The candlelight flickered and glimmered, spreading a layer of warm glow across the shabby and broken-down room. The person lying on the bed was quietly asleep; his face, cleansed of bloodstains, was pale yet refined, strikingly handsome.

He looked quite young—his figure was lean but not frail. Perhaps due to excessive blood loss, he had fallen asleep again. Long lashes rested upon his eyelids, casting a fan-shaped shadow under the lamp. His nose bridge was high, and even in unconsciousness, his dry, cracked lips were pressed tightly together, giving him the look of someone with a stubborn disposition.

Such a face, matched with that scar-ridden body, was like a pine tree crushed and broken beneath the frost and snow of a harsh winter yet still standing proud and unyielding—or like an unpolished jade encased in stone, chiseled with a thousand cracks, evoking nothing but pity.

Whether it was the swaying light or her gaze lingering too long, the man’s long lashes trembled, and he slowly lifted his eyelids.

His eyes were as black as ink, yet void of emotion; the slightly upturned ends of his eyes carried a trace of innate cold indifference.

Fan Changyu showed not the least bit of unease at being caught staring. Calmly, she asked, “You’re awake?”

The man did not respond.

Seeing how parched and cracked his lips were, she thought he must be too gravely injured and dry-mouthed to speak, so she asked, “Would you like some water?”

He nodded slowly, and finally spoke: “You saved me?”

His voice was so hoarse it sounded like gravel scraping against a broken gong—completely at odds with that face of new snow beneath a clear moon.

Fan Changyu went to the table, poured him a cup of water, and handed it over. “I saw you lying in the snowy wilderness of the mountains and carried you back. The one who truly pulled you back from the gates of hell was Uncle Zhao.”

She paused, then added, “You’re living in his house now. He used to be a doctor.”

—Though a veterinarian.

The man struggled to sit up. The hand that received the chipped earthen cup was covered in scratches and scrapes, not a patch of skin left uninjured. After drinking a few sips, he covered his mouth and coughed weakly. His messy hair fell forward, revealing a jawline even paler under the dim candlelight.

Fan Changyu said, “Drink slowly. You don’t look like a local. I didn’t know your name or where you’re from, so I didn’t report to the yamen. Were you attacked by bandits at Tiger Fork Pass?”

He stilled his coughing, lowered his gaze—most of his face sinking into the shadows beyond the candlelight. “My surname is Yan. Given name, Zheng. There’s war up north. I fled from Chongzhou.”

Lin’an Town was merely a small settlement under Jizhou Prefecture. Fan Changyu had never even left Jizhou in her life, nor did she know much of the current affairs. Though, come autumn, the government had once collected grain—most likely to fund the war.

Her eyelid twitched slightly. Fleeing from war, alone—his family had most likely met misfortune.

She asked, “Do you still have any family left?”

At that, the man’s fingers tightened around the earthen cup until his knuckles whitened. After a long silence, he rasped out a few words: “No more.”

So it was indeed—family destroyed, home lost.

Fan Changyu herself had just suffered the pain of losing both parents and could understand his state of mind at this moment. Pressing her lips together, she said softly, “I’m sorry.”

The man replied, “It’s nothing,” yet somehow began coughing again—as though blood had caught in his throat. His coughing grew more violent, until he could no longer hold the cup in his hand; it slipped and shattered on the floor. It seemed as if he were about to cough out his very lungs.

Fan Changyu was momentarily flustered. Realizing what was happening, she hurriedly called for Aunt Zhao, then stepped forward to pat his back and help him breathe.

There were many wounds on his body from blades and swords; from shoulder to chest, everything was wrapped in bandages. To avoid pressing on his injuries, he wore only a loosely draped inner robe.

Now, with his violent, wrenching coughs, the collar fell open. The muscles of his bandaged waist and abdomen stood out clearly under the dim candlelight, yet the exertion had torn his wounds anew—the bandages slowly staining red.

Fan Changyu raised her voice toward the door, shouting, “Auntie, hurry and call Uncle Zhao to come take a look!”

Aunt Zhao answered from outside and rushed out to fetch her husband.

The man continued coughing until his once-pale face flushed scarlet. At last, he leaned over the bedside and spat out a mouthful of clotted blood.

Fan Changyu was startled, afraid he might collapse to the ground, and quickly supported his shoulder.

“Are you all right?”

Cold sweat already beaded his forehead, soaking the skin from his neck down to his chest. His whole body looked as though it had just been pulled from water, exuding a thick scent of blood. His hair was in disarray, clinging to his damp forehead—a sight both wretched and fierce. “Better now. Thank you.”

He wiped the blood from the corner of his lips with the back of his hand, then leaned back half-reclined against the bedpost, breathing weakly. His pale throat was exposed, like a wild beast that had given up struggling at the edge of death.

But his condition was clearly not as “better” as he claimed.

Looking at the man, Fan Changyu unconsciously recalled the moment she had first found him—half-conscious, forcing open his eyes to look at her—like a dying wolf.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

By the time Carpenter Zhao hurried back from outside, the man had already fainted again, his breathing as thin as a thread.

Fan Changyu sat by the doorway with the look of a farmer struck by famine, frowning bitterly as she thought: if this man died, should she do a good deed to the end, escort Buddha to the west—buy a cheap coffin and bury him properly? Or should she just dig a shallow pit and put him in?

Feeling the few remaining copper coins in her pocket, she decided the latter would have to do. She and her younger sister still needed to eat. Digging a hole and burying him would already count as kindness.

After some time, Carpenter Zhao came out of the room with a grave expression. He said nothing at first, merely went to the main hall and poured himself a cup of cold tea.

Fan Changyu, thinking the man likely wouldn’t make it, said, “Uncle Zhao, don’t blame yourself. If someone can’t be saved, that’s their fate. Once he’s breathed his last, I’ll carry him up the mountain and find a decent spot to bury him.”

Carpenter Zhao choked on his tea and coughed for quite a while before catching his breath. “What nonsense! The man’s still very much alive!”

Fan Changyu froze, then scratched her head in embarrassment. “He coughed up blood earlier, and you came out with such a long face, I thought he was done for.”

Carpenter Zhao said, “That young man’s constitution is good. Coughing up that clotted blood actually saved his life. But it’s only his life that’s been saved. Whether he’ll ever fully recover—well, that depends on careful nursing… and his own fate.”

The implication being: he might end up a cripple, unable to lift or carry anything for the rest of his life.

He asked Fan Changyu, “Do you know where he’s from? Any family left?”

Fan Changyu recalled what the man had told her of his background, then sat back down on the threshold like a weary peasant again. “He said he fled from the north. His family’s all dead. He ran this far only to run into bandits. Seems he’s got nowhere else to go now.”

The old couple exchanged a look, both opening their mouths yet finding nothing to say.

Saving a man once was one thing, but keeping a sickly invalid was another matter entirely. With wounds like his, the medicine alone would cost plenty—and one more pair of chopsticks meant one more mouth to feed.

After a long silence, Carpenter Zhao asked, “And what do you plan to do?”

Fan Changyu picked up a twig and drew two circles in the dirt before saying, “I carried him back from the snowy wilderness. I can’t just drive him out now.”

Aunt Zhao grew anxious on her behalf. “Your parents are gone, and Ning-niang’s in poor health, taking medicine all the time. Now you’re going to feed another idle man? How hard will that be on you?”

Fan Changyu also felt she had brought trouble upon herself, but there was no other way at the moment. “Let him recover first,” she said. “When he’s better, we’ll see what he plans to do.”

Inside the room, the man—just waking faintly after being treated with a round of acupuncture—heard every word of this exchange. His dark-as-onyx eyes turned slightly toward the door.

Outside, under the darkened sky, heavy snow began to fall again. The candlelight within cast a warm glow across the room, softening the chill.

The girl wore an old apricot-colored jacket, squatting on the threshold. Her elbows rested on her knees, one hand cupping her cheek, the other holding a small twig that she poked idly into the dirt. Her fine brows were lightly drawn together, as though she had just made a difficult decision.

The elderly couple beside her sighed in unison.

The man’s gaze lingered on the girl’s face for a moment. Then, withdrawing his eyes, he slowly closed them, forcing down the cough rising in his throat.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

That night, after returning home, Fan Changyu waited until her younger sister was asleep before retrieving the wooden box hidden atop the beam.

She opened it. Inside were several land deeds stamped with red seals, and a handful of copper coins.

The deeds were what her parents had left behind after their deaths.

The coins were what Fan Changyu had earned herself from slaughtering pigs.

Speaking of which, her family had once been fairly well-off. The reason life had become so tight now was that her father had spent a large sum of silver the previous year to build a pigsty.

Her father had been a well-known butcher in town. Thinking it unprofitable to always buy pigs from traders, he planned to set up his own pigsty in the countryside and hire hands to raise the pigs himself. Yet before the sty was even built, both her parents met with misfortune.

The funeral expenses nearly drained every bit of silver the family had. With no more income, Fan Changyu had no choice but to slaughter pigs herself to make a living.

It wasn’t that she hadn’t thought of selling off a few acres of farmland to ease their troubles, but under the laws of this dynasty, if one’s parents passed away and there was no written deed of inheritance left, a daughter could not claim her share of the family estate. If the deceased left no sons, the property would pass to their parents’ siblings.

As a woman, Fan Changyu could neither transfer ownership of her parents’ house and land nor mortgage or sell them for silver.

Her uncle was a habitual gambler, deep in debt outside, and had long set his sights on using their property to pay what he owed. From time to time, he would come by to make a scene, forcing her to hand over the house deeds.

Naturally, Fan Changyu refused. Not to mention that the house was the place she and her parents had lived for more than ten years—every plant and tree there held her affection. If even that roof were taken away, where would she and her sister go? To wander the streets?

Fearing that her young sister might be tricked into revealing something, Fan Changyu never told even her where the deeds were hidden.

She poured out the copper coins from the box and counted them one by one. In total, there were three hundred and seventy wen¹Wen (文): A small unit of currency used in ancient China, made of copper coins strung together; multiple wen make up one tael (银两).—all she had managed to save from her pig-slaughtering work after daily expenses.

In truth, even without taking that man in, her household was already on the verge of running out of food.

Relying on slaughtering pigs for others was no long-term solution. Business had only been good during the twelfth month, when families killed pigs for the New Year. Once the festivities passed, there would hardly be any work left. Fan Changyu calculated that she would have to reopen her family’s butcher stall.

She ran the numbers in her mind: during the twelfth month, live pigs sold for fifteen wen per jin. Buying an eighty-jin²Jin (斤): A traditional Chinese unit of weight, equal to ten liang or approximately 500 grams (half a kilogram).pig would cost one guan and two hundred wen.

After slaughtering, about sixty jin of meat could be sold. At thirty wen per jin, she could earn a net profit of six hundred wen per pig.

If she braised the head and offal into marinated dishes, the price would rise even higher.

During the New Year season, every household had guests to entertain, but common families rarely had a full stock of seasonings and could not make fine dishes. Most would buy cooked food from the street instead. Braised meat, in this season, had quite the market.

The idea was sound—but the problem was, she didn’t even have enough silver to buy a single pig.

Fan Changyu let out a faint sigh, tucked the copper coins into her sleeve pocket, placed the land deeds back into the box, and returned it to the beam.

She would have to think of a way—to first scrape together enough money to buy one pig.

Footnotes

• 1
  Wen (文): A small unit of currency used in ancient China, made of copper coins strung together; multiple wen make up one tael (银两).
• 2
  Jin (斤): A traditional Chinese unit of weight, equal to ten liang or approximately 500 grams (half a kilogram).