It was not until Fan Changyu left the room that the person seated before the writing desk, brush in hand, still did not lift his head—only pressed his lips together more tightly.

Hearing the sound of footsteps fading away, he finally set the brush down and leaned back against the chair. In his pitch-black eyes, a shadow of gloom gathered.

Come when called, leave when dismissed?

She truly dared.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

After instructing her younger sister not to run about the house, Fan Changyu greeted Old Aunt Zhao from next door, then prepared to go to the county yamen.

Old Aunt Zhao said, “I’ll go with you, your uncle too. That place is frightening. They say that if one’s not careful, one might be struck by the rod of intimidation—dozens of blows, enough to split skin and flesh! With us there, if anything happens, we can at least think of a way to help.”

It was said that commoners should not contend with officials. Fan Da had somehow connected himself to the yamen’s scribe who bore a grudge against Fan Changyu’s family. These past few days, the old Zhao couple had been so worried for her that they could hardly sleep.

Although Fan Changyu was trained in martial arts, it was her first time appearing in court in her life. After a moment’s thought, she agreed.

The three of them took an ox cart toward the county office. They arrived early, yet a crowd of townsfolk already gathered at the gate to watch the spectacle.

Fan Changyu knew the procedure of an interrogation well enough. Once the county magistrate ascended the hall, he would first summon her and Fan Da inside. The magistrate would then ask once more what Fan Da was accusing her of, while the clerk beside him recorded the statements. If there were any disputes, witnesses might also be summoned.

The witnesses Fan Changyu found were neighbors from the old Fan residence. Ordinarily, people would avoid getting involved in such matters, but Fan Da’s family truly did not know how to behave. They had made enemies among many of their neighbors. When Fan Changyu visited to ask for help, several families, disgusted by Fan Da’s conduct, were willing to testify that he was a habitual gambler.

Time passed bit by bit, and the crowd outside the county gate only grew larger. Yamen runners had already gone to set up the name-slips and the jing-tang mu [wooden block used to announce proceedings] on the magistrate’s desk, yet the plaintiff Fan Da was still nowhere to be seen. Even Fan Changyu herself began to feel puzzled.

Being late to court was an offense punishable by caning. Could Fan Da have forgotten that the hearing was today—overslept, perhaps?

Old Aunt Zhao looked around as well, murmuring under her breath, “Why don’t we see Fan Da?”

An untimely thought flashed through Fan Changyu’s mind—could it be that she had been reciting legal codes too hard these past two days, and in her resentment, had sleepwalked last night to tie up Fan Da?

With the three resounding beats of the courtroom drum, her wandering thoughts instantly gathered back.

Three squads of yamen runners marched into the hall first, forming a wild-goose formation on either side, each holding a staff nearly as tall as a man, faces all fierce and grim.

The townsfolk standing around the court let out a collective murmur of awe and fear at the sight, clearly intimidated by the men.

Fan Changyu also noticed that all of these yamen runners were unfamiliar faces—none from under Head Constable Wang. She wondered if the scribe had played some trick, and her heart rose slightly in alarm.

The county magistrate, dressed in his official robe, entered the hall through the side door and took his seat behind the magistrate’s desk. His eyes, squeezed into slits by his fat cheeks, swept once across the hall. He slammed the jing-tang mu heavily and shouted, “Court in session!”

The yamen runners struck their staffs on the ground in unison and called out in low voices, “Might and majesty—!”

The pounding of the staffs almost blended with the heartbeats of the crowd outside.

The scribe with the eight-shaped mustache shouted, “Summon the plaintiff and the defendant to the hall!”

Though Fan Changyu felt fear in her heart, when she was led into the court by the yamen runners, she still cast a reassuring glance toward the Zhao couple.

Yet even now, Fan Da had still not appeared. Only she, the defendant, knelt alone before the hall.

The fat magistrate clearly had never encountered such a situation before. He turned his head toward the scribe, exchanging glances, both unsure what to make of it.

The townsfolk outside began whispering among themselves.

This stalemate could not continue. At last, the magistrate asked, “Who kneels below the hall?”

Fan Changyu answered, “Common woman Fan Changyu.”

The county magistrate squinted his slit-like eyes at the complaint and barked, “Where is the plaintiff, Fan Daniu?”

No one inside or outside the hall answered.

In the midst of silence, the deliberately hushed murmurs of the townsfolk outside became all the more jarring.

The fat magistrate slammed the jing-tang mu heavily. “Outrageous! In all my years of trying cases, this is the first time I’ve seen a plaintiff who dares not even appear in court—such blatant contempt for the law!”

The scribe beside him, thin as a bamboo pole, glanced at Fan Changyu a few times before speaking persuasively: “Your Excellency, calm your anger. Fan Daniu is but a commoner and would never dare be late to court. There must be some hidden cause. Why not send yamen runners to his home to inquire, so as to show your keen and impartial judgment?”

The fat magistrate pondered briefly. “Granted.”

Soon, yamen runners were dispatched to Fan Da’s residence. The magistrate ordered the hearing suspended midway, and Fan Changyu was spared from kneeling further on the court floor.

This unexpected turn only deepened the onlookers’ curiosity. Instead of dispersing, the crowd outside the county office grew even thicker, whispering about why Fan Da had failed to appear.

Fan Changyu was sitting on a small stool, rubbing her sore knees, when a petty clerk came over and called her, “Head Constable Wang asks for Miss Fan.”

Assuming he had some instructions for her, Fan Changyu followed the clerk through the side door to the constable’s quarters behind the yamen.

The clerk was likely one of Wang’s trusted men, for after she entered, he stood guard outside, keeping watch.

Constable Wang wasted no words when he saw her. He went straight to the point: “Your uncle… did you kidnap him?”

Fan Changyu thought to herself that she had considered doing so at the beginning—but since she’d later found another way, the thought had never gone beyond that. She immediately shook her head. “How could I do something so foolish?”

Wang exhaled in relief. “Good.”

He had remembered how she once asked him what would happen if Fan Da failed to appear in court, so he had called her aside to ask in private.

Lowering his voice, he said, “Fan Da went through that scribe He’s backdoor. Even if you had done such a thing, he’d turn it around to bite you. The moment they slap you with a charge of defying the law, you could end up in prison.”

Fan Changyu said, “I understand.”

The yamen had sent men to find Fan Da—but none from under Constable Wang. That alone spoke volumes. In this matter, Wang could not help her at all.

Leaving the constable’s office, Fan Changyu returned to wait at the courtroom. Yet half an hour passed, and still the runners sent to fetch Fan Da did not return.

The magistrate, growing impatient, ordered another to hurry them along. After another half-hour, the yamen runners finally came back—carrying a stretcher with a body covered by a white cloth.

Fan Da’s wife, Madam Liu, and the two elders of the Fan family followed behind, their wailing shaking the air.

It was obvious—the one beneath the white cloth was Fan Da.

Fan Changyu’s face showed shock. Fan Da… dead?

The crowd outside the yamen burst into clamor, their gazes flicking again and again toward her.

Fan Da, who had plotted to seize her family’s property, had died precisely on the day of their court confrontation. Who wouldn’t find that suspicious?

“How could he die on the very day they were to face each other in court?”

“Fan Da was strong as an ox. For an ordinary person to take his life wouldn’t be easy…”

Feeling the many speculative and doubtful stares upon her, Fan Changyu pressed her lips together slightly, her heart equally filled with confusion and unease.

Who killed Fan Da?

Instinctively, her mind flashed to the words Yan Zheng had said a few days ago—about putting an end to Fan Da. But she quickly dismissed the thought.

Not to mention that Yan Zheng’s injuries had worsened these past few days—he had barely left his room. Moreover, he had spent that time drilling her on every legal statute that might be used in court; it was impossible for him to have laid a hand on Fan Da.

Besides, he was only a nominal son-in-law, with no enmity toward Fan Da whatsoever. He had no reason at all to kill him.

When the county magistrate heard that the plaintiff, Fan Da, was dead, his official hat nearly slipped off as he rushed out from the side chamber. His eyes, squeezed into narrow slits by the fat of his face, filled with shock—as though he had never imagined that a mere inheritance dispute could turn into a murder case. “This… what is going on? Is there no law left in the world?”

One of the constables who had gone to find Fan Da respectfully reported, “Reporting to Your Excellency—when we found Fan Daniu, he had already been dead for some time. His body bore multiple sword and knife wounds.”

The magistrate immediately ordered the cloth covering Fan Da’s body to be lifted. At one glance, the fat on his face trembled with fright. “Summon the coroner!” he shouted.

Fan Da’s wife, Madam Liu, clung to his corpse, crying so hard she nearly fainted on the spot. Catching sight of Fan Changyu, she lunged toward her as though demanding her life. “Was it you who killed him?! Was it you?!”

Fan Changyu stepped back, avoiding her, and said coldly, “Aunt, mind your words. My uncle owed gambling debts all over town—who knows which creditor he fell into the hands of? What has that to do with me?”

Madam Liu and the old matron of the Fan family continued wailing and sobbing. The magistrate, his head pounding from their noise, ordered the yamen runners to take them away.

Before leaving, the old patriarch of the Fan family looked at Fan Changyu as though he wanted to speak, lips pale, his expression haunted—like a man remembering something dreadful.

Since she was entangled in the lawsuit, Fan Changyu could not leave and was forced to stay.

After the coroner’s examination, the results were presented: Fan Da had likely died earlier that morning on his way to the county office. There were eleven wounds on his body, but only the sword that pierced through his heart had been fatal.

The coroner said, “The first ten cuts were struck with great force, yet each avoided a vital point. The killer must be someone long accustomed to handling blades. These wounds—if not for vengeance—look like the work of interrogation.”

Fan Changyu’s brows furrowed.

Interrogation?

What could Fan Da have been interrogated about?

Forcing him to pay his debts?

But if the goal had been to extort repayment, killing him would make no sense.

A heavy fog of confusion gathered in her heart.

Still, since Fan Da had been killed on his way to the county office, Fan Changyu could at least be cleared of suspicion. She had been traveling at that very time, and the Zhao couple as well as the ox cart driver could all testify to it.

Yet the scribe was not inclined to let her go. He said to the magistrate, “Your Excellency, though Miss Fan has an alibi, what if… she hired someone to kill him? It is said she keeps company with that thug Jin Laosan from Lin’an Town. To be safe, should we not send men to search her home?”

A murder case erupting in the middle of New Year’s festivities felt like dire misfortune. The magistrate, annoyed and wary, could no longer afford to be lenient. He appointed the experienced Constable Wang, saying, “You—take men and search!”

Fan Changyu, upright and unafraid, knew that it was Constable Wang who would be leading the search. Meeting the scribe’s weasel-like gaze, she did not flinch in the slightest.

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

A group of yamen runners soon arrived at the residential lanes in the west of the town. The north wind was blowing hard. One runner sniffed the air sharply. “Whose household is slaughtering pigs today? The stench of blood is thick.”

Constable Wang caught the scent too. But since Fan Changyu lived in this area and made her living as a butcher, he thought nothing of it for the moment.

When they opened the gate to the Fan residence and saw the sight before them, even the hardened constables—men who had handled countless murder cases in the capital—turned pale.

Corpses lay strewn across the courtyard. Blood had stained the uncleared snow a deep, ghastly red.

Wang, knowing Fan Changyu’s father and that she had a younger sister, saw no child’s body among the dead and hurried inside the house.

As he mounted the steps, he saw at the main room’s threshold a man lying on his back, his throat torn open by something claw-like. On the floor beside him were a few feathers—large as goose quills—and sword gouges marred the wooden door.

A chill clenched Wang’s heart. He stepped into the inner room. In the north chamber, another body lay sprawled face down on the floor—stone dead, a kitchen knife embedded in his back.

Judging by where the blade had struck, it had cleaved precisely into the spine. Yet the kitchen knife had sunk in nearly two-thirds of its length—clearly driven straight into the bone. It was hard to imagine how much strength the one who threw it must have possessed.

Constable Wang, his heart in his throat, searched through every room, but found neither the Fan family’s younger daughter nor the live-in son-in-law. For a moment, he did not know whether to feel relief or dread.

He said gravely, “Someone must have come to the Fan household seeking revenge. Hurry—report back to the county office!”

· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·

The sky was dim and gray. Snowflakes, as large as goose feathers, drifted down in silence. Piled upon pine needles, the weight of snow now and then sent down small showers of white dust.

Xie Zheng’s chest was soaked through with blood. Behind him, startled crows rose from the dense forest, and the sound of many footsteps crunching the snow closed in like a tightening net. Yet he seemed not to hear it. Leaning against the trunk of a pine, he thrust his bloodied longsword three inches deep into the snow and, with a strip of torn cloth, began binding the wound on his hand.

Specks of blood flecked his pale jawline. His lips pressed downward, his expression dark and foul.

Not far away crouched Changning and the grayish-white gyrfalcon, Hai Dongqing. The falcon’s talons still clutched a shred of pale pink flesh, and Changning sobbed in ragged breaths, her little face white with fear.

He lifted his gaze, cold and sharp. “No crying.”

At once, Changning stifled even her hiccuping whimpers, though the tears still fell in large, heavy drops.

“What kind of people have your Fan family provoked?”

The child before him—nearly petrified with fear—could not possibly answer. Xie Zheng’s words sounded more like he was murmuring to himself.

The chaotic footfalls finally drew near. As he bit down on one end of the cloth strip to tighten the knot, the taste of blood spread across his tongue—faint and metallic.

In his fierce, defiant phoenix eyes was reflected the sight of a band of masked men, swords and blades gleaming, closing in from the far side of the pine forest.