At the county yamen, Yan Changyu was confined in a temporary interrogation room. The doors and windows were tightly shut, and even the tables and chairs seemed to exude a chill.
After sitting for a while, the cold crept up from her double-layered padded shoes, numbing her feet. Yan Changyu rubbed her hands together and breathed into them, stamping her feet slightly to try and warm herself up.
Two guards were stationed outside the interrogation room. Yan Changyu had attempted to speak with them through the door, but they were clearly not Captain Wang’s men and ignored her completely.
The wait was unbearable. Finally, the door of the interrogation room opened, letting daylight flood into the dark space. The guard at the door said, “You may go now.”
Yan Changyu thought Captain Wang had returned from the search and proven her innocence. Her heart lightened as she left the room.
When she saw Captain Wang, he was frantically giving orders to his subordinates. Yan Changyu noticed that even the ordinary yamen runners who served tea and water were armed with swords as if everyone in the yamen was prepared to go out at any moment.
Seeing Yan Changyu, Captain Wang nodded to dismiss the yamen runners. His brow was deeply furrowed as he spoke: “More people have come to report crimes. Today, besides Master Yan’s tragic death, several other households have also fallen victim. The sword wounds on their bodies match those on Master Yan, suggesting the same group of perpetrators. But only your house was visited by the killers. I don’t know if they extracted information from Master Yan. When I took my men to your house, we found bodies everywhere…”
As Yan Changyu heard the last sentence, her mind went blank, as if her ears were ringing. She could see Captain Wang’s mouth moving, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.
After a while, she managed to steady herself and asked, “My sister…”
Her voice came out hoarse, and she realized her hands and feet were ice-cold.
Captain Wang hurriedly replied, “We didn’t find the bodies of your husband or your sister. We searched inside and outside the house. We don’t know if those villains captured them or if they escaped. I’ve ordered my men to search, but the heavy snow has covered many traces. We haven’t received any news yet.”
Yan Changyu felt only half relieved. She strode towards the yamen exit, saying, “I’m going to look for them too.”
Her parents were already gone; she couldn’t let anything happen to her sister!
Although Yan Zheng was injured, he was a trained fighter. Even with his severe injuries earlier, he had managed to fend off Jin Laosan’s gang. If he had killed those people Captain Wang mentioned in their courtyard…
He must have taken Changningg and hidden somewhere. His injuries wouldn’t allow him to last long; she had to find them before that happened!
The wind carried fine snow, along with the scent of blood that permeated the entire pine forest.
A flash of sword light and a spurt of hot blood gushed from a throat, spattering onto the frost-covered trunk of a pine tree. The man wielding the knife fell stiffly into the snow. The sticky blood on the tree trunk slowly dripped down, creating small, pale red craters in the snow beneath.
Xie Zheng didn’t even glance at the man. With a flick of his wrist, he shook the blood droplets from his long sword.
Within ten meters around his feet lay nothing but corpses.
Little Changningg huddled with the gyrfalcon, her face pale, either from fright or cold. She was so terrified she couldn’t even cry.
Xie Zheng sheathed his sword and walked back. Seeing her condition, he frowned and knelt to touch the back of the child’s hand with his knuckles. As expected, it was as cold as ice.
He glanced at his jacket, which was almost completely soaked with blood and offered little warmth. His gaze fell on a nearby corpse whose throat he had just slit.
That coat looked clean.
He walked over, used his sword to cut open the man’s fur coat, kicked the dead body to roll it over like a sack, and with the tip of his sword, flipped the fur coat into his hand.
He had taken this sword from one of the masked men. It felt good in his hand, so he kept it.
Xie Zheng threw the fur coat to little Changningg. His blood-stained face was even paler than the snow on the ground. He then leaned against a snow-covered pine tree, his eyes half-closed, showing obvious fatigue. However, his tone remained icy cold: “Put it on. Stay alive until your elder sister finds you.”
In the distance, footsteps were converging on the pine forest from several directions. It was unclear whether they belonged to the masked men’s allies or other forces.
Xie Zheng didn’t plan to go any further. He was severely exhausted, and with a child in tow, he couldn’t go far.
Staying put to rest for a moment and regaining some strength might allow him to hold out longer.
“Zheng’er, is the osmanthus cake delicious?”
As his vision blurred, mixing the skylight with the pine forest, he hallucinated the gentle voice of that elegant woman.
Xie Zheng’s eyelids trembled.
Little Changningg, seeing him covered in blood and leaning against the tree trunk with closed eyes, feared he was dead. She called out in a tear-choked voice, “Brother-in-law…”
“Don’t make noise.”
Regaining consciousness, Xie Zheng frowned. His eyelids felt heavy, and his limbs seemed filled with lead.
This feeling wasn’t unfamiliar to him. The last time he escaped from the Wei family’s assassins, he had lost consciousness and collapsed in the snow.
He forced his eyes open and gripped the sword blade with his hand, which was wrapped in bandages long since dyed red with blood. He pressed down hard.
The sword’s edge cut deep into his palm, fresh blood soaking through the bandages and dripping from his tightly clenched fist onto the snow like fallen plum blossoms.
The pain finally cleared his mind somewhat.
As the chaotic footsteps drew near and a cold blade flashed towards the little girl, his hand gripped the sword and parried with a crisp “ding.”
The two swords scraped against each other, even sparking.
Xie Zheng’s eyes flashed fiercely. As his long sword slid to the hilt of the other blade, he flipped his hand and slashed a ghastly wound across the masked man’s shoulder and arm, then kicked him more than ten feet away.
“Hide behind the tree,” he ordered coldly. The whites of his eyes had taken on a bloodshot hue, like a lone wolf driven to desperation.
The dozen or so masked men, seeing the corpses of their comrades strewn about, were shocked. They exchanged glances before raising their swords and rushing at Xie Zheng en masse, their attacks vicious and aimed at vital points.
Little Changningg hid behind the tree. Although Xie Zheng had scolded her many times not to cry, seeing this situation, she couldn’t help but let tears fall. Almost instinctively, she pulled out the whistle hidden in her collar and blew it hard.
This whistle was made for her by her elder sister long ago. Once, while playing hide-and-seek with the neighborhood children, she had accidentally fallen into a dry well. She cried until her voice was hoarse, but no one found her.
When her family went to look for her, she couldn’t call out because her voice was gone.
Afterward, her elder sister made her a whistle, telling her to blow it if she ever encountered danger again, so her family could find her.
Throughout this escape with her brother-in-law, she had been so scared that she blew it once, but it attracted bad people. After being scolded by her brother-in-law, she didn’t dare blow it again.
Now, with the situation so dire, little Changningg no longer cared about his admonition.
The shrill whistle echoed through the entire pine forest, like the cry of a blood-drenched fledgling.
One of the masked men noticed Changningg and walked towards her with his knife raised. Changningg stood up to run, but the masked man’s fur coat she wore was too long, and she tripped after just a few steps.
The masked man was about to bring his knife down when a gray falcon swooped out of nowhere, flying straight at him. Its iron hook-like talons missed his neck but tore his face to shreds, along with the black cloth covering it.
In the dense forest in the distance, the barking of dogs could be faintly heard. It seemed to come from more than one dog, and the barking was extremely fierce. All the birds roosting in that part of the forest took flight, darkening the snowy sky.
Changningg’s eyes brightened, and she quickly puffed up her cheeks to blow the bamboo whistle hard a few more times.
The masked man swung his sword to fend off the falcon and was about to grab Changningg when the sound of something cutting through the air came from behind him. He instinctively leaned back, narrowly avoiding the cleaver hurled at his head.
The black iron blade buried itself halfway into the trunk of a pine tree behind him. The tree shook, and the snow accumulated on its cones fell in a shower, instantly obscuring vision.
At that moment, the masked man felt a chill in his heart. As the blade was withdrawn, blood gushed from the wound in his chest.
The masked man had killed many people before, but seeing the amount of blood pouring from the gash in his chest, he was stunned for a moment.
Such a ruthless blade technique.
This wound would drain a person’s blood in the shortest possible time.
Through the falling snow, he struggled to raise his eyes. His gaze fell on the black iron weapon dripping with fresh blood.
A butcher’s knife?
Looking up further, his fading pupils could no longer make out the person’s features.
But it was a woman.
The masked man slumped to his knees in the snow. The blood flowing from him melted away most of the snow beneath him, almost twice the amount of blood loss compared to the other masked men who had died there.
It was Yan Changyu’s first time killing someone with her butcher’s knife, and she instinctively used the technique for slaughtering pigs, focusing solely on draining as much blood as possible.
Extreme tension and a protective instinct caused all the blood in her body to rush to her head. Her fingertips tingled and burned, leaving no room for any other emotions about taking a life.
Changningg’s lips quivered, ready to cry at the sight of her elder sister, but the urgency of the situation held her back.
Seeing Yan Zheng severely wounded and at a disadvantage, with another gash just opened on his arm, Yan Changyu had no time to say a word to her sister. She retrieved the cleaver embedded in the tree trunk and hurled it at one of the masked men.
To her dismay, the man was pulled aside by a comrade and dodged. Behind him stood Xie Zheng, and the heavy cleaver flew straight at him, terrifying Yan Changyu to her core.
Fortunately, Xie Zheng reacted swiftly, tilting his head just in time. The heavy cleaver embedded itself in the pine tree trunk behind him.
When he looked over at her, Yan Changyu’s expression was somewhat embarrassed.
As another shower of snow fell from the tree, she had no time for further thought. Using the same technique, she quickly closed in and stabbed several men in succession with her pig-slaughtering method, while Xie Zheng slit throats with a single sword stroke.
Blood mixed with snow foam splattered on the ground, pool after pool.
As the snow finished falling from the tree, Yan Changyu’s eyes met Xie Zheng’s. She explained awkwardly, “I was aiming for that masked man just now.”
Xie Zheng remained silent.
More than half of the dozen or so masked men had fallen. He finally had a moment to catch his breath. Leaning on his sword, his hair disheveled and falling over his face, he was as pale as snow. Blood stained the corner of his mouth. Though he looked weak enough to collapse at any moment, the remaining masked men who were poised to strike dared not make a move.
The sound of barking dogs drew closer. Three or four hunting dogs leaped out from the dense forest, snarling fiercely at the masked men with bared teeth.
These hunting dogs were borrowed by Yan Changyu from hunters in town. Thanks to them, she had been able to follow the scent of blood to this pine forest outside the city.
After hearing Changningg’s whistle, she left the hunting dogs behind and rushed ahead.
Yan Changyu intimidated the masked men, “The yamen’s officers will be here soon!”
The masked men exchanged glances, seemingly deciding that continuing to fight against Yan Changyu and Xie Zheng would not end well for them. They hastily retreated.
Xie Zheng said, “Capture one alive.”
Yan Changyu charged forward almost instantly as he finished speaking.
These people were dressed like bandits. They had killed Master Yan and invaded her home. They might well be the same group that murdered her mother.
She untied a coil of rope from her waist, quickly tied a lasso while running, and forcefully threw it at the masked man running last. As the loop tightened around the man’s neck, Yan Changyu put all her strength into pulling back, instantly constricting the noose.
The masked man clutched desperately at the rope around his neck as Yan Changyu dragged him backward through the snow like a sack of grain.
Xie Zheng’s expression changed upon seeing this scene.
Yan Changyu braced one foot against a snow-covered pine tree, pulling the rope hard as if dragging a dead pig. She explained, “This is a lasso commonly used for catching wild horses or oxen. Once caught, it’s almost impossible to escape because the more you struggle, the tighter the noose becomes.”
Fortunately, Captain Wang, fearing she might encounter danger while searching, had instructed his subordinates to give her a set of constable’s weapons.
A constable’s equipment typically consisted of just a sword and a coil of rope.
The sword was for self-defense, and the rope was for binding criminals.
She found the yamen’s sword less comfortable than her own butcher’s knife, but not wanting to reject Captain Wang’s goodwill, she had taken the coil of rope.
Xie Zheng paused for a moment. Despite the life-threatening situation, it seemed that whenever she spoke, the tense atmosphere would suddenly relax a bit.
Seeing their comrade captured, the masked men briefly exchanged glances. One of them raised his sword and threw it at his captured companion.
The masked man caught in Yan Changyu’s lasso was instantly showered in blood.
Yan Changyu cursed coarsely in anger, immediately abandoning the rope and chasing after them with her butcher’s knife.
Xie Zheng coughed up a mouthful of fresh blood. Worried she might be outmatched and disregarding his severe injuries, he was about to join the chase. As he lifted his foot, he stepped on something hard in the snow. Moving his black boot aside, he saw it was a waist token.
Recognizing the emblem on it, his phoenix eyes instantly sharpened.
He picked up the token and placed it in his bosom. When he looked again at the masked men being pursued by Yan Changyu, his gaze was as if looking at dead objects.
The masked men were being chased and bitten by three or four hunting dogs, while also being pursued by Yan Changyu, that freakishly strong woman. They were quite overwhelmed.
However, they quickly discovered Yan Changyu’s weakness. She often relied on brute strength and speed, lacking real combat experience in life-or-death situations. When several of them surrounded her, she couldn’t defend effectively, and soon suffered injuries.
The pain from sword cuts burned fiercely, slowing Yan Changyu’s attacks significantly. Though she was trying to learn to parry, this small improvement was far from enough to instantly match several experts.
As she saw another masked man’s sword slashing directly at her wrist, Yan Changyu grew anxious. But her technique was too slow; she couldn’t dodge in time.
An injured wrist could mean losing grip on her weapon at best or losing the entire hand at worst.
She gritted her teeth, prepared for mutual destruction.
At the critical moment, a large hand with distinct knuckles gripped her weapon hand from behind. Compared to the warmth of her hand, his was as cold as lake ice.
Using some clever technique, he turned her wrist, instantly flipping her butcher’s knife blade up. From below, it viciously chopped at the masked man’s elbow, then with a domineering force, the blade scraped along the bone and flesh upward, pressing against the tendons and cartilage under the armpit before forcefully flicking upward.
The masked man’s sword instantly fell from his hand, and his bloody arm hung limply. He let out a heart-rending scream.
Yan Changyu, accustomed to scraping bones and trimming meat, still felt her scalp tingle at the memory of that knife technique. She couldn’t help but look back, only catching a glimpse of the man’s pale jawline before he gripped her hand again to parry the killing moves of the other masked men.
His force seemed more like guidance, teaching her how to avoid the opponent’s techniques. When attacking, Yan Changyu didn’t hold back her brute strength at all.
With her only weakness now covered, the masked men opposite suddenly found themselves unable to cope.
Yan Changyu indeed had some talent in martial arts. While memorizing Xie Zheng’s parrying techniques, she could still find openings to kick the masked men.
One masked man, kicked hard by Yan Changyu, flew back and crashed into a snow-covered pine. The tree shook, and a whole tree’s worth of icicles came crashing down, raising a cloud of snow spray.
At the same time, the man behind her guided Yan Changyu’s hand with a flourish, sending the butcher’s knife into another masked man’s heart.
Yan Changyu felt the wound in his palm reopens. Warm blood gushed out, wetting the back of her hand where their palms touched, yet his palm remained cool.
Looking at the chaotic flashes of swords before her, her heart seemed to tremble along with the fallen icicles.
“Don’t get distracted,” his cold, hoarse voice came from beside her ear. Due to their knife-gripping posture, they were quite close. Yan Changyu could almost feel his faint, warm breath.
Her entire ear tingled.
Resisting the urge to rub her ear, she focused all her attention on attacking.
When the butcher’s knife, now red with blood, was pressed against the neck of the last masked man, Yan Changyu finally had a chance to catch her breath.
She had noticed earlier that this man seemed to be the leader of the group. He was the one who had ended the life of the masked man she had lassoed.
Yan Changyu pressed the blade down slightly, cutting a thin line of blood on his neck, and demanded coldly, “Who are you people? What grudge do you have against the Yan family?”
The man didn’t look at her but kept staring at Xie Zheng standing behind her as if trying hard to recognize something. When Xie Zheng raised his eyes to meet his gaze, the man seemed to finally recognize him. His pupils contracted violently, and his face showed a hint of defeat. Suddenly, he grabbed the butcher’s knife Yan Changyu was pressing against his neck.
Standing so close to Xie Zheng, Yan Changyu didn’t notice the man was looking at him. Seeing his movement, she was startled, thinking he was trying to seize the knife. She hurriedly pressed down harder, trying to control him. To her surprise, the man was forcing her knife into his neck.
A splash of fresh blood fell on the trampled snow.
The masked man fell, his throat cut.
Yan Changyu stared at this scene, too shocked to speak for a long while.
Looking at the blood-stained butcher’s knife in her hand, she murmured, “Why did he…”
Preferring to take his own life rather than reveal anything, who were these people?
Could they be enemies her father had made during his years as a caravan guard?
Looking at the dead leader, Yan Changyu thought of her parents’ deaths, feeling her mind in turmoil.
When Xie Zheng saw the masked man take his own life, he also frowned. But with all his injuries, holding out for so long had already pushed him to his limit. With the crisis resolved and no longer supported by that mental strength, he instantly felt the world spinning.
He spat out the blood he had been forcefully holding back in his throat, and finally could no longer support himself with his sword.
Yan Changyu heard the commotion behind her and turned around. Seeing him collapsed in the snow, his face and lips almost the same shade of white, she immediately forgot everything else and hurried over to check his injuries.
Not only had his old wounds reopened, but he had also suffered many new ones.
Thinking about how he had once again brushed with death because of her family’s troubles, her sense of guilt deepened.
She hadn’t brought any medicine with her but thought these bandit-like men might have some. She searched the dead leader’s body and indeed found a bottle of medicinal powder.
Unsure if it was a blood-stopping medicine, she first sprinkled a little on the leader’s still-bleeding wound. Seeing the blood congeal, she felt reassured enough to use it on Xie Zheng.
The moment the potent medicine fell on his raw flesh, the burning pain like a knife cut or fire brought Xie Zheng back to some semblance of consciousness. But he was still extremely weak, unable even to open his eyes.
After giving him a simple bandaging, Yan Changyu lifted him onto her back and walked back to get Changningg.
Her arms and hands had shallow cuts from her initial fight with the masked men. Though not serious, they now stung fiercely as she exerted herself.
Wanting to say something to distract from the pain, Yan Changyu half-jokingly said to the man on her back, “This is the second time I’m carrying you back from the snow.”
The man on her back didn’t respond, seeming to have passed out.
The pain caused a fine sweat to break out on Yan Changyu’s temples. She said softly, “Thank you.”
Thank you for helping me save Changningg.
If she lost her younger sister, she would have lost her last living relative in this world, truly not knowing where to go from there.
The wind and snow raged as she carried him, leaving a trail of deep footprints in the snow.
Little Changningg waited with the gyrfalcon under the pine tree where they had been earlier. Seeing Yan Changyu return carrying Xie Zheng, she quickly ran over, calling, “Elder Sister.”
Carrying a person, Yan Changyu couldn’t hug her sister. A drop of sweat slid down her temple, passing over a scrape on her face, stinging fiercely. She looked Changningg up and down, asking, “Are you hurt, Ningning?”
Changningg shook her head. Seeing the unconscious man on her sister’s back, her eyes reddened, and she choked out, “Brother-in-law got hurt protecting Ningning…”
The blood that had seeped from his palm while he guided her attacks remained on her hand, feeling as hot as if it had been seared by fire. Yan Changyu felt a twinge in her heart. She said, “Don’t cry. We’ll take him back to see a doctor.”
She always seemed calm and steady.
But as long as Changningg heard her elder sister speak like this, she felt at ease and no longer feared anything.
When their parents passed away, she cried until she fell ill, almost unable to breathe. It was her elder sister who held her by the bedside and said, “Don’t be afraid, you still have your elder sister.”
Little Changningg looked at her elder sister’s bent back, wiped her eyes clumsily with her sleeve, and followed Yan Changyu’s footsteps through the snow, sometimes sinking deeply, stepping lightly, while hugging the gyrfalcon.
“This is the second time I’m carrying you back from the snow.”
“Thank you.”
In his hazy consciousness, Xie Zheng heard someone speaking to him. The voice was familiar, but he couldn’t recall who it belonged to.
His eyelids were too heavy, his mind almost a complete blur, unable to think. His whole being seemed to be sinking into an endless darkness, a bone-chilling cold seeping into the marrow.
Resisting this sinking force was incredibly difficult. Giving in would instantly make everything feel lighter.
“Zheng’er.”
Someone was calling him again.
He could no longer remember that gentle woman’s voice or appearance, but whenever he dreamed of her, he knew it was her.
Why had she come into his dream?
Hadn’t she abandoned him?
Xie Zheng didn’t want to answer her, but his gaze involuntarily looked ahead. The woman stood in the rear garden of the Marquis’s mansion, smiling as she held a child’s hand, watching a martial man practicing boxing in the courtyard.
“Zheng’er’s father is a great hero who can hold up the sky. In the future, Zheng’er must become a man like your father.”
Xie Zheng saw the woman looking at him with a gentle smile and suddenly realized he had become that child.
He still didn’t speak, just staring at the woman’s face, so clear in the dream but only a blurry outline in his waking memory.
He missed her, but she had left too early, so early that he couldn’t even remember her appearance clearly.
The man practicing boxing in the courtyard disappeared, replaced by a coffin sent back from the Jinzhou battlefield.
The woman, dressed in mourning clothes, prostrated herself before the coffin, weeping bitterly. A room full of maids and old women couldn’t restrain her.
The scene changed. She had changed into new clothes and sat before a bronze mirror, drawing her eyebrows. Her delicate brows, like distant mountains, were slightly furrowed. It was an extremely beautiful face, but anyone could see she wasn’t happy. She said, “How could he break his promise? He said he would come back to draw my eyebrows for me.”
Like a young girl in the inner chambers who had arranged to meet her sweetheart, only to be secretly annoyed when he failed to keep the appointment.
She saw him and smiled, beckoning him over. Xie Zheng didn’t move. A child about four years old, wearing a small golden crown, ran past him. She handed the child a plate of osmanthus cakes, her voice as gentle as ever: “Zheng’er, are the osmanthus cakes delicious?”
He finally spoke, almost hatefully: “They’re not good.”
The woman seemed unable to hear his words at all. She picked up the child and sat him on her knee. Her gentle voice became very distant, “In the future, Zheng’er must become a great hero who can hold up the sky like your father.”
“Be good, go outside to eat your osmanthus cakes.”
Then she applied makeup, wore her most beautiful clothes, leaving only her eyebrows bare, and hung herself from a beam with a white silk cord.
Her general had broken his promise and hadn’t returned to draw her eyebrows, so she went to find him.
The servants broke down the door, a chorus of wails erupting. The child stood in the doorway, seeing only half of the gorgeous skirt hanging in mid-air.
Once again struggling to wake from this nightmare, Xie Zheng found himself drenched in cold sweat.
A numbing medicinal taste permeated his mouth. Opening his eyes, he saw a patched bed curtain, with a figure standing backlit by the bedside.
Xie Zheng glanced sideways and saw Fan Changyu looking at him with a mix of shock and bewilderment, holding a medicine bowl in her hands. The medicine spoon she had been holding was nowhere to be seen.
Lowering his gaze, Xie Zheng spotted the shattered porcelain spoon on the floor.
Fan Changyu mumbled, “The medicine must taste awful…”
Xie Zheng: “…”
His breathing, which had been more rapid than usual after the nightmare, suddenly calmed. The unpleasant emotions lingering from the dream were miraculously suppressed by her words.
Frowning, he gave the woman sitting by the bedside a peculiar look before struggling to sit up. He extended his pale, thin hand towards her. “Give it to me.”
Even in his sickly state, his face was still remarkably handsome.
Fan Changyu hesitated for a moment before realizing he wanted the medicine bowl she was holding.
She glanced at the bandages on his hand and kindly reminded him, “Your hand has two deep cuts from a sword, and the tiger’s mouth is torn. The physician said you shouldn’t strain it right now.”
He switched to his other hand, and Fan Changyu passed him the bowl.
Xie Zheng downed the foul-smelling medicine in one gulp and returned the bowl to her.
Fan Changyu recalled how earlier, when he was semi-conscious, she had forced the medicine down his throat, and he had growled through gritted teeth that it “tasted awful.” She thought to herself that this usually quiet man was afraid of bitterness.
She rummaged in her sleeve pocket and pulled out a piece of candy she used to comfort Changningg. “Have some candy to get rid of the bitter taste.”
Xie Zheng had taken medicine many times, but this was the first time she had offered him candy. Even a fool could guess why, and his expression immediately darkened. He closed his eyes. “No need.”
But in the next moment, someone grasped his jaw with a clever force, making him open his mouth, and the candy was popped in.
“You!” He glared at her angrily.
Fan Changyu sat back with a smile. “Isn’t it sweet? There’s nothing shameful about disliking bitterness. You’re always so stubborn for no reason!”
Perhaps it was the warm winter sunlight filtering through the window behind her, but her smile seemed exceptionally bright and warm.
— At least, it was much warmer than the smile of that woman in his dream, whose face he could no longer clearly remember.
The sweetness of the candy melting on his tongue drove away the lingering bitterness like sunlight breaking through a gloomy place covered in patchy moss.
Xie Zheng suddenly fell silent, turning his head away and pressing his lips tightly together.
It had been a long time since he had eaten sweets, not since that woman had coaxed him to go out and eat a plate of osmanthus cakes, only for him to return and find she had hanged herself with a white silk cord.
For years, he had harbored a deep resentment and self-loathing.
If only he hadn’t gone out to eat those osmanthus cakes, if he had stayed by her side, perhaps she wouldn’t have left.
He despised osmanthus cakes and sweets. Over time, people around him stopped offering them to him.
Fan Changyu noticed his low mood but didn’t know the reason. She only advised, “Your injuries this time are no less severe than before. The physician strongly emphasized that you must rest well and can’t lift heavy objects until you’ve healed. Several people died in your household, and the authorities are investigating. You can’t return home for now, so please stay in Mrs. Zhao’s attic to recover.”
Xie Zheng had already realized he was in the attic where he had previously recuperated at the Zhao residence. He nodded slightly in response.
Fan Changyu paused, then added, “Thank you for protecting Changningg.”
This sentence overlapped with what Xie Zheng had heard before losing consciousness, confirming it wasn’t just his imagination.
At that time, she seemed to have said something else too.
“This is the second time I’ve carried you back from the snow.”
During his first injury, Xie Zheng had been completely unconscious. This time, although he was groggy, he retained some awareness.
He could feel how thin the back carrying him was.
Now, as he looked at Fan Changyu again, noticing her slender shoulders and the glimpse of bandages visible beneath her sleeve, his chest felt clogged with damp cotton, suffocating and moist.
She had been injured herself when she carried him back.
He moved his pale, chapped lips and said, “You saved me first.”
He left it at that, seemingly reluctant to distinguish the debt of gratitude too clearly.
When those men had broken down the door, he thought the Zhao family had been exposed and assassins had come. But those men, apart from trying to kill him and the child, had practically torn the Fan household apart, clearly searching for something.
Thinking of the jade pendant he had picked up from the snow, Xie Zheng’s eyes darkened further.
He asked, “Has the official investigation turned up anything?”
Fan Changyu shook her head and recounted how several other households had suffered similar fates that day.
Fan Da’s death was now completely unrelated to her, and the county office had successfully transferred all the property deeds left by her parents to her name.
With more money at her disposal, this was probably the only thing she could feel relieved about at the moment. At least she wouldn’t have to scrimp and save to get a physician for Yan Zheng anymore.
Upon hearing that others in the county had also met with misfortune, Xie Zheng furrowed his brow in thought for a moment before suddenly asking, “Do the people killed, like Fan Da, have anything in common?”
Fan Changyu thought for a moment, then shook her head. “A total of seven households were affected. The victims included men and women, old and young. There doesn’t seem to be any commonality.”
Xie Zheng remained silent for a moment, his brow still furrowed.
Those people had searched seven households but ultimately focused only on Fan Changyu’s family. They had started with a wide search for something and only zeroed in on the Fan sisters after getting information from Fan Da.
Based on the situation in the Fan household, he guessed at a possible reason and asked, “Were there people in those families who had worked elsewhere before returning to Lin’an Town?”
Fan Changyu felt that if this were true, it was likely someone seeking revenge against her parents. But she couldn’t understand why they wouldn’t stop even though her parents were already dead. She said, “I’ll ask Constable Wang about it later.”
After Fan Changyu left the attic, Xie Zheng forced himself to sit up and retrieved the jade pendant he had picked up from the snow from the pile of bloodstained clothes on the low stool by the bed.
He held it in his hand, examining it with a frown for a while before clenching it in his fist.
That pendant belonged to the Wei family’s death squads.
Heaven, Earth, Xuan, Huang — this time, it was the Xuan rank death squad that had come.
But these people weren’t here to kill him. They hadn’t even discovered him hiding here. The leader only recognized him at the last moment.
But why did he have such an expression after recognizing him, and immediately take his own life?
The mystery before him was growing larger, and the only thing that could unravel it seemed to be the true identities of that woman’s parents.
Given her own formidable martial arts skills, her father must have been no ordinary person. He likely didn’t die at the hands of common bandits but rather at the hands of death squad members disguised as bandits.
Was there also some hidden meaning behind the nameless title on her mother’s memorial tablet?
Xie Zheng pressed his brow, wanting to send a message to his old subordinates to secretly investigate the background of that woman’s parents. His peripheral vision caught sight of the gyrfalcon, its wing wrapped in bandages, perched on the floor boards, devouring a bowl of minced pork.
The minced meat had been prepared by Fan Changyu. The gyrfalcon had saved Changningg, so its meals had been upgraded from pig offal to fresh meat.
It had rolled in the snow several times, finally regaining its white plumage. Now, with its beak wide open, it had just picked up a large piece of meat when it looked up and saw Xie Zheng staring at it.
The gyrfalcon’s beady eyes met its master’s gaze. After a moment of standoff, the meat eventually fell back into the bowl with a “plop,” and it looked at him with a mixture of stupidity and innocence.
Xie Zheng coldly averted his gaze.
Never mind. The Wei family’s dogs had already noticed this area, so there was no hope of using this stupid bird to send messages anymore.
If that merchant surnamed Zhao truly came to seek refuge with him, he could use the shops under his name to send letters inconspicuously.
There were still a few days until the New Year. He had asked the man to exchange that banknote for 200,000 shi of grain before the New Year. A reply should come soon.
The candy in his mouth had dissolved completely, leaving only a faint sweetness on his tongue.
Only then did he look out the window. He had finished the candy, but the person who had given it to him had not yet returned—
Fan Changyu went to the county office and informed Constable Wang of Xie Zheng’s thoughts. However, Constable Wang only shook his head silently and said, “This case has already been closed.”
Fan Changyu was surprised. “The mastermind behind the killings hasn’t been found yet. How can the case be closed?”
Constable Wang said, “Those people who died in the pine forest were the culprits. They were bandits from Qingfeng Stronghold. Bandits committing robbery and murder during the New Year season is all too common.”
Fan Changyu thought to herself that they couldn’t possibly be bandits. The attackers had come prepared. She wanted to argue, but upon meeting Constable Wang’s eyes, she swallowed all the words she was about to say.
It wasn’t hard for her to guess why the county office was in such a hurry to close the case.
The New Year was approaching, and suddenly there were so many murder cases. Not only were the common people complaining, but it was also difficult for the county magistrate to report to the prefectural government. They needed to find a reason to close the case quickly.
Conveniently, those masked men were dressed as mountain bandits, and now that they were dead and couldn’t testify, saying it was bandits committing robbery and murder was the best explanation.
The county magistrate only needed to post a notice saying that bandits were rampant recently and warn all the city’s residents to be careful when going out. This would appease the public. Then, he could write a petition to the prefectural government requesting a campaign against the bandits, shifting all other responsibilities away.
After all, the bandit problem at Qingfeng Stronghold had remained unresolved for years and was a major issue in Ji Prefecture.
Constable Wang was just a minor officer. With pressure from the county magistrate to close the case, what could he say?
Fan Changyu bid farewell to Constable Wang with a heavy heart. As he escorted her to the door, he said, “Why don’t you sell your family’s pigsty and property in the countryside and go somewhere else to lay low for a while? I reckon someone your father offended during his years as a caravan guard might be behind this.”
Fan Changyu knew Constable Wang meant well and thanked him, saying she would consider it carefully. However, for a moment, she felt lost.
Leave?
She had lived in Lin’an Town for over ten years. She was familiar with every stone on the east side of town and every tree on the west.
If she stayed, she might still have had a chance to uncover the truth about her parent’s deaths. But if there was another assassination attempt, she couldn’t guarantee that she and her younger sister would survive.
She wasn’t afraid of leaving her hometown and making her way into the outside world. However, her parents were buried here, and her roots, along with Changningg’s, were planted here. She would certainly feel reluctant to leave.
After walking out of the county office gates, Fan Changyu’s chaotic thoughts had already calmed. She looked at the vast sky after the snow and let out a deep breath.
As long as the green mountains remain, there will always be firewood to burn.
When Yan Zheng’s injuries improved, she would talk to him about leaving Qingshui County. If he wasn’t afraid of enemies coming to seek revenge and was willing to go with her, she would take him along. If he had other plans, they could write a divorce paper, she would give him some travel money, and they would part ways—
After returning to town, Fan Changyu went to the butcher shop to pack up some things. The period after the New Year was the best time to transfer a shop. Since she had decided to leave, she would first sell the shop the pigsty, and the farmland in the countryside.
Fan Changyu planned to keep the house. If she ever returned, she would still have a place to come back to. She and her parents had lived there for over ten years, and she couldn’t bear to sell it.
As she bustled about packing things in the shop, passersby thought the Fan family butcher shop was reopening. Seeing no goods on the chopping board, some even poked their heads in to ask when they would reopen.
Fearing complications, Fan Changyu didn’t announce her intention to transfer the shop at this time. She only said she planned to reopen after the New Year.
As she was packing, someone knocked on the shop door. Without looking up, Fan Changyu said, “We’re not doing business today.”
An old voice came from the doorway: “You won’t do business with this old man either?”
Fan Changyu looked up and saw it was Chef Li from Yixiang Restaurant. Feeling a bit apologetic, she said, “I’m sorry, Master Li. Some things have happened at home recently, and I don’t plan to open the shop until after the New Year.”
Chef Li waved his hand dismissively. “Our boss wants to see you.”