He turned his head slightly and saw Fan Changyu staring at him in shock and confusion, a bowl of medicine in one hand—the spoon in the other hand already missing.
Lowering his gaze, he spotted the spoon shattered into porcelain shards on the floor.
She stammered, “The medicine must taste awful…”
Xie Zheng: “…”
The ragged pace of his breath—always faster after those nightmares—gradually eased. Even the residue of that bitter dream seemed to dissolve beneath her clumsy remark.
He frowned, looking at her with a complicated expression, and forced himself upright. He stretched out a pale, slender hand. “Give it here.”
Even weakened and wan, his face was strikingly handsome.
Fan Changyu blinked, realizing he meant the medicine bowl. She glanced at the bandaged hand he’d extended and reminded him kindly, “That hand was cut badly—the blade opened two deep gashes, and even the tiger’s mouth tore. The doctor said you mustn’t strain it yet.”
He switched to the other hand, and only then did she hand him the bowl.
Xie Zheng downed the foul-smelling decoction in one swallow and returned the bowl to her.
Fan Changyu remembered how, when he had been half-conscious before, she’d had to force the medicine down his throat—how he had gritted his teeth and snarled, ‘It tastes awful.’ So the man who usually said little and kept his composure turned out to be afraid of bitterness after all.
She fished in her sleeve and pulled out a piece of the malt candy she used to coax Changning. “Eat this—it’ll take away the bitterness.”
Xie Zheng had drunk medicine countless times, but this was the first time she’d offered him candy. He would have to be a fool not to know why. His face darkened; he shut his eyes. “No need.”
The next instant, however, a deft hand caught his chin, forcing his jaw open, and the piece of candy was slipped right between his lips.
“You—!” He glared at her furiously.
Fan Changyu only smiled, eyes narrowing, and moved back to her seat. “Sweet, isn’t it? There’s no shame in disliking bitterness. You—honestly, you’re stubborn for no reason at all.”
Perhaps it was the faint winter sunlight spilling through the window behind her, but her smile seemed especially bright and warm.
—At least far warmer than the smile of that woman in his dreams, whose face he could no longer remember.
The sweetness melting across his tongue chased away the lingering bitterness of the medicine—like sunlight breaking through moss-covered gloom.
He suddenly fell silent, turning his head away and pressing his lips tightly together.
He hadn’t eaten anything sweet in a very long time—not since that day, when the woman had coaxed him to go outside and finish a plate of osmanthus cake, only for him to return and find she had hung herself with a length of white silk.
All these years, he had carried a secret weight of resentment and self-loathing.
If only he hadn’t gone out to eat that osmanthus cake—if he had stayed by her side—perhaps she wouldn’t have had the heart to leave.
He hated osmanthus cakes. He hated all sweets. In time, the people around him learned never to offer him any.
Fan Changyu noticed his sudden gloom but didn’t know why. She only said gently, “Your injuries this time are no lighter than before. The doctor repeated again and again that you must rest properly. Until you’re healed, you mustn’t lift anything heavy. Many people died at the house, and the authorities are still investigating, so we can’t go back there for now. Stay here in Aunt Zhao’s loft and recover.”
Xie Zheng had already recognized the loft as the same place where he’d recuperated before at the Zhao household. He only nodded faintly.
Fan Changyu paused, then added, “Thank you for protecting Changning.”
That line overlapped perfectly with what he had heard just before losing consciousness—he now realized it hadn’t been a dream after all.
She had said something else then too.
“This is the second time I’ve carried you out of the snow.”
The first time he’d been injured, he was completely unconscious. This time, though dazed, he had been half-aware.
He remembered how thin the back that carried him had felt.
Now, looking at her again—her narrow shoulders, the faint glimpse of bandage beneath her sleeve—his chest tightened, as though a wad of damp cotton had lodged inside, heavy and suffocating.
She had been wounded too, and yet she had still carried him back.
He moved his cracked, pale lips and said, “You saved me first.”
Just that one sentence—and nothing more. It was as if, somewhere deep down, he refused to separate their debts and favors too clearly.
When those killers had broken in, he had thought it was the Zhao family who betrayed him and exposed his whereabouts. But those men hadn’t only tried to kill him and the child—they had practically turned the Fan household upside down. They were clearly searching for something.
Remembering the waist token he had picked up from the snow, Xie Zheng’s gaze darkened.
He asked, “Has the magistrate discovered anything?”
Fan Changyu shook her head and told him how several other families had met the same fate that day.
Fan Da’s death, at least, had nothing to do with her. The county office had already approved the transfer of all the deeds and property left by her parents to her name.
She was now comfortably provided for—enough, at least, that she no longer had to worry about affording doctors for Yan Zheng’s injuries. That was the only thing that brought her any measure of relief.
Hearing that others in the county had been killed, Xie Zheng frowned and fell silent for a while. Then he asked, “Those who were murdered—were there any connections among them?”
Fan Changyu thought for a moment before shaking her head. “There were seven households in total. Among the dead, there were men and women, the old and the young—nothing in common.”
Xie Zheng’s brows stayed knitted, and he did not answer right away.
They had gone after seven families in all, yet in the end, only the Fan household had been singled out. Clearly, at the beginning, they had been searching widely for something—and it was only after getting what they wanted from Fan Da’s mouth that they came for Fan Changyu and her sister.
By reasoning from the situation in the Fan household, Xie Zheng ventured a question: “Among those families, were there any who once made their living elsewhere and only later returned to Lin’an Town?”
Fan Changyu thought that if that were true, then it really must have been old enemies of her parents seeking revenge. But she could not understand why, with her parents already gone, those people still refused to let go. “I’ll ask Captain Wang about it later,” she said.
After she left the loft, Xie Zheng forced himself upright and reached toward the pile of blood-stained garments stacked on the low stool by the bed. From within, he drew out the waist token he had picked up in the snow.
He examined it for a while, brows furrowed, then closed his fingers around it again.
That waist token belonged to the Wei family’s death warriors.
Heaven and Earth, Black and Yellow—the ones who had come this time bore the Xuan insignia.
But they hadn’t come to kill him; they hadn’t even realized he was there. The leader had only recognized him at the very last moment.
And yet, after recognizing him, why had the man looked so stricken—and chosen death on the spot?
The riddle before him only deepened. The key to solving it seemed to lie in uncovering the true identities of that woman’s parents.
With skills like hers, her father could not have been an ordinary man. Most likely he had not died at the hands of common bandits either, but of death warriors disguised as such.
And that nameless inscription on her mother’s memorial tablet—did it hide some secret as well?
Xie Zheng pressed his fingertips to his brow. He wanted to send word to his old subordinates to investigate the background of Fan Changyu’s parents. But when his eyes shifted toward the gyrfalcon sprawled on the floorboards—its wing still wrapped in bandages, busily devouring a bowl of minced pork—he paused.
Fan Changyu had cut that meat herself. Because the bird had saved Changning, its meals had been upgraded from offal to fresh meat.
It had rolled through the snow several times, and its feathers were finally white again. Just as it lifted a large piece of meat in its beak, it looked up to find Xie Zheng staring at it.
The bird’s small bead-like eyes met his. They held each other’s gaze for a moment before the meat dropped back into the bowl with a soft plop. The falcon blinked, looking foolish and pitiful.
Xie Zheng turned away coldly.
Never mind—since the Wei family’s hounds had already caught wind of this place, he could no longer rely on that stupid creature to deliver messages.
If that merchant surnamed Zhao had indeed come to seek him out, then perhaps he could use Zhao’s trading houses to send a letter unnoticed.
The new year was only days away. He had instructed the man to exchange the banknotes for two-hundred thousand shi of grain before the year’s end; a reply should come soon.
The malt candy in his mouth had long since melted, leaving only a faint trace of sweetness on his tongue.
He glanced toward the window. The candy was gone—but the one who had given it to him had yet to return.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
At the county office, Fan Changyu conveyed Xie Zheng’s reasoning to Captain Wang. The captain only fell silent and shook his head. “The case is already closed,” he said.
Fan Changyu was taken aback. “The real culprits haven’t even been found—how can it be closed?”
Captain Wang replied, “Those who died in the pine forest were the murderers. They were bandits from Qingfeng Stronghold. Robbery and murder during the New Year season—nothing out of the ordinary.”
How could they be mountain bandits? Fan Changyu thought. Those men had clearly come prepared. She wanted to argue, but one look at Captain Wang’s eyes made her swallow the words.
It wasn’t hard to guess why the county office was in such a rush to close the case.
The New Year was approaching. So many murders breaking out at once—aside from the public outrage, the magistrate would have trouble explaining it to the prefecture. They needed a quick reason to seal the file and move on.
Those masked men had dressed exactly like mountain bandits—now that they were all dead, there was no evidence left to contradict the story. Claiming they had been robbers who killed for profit was naturally the most convenient explanation.
The county magistrate only needed to post a notice saying that bandits had been rampant lately and warn the townsfolk to be cautious when going out. That would settle public unrest. Then, with a memorial to the prefecture requesting a campaign to “eliminate the bandits,” all responsibility could be neatly deflected.
After all, the bandits of Qingfeng Stronghold had plagued the region for years; it was already one of Jizhou’s festering problems.
Captain Wang was merely a minor officer. With pressure from above to close the case, there was little he could say.
Fan Changyu left the yamen with a heavy heart. As he walked her to the gate, Captain Wang said, “Perhaps you should sell off your pig shed and land in the countryside, and go elsewhere for a while. I reckon your father must’ve offended someone back when he worked as a bodyguard.”
Fan Changyu knew he meant well. She thanked him and said she would think it over, but for a brief moment her mind went blank.
Leave?
She had lived in Lin’an Town for more than ten years; she knew every stone on the east road, every tree on the western edge.
If she stayed, she might still uncover the truth behind her parents’ deaths—but if another attack came, she and her sister might not survive it.
Leaving meant safety, yet her parents were buried here. The roots of both sisters lay in this soil. To go would mean cutting herself away from home—and the thought made her reluctant.
Once she stepped beyond the yamen gates, though, her swirling thoughts began to settle. Looking up at the clear sky after the snow, she exhaled a long, heavy breath.
If the green hills remain, there will be no fear of running out of firewood.
When Yan Zheng’s injuries were better, she would speak to him about leaving Qingshui County. If he wasn’t afraid of his enemies seeking him again and was willing to come along, she would take him. If he had other plans, she would write a letter of separation, give him some silver for travel, and part ways cleanly.
· · ─ ·✶· ─ · ·
Back in town, Fan Changyu returned to her butcher shop to tidy things up. The period after the New Year was the best time to transfer ownership, and since she had resolved to leave, she meant to sell both the shop and the pig pens and fields in the countryside.
The family house, however, she planned to keep. If she ever came back, at least she’d have a place to return to. She couldn’t bring herself to sell the home where she and her parents had lived for over a decade.
As she bustled about the shop, the clatter of her cleaning echoed from within. Passersby, thinking the Fan family’s butcher shop was open again, peeked in and saw the empty cutting board. Some even asked when she would resume business.
Not wanting gossip to spread, she didn’t mention her plan to sell the shop—only smiled and said she’d reopen after the New Year.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Without looking up, she called out, “No business today.”
A deep, weathered voice answered, “So even an old man’s business you won’t do?”
Fan Changyu looked up and saw that it was Chef Li from Yixiang Restaurant. She quickly apologized, “Sorry, Master Li. Some family troubles lately—I won’t be running the shop until the end of the year.”
Chef Li waved his hand. “It’s not about that. Our master wishes to see you.”
