From the town to the county yamen was not far—if one walked quickly, two quarters of an hour would suffice.

Fan Changyu was fortunate. She happened to meet an acquaintance heading for the county seat as well and rode along in the other’s ox cart. When she arrived at the county yamen, the yamen runners had only just begun their duties.

She gave the guard at the gate Catcher Wang’s name, and before long, someone led her into the duty room behind the yamen.

“…Encounter any vagrants or beggars while patrolling the streets—bring them all back to the county jail! The festival is in just a few days; keep your eyes bright!”

Inside, Catcher Wang seemed to be giving instructions, so Fan Changyu did not barge in but waited quietly outside.

When Catcher Wang finished his orders, he caught sight of Fan Changyu standing at the door from the corner of his eye and waved his hand. The constables picked up their waist-knives and went out in twos and threes—it looked like they were heading out to patrol the streets.

Only then did Fan Changyu enter and say, “Uncle Wang looks rather busy today. I’ve come to trouble you again.”

The cold outside was biting, but there was a charcoal brazier burning in the room, warm and toasty. Before long, a faint mist gathered upon her lashes.

Catcher Wang poured her a cup of ginger tea to drive out the chill and said, “Busy or not, it’s always like this these few days every year. But this year the mountain bandits have been too rampant—they’ve cost quite a few lives. The higher-ups have tightened checks on outsiders. Anyone without household registration or travel permits is thrown straight into jail. These past two days, they’ve also been rounding up vagrants and beggars.”

At those words, Fan Changyu thought of Yan Zheng, who currently had no household registration, and could not help but clench her frost-red hands tightly.

Seeing her seem troubled, Catcher Wang asked, “Did you come today for the matter of transferring your family’s property?”

Fan Changyu nodded.

Catcher Wang said, “I forgot to tell you before—Fan Da’s complaint paper has already been submitted. Before the case is concluded, this property cannot be transferred. But don’t worry. Since you’ve already taken a husband by uxorilocal marriage, even if it goes to court, the county magistrate will still judge your parents’ estate to be yours. It’s just a bit of trouble, that’s all.”

Fan Changyu hadn’t expected the process to be so complicated.

She recalled the basin of water she had poured outside the courtyard wall last night and asked, “Then, if on the day of the court hearing my uncle doesn’t show up?”

Catcher Wang glanced at her and said, “Then the complaint paper becomes void. Moreover, such conduct counts as disregarding the law and disturbing the court—it would earn him twenty strokes of the board as a warning to others!”

Fan Changyu immediately regretted it—she should have poured the entire vat of cold water over the wall last night.

Catcher Wang asked, “Why do you ask that?”

Fan Changyu coughed lightly. “Just curious.”

She held the steaming cup, her fingertips unconsciously rubbing the rim. “There’s one more matter—I must trouble Uncle Wang’s help.”

Catcher Wang said, “Speak freely.”

Only then did Fan Changyu explain Xie Zheng’s background. “My husband’s money and household documents were all taken by the bandits. Now that he has married into my family, I’d like to help him reissue his household registration.”

The smile on Catcher Wang’s face faded. After a long pause, he said, “You’ve come at a bad time—reissuing a household registration right now is truly no easy matter.”

But when Fan Changyu and Fan Da appeared before the court, once she said she had taken a husband by uxorilocal marriage, the county magistrate would surely ask where that husband was from. Without proper household documents to prove his identity, her husband might well be thrown into jail too.

By then, not only would her family property be gone—her husband would also suffer.

Catcher Wang paced back and forth twice across the duty room, then stamped his foot hard and said to Fan Changyu, “Come with me.”

The registrar in charge of household records for Qingping County was Catcher Wang’s close friend. Relying on that connection, he managed to help Fan Changyu reissue her husband’s household registration.

Fan Changyu thanked Catcher Wang over and over, but he only said, “Just don’t speak of this to anyone. Otherwise, I’ll be in for it myself. Your father once saved my life—helping you today counts as repaying that debt.”

Fan Changyu hastily promised, “You’ve helped me with such a great matter—I’m already grateful beyond words. How could I possibly run my mouth and talk nonsense outside?”

Catcher Wang, recalling his old friend, sighed with emotion. “Your father truly was a peculiar man. With his skills, he could easily have entered the yamen to serve, yet he insisted on becoming a butcher.”

Fan Changyu said, “My father used to work as an armed escort in his younger years. My mother lived in constant fear during those times. When my father finally washed his hands of that life, he only wanted to earn a steady living to put my mother’s heart at ease.”

These were things she had once heard her parents say.

Catcher Wang, who also knew his friend’s temperament, sighed again and said no more.

After bidding Catcher Wang farewell, Fan Changyu went to her younger sister’s favorite candy shop and bought a small packet of malt sugar.

She had originally planned that, after transferring the property, she would sell a few acres of land in the countryside to exchange for silver—enough to buy New Year’s goods for home and to afford pigs and piglets as well.

But plans never keep up with change. Since the property could not be transferred for now, all she had left in her pocket was the bit of gift money from neighbors who had attended her wedding feast the day before—less than one tael in total.

The tonic she had wanted to buy for Yan Zheng was now out of reach. Yet she could not bear to return home empty-handed. When she saw a street vendor selling hair ties and ribbons, she spent a few coins to buy him a dark-blue headband.

Aside from the day of their wedding, he had almost never tied his hair up.

Fan Changyu guessed it was because he had no proper headband. The red one used for their wedding ceremony was hardly suitable for daily wear—so she might as well buy him another.

Just as Fan Changyu was paying, a man in tattered clothing came running toward her at full speed, knocking over several stalls in his panic. A few government officers chased behind, shouting as they ran, “Stop right there!”

The man dared not stop and continued running for his life, with the officers hastening after him.

Fan Changyu at first thought the man must have committed some crime, but someone nearby clicked his tongue and said, “They say a new official always starts his tenure with three fires. The newly appointed military commissioner of Huizhou truly lives up to the Wei family name—using the excuse of ‘suppressing bandits,’ yet he sends no troops to destroy the real mountain brigands. Instead, he sets fire upon the refugees fleeing from the north. How innocent those poor displaced people are…”

So the men chasing were after refugees. Fan Changyu recalled Catcher Wang’s words, feeling an odd heaviness in her heart.

She glanced at the speaker. He and his companions were dressed in matching long robes—the kind Fan Changyu had seen Song Yan wear. It was the standard attire of the county academy’s students. From the look of it, these men were scholars from the county school.

One of his companions sneered coldly, “The Wei father and son have the world in their grasp. The imperial power has declined, and the Great Yin dynasty has already rotted to its roots like decayed wood! Now that the military command of Huizhou has fallen into their hands, I say the Great Yin might as well change its surname to Wei!”

Though Fan Changyu had never left Qingping County, she knew well enough who this “Wei father and son” were.

The current Grand Chancellor, Wei Yan—after the Crown Prince of Chengde perished in battle at Jinzhou sixteen years ago, the old emperor succumbed to grief and soon passed away as well. Wei Yan then supported the young emperor’s ascension and had controlled the court for over a decade. Now, in the Great Yin, the people knew only the Chancellor, not the Emperor.

His son, Wei Xuan, even styled himself after the Crown Prince. His hands were stained with the blood of countless loyal ministers and generals—“evil to the brim” was hardly an exaggeration.

Common folk, busy struggling for their livelihoods, only heard what the government wanted them to hear. The deeper truths were known only to scholars like these, who studied for the imperial examinations and discussed the state of affairs.

Fan Changyu couldn’t help pricking up her ears to listen.

The scholar who had spoken earlier said, “Without Marquis Wu’an guarding the northwestern frontier, who knows how long peace will last in this realm? Even if Wei Yan harbors such ambitions, I doubt he has the courage to actually sit upon the dragon throne!”

The name “Marquis Wu’an, Xie Zheng,” resounded like thunder throughout the dynasty—though opinions about him were sharply divided.

His father had been the Great General of National Defense, Xie Linshan, who had accompanied the Crown Prince of Chengde on the campaign to Jinzhou, pierced through by countless arrows yet never letting the army banner fall—he had died standing.

His maternal uncle was none other than Wei Yan, the all-powerful Grand Chancellor who had dominated the court for over ten years.

Such a lineage was controversial enough on its own—and to make matters worse, Xie Zheng had been raised by his uncle. The court officials naturally regarded him as a member of the Wei faction.

And Xie Zheng’s own methods were indeed ruthless and blood-soaked, just like his uncle’s.

At seventeen, his first great victory was the recapture of Jinzhou—a battle so fierce that people still spoke of it with dread to this day. It was said that after taking Jinzhou, he slaughtered the entire city, sparing not even infants. His personal force of eight hundred elite cavalry had their armor dyed red with blood, and ever since, the world had called them the Blood-Clad Riders.

The people of Beijue were so terrified by his name that they fled at the mere sound of it. The twelve prefectures of Liaodong, which had been seized by Beijue since the previous dynasty, were also recovered by his hand.

Relying on his illustrious military achievements, he was granted the title of Marquis Wu’an at the young age of twenty.

To bring peace through martial might—throughout all dynasties past, he was the only man ever to bear that title.

It was precisely because Wei Yan held such a sharp, unstoppable blade in his grasp that he was able to stand as Grand Chancellor, hollow out imperial authority, and control the court to this very day.

The court officials condemned Xie Zheng as a follower of the Wei faction on one hand, yet on the other, they relied upon him to guard the borders.

Some even asserted that if he held the frontier, the realm would remain stable; but if he turned his gaze toward the court, heaven and earth would fall into chaos.

When Fan Changyu suddenly heard that scholar say, “With the Marquis Wu’an no longer guarding the northwestern frontier,” she felt an inexplicable unease. Someone asked the question before she could: “What happened to Marquis Wu’an?”

The scholar replied, “You haven’t heard? After the Battle of Chongzhou, Marquis Wu’an’s life and death are uncertain. His military command in Huizhou has already been taken over by Wei Xuan. It seems likely he has perished.”

At once, murmurs of shock rippled through the crowd, mixed with disbelief toward the scholar’s claim.

The world might loathe Marquis Wu’an as the ruthless blade in Wei Yan’s hand, a man who regarded human lives as mere weeds—but they could not deny that he was a pillar of the Great Yin’s northwestern frontier.

Now that this pillar had fallen, who in the Great Yin could still hold up the skies of the northwest?

Pressed by everyone’s questioning voices, the scholar, flustered and frustrated, snapped, “If you think I’m lying, then go find out for yourselves! See whether the northwest hasn’t just changed its military commissioner!”

Fan Changyu had listened to this entire discussion of state affairs, and her heart was heavy with worry as she made her way home.

Jizhou bordered Chongzhou—if the flames of war spread to Jizhou, she and her younger sister would have nowhere to flee.

Thinking of how Yan Zheng had come fleeing from Chongzhou, Fan Changyu felt she could ask him when she returned home—perhaps he knew something about what had happened to Marquis Wu’an on that battlefield.

Chongzhou was merely a rebellion of a pretender prince—how could it have claimed even the war god of the Great Yin?

Just as she turned the corner toward the mouth of her alley, she ran into a woman from the same neighborhood. Fan Changyu greeted her warmly, “Aunt Tao, are you off to buy vegetables?”

The woman nodded but seemed hesitant to speak, her expression carrying a strange unease.