Xie Daozhi looked at his elderly mother—though exhausted, her hands still gripped her cane tightly, refusing to let go. His heart finally softened, and his legs bent as he knelt down.

Seeing this, the old lady slumped defeatedly into her chair and slowly lowered her eyes.

“Back then, he wrote me a letter of divorce, but I tore it up.”

This single sentence struck like five thunderbolts from a clear sky. Even Yan Sanhe’s normally indifferent face showed an expression of disbelief.

She actually tore it up?

Why?

Xie Daozhi felt a cold wind whistling down his back, his heart filled with indescribable despair.

It was over. Completely over.

“Mother, why would you do this?”

Old Lady Xie opened her mouth, but in the end could only sigh softly.

“I wanted… wanted to leave myself a bit of hope to cling to.”

“He abandoned you and left, yet you still clung to this bit of hope for what?”

Xie Daozhi roared with heartbreaking anguish, “Mother, you were confused!”

“I was confused.”

Old Lady Xie looked at her son, her face full of sorrow.

“I pretended to be confused for a full forty years. Enough—I don’t want to pretend anymore. If I keep pretending, when I reach the underworld, I’ll have no face to meet him.”

Xie Daozhi’s eyes suddenly widened.

What was Mother saying?

Why couldn’t he understand a single word?

“Son!”

Old Lady Xie’s entire body trembled violently, her throat desperately suppressing her sobs.

“He never wronged us. It’s we—mother and son—who owe him too much, a debt we can never repay, not in several lifetimes!”

“Old Ancestress, what on earth is going on?”

Who owes whom?

Xie Zhifei listened in complete bewilderment.

Old Lady Xie glanced at her young grandson, a look of determined resolve in her eyes.

Forty years—even if it meant being flayed alive, even as her years grew old, she still remembered every detail.

She dared not forget!

She could not forget!

It was a winter day many years ago, just after a heavy snowfall.

She and her son were huddled in a dilapidated temple. This was a shelter they had just found—though drafty on all sides, at least it could block some wind and rain.

Only a few pieces of flatbread remained of their dry rations. Mother and son shared one piece, toasting it over the fire and swallowing it with snow water, barely filling their stomachs.

Her son was six years old, just the right age to begin his education. Though she was a widow without much learning, she knew that to get ahead in life, a child needed to be literate and educated.

Before leaving Xie Family Village, after much thought and hesitation, she had traded the family’s three old hens with the schoolteacher from the east end of the village for two books—one copy of the “Four Books” and one of the “Five Classics.”

Her son was clever and intelligent. Carrying the books while begging for food along the way, asking people questions, after more than half a year, he had learned to recognize most of the characters in the books.

That night, as usual, her son carefully took the books from his chest and read aloud.

When he grew tired, he lay down on the straw pile, curled up in her arms, and fell asleep immediately.

But she couldn’t fall asleep no matter what.

The days were getting colder and colder. If they couldn’t find a place to settle, they would likely freeze to death in this icy wilderness.

After sleeping fitfully for two or three hours, before dawn, she quietly got up, wanting to go outside to the fields to search and see if she could dig up anything to eat.

As soon as she walked out of the temple, she saw someone standing at the entrance, dressed extremely respectably.

Seeing her come out, that person exhaled a breath of cold air and took out a waist token from inside his clothes.

“Say… would you like to enter the Yan household as a servant? If so, bring this waist token and come tomorrow.”

She was stunned, unable to believe such good fortune could exist.

“Hey, look at you not believing it!”

That person grunted heavily in his throat, showing his displeasure. “No need to sign an indenture contract—a temporary contract is fine. One tael of silver per month, including room and board. Rest assured, I’m not a kidnapper.”

Only then did she feel both shocked and delighted, falling to her knees with a thud and kowtowing repeatedly to that person.

“Well, you don’t need to kowtow to me. Later, you should kowtow a few more times to my master—that’s what matters.”

That person rubbed his hands and stamped his feet, saying, “My master passed by here yesterday and heard your son reading. He said the reading sounded pleasant and told me to come early this morning to wait for you. You have good fortune!”

When she truly entered the Yan household gates, she realized she had received great fortune indeed.

The Yan family was large and prosperous, with over a hundred servants alone. She was assigned to the laundry room, and the steward even gave her and her son a small room.

Though the room was small, it sheltered them from wind and rain, and the bedding was genuinely made with cotton. It was the first time she and her son could sleep under such warm blankets.

It was a full half-month before she saw the master that person had spoken of.

In his early thirties, refined and elegant in appearance, fair and clean, exuding scholarly air—like someone who had walked out of a painting.

She dared not look too long and quickly knelt to kowtow.

“Though you and your son are destitute, you still don’t forget to study and strive forward. This is what moved me.”

That person looked down at her from above. “The Yan household doesn’t support idle people. From now on, work diligently and teach your son with care. There will be a day when all hardships turn to joy.”

His voice was very cold, carrying strong arrogance. After speaking, he told her to withdraw.

She retreated to the outer room. Thinking of his kindness, she knelt in the courtyard and kowtowed three times before leaving.

She always worked harder than others. Every time she washed his clothes, she put in extra care. If she encountered loose threads, she would secretly mend them with a few stitches.

His past gradually reached her ears through the servants.

Intelligent and talented from childhood, cold and arrogant in temperament. Married at eighteen, never took concubines, with three sons and one daughter at his knee.

At thirty, his first wife died of illness early. He never remarried. Besides serving as an official, he devoted himself entirely to calligraphy, painting, and traveling through mountains and waters.

They also said his temper was poor and his disposition strange. When happy, he would say a few extra words; when in a bad mood, he wouldn’t bother speaking for ten days or half a month. There were few in the entire Yan household who didn’t fear him.

She feared him too, yet not entirely.

A man who could be moved by the sound of a child reading and show great kindness was ultimately a good person.

Good people need not be feared!

The work in the laundry room wasn’t heavy. When she finished, she would run to help in the neighboring needlework room.

The needlework room had an embroiderer who specifically made clothes for him.

Once the embroiderer caught a cold and couldn’t finish the needlework in time. Seeing her excellent needlework, she tossed his clothes over to her.

She knew he liked bamboo, so she embroidered two extra bamboo leaves on the sleeve cuffs of that garment.

She embroidered with great care, making them almost lifelike.

A few days later, he summoned her again. Still, one standing, one kneeling.

He looked at her for a long time, then suddenly asked, “What favor do you seek from me?”

She was alarmed that he had seen through her little scheme. Both ashamed and guilty, she still gathered her courage to speak: “I beg the master to teach my son to read.”

He remained silent for a long time.

Kneeling on the ground, she could only see his feet.

On his feet were fine black boots, tapping lightly on the ground, beat by beat.

She felt her own heart jumping along with those beats.

“Raise your head.”

She obeyed and raised her head.

When their eyes met, she saw a slight brightness flash in his eyes. Then he fell silent again for a long time before ordering her to leave.

Walking out of the courtyard, she lowered her head and quickly wiped her lips with the back of her hand.

No one knew that to come see him, she had bitten her finger, squeezed out a drop of blood, and applied it to her lips, just to make herself look more attractive.

Yes, she had used all her cunning.

After entering the Yan household, though mother and son had no worries about food and clothing, her son, no matter how intelligent, had no way to study and succeed without a teacher.

The Yan estate had a clan school, but only children with the Yan surname could enter. Children of servants, even if they sharpened their heads to points, couldn’t walk through those doors.

She had to think of a way.