Fan Changyu found it strange and was about to continue home when the woman spoke again with an odd expression.

“The gambling house people went to your house again. Your husband…”

Before she could finish, Fan Changyu’s figure flashed past her. She snatched up a carrying pole leaning against a nearby wall and charged straight toward the alley.

The woman had not expected Fan Changyu to be this hot-tempered and hurriedly shouted after her, “Your husband wasn’t hurt! He’s the one who crippled the gambling house men!”

Unfortunately, Fan Changyu had already run too far away to hear clearly.

From a distance, she could already see a crowd gathered outside her house watching the commotion. Her heart instantly tightened, and she gripped the carrying pole even harder.

“Move aside!”

Seeing her storming over wielding the pole, the onlookers quickly scattered to both sides.

At that exact moment, the gambling den’s underboss, Master Jin, came limping out through the demolished entrance of the Fan house, leaning on a wooden staff with a vicious grin on his face.

Before he could even react upon seeing the furious Fan Changyu, the carrying pole slammed into him and sent him flying sideways. He crashed to the ground and immediately stopped moving.

Planting the carrying pole against the ground, Fan Changyu turned toward the courtyard, just about to unleash a furious tirade—

Only to discover that the gambling house thugs inside were staring at her in terror. The men who had been dragging their injured legs while crawling outward immediately reversed direction and desperately shrank backward into the courtyard instead.

Beneath the eaves, however, sat a cold and gloomy-looking man in a grand chair, one hand resting upon a cane.

Caught between advancing and retreating, the gambling house thugs huddled together in the courtyard, trembling miserably.

These burly men, all built like bears, somehow looked pitiful enough to resemble withered cabbages left out in the frost.

Fan Changyu: “?”

She stared at the man seated beneath the eaves in disbelief.

He was the one who did this?

He was injured badly enough to need a cane just to walk, yet he could still fight?

The neighbors gathered at the entrance thought Fan Changyu intended to beat the men further and hurriedly tried persuading her.

“Changyu, don’t hit them anymore! Your husband already beat them up! Every single one of them has a broken leg now! Who knows how much compensation you’ll have to pay for medicine!”

The moment Fan Changyu heard the word compensation, she immediately grabbed the collar of the apparently unconscious Master Jin and hauled him upright.

Master Jin turned pale with terror. Nosebleeds streamed from both nostrils as he begged for mercy.

“Miss Fan! Miss Fan! Please be magnanimous and spare me! I won’t dare do it again!”

He shielded his face with both hands.

“You really can’t hit me anymore…”

Fan Changyu pointed angrily at her demolished front gate.

“You dog relying on others’ power! Your people tore down my gate—how are you planning to compensate me for that?”

She needed to calculate the losses quickly.

Ideally, even though these men had broken legs, they should not even dream of demanding medical compensation from her!

Her gaze swept further into the courtyard.

Aside from the cluster of terrified gambling house thugs, she surprisingly discovered that not a single jar or household item seemed broken.

The pale man seated beneath the eaves radiated oppressive authority despite his sickly complexion. Even the door behind him remained intact.

Clearly, the gambling house men had not even managed to enter the house.

Fan Changyu’s gaze shifted repeatedly over the man before finally spotting a faint bloodstain seeping through his clothes. Immediately, she found a new excuse to flare up again.

“My husband is injured! Yet your whole group bullied him alone and caused his wounds to worsen like this! Never mind the external injuries—who knows how severe the internal injuries are? Think of how much seeing a doctor will cost!”

Master Jin hurriedly shoved both hands into his clothes, frantically pulling out scattered silver bits and copper coins before thrusting them all toward her.

“I’ll pay! I’ll pay! Miss Fan, please let me go!”

Fan Changyu: “…”

She had only intended to scare the gambling house men a little.

But somehow the situation seemed to be developing in a very strange direction.

The moment she lost focus, her grip loosened slightly.

Master Jin immediately took the opportunity to throw down the silver and copper coins before scrambling away in terror.

The thugs in the courtyard froze briefly upon seeing this.

Then, one after another, they hurriedly dug out whatever coins they had hidden in their clothes, dropped them on the ground, and dragged their crippled legs as they fled from the Fan residence.

The watching neighbors stared at Fan Changyu and her sickly pale live-in husband as though they were monsters.

The gambling house thugs not only collected gambling debts, they also roamed the streets extorting protection money on a regular basis.

This was the first time anyone had ever managed to take money from them instead.

Even Fan Changyu herself felt stunned.

Only after the crowd gradually dispersed did she point toward the front gate, whose hinges had apparently been kicked apart and now leaned inward crookedly.

“They tore down the gate, right?”

The man beneath the eaves nodded.

Only then did Fan Changyu let out a breath of relief.

At least she had not wrongly accused anyone.

Her mood complicated, she bent down to gather the silver bits and copper coins before walking over and asking, “Your bandages are soaked through with blood again. Your wounds reopened, didn’t they?”

Xie Zheng remained silent.

Thinking about how every gambling house thug had limped away with a broken leg, Fan Changyu said awkwardly, “You’re already injured. If something like this happens again in the future, endure it if you can and wait for me to come back to handle it…”

Still, he said nothing.

Fan Changyu felt awkward herself.

After all, all this trouble had started because of her.

“When wounds keep reopening, the one suffering is still you.”

Only then did Xie Zheng finally speak.

“They were too noisy.”

Sunlight slanted across him, dividing his face along the bridge of his nose.

The upper half remained hidden beneath the eaves’ shadow, while the lower half reflected the sunlight. His pale complexion looked almost translucent like ice and snow.

It truly was an exceptionally beautiful face.

But his temperament was genuinely terrible.

Hearing his reason, Fan Changyu found herself speechless for a moment.

Xie Zheng clearly did not wish to continue the conversation and simply rose before returning to his room.

Little Changning timidly poked half her head out from the kitchen.

“Big Sister.”

Fan Changyu walked over and rubbed her sister’s head.

“Were you frightened?”

Changning nodded and then shook her head.

“Big Brother… Brother-in-law is amazing!”

Fan Changyu froze slightly at the way her sister addressed him, guessing Old Madam Zhao had probably taught her that term.

“Amazing at beating bad people?”

Changning nodded vigorously.

“Those people called Brother-in-law a pretty boy and mocked him for being lame, but Brother-in-law broke all their legs instead!”

Her eyes sparkled brightly as she spoke.

“Big Sister, what does ‘pretty boy’ mean? Does it mean Brother-in-law’s face is very pale?”

Remembering the things she herself had said earlier, Fan Changyu’s mood suddenly became somewhat complicated.

“That’s an insult. Ningniang mustn’t say it, understand?”

Little Changning obediently nodded.

Fan Changyu gave her the packet of malt sugar she had bought and told her to play in the courtyard without wandering off.

Then she found the family’s usual wound medicine and walked to Xie Zheng’s door.

After hesitating briefly, she raised a hand and knocked.

“What is it?” came the man’s cold yet magnetic voice from inside.

“I brought you some medicine.”

The room remained silent for quite a while.

Fan Changyu pressed her lips together before finally speaking anyway.

“I’m sorry. I should’ve realized earlier. Since you married into my family, they were definitely going to say awful things…”

The door suddenly opened.

Fan Changyu’s words stopped abruptly.

It seemed he had just been treating his wounds. His outer robe hung loosely over his shoulders, while only the lower ties of his inner garment had been fastened. The uppermost ties remained undone, revealing his elegant collarbones and part of his firm chest.

That aggressively handsome face wore an unpleasant expression.

“You think breaking one of their legs each wasn’t enough?”

Fan Changyu immediately shook her head.

Xie Zheng lazily lifted his eyelids.

“I don’t care enough about a few pieces of trash to take their words to heart. I already told you—they were simply too noisy.”

He turned and walked back inside.

Fan Changyu followed him in unconsciously asking, “Do you need help?”

The man suddenly turned back and gave her a meaningful look before fastening the final tie of his inner robe.

“It’s already taken care of.”

Fan Changyu: “…”

Why did he make it sound as though she wanted to help apply medicine because she had ulterior motives?

She was still holding the newly bought hair ribbon.

Giving it to him now would only make it seem as though she truly harbored improper intentions toward him.

So when his gaze swept toward it, she expressionlessly tied it around her own high ponytail instead.

“I bought this ribbon for myself.”

Dark blue was not particularly suitable for women, yet somehow it looked surprisingly heroic on her.

Xie Zheng’s expression turned somewhat subtle.

Fan Changyu felt she had finally regained some dignity.

She was not someone who held grudges long. After placing the medicine bottle on the table, she began explaining what happened at the county office.

“Uncle Wang told me Fan Da already submitted a complaint to the county office. Until the case is settled, I can’t transfer the property for now. I imagine the gambling den people lost face last time, so after communicating with Fan Da, they tried using this method to scare you away.”

In the gambling house men’s eyes, he was merely an injured outsider unfamiliar with Lin’an Town.

An easy target.

After all, most ordinary people would already have been scared senseless after being threatened like that.

If her live-in husband fled, then all her efforts at arranging the marriage would have been pointless, and the property would still end up in Fan Da’s hands.

The man who seemed indifferent to everything she said suddenly spoke.

“The section of the Great Yin Code concerning female household registration should include an additional clause allowing orphaned daughters to establish their own households.”

Fan Changyu knew widows could establish independent households, but orphaned daughters doing so was completely unheard of.

Girls like her who lost both parents usually had their property seized by clan relatives. The relatives would then raise them until they were old enough to marry.

As for how they were raised, that depended entirely on whether those relatives possessed any conscience at all.

Some sold girls directly into brothels.

Others treated them like servants, barking orders at them daily, then married them off like livestock to whoever offered enough money.

After her parents died, Fan Da and his wife had immediately come to take her and Changning away, claiming they would raise them like daughters.

How could Fan Changyu not know what kind of people they were?

She had refused no matter what, which eventually led to Fan Da repeatedly coming to seize the property deeds.

Clearly, she did not take Xie Zheng’s words seriously.

“The laws are made by high-ranking officials in the capital. Which of those officials doesn’t have multiple wives and countless children? They’d never face extinction of their family line. Even if disaster struck and only an orphaned daughter remained, she’d still live comfortably with respectable relatives. Those officials don’t know how orphan girls truly live among common people, so why would they create laws for them?”

Xie Zheng fell silent.

Before his downfall, he truly had never once heard of the struggles of orphaned girls among commoners.

Seeing him quiet, Fan Changyu assumed she had rebutted him too harshly and awkwardly tried to smooth things over.

“But if some official actually understood what orphan girls go through and was willing to create laws for them, that would still be a good thing.”

Xie Zheng, however, was genuinely considering the feasibility of allowing orphaned girls to establish households.

“The court already reduces labor service and taxes for female household heads. If orphaned daughters could establish households independently, they should receive the same treatment. However, if an orphaned daughter later marries or takes in a live-in husband, thereby adding a male member to the household, the tax exemptions would no longer apply. The paperwork involved would be extremely complicated.”

Fan Changyu listened in confusion.

“You know that much about the Great Yin Code?”

Realizing he had spoken too much, Xie Zheng lowered his eyes.

“I’ve simply seen more while traveling.”

Fan Changyu suspected nothing.

She pulled a folded document from the pocket fastened inside her clothes.

“Oh right—your household registration papers are ready. The constables in the county town are arresting refugees and beggars on sight now. Outsiders without registration papers or travel permits are being thrown into jail too. Replacing household registration right now is extremely difficult. Uncle Wang only managed it through personal connections.”

The moment Xie Zheng heard this, his gaze darkened noticeably.

“The constables are arresting refugees?”

Fan Changyu nodded.

“I saw it personally on my way back. Apparently the northwest just got a new military governor, and they’re afraid bandits and thieves will raid homes during the New Year.”

Then she suddenly looked up at him.

“I also heard that Marquis Wu’an died on the Chongzhou battlefield. Since you fled from Chongzhou, do you know whether it’s true?”

“I don’t.”

Fan Changyu sighed.

“If Marquis Wu’an really died, that’s honestly quite a pity.”

A faint mocking smile appeared upon his pale face.

“What is there to pity?”