The county office was not far from town. Walking quickly, it only took about half a quarter of an hour to get there.

Fan Changyu was lucky enough to run into an acquaintance who was also heading to the county town, so she caught a ride on their ox cart. By the time she arrived at the county office, the yamen runners had only just started their shift.

She reported Constable Wang’s name to the guards at the entrance, and before long someone led her into the duty room behind the yamen.

“…Any refugees or beggars found while patrolling the streets are to be brought straight to the county jail. New Year’s is only a few days away, so keep your eyes sharp!”

Constable Wang seemed to be giving orders inside. Fan Changyu did not barge in recklessly and instead waited outside the door.

After finishing his instructions, Wang caught sight of Fan Changyu waiting outside from the corner of his eye and waved a hand. The constables picked up their yamen sabers and left in groups of two or three, seemingly heading out on patrol.

Only then did Fan Changyu step inside and say, “Uncle Wang looks especially busy today. Sorry for disturbing you.”

The cold outside was biting, but a charcoal brazier burned warmly inside the room. The warmth quickly fogged her eyelashes.

Constable Wang poured her a cup of ginger tea to ward off the cold and said, “It’s nothing unusual. Every year around this time is like this. But this year the bandits have been especially rampant and caused many deaths. The higher-ups are strictly investigating outsiders now. Anyone without household registration papers or travel permits gets thrown straight into jail. These past few days we’ve also been cracking down on refugees and beggars.”

Hearing this, Fan Changyu immediately thought of Yan Zheng, who currently had no household registration papers, and unconsciously clenched her reddened, frostbitten hands.

Seeing that she seemed troubled, Constable Wang asked, “You came today about transferring your family property?”

Fan Changyu nodded.

Constable Wang said, “I forgot to tell you before—Fan Da has already submitted his complaint petition. Until the lawsuit is resolved, the property can’t be transferred. But don’t worry. Since you’ve already taken in a live-in husband, even if the case goes to court, the magistrate will still award your parents’ property to you. It’ll just be more troublesome.”

Fan Changyu had not expected the process to be this complicated.

Thinking of the basin of water she had splashed over the wall last night, she asked, “Then what if my uncle doesn’t appear in court on the hearing day?”

Constable Wang glanced at her.

“Then the petition will be invalidated. And because failing to appear shows contempt for the law and disrupts the court, he’d receive twenty strokes of the paddle as a warning to others.”

Fan Changyu instantly regretted not throwing the entire vat of cold water over the wall last night.

Constable Wang asked suspiciously, “Why are you asking that?”

Fan Changyu coughed lightly.

“Just curious.”

Holding the steaming tea cup, she unconsciously rubbed the sides with her fingers.

“There’s another matter I need Uncle Wang’s help with.”

Constable Wang replied, “Go ahead.”

Only then did Fan Changyu explain Xie Zheng’s situation.

“My husband had all his money and household registration documents stolen by bandits. Now that he’s married into my family, I want to help him replace his household registration.”

The smile disappeared from Constable Wang’s face.

After a long silence, he finally sighed.

“Coming at a time like this, replacing household registration papers really won’t be easy.”

Still, when Fan Changyu and Fan Da appeared in court, since she claimed to have taken in a live-in husband, the magistrate would definitely ask where the husband came from.

Without registration documents proving his identity, her husband might very well end up thrown into jail too.

At that point, not only would she lose the property, her husband would suffer as well.

Constable Wang paced around the duty room twice before finally stomping his foot decisively.

“Come with me.”

The registrar in charge of household registration in Qingping County happened to be Constable Wang’s friend. Relying on that connection, he managed to help Fan Changyu obtain replacement household registration papers for her husband.

Fan Changyu thanked him profusely, but Constable Wang only said, “Just don’t mention this to outsiders. Otherwise, I won’t escape punishment either. Your father once saved my life. Helping you today can be considered repayment for the debt I owed him.”

Fan Changyu hurriedly promised, “You’ve helped me so much. I’m grateful beyond words. How could I possibly go around speaking carelessly about it?”

Thinking of his old friend, Constable Wang sighed emotionally.

“Your father really was a strange man. With his skills back then, he could easily have entered the yamen. Yet he insisted on becoming a butcher.”

Fan Changyu replied, “My father spent many years escorting caravans. My mother was constantly worried sick over him. After he retired, he only wanted a stable livelihood so my mother could feel at ease.”

Those were all things she had heard her parents say before.

Constable Wang knew his old friend’s temperament well and merely sighed without saying anything more.

After bidding farewell to Constable Wang, Fan Changyu went to the candy shop her younger sister liked best and bought a packet of malt sugar.

Originally, she had planned to sell the few acres of farmland outside town after transferring the property, exchanging them for silver. That way, she could also buy New Year goods and have money left for pigs and piglets.

But plans could not keep up with reality.

The property transfer could not be processed for now, and the only money left in her pocket was the wedding gift money the neighbors had contributed yesterday. Altogether, it amounted to less than one tael.

Naturally, she could no longer afford the nourishing supplements she had intended to buy for Yan Zheng.

Still, she felt awkward returning empty-handed.

Spotting a street vendor selling hair ties and ribbons by the roadside, she spent a few copper coins on a dark blue ribbon for him.

Aside from the wedding day, he had almost never tied up his hair.

Fan Changyu guessed it was because he lacked a proper hair ribbon. The red wedding ribbon was unsuitable for daily use, so she thought she might as well buy him one.

While she was paying, a raggedly dressed man suddenly came sprinting toward the street in panic, even knocking over several stalls along the way.

Several constables chased after him while shouting, “Stop!”

How could the man dare stop? He continued fleeing desperately while the constables pursued him.

At first, Fan Changyu assumed the man had committed some crime.

But someone beside her clicked their tongue and said, “They say every new official makes three grand gestures upon taking office. That new military governor who just took over Huizhou truly lives up to being part of the Wei family. Under the excuse of suppressing bandits, he doesn’t even send troops to eliminate the actual mountain bandits. Instead, he turns his blade against refugees fleeing from the north. Those displaced refugees are already pitiful enough…”

Only then did Fan Changyu realize the constables had been chasing refugees.

Remembering what Constable Wang had said earlier, she felt strangely uneasy.

She glanced at the speaker and noticed that he and his companions all wore identical long robes. Fan Changyu had seen Song Yan wear the same style before—it was the uniform of the county academy.

Clearly, these men were all scholars from the academy.

One of the scholar’s companions sneered coldly.

“The Wei father and son already hold power over the entire court. Imperial authority has long since declined. The whole Great Yin Dynasty is rotten to the core like decaying wood! And now even Huizhou’s military authority has fallen into the Wei family’s hands. If you ask me, the dynasty might as well change its surname to Wei!”

Although Fan Changyu had never left Qingping County in her life, she still knew who the Wei father and son were.

The current Grand Chancellor Wei Yan.

Sixteen years ago, after Crown Prince Chengde died in battle at Jinzhou and the old emperor passed away from grief soon afterward, Wei Yan had supported the young emperor’s ascension and controlled the court for over a decade.

Nowadays, the people of Great Yin only knew of the chancellor, not the emperor.

As for Wei Xuan, the chancellor’s son, he practically regarded himself as crown prince. Countless loyal officials and great generals had died by his hand. Calling him monstrously evil would hardly be an exaggeration.

Ordinary commoners were too busy struggling to survive and only heard the information deliberately released by the government. The hidden truths behind political affairs were naturally better understood by scholars preparing for the imperial examinations.

Fan Changyu unconsciously pricked up her ears to listen further.

The scholar who spoke earlier continued, “Without Marquis Wu’an guarding the northwestern frontier, who knows how much longer this world can remain peaceful? Wei Yan may harbor ambitions for the throne, but I doubt he has the courage to actually sit upon the Dragon Throne!”

The name of Marquis Wu’an, Xie Zheng, was thunderously famous throughout the dynasty, though opinions on him were sharply divided.

His biological father had been Xie Linshan, the great general who accompanied Crown Prince Chengde into battle at Jinzhou. Even after being pierced by countless arrows, he had remained standing while supporting himself against the military banner, dying upright upon the battlefield.

Meanwhile, his maternal uncle was Wei Yan, the all-powerful chancellor who had dominated court politics for more than ten years.

Such a background alone was already controversial enough. Yet because he had been raised by his uncle, court officials all regarded him as part of the Wei faction.

And Xie Zheng’s methods truly were as ruthless and bloody as his uncle’s.

When he was seventeen, his famous battle to recapture Jinzhou left the world terrified even to this day. Rumor claimed that after taking Jinzhou, he massacred the entire city, sparing not even children. The armor of the eight hundred elite cavalry under his direct command had all been dyed red with blood, and from then onward the world called them the Blood-Clad Cavalry.

The Northern Beidi tribes trembled merely upon hearing his name. Even the twelve Liaodong prefectures, lost to the Northern Beidi since the previous dynasty, had been reclaimed by him.

Thanks to his overwhelming military achievements, he had been granted the title Marquis Wu’an before even reaching the age of twenty.

“To bring peace through war”—throughout history, only he had ever received such a title.

It was precisely because Wei Yan possessed such an unstoppable blade that he could remain chancellor while suppressing imperial authority and controlling the court to this day.

The court officials condemned Xie Zheng as part of the Wei faction while simultaneously depending on him to guard the borders.

Some even claimed that if he remained stationed on the frontiers, the realm would stay stable.

But if he ever turned his ambitions toward the imperial court, the world itself would descend into chaos.

At that moment, hearing the scholar suddenly mention “without Marquis Wu’an guarding the northwestern frontier,” Fan Changyu found it strange.

Someone else voiced the question before she could.

“What happened to Marquis Wu’an?”

The scholar replied, “You haven’t heard? After the battle at Chongzhou, Marquis Wu’an’s fate became unknown. But Wei Xuan has already taken over his military authority in Huizhou, so he’s most likely dead.”

The crowd instantly erupted in commotion.

Most people questioned whether the scholar’s words were true.

The world hated Marquis Wu’an for being Wei Yan’s blade and feared him for treating human lives like grass and slaughtering without mercy.

Yet no one could deny that he was the pillar supporting Great Yin’s northwestern frontier.

If that pillar had truly fallen, who else in Great Yin could hold up the sky in the northwest?

The scholar, overwhelmed by the crowd’s questions, snapped angrily, “If you think I’m lying, then go investigate yourselves! See whether the northwest just got a new military governor!”

After overhearing all this national turmoil, Fan Changyu remained troubled the entire way home.

Jizhou bordered Chongzhou.

If war spread into Jizhou too, she had no idea where she and her younger sister would flee.

Thinking of how Yan Zheng himself had escaped from Chongzhou as a refugee, Fan Changyu felt she could ask him about the battle there once she returned home.

Chongzhou was merely a rebellion led by a regional prince.

How had even Great Yin’s god of war fallen there?

Just as she turned the final corner leading back to the alley, she ran into a woman from the neighborhood.

“Aunt Tao, going out to buy groceries?”

The woman nodded, though she seemed hesitant to speak, her expression rather strange.