Her single phrase “I’ll learn myself” concealed unspoken grievance.

And she truly did as she said. Early the next morning, she made breakfast in the kitchen. Previously at home, Ni Su had never touched such matters. She didn’t grasp the method of tending the stove, nor did she know how much rice or how much water to use.

Smoke swirled throughout the kitchen, choking Ni Su until she couldn’t stop coughing. Her eyes were so irritated by the smoke she could barely open them. She only felt someone carefully take hold of her sleeve, and she followed him step by step out of the kitchen.

“Why did you come out?”

Ni Su coughed while saying, “If your form becomes any more faint, it will snow here again.”

“I thought there was a fire.”

Xu Hexue released her and spoke.

Ni Su had lit many lamps in his room, and from last night until now, she hadn’t allowed him to come out.

Her eyelids had been rubbed red by Ni Su. Hearing his words, she felt somewhat embarrassed and pressed her lips together briefly.

Ni Su sat down silently on the wooden steps under the eaves corridor, hugging her knees. After quite a while, she finally said, “Why is cooking also so difficult?”

Her dejection showed in her lowered brows and eyes.

“You always knew its difficulty.”

Xu Hexue stood behind her and spoke.

He wasn’t talking about cooking. In fact, what she said with her mouth differed from what she thought in her heart. Ni Su turned to look up at him: “Before Mother died, she said this path was extremely difficult and asked if I was afraid. At that time I told her I wasn’t afraid.”

Her neck was getting a bit tired from looking up, so she turned back around. “But actually, I was also frightened in my heart.”

Yun Jing wasn’t Que County, and this world under heaven wasn’t limited to just one small Que County. Previously at home, although Father wouldn’t let her study medicine, his treatment of her couldn’t be called anything but good. Later when Father passed away, she still had Mother and her elder brother to protect her. But now she only had herself, alone in Yun Jing city. Only now did she realize that her previous stubbornness with Father, her so-called resistance, her so-called defiance—these were all just childish rebellion that her family had tolerated.

Now with Father, Brother, and Mother all gone, the vicious storms of Yun Jing were far more terrifying than she had imagined.

“You’ve already done very well. It’s just that for every day you remain in Yun Jing, the murderer who harmed your brother will feel uneasy.” Xu Hexue came to sit beside her, habitually smoothing the wrinkles in his wide sleeves.

“Is it truly the person who harmed my brother who’s framing me?” After working all morning without eating, Ni Su petulantly grabbed a radish from a winnowing basket nearby and took a bite. “I keep feeling that the person who switched my brother’s examination paper and the one framing me this time are very different.”

Sichuan aconite was generally medicine for inducing miscarriage, yet it was mixed into pregnancy-stabilizing medicine. No matter how one looked at it, this couldn’t be explained as carelessly using the wrong medicine. A’Zhou’s accusation had flaws from the start.

That was precisely why Guangning Prefecture Judge Tian Qizhong hadn’t rashly passed judgment on her.

The methods were crude—at the opposite extreme from the meticulousness of the winter examination case.

“Perhaps it’s not the same person, but they should all know the inside story,” Xu Hexue propped one hand on the wooden steps and coughed lightly a few times. “This person originally could have had A’Zhou poison the meals delivered to you, but he didn’t. He should have been watching you from the shadows all along and knows that the Night Watch Bureau has people protecting you. If you died from poisoning, the winter examination case would become even bigger. At court, Young Master Meng and Censor Jiang have already linked this case to obstructing the new governance, and promoting new governance is an imperial edict spoken by the Emperor himself. His Majesty would certainly not let this pass.”

“He used legal means to send you, an orphaned woman seeking justice for her brother, into Guangning Prefecture, then would use the Sichuan aconite searched from your home as ironclad evidence. I guess his next step would be to use your previous ‘nonsensical words disrespecting the court’ at Guangning Prefecture to make you into someone mentally abnormal and untrustworthy. He could even find some scapegoats to prove you hired assassins to kill your brother. As long as your crime of harming others is established and you die, both your affairs and your brother’s affairs can no longer be clarified.”

Even though Ni Su wasn’t in Yun Jing when Ni Qinglan died, so what? They could still condemn her.

“If the Guangning Prefecture bailiffs had truly found Sichuan aconite here yesterday,” Ni Su spoke while slowly taking another bite of radish, “then the Night Watch Bureau wouldn’t have been able to take me away.”

Although Guangning Prefecture was willing to transfer cases to the Night Watch Bureau, they couldn’t possibly yield on everything. Otherwise, what achievements could Guangning Prefecture report to His Majesty?

Cases lacking key evidence, cases with unclear circumstances—these Guangning Prefecture would generously hand over to the Night Watch Bureau. But cases that didn’t seem difficult to handle, those they probably wouldn’t yield.

Raw radish was actually quite sweet. Ni Su ate bite by bite. Suddenly looking up, she met the gaze of the person beside her. She asked, “Do you want some?”

Warm sunlight spread across Xu Hexue’s knees. In this bright light, he watched her gnawing the radish. This should be her first time eating raw radish, obviously holding a kind of curiosity about new things.

Xu Hexue shook his head. The hand resting on his knee suddenly produced a small porcelain jar from his chest and passed it to her.

The porcelain jar bore a label reading “Perfect Jade Ointment.” With one glance, Ni Su knew this was the scar-removing ointment from the medicine shop Cai Chunxu had mentioned. Forgetting to gnaw her radish, Ni Su looked at the ointment, then raised her eyes to him.

Pale golden sunlight fell upon his profile. Ni Su received the ointment and asked, “You bought it yesterday?”

Summoned by her, he should have remained close at all times, yet yesterday he risked returning here to clear away that Sichuan aconite planted by those with ill intentions to harm her.

And he hadn’t forgotten to buy the ointment.

“Ni Su, this time, it’s still your money.”

Xu Hexue withdrew his hand. “Remember the crooked-neck tree I told you about? I’ve already recalled where it is.”

A breeze stirred the branches and leaves in the courtyard. Following the rustling sound that came, he looked at the swaying shadow on the ground and said, “The money I buried there when I was young—I’ll give it all to you.”

Ni Su was stunned for a long while.

The warmth of her palm had heated the small porcelain jar. Her other hand held half a radish. She lowered her lashes, her gaze unconsciously stopping on his shadow on the ground.

She found her voice again: “That’s your private savings hidden from your shrewish wife. How could I take it?”

Hearing her mention “shrewish wife,” Xu Hexue knew she was teasing. His gaze fell back on her face, seeing that the previously melancholy and sad Ni Su already wore a smile.

His lashes blinked once uncomfortably. He said, “Ni Su, stop smiling.”

“There really isn’t one?”

Ni Su bit into her radish and spoke.

There really wasn’t what?

Confusion first appeared in Xu Hexue’s eyes. Then understanding dawned. He shook his head: “I left Yun Jing before reaching marriageable age.”

Thereafter dwelling on battlefields, he had even less thought for such matters.

Ni Su was about to speak when she heard someone calling from the front hall. She immediately stood up, placed the unfinished radish back in the winnowing basket, and instructed Xu Hexue: “Quickly go back and lie down. If the incense candles run out, you must call me.”

He couldn’t stray too far from Ni Su, but the distance of this one courtyard wasn’t anything.

“Alright.”

Xu Hexue supported himself on the corridor pillar to stand, obediently responding.

Watching Ni Su turn and run to the front, he slowly walked back to his room. Standing before the screen for a moment, Xu Hexue shifted his gaze to the desk.

Some miscellaneous books were piled there.

He walked to the desk and bent down to search through them.

Arriving at the front hall, Ni Su discovered it was Chao Yisong. “Young Master Chao, why have you come?”

“I wouldn’t dare be called ‘sir,'” Chao Yisong rubbed his weary eyes and walked over to sit in the chair before him. “Miss Ni, our Young Master Zhou couldn’t get away, so he sent me to tell you—the matter of A’Zhou falsely accusing you has been confirmed.”

“A’Zhou’s mother didn’t die from taking your medicine. A’Zhou asked you to prescribe pregnancy-stabilizing medicine for his mother, but didn’t know his mother didn’t want to stabilize the pregnancy—she wanted to induce miscarriage.”

“A’Zhou’s family had bare walls, and his father had recently been injured and was bedridden. His mother deeply believed the family couldn’t raise a second child, so she discussed inducing miscarriage with A’Zhou’s father. But A’Zhou didn’t know his father was aware of this.”

“A’Zhou’s mother didn’t drink the pregnancy-stabilizing medicine he decocted, nor did she tell him she wanted to induce miscarriage. Probably worried A’Zhou would stop her, A’Zhou’s mother found an herb woman herself.”

“So it was the herb woman A’Zhou’s mother found who used the wrong dosage?”

Ni Su asked.

“Yes, and it was deliberately wrong.”

Chao Yisong continued, “A’Zhou’s mother drank the medicine the night before last. The fetus wasn’t expelled, but she died. A’Zhou originally wanted to find that herb woman, but encountered someone outside. That person told him that if he would accuse you of causing his mother’s death, he would give him sufficient money to hire a famous physician to treat his father’s illness.”

“Have you found that person?”

Ni Su stared intently at him.

“No,” Chao Yisong had interrogated A’Zhou with Zhou Ting last night, then searched everywhere for people. He was so tired his eyes had red veins. “That person disguised himself, and the herb woman also can’t be found.”

“Originally that person gave A’Zhou a dose of medicine, telling A’Zhou to decoct it and add the Sichuan aconite dregs his mother had used, insisting firmly that was the prescription you wrote. But A’Zhou lost his mother the night before. In his grief, he took a shortcut and directly mixed the Sichuan aconite dregs with the medicine dregs from decocting your prescription.”

Speaking of this, Chao Yisong was somewhat puzzled. “But what’s strange is, why didn’t the culprit come here to plant Sichuan aconite, and why didn’t he steal your record book?”

Naturally Ni Su couldn’t tell him she had Xu Ziling’s help.

That record book must have been rewritten by Xu Ziling imitating her handwriting. He remembered what prescription she had written for A’Zhou’s mother. And these past days, apart from Chao Yisong’s leg injury, no one else had come for consultations. The record book only had a few sparse entries, which also conveniently allowed Xu Ziling to rewrite the book before the Guangning Prefecture bailiffs arrived.

As for the mysterious person Chao Yisong mentioned who gave A’Zhou a dose of medicine, Ni Su thought that dose of medicine must have been designed to prove she had no proper medical skills and only knew how to write careless prescriptions—not a perfectly good pregnancy-stabilizing medicine mixed with one ingredient of abortion-inducing Sichuan aconite.

That person definitely hadn’t anticipated A’Zhou wouldn’t follow his instructions.

“But Miss Ni, rest assured,”

Chao Yisong didn’t expect this young lady to answer his doubts. Having finished speaking to himself, he said to her, “That kind of herb woman who takes money to administer drugs knows best how to hide after doing such things. She’s definitely still alive. As long as we find her, that person won’t be able to hide his tail!”

“Furthermore, Young Master Zhou said that among the officials involved at the examination hall, someone can’t hold out anymore and is about to talk.”

“Is this true?”

The news Ni Su had been waiting for—only today did she hear Chao Yisong reveal a bit.

“For more specifics, only Commissioner Han and Young Master Zhou know clearly. I’m also following Young Master Zhou’s orders in telling you this much.”

The news Chao Yisong brought almost drove away all of Ni Su’s fatigue from recent days. She offered Chao Yisong a bowl of tea. After Chao Yisong left, she couldn’t wait to run to the back corridor.

The sunlight was perfect.

Ni Su headed straight for Xu Hexue’s room, but heard a clear voice behind her: “Ni Su, I’m here.”

Ni Su turned around at once.

Under the eaves corridor, the pale-faced young man in a blue-black round-collared robe sat on the steps, watching her with a pair of crystalline eyes.

“Why are you sitting at the kitchen entrance?”

Ni Su ran over, asked him, then couldn’t wait to tell him, “Xu Ziling, the matter of A’Zhou falsely accusing me has been clarified.”

“A’Zhou’s mother originally wanted to induce miscarriage. That culprit bribed an herb woman to give A’Zhou’s mother a heavy dose, and then…”

She spoke many words like this.

Xu Hexue listened carefully while supporting himself on the corridor pillar to stand, occasionally responding with an “Mm.”

“Among those officials detained at the Night Watch Bureau, it seems someone is about to talk.”

Standing at the bottom of the wooden steps, Ni Su looked up at Xu Hexue standing straight and said, “And that herb woman—if only Young Master Zhou and the others could find her quickly…”

“We can also search.”

Xu Hexue said.

We.

Hearing him say “we,” Ni Su’s nose tingled with sourness.

If not for Xu Ziling, she knew she would be alone. She couldn’t form a “we” with anyone else here. No one would help her like this.

Except for the lonely soul Xu Ziling.

“But you’re not well yet,” Ni Su looked at him with some worry. “I’ll definitely light many incense candles for you every day. Xu Ziling, you must get better quickly.”

The sunlight was clear and crisp, falling into her eyes.

Being watched by her, Xu Hexue didn’t know why, but his eyelids moved slightly. The fingers within his sleeves curled once. He turned his face aside: “Are you still hungry?”

Hearing this sudden question, Ni Su couldn’t help but look at the corridor bench.

“Where’s my radish?”

Not just the radish—an entire winnowing basket of vegetables had disappeared.

“Come inside with me.”

Xu Hexue turned around.

Ni Su followed him step by step inside. Looking up, she saw hot, steaming dishes arranged on the square table.

Ni Su saw her radish had been made into soup.

“You… can cook?”

Ni Su murmured.

“Today is the first time.”

Xu Hexue shook his head, producing a book from his sleeve to give her. “This is something you bought. It was sitting on my desk. In my room I remembered seeing this cookbook, so I used it to try.”

Ni Su took it and looked—”Clear Dream Food Chapters.”

“This is a cookbook written by Young Master Meng?” Seeing Young Master Meng’s name, Ni Su flipped through it. “I asked someone to buy the book. I told him to buy me more contemporary famous works. He probably included this cookbook because of Young Master Meng’s reputation.”

“After making the food according to the cookbook, I only then remembered that Young Master Meng used to prefer heavier salt in his early years.”

Xu Hexue actually didn’t know whether what he made counted as tasty.

“Let me taste it.”

Ni Su sat down at the table. Though only simple porridge and small dishes, they looked quite good. She tasted a dish, then looked up and smiled at him: “The salt is a bit heavy, probably because I usually eat lighter food.”

“But it doesn’t matter. It’s still very good.”

She said.

“Don’t you also taste it as a bit heavy?” After drinking a mouthful of soup, Ni Su looked up to ask him.

The light spreading in from outside the door fell on Xu Hexue’s robes. He nodded lightly: “Mm.”

“Won’t you eat?”

“You eat.”

Ni Su knew that as a ghost spirit he actually didn’t need to eat these things at all, so she nodded and ate her meal holding the bowl. “I didn’t know about this cookbook. If I’d known, following it I definitely wouldn’t have caused this morning’s incident…”

“Once I learn, perhaps I could even make sugar cakes for you myself.”