 

If he was determined to bring the child back to the estate, no one could stop him, but if that woman who had already left the estate wanted to follow back too, this would concern the rules of the back courtyard. 

That required the approval of the first wife of the family.

Considering his various actions since then, he didn't trust his wife and daughter anymore.

An infant who didn't know how to talk and who had no biological mother around... was logically speaking, very hard to raise into an adult.

He couldn't not understand that reasoning, even if Jennie deeply believed that her mother wouldn't do such a thing...

"Looks like he probably wouldn't take action so early, so why did mom arrange things this way?"

Father returned to the estate that night. 

Psy and I went to greet him in the study, and I could clearly sense his dislike towards me; he even glared at me from time to time.

I knew that it was because of those three hundred thousand liangs of silver, but i maintained the principle of 'not moving before the enemy'.

If he doesn't mention it, I wouldn't talk about it. 

I could just be secretly satisfied over how he had to stew in his own anger and be unable to do anything about it.  

He couldn't really say anything while Psy was around, after all.

Psy was presently in charge of a very important section of the land transport service under the estate, so he couldn't really tell Psy to leave and keep me here alone.