It was not yet dawn. The world outside was a dim, grey blur — even the chickens in their coops were still dozing.

Shi Ting held Yan Qing’s hand and, hugging the shadows, quietly slipped out through the back gate of the Shi Mansion.

Shi Ting had said Yan Qing’s usual clothing wouldn’t do, so she had changed into men’s attire — the outfit she had kept from her last trip to the black market still fit perfectly.

The two got into a car waiting nearby and quickly disappeared into the night.

From Shun Cheng to Shuang He Town, one first had to take a train to Qian Guan Cheng, then board a boat from there to Shuang He Town. The passenger boats ran several times a day, traveling back and forth between the two docks.

When they arrived at the Qian Guan Cheng wharf, it was already the morning of two days later.

Shi Ting wore a grey cotton jacket, black trousers, and flat-soled shoes — the very image of a dockworker.

Noticing that Yan Qing had been watching him with a smile the whole journey, Shi Ting couldn’t help but ask: “You’ve been looking at me like that the whole way.”

Yan Qing rested her chin in her hand, her smile growing wider. “I was just thinking — my husband was born so handsome. Even in these worn, ragged clothes, he’s still handsome.”

Some people’s aura was innate — even in shabby clothing, they radiated an effortless elegance. Yet others, draped in gold and jade, were empty shells.

The boat beneath them swayed from side to side. Yan Qing looked out toward the distance — the river surface was vast, seemingly without end.

The passing boats were all quite battered, as though a strong wind could scatter them apart with ease. As they moved across the water, they creaked and groaned steadily.

On the boat, quite a few people had begun to suffer seasickness, and from time to time someone would lean over the railing to retch.

“Drink some water,” Shi Ting said, handing Yan Qing a water bottle. “Are you feeling unwell?”

Yan Qing shook her head.

She had done a lot of fieldwork before and had long grown accustomed to it. S City also had many rivers, and she was used to boat travel.

Shi Ting worried she wouldn’t be able to bear the hardship of the journey and attended to her carefully the whole way, but Yan Qing proved far more resilient than he had imagined.

“I’m fine,” Yan Qing said, drinking a sip of water and giving him a gentle smile.

Just then, the sound of a child crying came from not far away.

“Waaah!”

“Waaah!”

A woman was holding a child who was wailing nonstop at the top of its lungs. The people around them craned their necks to look.

“Is the child sick?” someone asked.

The woman said anxiously: “The child has a fever — the face is burning hot. I don’t know how long it will be before we reach Qian Jin County.”

Qian Jin County and Shuang He Town were two different places. The boat would arrive at Qian Jin County first, then continue on to Shuang He Town. The woman was clearly from Qian Jin County.

Yan Qing glanced at Shi Ting. Shi Ting gave her a small nod.

“Sister, I have some medicine here.” Yan Qing walked over and crouched in front of the woman, reaching out to check the child’s temperature. From her years of experience, she estimated the child was running at thirty-eight or thirty-nine degrees. If medication wasn’t given immediately, there was a risk of the fever causing damage.

“Thank you, thank you so much.” The woman kept thanking her, so moved that tears streamed down her face.

Yan Qing found the medicine, ground it up, dissolved it in water, and had the woman feed it to the child.

The child looked to be about six or seven months old — plump and fair, with a gold longevity lock hanging around its neck, half-hidden beneath its collar.

Yan Qing looked at the woman again: a worn, tattered cotton dress, dry and brittle hair, sunken eyes, her temples already touched with the frost of hardship. As she fed the child the medicine, the woman kept glancing back toward the stern of the boat.

“Sister, are you from Qian Jin County?” Yan Qing asked casually.

The woman seemed to hesitate. Her gaze dropped to the side. After a moment she said: “I’m going to Qian Jin County to stay with a relative.”

Seeing she appeared to have something she didn’t want to say, Yan Qing didn’t press further. She gave a few more instructions about keeping the child well-hydrated and massaging certain fever-reducing acupoints, then returned to Shi Ting’s side.

“That child doesn’t look like her own,” Shi Ting said. “Their features don’t resemble each other, and their clothing doesn’t match either. The child has a gold longevity lock around its neck — by the look of its weight, it’s a heavy one.”

Only wealthy families could have gold longevity locks made for their children. By this woman’s clothing and appearance, she could barely keep herself fed, let alone afford a gold lock.

“Look at the soles of her shoes,” Shi Ting said, slowly letting his gaze travel over. “There’s dried blood.”

Yan Qing looked carefully. That dark, dried color — she knew it better than anyone.

The woman appeared uninjured, yet the soles of her shoes were stained with blood — as though she had walked through a pool of it.

“I just noticed — the gold lock had a character engraved on it. A character that looked like ‘Qiao.’ Could that be the child’s surname?” Yan Qing ventured a guess.

“Ordinary longevity locks are usually engraved with phrases like ‘long life and safety.’ If it’s only a single character, it’s likely a surname.”

Shi Ting withdrew his gaze: “Though this woman is not the child’s parent, she has been carefully tending to it since she boarded. When the child fell ill, she was frantic with worry. By that measure, she means no harm to it.”

The woman and child had nothing to do with them — but given both of their professions, Shi Ting had surveyed every passenger on the boat since boarding.

“Look, there’s a boat behind us,” a man sitting at the stern suddenly called out. “There’s someone on it — looks like they’re waving at us.”

Hearing his shout, everyone looked back. Sure enough, behind the passenger boat, a vessel — small but solid and sturdy — was charging forward at full speed.

At its bow stood a man, brandishing a large colorful flag.

“This is a signal between boatmen,” Shi Ting said. “Waving a red flag means telling the other boat to stop.”

“Stop?” Before Yan Qing could process what that meant, the woman suddenly scooped up the child and in two or three great strides threw herself in front of Yan Qing.

Shi Ting instinctively moved to shield Yan Qing, but the woman had already dropped to her knees.

At that moment, everyone on the boat was watching the commotion at the stern, and no one paid attention to them.

The woman pushed the child into Yan Qing’s arms, and tears began to stream down her face. “Young gentleman, I can see you’re a good person. My life is worth nothing — if I die, no great loss. But the young master is only six months old. Harm should not fall on a child. I beg you, save his life.”

The woman knocked her head on the floor three times. When she looked up again, her gaze had turned to one of absolute resolution. “When you reach Qian Jin County, take him to find a family surnamed Yuan. The head of the family is called Yuan Wenkui. As long as his family sees the gold lock, they will understand everything.”

“I repay this great kindness in my next life.”

The woman finished speaking, unwrapped the child from his small blanket, bundled something hastily with a tattered cloth bundle, and snatched it up.

Yan Qing moved to rise. Shi Ting raised a hand to stop her: “That pursuing boat is coming for her.”

The woman, clutching the ‘child,’ rushed to the bow of the boat and stood at the prominent prow. The pursuing vessel quickly spotted her. Immediately, more than ten burly men poured out from the boat, weapons in hand.

But before anyone on the pursuing boat could act, the woman leapt with a splash into the river. The water churned; the woman struggled on the surface for a few moments and was quickly swallowed by the river. Where she had fallen, a bright-patterned new small blanket floated to the surface — it drifted on the water, conspicuously vivid.

The woman’s sequence of actions had taken place within the span of a breath. When Yan Qing came to her senses, she couldn’t help but look down at the child in her arms.

The child, having taken the fever medicine — the effect was already beginning to kick in — was resting quietly, his small head tucked against her chest, sound asleep.

There was no time for lengthy thought. Yan Qing grabbed a piece of clothing and wrapped him snugly, lest he catch a chill.

“She was a loyal soul,” Shi Ting said with a sigh. “It seems this child was one she rescued from somewhere. Now that they’re being hunted, the only way she could protect the child was this.”

Shi Ting took the gold lock from the child’s chest. The lock was finely crafted and weighty, with an engraved character nestled within the intricate carved patterns: “Ning.”

“What a loyal soul — and we could do nothing to help her.” Yan Qing sighed.

If she hadn’t jumped into the river, the boat would have been stopped, and both she and the child would have died. Shi Ting was just one man — there was no way to rescue them from those violent ruffians. And there was an entire boatload of people to consider as well.

“You did help her.” Shi Ting looked at the child.

Yan Qing also looked down. One of the child’s small hands gripped her collar tight, sound asleep in contentment.

Her heart softened, and a ripple of feeling moved through her.

“It seems we’ll need to change our route,” Shi Ting said. “Let’s go to Qian Jin County first.”

After the pursuing boat saw the woman leap into the river with the child, they no longer waved the large flag, and instead pulled up to the spot where she had jumped. Someone hauled the small blanket out of the river, while others thrashed about inside it with bamboo poles. Only after confirming that both the woman and child had sunk to the bottom did the boat turn and head back.

“This person died so quickly — just the blink of an eye.”

“Yes — and with such a small child. So pitiful.”

The onlookers talked among themselves after witnessing the spectacle. No one noticed that the child was now in Yan Qing’s arms.

The child seemed to understand something, staying obediently calm the entire way. By the time the two of them disembarked, he had still not opened his eyes.

Yan Qing had never cared for a child before, and seeing him sleep on and on, she grew a little worried. “Could the medicine have been too much? Why won’t he wake up?”

“It’s perfectly normal for a child this age to sleep two or three hours straight, especially while sick,” Shi Ting said. He set down the luggage and jumped off the boat, then reached up a hand for her to hold as she stepped down.

This trip, Shi Ting had come to gather information about the gang of bandits at Da Gu Mountain. He could not rashly confront them — that would be no different from throwing an egg against a rock. Now that they had made a detour mid-journey, the first order of business was to deal with this child’s situation.

Shi Ting didn’t like to fight a battle without preparation. Whenever he set his mind to accomplish something, he had to succeed — and for that success, he needed to lay a solid foundation.

The two had originally planned to find a small inn to settle in first, but now it seemed they needed to find this Yuan family first and hand the child over quickly.

Neither of them had any experience caring for a child. While he was asleep it was manageable, but once he woke, things could get hectic.

Qian Jin County was neither small nor large. To find one person didn’t seem to be an easy matter.