Wen Yu was trapped in a nightmare.

She burned with dry lips and parched tongue. Her throat felt as if filled with lead. The whip marks on her back blazed hot. Pain spread to every inch of nerve in her body, forcing sweat from her temples.

In the dream, wind and snow obscured the sky. The gates of Luodu City were broken through by rebel troops. Horse hooves clattered chaotically. Firelight devoured buildings along the streets. The cries of women and children were shrill and miserable.

“The general’s order! Whoever captures alive Hanyang Wengzhu, daughter of Prince Changlian, will be rewarded with a hundred gold pieces!”

This cry was ferocious and grating. Illuminated by the firelight were greedy, twisted faces—like beasts wearing human skin.

And she stood in the middle of Shenwu Avenue, blazing with firelight.

Run!

Run quickly!

Her fingertips clenched until they turned white, yet her whole person seemed nailed there. Her feet couldn’t take a step at all. She could only watch helplessly as countless blurred hands reached toward her.

She wanted to scream, but her throat couldn’t make a sound. At this moment, her feet finally broke free from their restraints. Without looking back, she ran toward the pitch-black endless night behind her.

After running only a few steps barefoot through the frozen world of ice and snow, she was viciously struck to the ground by a whip again.

Pain that cut skin and pierced bone—so real it didn’t feel like a dream.

Wen Yu lay half-prostrate on the ground in agony. Looking back, she saw Ren Yazi approaching through the wind and snow, gripping his oily whip and laughing savagely, “Run? Keep running!”

He raised the whip to strike her again. That fear accumulated in Wen Yu’s heart was finally forced into another kind of murderous intent. She roared from her throat like a beast driven to desperate straits and struck back at Ren Yazi—

“Crash—” The sharp sound of some implement shattering came from outside.

Wen Yu also suddenly opened her eyes from this nightmare. Her hair roots and back were all soaked with sweat. Her whole person seemed just fished out of water. She stared at the patched bed canopy above, gasping endlessly.

From outside came a man’s low voice speaking, “I’ll clean it up. Your health isn’t good, so go back to your room and rest. Why are you doing these things?”

“That girl has been burning with fever for a day and night. She’s remained unconscious without waking. I’m afraid she’ll just die like this. I thought to bring a bowl of hot soup from the kitchen to pour down her throat—what if she can pull through?” It was the voice of a kindly woman.

Wen Yu slowed her breathing. Her consciousness gradually returned, and her mind also cleared considerably.

She weakly looked up to survey the simple yet very clean room. The heart she’d been holding in suspense returned to its proper place.

That’s right—she was still alive.

She had been given by Ren Yazi to that old woman. For now, she was saved.

The voices outside continued.

“If she dies, she dies. It’ll even save the money for more medicine. That Chen Laizi, son of a bitch—I kindly gave him a break, extending the deadline two days to let him gather silver, but he came here to deceive you instead. Using a collateral document and falsely claiming it was an indenture contract, he stuffed over someone he’d beaten half to death, saying he was sending you a maid. If I find him, I’ll break both his legs for sure!”

“This matter is Mother causing you trouble, but that girl truly looks pitiful. No matter what, it’s a human life. Pour some soup down her throat and see if she can make it through tonight.”

“Fine. You go back to your room and rest. I’ll go pour it for her. That Chen Laizi lies habitually—he says the rashes on her body are wind rashes, but who knows if that’s really true? Don’t go to that room anymore in the future.”

The woman seemed to agree, coughing as she returned to her room.

Wen Yu heard the ruffian’s tone was quite unkind. Hearing those steady footsteps already walking toward her room door, her heart couldn’t help but tighten. She hurriedly closed her eyes again, pretending to sleep.

The thick curtain blocking wind at the doorway was lifted aside, and the daylight from outside poured in.

Wen Yu absolutely didn’t dare pretend to sleep until he actually came over to pour soup down her throat. At this moment, she fluttered her eyelashes and half-opened her eyes, feigning just waking.

“Awake?”

Xiao Li hung the door curtain on the hook beside it. Holding a clay bowl in his hand, he stepped inside with his long legs.

He was built tall and large. This already cramped room became even more confined after he entered. The air seemed to carry the scent of wind and snow from his body.

When those black eyes looked at people, they were rather like an eagle or falcon staring at prey, making one not dare easily meet his gaze.

Seeing him enter, Wen Yu didn’t dare keep lying down. Supporting herself with her hands, she tried to rise. Unexpectedly, this pulled at the whip wound on her back. Immediately the pain made Wen Yu’s face go white, but she still endured the pain and half-sat up. Between her cracked lips came several low coughs.

She hurriedly raised her hand to cover them. Though in a wretched state, she hadn’t let fall the bearing carved into her bones.

Xiao Li showed no intention of approaching closer. Seeing her like this, he cast a glance. With his back to the dim light, one couldn’t see what expression was in his eyes.

He placed the clay bowl containing ginger soup on a square table not far from the bed, retreated a step, folded his arms, and stood leaning against the wall. “Now that you’re awake, drink this ginger soup. I have questions for you.”

Wen Yu was now dependent on others for shelter. Having just heard what he said outside, she was deeply afraid he would vent his accumulated anger on her. Seeing his attitude was still fairly kind, she obediently picked up the clay bowl and drank the ginger soup in small sips.

She had been unconscious for a day and night without a grain of rice. Before that, she had also been punished by Ren Yazi with two missed meals for trying to escape. Previously too weak, she hadn’t yet noticed the hunger. Now with soup entering her throat, she realized her abdomen had long been twisted with hunger pangs.

Holding the bowl, she hastily drank two mouthfuls. But perhaps because her stomach had gone too long without food and was stimulated by the spicy taste of the ginger soup, she immediately felt her stomach churn. Supporting herself on the edge of the bed, she vomited.

Xiao Li’s expression really turned ugly now. His eyes looked unkindly at the person bent over the bedside vomiting until bile nearly came out. “You really want to die in my room?”

Wen Yu vomited until her mouth was full of the spicy taste of ginger soup and the bitter taste of stomach acid. Tears were also forced from the corners of her eyes. Hearing that word “die,” her five fingers turned white gripping the bed edge. She only said, “I won’t die.”

After speaking, she picked up that bowl of ginger soup and drank it clean. After putting down the bowl, she bent over the bed edge coughing endlessly.

Xiao Li frowned slightly. This was the second time he’d seen that ruthless streak on this woman.

He’d seen plenty of people greedy for life and afraid of death, but someone who could repeatedly force out murderous qi from her body in order to survive—this was his first time seeing that.

His black eyes silently watched that woman coughing, frail enough to be blown down by wind. After her coughing subsided, he finally said, “That’s best. Otherwise dying in my room during the New Year would be inauspicious.”

Wen Yu half-lowered her head, shoulders and back tense, making no sound.

Xiao Li stared at her and continued, “You were given to me as collateral by Chen Laizi. Do you know this?”

Wen Yu didn’t know what he meant by these words. She silently nodded once.

Xiao Li said, “That bastard still owes the gambling house thirty taels of silver. Now he’s fled to another region. My family doesn’t support idle people. Since he said he was giving you to my mother as a maid, until he redeems you back, you’re the Xiao family’s maid.”

Wen Yu’s hand gripping the quilt tightened. She said, “I’m originally from a good family, not a slave household. I was captured and brought here during my flight as a refugee…”

Xiao Li’s eyelids lifted slightly. “How you fell into Chen Laizi’s hands has nothing to do with me. I only know he owes me money, deceived my mother, and gave you to me as collateral.”

His appearance was outstanding. When staring straight at people while speaking this way, restraining his usual frivolous and dissolute manner, his gaze was even more exceptionally sharp—imposing and oppressive.

Yet Wen Yu heard another layer of meaning from his words. She feigned fear, lowering her head and asking hoarsely, “The old madam’s compassionate grace in taking me in—I’ll never forget it as long as I live. But if I repay the silver Chen Laizi owes in his stead, can I be allowed to leave?”

Thirty taels of silver was no small sum. An ordinary family saving for ten or eight years might not necessarily save up that much.

Xiao Li took her for a fool talking in her dreams. He gave a cold laugh and said, “Sure. If you can repay those thirty taels of silver for Chen Laizi, I’ll let you go immediately.”

Wen Yu took his words as if she hadn’t heard the mockery in them and sincerely thanked him.

After fleeing in confusion for many days, she had finally hoped for a thread of light.

As long as her trusted guards found her, never mind giving him thirty taels—even giving him three hundred taels in reward would be no problem.

Xiao Li heard her thanks, but his expression became particularly strange. He just assumed she’d probably been beaten stupid by Ren Yazi. Turning to leave, when he reached the doorway he suddenly paused, turned his face to ask, “Do you have a name?”

Seeing Wen Yu make no sound, he frowned somewhat impatiently and explained, “According to custom, maids bought back are to be renamed by the master’s household. But you were only given to me as collateral by Chen Laizi. If you have a name, use your original name.”

From behind came a hoarse voice, “Mother gave me the name A’Yu.”

Xiao Li raised his eyes and asked, “Which Yu?”

Wen Yu answered, “The Yu from ‘fish dies, net breaks.'”

After Xiao Li looked at her strangely again, he nodded to show he understood, then lowered the curtain and left.

After the curtain fell, this palm-sized room immediately became dim.

Wen Yu listened to the howling wind and snow sounds outside the window. Suppressing the cough surging up her throat, her silent gaze finally cracked open with pain in the darkness.

A’Yu was the childhood name Mother had given her.

“A’Yu, A’Yu, Mother’s little fish—when you grow up, you’ll definitely be a great beauty whose beauty makes fish sink and wild geese fall.”

That year, Mother held her in her arms and said this to Father the Prince with smiling words.

Wen Yu closed her eyes, allowing that warm water to flow away completely in the darkness.

The world only knew her title was Hanyang. Few even knew her full formal name, much less this childhood name that only parents and elder brothers and sisters-in-law knew.

She wasn’t afraid that speaking this childhood name would bring any disaster.

On the contrary, reciting this name made her feel she was still alive.

Wen Yu was injured and ill, her body too weak. After being conscious for this brief half day and drinking a bowl of thin porridge midway, she fell back into deep sleep.

Not until she woke again the next day did she finally recover some vital energy and spirit.

Outside still seemed to be a snowy day. Cold wind drilled in through cracks in the old elm wood door and windows, wailing like ghosts crying and wolves howling.

Wen Yu supported herself on the bed post and rose with difficulty, slipping on the pair of felt cloth shoes with collapsed heels under the bed.

Shoes like these—in the past at the prince’s mansion, even the servants wouldn’t wear them.

Yet when Wen Yu’s bare feet stepped into them, she felt they were warmer than her original cloth shoes with their worn-through edges.

The paper-pasted window had broken open a large hole and been nailed over with oilcloth. Without opening doors or windows, the room remained completely dark.

Wen Yu supported herself against the wall and walked to the door. Pushing the door open and lifting the curtain, cold wind immediately poured down her collar. She couldn’t help but support herself on the door frame, lowering her head in a bout of coughing.

Xiao Huiniang had left the main door open a crack. Borrowing this light by the fire pit, she did embroidery work. Hearing the sound, she twisted her head around. Seeing her, she put down her embroidery hoop and dragged over a low stool from the side, saying, “How did you get up? Quickly come over and warm yourself by the fire. Your wind-cold hasn’t recovered—you can’t be blown by wind.”

That ruffian didn’t seem to be home?

Wen Yu gathered her garment front and stepped over, saying, “Thank you, old madam. I’ve been lying down so long I felt severely muddled. I got up to clear my head.”

That day when Ren Yazi sent her here, she had caught wind-cold and developed a high fever. She’d fainted without even entering the door and had been lying in the room these past two days. Now she finally surveyed the outside area roughly.

In the not-large main room sat a square table for eating. At the wall corner by the entrance, a fire pit was set up. A reclining chair covered with a thin cushion—unknown who usually sat in it—was also placed by the fire pit.

The main room connected to two doors. Through one was the palm-sized room where Wen Yu slept. Behind the other door, Wen Yu guessed, should be this woman’s bedroom.

Then where did that ruffian usually live?

Or were there other rooms outside the courtyard?

Wen Yu’s heart was uneasy. Her gaze swept outside through the door crack. She could see a water vat in the small courtyard covered with a thin layer of snow. At the corner, a small vegetable plot seemed to have been cultivated. Beneath the accumulated snow, one could faintly glimpse oily green.

“Don’t call me old madam—it sounds awkward. Just call me Auntie.” Xiao Huiniang picked up her embroidery hoop again, but the thread had already grown short. Squinting her eyes toward the light, she tried several times to thread it without success.

Wen Yu said, “Let me do it.”

After Xiao Huiniang passed it over, she said with some emotion, “When you’re old, your eyes don’t work anymore either.”

Wen Yu glanced at the basket holding her needles and thread—quite a few embroidered handkerchiefs were already inside. She couldn’t help but ask, “Why are you embroidering so many handkerchiefs?”

Xiao Huiniang’s expression darkened somewhat. She said, “Huan’er is at that age—he should marry. But the family’s money has all been taken to see doctors and buy medicine for me. I do embroidery work to exchange for some silver. Whatever I can save up for him is something.”

Huan?

Was that the ruffian’s name?

Wen Yu threaded the needle, pulled the thread long, and twisted a knot. She knew very little about this family’s affairs, so she asked, “What about the master? Doesn’t he manage the household?”

The moment the words left her mouth and she saw Xiao Huiniang’s expression was wrong, Wen Yu realized she’d misspoken.

Just at this moment, the outside door creaked. That ruffian, his eyes dampened by wind and snow, pushed through the door. His body also seemed to carry the cold air of frost and snow. “Mother, I’m back.”