Chen Baoxiang had always thought people were a peculiar kind of creature — perfectly capable of minding their own affairs, yet forever compelled to fret over everyone else’s.

Take her situation, for instance: she and Zhang Fengqing had never married and had no children, and she herself hadn’t lost a moment’s sleep over it — yet somehow the entire court had been thrown into a panic. Officials lined up day after day to urge her, insisting that she simply had to raise an heir, otherwise her title of Marquess would have no one to inherit it.

Chen Baoxiang found it utterly exhausting.

After learning the circumstances of her birth mother’s death, she could not bring herself to step onto that same path as if nothing had happened. And as for marriage — she didn’t see what difference it made, either to her or to Zhang Zhixu.

Still, she’d been wavering, wondering whether she should go home and ask Zhang Zhixu what he thought. After all, they were living this life together, and she couldn’t be too autocratic about it.

But when she arrived home that day, she found two small, thin children standing in the middle of the house.

Zhang Zhixu gave her a helpless, spread-hands look: “Zhang Yinyue went to Xiangzhou to help contain a plague and came back with over a hundred orphaned children. She’s been going door to door. I had no good way to refuse — so I agreed to take in these two.”

Chen Baoxiang: “……”

She laughed softly and ruffled the children’s heads, swallowed back whatever she’d been about to say.

The great immortal knew her better than anyone. Rescuing her from awkward situations had long since become second nature to him.

“Have you made up your mind?” she asked.

“Yes,” he answered. “The older one — her name is Chen Yuli. The younger one — he’s Zhang Zaixin.”

What she had asked wasn’t about names, and what he answered wasn’t entirely about names either.

But the two of them looked at each other, and broke into identical smiles.

·

Just like that, the two of them inexplicably found themselves living a life with children in it.

Chen Yuli had been spending her days on the training grounds with her adoptive mother since she was five years old. She trained herself into a formidable fighter — capable, reliable, and never one to shy away from hardship. By twelve, she had been handpicked by the Sage Ruler and promoted, beyond the usual age, to serve as an imperial guard.

Zhang Zaixin, for his part, loved books. He placed first in every small examination at the Shangjing Academy, and finding the standard curriculum insufficient, he took to sneaking into the Ministry of Justice to read through the archives of old case files.

One day, Zhang Zhixu was frowning over a long-unsolved peculiar case, unable to make headway.

Zhang Zaixin glanced at it and said offhandedly: “Isn’t this the same method as that old case from Suzhou twelve years ago?”

Zhang Zhixu looked up in astonishment: “What old case?”

Zhang Zaixin immediately pulled him toward the archives and, with impressive precision, extracted the relevant case file from the very back of the second shelf in the third row.

“Well done,” Zhang Zhixu said, nodding his approval.

But that same evening, the two of them sat together in shared consternation: “Is this child perhaps too mature?”

“He is,” Chen Baoxiang said wide-eyed. “Yesterday I said I’d take him out for a stroll around the streets. Do you know what he told me? He said that sort of thing is only for idle people with nothing better to do.”

Zhang Zhixu pressed his lips together: “The day before yesterday, there was a case in the files — a merchant verbally insulted a peasant woman, and her son charged out and cut him down. The officials of the Ministry of Justice were debating whether the son should be sentenced to death; most felt the punishment ought to be lenient.”

“But Zaixin glanced at it and said it shouldn’t be lenient. If it were, then anyone who commits murder in the future could claim their mother had been shamed, that they had no other choice, and use it as grounds for a reduced sentence.”

“The reasoning was sound — but every official present felt he was far too cold and callous, contrary to human feeling, and they each gave me a solemn lecture about going home and educating my son properly.”

Chen Baoxiang scratched her head: “Do you think we haven’t shown him enough warmth?”

Zhang Zhixu gave a grave nod.

And so the very next day, the two of them subjected Zhang Zaixin to a thorough, relentless campaign of care and affection — from candied hawthorn skewers to small jade pendants, sitting in on his lessons, waiting to walk him home from school, heart-to-heart talks, and attempts to chat with him like old friends.

Zhang Zaixin lifted his head from his book and said, with great patience: “You two — one the Left Chancellor of the court, the other the Supreme Commander of the realm’s forces. Are you not busy? Is official duty really so easy to neglect?”

“……” He did not appear to be lacking in warmth whatsoever.

Baffled, Chen Baoxiang went to Chen Yuli to ask for her assessment.

Chen Yuli didn’t look up from the mechanical puzzle she was tinkering with: “Are you only just noticing? That’s Second Brother’s disposition. He believes himself to be the most intelligent person in the world, has an extreme aversion to anyone or anything he considers dull-witted, and so sometimes comes across as having no feelings at all.”

She slotted the last piece of the bridge into place, puzzled: “I don’t know who he takes after.”

Chen Baoxiang smoothly reached over and pinched the person standing beside her.

Zhang Zhixu felt deeply aggrieved. Yes, he, too, had been precocious and intolerant of mediocrity — but he had never sunk to Zhang Zaixin’s level. He had at least maintained basic courtesy toward the people around him.

And then there was Zhang Zaixin: on his walk home from school one day, a female classmate approached him, red-faced, to ask how to approach the day’s assignment. He fixed her with a blank stare and said: “If you can’t even figure out something that simple, what are you doing here?”

“……”

Chen Baoxiang charged forward and twisted his ear, while Zhang Zhixu stayed behind to apologize to the girl on their behalf.

“The teachers do speak highly of him, and even the Sage Ruler has taken note of his sharp mind,” Zhang Zhixu remarked. “In terms of his future prospects, there is nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, there’s certainly nothing to worry about on that front — even if he had no prospects, I wouldn’t let him starve,” Chen Baoxiang sighed. “But if he goes on like this, will anyone even want to spend time with him?”

The answer, naturally, was no.

Zhang Zaixin managed to offend every single peer in the academy with his tongue, until people gave him a wide berth of an entire yard when he walked past. Worse, he was frequently the target of pranks and petty cruelties.

Most children in that position would go and report it.

Zhang Zaixin considered that a child’s solution. He settled things himself, striking back directly. Though he was outnumbered and usually came away with his own share of bruises, after fighting back enough times, those students thought twice before trying again.

One day, having dealt with the worst of the troublemakers in the academy, he was wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth when he turned — and found a girl standing in front of him.

She had her head lowered and looked timid — but she extended a handkerchief toward him all the same.

Zhang Zaixin’s brow creased immediately: “I don’t need that. Don’t come near me.”

And with that, he walked away.

He had assumed his rudeness would be enough to keep people at a comfortable distance. But when he left school that afternoon, Zhang Zaixin saw her again.

She was trailing behind him — and this time she was holding a small bottle of medicine.

His mother spotted her first and immediately went over: “Is that for Zaixin?”

The girl gave a small nod.

He opened his mouth, already prepared to refuse.

“Goodness, what a kind-hearted child you are,” his mother said — and clamped her hand firmly over his mouth. She asked the girl’s name, then grabbed him by the arm and marched him away.

“Zhang Zaixin, if you say one more unkind thing to anyone, I will give you a thrashing!”

He wasn’t entirely convinced: “I came to this school to study, not to say pleasant things.”

“Still arguing?” Chen Baoxiang hauled him home, and at the sight of the injuries on his face she was equal parts irritated and amused. “Beaten up like this and you still don’t want me to go confront them for you?”

“Children’s matters have children’s solutions. I don’t need your help.”

“Oh, now you know you’re a child?” Chen Baoxiang poked his cheek. “You’re usually so busy playing the adult.”

“I’m only twelve — of course I’m a child.” Zhang Zaixin turned his head aside. “And you accepted that girl’s things without even asking why. You don’t know what’s behind it.”

Chen Baoxiang shook the little bottle in her hand: “This? Tujin says you saved her today, so she wanted to thank you with this.”

Saved her?

Zhang Zaixin blinked, and after a moment’s recollection, it clicked.

So those students he’d been fighting today hadn’t been coming for him — they’d been going for the girl behind him.

He had misread the situation. And on top of that, he’d been rather unpleasant to her.

Zhang Zaixin was not someone who made mistakes — whether accidentally breaking a bowl or upsetting his parents, he had never done either. This, then, was the single mistake he made in all of his childhood.

It sat uneasy in him. Zhang Zaixin turned to his mother and asked: “When Father makes a mistake, what does he usually do to make it right?”

Chen Baoxiang stared at him, her face flushing: “You absolutely cannot learn that — you, just what kind of mistake did you make?”

“Nothing. I was just asking.” Zhang Zaixin picked up his book and used it to hide his face again.

The next day, he made a point of looking for this Tujin.

In a classroom of forty students, she was already small to begin with — and yet she had chosen the very back corner seat. When she noticed someone standing in front of her, her first instinct was to curl her arms over her own head.