Daylight streamed through the doors and windows, illuminating the entire room. The young woman’s youthful vigor and radiance were increasingly difficult to suppress. She spoke as if it were a matter of course: “Of course it’s a pity. How many Marquis of Wu’an have emerged in the hundreds of years of the Great Yin Dynasty?”
Fan Changyu counted on her fingers: “He recaptured Jinzhou, the throat of the northern frontier. He also recovered the twelve commanderies of Liaodong, which had cost countless loyal ministers and famous generals over decades of fighting. Although the battle of Jinzhou was controversial, when the Northern Jue captured Jinzhou years ago, didn’t they massacre the Central Plains people in the city?”
“General Xie died standing to preserve his dignity, but the Northern Jue people hung his corpse on the city wall. The civil officials denounced the Marquis of Wu’an as cold-blooded and brutal, but weren’t the soldiers and civilians who died in Jinzhou sixteen years ago innocent? How can they, with a mere flick of their tongues, so lightly dismiss the crimes of the Northern Jue on behalf of those who died? Without the Marquis of Wu’an, who knows who could have held the Northwest?”
Xie Zheng had heard too many righteous condemnations of his battle at Jinzhou, but this was the first time someone had spoken up for him.
He felt a strange sensation in his heart and couldn’t help but reassess the woman before him. “You’re quite bold in your speech.”
Fan Changyu looked at him, puzzled: “How the officials speak is their business. We commoners aren’t fools. The Marquis of Wu’an may have been brutal in military and political affairs, but he’s not as heinous evil as those scholars say. We commoners don’t curse the corrupt officials who exploit us, but we curse the Marquis of Wu’an for being too fierce in killing enemies. What kind of twisted thinking is that?”
Xie Zheng: “… Don’t people use his name to scare children at night?”
Fan Changyu replied, somewhat embarrassed: “My father looks too fierce when he’s slaughtering pigs. People in town often use my father’s name to scare children too.”
Xie Zheng: “…”
He raised his hand to press his brow, speechless for a while. Miraculously, the resentment and gloom in his heart dissipated a bit at that moment.
…
At lunchtime, Fan Changyu first lit incense for her parents’ memorial tablets. Xie Zheng, having heard her mention her father earlier, glanced at the tablets on the altar table against the wall in the main hall.
After seeing the names clearly, he suddenly asked, “Is your eldest uncle called Fan Daniu?”
Fan Changyu was somewhat surprised: “How do you know?”
Xie Zheng said: “Your father’s memorial tablet.”
Fan Changyu looked at the three characters “Fan Erniu” on her father’s tablet and immediately understood his meaning.
She said: “My father’s original name was Erniu, but he got lost as a child and found his way back to his family when he grew up. Later, the people in town gave my father a nickname, Fan Laohu, and everyone called him by that nickname.”
Xie Zheng merely nodded faintly, his gaze sweeping over her mother’s tablet. He noticed that her mother didn’t even have a surname; the name on the tablet was simply Lihua, which looked like a casually given name for a country person.
He couldn’t help but ask: “Were your and your younger sister’s names chosen by someone else?”
This couple didn’t seem like the type to choose names like Changyu and Changningg.
Fan Changyu put all the dishes on the table and said: “No, my mother chose them.”
Mentioning her mother, there was a hint of pride in her eyes: “My mother was amazing. She could read and write, and she knew how to blend fragrances and make powders. Other butchers would smell after killing pigs, but our family’s clothes, after washing, would be scented with my mother’s blended fragrances. We never had any odd smells.”
Xie Zheng’s cold eyes showed a hint of surprise: “Was your maternal family quite wealthy?”
Being literate and knowing how to blend fragrances and make powders, either skill alone was not common, let alone having both. It should have been the mark of a well-established family.
Fan Changyu shook her head: “I’ve never met my maternal grandparents. My mother was someone my father met when he was working as a caravan guard years ago. She wasn’t a young lady from a wealthy family; she had only been a maid in someone’s household.”
Lihua did indeed sound like a maid’s name.
If she was a maid from a prestigious family, it wouldn’t be strange for her to have these skills.
Fan Changyu said: “It’s a pity I’m not clever. I used to learn to read with my mother, but I’d get a headache whenever I looked at books. I didn’t learn fragrance blending and powder making well either. Otherwise, I’d have another way to make money now.”
Xie Zheng recalled the scene of her wielding a stick to beat people and said with an ambiguous tone: “Perhaps you have more talent in other areas.”
Fan Changyu nodded in agreement: “I think so too. If I hadn’t learned to slaughter pigs from my father, I might have had my house taken away by now and be living on the streets with Ning’er.”
Little Changningg was trying hard to pick up a meatball with her chopsticks. Hearing this, she widened her grape-like eyes: “Ning’er doesn’t want to live on the streets.”
Fan Changyu helped her sister put the meatball she had been struggling with into her bowl. “We won’t live on the streets. We’ll even buy a big house in the county town in the future.”
Changningg was reassured and continued her battle of wits with the meatball in her bowl, occasionally chatting with Fan Changyu.
Compared to the sisters’ chatter during the meal, Xie Zheng hardly spoke after he started eating, truly embodying the saying “silence while eating, silence while resting.”
His eating manners were also very refined, unlike Fan Changyu.
Pig slaughtering was physically demanding work, so she naturally ate more than ordinary women.
She directly picked up a large bowl to scoop rice, and Changningg followed suit, almost burying her entire face in the rice bowl.
The actions of the big and small ones were surprisingly consistent.
After finishing and putting down their bowls, they both sighed with satisfaction, as if the meal had become even more delicious.
It was the first time in Xie Zheng’s life that he had seen women eat like this, and his expression was quite peculiar.
In the afternoon, Fan Changyu found Carpenter Zhao to help repair the broken main door at home, while she went to the market with silver to buy pigs.
To deal with Fan Da for the wedding, her newly opened meat shop had been closed for three days. If she didn’t reopen soon, the reputation she had built with her braised offal would have been for nothing.
Before leaving, Xie Zheng suddenly asked her: “Since your mother was literate, do you have paper, ink, brush, and inkstone at home?”
Fan Changyu said: “Yes, do you need them?”
Xie Zheng nodded: “I’d like to borrow them.”
Fan Changyu then went to find the four treasures of the study that her mother had bought before. Because they had been stored for a long time, the paper had yellowed, the inkstone had a large chip, and the brush had become frayed like a broom.
When Xie Zheng saw the four treasures of the study placed before him, he was silent for a moment before thanking her.
It was still better than using charcoal to write on fabric.
Fan Changyu didn’t ask why he needed paper and brush, thinking that since he was literate, he might be bored at home with his leg injury and wanted to practice calligraphy or something.
After Fan Changyu left, Xie Zheng began grinding ink and writing in the room. The ink quality was poor and almost impossible to mix evenly in water.
He resisted the urge to throw the frayed brush and ink stick out the window, patiently writing an essay before Carpenter Zhao finished repairing the main door.
He asked Carpenter Zhao to help take this essay to a nearby bookstore to sell: “With the spring imperial examination approaching, essays should be selling well in various bookstores. Please trouble yourself to go to a bookstore and see if they would buy this kind of essay.”
Carpenter Zhao couldn’t read, but he could see that Xie Zheng’s handwriting was excellent. He exclaimed in surprise: “Young man, are you a scholar?”
Xie Zheng only said: “I studied for a few days when I was young, and gained some knowledge while traveling north and south as a caravan guard. Now that I’m injured and without money, I thought I’d try to earn some silver by writing essays.”
With the imperial power weakening and unrest in the northwest, these essays of his, once circulated, would stir up another wave of criticism against the Wei family among the scholars of the world, giving that father and son pair plenty to deal with, naturally leaving them no time to search for his whereabouts.
Some messages could also be subtly conveyed to his old subordinates through the essays.
The gyrfalcon appearing in towns would be too eye-catching, and if found by those with ulterior motives, it would certainly bring trouble.
Hearing him speak like this, Carpenter Zhao’s eyes immediately welled up: “You’re a good kid. That girl Changyu has had a hard life. For her to rescue you when you were injured in the wilderness, it must be fate between you two. Seeing how much you care for her, her grandmother and I can rest easy…”
Xie Zheng knew the old man had misunderstood his intention to earn money as concern for the butcher’s daughter. He wanted to explain, but couldn’t find a better explanation at the moment, so he could only respond with silence.
To Carpenter Zhao, this silence seemed like confirmation.
He felt even stranger in his heart, fearing that Fan Changyu might misunderstand as well. When Fan Changyu returned home, he deliberately acted more coldly, but his face usually lacked extra expressions anyway, and Fan Changyu was thick-skinned, so she didn’t notice anything unusual at all.
That night.
After making the bed in the north room and putting her younger sister to sleep, Fan Changyu went to the kitchen to braise the pork for tomorrow’s sale. Thinking that Yan Zheng was injured and might feel cold at night, she filled a charcoal basin with the remaining red coals from the stove and brought it to him.
Having lived in this room for over ten years, she hadn’t broken the habit of entering directly in such a short time. As soon as she entered the room, she realized he was half-undressed, applying medicine again.
However, Fan Changyu didn’t have time to feel embarrassed this time, because his entire back was covered in smeared blood, and there was quite a bit on his white undergarment as well.
During the day when she wanted to help him apply medicine, he refused. She thought his wounds hadn’t opened much, but she didn’t expect them to be this severe.
Xie Zheng frowned as soon as she pushed the door open, about to put his clothes back on, but was stopped by a pair of warm, strong hands on his shoulders.
The shiver at the moment their skin touched made his brow furrow even more. He instinctively wanted to brush away the hand on his shoulder but was restrained by her, unable to move.
Xie Zheng’s breath caught, and there was a hint of bewilderment in his beautiful eyes, unsure if he was surprised by this woman’s strength or her boldness: “You…”
“What ‘you’? Do you not want to live? Is it so difficult for you to ask someone for help applying medicine?”
Seeing the open wounds on his back, Fan Changyu didn’t give him a pleasant look. She didn’t know what this person was being stubborn about; his injuries kept reopening, how much silver would it take to treat them?
As she took the medicine bottle from the table and sprinkled it on the bloody wounds on his back, she couldn’t help but mutter: “A grown man, what are you being so fussy about!”
Xie Zheng’s temple twitched violently. The woman’s hand was still on his shoulder, and half of his shoulder felt as if it had been branded by a hot iron. His brows were tightly knitted: “Men and women should not have physical contact.”
Fan Changyu said: “I carried you back from the wilderness! As for contact, we’ve already had plenty!”
As soon as the words left her mouth, the entire room fell into silence.
Fan Changyu also realized she had misspoken. She usually hated studying, yet this person had to speak so formally with her. She irritably scratched her head: “I didn’t mean I had… ugh…”
Xie Zheng’s eyelids started to twitch, and he interrupted her before she could say something shocking again: “I understand your meaning.”
Fan Changyu quickly nodded: “As long as you understand.”
Afraid that he might misunderstand her intentions, she gritted her teeth and lied against her conscience: “Don’t worry, I have no designs on you. I… I haven’t gotten over my former fiancé yet! After all, we were childhood sweethearts. He was so handsome and so smart, the only one in the entire county to pass the provincial examination. How could I say I’ve gotten over him when I haven’t?”
After saying this, Fan Changyu felt goosebumps all over her body.
The man before her had an indescribable expression and only said: “My condolences.”
Fan Changyu:?
Song Yan wasn’t dead yet!
Hm. It seems her parents may have secret origins. Considering her father was strong, covered in scars, clearly had martial skills that he passed to his eldest daughter, and insisted on a humble job as a butcher instead of working for the yamen…I smell a mystery! A noble family fleeing from persecution perhaps?