Zhu Yu – Chapter 16: Did I Scare You?

Fan Changyu sighed as she left the house carrying a basket of dirty clothes.

He must have seen the item, but since he had put it away, she decided to pretend nothing had happened.

Noticing it was still early, she went out again to the tile market and bought two plump pigs and a chicken.

The chicken had a more important mission before becoming a pot of nourishing soup—she intended to use it to catch the goshawk.

Although her father was a butcher, he was also skilled at hunting. She had previously accompanied him to hunt wild boars and rabbits in the mountains, so she naturally knew how to set some traps.

Fan Changyu wanted to set a trap in the courtyard but feared Chang Ning might accidentally get hurt. After much consideration, she climbed to the attic and onto the roof, tying the old hen there. She also placed her father’s trapping equipment up there before coming down satisfied.

One pig was kept for slaughter the next day, while the other was to be killed today for making cured meat.

As the name suggests, cured meat is typically made in the twelfth lunar month. In winter, meat can be preserved longer, but as the weather warms, it spoils. Making it into cured meat allows it to last until the following year.

The tutors at the academy accepted tuition fees in the form of silver or equivalent amounts of cured meat.

Many scholars had to buy cured meat to pay New Year’s respect to their tutors and again in spring as tuition fees.

In the past, to pay for Song Yan’s tuition, Madam Song would use money earned from embroidery and laundry to buy cured meat from Fan Changyu’s father every year.

Fan Changyu now doubted whether there was an element of deliberate pitiful display before her parents.

Back then, Madam Song’s hands were covered in chilblains every winter, and her clothes had more patches than the original fabric. Because she often did embroidery at night but couldn’t afford to light lamps, she would only use a tiny wick dipped in oil, providing barely enough light. After enduring this for a long time, her eyesight deteriorated, and she could hardly see anything at night.

As neighbors and a widow with an orphan, Madam Song explained that Song Laoye had spent his life taking imperial examinations without success. Song Yan was clever from a young age and showed promise. She wanted to help fulfill her husband’s dying wish. Fan Changyu’s parents, unable to bear the sight, gifted cured meat to Song Yan for his tuition.

Now, when Fan Changyu thought of the Song mother and son, she only hoped heaven would open its eyes and make sure Song Yan failed the examinations!

While harboring these resentful thoughts, she went to the backyard to boil water in preparation for slaughtering the pig-

The piercing squeals of the pig reached the south room, causing the sheep hair brush in Xie Zheng’s hand to leave an ink stain on the paper.

He crumpled the paper and tossed it into the charcoal brazier at his feet, then leaned back and pinched the bridge of his nose.

Just as the noise was giving him a headache, the door suddenly opened. A small figure peeked around the doorframe, revealing half a head, and encouraged him: “Brother-in-law, want to watch pig slaughtering? My sister is amazing at it!”

Her black grape-like eyes sparkled brightly.

Fan Changyu usually slaughtered pigs before dawn. Due to his injured kneecap from falling off a cliff while fleeing, he rarely went out and naturally hadn’t seen her slaughter pigs before.

Today, the pig’s squeals from the backyard lasted unusually long, with two pigs squealing together. The noise was enough to lift the roof off.

After brief consideration, Xie Zheng nodded and stood up with his cane. However, contrary to Chang Ning’s expectation, he wasn’t going to watch the slaughter but rather to end the pig’s life quickly for some peace.

Passing through the main hall led to the kitchen, which had a small door connecting to the backyard. The door was open, and Xie Zheng immediately saw the woman with one foot on the pig’s back, holding a thumb-thick rope, tying the pig—whose limbs were already bound—to a heavy-looking stone bench.

Little Chang Ning looked up at him proudly: “Isn’t my sister amazing?”

Xie Zheng didn’t respond.

As they got closer, the pig’s squeals became more piercing, and its struggles appeared quite fierce.

Xie Zheng had seen the fire brigade slaughter pigs before, but even they needed several men to subdue a fat pig. Although the woman before him was far from delicate, she was still just a girl and couldn’t compare to those burly men.

He frowned, about to step forward to help, when he saw the woman slap the pig’s head and shout, “Behave!”

The slap was incredibly loud, and the pig’s squeals instantly subsided, its struggles noticeably lessening.

Xie Zheng’s previously nonchalant eyes now showed unmistakable surprise.

Stunned? Stunned???

How strong was her hand?

His impression of this woman suddenly oscillated wildly between crying over a phoenix man and stunning a pig with one slap, causing him to furrow his brow involuntarily.

After securing the pig to the stone bench, Fan Changyu turned around and noticed Xie Zheng and her little sister peeking out from behind the door.

She immediately said, “Ning’er, how many times have I told you, children shouldn’t watch pig slaughtering.”

Chang Ning reluctantly pulled her head back behind the door, leaving only the two little buns on top of her head visible.

Fan Changyu was somewhat surprised to see Xie Zheng. She was wearing her special pig-slaughtering outfit and had just wrestled with a pig, so her loose hair was messily falling over her forehead. She looked quite disheveled, but there was also an air of capability and vigor about her.

Currently busy, she didn’t have time to dwell on the previous awkwardness. After a brief moment of surprise, she said to Xie Zheng, “If you’re not in a hurry to return to your room, could you help me watch the fire on the stove?”

The water boiling in the large pot was for scalding the pig’s hair later.

Xie Zheng glanced at the temporarily set up stove and, unusually compliant, walked over as told.

After finding the wooden basin to collect blood, Fan Changyu picked up the bleeding knife. With one swift stroke, she ended the pig’s life. As blood gushed out, some inevitably splattered on her. Her gaze, fixed on the bleeding point, was cold and sharp, like a tiger or leopard eyeing its torn prey.

It took a while for the killing aura around her to subside.

When she looked up, she saw the man behind the stove looking at her with an indecipherable expression.

His gaze was usually indifferent, but now his eyes held a depth that was hard to fathom, like a bottomless ancient well.

Fan Changyu put away the knife, simultaneously retracting her fierce aura, and asked in confusion, “Did I scare you?”

Xie Zheng added a piece of firewood to the stove. His handsome face flickered in the firelight. Finding her question amusing, he lazily lifted the corner of his mouth: “Not at all.”

Fan Changyu dragged the slaughtered pig over and glanced at him, saying, “You should go inside. When the boiling water hits the pig’s hair, there’ll be a strong smell.”

Xie Zheng remained seated, only saying, “I’ve smelled worse things.”

The stench of rotting corpses.

This man was a bit strange today.

Fan Changyu decided not to mind him anymore. She drenched the pig’s hair with scalding water before starting to scrape it off.

Xie Zheng sat on a stool behind the stove, watching her work, the corners of his eyes slightly raised.

He suddenly felt she looked more agreeable when slaughtering pigs.

He asked, “Did your father teach you martial arts?”

Fan Changyu’s hand paused while scraping the pig’s hair. After a moment, she continued: “Mm, my father traveled extensively as a caravan guard and learned from many masters. He picked up various life-saving skills, and I learned a few moves from him.”

Xie Zheng didn’t pursue the topic further and continued watching her scrape the pig’s hair. His expression was somewhat lazy, but his features were undeniably handsome. Even sitting among the firewood, he was pleasing to the eye.

Fan Changyu finished dividing the pork before dark, keeping a small piece of braised meat for dinner. The rest was evenly rubbed with coarse salt, and arranged neatly in a clean stone vat in the courtyard with the meat facing down and skin facing up, covered with a winnowing basket.

To make cured meat, it needed to be salted for seven to eight days before being smoked with cypress branches.

In these times, salt was a scarce commodity outside, but Qingping County was rich in green salt, so the price wasn’t too high locally. Ten or so when could buy a jin of salt.

Salt merchants with salt licenses could buy salt and transport it elsewhere to sell at several times the price. It was said that in some places, salt merchants raised prices arbitrarily, charging up to a hundred wen per jin, causing great hardship for the local people.

Taking advantage of the still-hot water in the large pot on the stove, which was big enough, Fan Changyu directly blanched the cleaned pork, pork bones, and offal in it.

The pork belly was for tonight’s braised meat rice, the large bones for making soup stock, and the offal and head meat were to be sold at the butcher shop tomorrow morning.

After blanching, she scooped out the meat with two bamboo baskets, replaced the water with clean water, added various spices and seasonings, brought it to a boil, then added some old braising liquid from before, and put the meat and bones in to braise together.

As the braising liquid in the pot came to a boil again over high heat, a rich meaty aroma escaped from the gaps in the lid.

Fan Changyu had only eaten a steamed bun for lunch and had been doing physical labor all afternoon. Smelling this aroma made her stomach growl uncontrollably.

Chang Ning sniffed and looked pitifully hungry: “Sister, I’m hungry…”

The only one seemingly unaffected by the aroma was Xie Zheng, who sat impassively watching the fire behind the stove.

Fan Changyu covered her stomach, feeling embarrassed. She stood up and went inside: “The meat isn’t ready yet. I’ll go get some sweet potatoes to roast first.”

What she didn’t know was that after she went inside, the man behind the stove, though still expressionless, slowly swallowed.

Xie Zheng glanced impatiently at the steaming pot. Did this thing need to cook for so long?

Little Chang Ning covered her mouth and giggled: “Brother-in-law, you’re hungry too, right?”

Xie Zheng didn’t want to deal with this annoying child and closed his eyes: “No.”

Fan Changyu brought two sweet potatoes and buried them in the stove ashes. Xie Zheng sat on a stool behind the stove, and because of his leg injury, Fan Changyu didn’t ask him to move. She crouched beside him, using fire tongs to cover the sweet potatoes with ash.

The stove door was square and narrow, obstructing Fan Changyu’s view. She had to lean slightly towards him to see if the sweet potatoes were properly buried.

They were quite close, and Xie Zheng frowned, trying to move back, but the space was too small. Fan Changyu’s hair bun lightly brushed his jaw. She didn’t notice, but Xie Zheng’s expression tightened.

She had changed out of her pig-slaughtering clothes, and her clothes and hair carried an indescribable, faint, elegant fragrance, probably the scent her mother made that she had mentioned before.

The spot where her hair bun had brushed felt slightly cool, with a tingling sensation that made one want to scratch it.

Xie Zheng frowned and was about to speak when Fan Changyu finished burying the sweet potatoes and moved back.

Seeing him move aside, Fan Changyu felt very embarrassed: “Did I crowd you just now?”

His jaw, where her hair had brushed, still tingled.

Xie Zheng avoided her gaze and simply said no.

Snow began to fall again. Fan Changyu sat on a stool playing cat’s cradle with her sister. The sisters’ faces were illuminated by the firelight, and when they smiled, their eyes and brows looked extremely similar, as if they could melt away the chill of the entire winter night.

Xie Zheng watched her for a while, then turned to look at the falling snow.

When a sweet aroma mixed with the meat smell, Fan Changyu once again squeezed next to Xie Zheng, using the fire tongs to dig out the two sweet potatoes.

The sweet potatoes’ skin had been roasted to a charred gray color, soft and hot to the touch.

Fan Changyu gave one to Xie Zheng, while she and her sister shared the other.

Fan Changyu was quite voracious, immediately splitting the sweet potato in half to reveal the orange flesh inside. Steam rose from the tip in thin wisps, and the smell alone was sweet.

Fan Changyu gave half to her sister, and they both ate while sucking in the air from the heat. It tasted even sweeter in their mouths, and they accidentally smudged a bit of the charred skin on their lips.

Xie Zheng peeled his sweet potato and took a bite. It was indeed much sweeter than the roasted sweet potatoes he remembered.

The highlight of the evening was, of course, the meat that had been braising for over an hour in the pot. The pork belly, already infused with the braising flavors, was cut into cubes and stir-fried with diced shiitake mushrooms. After the mushroom aroma was released, a ladle of braising liquid was added. The meat was then scooped out and placed on top of white rice, finally topped with a halved braised egg.

Xie Zheng ate the most satisfying meal since his misfortune, and his mood remained quite good even before going to bed that night.

Of course, if the sea eagle hadn’t suddenly started screeching desperately on the roof, his good mood might have lasted a bit longer.