On the first day after returning home, Zhang Tie, his older brother, and his father went together to Jinhai City to pay their respects to the family patriarch. This visit had originally been planned for Zhang Tie's third day home, but he had suddenly been summoned by the Clan Hall that day, so it had been delayed until now.
As the saying went, no one asked after you when you were poor in the bustling city, but when you were rich, even in the deep mountains distant relatives came calling. In the years Zhang Tie had been away from home, as the Golden Crow Trading Company grew stronger by the day, relations between his family and the main branch had instead improved considerably.
With the family flourishing and both sons having made something of themselves, his father and mother felt less restrained and more at ease. Their dealings with the uncles, aunts, and other branches of the patriarch's family also became more calm and generous, and the relationship among this whole extended family grew more harmonious.
During the years Zhang Tie had been missing, the patriarch had often asked about him and had even sent people all the way to the Norman Empire to inquire after his whereabouts. Now that Zhang Tie had returned, he ought to come pay his respects no matter what.
When he came to the Zhang Family's old residence again, although there were not as many people as Zhang Tie had seen during his last visit, the atmosphere within the old residence felt much better. Not only were the Zhang Family members living there warmer toward them, even the servants and attendants smiled with a few more degrees of genuine warmth when they saw Zhang Tie and his father.
Even the old madam of the patriarch's