Fan Changyu was stunned. Only when she felt a sharp pain on her lips did she react? Mortified, her other hand instinctively swung towards his face. However, he seemed prepared, easily intercepting her hand and pulling her more forcefully towards himself. His rock-hard chest and iron-like arms tightly encircled her.
Fan Changyu had never been treated like this before. She struggled with brute force, but her efforts were skillfully neutralized by her opponent. Enraged, she focused all her strength on her teeth, biting down hard. Xie Zheng let out a soft hiss. When they separated, there was blood on his lips. He frowned, “You—”
Before he could finish, Fan Changyu headbutted him fiercely, her forehead colliding with the bridge of his nose. His nose stung, forcing him to release one hand to cover it. In the next instant, Fan Changyu’s free hand landed a brutal punch to his eye.
Despite the pain, Xie Zheng didn’t release his grip on her other hand. With a powerful backward pull, he pinned both her hands against the wall, using his body to press against her back. His tone turned cold, “Are you that aggrieved?”
Fan Changyu felt like biting him to death. Due to her previous wrist injury, she couldn’t break free from his restraint.
She cursed, “What madness has possessed you? If you want women, there are plenty willing to do business with you in the brothels. What do you take me for?”
Xie Zheng suddenly raised his head, his dark eyes unfathomable. “Is that what you think of me?”
Immobilized and humiliated, Fan Changyu’s eyes nearly sparked with fury. “What do you think you were doing just now? Taking advantage of someone!”
Xie Zheng seemed to have reached the peak of his anger, letting out a cold laugh. “Taking advantage? If I truly wanted to take advantage of you, I wouldn’t have waited until now.”
He released her and stepped back, the curve of his lips frigid. “Can’t let go of your former fiancé? Planning to find someone similar in the future? Haven’t you learned your lesson?”
Fan Changyu, still reeling from his advances, now heard his mocking and lecturing tone. Her anger surged, and before she knew it, she had swung another punch at his face. “Whether I can let go or not is none of your business!”
Xie Zheng neither dodged nor evaded, taking her forceful punch head-on. His lip split open, and half his face flushed an unexpectedly beautiful shade on his jade-like visage.
Fan Changyu was stunned after landing the punch, knowing full well how much force she had put behind it.
Why… didn’t he dodge?
Xie Zheng probed the split on his lip with his tongue, tasting a faint metallic flavor. He turned to look at Fan Changyu and asked, “Not going to continue?”
Fan Changyu couldn’t describe the feeling in her heart at that moment. Her knuckles still ached slightly; his face must be in worse condition.
But after what he had done to her, she couldn’t bring herself to apologize. She pressed her lips tightly and turned to go inside.
Unexpectedly, the man a step away suddenly closed in like a ghost. Fan Changyu only saw his alarmingly dark eyes before she was seized by the back of her head and kissed again.
Her scalp nearly exploded, but having lost the initiative, she was at a disadvantage. Amidst her struggles, she was pressed against the wall, both her hands pinned above her head. Using his physical advantage, he pressed tightly against her. As he lowered his head, his breath, unlike his usual light exhalations, fanned across her face as he kissed her more savagely and roughly than before.
Fan Changyu, enraged, bit him hard. He quickly restrained her jaw with some clever maneuver, preventing her from biting again. Yet he showed no intention of backing away. Instead, he took advantage of this opportunity to forcefully part her teeth, thoroughly exploring her mouth several times.
When it ended, Fan Changyu could barely catch her breath. Momentarily oxygen-deprived, she forgot to punch him again and just stared at him in disbelief.
Xie Zheng released her, wiping the blood from his lips with his index finger. He said, “Now that was taking advantage.”
The anger of being violated and toyed with surged straight to Fan Changyu’s head. As soon as Xie Zheng released his hold on her limbs and stepped back, she immediately drew the boning knife she always carried and held it against his neck. “Who do you think you are, thinking you can humiliate me as you please?”
Xie Zheng leaned against a wooden pillar, the knife at his throat, yet his expression remained unchanged. Only when he heard Fan Changyu’s words did he raise his eyes, his expression unusually serious. “Rather than having poor judgment and finding another ingrate in the future, you might as well be with me.”
These words, once spoken, stunned not only Fan Changyu but also Xie Zheng himself. Then, a numb sense of pleasure washed over him, as if his rationality had been forcibly destroyed.
Yes, wouldn’t it be better to keep her by his side rather than let her marry someone else in the future?
Having opened this door, the following words seemed easier to say. He was silent for a moment, then slowly said, “I have a formidable enemy outside. I might die by his hand, or he might die, and I might live. If you’re willing, just wait for me for two years. If I die, someone will come to inform you. Then you can marry someone else if you wish.”
Fan Changyu coldly stared at him. “You keep saying Song Yan is an ingrate, but how are you any better? You take liberties with me, then tell me you have feelings for me?”
She put away her knife. The anger of being violated momentarily overshadowed other emotions. She raised her sleeve and wiped her lips forcefully. “I hit you, so we’re even now. Everything is on the table. As soon as the city gates are open, you should leave.”
Xie Zheng watched her retreating into the room, unable to muster even a cold smile.
So, he had been rejected?
From birth until now, having tasted defeat only once on the Chongzhou battlefield, this time, he experienced the taste of failure in a different arena.
He didn’t take the items from the hall table. After standing by the corridor pillar for a while, he left the Fan family courtyard.
Due to the recent riots in Qingping County and the current martial law imposed by the authorities, the streets of Lin’an Town were desolate, with hardly any farmers coming to the market.
Xie Zheng wandered to the pine forest by the river outside the town. The ground was covered with about a foot of snow. The river, fed by the undulating terrain, flowed rapidly. The thin layer of ice that had formed on the river’s surface last night had already cracked, and the sound of spring water could be heard from halfway up the mountain.
He lay down in the snow on a gentle slope, using one arm as a pillow behind his head, staring blankly at the faint outline of Lin’an Town in the distance.
On the Chongzhou battlefield, when he was set up and his life hung by a thread, he hadn’t panicked. When he miraculously survived and was chased for over a hundred miles by assassins, he hadn’t feared. When he fell off a cliff and was carried by the river to Jizhou, waking up on the riverbank, he endured wounds from swords and arrows and high fever from the cold as he searched for a village. He fainted in the wilderness and was picked up by that woman.
At that time, all he had planned was how to stabilize the situation in the Northwest and then step by step seek revenge against the Wei father and son.
When did he start feeling reluctant to leave?
In that small house, always noisy and full of the aroma of home-cooked meals. He had seen too many spines bent by hardship, but that woman, even if the sky were to fall, would straighten her frail back to bear it.
Perhaps… it had just been too long since anyone had been so purely kind to him.
The dried tangerine peel when he drank medicine, the red envelope for the new year… A mocking smile crept onto Xie Zheng’s lips as the phrase “begging for favor with a wagging tail” crossed his mind for an instant.
She was probably just too kind-hearted. Even if it hadn’t been him she rescued that day if it had been anyone else, she would have cared for them just as wholeheartedly, bought candy, prepared a New Year’s red envelope…
Because he was pitiful, so she was kind to him, not because she had any feelings for him.
His suggestion that she should be with him had indeed become a joke.
A man who had been proud all his life was unwilling to admit this laughable defeat.
In the sky, a gyrfalcon circled, screeching as if looking for someone.
This time, Xie Zheng didn’t whistle for a long while. He turned his head slightly and saw a tender green sprout breaking through the snow near the riverbank where most of the snow had melted, standing vibrant amidst the white expanse.
“As the ice melts, spring water flows; as the snow clears, grass sprouts grow.”
This was the New Year couplet he had written for her.
He looked at it for a while, then sat up halfway, plucked the sprout, and tossed it into the rushing water, silently watching as the river carried it away.
A disturbance in the heart plucked out and discarded.
The circling gyrfalcon in the sky finally spotted him and dove down. Xie Zheng didn’t raise his hand to receive it. The gyrfalcon landed and stood for a while, not seeing Xie Zheng take the message. It tilted its head to look at him, then walked closer and gently pecked at the back of his hand with its beak.
Xie Zheng raised his hand to smooth the feathers on top of the gyrfalcon’s head, his gaze still fixed on the distant flowing water. After a long while, he finally took the message paper from its foot.
He quickly scanned the message. The paper crumbled to pieces between his fingers. He cast one last glance at Lin’an Town in the distance and said, “Let’s go. It’s time to return.”
In Jizhou.
An urgent report from Jinzhou arrived at the Jizhou government office, shocking all the officials who read it.
“The Northern Yue people have indeed attacked Jinzhou!”
“Fortunately, the Marquis of Wu’an didn’t perish in Chongzhou. With the Marquis of Wu’an stationed in Jinzhou, those Northern Yue barbarians will surely tremble at the mere mention of his name!”
He Jingyuan, seated at the top of the meeting hall, remained stone-faced and silent. Just then, a guard reported from outside, “Lu City is in dire straits! General Guo Xinhou, under the command of Prince Changxin, is leading an army of fifty thousand to surround Lu City!”
This news caused an even greater uproar among the officials in the hall.
How long had it been since the Crown Prince of Prince Changxin, leading a group of assassins disguised as farmers, had incited the people of Qingping County to rebel?
If the uprising in Qingping County hadn’t been suppressed and the people had truly revolted, Lu City, being the first major military defense between Jizhou and Chongzhou, with Qingping County right behind it, would indeed be caught between two fires.
One official cursed loudly, “These rebels had this planned all along! With Jinzhou in danger, the Marquis of Wu’an’s main force stationed in Huizhou will surely be sent to Jinzhou, leaving no strength to deal with the rebels! The rebels are seizing this opportunity to swallow up the Northwest!”
A military officer said, “The urgent matter now is that the rebels have already reached Lu City. We need to figure out how to defend Jizhou.”
If Lu City fell, Jizhou would lose its shield.
Amidst the clamor, He Jingyuan spoke, “Guo Xinhou is an old general skilled in military strategy. I will personally go to Lu City to take command.”
“My lord, you absolutely must not! Lu City is extremely dangerous now, with fifty thousand rebel troops at its gates and only twenty thousand troops within. If anything were to happen to you, we would be guilty of an unforgivable crime!”
As He Jingyuan raised his hand to signal the officials below not to speak further, he said, “If I go into danger, won’t the soldiers defending Lu City be in danger too? If I go, the rebels will be wary of me, and Lu City might not be as perilous. You’ll also have enough time to recruit more soldiers from the civilians.”
As soon as the meeting ended, cavalry riders carried conscription orders, galloping toward various prefectures and counties.
In Lin’an Town.
Fan Changyu had been in a bad mood all afternoon because of Xie Zheng’s impulsiveness.
She opened a book on the table, hoping to distract herself, but seeing the dense annotations in small handwriting, she felt a lump in her throat that wouldn’t go up or down.
These annotations were all written by him during those late nights.
As her anger slowly subsided, remembering what he said about possibly dying at the hands of his enemies, Fan Changyu felt uneasy.
Had he always said he wanted to leave because he was burdened with a great vendetta?
She walked out of her room. Passing through the main hall, she saw the pile of things she had prepared for him still on the table, including the divorce papers. Both sheets only bore her name; he hadn’t signed or stamped them. Her feelings became even more complex.
Chang Ning and Yu Bao’er had gone out to play with the children in the alley and hadn’t returned yet.
Fan Changyu walked to the door of the south room, hesitated for a moment, and then knocked.
There was no response from inside.
Fan Changyu pressed her lips together, knocked twice more, and called out, “Yan Zheng, are you there?”
She was still met with silence.
Remembering the harsh words she had said in her anger, Fan Changyu worried that Yan Zheng might have left without saying goodbye. She pushed the door open forcefully, saw that he hadn’t taken any of his belongings, and her heart finally settled back in place.
He must have gone out to clear his mind.
Fan Changyu closed the door and was about to return to her room when she heard a commotion of crying and scolding from soldiers outside the alley.
“Officer! Officer! My son is the only one I have! Please have mercy on us, mother and son…”
“The rebels are about to attack Jizhou. If your son doesn’t go to the battlefield, are you waiting for the rebels to come and massacre Jizhou?”
Fan Changyu’s heart skipped a beat. She opened the courtyard door and looked out to see armored soldiers barging into houses to seize men.
Sitting on the ground, crying and wailing was Madam Kang.
She clung to her son, refusing to let go, but was no match for the strength of several robust soldiers. Her son was taken away by the soldiers.
Madam Kang cried out, “Son, don’t be afraid. I’ll go to the Song family right away to find Scholar Song. I’ll ask him to plead with the County Magistrate and have you released.”
Seeing that these soldiers were wearing the uniforms of Jizhou Prefecture, Fan Changyu knew that appealing to the County Magistrate would be useless unless the magistrate was willing to lower himself to curry favor with the officer in charge of conscription and offer some benefits.
She immediately became worried about Yan Zheng.
Once conscripted, they wouldn’t be able to return home until the war was over. More likely, they would die on the battlefield, perhaps without even a place for their bones to be buried.
The children playing outside, seeing this commotion, didn’t dare to be naughty anymore and ran home.
Chang Ning brought Yu Bao’er to the front door, both hiding behind Fan Changyu, only half their heads peeking out timidly to watch the soldiers who had invaded the alley.
Chang Ning looked up nervously and asked Fan Changyu, “Sister, Yanzi’s big brother was taken away by these soldiers. Will brother-in-law be taken away by them too?”
Fan Changyu wasn’t sure either. This was her first time witnessing conscription.
She had heard from Madam Zhao before that it was possible to use silver to substitute for a conscripted person, but this time it didn’t seem to work.
She ushered the two children into the courtyard, saying, “You two go inside first.”
She had just closed the courtyard gate when she saw the ten-household head leading soldiers to her gate.
According to the current dynasty’s laws, civilians were organized into groups of five households as a unit and ten households as a larger unit. Taxation and conscription were based on these neighboring ten households. If anyone was found harboring draft dodgers, all ten households would be punished.
The ten-household head looked embarrassed as he truthfully reported Fan Changyu’s household situation to the soldiers: “This is the head of this household, surnamed Fan, called Changyu. She took in a husband.”
Hearing that it was a married-in husband, the soldiers were surprised. Seeing only Fan Changyu outside and the courtyard gate tightly closed, their faces darkened. They barked, “Where’s your husband?”
Fan Changyu pressed her lips tightly. At this moment, if she said she and Yan Zheng were already divorced, but the divorce papers inside the house still lacked his fingerprint, it would undoubtedly be pushing the other nine households into the fire.
But if she let Yan Zheng be taken away, it would be an undeserved calamity for him.
After careful consideration, Fan Changyu truthfully said, “He’s not at home.”
That soldier seemed to have heard this excuse many times. His face turned grim as he raised his foot to kick the door. The soldier beside him, holding documents, seemed literate and had already found Fan Changyu’s name on the Lin’an Town register. He quickly stopped his companion: “Wait.”
He looked at the register carefully again, then at Fan Changyu: “You’re Fan Changyu, right?”
Fan Changyu replied neither humbly nor arrogantly, “Yes, I am.”
The literate soldier said to his companion, “Her husband is already on the conscription list. He must have been among the batch of people we caught on the road earlier.”
Fan Changyu’s heart raced. She hurriedly asked, “My husband has already been taken away? Are you sure you didn’t make a mistake, officer?”
The literate soldier looked at the register and said, “Isn’t your husband called Yan Zheng?”
Hearing this name, Fan Changyu’s last glimmer of hope vanished.
She said hoarsely, “Yes, that’s my husband.”
As the ten-household head led the soldiers to knock on the next door, Fan Changyu, feeling cold in her hands and feet, crouched down at the courtyard gate.
With Yan Zheng’s skills, if he wanted to leave, the soldiers couldn’t have stopped him.
He had read so many books and was well-versed in the law. Was he afraid of implicating the nine neighboring households, so he willingly let himself be taken by the soldiers?
Fan Changyu thought of the pile of things she had prepared for him on the table inside, and their recent parting on bad terms. Her chest felt increasingly tight and uncomfortable, not knowing if it was guilt or something else.
She sat there blankly for a moment, then suddenly seemed to remember something. She raised her head and asked the soldiers who were knocking on doors: “Officer, where is my husband now? Can I see him one more time? He was taken away while he was out. I want to bring him some things.”
The soldier looked at Fan Changyu and said, “The batch caught on the road has already been sent to the county town. They’re about to leave with the main army for Lu City. Whether you can catch up with them now, I don’t know.”
Hearing this, Fan Changyu thanked him, entrusted Chang Ning and Yu Bao’er to the neighboring aunt, rushed into the house to grab the package of things on the table, stuffed two packs of dried tangerine peel candy into it, and hurried towards the county town.
Finding the ox cart too slow, she borrowed a horse from someone. But when she reached the county town gate, she was still a step too late. The first batch of conscripted soldiers from the county had already left with the garrison towards Lu City.
Except for those on the conscription list, ordinary people still couldn’t easily enter or leave Qingping County.
The snow was falling heavily. Fan Changyu stood at the city gate holding the large package and leading the horse, looking at the official road extending into the distance through the gate’s opening.
Her chest felt tight. She led the horse back without a word.
On the way, someone bumped into her, scattering the contents of her bundle on the ground. Fan Changyu silently picked up each item. When she came to the two packs of dried tangerine peel candy, she put one piece in her mouth.
She thought it was good that she didn’t catch up. These two packs of candy were too sour and not as sweet as before.
Even if she had given them to Yan Zheng, he probably wouldn’t have liked them.
After tidying up the things and hanging the bundle on the saddle, she rested her head against the saddle for a while.
How did it end up like this?
She was angry with him, but without even saying a word of goodbye, he was conscripted. She felt as if she owed him something.
When she returned to town, she encountered the second batch of newly conscripted soldiers being escorted to the county town.
Relatives were crying and seeing them off all the way. Those conscripted also had red eyes, repeatedly telling their families not to see them off any further.
Fan Changyu noticed that even old Carpenter Zhao was among the crowd.
She couldn’t help but call out, “Uncle Zhao, how come you’re going to Lu City too?”
Carpenter Zhao’s wrinkled old face twisted bitterly as he said, “This old man chose the wrong profession. When I was young, I was a veterinarian. Now that I’m old, I’m a carpenter. Those officers said I could treat war horses in the army and also build siege engines.”
The soldiers were using whips to urge the crowd to move faster.
Fearing that Carpenter Zhao, at his age, might die from exhaustion just from the journey, Fan Changyu hesitated briefly and then said, “Uncle Zhao, take this horse!”
Seeing Fan Changyu approach, the soldiers were about to drive her away, but when they heard she was offering a horse, they immediately turned a blind eye.
Horses were valuable. They could carry people and goods, and in case of an attack, riding a horse might even save one’s life.
Carpenter Zhao refused, “This horse is too precious. How could I take it?”
Fan Changyu handed the horse’s reins to Carpenter Zhao, “Please take it. The things in the bundle are what I prepared for Yan Zheng. I didn’t catch up with him. Uncle Zhao, if you see Yan Zheng in Lu City, please help me give these things to him.”
Hearing this, Carpenter Zhao stopped refusing, feeling sorry for the young couple. He said, “Don’t worry. As long as these old bones of mine are still alive, I’ll deliver these things to him.”
Fan Changyu watched Carpenter Zhao leave until he was out of sight, then walked back to town on foot and settled the payment for the horse.
When she went to Madam Zhao’s house to pick up Chang Ning and Yu Bao’er, Madam Zhao, hearing that Fan Changyu had bought a horse for Carpenter Zhao, cried while expressing gratitude to Fan Changyu.
If conscripts brought their horses, it would be considered their private property. In the military camp, most would be assigned to the cavalry.
Even if someone wasn’t fit enough for the cavalry, they wouldn’t be mistreated.
After comforting Madam Zhao, Fan Changyu took Chang Ning and Yu Bao’er home. The two children seemed to sense that someone was missing from the house and weren’t as noisy. Enveloped in this silence, Fan Changyu felt even more that the house had become strangely empty.
It was strange. Yan Zheng wasn’t a talkative person to begin with.
Why did everything seem different now that he was gone?
Fan Changyu went to tidy up the south room and found that the desk he had used was very neat, almost requiring no tidying up.
In the corner of the desk was a pair of leather wristguards, with tools like files next to them, and a piece of paper underneath.
Looking at the size of the wristguards, they didn’t seem to be Yan Zheng’s.
Fan Changyu picked them up and saw only eight characters written on the paper: “Happy birthday, may you have eternal joy and no worries.”
The memory of Yan Zheng asking about her birthday flooded back. Suddenly, Fan Changyu felt as if the pair of wristguards in her hands weighed a thousand pounds.
She lowered her eyes to examine them carefully and found that one of them seemed to have been re-polished. When fastened to the wrist, the leather fit extremely well.
When Fan Changyu tried to undo the clasp on the wristguard, she didn’t know if her hand was shaking slightly or if the knuckles that had punched Yan Zheng’s face were aching, but she failed to remove the wristguard after several attempts.
She gave up trying to remove it and leaned back in the chair, staring blankly at the wristguard on her hand, feeling an inexplicable emptiness in her heart.