The winter in Shuo Jing was getting colder with each passing day. It rained during the night, and by the next morning, the ground was covered with a layer of damp coldness. On the tenth day of the tenth month, He Yan rose early from bed.

He Sui and He Yunsheng had already left before dawn – one for work and the other for school. After they departed, He Yan got up, lit a candle, and quietly finished washing up before tiptoeing out of her room.

Qing Mei was still sound asleep, as it wasn’t yet time to prepare breakfast. He Yan knew that Chi Wu lived in an empty room in the courtyard, guarding during the first half of the night and resting during the second half. However, he was quite perceptive, so He Yan employed her previous infiltration skills from the Vanguard Camp to traverse the short distance from the courtyard to the outside, avoiding detection.

Xiang Xiang gave her a puzzled look, seemingly confused by her behavior. He Yan patted the horse’s head. He Yunsheng truly cherished this horse and had even specially fitted it with a saddle, though he was too frugal to ride it, leaving the saddle unused. Today, however, she needed to leave the city, and being too poor to rent a carriage, she had no choice but to ask Xiang Xiang for help with transportation.

He Yan mounted the horse and galloped towards the city gates in the misty winter morning light of Shuo Jing.

At the third crow of the rooster, Qing Mei yawned and got up to boil water. The stove was outside the courtyard, and the kettle bubbled with steam, bringing a touch of warmth to the cold morning. She first went to the kitchen to start cooking porridge, then headed to the courtyard to fill the water trough in the stable.

He Yunsheng loved his horse dearly and used to feed it personally. However, with his current heavy courseload requiring him to leave early and return late, he couldn’t attend to it regularly anymore, so he entrusted this honorable task to Qing Mei. She took it seriously, treating Xiang Xiang as if it were the household’s third young master.

Usually, when she approached the stable, Xiang Xiang would pace back and forth upon hearing her voice. Today, however, it was unusually quiet. Concerned that it might be sick – after all, even humans easily caught colds in this weather, let alone horses – Qing Mei hurried to the stable with her lantern. She froze in shock at what she saw. After a moment, she ran towards He Yan’s room, crying out, “Miss! Miss! Something terrible has happened! Xiang Xiang… Xiang Xiang has been stolen…”

When she pushed open the door, Qing Mei’s voice suddenly stopped. The room was empty. Panicked, she searched everywhere but couldn’t find any trace of He Yan. After a moment of shock, she burst into tears.

With a bang, another door opened, and a male voice emerged from the courtyard: “What’s happened?”

Chi Wu rubbed his forehead, thinking that the He family was truly too poor. Besides the three rooms in the courtyard, there weren’t any guest rooms. He Sui was an honest man who had offered to give up his room to Chi Wu, and He Yunsheng had reluctantly agreed to share a room with him, but Chi Wu had firmly refused. Though he wasn’t usually particular, he wasn’t so reckless as to share the main room while serving as a guard for the family’s protection. After much consideration, He Sui could only clear out the storage room in the far corner of the courtyard.

The room was tiny – after removing the miscellaneous items, it could barely fit a bed. Chi Wu had to lie diagonally to sleep. Though he had also been a guard at the Xiao family, the treatment was worlds apart. Even though the He family had done their best to provide him with the best conditions possible, Chi Wu often wished he could pay from his pocket to get them a larger residence.

He had guarded during the first half of the night and returned to rest during the second half. When he awoke now, he heard the little maid crying heartbrokenly and came out to inquire.

Qing Mei turned around and was startled to see Chi Wu. He usually kept such a low profile in the courtyard, never eating with them and only sleeping in the storage room at night, that he barely had any presence. Sometimes Qing Mei almost forgot there was such a person in the house. Now seeing Chi Wu appear, she grabbed onto him like a lifeline and cried, “Master Chi! Miss and Xiang Xiang are gone – they’ve been kidnapped!”

Chi Wu: “…”

He said, “Let me take a look.”

He Yan’s bedroom was garishly decorated with fragrance pouches and red curtains hanging everywhere. Chi Wu was quite shocked – if it weren’t necessary to enter, he wouldn’t want to see any of this. He never expected that beneath He Yan’s casual and free-spirited exterior, she was so fond of such feminine things. He made a mental note to tell this to Bai Rongwei later, so she could properly decorate Xiao Ju’s new room according to He Yan’s taste.

He only looked around briefly before walking out. Qing Mei followed him: “Master Chi, how is it?”

“She wasn’t kidnapped – she left on her own.”

“How is that possible?” Qing Mei didn’t believe it. “How could Miss leave without saying anything? Even if she wanted to go somewhere, she would have told us. Master Chi,” she looked at him suspiciously, “you’re not just trying to shirk responsibility to Commander Xiao by pushing the blame onto our Miss, are you?”

Chi Wu could no longer contain his frustration. “Young lady, look carefully – before your Miss was supposedly ‘kidnapped,’ she even took the time to fold her bedding neatly.” The bedding was folded in the style of recruits from the Liang Prefecture Guard – perfectly square like a block of tofu, clearly done by He Yan’s hand. “Please tell me, which kidnapper would wait for their victim to fold their bedding before taking them?”

Qing Mei: “But…”

“And not only that but taking both the person and the horse – I’ve never heard of such kidnappers.”

Qing Mei fell silent.

After a while, as if she had completely forgotten her previous accusations and suspicions towards Chi Wu, she politely asked again, “Then Master Chi, can you think of why Miss would leave without saying goodbye?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know.”

Chi Wu was also internally furious. There were only Qing Mei and himself in the courtyard. Seeing how simple-minded Qing Mei was, why did He Yan need to go to such lengths to sneak out? Undoubtedly, it was to prevent him from following her!

Now that she was gone when the young master asked about it later, he would surely be in trouble. He Yan had left easily, leaving him with a mess to deal with. He had known from the start that this assignment to the He family wouldn’t be a good one – and sure enough!

“What should we do now? Should we report it to the authorities?” Qing Mei was at her wit’s end and could only look to the only person she could still talk to.

Chi Wu said, “No need, I’ll go look for her.” Since He Yan had sneaked out, she likely had something to do that she didn’t want others to know about. Reporting it to the authorities would only make things worse.

He had just taken a step when his sleeve was pulled. Chi Wu looked back to see Qing Mei clutching him as if afraid he would also disappear without warning. “I’ll go with you.”

“That’s not necessary.”

“I’m the only one left in the courtyard now, even Xiang Xiang is gone,” the little maid’s lips trembled as if she were about to cry, but she held it back. “Master Chi, let me go with you to look for them!”

Chi Wu: “…”

He resigned himself, “All right.”

…

He Yan could certainly guess what chaos would erupt at home after her departure. But she trusted that Chi Wu could handle the crybaby Qing Mei.

She had no choice. If it weren’t for the fact that Nanny Qin’s sweetheart – Blacksmith Niu – only came down the mountain to “Changmao Iron Shop” on the tenth of each month, she wouldn’t have resorted to this method. She couldn’t let Chi Wu come along, so she had to sneak out. As for the rest, she would deal with it after finding Nanny Qin and resolving this matter.

Since coming to the He family, Xiang Xiang had been well-fed and cared for by He Yunsheng, who would occasionally take it for runs by the riverside when he wasn’t at school. The young horse was quite fast, and He Yan left the city smoothly. After asking passersby along the way, she finally reached the market at the foot of the barren mountain.

It wasn’t as bustling as the city, but this was the only large market for the nearby villages and towns. On the tenth of each month, various merchants would set up stalls here. There were sellers of herbs, second-hand clothes, cattle, and sheep – it was quite lively and dizzying to look at.

He Yan led her horse to a wine shop front, where the shopkeeper smiled in greeting: “Young sir, are you looking to buy wine?”

Having dressed as a man today for convenience, He Yan just smiled and said, “I need to get horseshoes made for my horse. I heard there’s an iron shop nearby called ‘Changmao Iron Shop’ – do you know where it is?”

The shopkeeper pointed in a direction and said, “Follow this road straight ahead, and when you reach the end, look to your right – that’s Changmao Iron Shop.”

He Yan thanked him and led Xiang Xiang in that direction. When she reached the end of the road and turned back, she indeed saw a shop directly opposite her with “Changmao Iron Shop” crudely written on it.

He Yan tied the horse outside and went in. Inside was only an elderly craftsman with graying hair, sitting before an iron furnace, hammering away at a black iron pot.

“Master,” He Yan called out to him.

The old craftsman looked up at He Yan and asked, “What would you like made, customer?”

“I apologize,” He Yan said, “I’m not here to have anything made. I’m here to ask about someone – Blacksmith Niu. I heard he comes here every tenth of the month. Has he already been here today?”

He Yan wasn’t sure. Fu Wang had only said that Blacksmith Niu came every tenth, but hadn’t specified when. Given Blacksmith Niu’s cautious nature, he would surely leave after finishing his business. She had traveled from the city to here, and it was almost noon now – perhaps Blacksmith Niu had already come and gone.

Hearing this, the old craftsman stopped his work. He stood up, took a water-soaked cloth from the side, and wiped the grime from his hands before saying, “Old Niu hasn’t come today. This is the first time he’s ever been late.”

He Yan: “Late?”

“Every tenth morning of the month, he comes here to deliver goods. Old Niu’s craftsmanship is very good,” the old craftsman said with some emotion. “I originally asked him to work in my shop – the monthly wages would be much higher than working on his own, but he refused. That was that. According to schedule, he should have been here at the Chen hour this morning to deliver ten iron sickles I ordered last month, but now it’s almost noon,” the old craftsman looked at the sun outside, “and he still hasn’t come.”

“Perhaps something delayed him on the road,” He Yan said this aloud, but her heart sank. It was likely that Xu Zhiheng had already found Nanny Qin’s whereabouts before her, which was why Blacksmith Niu couldn’t be seen now.

“Old Niu is a reliable person; he wouldn’t be late without good reason,” the old craftsman asked He Yan, “Young sir, what do you need him for? Since I’ve known him, he’s always been a solitary person. Do you know Old Niu?”

He Yan smiled, “Not really. I just wanted to ask him about some matters.”

The old craftsman nodded and pointed to a wooden bench nearby, “Then please sit here and wait for Old Niu to arrive.”

He Yan took the seat as suggested, but unexpectedly, this wait lasted an entire day.

As the sun began to set and darkness crept in, the old craftsman finished his day’s work, washed his hands, changed his clothes, and stood up to tell He Yan, “Young sir, it seems Old Niu won’t be coming today.”

“The market is about to close at this hour, and I need to close up shop,” he politely indicated it was time for He Yan to leave.

He Yan’s heart felt heavy as a stone, but she managed a smile and said “Alright.” Still concerned, she earnestly told the craftsman, “Master, please don’t mention today’s events to anyone, including Blacksmith Niu. I’ll return in a few days.”

Only after the craftsman agreed did He Yan lead her horse away.

The market crowds had dispersed, leaving only the mess from the day’s activities. Poor mothers and children were bent over, picking up leftover vegetables and fruits. Lanterns began lighting up in the distance as He Yan slowly led her horse, unable to lift her spirits.

She had hoped that with Fu Wang’s lead, she could trace Nanny Qin’s whereabouts through Blacksmith Niu today, but instead found nothing.

For the past few months, the blacksmith had delivered his goods to the iron shop punctually every month, yet today of all days, he didn’t show up. Missing the entire day from morning to evening wasn’t mere tardiness. Either Blacksmith Niu had relocated with Nanny Qin again, or he was no longer able to come.

He Yan’s gaze darkened.

…

When she returned home, chaos had already erupted. He Sui hadn’t returned yet, and He Yunsheng was preparing to go out. The household was in an uproar when He Yan led the horseback. Qing Mei was at the door and, upon seeing He Yan, thought her eyes were playing tricks on her. After rubbing them, she ran over, crying out, “Miss is back!”

Before He Yan could speak, He Yunsheng immediately assumed an accusatory stance, saying, “Where did you go? And you took Xiang Xiang too!”

He Yan wasn’t sure if he was more concerned about Xiang Xiang or her, but after some thought, she said, “I was just feeling idle today. Since I haven’t been out for days, I took Xiang Xiang for a walk.”

“If you wanted to go out, why didn’t you take someone with you?” He Yunsheng glanced at the silent Chi Wu. “You didn’t even say a word.”

“Ah,” He Yan feigned surprise, “I left a note on the table before I left. Didn’t you see it? If not, perhaps a swallow flew in and carried it away.”

“In the dead of winter, where would you find swallows?” He Yunsheng coldly watched her fabricate stories. “What exactly were you doing?”

“I just went out for a stroll, nothing more. I thought it was still early, and Chi Wu wasn’t awake yet, so I didn’t want to disturb him. I figured I’d be back soon anyway. I hadn’t been out for so long that I lost track of time once I left. I’m sorry, I was careless this time, but it won’t happen again.” He Yan apologized without much sincerity.

Chi Wu: “…” Was she implying he slept too soundly?

He Yunsheng angrily exclaimed, “He Yan!”

“I’m hungry. Has Qing Mei prepared food?” He Yan rubbed her stomach – this was genuine. She had spent the entire day at the iron shop, not daring to leave even a step for fear of missing Blacksmith Niu, only eating two steamed buns bought from a nearby stall.

“Yes, yes!” Qing Mei hurried to bring out food from the kitchen. “Miss, please eat if you’re hungry. I’ve kept the porridge warm, it should be just right now.”

“Thank you,” He Yan smiled warmly.

Though angry at He Yan, He Yunsheng was helpless – He Yan had always done as she pleased, beyond his control. Both angry and resigned, he could only sit down at the table with her and eat without tasting the food.

Chi Wu stood by the door, puzzled. He Yan had been gone for an entire day, during which he and Qing Mei had searched everywhere without finding a trace of her. He Yunsheng had nearly reported to the authorities. Now He Yan appeared perfectly fine, with no obvious signs of distress.

However… what exactly had she been doing?

…

In a secluded courtyard, a man and woman sat facing each other in a room. Both were no longer young. The man had dark skin, deep wrinkles, and dirty fingers, but was built strong and sturdy – someone who did manual labor. The woman was in her forties, and though dressed, her skin was delicate, retaining some mature beauty, unlike someone who had known hardship.

The man was somewhat composed, but the woman looked particularly frightened. Both were bound by ropes, unable to move, though they could still speak. Despite calling out for a long time since arriving, no one had responded.

“Old Niu, what’s going on?” The woman spoke, her voice trembling uncontrollably.

This pair was none other than Blacksmith Niu and his sweetheart Nanny Qin, whom He Yan had been searching for.

Blacksmith Niu shook his head. Though appearing dull, his eyes held a certain shrewdness. After looking around, he said, “Perhaps the Xu family has found us.”

At the mention of the “Xu family,” Nanny Qin’s entire body began to shake.

She had entered the Xu household with He Wanru, and when He Wanru was favored, she too, as a wet nurse, had enjoyed good days. The food and accommodations were much better than at the He family, but the good times didn’t last. After He Wanru’s death, she had lived a life of constant flight and hiding.

Thinking of He Wanru’s death made Nanny Qin shudder.

He Wanru was the child she had nursed, and though somewhat spoiled, had trusted her wet nurse completely. Nanny Qin had warned He Wanru that some secrets were best kept hidden – the fewer people who knew, the better. If someone revealed a secret to you without hesitation, it wasn’t trust – it was because, in their eyes, you were already dead.

The dead keep secrets best.

She had tried to persuade He Wanru to gather her belongings and flee with her. Unfortunately, He Wanru didn’t believe her words, and so died in the Xu mansion. Before He Wanru’s death, Nanny Qin had anticipated her fate and written a letter to her old flame, hoping Blacksmith Niu would help look after her family after her death.

Though Blacksmith Niu was a manual laborer, he was quick-witted and held genuine feelings for Nanny Qin. He suggested that if she were believed dead, her descendants might still be in danger. Better to escape – Xu Zhiheng might hesitate to harm her family if he was uncertain of her fate.

Nanny Qin found his reasoning sound, and naturally let him decide where to flee.

For the past year, she and Blacksmith Niu had hidden in the barren mountains, indeed living peacefully for a time. But last night, strangers suddenly burst into their mountain hut, easily subduing and taking them away. When they awoke, they were in this room.

“Old Niu, are we going to die?” Nanny Qin asked timidly. “They’ve found us, they won’t let us live… my grandson… and you, I’ve brought trouble to all of you.”

Blacksmith Niu said, “Ah Qin, don’t be afraid. I don’t think they mean to kill us.”

Nanny Qin looked up. “What do you mean?”

Who would choose death if there was a chance to live? Nanny Qin didn’t want to die either, and hearing Blacksmith Niu’s words, her eyes immediately lit up with hope.

“If it were Xu Zhiheng, he could have killed us as soon as he found us. He wouldn’t have kept us alive until now,” Blacksmith Niu consoled her. “At least for now, we’re not in immediate danger.”

“Then… you mean the people who caught us aren’t from Master Xu?” Nanny Qin asked puzzledly. “Then what do they want with us?”

“That I don’t know.”

Nanny Qin fell silent. Sometimes unknown fears were the most terrifying. Their captors had simply left them here without a word, which was more unsettling than if they had revealed their identities from the start.

After some time, voices were heard outside. Nanny Qin perked up, looking hopefully toward the closed door.

The door opened and people entered. First came two people in black, one male and one female, their expressions unreadable. Behind them came a young man of exceptional beauty, whose clothing suggested he was no ordinary person.

Having served in the Xu household for many years, Nanny Qin could read such situations. Seeing these three, she immediately knew the beautiful youth was the master, and cried out, “Please spare us, my lord! Please spare us!”

Blacksmith Niu remained silent, quietly observing the newcomers.

The beautiful youth sat down in a chair in the middle of the room, with the two black-clad figures standing at his sides. His gaze swept over the pair, finally settling on Nanny Qin.

Though his expression was calm, it made Nanny Qin shiver.

“You were He Wanru’s wet nurse in the Xu household?” he asked.

Nanny Qin’s heart sank. She had been holding onto some hope, but now his first words made it clear – they were after the Xu family’s secrets. She replied, “Yes… young master…”

Before she could finish, he interrupted her. The youth spoke coldly, “How did He Wanru die?”

“I…”

“If you lie, he dies,” he raised his chin slightly toward Blacksmith Niu’s direction.