Sunlight streamed through the doors and windows, filling the entire room with brightness. The youthful vitality and radiance on the girl’s face became impossible to suppress. She spoke as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

“Of course it’s a pity. In the hundreds of years of the Great Yin Dynasty, how many Marquis Wu’an could there possibly be?”

Fan Changyu began counting on her fingers.

“He reclaimed Jinzhou, the throat of the northern frontier. He also recovered the twelve Liaodong prefectures that had cost countless loyal officials and famous generals their lives over decades of war. Though the Battle of Jinzhou remains controversial, when Jinzhou originally fell to the Northern Beidi, weren’t the Central Plains people in the city massacred too?”

“General Xie died standing to preserve his dignity, yet the Northern Beidi hung his corpse on the city walls to rot in the sun. The scholars condemn Marquis Wu’an as cold-blooded and cruel, but were the soldiers and civilians who died in Jinzhou sixteen years ago not innocent too? Why can those scholars simply flap their lips and lightly brush aside the Northern Beidi’s crimes on behalf of the dead? Without Marquis Wu’an, who knows whether anyone can still defend the northwest?”

Xie Zheng had heard countless righteous condemnations of his actions during the Battle of Jinzhou.

This was the first time anyone had ever spoken in his defense.

A strange feeling stirred within him, and he could not help reexamining the woman before him.

“You really dare to say such things.”

Fan Changyu looked at him in confusion.

“What officials say is the business of officials. We common people aren’t stupid. Marquis Wu’an’s military methods may indeed have been ruthless, but he’s nowhere near as monstrous as those scholars claim. Instead of cursing corrupt officials who squeeze the people dry, we’re supposed to curse Marquis Wu’an for killing enemies too fiercely? Someone would have to be seriously wrong in the head to think like that!”

Xie Zheng: “…Isn’t his name commonly used to scare children into silence?”

Fan Changyu looked slightly embarrassed.

“My father looked terrifying when slaughtering pigs. The townspeople used his name to scare children too.”

Xie Zheng: “…”

He raised a hand to rub his brow and remained speechless for quite some time.

Yet somehow, the hostility and gloom long buried in his heart unexpectedly eased a little at that moment.

—

At lunchtime, Fan Changyu first lit incense before her parents’ memorial tablets.

Xie Zheng had heard her mention her father earlier, so he casually glanced toward the memorial table against the wall of the main hall.

After seeing the names on the tablets, he suddenly asked, “Is your eldest uncle called Fan Daniu?”

Fan Changyu looked surprised.

“How did you know?”

Xie Zheng replied, “Your father’s memorial tablet.”

Fan Changyu glanced at the words “Fan Erniu” on her father’s tablet and instantly understood.

“My father’s real name was Erniu, but he got lost as a child and only found his family again after growing up. Later, the townspeople gave him the nickname ‘Fan Tiger,’ so everyone just called him by that instead.”

Xie Zheng merely nodded faintly.

Then his gaze swept toward her mother’s memorial tablet, only to discover that her mother did not even have a surname recorded. The name on the tablet was simply Lihua, sounding like the kind of casual name given to servant girls in the countryside.

He could not help asking, “Were your names and your sister’s names chosen by someone else?”

The couple did not seem like the sort who would come up with names like Changyu and Changning.

As Fan Changyu set the dishes onto the table, she replied, “No, my mother named us.”

Mentioning her mother filled her brows and eyes with a trace of pride.

“My mother was amazing. She could read and write, and she also knew how to blend incense and make cosmetics. Other butchers always smelled strongly after slaughtering pigs, but our family’s clothes were always fumigated with incense she blended after washing, so they never carried any unpleasant odors.”

A trace of surprise appeared in Xie Zheng’s normally indifferent eyes.

“Your maternal family was quite wealthy?”

Being literate alone was already uncommon.

Knowing how to blend incense and make powders was another uncommon skill.

Possessing both suggested a household of considerable status and refinement.

Fan Changyu shook her head.

“I never met my maternal grandfather. My mother met my father while he was escorting caravans years ago. She wasn’t some wealthy family’s daughter either. She had only worked as a servant in another household.”

Lihua did indeed sound like a servant’s name.

If she had served in an influential household, knowing such things would not be surprising.

Fan Changyu continued, “Unfortunately, I’m stupid. Back when my mother tried teaching me to read, I’d get headaches just looking at books. I never learned incense blending properly either. Otherwise, I’d have another way to earn money now.”

Remembering the sight of her swinging a club while beating people, Xie Zheng remarked meaningfully, “Perhaps your talents simply lie elsewhere.”

Fan Changyu nodded in wholehearted agreement.

“I think so too. If I hadn’t learned pig slaughtering from my father, I probably would’ve already lost the property and ended up sleeping on the streets with Ningniang.”

Little Changning was currently struggling valiantly to pick up a meatball with her chopsticks. Hearing this, she widened her grape-like eyes.

“Ningniang doesn’t want to sleep on the streets.”

Fan Changyu helped place the meatball her sister had failed to pick up into her bowl.

“We won’t sleep on the streets. In the future, we’ll even buy a huge house in the county town.”

Only then did Changning feel reassured. She resumed battling the meatball in her bowl with her chopsticks while occasionally chatting with Fan Changyu.

Compared to the lively chatter between the sisters during the meal, Xie Zheng barely spoke after picking up his chopsticks.

He truly embodied the phrase “do not speak while eating or sleeping.”

Even his manner of eating was elegant.

Fan Changyu, however, was completely different.

Pig slaughtering required physical labor, and since she expended far more energy than ordinary women, naturally she also ate more.

She directly lifted a massive bowl and shoveled rice into her mouth.

Changning copied her exactly, nearly burying her entire face inside the bowl.

The two sisters’ movements were astonishingly synchronized.

After finishing, both set down their bowls and let out deeply satisfied sighs, as though the meal had somehow become even more delicious because of it.

For the first time in his life, Xie Zheng witnessed women eating like this.

His expression became exceedingly complicated.

—

That afternoon, Fan Changyu invited Carpenter Zhao over to repair the broken front gate while she herself headed to the market carrying silver to buy pigs.

To deal with Fan Da during the wedding, her newly opened meat stall had already remained closed for three days. If she did not reopen it soon, all the reputation she had built using braised pork offal would go to waste.

Before she left, Xie Zheng suddenly asked, “Since your mother could read and write, does your household have paper, ink, brushes, and inkstones?”

Fan Changyu replied, “Yes. Do you need them?”

Xie Zheng nodded.

“I’d like to borrow them.”

Fan Changyu then dug out the set of writing materials her mother used to own.

Since they had been stored for so long, the paper had yellowed considerably. The inkstone had a large chip missing from it, and the goat-hair brush had split apart so badly it resembled a broom.

Seeing the writing supplies placed before him, Xie Zheng fell silent briefly before thanking her anyway.

At least they were better than using charcoal to write on cloth.

Fan Changyu did not ask what he wanted them for. Since he was literate, she assumed he was simply too bored staying at home with injured legs and wanted to practice calligraphy or something.

After she left, Xie Zheng immediately began grinding ink and writing.

The quality of the ink was poor and barely dissolved properly in water.

Suppressing the urge to throw the broom-like brush and lump-like inkstick out the window, he patiently wrote an entire current affairs essay before Carpenter Zhao finished repairing the gate.

He then asked Carpenter Zhao to sell the essay at a nearby bookstore.

“With the imperial examinations approaching, current affairs essays should sell quite well at bookstores. Please help me make a trip there and see whether they accept essays like this.”

Carpenter Zhao could not read, but he could tell Xie Zheng’s handwriting was exceptionally good.

Surprised, he asked, “So young sir is a scholar too?”

Xie Zheng merely replied, “I studied for a few years in my youth. Traveling around while escorting caravans let me gain some knowledge and experience. Now that I’m injured and penniless, I thought I might try earning silver by writing essays.”

With the imperial family weakened and unrest spreading in the northwest, once these essays circulated, they would surely stir up another tidal wave of criticism against the Wei family among scholars throughout the empire.

That would keep the Wei father and son occupied and leave them with no spare attention to search for him.

Certain messages could also be subtly conveyed to his former subordinates through the essays.

After all, having a gyrfalcon frequently appear around towns was far too conspicuous. If anyone traced it, trouble would inevitably follow.

Hearing this, Carpenter Zhao’s eyes immediately reddened.

“You’re a good child. Changyu has had a hard life. The fact she happened to save you out in the wilderness was probably fate between you two. Seeing how considerate you are toward her, my wife and I can finally feel relieved…”

Xie Zheng knew the old man had misunderstood his intention to earn money as concern for the butcher girl.

He wanted to explain, but at the moment he could think of no better excuse, so he could only remain silent.

In Carpenter Zhao’s eyes, however, that silence was effectively an admission.

The strange feeling in Xie Zheng’s heart deepened.

Afraid Fan Changyu might misunderstand as well, he deliberately acted even colder than usual after she returned home.

Unfortunately, his face was ordinarily expressionless to begin with, while Fan Changyu herself was too dense to notice anything unusual at all.

—

That night.

After preparing the bed in the north room and settling her younger sister to sleep, Fan Changyu went to the kitchen to braise the pork she planned to sell the next day.

Remembering that Yan Zheng was injured and likely sensitive to the cold at night, she gathered the remaining glowing charcoal from the stove into a brazier and carried it to his room.

Since it had been her room for over ten years, she still had not broken the habit of entering without knocking.

The moment she pushed open the door, she discovered him once again half-undressed while applying medicine.

This time, however, Fan Changyu had no time to feel embarrassed.

His entire back was stained with spreading blood, and even his white inner garment was soaked in places.

Earlier during the day, she had wanted to help him apply medicine, but he had refused. She had assumed the wounds had only reopened slightly.

Who would have thought they were this severe?

The instant she entered, Xie Zheng frowned beautifully and instinctively reached to pull his clothes back on.

Before he could, however, a pair of warm and surprisingly strong hands pressed down onto his shoulders.

The tremor that shot through him at the moment their skin touched made his brows knit even tighter.

Instinctively, he tried to push away the hand restraining his shoulder, only to discover that she held him firmly in place.

Xie Zheng’s breathing stalled slightly.

A trace of astonishment appeared in his beautiful eyes—whether at the incredible strength of the woman before him or at her sheer audacity, even he did not know.

“You…”

“What ‘you’?”

Seeing the reopened wounds across his back, Fan Changyu’s expression had already soured.

“Are you trying to die? Is asking someone to help apply medicine really that difficult for you?”

She truly could not understand what he was being stubborn about. If his injuries kept reopening like this, how much money would treatment ultimately cost?

As she picked up the medicine bottle and sprinkled powder onto the bloody wounds on his back, she muttered, “A grown man acting so delicate.”

A vein twitched sharply at Xie Zheng’s temple.

The woman’s hand still rested against his shoulder, and half his body felt as though it had been branded by hot iron.

His brows furrowed tightly.

“Men and women should not touch freely.”

Fan Changyu replied immediately, “I was the one who carried you back from the wilderness in the first place! Whether it’s proper or not, we already touched plenty!”

The instant the words left her mouth, the entire room fell silent.

Fan Changyu also realized she had misspoken.

She hated reading most in life, yet this man insisted on speaking to her in such scholarly phrases. Irritated, she scratched her head furiously.

“That’s not what I meant by touching you… ah…”

Even Xie Zheng’s eyelids began twitching.

Before she could say anything even more shocking, he interrupted her.

“I know what you mean.”

Fan Changyu immediately nodded.

“As long as you know.”

Afraid he would misunderstand and think she harbored feelings for him, she gritted her teeth and lied against her conscience.

“Don’t worry. I don’t have designs on you. I… I still haven’t gotten over my former fiancé! We grew up together after all. He’s handsome and smart and the only person in the entire county who passed the provincial examinations. How could I truly forget him just because I say I have?”

After saying all that, goosebumps broke out all over Fan Changyu’s body.

The man before her wore an unreadable expression.

After a moment, he merely said, “My condolences.”

Fan Changyu: “?”

Song Yan wasn’t dead!