County Office.

Fan Chang Yu was being held inside a temporary interrogation room. The doors and windows were tightly shut, and even the tables and chairs inside seemed to radiate coldness.

After sitting there for so long, the chill seeped up through the thickly padded soles of her shoes until both feet were nearly numb with cold.

Fan Chang Yu rubbed her hands together and breathed warm air into her palms, lightly stamping her feet in an attempt to warm herself.

Two bailiffs stood guard outside the interrogation room. Fan Chang Yu had tried speaking to them through the door, but they clearly weren’t Constable Wang’s men and ignored her completely.

The waiting was unbearable.

At long last, the interrogation room door opened. Sunlight finally poured into the pitch-black room as the bailiff at the entrance said, “You can leave now.”

Fan Chang Yu assumed that Constable Wang had returned from searching her home and proven her innocence. Her heart instantly relaxed as she stepped outside.

When she saw Constable Wang, he was busily giving orders to several bailiffs, looking overwhelmed. Only then did Fan Chang Yu notice that even the ordinary runners delivering tea and messages were armed with blades, as though everyone in the yamen was prepared to head out at any moment.

Seeing her, Constable Wang gestured for the other bailiffs to leave. His brows were furrowed so tightly they nearly formed a river shape.

“Someone else reported a crime just now. Besides Fan Da’s brutal death today, several other households were also attacked. The sword wounds on the bodies are identical to Fan Da’s. The killers should be the same group. But only your family was specifically targeted afterward. I don’t know whether they learned something from interrogating Fan Da, but when I led people to your house, there were corpses everywhere…”

By the time he reached the last sentence, Fan Chang Yu’s mind buzzed loudly as if her ears were ringing.

She could only see Constable Wang’s mouth moving while hearing nothing he said.

After a long while, she finally steadied herself enough to ask:

“My sister…”

The moment the words left her mouth, she realized how hoarse her voice had become. Her limbs were ice-cold.

Constable Wang hurriedly said, “We didn’t find the bodies of your husband or your younger sister. We searched both inside and outside the house. We don’t know whether those criminals took them away or whether they escaped. I’ve already ordered bailiffs to search for them, but the heavy snow covered many traces, and there’s still been no news.”

Only half the pressure in Fan Chang Yu’s chest eased.

She immediately rushed toward the county office exit.

“I’m going to search too.”

Her parents were already gone.

She absolutely could not let anything happen to her younger sister too!

Though Yan Zheng was injured, he was still skilled in martial arts. Previously, even while severely wounded, he had still managed to handle Jin Lao San’s gang. If he was the one who killed the people Constable Wang found dead in their courtyard…

Then he must have escaped while protecting Chang Ning.

But his injuries wouldn’t hold much longer. She had to find them before then!

—

The wind carried fine snow through the pine forest, along with the thick scent of blood.

A flash of swordlight swept through the air. Hot blood burst from a man’s throat, splattering across the frost-covered trunk of a pine tree. The man holding the blade collapsed stiffly into the snow.

The sticky blood slowly dripped downward from the tree trunk, smashing small pale-red craters into the snow below.

Xie Zheng didn’t even spare the corpse a glance.

With a flick of his wrist, all the blood droplets clinging to his sword flew away.

Within ten meters around him, corpses littered the ground.

Little Chang Ning and the gyrfalcon huddled together nearby. Whether from terror or cold, the child’s face had turned bluish-white, and she had become too frightened even to cry anymore.

Xie Zheng sheathed his sword and walked back. Seeing this, he frowned slightly before crouching and touching the back of the child’s hand with his knuckles.

It was indeed as cold as ice.

He glanced at his own padded coat. It was already soaked through with blood and no longer provided any warmth, so his gaze shifted toward one of the masked men whose throat he had slit earlier.

That man’s fur coat still looked relatively clean.

Walking over, Xie Zheng used his sword tip to cut open the coat, then casually kicked the corpse like a sack. The dead body rolled over once before he flicked the fur coat into his hand with the sword.

He had taken this sword from one of the masked men earlier. It felt reasonably comfortable to use, so he kept it.

Xie Zheng tossed the fur coat toward little Chang Ning. His bloodstained face was even paler than the surrounding snow.

Then, leaning heavily against a pine tree from exhaustion, he half-closed his eyes. The weariness on his face was unmistakable, yet his voice remained cold as ever.

“Put it on. Stay alive and wait for your elder sister to come find you.”

More footsteps echoed in the distance, surrounding the pine forest from several directions. It was unclear whether they belonged to the same group of masked men or entirely different forces.

Xie Zheng had no intention of continuing deeper into the forest.

He was already severely exhausted, and with a child in tow, he wouldn’t get far anyway.

Resting here for a while to recover some strength might let him hold out longer.

“Zheng’er, is the osmanthus cake tasty?”

The snowy forest and pale daylight before him began splitting into overlapping shadows. In his dazed state, he suddenly heard the warm, smiling voice of that elegant woman beside his ear.

Xie Zheng’s eyelids trembled.

Seeing him covered in blood and leaning against the pine tree with his eyes shut, Chang Ning became frightened he might die. In her tear-rasped voice, she choked out:

“Brother-in-law…”

“Quiet.”

His consciousness returned slightly. Xie Zheng frowned, his eyelids unbearably heavy and his limbs feeling as though filled with lead.

This sensation wasn’t unfamiliar.

The last time he escaped the Wei family assassins, he had collapsed unconscious into the snow exactly like this.

Forcing his eyes open, he grabbed the blade of his sword with a hand already soaked red through its bandages and dragged his palm hard along the edge.

The double-edged sword sliced deep wounds into his palm. Fresh blood instantly soaked through the cloth again, spilling from his clenched fist onto the snow like scattered plum blossoms.

The sharp pain finally restored a bit more clarity to his mind.

Chaotic footsteps rapidly approached.

The moment a gleaming blade thrust straight toward the child, Xie Zheng raised his sword in a reverse grip and blocked it with a clear metallic clang.

As the swords scraped together, sparks burst between them.

A vicious light flashed through Xie Zheng’s eyes. As the blades slid toward the hilt, he suddenly twisted his wrist and slashed a horrifying wound across the masked man’s shoulder before kicking him flying several meters away.

“Hide behind the tree,” he ordered coldly.

The whites of his eyes had already become streaked with blood-red veins, making him resemble a lone wolf cornered to its final desperate stand.

The dozen remaining masked men stared at the corpses of their companions littering the snow, clearly shocked themselves. After exchanging glances, they charged together toward Xie Zheng, every move vicious and aimed directly at fatal points.

Chang Ning hid behind the tree.

Though Xie Zheng had repeatedly warned her not to cry, seeing the situation before her, tears still streamed uncontrollably down her face. Almost instinctively, she pulled out the whistle hidden beneath her collar and blew it with all her strength.

Her elder sister had made that whistle for her long ago.

Once, while playing hide-and-seek with children from the alley, she had accidentally fallen into an abandoned well. She cried until her voice went hoarse, yet no one found her.

When her family searched for her, she could no longer even cry out.

Afterward, her elder sister made her the whistle and told her that if she was ever in danger again, she should blow it so her family could find her.

During their escape earlier, she had blown it once already and attracted the bad people instead, earning a fierce scolding from her brother-in-law. After that, she hadn’t dared use it again.

But now the situation was too dangerous.

Chang Ning no longer cared about being scolded.

The shrill whistle echoed throughout the pine forest like the mournful cry of a bleeding fledgling.

One masked man noticed Chang Ning and immediately approached with his blade drawn.

Chang Ning scrambled up to run, but the oversized fur coat wrapped around her was too long. After only a few steps, she tripped and fell.

The masked man raised his sword to strike.

Suddenly, a gray falcon shot out from nowhere and slammed directly into him. Its iron-hook claws missed his throat but shredded half his face instead, even tearing away the black cloth covering it.

Faint barking suddenly echoed from the distant forest.

Not just one dog—several.

Their furious barking sent flocks of birds erupting into the snowy sky, blackening the heavens overhead.

Chang Ning’s eyes lit up instantly.

She puffed her cheeks and blew the whistle several more times with all her might.

The masked man knocked the falcon aside with one swing and was about to grab Chang Ning when a sharp gust sliced through the air behind him.

Acting purely on instinct, he leaned backward sharply and barely dodged the heavy bone-cleaving knife hurled directly at his head.

Most of the black iron blade buried itself deep into a nearby pine trunk. The tree shook violently, sending accumulated snow cascading downward and instantly obscuring vision.

In that same instant, the masked man felt icy cold spread through his chest.

As the blade was withdrawn, blood gushed from the wound in torrents.

The masked man had killed many people in his life, yet when he saw the sheer amount of blood pouring from his chest wound, he still froze momentarily.

What vicious blade work.

This wound would drain the blood from a body in the shortest possible time.

Through the falling snow, he struggled to raise his eyes toward the black iron weapon dripping blood.

A butcher knife?

Above it, his fading vision could no longer clearly distinguish the attacker’s face.

But it was clearly a woman.

The masked man collapsed to his knees in the snow, his head hanging limply. The blood pouring from him melted away much of the snow beneath his body.

Nearly twice as much blood as the other masked corpses nearby.

This was Fan Chang Yu’s first time killing someone with her butcher knife.

Instinctively, she used the same technique she used when slaughtering pigs—focusing only on releasing as much blood as possible.

Extreme tension and protective instinct sent all the blood rushing to her head. Her fingertips burned and tingled, leaving no room for any thoughts about having just killed a person.

The moment Chang Ning saw her elder sister, her lips immediately trembled as she nearly burst into tears.

But the situation was still too dangerous.

Seeing Yan Zheng struggling against his injuries while another slash opened across his arm, Fan Chang Yu had no time to even speak to her sister. She yanked her knife free from the tree trunk and hurled it toward another masked man.

Unexpectedly, the man was pulled aside by a companion and dodged.

But directly behind him stood Xie Zheng.

The heavy cleaver flew straight toward him, terrifying Fan Chang Yu so badly her heart nearly leaped into her throat.

Fortunately, Xie Zheng reacted instantly and tilted his head aside. The cleaver embedded itself into the pine tree behind him.

When he looked over at her, Fan Chang Yu’s expression became slightly awkward.

As snow continued cascading from the tree, she had no time to think further. Repeating the same tactic, she charged forward again and used pig-slaughtering techniques to stab several masked men in rapid succession while Xie Zheng slit throats cleanly with his sword.

Blood mixed with snow scattered endlessly across the ground.

Once the snow from that tree finally finished falling, Fan Chang Yu met Xie Zheng’s eyes and awkwardly explained:

“I was aiming for the masked man earlier…”

Xie Zheng said nothing.

More than half the masked men had already fallen, giving him a moment to breathe.

Standing while leaning on his sword, his hair hung messily around his pale face. Blood stained the corner of his mouth. Though he looked weak enough to collapse at any second, the remaining masked men still didn’t dare move recklessly.

The barking had drawn closer.

Three or four hunting dogs burst from the forest, baring vicious fangs and barking furiously at the masked men.

Fan Chang Yu had borrowed these hunting dogs from local hunters in town. Thanks to them, she had been able to follow the blood scent all the way into the pine forest outside the city.

The moment she heard Chang Ning’s whistle, she abandoned the dogs and rushed ahead alone.

Fan Chang Yu shouted threateningly, “The county soldiers will arrive any moment now!”

The masked men exchanged glances.

Clearly deciding they would gain nothing by continuing this battle against Fan Chang Yu and Xie Zheng, they immediately prepared to retreat.

“Capture one alive,” Xie Zheng ordered.

The instant he finished speaking, Fan Chang Yu charged out.

These people dressed like bandits had murdered Fan Da and broken into her home. They might very well be the same group responsible for her mother’s death.

While running, she untied a rope from her waist and rapidly formed a lasso. With a powerful swing, she threw it toward the last fleeing masked man.

The loop tightened around his neck instantly.

Fan Chang Yu then yanked backward with all her strength.

The rope immediately constricted.

The masked man clawed desperately at the rope around his throat while Fan Chang Yu dragged him backward through the snow like a broken sack.

Xie Zheng’s expression shifted slightly at the sight.

Planting one foot against a pine tree, Fan Chang Yu hauled the rope back with all her might as though dragging a dead pig.

“This is the kind of lasso commonly used for wild horses and cattle. Once it catches someone, they can barely escape. The harder they struggle, the tighter it gets.”

Thankfully, Constable Wang had worried she might encounter danger during the search and ordered someone to provide her with standard constable equipment.

Which really consisted of nothing more than a blade and rope.

The blade was for self-defense.

The rope was for restraining criminals.

The official blade felt far less comfortable than her own butcher knife, yet she didn’t want to reject Constable Wang’s kindness, so she accepted the rope.

Xie Zheng fell silent briefly.

Despite the life-and-death situation, somehow the tense atmosphere always eased slightly whenever she spoke.

Seeing their companion captured, the masked men exchanged looks again.

Suddenly, one of them directly hurled his sword at the captured man.

Blood exploded instantly.

Fan Chang Yu cursed loudly in anger and immediately abandoned the rope, chasing after them with her butcher knife.

Xie Zheng coughed up blood.

Fearing she might not be able to handle them alone, he ignored his own severe injuries and prepared to pursue them as well.

But the moment he stepped forward, his boot struck something hard beneath the snow.

Moving his foot aside, he saw a waist token.

The instant he recognized the emblem engraved upon it, his phoenix eyes narrowed sharply.

He picked up the token and tucked it into his robes.

When he looked again toward the masked men now being pursued by Fan Chang Yu, his gaze resembled someone looking at corpses.

The masked men were already struggling while being chased by several hunting dogs and constantly harassed by Fan Chang Yu’s monstrous strength.

Still, they quickly discovered her weakness.

Most of her fighting relied entirely on brute force and speed. She lacked true experience in life-and-death combat. Once several opponents surrounded her, her defenses became insufficient, and wounds soon appeared across her body.

The cuts burned fiercely.

Her attack speed slowed noticeably. Though she tried learning how to block attacks, her limited experience still couldn’t match several skilled opponents at once.

When another masked man swung directly at her wrist, panic rose in her chest.

Her movement was already committed. She couldn’t dodge in time.

If her wrist were injured, at best she’d lose her grip on her weapon.

At worst, the entire hand would become useless.

Grinding her teeth, she prepared to fight to mutual destruction.

At that critical moment, a long-fingered hand suddenly gripped the hand holding her knife from behind.

Compared to the warmth of her own skin, his hand was cold as frozen lake water.

She didn’t even understand how he applied the force.

With a single twist, her butcher knife instantly flipped upward, slashing viciously into the masked man’s elbow from below. Then the blade scraped upward along flesh and bone with overwhelming force before hooking beneath the tendons under his arm and violently tearing upward.

The masked man’s sword instantly fell away.

His entire blood-soaked arm hung limp at his side as he screamed miserably.

Fan Chang Yu slaughtered pigs and carved meat regularly, yet even recalling that blade technique made her scalp tingle.

Unable to resist, she glanced backward.

She saw only the pale lower half of the man’s jaw before her hand was guided again to block the killing strikes of the remaining masked men.

His movements were more like guiding her on how to evade attacks.

Meanwhile, Fan Chang Yu herself exerted absolutely no restraint over her monstrous strength.

Her one weakness instantly disappeared.

The remaining masked men soon found themselves unable to withstand them.

Fan Chang Yu truly possessed talent in martial combat.

While memorizing the defensive techniques Xie Zheng guided her through, she still managed to kick masked men whenever opportunities appeared.

One masked man was kicked so violently by her that he flew backward into a pine tree. The entire tree shook, sending massive chunks of ice and snow crashing downward in an explosion of powder.

At the same moment, the person behind her guided the butcher knife in a graceful arc and drove it straight into another masked man’s chest.

Fan Chang Yu could clearly feel the wounds in his palm splitting open again.

Warm blood seeped out, soaking the back of her hand where their palms pressed together.

Yet his palm still remained cold.

Watching the flashing blades before her, her own heart seemed to tremble alongside the collapsing snow-covered tree.

“Don’t lose focus.”

His cool, slightly hoarse voice sounded beside her ear.

Because of the way he guided her hand, they stood extremely close together. Fan Chang Yu could almost feel the faint warmth of his breath against her skin.

Her entire ear suddenly tingled.

Resisting the urge to rub it, she forced herself to concentrate entirely on fighting.

At last, the blood-soaked butcher knife pressed against the throat of the final masked man.

Fan Chang Yu finally managed to catch her breath.

She had noticed earlier—this person was clearly the leader of the group. He was the same man who had killed their captured companion without hesitation.

Pressing the blade deeper until blood appeared at his throat, Fan Chang Yu shouted coldly:

“Who are you people? What grudge do you have against my Fan family?”

The man ignored her entirely.

Instead, he stared fixedly at Xie Zheng behind her, seemingly trying to identify him.

When Xie Zheng raised his eyes to meet his gaze, the masked man finally seemed to recognize him.

His pupils shrank violently.

Despair flashed across his face.

Then he suddenly grabbed the butcher knife at his throat with one hand.

Because Fan Chang Yu stood so close to Xie Zheng, she hadn’t realized the man was looking at him.

Seeing him move, she panicked and assumed he intended to seize the weapon. She immediately pressed harder in an attempt to restrain him.

Only then did she realize—

He had deliberately grabbed the blade and forced it deeper into his own throat.

Blood splashed across the trampled snow.

The masked leader collapsed dead.

Fan Chang Yu stared in shock for a long moment, unable to speak.

Looking down at the butcher knife still wet with blood in her hand, she muttered:

“Why would he…”

Rather than reveal a single extra word, he chose suicide instead.

Who exactly were these people?

Could they be enemies her father made while escorting caravans years ago?

Looking at the dead leader and remembering her parents’ deaths, Fan Chang Yu felt her thoughts become a tangled knot.

When Xie Zheng saw the masked man commit suicide, he also frowned.

But after sustaining so many injuries and forcing himself to endure this long, he had already reached his limit.

The instant the danger passed and the force of will sustaining him vanished, dizziness overwhelmed him immediately.

He finally coughed out the blood he’d been suppressing in his throat all this time.

Unable to support himself on the sword any longer, he collapsed into the snow.

The moment Fan Chang Yu heard movement behind her, she turned around.

Seeing him unconscious in the snow, his face and lips nearly the same pale color, she instantly forgot everything else and rushed over to check his injuries.

Not only had his old wounds reopened, he’d gained many new injuries as well.

Thinking how he had nearly walked through the gates of death again entirely because of her family’s troubles only deepened her guilt.

She carried no medicine, but reasoned these bandit-disguised men probably would.

Searching the dead leader’s body, she indeed found a bottle of medicinal powder.

Unable to confirm whether it was a blood-staunching medicine, she first sprinkled some onto the still-bleeding corpse wound.

When the blood quickly coagulated, she finally dared use it on Xie Zheng.

The intense pain of the medicine burning against torn flesh restored some of Xie Zheng’s consciousness.

But he remained far too weak to even open his eyes.

After hastily bandaging him, Fan Chang Yu lifted him onto her back and returned for Chang Ning.

Her own arms and shoulders were covered in shallow cuts from the earlier battle.

Though none were serious, the moment she exerted strength, waves of burning pain spread through them.

Trying to distract herself, she half-joked to the unconscious man on her back:

“This is the second time I’ve carried you back from the snow.”

The person on her back didn’t respond, seemingly fully unconscious.

Sweat gathered at Fan Chang Yu’s temples from the pain.

Softly, she said:

“Thank you.”

Thank you for saving Chang Ning for me.

If she lost her younger sister too, she would no longer have a single remaining relative in this world.

At that point, she truly wouldn’t know where to go anymore.

The wind and snow raged around them as she carried him through the forest, leaving a trail of deep footprints behind.

Little Chang Ning waited beneath the pine tree holding the gyrfalcon. The moment she saw Fan Chang Yu carrying Xie Zheng back, she hurried over.

“Elder Sister…”

With someone on her back, Fan Chang Yu couldn’t carry Chang Ning too.

A drop of sweat slid from her forehead, stinging the abrasions on her face.

She quickly looked Chang Ning over.

“Did Ning-niang get hurt?”

Chang Ning shook her head. Seeing the unconscious man on Fan Chang Yu’s back, her eyes instantly reddened again.

“Brother-in-law got hurt protecting Ning-niang…”

The blood that had poured from his palms while guiding her earlier still seemed to burn against Fan Chang Yu’s skin.

A bitter ache rose in her chest.

“Don’t cry. We’ll bring him back and find a doctor.”

She always sounded calm and steady.

And whenever Chang Ning heard her elder sister speak that way, all fear vanished.

When their parents died, Chang Ning had cried so hard she nearly stopped breathing.

Back then, her elder sister held her beside the bed and said:

“Don’t be afraid. You still have me.”

Now Chang Ning looked at her elder sister’s bent back beneath the weight she carried.

Wiping her eyes clumsily with her sleeve, she hugged the gyrfalcon and stumbled after Fan Chang Yu through the snow.

—

“This is the second time I’ve carried you back from the snow.”

“Thank you.”

In his hazy consciousness, Xie Zheng heard someone speaking to him.

The voice was familiar, yet he couldn’t remember whose it was.

His eyelids were unbearably heavy. His thoughts had become mush, completely incapable of coherent thinking.

He felt himself sinking endlessly into darkness while bone-deep cold seeped into every crevice of his body.

Resisting the downward pull was exhausting.

Giving in would make everything instantly easier.

“Zheng’er.”

Someone called him again.

He could no longer clearly remember that gentle woman’s face or appearance.

Yet whenever she appeared in dreams, he always knew it was her.

Why had she come into his dreams?

Hadn’t she abandoned him?

Xie Zheng didn’t want to answer her.

Yet his gaze moved forward uncontrollably.

The woman stood in the rear garden of the Marquis Manor, smiling gently while holding a child’s hand as they watched a heroic man practicing martial arts in the courtyard.

“Your father is a great hero who stands above all others. In the future, Zheng’er should become someone like your father too.”

Only then did Xie Zheng realize the woman was smiling at him.

And that he himself had become the child.

He still refused to speak, merely staring at her face—a face perfectly clear in dreams, yet reduced to only a vague outline whenever he woke.

He missed her.

But she had left too early.

So early that he could no longer remember her face clearly.

The man practicing martial arts vanished.

In his place appeared a coffin returned from the battlefields of Jinzhou.

The woman dressed in mourning robes collapsed before the coffin, crying in heartbreaking despair while servants desperately tried to restrain her.

Then the scene changed again.

She wore fresh clothing and sat before a bronze mirror drawing her brows. Her beautiful distant-mountain brows were lightly furrowed.

She was stunningly beautiful.

Yet anyone could see she was unhappy.

“How could he break his promise?” she murmured. “He said he’d return and draw my brows for me.”

Like a young maiden angry that her beloved failed to appear for a promised meeting.

Then she saw him and smiled, beckoning him over.

Xie Zheng didn’t move.

A small child wearing a little golden crown, perhaps four years old, ran past him instead.

The woman handed the child a plate of osmanthus cakes.

“Zheng’er, are the osmanthus cakes delicious?”

At last, Xie Zheng spoke.

Almost hatefully.

“They’re not delicious.”

Yet the woman couldn’t hear him.

She lifted the child into her lap, her gentle voice growing distant once more.

“Zheng’er must become a great hero like your father.”

“Be good. Go outside and eat your osmanthus cakes.”

Then she finished dressing beautifully, wearing her finest clothes with only her brows left plain.

And with a white silk ribbon, she hung herself from the beam.

Her general never returned to draw her brows.

So she went to find him herself.

The servants broke open the door amid cries and screams.

The child stood in the doorway.

All he saw was the bright hem of her dress swaying in midair.

Struggling awake from the nightmare once again, Xie Zheng found himself drenched in cold sweat.

A bitter medicinal taste lingered in his mouth.

When he opened his eyes, he saw patched bed curtains above him and a figure standing beside the bed in the backlight.

Turning his head slightly, he saw Fan Chang Yu staring at him with shock and confusion.

She held a bowl of medicine, but the spoon in her other hand had vanished.

Lowering his gaze, Xie Zheng saw shattered porcelain pieces scattered across the floor.

The spoon had fallen and broken.

Fan Chang Yu muttered awkwardly:

“Medicine definitely isn’t tasty…”

Xie Zheng: “……”

His breathing, which had been uneven after the nightmare, suddenly eased.

The dark emotions lingering from the dream were strangely suppressed by her single sentence.

Frowning slightly, he looked at the woman seated beside the bed before forcing himself upright and extending a pale, slender hand.

“Give it to me.”

Even in sickness, his face remained exceptionally handsome.

Fan Chang Yu froze briefly before realizing he meant the medicine bowl.

Glancing at the bandages wrapped around his hand, she kindly reminded him:

“That hand of yours was sliced open by the sword in two deep places. Even the web between your thumb and finger tore open. The doctor said you absolutely can’t strain it right now.”

He switched to his other hand, and only then did Fan Chang Yu hand over the bowl.

Xie Zheng swallowed the entire disgusting bowl of medicine in one gulp before returning the bowl to her.

Fan Chang Yu remembered how, while half-conscious earlier, he’d gritted his teeth and furiously shouted that the medicine “wasn’t tasty” while she force-fed him.

She secretly thought that although he usually acted silent and composed, he was unexpectedly afraid of bitterness.

Digging into her sleeve pouch, she pulled out a piece of malt candy she normally used to coax Chang Ning.

“Eat some candy. It won’t taste so bitter afterward.”

This was the only time she’d ever offered him candy after medicine. Even a fool could guess why.

His expression instantly darkened.

Closing his eyes, he said, “No need.”

Yet the very next moment, someone grabbed his jaw with practiced force and made him open his mouth.

The candy was stuffed directly inside.

“You—!”

He glared angrily.

Fan Chang Yu grinned and sat back down farther away.

“Sweet, right? Being afraid of bitter things isn’t embarrassing. You really are strangely stubborn all the time!”

Perhaps because pale winter sunlight streamed through the window behind her, her smile appeared especially bright and warm.

At least warmer than the smile of the woman in his dreams whose face he could no longer remember clearly.

The sweetness of the candy slowly melted across his tongue, dispersing the bitterness left behind by the medicine.

Like sunlight finally shining into a damp, moss-covered land of endless gloom.

Xie Zheng suddenly fell silent.

Turning his head away, he pressed his lips together tightly and said nothing more.

He hadn’t eaten sweets in many years.

Not since the woman had sent him outside to eat osmanthus cakes while she herself departed this world with a white silk ribbon.

All these years, resentment and self-loathing had remained buried deep in his heart.

If only he hadn’t carried the osmanthus cakes outside that day.

If he had stayed beside her the entire time, perhaps she wouldn’t have left.

He hated osmanthus cakes.

He hated sweets.

Gradually, no one around him served such things anymore.

Fan Chang Yu noticed his gloomy mood but couldn’t understand why. She merely reminded him:

“Your injuries this time are no lighter than last time. The doctor repeatedly warned that you must rest properly. At the very least, you can’t lift heavy objects until your wounds heal. So many people died at home that the authorities are still investigating the case. We can’t stay there for now, so just recuperate here in Aunt Zhao’s attic.”

The moment he woke up, Xie Zheng had already recognized the attic where he’d previously recovered.

At her words, he merely nodded lightly.

After hesitating briefly, Fan Chang Yu added:

“Thank you for protecting Chang Ning.”

Those words overlapped with the voice Xie Zheng vaguely remembered hearing before losing consciousness.

Only then did he realize it hadn’t been a hallucination.

Back then, she seemed to have said one more sentence too.

“This is the second time I’ve carried you back from the snow.”

The first time he was injured, he had been completely unconscious.

This time, though dazed, he had retained some awareness.

He remembered how thin the back carrying him had felt.

So now, looking again at Fan Chang Yu—her narrow shoulders, the bandages peeking beneath her sleeves—his chest felt stuffed with damp cotton.

Heavy and suffocating.

She had been injured while carrying him back.

His pale, cracked lips moved slightly.

“You saved me first.”

After that single sentence, he fell silent again.

As though subconsciously unwilling to separate their debts and gratitude too clearly.

When those people broke into the house earlier, he’d initially assumed Zhao Xun had exposed his whereabouts and attracted assassins.

Yet besides trying to kill him and the child, those people had practically turned the Fan house upside down searching for something.

Thinking of the waist token he’d picked up from the snow, Xie Zheng’s eyes darkened further.

“Did the authorities discover anything?”

Fan Chang Yu shook her head and told him about the other households attacked that same day.

Fan Da’s death was now completely unrelated to her, and the county office had successfully transferred all her parents’ property deeds into her name.

Having more money on hand was probably the only comforting thing right now.

At least she no longer had to struggle financially to hire doctors for Yan Zheng.

After hearing that other households had also suffered, Xie Zheng pondered silently for a while before suddenly asking:

“Did those other families have anything in common with Fan Da?”

Fan Chang Yu thought for a moment and shook her head.

“Seven households were attacked altogether. The dead included men and women, elderly people and children. There doesn’t seem to be anything in common.”

Xie Zheng frowned without speaking.

Those people had searched seven households before finally targeting Fan Chang Yu’s family specifically.

Clearly, they had initially searched broadly for something before learning what they wanted from Fan Da.

Based on the Fan family’s situation, Xie Zheng guessed at a possibility.

“Did any of those households have family members who once worked elsewhere before returning to Lin’an Town?”

Fan Chang Yu immediately felt that if this was true, then the attackers really might have come seeking revenge against her parents.

But she couldn’t understand why they still refused to stop even after her parents were already dead.

“I’ll ask Constable Wang later.”

Only after Fan Chang Yu left the attic did Xie Zheng finally force himself upright and retrieve the waist token from the pile of bloodstained clothes stacked beside the bed.

He stared at it in silence for a long while before closing it tightly in his palm.

That token belonged to Wei family assassins.

Heaven, Earth, Black, Yellow.

This time, the assassins sent were Black-ranked.

But they hadn’t come to kill him.

In fact, they hadn’t even realized he was hiding there. Only at the very end had the leader recognized him.

But why had the man shown such despair after recognizing him and immediately committed suicide?

The mysteries only grew deeper.

And the only clue capable of unraveling everything seemed to be the true identities of that woman’s parents.

Her own martial skill was already terrifyingly strong.

Her father surely hadn’t been ordinary either.

Most likely, he hadn’t died to common bandits at all, but to assassins disguised as bandits.

And what secrets hid behind the nameless tablet of her mother?

Xie Zheng pressed against his temples.

He wanted to send word to his former subordinates and have them secretly investigate the backgrounds of Fan Chang Yu’s parents.

But then his gaze shifted toward the gyrfalcon crouched nearby.

Its wing was wrapped in bandages as it happily devoured a bowl of chopped pork.

Fan Chang Yu had prepared the meat personally. Since the gyrfalcon saved Chang Ning, its meals had upgraded from pig offal to fresh meat.

After rolling around in the snow several times, its feathers had finally become white again.

At that moment, it had just picked up a large chunk of meat when it looked up and realized Xie Zheng was staring at it.

The gyrfalcon froze while staring back with its beady eyes.

After several moments of awkward silence, the meat dropped right back into the bowl with a plop.

The bird stared at him innocently and foolishly.

Xie Zheng coldly looked away.

Forget it.

Wei family hounds had already noticed this area. He couldn’t rely on this stupid bird to deliver messages anymore.

If Zhao Xun truly intended to follow him, then perhaps he could use Zhao Xun’s merchant network to secretly send letters instead.

There were still several days before the New Year.

He had ordered Zhao Xun to exchange the banknotes for two hundred thousand shi of grain before year’s end. Soon enough, there should be a response.

The candy in his mouth had fully melted, leaving only faint sweetness behind.

Only then did he glance toward the window.

He had already finished the candy.

But the person who gave it to him still hadn’t returned.

—

Fan Chang Yu later visited the county office and relayed Xie Zheng’s suspicions to Constable Wang.

But after hearing her out, Constable Wang merely shook his head silently.

“This case has already been closed.”

Fan Chang Yu stared in disbelief.

“The mastermind hasn’t even been found yet. How can the case already be closed?”

Constable Wang replied, “Those people who died in the pine forest were the culprits. They were bandits from Qingfeng Stronghold. During the New Year season, mountain bandits robbing and killing people is nothing unusual.”

Fan Chang Yu immediately thought that couldn’t possibly be true. Those people had clearly come fully prepared.

She wanted to argue further, but after meeting Constable Wang’s eyes, every word died in her throat.

It wasn’t difficult to guess why the county office was rushing to close the case.

So many murders right before the New Year would inevitably cause public outrage. The magistrate would also struggle to explain things to the prefecture authorities.

They needed a quick explanation.

And since the masked men were dressed like bandits, blaming the murders on mountain brigands was the perfect excuse.

The magistrate only needed to issue a notice warning citizens to be cautious of bandits during the holiday season.

That would calm public fear immediately.

Then he could submit a formal request to the prefecture asking for anti-bandit operations, conveniently shifting all responsibility elsewhere.

After all, Qingfeng Stronghold had plagued Jizhou for years.

Constable Wang was only a small constable. Once the magistrate demanded the case be closed, what could he possibly say?

Fan Chang Yu left the county office with a heavy heart.

As Constable Wang escorted her out, he quietly advised:

“Why don’t you sell the pig farm and countryside property first and go somewhere else for a while? I suspect your father offended someone dangerous during his escort work years ago.”

Fan Chang Yu understood his good intentions.

She thanked him and said she would consider it carefully.

But for a brief moment, confusion filled her heart.

Leave?

She had lived in Lin’an Town for more than ten years.

From the stones at the eastern edge of town to the trees in the west, every corner was familiar to her.

If she stayed, she might still uncover the truth behind her parents’ deaths.

But if another assassination came, neither she nor Chang Ning might survive.

She wasn’t afraid of venturing elsewhere.

But her parents were buried here.

She and Chang Ning’s roots were buried here too.

Naturally, she couldn’t bear to leave.

Yet by the time she stepped out of the county office gates, her chaotic thoughts had calmed considerably.

Looking up at the clear sky after snowfall, she exhaled deeply.

As long as the green hills remained, there would always be firewood later.

Once Yan Zheng’s injuries improved, she would discuss leaving Qingshui County with him.

If he wasn’t afraid of further enemies seeking revenge and wished to come with them, she would bring him along.

If he had other plans, then after writing the divorce papers and giving him some travel money, the two of them could part cleanly.

—

After returning to town, Fan Chang Yu went straight to the butcher shop and began packing things up.

The period after New Year was the best time to transfer a business. Since she’d already decided to leave, she planned to sell the shop, pig farm, and farmland.

She intended to keep the house.

If she ever returned someday, she would still have a home waiting for her.

That was the house where she’d lived with her parents for over ten years.

She simply couldn’t bear to sell it.

As she noisily packed things inside the shop, passersby mistakenly thought Fan Family Butcher Shop had reopened. Seeing the empty chopping board, some even poked their heads inside to ask when business would resume.

Not wanting to invite trouble, Fan Chang Yu didn’t mention selling the shop yet and only said she planned to reopen after New Year.

While she was still packing, someone knocked at the entrance.

Without even looking up, she replied, “We’re not open today.”

An elderly voice answered from the doorway.

“You won’t even do business with this old man?”

Fan Chang Yu looked up and saw it was Chef Li from Yixiang Tower.

Feeling somewhat apologetic, she said, “Sorry, Master Li. Some things happened at home recently, so I don’t plan to reopen the shop before year’s end.”

Chef Li waved dismissively.

“It’s our boss who wants to meet you.”