The sun had risen high, and droplets of melted water dripped steadily from the icicles beneath the eaves.

Seven or eight burly men with vicious-looking faces shoved aside peddlers and passersby as they strode aggressively toward Fan Changyu’s butcher shop.

The leader had a square face, a short beard, and a fierce appearance—but he limped badly as he walked.

It was none other than Master Jin, the gambling den thug leader who had repeatedly caused trouble at Fan Changyu’s home.

“I wanna see which gutsy bastard dares do business on this street without paying respect to—”

The second he spotted Fan Changyu standing outside the shop with her arms folded, the rest of his sentence died in his throat.

The small fry behind him—each one previously beaten senseless by Fan Changyu—also changed expressions instantly.

Even their uninjured legs began aching sympathetically.

That husband and wife pair hit harder than the other. Was the remaining good leg about to be broken today too?

Several lackeys unconsciously dragged their lame legs backward half a step.

The neighboring butchers all broke into cold sweats for Fan Changyu seeing the thugs outnumber her, especially since she was only a young woman.

Only Butcher Guo across the street still wore an expression of blatant schadenfreude.

Master Jin painfully squeezed out a flattering smile.

“Fa-Fan Miss Fan? This shop is yours?”

The surrounding crowd was utterly dumbfounded.

This development… did not seem right at all.

Fan Changyu casually picked up the long staff resting behind her door.

The entire group of street thugs immediately turned pale in terror and retreated several steps at once.

Master Jin waved both hands frantically.

“Misunderstanding! Miss Fan, it’s all a misunderstanding! If we’d known this was your shop, how would we dare offend you?”

Across the street, Butcher Guo’s eyes nearly bulged out of his head. He clearly never expected these local hooligans to fear Fan Changyu so much.

Fan Changyu stared coldly at Master Jin and pointed her staff toward the smashed brick stove outside her shop.

“You people did this?”

Despite the freezing weather, sweat burst across Master Jin’s forehead. He wiped it off wildly with his sleeve.

“We only took money to do a job! We’ll fix it for you! We’ll fix it right away!”

As he spoke, he hurriedly shot frantic signals toward the lackeys behind him.

The moment they saw the stick in Fan Changyu’s hand, the gangsters nearly cried. None of them wished to relive the experience of being beaten until they vomited food scraps.

Trembling, they rushed forward to rebuild the stove.

Fan Changyu herself was slightly stunned.

She originally assumed these people truly came to collect protection fees. She had not expected another layer to the matter.

She asked directly,

“Who told you to come wreck my shop?”

“Miss Fan, this…” Master Jin wore a troubled expression. Since they took money to do jobs, they naturally had rules about keeping quiet.

Fan Changyu suddenly reversed the staff in her grip and swung it upward.

The tip stopped directly at Master Jin’s throat.

He had not even reacted before the stick nearly pierced his neck. Cold sweat instantly poured down his temples in beads.

Forget professional ethics—he spilled everything immediately.

“I-It was the owner of Wang Family Braised Meats on Main Street!”

Fan Changyu frowned slightly.

She and the Wang shop owner had never met. Their shops were separated by several streets and did not compete directly. Her braised meat business had only operated a few days; it should not have provoked such viciousness.

She barked sharply,

“Nonsense! I’ve got no grudge against the Wang shop owner. Why would he send people to smash my store?”

Master Jin hurriedly replied,

“I’m telling the truth! Yesterday one of Wang Family’s clerks personally brought us the money!”

Fan Changyu’s brows furrowed deeper.

By now the lackeys had already rebuilt the stove with fresh clay, while the surrounding crowd continued growing larger.

Since business could not be delayed regardless, she lowered the staff.

Master Jin had barely breathed in relief before she immediately started ordering him around.

“You—light the fire and dry the stove first. The rest of you, go fetch several buckets of water from the well at the street entrance.”

She normally needed water prepared for braising meat outside the shop anyway, but the smashed stove delayed everything this morning and she had not yet had time to fetch water herself.

At this point, doing everything alone would waste too much time.

She might as well use the ready-made labor force that had already wasted her morning.

The little hooligans themselves looked shocked.

Never in their lives had they imagined being ordered around by someone else.

But the moment Fan Changyu swept them with a glare, none dared hesitate. They hurried off carrying buckets toward the well.

Once the gangsters scattered, the curious bystanders surrounding the shop assumed the matter had been settled and gradually dispersed.

Only the neighboring merchants remained staring at Fan Changyu in utter disbelief.

Watching her casually command a gang of local thugs around made them feel as though they were looking at some kind of monster.

Fan Changyu herself noticed nothing strange.

Seeing Master Jin still lingering near her storefront scaring customers away, she immediately drove him aside.

“Stand over there. Don’t block my shop and ruin my business. Once I finish selling today’s meat, you’re coming with me to Wang Family so I can demand an explanation. And if you’ve lied to me…”

Her gaze swept toward his remaining healthy leg.

“I’ll break that one too.”

Master Jin recalled the cold, sinister look from that man the other day and the vicious crack of the crutch striking his leg.

His half-healed injury instantly throbbed with phantom pain.

His face turned white.

“I wouldn’t dare lie to you, Miss Fan! I swear it!”

Watching him tremble so badly, Fan Changyu maintained her fierce expression but inwardly could not help wondering—

Just how brutally had that fellow beaten these people?

Simply threatening to break another leg scared this man witless.

Soon the lackeys returned carrying water.

Concerned they might have tampered with it, Fan Changyu handed them a dipper and forced each of them to drink from their own bucket before she finally used the water to wash the pork for braising.

As for cooking water, she still had yesterday’s leftover supply in the shop.

The moment the giant pot was set over the fire again, rich braised fragrance once more drifted throughout the entire street.

Those who had queued yesterday only to miss out on buying braised meat had intentionally come extra early today and finally succeeded.

However, most customers still hesitated after seeing Master Jin and his men squatting nearby with miserable expressions.

Even miserable, their faces remained naturally ferocious.

Fan Changyu noticed this too.

Since the first batch of freshly braised meat was nearly sold out anyway, she purchased six additional pig heads and three barrels of offal from neighboring butcher shops.

Then she handed each gangster a pig head and ordered them to pluck the remaining bristles clean.

The rest were forced to wash intestines under her supervision.

Once they lowered their heads to work, customers naturally stopped noticing their vicious faces.

While chopping meat and slicing braised dishes for customers, Fan Changyu simultaneously acted as foreman.

Whenever someone tried slacking or failed to clean something properly, she jabbed them with her stick.

“There’s still pig hair here! Rub the intestines with ash first, then scrub the whole thing with straw!”

She looked three times more tyrannical than actual bullies.

The entire group of gangsters trembled miserably, silently regretting how catastrophically unlucky they were to offend this terrifying woman again.

Yet Fan Changyu seemed to read their minds.

“If you do wrong, you deserve punishment. Otherwise what’s the law even for?”

The group shrank like quails and nodded frantically.

Satisfied with their repentant attitude, she casually asked during a lull,

“Aren’t you all supposed to work for the gambling den? Why are you involved in everything?”

At that, the gangsters all looked awkward.

Jin Laosan muttered,

“We don’t work there anymore.”

Fan Changyu looked surprised and asked why.

One thug muttered while clutching a pig head,

“We followed Third Brother into gambling den work just to survive. This time we failed to collect the debt. If we’d actually chopped off Fan Da’s hand and brought it back, the gambling den still wouldn’t have been satisfied. Besides, after years of debt collection, we’d never truly crippled anyone before…”

He paused awkwardly.

“Then we got our legs broken… and got kicked out.”

Fan Changyu frowned.

“But aren’t you still collecting protection fees all over town?”

Jin Laosan sighed heavily.

“The money we collect isn’t ours to keep.”

Seeing she still did not understand, he explained more bluntly:

“If we can openly extort merchants like this, it’s because officials turn a blind eye. Someone higher up protects us and handles any trouble. Naturally the majority of collected money goes toward honoring those officials.”

Fan Changyu’s expression darkened.

After a long silence, Jin Laosan quickly added:

“But nobody ever collected protection fees on this street before! If we’d known your family’s shop was here, we never would’ve dared come!”

A fog seemed to settle over Fan Changyu’s thoughts.

She suddenly asked,

“When did they start collecting fees on this street?”

Jin Laosan thought briefly.

“Last month.”

Her brows tightened instantly.

Her parents had also died last month to mountain bandits.

Could there be some connection?

But after only a moment’s thought, she dismissed the idea herself.

Her father had roamed the jianghu for years and possessed formidable martial skills. Surely no one would suddenly target him after he’d lived peacefully in Lin’an Town for over a decade.

Suppressing her thoughts, she continued glaring at the gangsters fiercely.

“You’re all full-grown men. Why not do honest work instead of acting like street vermin?”

“We’ll change! We’ll change! We’ll become good people!”

The moment she showed anger, the group once again trembled like frightened quails.

Only then did Fan Changyu finally calm down.

With all the rough labor handled by others today, she actually found herself unusually free.

The reputation of Fan Family Braised Meats had fully spread by now. Business today was even better than yesterday’s.

Before noon arrived, every single batch of braised meat—both what she brought from home and what she cooked fresh today—had sold out completely.

Even the braised eggs sold clean.

She even sent one thug to buy another basket of eggs, and most of those sold too.

After all, three copper coins for two braised eggs was irresistibly cheap.

Fan Changyu roughly calculated today’s profits.

More than four taels.

The neighboring butchers naturally envied her business fiercely.

But after witnessing Jin Laosan and his men bowing and scraping around her, none dared voice even a single sarcastic comment.

Earning silver put Fan Changyu in an excellent mood.

Looking again at Jin Laosan’s group, they suddenly seemed far more agreeable.

Since they had worked for her all morning and shown sincere remorse, she even handed each of them a braised egg.

The gangsters, who had been ordered around miserably the entire morning, looked utterly stunned receiving hot braised eggs.

Still maintaining her fierce expression, Fan Changyu barked,

“Eat quickly. Then come with me to Wang Family for confrontation!”

After smelling braised meat all morning, the thugs’ stomachs had long since gone mad with hunger.

At this point they practically wanted to swallow the eggshells too.

Once finished, they still looked reluctant.

One carefully asked,

“M-Miss Fan… can we work at your shop in the future?”

Fan Changyu immediately thought—

Absolutely not.

These men were all enormous and broad-shouldered. Feeding them alone would bankrupt her.

Thus she rejected them mercilessly.

“No.”

The gangsters immediately drooped in disappointment and fell silent, trailing behind her toward Wang Family.

Though because of their naturally vicious appearances, none of them actually looked pitiful.

Pedestrians along the street all hurried aside at the sight.

The scene resembled nothing less than a female tyrant leading her gang of thugs to cause trouble.

—

Inside a restaurant overlooking the street, a richly dressed man personally rose to pour tea for the person seated opposite him.

White steam curled upward, blurring the embroidered patterns along his broad sleeves.

“The Huizhou situation still hasn’t stabilized. While Your Lordship hides here, your trusted subordinates cannot openly approach. But Zhao is merely a businessman. The Wei family’s hounds won’t investigate me.”

He lowered his voice respectfully.

“If Your Lordship trusts me, Zhao would gladly go through fire and water for you.”

The window beside them stood half open.

The man seated opposite had a profile carved like white jade, elegant brows and eyes, and long fingers marked faintly with healing scars.

His fingertips tapped lazily against the table, casual yet carrying an overwhelming authority that pressed upon the room without anger.

His narrow eyes half-lidded as he gazed out the window, appearing at first glance to admire the snowy street scene.

Seeing he still did not answer, the richly dressed man followed his line of sight.

Only then did he realize—

Xie Zheng was not watching the snow.

He was watching the young woman walking down the street surrounded by over a dozen gangsters.

The man glanced once more at Xie Zheng, eyes shifting slightly, before smiling.

“So… that must be the new wife Your Lordship married?”