The next day, at first light, Fan Changyu carried fresh pork and marinated meat to her family’s butcher shop.

The morning market was already bustling. Vendors and porters were calling out their wares; elderly women wrapped in thick padded coats, carrying baskets, were choosing and bargaining at the stalls.

After Fan Changyu arranged her goods on the chopping board, she greeted a few butchers who were on good terms with her father. However, their replies seemed rather forced.

Puzzled, Fan Changyu wondered what was going on, when an old woman buying vegetables happened to notice the steaming pork head meat on her stall. The fragrance was strong and enticing. The old woman asked, “Is this marinated pork head meat also a free extra?”

Fan Changyu thought the old woman had heard about how she once gave away marinated offal as a bonus and was embarrassed. “Auntie,” she said, “this pork head meat isn’t cheap, and the spices for marinating it are costly too. How could I possibly give it away?”

The old woman pursed her lips and shifted her gaze to the side, where the marinated offal was placed. “But this marinated offal is free, right?”

Fan Changyu replied, “When the shop reopened before, we gave it away for a day for good luck. Now we don’t. If you want to buy it, it’s two wen per liang.”

The old woman’s expression changed at once. “Other butcher shops all give it for free, and you still want to charge money?”

Fan Changyu felt even more puzzled. “You mean all the butcher shops on this street give marinated offal for free when people buy meat?”

The old woman said, “Why would I lie to you? Just look for yourself!”

“Take it, walk safely now!”

At that moment, the butcher Guo across the street finished a sale. His loud call drew Fan Changyu’s gaze. The woman buying meat from him carried not only fresh pork but also a bundle wrapped in oiled paper — clearly marinated offal.

When Butcher Guo noticed Fan Changyu watching him, he immediately turned his head away and busied himself with the meat on his counter.

At the corner of his chopping board stood a large basin. From afar, one couldn’t see what was inside, but thinking about it now, it was surely marinated offal.

Fan Changyu’s eyes widened. That shameless old man! When she had given away extras before, he’d been so jealous he nearly overturned her stall on the spot. He’d even scolded her repeatedly, telling her never to do it again. And now, he’d turned around and used the same trick to draw in customers!

Looking left and right, she saw that the neighboring stalls also had basins of marinated meat on their boards. No wonder those butchers had acted awkward earlier when she greeted them.

The old woman pressed again, “So are you giving it or not? If not, I’ll buy from another stall!”

Fan Changyu answered immediately, “I’ll give it!”

After all, pig offal wasn’t worth much, and the spices she’d bought weren’t just for offal — they were also for marinating pork head meat. She might as well keep using the offal as a free bonus to promote her marinated goods!

When everyone sold pork side by side, some customers couldn’t tell which was better. But using marinated offal as a free extra was different — the color and aroma didn’t lie!

This would actually help her business more!

The old woman had already been eyeing Fan Changyu’s marinated meat. The other shops’ looked dull gray and lacked fragrance, while hers was bright red and glossy — clearly good quality.

Hearing that Fan Changyu also gave freebies, the old woman’s face broke into a smile. “Give me five jin of hip meat!”

Fan Changyu swiftly chopped five jin of pork, weighed it, handed it over, and then cut five liang of marinated offal for her.

The old woman lifted the packet of marinated offal and sniffed it, exclaiming how fragrant it was. Before leaving, she said, “Your extra’s well done. I’ll tell the neighbors to come buy meat from you next time!”

Fan Changyu smiled and agreed, saying she’d give the old woman even more next time. The old woman walked away cheerfully with her purchase.

Seeing that the old woman had bought fresh meat and also received a bundle of marinated offal, others noticed how appealing the color of Fan Changyu’s offal was. They came over to ask for prices — and without exception, ended up buying from her stall.

As more buyers crowded around her booth, others at the market subconsciously assumed her products were better and followed to take a look.

Before the morning market was even halfway through, all of Fan Changyu’s fresh meat and marinated offal had been snatched up, leaving only half a pork head unsold.

By contrast, the other butcher shops had barely made a few sales — and those were only after Fan Changyu’s meat had sold out, forcing customers to settle for theirs.

Butcher Guo saw that someone had finally come to his stall and hurriedly tried to promote his pork:

“Take a look! Finest-quality pork belly! I’ll even throw in some marinated offal for free!”

The customer leaned forward to look into the basin beside him — the marinated offal inside was dull gray. The customer immediately pursed their lips and shook their head.

“The extras from Fan’s Butcher Shop are bright red and glossy, full of aroma. Yours looks like you just boiled it in plain water and sprinkled some salt!”

“I’ll come earlier tomorrow and buy from Fan’s instead!”

Setting down the piece of pork they’d just picked up to inspect, the customer left without hesitation.

Butcher Guo’s face turned darker than soot. He glanced between the meat on his board and the basin of marinated offal, then kicked over the nearby stool in rage, muttering curses under his breath.

The noise naturally caught the attention of the neighboring shopkeepers.

Fan Changyu’s stall was right across from his, so she also saw the scene clearly.

A butcher’s wife who was on good terms with the Fan family leaned over and spoke in a low voice:

“To be honest, none of us really want to keep giving out freebies. It’s all hard work for little return.”

After all, when only one shop gave them, business was good — but once the whole street started handing out extras, and none of them tasted especially outstanding, things went back to how they were before, except now they were losing marinated offal for nothing.

The butcher’s wife continued, “But that man Guo’s mind is full of more holes than a beehive. A few days ago, he ordered you not to give out any extras — and then the very next day he started doing it himself. Shameless! When a few of us went to reason with him, he threw a fit, lay down on the ground pretending to be injured. And since he’s got a maternal uncle working as a legal adviser under the county magistrate, none of us could do anything about him. We couldn’t just watch him steal all the customers with freebies, so we had to start giving out marinated offal too.”

Fan Changyu understood the auntie was explaining so she wouldn’t take offense, and replied gently, “I understand, Auntie.”

Seeing Butcher Guo humiliated that day made the woman secretly pleased. She glanced toward his stall again and said with a hint of schadenfreude, “Good thing you came back, Changyu. Let’s see how long his salted boiled offal can last.”

Butcher Guo had always acted high and mighty, relying on that relative of his in the county yamen. The merchants along the street had long grown sick of his arrogance.

In the past, only Fan Changyu’s father had dared to stand up to him and keep him in check. But after her parents’ accident, Guo had proclaimed himself the local tyrant of the street — shouting orders every day, bullying anyone he pleased.

Fan Changyu spared him no glance. After selling the last half of the pork head, she began counting the copper coins in her drawer.

Today’s pig had weighed just over eighty jin. Between the fresh meat and marinated goods, she’d made more than two strings and three hundred cash. After subtracting one string for the pig’s cost, her net profit was a full string and three hundred cash!

She threaded the copper coins onto a thin cord, hefted the satisfying weight in her hand, and her mood lifted.

Soon, the deed for the house and land would be transferred to her name, and the butcher shop’s business was gradually returning to steady ground.

From now on, life for her and her younger sister would only get better.

Once she saved enough, she’d take her sister to the capital for treatment!

They said everything best under heaven could be found in the capital — the finest doctors included.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

After tidying up the shop, Fan Changyu went to the market carrying the day’s earnings. She bought medicine for the two patients at home — one young, one old — and picked up spices for making marinade. After setting aside one string for buying the next pig, only a few hundred coins remained.

Fan Changyu let out a quiet sigh. Truly, one never knows how costly rice, oil, and firewood are until managing a household oneself.

She chose some New Year goods and headed home. Before she even reached the alley, she saw a snow-white gyrfalcon soar up from her courtyard and into the sky — it looked like the same one she’d seen before.

Fan Changyu found it strange. Did that falcon often hunt near her home?

If it came often… then maybe there’d be a chance to catch it?

In an instant, the gyrfalcon disappeared into the clouds, but Fan Changyu was already calculating in her head how much it might sell for at the market if she managed to catch it.

When she reached home and pushed open the courtyard gate, she immediately saw that the window of the man’s room was half open. He was sitting at the desk in an old black robe, long hair loose over his shoulders, expression calm. His slender fingers, still scabbed from healing wounds, held a writing brush as he concentrated on writing something.

Outside the window stood a red plum tree — one her father had planted long ago for her mother.

This year, it was as though the tree too knew its old master was gone. Since winter began, it had borne only a single small bud.

Amid the frost and snow on every branch, that one streak of vivid color at the tip still couldn’t compare to even a tenth of the beauty of the man within.

Fine snow was carried in by the wind through the open window. Some flakes fell into the man’s dark hair. Beneath that ink-black fringe, his brows and eyes were exquisitely cold and refined.

Fan Changyu’s breath caught faintly. When the man lifted his eyes to meet hers, she didn’t rush to look away. Instead, she continued to gaze at him openly and asked, “Aren’t you cold with the window open?”

Xie Zheng met her eyes and found that she still looked straight at him without the slightest intention of avoiding his gaze. His brows knit almost imperceptibly; he turned his eyes aside and said, “The room is dim. With the window open, the light is better.”

His voice, as always, was cool and clear.

Fan Changyu gave a soft “oh,” set down what she had been carrying in the main room, then checked on her napping younger sister before bringing over a charcoal brazier for him.

No doubt because the window had been open for so long, once she stepped inside she found the chill in the room little different from that outside.

She glanced at the desk, where many sheets already lay covered in inked characters, and couldn’t help asking, “What are you writing?”

He had written so much—surely he’d been sitting here freezing all morning. Was he not cold?

Xie Zheng finished the final character and put down his brush. Lacking a brush rest, he could only set the ink-wet brush across the notch of the inkstone.

He said evenly, “Shiwen.”

Fan Changyu knew what shiwen were—formal essays for the imperial examinations. Back then, Song Yan had often gone without food to buy them; a single scroll cost three hundred cash.

She exclaimed in surprise, “You know how to write shiwen?”

Xie Zheng deflected her curiosity with the same excuse he had used on Carpenter Zhao. “I’ve traveled around and picked up a few things. In small-town bookshops, the scrolls they sell vary in quality. Write something that sounds impressive, and the shop will buy it.”

Fan Changyu was momentarily at a loss for words. She thought to herself that the scholars who bought such essays were rather unfortunate.

Then, remembering how Song Yan had once scrimped and saved to purchase shiwen that might well have been of this sort, she felt a touch of secret satisfaction.

She cleared her throat lightly and remembered his injuries. “The roads are slippery in the snow. Even if you sweep it away, there may still be thin ice on the ground. Your wounds only split open again yesterday—going out on crutches like that is too dangerous…”

She rattled off all this in one breath—just out of worry for him.

Xie Zheng was momentarily stunned, then lowered his eyes and said, “I asked an old neighbor to bring it back for me.”

Fan Changyu’s expression softened a little, but thinking of why he was writing shiwen, she pressed her lips together. “Since you agreed to the pretense of marrying into my family, I’ll keep my word and see that you recover properly. We’re short on money now only because the house deed hasn’t yet been transferred. You… don’t need to do all this.”

To have a gravely injured man, still unhealed, sitting in the cold wind wracking his brains to write essays for money—it weighed on her conscience.

The cold wind poured into the room, stirring Xie Zheng’s unbound hair. Looking at the woman before him, brows knitted in concern, something subtle shifted in his otherwise indifferent expression.

Not wanting her to misunderstand, he said, “I was merely idle and wrote to pass the time. It’s not as you think.”

But the more he said so, the more convinced Fan Changyu became.

After all, who would sit in the freezing wind writing shiwen just to relieve boredom? Her feelings were a tangle of confusion and frustration.

She pressed her lips tight and said firmly, “Don’t worry that I’m poor. I can afford to support you!”

With that, she left the room, leaving Xie Zheng alone at his desk. His long, slender fingers pressed lightly to his brow; his gaze darkened, deep and complex, as though he were pondering something that truly troubled him.