After hearing this, Xie Zheng said, “Then it’s better to leave sooner rather than later.”

He knew all too well what kind of man that was. So many trained killers under the “Xuan” banner had died in a small town like Lin’an—it would surely draw that man’s attention.

Fan Changyu said, “There are only a few days left until the New Year. I’ve taken a short-term job at Yixiang Building, making marinated meats before the festival. I can earn some silver these few days, and selling property takes time for deeds and transfers anyway. By then, you’ll have recovered more—it’ll be a good time to go.”

Since the conversation had gone that far, she had to ask his plans as well. “What about you? What do you intend to do?”

Xie Zheng thought she was asking for his opinion and was about to advise her to leave quickly—but as the words reached his lips, he realized she was asking whether he would stay or go.

Leave?

Without having weighed any pros or cons, he hesitated for a brief moment.

Fan Changyu said, “My parents probably made enemies outside years ago. If you come with me, those enemies might come after you too. I plan to write you a divorce letter and leave some money for your future expenses. Aunt Zhao and Uncle Zhao are both very good people—I’ll ask them to look after you until you recover.”

Aunt Zhao and Uncle Zhao had no children. They once had a son who was conscripted into the army years ago, and he never returned—it was said he died away from home.

Fan Changyu intended to leave some of her rural fields to them so they could collect rent from the tenant farmers, giving the elderly couple some security for their later years.

As for leaving Yan Zheng here, it was purely because she feared he might be dragged into danger again on her account.

Xie Zheng listened to the plans she had made for him and felt an inexplicable restlessness rise in his chest; his voice unconsciously cooled a few degrees: “I have my own plans. You needn’t worry about me.”

Fan Changyu wondered what she had said to offend him and stared at him in confusion.

Xie Zheng realized his tone had been off a moment ago. He lowered his eyes briefly; when he looked up again his expression had smoothed. “If you’re leaving, it’s best to go today or tomorrow. No need to get travel permits—following a merchant caravan is the safest. When passing city gates and the like, avoid leaving any household registration information if you can.”

Even if she were foolish, Fan Changyu understood this was meant to conceal her movements.

She asked him, “Then do you intend to leave with me, or stay behind to recuperate?”

When she put the question so plainly, Xie Zheng was clearly taken aback for a moment. The candlelight and the shadow of the girl were reflected in his pupils; after a long while he averted his gaze and said, “I’ll go with you for now.”

Lin’an Town was no longer safe for him either. The Wei family’s death warriors had dug three feet into her home looking for something—he was genuinely curious as well.

Those two reasons alone were enough for him to make that choice.

When Fan Changyu heard the word “for now,” she understood his meaning: after he healed he would leave.

She said, “All right. Tomorrow I’ll make another trip to the county office and, at a reduced price, have the shop and the rural pigsties transferred to the authorities.”

If one sold land directly to a buyer, the price would naturally be higher; by going through the county office for transfer and giving a deed, one could expedite matters. Those desperate for money would sell to the authorities at a discount; the officials, holding property bought cheaply, would then resell it at market price to those in need.

As for Yixiang Building, she would just hand the recipe over to that proprietress.

Xie Zheng thought those death warriors probably hadn’t found what they were looking for yet and asked, “Do your parents have any heirlooms you need to take with you?”

Fan Changyu answered almost as if it were a given: “Of course!”

A barely noticeable strange color flickered in Xie Zheng’s eyes.

Then Fan Changyu said, “That butcher’s knife set has to come with me wherever I go. With that set I can keep slaughtering pigs to make a living; if we run into thieves on the road, it can also be used for self-defense!”

Xie Zheng: “……”

But his words had reminded Fan Changyu of something. She said, “The county office closed the case, but for some reason the sealing talisman on our main gate still hasn’t been torn down by the officers. I’ll climb over the wall later to get the land deeds out.”

Xie Zheng’s pupils shifted slightly. “The masked men who broke into your house that day pried up several of the blue floor tiles inside the house as if they were searching for something.”

Fan Changyu couldn’t imagine what else of value her family might have. Frowning, she said, “Surely they weren’t looking for the land deeds as well?”

Xie Zheng: “……Probably not.”

Fan Changyu glanced at the sky outside. “I’ll climb the wall and look after dark.”

Climbing the wall in broad daylight would be easy for others to see. Her home now was practically a cursed house; once sealed, non-officials could not enter. If she were reported while scaling the wall, she’d be in trouble again.

Xie Zheng asked, “Did your parents ever tell you, before, if there was anything you must take even if you had to flee for your life?”

Fan Changyu said, “My younger sister, ah.”

Xie Zheng: “……”

He pressed his long, slender fingers against the space between his brows and suddenly lost the will to speak.

Fan Changyu noticed he still hadn’t drunk his medicine and urged, “If you don’t drink it soon, it’ll get cold.”

The medicine wasn’t hot anymore anyway.

Xie Zheng lifted the bowl and drained it in one go. The next moment, someone was smilingly handing him a piece of orange-peel candy. “I tried this one—it’s sweet and a little sour. It takes away the bitterness.”

Her hand was pale, her fingers slender—neither as bonelessly delicate as those pampered noblewomen’s, nor as knotted and rough as a man’s. Like the difference between flower and wood, each with its own structure and grace—she was something in between, another kind of beauty altogether.

The orange candy lay in her palm, dusted with a faint layer of white sugar. Under the warm candlelight, the word “a beauty fit to be savored” flashed absurdly through Xie Zheng’s mind.

Applied to Fan Changyu—he fell silent even at himself.

Unwilling to let more strange thoughts drift through his head, he picked up the candy and popped it into his mouth, his face stiff as he muttered, “Thank you.”

Fan Changyu thought he was embarrassed about fearing bitterness and found the stubbornness oddly funny.

She rose, holding the empty bowl. “Then I’ll head down first. I’ll bring you dinner later.”

The door curtain swayed, and after she left, Xie Zheng frowned slightly, glancing at the fingertips that had brushed her palm when he took the candy.

They tingled—pleasantly and unbearably.

· ─ ·✶· ─ ·

When Fan Changyu went downstairs, she saw her younger sister feeding something to the gyrfalcon. “Here, eat this…”

The bird had already been cornered; its bandaged wing was tucked tight, and it refused to open its beak. Its round, terrified eyes looked for all the world like those of a modest young lady harassed by a bully yet powerless to resist.

Fan Changyu asked, “Ning-niang, what are you feeding it?”

Caught red-handed, Changning hid her hands behind her back and stammered, “N-nothing…”

Fan Changyu said nothing, only looked at her. Changning feared her elder sister’s quiet gaze most of all; she obediently brought her hands forward and lowered her head, mumbling, “I gave Sun-sun a piece of candy.”

Candy was a rare treat—giving it to this big bird would surely earn a scolding.

But seeing her sister’s guilty little face, Fan Changyu couldn’t bear to be harsh. She said, half laughing, “Gyrfalcon don’t eat candy—they eat meat.”

Changning’s grape-round eyes widened. “Really?”

Aunt Zhao, who had noticed, laughed. “Out in the wild, these things are fierce! The one that broke the east-room window before was about this size too—and that one was vicious. The one you caught, Changyu, is obedient; it doesn’t hurt people and even guards its master.”

She paused before adding the second half, “It just eats a lot.”

A bowlful of meat a day—if she and her husband had to feed it themselves, it would eat them into poverty within days.

Fan Changyu looked at the hawk and found herself growing fond of it. “Maybe Yan Zheng trained it.”

She had originally planned to keep it until Yan Zheng could train it well and then sell it for money—but the bird was intelligent and had even saved Changning once. Fan Changyu decided it would be better to release it back into the wild once it recovered.

That evening, after supper, Aunt Zhao took a yawning Changning into the room she shared with Old Carpenter Zhao. When she returned and saw Fan Changyu still sitting beside the hearth, she asked, “Aren’t you going upstairs to sleep yet?”

The Zhao family’s house, like Fan Changyu’s own, had three rooms below. The main room was where they ate and kept the firepit; the southern room was where the old couple slept; the northern room had once held a bed, but ever since a goshawk had smashed through its window, Carpenter Zhao had stored his lumber there along with unfinished cabinets and chairs he was making for others.

At present, only the loft could still be used for sleeping.

Fan Changyu was still thinking about climbing over the wall to her home. “Auntie, you go ahead and sleep. I’ll stay here by the fire a bit longer.”

Having lived most of her life, Aunt Zhao could easily tell the young couple hadn’t quite become a couple yet. They had always slept separately even before, and now the girl was probably planning to make do by the fire for the night.

Aunt Zhao put on a stern face. “It’s the middle of the night—why aren’t you going to your room? Sitting here by the fire wastes good firewood!”

Fan Changyu hadn’t expected Aunt Zhao to be so direct in forcing her upstairs.

Thinking that she could still get to her own house from the loft roof, she rose slowly to her feet. “I’ll go up and sleep, then.”

At the foot of the stairs, she asked, “Do you have any spare quilts?”

She would need to make a bed on the floor for the night.

Aunt Zhao refused flatly. “No!”

Fan Changyu began, intending to explain, “Actually, Yan Zheng and I aren’t really—”

But Aunt Zhao didn’t let her finish. “I don’t care what you’re thinking, but that boy Yan Zheng—I can see he’s a good one. Your family met such disaster, and he still risked his life, wounded as he is, to get you and Ning-niang to safety. Now he’s covered in injuries—are you turning your back on him?”

Fan Changyu protested helplessly, “I’m not—”

Aunt Zhao all but pushed her toward the stairs. “Then why are you thinking of sleeping on the floor? If I were that boy, my heart would turn cold! He risked his life for your sister, and you can’t even show him a little warmth—”

Fan Changyu felt just like a wayward rake being lectured by his mother for failing to treat a good girl properly. With no choice, she was driven upstairs.

Only when the door closed behind her did Aunt Zhao’s scolding finally stop. Fan Changyu took a deep breath, then turned to meet Xie Zheng’s calm, indifferent gaze. Knowing he must have heard every word between her and Aunt Zhao, she felt not only embarrassed but a little uneasy.

She walked toward the chair. “I’ll rest on the table for a bit. Once Uncle and Aunt have gone to sleep, I’ll climb across the loft roof.”

There was a bed in her own loft—after retrieving what she needed, she could stay there for the night and climb back before dawn.

She had no intention of letting the old couple know about her plan. Climbing into a sealed house was against the law, and if they knew and failed to report it, they could be accused of concealment.

Xie Zheng said nothing more.

When the candle was extinguished, the whole room sank into darkness. Fan Changyu lay on the table with her eyes closed, trying to rest. On the bed, Xie Zheng’s breathing was shallow, not making a sound.

But whether it was the night amplifying her fears, or her mind simply slow to react, she couldn’t stop thinking about her plan to return home—the courtyard where so many had died, the people she herself had killed that day. Slowly, their dying faces began to surface before her eyes.

Outside, the north wind wailed, like ghosts crying in the dark.

Fan Changyu shifted positions again and again, unable to get comfortable, and finally sat up.

There was still no sound from the bed. Tentatively, she asked, “Yan Zheng… are you asleep?”

Xie Zheng didn’t answer right away.

The glow from the dying embers painted the beams in a dim, flickering red. The silence stretched so long that Fan Changyu almost thought he had fallen asleep when his low voice finally came through the darkness:

“…not yet.”

Hearing him made her shoulders relax a little. She hesitated, twisting the hem of her sleeve between her fingers.

“The wind’s too loud,” she murmured, almost to herself. “Feels like the dead are still crying outside.”

A faint rustle came from the bed—perhaps him turning his head. “You killed to protect your sister. The ones who died deserved it. Don’t let the wind scare you.”

His tone was quiet, even, yet the weight of it seemed to press against the air between them.

Fan Changyu gave a soft hum, neither quite agreement nor denial. After a while she said again, “I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes I keep seeing blood on the tiles.”

There was the faint sound of cloth shifting; then his voice, lower now: “Come here.”

She froze.

“I won’t touch you,” he added, as if guessing what she was thinking. “It’s warmer on this side.”

For a heartbeat she didn’t move. Then, drawing her knees close, she stood and stepped over quietly.

The floor creaked beneath her feet. She sat at the edge of the bed, the faint scent of medicine and clean linen between them.

Neither spoke again. The north wind outside rattled the window lattice, and the room slowly filled with the steady rhythm of two heartbeats blending into the hush.

At last, Fan Changyu’s head drooped slightly, and the noise of the wind grew distant.