Shen De's judgment had been right.
Before dawn, He Wu was caught and brought back.
The three parents looked at their daughter, whose face plainly showed how indignant she was, and felt both angry and amused. He Xin swallowed the urge to scold her harshly and tried reasoning with her instead. "You ran away from home, but did you think about how dangerous it is out there? What if someone was lying in wait to hurt you?"
He Wu puffed out her cheeks and sulked without answering.
Her parents had been far more outrageous than she was at her age.
Why could they do whatever they wanted, but the moment she did anything, everyone was on her case? She wasn't allowed to do this or that. So what if someone tried to assassinate her? She wasn't some soft persimmon, and she could still protect herself. It wasn't that she wouldn't listen to her parents; she just didn't like being treated like a porcelain doll.
He Shu saw through her tangled feelings at a glance.
He sighed. "Times have changed."
How many years did people live in troubled times?
Even Literary Scholars, if they had bad luck, came and went in the blink of an eye, with lives lasting barely thirty years. Because everyone knew they wouldn't live long, they all felt pressed for time. They rushed to start families, establish careers, and have children.
In a life of just over thirty years, twelve or thirteen was already old enough to run a household. He Wu couldn't judge the past by the standards of the present. Back then, outsiders had seen the twelve- or thirteen-year-old He Shu brothers as capable of carrying on the family name. Now, at fourteen or fifteen, He Wu was still a child in her parents' eyes.