Fan Changyu had just walked a short distance from the bridal chamber carrying two thick quilts when she sensed something was amiss. She raised her head and glanced over the courtyard wall, immediately spotting two large black shadows ducking back down.

Fan Changyu: “…”

She could recognize Fan Da and his wife even if they were turned to ashes.

Had these two heard about her taking in a son-in-law and, fearing she had randomly found an outsider to put on an act, come to eavesdrop by climbing her wall in the middle of the night?

At that moment, outside the Fan family’s courtyard wall, Fan Da and his bear-like wife Liu Shi were each perched on a wooden ladder, their heads lowered below the wall as they whispered to each other.

“See, I told you that girl just found someone to fake being a son-in-law to fool us! They’re sleeping in separate rooms on their wedding night! What are you panicking about?” Liu Shi scolded her husband fiercely.

Fan Da, thinking about the possibility of getting the house and land, couldn’t hide his excitement and said, “Let’s keep watching! Keep watching!”

As the two stealthily poked their heads over the wall again, they saw Fan Changyu enter the adjacent room with the thick quilts, then come out and go to the kitchen to fetch a basin of water, which she took back to the bridal chamber. It seemed as if she had just gone to the other room to put away some bedding.

Fan Da and his wife couldn’t help but look at each other in confusion.

Could they have guessed wrong?

When Fan Changyu entered the bridal chamber again without knocking, carrying a basin of hot water, she met the ice-cold gaze of the shirtless man sitting at the table. She gestured towards the courtyard with her eyes, half embarrassed and half helpless, saying, “My uncle and aunt probably think I’ve randomly found someone to pretend to be my son-in-law to deceive them. They’re eavesdropping outside.”

Xie Zheng withdrew his gaze and slumped back onto the round table.

He had just applied medicine, and the excruciating pain from his torn flesh spread throughout his body along his nerves, causing cold sweat to break out on his forehead, shoulders, back, and abdomen. At the moment, all his energy was focused on enduring the pain, leaving him no interest in Fan Changyu’s comings and goings.

With his shoulders tense, sweat-damp hair clinging messily to his forehead, and even his eyelids heavy with sweat beads, his teeth clenched, he looked like a wild wolf that had been beaten repeatedly but still refused to be tamed.

This was the first time Fan Changyu had seen his wounds in their entirety. Without the bandages, some of the originally gaping wounds had formed scabs, while others were still raw and bloody. Besides these, there were also many old scars visible on his body.

Fan Changyu couldn’t help but think of her father, who also had many such old scars. It seemed that being a caravan guard was truly a life-risking profession.

She put down the water basin and walked over, frowning as she asked, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

The man half-slumped on the table didn’t raise his head. His pale fingertips picked up a bottle of medicine and passed it back to her: “Sprinkle all the remaining medicine powder on the few wounds on my back.”

He was always cautious and had already transferred the medicine brought by the gyrfalcon into the medicine bottle bought from the old man.

Fan Changyu took the bottle and did as instructed, but almost instantly, the muscles on his shoulders and back tensed even more, becoming like stone. Unable to bear it, he turned his head and bit directly into the clothes piled on the table.

She frowned, thinking that his reaction seemed much stronger than when he had applied medicine last time. Realizing it might be because he was exhausted from the wedding day, she felt a bit guilty.

She glanced at the bandages on the floor, stained with blood and sweat, and went to the wardrobe to fetch a bolt of plain silk.

This was leftover material bought for the funeral after her parents passed away. She cut it into long strips with scissors to make it easier to bandage him later.

After a while, the tightly tensed muscles all over Xie Zheng’s body finally relaxed a bit. He released the clothes from his mouth and slowly raised his eyes to look at Fan Changyu.

“Are you feeling better?” Fan Changyu quickly put down the scissors when she saw this.

Xie Zheng was very averse to others seeing him in the process of treating his wounds. At those times, he was like a weak stray dog whose life could be taken by anyone.

But the woman before him had already seen him in his most wretched state.

When this long-held habit was broken, he instinctively felt repulsed and only coldly expressed his thanks.

Fan Changyu glanced at the wounds on his body but was magnanimous enough not to hold it against him.

Perhaps he was in a bad mood because it hurt too much.

Xie Zheng picked up the clothes on the table and started to put them on. The feeling of blood and sweat sticking to his back was unpleasant, but his good upbringing prevented him from being comfortable half-naked in front of a woman.

Seeing this, Fan Changyu quickly stopped him: “You’re sweaty, and there’s still a lot of blood. Wipe yourself off first, and I’ll find you some of my father’s clothes later.”

She had just brought in a basin of water, originally intending for him to wash up, but now it came in handy.

Xie Zheng could wipe his front himself, but Fan Changyu had to help with his back. She was much more thorough than his haphazard wiping, carefully avoiding the wounds with the wrung-out cloth as she wiped away the blood and brown medicine stains left from earlier treatment.

Occasionally, her knuckles would accidentally brush against his back. They weren’t particularly soft, but different from his own callused hands. It was as if tiny electric currents spread from where her knuckles touched.

This unfamiliar tingling sensation made Xie Zheng unconsciously furrow his brow.

Seeing this, Fan Changyu paused her actions: “Did I touch your wound?”

He pressed his lips together, his expression growing colder: “No.”

After wiping his back, the basin of water had become murky with blood and medicine stains. Fan Changyu took the cloth strips she had prepared and began to wrap them around him. Now her fingertips inevitably came into contact with more of his skin. Perhaps because he had just applied medicine and was sweating, his body temperature was hotter than at any previous time.

Fan Changyu was standing while he sat, and occasionally when she lowered her head to wrap the bandages, her long hair would fall forward, lightly brushing his shoulders and neck.

Tingling, itching, numbness.

Xie Zheng’s brows were almost knotted into a “川” shape as he inconspicuously moved away a bit.

“All done.” Fan Changyu hadn’t noticed his discomfort. After tying the knot, she straightened up. After all this work, she had also broken out in a light sweat on her forehead.

She rummaged through a chest and found an old shirt that her father used to wear, gave it to him, and then took the basin outside to empty it.

The red lanterns under the eaves swayed gently in the cold wind. When the two bear-like black shadows outside the wall saw her come out, they quickly ducked down again, thinking they were well hidden.

Fan Changyu played along, pretending not to notice as she scolded, “Which family’s wild cat is stealing meat from my house again!”

She walked over to the basin, scooped two large ladles of cold water from the water vat to mix into the basin, and then forcefully splashed it over the courtyard wall. “If I catch you next time, I’ll teach you a lesson, you beast!”

Outside the wall, Fan Da and his wife were drenched like drowned rats, shivering from the cold but not daring to make a sound for fear of being discovered.

Only when the footsteps in the courtyard faded did Fan Da, still shivering, spit out “Ptui! Ptui!” to get rid of the water he had accidentally swallowed. He frowned and asked, “What kind of water did that damned girl splash? What’s this smell?”

Liu Shi wiped her face with her sleeve and sniffed: “It smells of blood and sweat.”

The couple froze, then spat even more vigorously. “Damn it, isn’t that their bathwater?”

Their soaked clothes, chilled by the wind, made them feel cold to the bone, their teeth chattering.

They didn’t manage to eavesdrop that night, and after returning home, Fan Da and his wife caught severe colds, bedridden for days, but that’s another story.

Fearing further complications, Fan Changyu, after much consideration, decided to sleep on a makeshift bed on the floor in the bridal chamber. Xie Zheng didn’t comment on this.

Fan Changyu fell asleep quickly. While Xie Zheng was still resting with his eyes closed, her breathing had already become deep and even.

According to local custom, the wedding candles should burn all night on the wedding night. To keep up appearances, Fan Changyu hadn’t extinguished them.

The steadily burning wedding candles suddenly sputtered, making a light sound, which caused Xie Zheng to slightly turn his head towards the makeshift bed on the floor.

The warm light spread across three feet of floor. The woman was curled up in several thick quilts, her black hair spread across the pillow, her skin glowing like warm jade in the dim candlelight.

Xie Zheng looked away and lightly closed his eyes.

When she was awake, she carried a coarse, common air about her that made even her good looks easy to overlook.

Asleep, she was quite pleasant to look at.

Realizing he was pondering whether she looked good or not, Xie Zheng suddenly opened his eyes, his brows furrowing deeply.

What did it matter to him whether she was beautiful or ugly?

Once his wounds healed a bit more, he could leave this place. It was hard to say if he would ever cross paths with this woman again.

He stopped his train of thought, turned to face the inner part of the bed, and closed his eyes again.

Fan Changyu had her sleep schedule and woke up at her usual time.

She sat up, finding herself sleeping on the floor with no sign of Ning’er beside her, and a man lying on the bed a few steps away. She was confused for a good while.

Then she remembered that she had gotten married yesterday and finally let out a sigh of relief.

Outside, the sky was just beginning to lighten. Inside the room, a small section of the wedding candles was still burning, with mottled candle wax accumulated at the base of the candlestick.

Fan Changyu got up quietly. She had slept in her clothes, which saved her the awkwardness and trouble of getting dressed. After putting away the bedding from her makeshift bed, she left the room.

The wind and snow hadn’t stopped last night. By this morning, a thick layer of snow covered the courtyard, and the bare branches on and beyond the walls were white.

Fan Changyu rubbed her hands together against the cold. She first went to get firewood from under the eaves to light the fire pit, put on a hanging pot to warm some water for washing up and then took a broom to sweep the accumulated snow in the courtyard.

When she heard Ning’er crying next door, she hurried to bring her little sister back.

Ning’er was usually very well-behaved, but after their parents passed away, she would cry for a while if she woke up and didn’t see Fan Changyu.

After comforting her sister, Fan Changyu sat her on a stool and began to comb her hair.

Perhaps due to her poor health since childhood, Ning’er’s hair wasn’t as black and thick as Fan Changyu’s. Instead, it was fine, soft, and yellowish, with many flyaways, making it quite troublesome to tie into two little buns.

Fan Changyu was still a bit out of practice, resulting in Ning’er’s buns looking ugly in a different way every day.

After finishing her sister’s hair, Fan Changyu told her to go wash her face. Ning’er touched her left bun, then her right bun, feeling something wasn’t quite right. She took her face towel to the washbasin, looked at her reflection in the water, and realized that today’s buns were particularly crooked.

She tugged at her buns and said, “Sister, the hair is tied crookedly.”

Fan Changyu coughed twice: “I need to go to the county office after breakfast and don’t have time to redo your hair. Can you make do with this today?”

Little Ning’er was easy to placate and immediately stopped making requests.

When Fan Changyu brought fresh water to the room, she found that the person inside seemed to have been awake for a while, sitting up in bed fully dressed.

Her conversation with her sister had likely been overheard by him, which made Fan Changyu feel a bit embarrassed.

She put the washbasin on the round stool by the bed, handed him a clean cotton towel, and mentioned the promise she had made when asking him to pretend to be her son-in-law: “I’m going to the county office soon to transfer the property deed and help you register your household. I’ll also bring back a doctor for you.”

Hearing this, Xie Zheng said, “There’s no need to call a doctor. The wounds on my body will heal with rest.”

His wounds had already been treated with the golden wound medicine, and now he only needed to rest and wait for the flesh to heal.

Fan Changyu scratched her head and asked, “Is there anything you need that I can buy for you?”

He shook his head again, which made Fan Changyu feel uncomfortable.

This wasn’t what she had promised earlier, and it seemed as if she was the one benefiting from this fake marriage.

She thought that maybe after finishing her business at the county office, she could buy some tonics for him on her way back to help him recover.

After a hasty breakfast, Fan Changyu left. Since there was now someone else at home besides her sister, she didn’t leave Ning’er at Madam Zhao’s house. Before leaving, she instructed Ning’er that if anything happened, she could go next door to ask Madam Zhao for help.

Little did she know that as soon as she left, the small-time thugs who had been keeping watch near the alley immediately ran to the gambling den to report.

When the loud banging on the door started, Xie Zheng had just listlessly flipped through a couple of pages of a book he had randomly found in the corner of the room. His lazy brows concealed a trace of boredom and impatience, his mood far from good.