On the day Fan Changyu set out, Zheng Wenchang hurriedly wrote another letter to He Jingyuan.

Previously, when He Jingyuan learned that Changning had been taken, he replied to him, telling him to think of a way to steady Fan Changyu.

Zheng Wenchang still did not know exactly who had abducted that child. To first give Fan Changyu an explanation, he lied that it might have been traffickers in Jizhou City who abducted women and children.

He had thought Fan Changyu could rest assured and wait for the authorities to destroy the traffickers’ dens, but unexpectedly that girl hoisted a butcher’s knife and went with the soldiers to storm the traffickers’ dens herself, personally searching for people.

The several dens that had originally been planned to be thoroughly wiped out in one or two months were absurdly shortened to half a month, which made Zheng Wenchang feel very complicated.

The government has always given bounties to righteous people who help capture wanted criminals. Because Fan Changyu received so many rewards, and because of her previous glorious achievement of standing against Qingfeng Stockade and saving a dozen or so neighbors, she now had some fame on the road; people called her the “Pig-Butchering Xi Shi.”

Among the remaining petty bandits in Jizhou City a saying circulated: if on the road you try to rob someone and meet a pretty girl carrying a butcher’s knife, don’t get any improper ideas—obediently let that auntie pass, otherwise… your lair will be taken down.

Some village girls, whenever they were going on a long trip, without exception would buy a butcher’s knife to carry as a talisman for protection; not to mention it really worked, to the point that for a time the blacksmith shops and knife shops’ butcher’s knives could not meet demand.

When He Jingyuan received the letter, the one who felt complicated was him.

Before Xie Zheng led twenty thousand new soldiers away, he had specially instructed him to look after Fan Changyu, who was far away in Jizhou. That events had developed like this was indeed something He Jingyuan had not expected.

He had originally hoped that the two daughters of the Fan family could live an ordinary life and not be further involved with the matters behind the Fan couple, but it now seemed that would probably not happen.

The imperial guards stood outside the tent, only hearing his deep sigh.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

The sun shone high; the grasses and trees beside the official road had already sprouted tender shoots.

Fan Changyu clenched her hardtack and rode on horseback, with no leisure to enjoy the spring scenery along the road; she only felt it strange inwardly that along this route they had not encountered any refugees—could it be that those who should have fled in the past few months had all fled already?

The hardtack was a little choking. When Fan Changyu took out her water gourd to drink, she found there was not much water left in it.

She glanced at the stream that ran alongside the official road, dismounted to scoop water, but the water was very shallow. If she did not bring the gourd to the uneven stones of the stream to draw water and instead reached the gourd directly into the stream, she could only fill it half full.

Fan Changyu drank a few mouthfuls from the clear flowing water. After filling the gourd she was about to continue on the road when, at a fork ahead, a raggedly dressed man stumbled and ran up, and from far off upon seeing her shouted, “Miss, save me!”

Fan Changyu thought he had run into mountain bandits. She hung the gourd on the horse’s back, immediately took out her bone-cleaving knife, and when the man was almost up to her she calmly held the blade toward him, successfully causing the man to stop three paces away from her.

On the road, Fan Changyu did not dare be presumptuous. Previously, when she had gone with the authorities to destroy traffickers’ dens, many young girls who had been abducted were lured to secluded places because they were kind and helped children or elderly people, then the traffickers put them in sacks and dragged them away.

She measured the man and asked, “Did you run into mountain bandits?”

The man shook his head; his face, dark red from years of labor, was covered in sweat. With both hands braced on his thighs, he panted, “The imperial soldiers are inhuman, they want to seize us good civilians to go repair the dam…”

Chaotic hoofbeats drew near. Clearly panic-stricken and afraid, the man begged Fan Changyu, “I’ll slip into the woods to hide for a while; miss, please don’t tell anyone where I am. I have elders above and young below; if we’re taken, most likely we’ll die under those soldiers’ whips. What will my family do?”

He implored so earnestly he was almost going to kowtow to Fan Changyu. After speaking, he dove into the brush beside the official road.

Fan Changyu digested what he’d said and thought to herself: No wonder the stream is still so shallow now that spring has come, upstream they must have built a dam to hold back the water. Along this road they hadn’t seen any refugees; could it be they were also seized to repair the dam?

She was in no hurry to move on. Watching her horse lower its head to eat the newly sprouted grass at the roadside, she reached out and scratched the horse’s neck.

When the chaotic hoofbeats reached them, there were fully a dozen riders, all armored soldiers. Because this was a fork in the road, the soldiers’ leader pulled his reins and asked Fan Changyu, “Did you see a man pass by?”

There had been very few people seen along this official road; to say “I haven’t seen anyone” would have sounded too false.

Fan Changyu nodded and replied, “I saw him.”

Seeing no fear on her face, the leader noticed several knives visibly stuck at her saddle and that she wore capable riding clothes; the soldiers took her for a woman who traveled the jianghu and did not suspect anything, only asking, “Which road did he take?”

Fan Changyu pointed to the side fork and said, “This one.”

The leader glanced at her but did not immediately order the whole force to pursue the road she’d pointed to. Instead he signaled two men to ride on along the road the man had come from to continue the chase, while he himself took most of the troops down the side fork.

Fan Changyu watched expressionless as the soldiers rode off, but in her heart she thought, why isn’t this the same as what’s written in the storybook?

After the soldiers had ridden far enough to be completely out of sight, Fan Changyu called toward the patch of brush where the man was hiding, “Come out, the soldiers have all left.”

The man crawled out in a sorry state and, full of gratitude, said to Fan Changyu, “I thank you on behalf of my whole family.”

Fan Changyu said, “It was nothing, no need to thank me. By the way, I pointed the soldiers to that road, but two of them rode along the official road behind me. You’d better go back into the brush and hide a while longer. If the soldiers don’t find anyone up ahead, they’ll probably turn back to search; wait until they go back, then run along this road.”

The man kept thanking her but showed no intention of leaving. He looked awkwardly at the big bundle hanging on Fan Changyu’s saddle and licked his dry lips, saying, “Miss, do you have anything to eat? I’ve been hiding from the soldiers and haven’t eaten for many days.”

There were quite a few rations in Fan Changyu’s bundle. She glanced at him and said, “I’ll get some for you.”

To undo the knot on the bundle required two hands. Fan Changyu put her bone-cleaving knife into the leather pouch hanging on the saddle and reached to untie the bundle.

The hand she had dislocated had almost recovered; only occasionally lifting heavy things still felt a little difficult. To help that hand recover faster, she had scarcely used it for heavy work these days.

As Fan Changyu turned to fetch the food, the man’s formerly simple expression instantaneously grew savage, and the dagger hidden in his sleeve thrust straight at her back.

A “ding” rang out; the tip of the blade seemed to have struck an iron plate and could not be driven in at all. The man was plainly stunned.

Fan Changyu’s hand untying the bundle halted; she turned her head and coldly met the man’s gaze: “Deceive me?”

The man’s expression hardened. He withdrew the dagger and once more made a slash toward Fan Changyu’s neck. Fan Changyu planted a heavy kick into his abdomen, sending him flying backward more than a zhang.

Perhaps one of his internal organs ruptured from the force; the man could no longer hold the dagger. Clutching his belly with both hands, he writhed on the ground in pain.

Before deciding to set out alone, Fan Changyu had taken many precautions — for example, she had the blacksmith forge two extremely sturdy iron plates, one placed in front of her body and one at her back; she feared accidents on the road.

She picked up her butcher’s knife and walked over, intending to bind this man and leave him here; when the soldiers came back to fetch him they would take him away, and she herself would slip away before then.

Otherwise she had nearly let a wanted criminal escape and had deceived the soldiers who were pursuing him; she might be charged as an accomplice.

Unexpectedly, hoofbeats soon galloped this way again. When the soldiers’ leader saw Fan Changyu and the man, his face turned extremely sullen; his mounted troops all leveled bows and crossbows at Fan Changyu.

Fan Changyu hurriedly said, “Military lord, I was deceived by this man earlier. He said he was a civilian seized to repair the embankment, that he had an old mother and a wife and children at home, begged me to conceal his whereabouts, and just now tried to do me harm — I subdued him.”

The soldiers’ leader coldly sized her up and ordered the men under him, “Bind them and take them away.”

Fan Changyu pleaded urgently, “Military lord, I am truly wronged! It was wrong of me to have deceived you earlier, but I did subdue this villain. Could I make amends through meritorious service and be exempted from punishment?”

The leader snorted coldly, “This is a scout of the Chongzhou army. Who knows whether you’re a spy? Seeing you couldn’t bring back this scout, you conspired to stage this trick.”

Fan Changyu had not expected to be entangled in so large a matter. She hurried, “Military lord, I have household registration documents on me. I am from Jizhou; I truly am not a spy!”

She pulled out her household registration papers and, because the soldiers would not allow her to approach, could only toss them to the leader to inspect.

After looking, the leader asked, “Since you are from Jizhou, with the war raging, why are you heading to the northwest border?”

From this official road one could go to Chongzhou or to Yanzhou. Fearing she would be treated as an accomplice, Fan Changyu did not dare say she was going to Chongzhou and replied, “I am going to Yanzhou to seek relatives.”

War made refugees a plague; when heading to other prefectures few sought official escorts from the authorities anymore.

The leader’s expression did not soften. “How do I know your household registration wasn’t taken by killing someone?”

He turned his horse and barked, “Take them away!”

Fan Changyu: “……”

What rotten luck!

With a line of bows and crossbows aimed at her, she could only resign herself to putting down her knife; her hands were bound and she was taken back to the camp.

Fan Changyu only knew that troops were stationed at Lucheng; she did not know that halfway out of Jizhou tens of thousands of troops had also been stationed and that they were constructing a fairly large dam.

After being taken back to the camp, Fan Changyu was temporarily locked in a cell. Her horse, bundle, and butcher’s knife were all confiscated; even the two iron plates she carried on her person were taken by an old woman who searched her.

Each day the guarding soldiers brought her food; apart from water it was just the hardtack from her own bundle. Being forcibly detained and having to pay for her prison meals herself made Fan Changyu even more vexed.

Two days later, she was finally hauled out of the cell. After it was verified she was not a spy, she still was not released. She stood with other ragged civilians and was issued a hoe and a basket; the soldiers ordered them to dig up earth and stones, two people per team. If a pair could not fill ten baskets by midday, they would not get lunch.

Only then did Fan Changyu learn that these people were refugees passing through, forcibly detained here — it seemed the soldiers feared they would spread word about the embankment construction upstream. Rather than only lock them up and have to feed them, the soldiers made them go and quarry earth and stone.

Most of the refugees, in order to eat their fill, were still willing to do this manual labor.

Fan Changyu was detained because the soldiers feared that on her way to Yanzhou she might pass through Chongzhou and leak something.

She did not understand why building an embankment had to be so secretive. She worried about Changning’s safety; now that she was out, she thought she could use the chance to dig earth and stones on the mountain to learn the surrounding terrain, so she could plan an escape.

When she had just arrived, the others had already formed teams. Most were men — when it came to whether one could eat or not, no one would coddle a delicate woman. The sturdy-handed women saw that Fan Changyu was tall but thin and feared she could not do the work, so they were unwilling to team with her.

Fan Changyu thought that alone she could dig ten baskets in a morning without much trouble, but the soldiers, seeing she and a frail old man were unpaired, directly made them a team — presumably thinking the two of them, a weak woman and a decrepit old man, could not match others’ strength and only needed to dig five baskets for the morning.

Fan Changyu shouldered the basket and hoe and went up the mountain with the main group to quarry earth and stone. The old man, holding his own hoe, walked panting; he did not stop grumbling at the soldiers, but his curses were extremely erudite, full of classical literary particles, so much so that neither the other quarrying civilians nor the soldiers could understand what he was muttering.

In her bundle Fan Changyu still had the Four Books annotated by Yan Zheng; in spare moments she read a few chapters and could understand some, but those passages heavy with classical citations left her puzzled.

Seeing the old man nearly out of breath, and thinking of Carpenter Zhao who had joined the army at the same age, she felt some pity. Using her hoe like a knife she cut down a thick branch from a tree, stripped off the twigs and tip, and made him a walking stick. She reached to put the old man’s hoe into the basket and said, “I’ll carry it for you.”

The old man’s sweat nearly dripped into his eyes. Seeing Fan Changyu was a young woman, he refused, stubbornly saying, “This old man can carry it himself.”

A woman beside them saw this and said, “Miss, don’t mind this old man — his temperament is peculiar!”

Fan Changyu could tell the old man was knife-mouth, tofu-heart, smiled, and did not take it to heart.

When they reached the place to quarry earth and stone, Fan Changyu’s strength was great; she filled the five baskets almost without effort, and the counting soldiers could not help but look on her with new eyes.

They did not need her to carry the earth and stone, mules or two soldiers with a pole would transport them.

Having finished the morning quota while the others were still digging, Fan Changyu could not openly rest, so she pretended to dig while chatting with the old man: “Old sir, you are a scholar — how did you come to be brought here?”

The old man said angrily, “I heard Yanzhou borrowed twenty thousand soldiers from Jizhou, so I guessed they would surely be building a dam on the upper reaches of the Wu River. I intended to come see how the dam was progressing, but those soldiers took me as a spy and captured me. Scoundrels, scoundrels!”

Fan Changyu said, “Old sir, you can find your way into any racket — for fights and dam-building and the like, best not to butt in anymore.”

The old man, mistaken for having come to gawk and thus seized, was so angry that he puffed his whiskers and glared; he ignored Fan Changyu all the way through the noon meal.

That morning Fan Changyu had leisurely dug eight baskets of earth and stone. At meal distribution she was even praised by the soldiers and given an extra steamed bun. She had intended to give it to the old man, but he snorted at the bun as if it were beneath him, so Fan Changyu unceremoniously pocketed it herself.

She was stronger than the others and naturally had a big appetite. Knowing that digging more would earn more food, in the afternoon she dug twelve baskets and successfully received two extra steamed buns.

The old man kept on cursing in his erudite way — if not cursing the soldiers here, then cursing some rotten youth.

Holding her porridge bowl and biting a steamed bun, Fan Changyu curiously asked, “Is that your son?”

The old man glanced at her sideways and said, “Half a son.”

Fan Changyu said, “Oh — so he is your son-in-law.”

The old man again puffed his whiskers and glared, “He is my student! Ill-bred little girl!”

Fan Changyu, having grown used to Yan Zheng’s former cutting tongue, did not take offense at the old man’s hard mouth and soft heart; rather, she felt some respect for his learning and thickened her courage to say, “You were a teacher before? I self-studied the Analects, may I ask you some questions?”

The old man, surprised that she had self-studied, looked at her: “Self-studied?”

Fan Changyu’s expression dimmed slightly; she smiled and said, “My former husband was also a scholar. He didn’t have time to finish teaching me the Four Books, he left me his annotations to read myself.”

The old man, perhaps feeling pity at a young widow, for once let down his haughtiness and said, “Contain your grief and accept the change.”

Fan Changyu was taken aback and quickly said, “He’s not dead, he was conscripted and taken away.”

The old man’s whiskers twitched up angrily at the corner of his mouth: “You speak of him as if he were dead!”

Fan Changyu: “…”

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

Yanzhou.

In the distance the Yanshan mountain range rose like a dragon’s spine in the night; the un-melted snow at the peaks showed as a faint gray-white.

Thousands of military tents lay at the foot of the mountain. Tripod-supported braziers were scattered among the tents, wood crackling and burning, lighting the camp.

In the central command tent, Xie Zheng studied the deployment of defensive forces in Yanzhou and Chongzhou on the map, his fingertip pointing at one spot as he instructed his subordinate generals, “Chongzhou has sent fifty thousand troops to besiege Lucheng. The remaining fifty thousand are not to be underestimated. At the appointed time I will personally lure the enemy; you shall take men and lay an ambush in the first-line gorge…”

He suddenly covered his face with his hand and sneezed.

The officers sitting respectfully at the long table were briefly startled.

Although the snow on Yanshan had already melted, once night fell it was still bitterly cold.

Xie Zheng had long since changed into a thin spring shirt; broad-shouldered and narrow-waisted, his countenance like jade, he was the kind of martial general the capital’s noblewomen spoke of as the most handsome.

He frowned and continued to make arrangements. During a short pause, a personal guard came in to add tea and considerately brought him a thick coat.

Xie Zheng looked icily at the guard holding out the clothing. The guard stiffened and in a low voice said, “The night is cold and the dew heavy — Marquis, be careful not to catch cold.”

Xie Zheng: “…Get out.”