Fan Changyu turned her head and looked at Xie Zheng, whose half face was hidden in light and shadow.

Because of the backlight, she could not see what expression he wore at this moment, but his voice was much lower than usual. “I spoke harshly to you earlier. I’m sorry.”

He had been proud all his life, it was rare for him to take the initiative to bow his head.

Fan Changyu still said nothing. She lifted the tent curtain and went out directly.

Xie Zheng gazed at the curtain that was still swaying lightly; the corners of his lips gradually pressed tight.

A moment later, Fan Changyu came back carrying a kettle. Steam was rising from the spout, it was clearly freshly filled with hot water.

She ignored the fleeting confusion on Xie Zheng’s face, picked up the wooden cup on the table, poured a cup of water, and handed it over. “Drink?”

Xie Zheng took the cup. The water had just boiled, it was scalding. He did not raise it to his lips but held it in his hand, saying a belated word of gratitude. “Thank you for fetching the cloak.”

Fan Changyu glanced at the red wool cloak draped over his body. Still, she did not respond, only asked, “Have you changed the medicine on your wound?”

Half of Xie Zheng’s face was hidden in the steam rising from the cup. His long lashes were like fans. After a moment of hesitation, he shook his head. The pallor tinged with chill on his face was like a cold moon hanging among frosted woods—desolate and distant. Between his brows was carved a kind of world-weary detachment, as though he meant to live or die here on his own.

Fan Changyu thought this must be the advantage of having a good-looking face—seeing him like that, she felt an unexplainable trace of pity.

She assumed there were too many wounded, that the military physicians could not attend to him. Without another word, she rose to find a physician and fetch medicine.

After today’s fierce battle, indeed, there were many new wounded on the mountain. The few accompanying physicians were running everywhere through the camp. The physician assigned to treat Xie Zheng had been about to change his dressing at the appointed time but had been driven off by Xie Zheng’s words: “See to the other soldiers first.”

The physicians all knew Xie Zheng’s temperament. Since his medicine had only been changed last night, they did not insist. At this moment, seeing Fan Changyu come to fetch it, they were secretly relieved and quickly handed over both the herbal poultices and the decoction to be boiled for the day.

When she returned with several packets of medicine, Fan Changyu looked at Xie Zheng leaning against the bedpost and said stiffly, “Take off your clothes.”

Xie Zheng looked at the medicine in her hands, asked nothing more, and obediently took off his thin inner garment.

Compared to when Fan Changyu had first picked him up, he was clearly stronger now. The muscles on his waist and abdomen were well-defined, solidly shaped—yet the scars, deep and shallow alike, were just as glaring.

Fan Changyu kept her face straight as she unwrapped the bandages that ran diagonally from his shoulder down to his ribs, but her movements were as gentle as she could make them.

The innermost layer of gauze was stained by herbal juice and blood, carrying a faint unpleasant smell. When she saw the wound—somewhat better than before but still fierce and hideous—her heart felt mixed and heavy. She turned her eyes away.

She took up the herbs, intending to apply them, but her hand was caught. The warmth on the back of her hand made her scalp prickle; it was as if the blood in her entire arm flowed backward. She frowned and looked toward Xie Zheng.

There seemed to be many emotions in his eyes, yet none could be clearly read. He only said evenly, “The wound looks gruesome. I’ll do it myself.”

Hearing that, Fan Changyu pressed her lips downward, applied a bit more strength, and pressed the herbs onto his wound herself. Xie Zheng looked down at his freed hand, eyes lowered, as if lost in thought.

When the poultice was done and she was wrapping his wound round and round with clean gauze, Fan Changyu muttered quietly, “I wasn’t afraid of your wound.”

Because of that sentence, Xie Zheng was momentarily dazed. Before he could say anything, Fan Changyu spoke again. “Move the hair on your left shoulder aside.”

Having lain in bed for many days, the hair he had tied had long become disheveled. Many loose strands had fallen forward. To wind the bandage over his shoulder, those scattered hairs had to be brushed away, and Fan Changyu had no free hand to do it.

Xie Zheng brushed his hair aside as she said, yet a few loose strands still remained.

Fan Changyu wrapped the gauze around and continued her earlier words. “I was afraid you’d die.”

Xie Zheng’s long lashes lifted slightly. In those eyes, cold as starlight, there seemed to be a trace of bewilderment.

The girl before him murmured, “That wound was so deep, almost piercing your organs. It must have hurt terribly at the time…”

Xie Zheng stared fixedly at her brows and eyes. He only felt as if a tree with inverted thorns had sprouted in his chest—its roots burrowing deeper into his heart brought an aching, swelling pain, yet its stretching branches carried a tender warmth that spread wildly and uncontrollably.

He said, “I won’t die.”

He had not yet married her, how could he bear to die?

Fan Changyu seemed born incapable of lying. Her clear apricot eyes looked at the man before her, still beautiful and fierce despite his weakness—and she said, “Everyone dies.”

Xie Zheng smiled. “I know.”

When he truly smiled, he was dazzling. Fan Changyu did not understand why he suddenly did so; that smile dazed her for a moment. She frowned slightly and continued wrapping the gauze.

Xie Zheng asked her, “You’re not angry with me anymore?”

Fan Changyu’s hands paused for an instant. “I wasn’t angry to begin with. I’m not someone from the army, I don’t understand the rules. What you said wasn’t wrong.”

Her words sounded proper and upright, but when Fan Changyu thought of her earlier behavior, she still felt somewhat embarrassed.

She had indeed been angry, but she didn’t understand why.

After going down the mountain and seizing the salt, resolving the most pressing problem in the camp, she had casually taken two cloaks, thinking of Yan Zheng and Changning.

But when she came back full of joy, what awaited her was a harsh scolding. She knew what Yan Zheng said made sense, yet she still couldn’t suppress the feeling of distress inside, a kind of grievance she couldn’t reason away.

Wrong was wrong, what was there to feel wronged about?

Fan Changyu felt she was becoming strange, even unlike herself, and hurriedly fled outside.

In the past, she would never have minded so much what Yan Zheng said. After all, his disdain and contempt toward her weren’t new.

Now, she felt hurt because of his words.

Fan Changyu didn’t know what had gone wrong. It felt like she was becoming worse, yet admitting faults and correcting them was what should be right.

Hearing her words, Xie Zheng was slightly taken aback, then said, “I spoke too harshly before. When you went to the back mountain, you didn’t act recklessly. On the contrary, you uncovered the rebels’ plot—your merit far outweighs your fault.”

Fan Changyu only smiled shyly, but there was none of the casual closeness they once shared; instead, there was a polite distance, as if she were speaking to an outsider.

When she finished bandaging him, she stepped back and sat down on a round stool, lowering her eyes. “Someone will bring you medicine tonight. Remember to drink it. Tomorrow I’ll ask Brother Xiao Wu to come help you change your dressing and wash. Rest well. If you need anything, tell Xiao Wu. I heard you two were once in the same squad, it’s good to have someone familiar to look after you.”

Xie Zheng finally heard something off. His handsome brows furrowed. “What do you mean?”

Fan Changyu casually made up an excuse. “There are more wounded on the mountain now. The physicians are too busy. I’m going to help them and won’t have time to come here. I told Ning-niang to stay inside the tent these two days and not go out.”

Until Fan Changyu left, Xie Zheng didn’t say another word.

Fan Changyu didn’t feel well either. She went alone to a quiet low slope and sat in a daze for a while.

She knew, with Yan Zheng’s proud temperament, he would never lower his pride and ask her to take care of him again. Even if he misunderstood her as being disgusted by his injuries, he still wouldn’t ask further.

But right now her heart was truly in turmoil. Fan Changyu didn’t know what was wrong with herself. The only solution she could think of was to stay far, far away from Yan Zheng for the time being.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

Gongsun Yin spent an entire afternoon accepting the fact that the girl Xie Zheng had taken a liking to was just as much of a weirdo as he was.

When he went to discuss the next stage of battle plans with Xie Zheng, he first asked Xie Wu, who had been standing guard in the shadows, so as not to walk right into trouble. After learning that Fan Changyu had come to see Xie Zheng and even changed his medicine, he thought to himself that things should have been smoothed over by now.

But the moment he entered the tent and saw Xie Zheng’s expression, Gongsun Yin almost turned around and left immediately.

That face—like a corpse! Smoothed over? More like someone had brushed his fur in reverse with paste!

That look in his eyes was so cold it could drop shards of ice.

Gongsun Yin cleared his throat lightly and asked, “I heard Miss Fan came by?”

Xie Zheng’s cold, heavy gaze turned toward him, and Gongsun Yin instantly felt that the clothes he was wearing tonight were far too thin—the chill of early spring seemed to seep straight into his bones.

He rubbed his arms and asked, “You quarreled again? Come on, I went to the fire camp to speak a whole lot of good words for you. Xie Jiuheng, you’re a man of eight feet—can’t you just swallow your pride a bit and coax her properly?”

Xie Zheng leaned against the armchair. The table before him was still covered with unfinished military documents. His expression was dark and full of gloom and self-reproach. “I apologized.”

Gongsun Yin said, “Well, when it’s a girl, of course you have to be soft-spoken and coax her nicely. Don’t go saying sorry while keeping a face like thunder—”

Xie Zheng looked up at him, and Gongsun Yin instantly shut his mouth.

After a long pause, Xie Zheng finally said, “I apologized properly. She said she wasn’t angry, but also said she won’t be coming again in the future.”

Gongsun Yin immediately declared, “Isn’t that obvious? She’s still angry!”

Seeing that Xie Zheng still looked puzzled, Gongsun Yin couldn’t help but say, “Aren’t all women like that, saying one thing and meaning another! When she says she’s not angry, she’s angry! She even said she won’t come by for a few days, can’t you tell?”

It was the first time in Xie Zheng’s life that he had liked a girl. He didn’t understand women’s hearts at all. “Then how can I make her stop being angry?” he asked.

Gongsun Yin thought for a while and said, “Well, to be fair, Miss Fan has every right to be upset. She’s a fine martial artist. Before she came here, there was the dam project upstream in Jizhou that got discovered by rebel scouts. She had the courage to cross Wuling alone on a rainy night to ambush them. This morning she went hunting and came back having single-handedly taken down a bear. With that kind of bravery, you’d be hard-pressed to find a few even among your own officers!

“According to Xiao Wu, Miss Fan decided to pursue the rebels only after confirming their numbers. Not only brave but shrewd, she’s earned real merit for this campaign. And yet you ignored all that and scolded her the moment she came back, of course she’d be angry!”

Fan Changyu had previously feared that Xie Zheng would worry, so she had glossed over her experiences in Jizhou with only a few words. Xie Zheng hadn’t known about them.

Hearing them now, and learning she had hunted a bear alone, he was both astonished and more silent than before.

Seeing this, Gongsun Yin sighed. “Miss Fan isn’t an ordinary woman. I know the words you said that day came from concern, but in the future, don’t mistake a swan for a sparrow. I haven’t known her long, but I can tell she’s soft-hearted. What you should do now is show some weakness.”

A trace of puzzlement appeared between Xie Zheng’s fine brows. “Show weakness?”

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

The next day, Fan Changyu indeed did as she had told Xie Zheng—she went to help the military physicians.

Her feats of seizing salt and slaying a bear had spread throughout the army the previous night.

When she entered the infirmary tents, many soldiers greeted her on their own initiative. Discovering that she was a beautiful young woman only deepened their surprise.

The military physicians, knowing her identity, didn’t dare let her handle the injured directly. Instead, they sent her off to decoct medicine.

One wounded soldier said, “What a pity Miss Fan wasn’t born a man. With her martial skills, she’d have earned the rank of general by now through merit!”

There had indeed been female generals in this dynasty, but all were born into military families.

Ordinary women, even if skilled in martial arts, could not even be entered into the military registry—let alone go to battle and earn merit by slaying the enemy.

One man said, “I wonder which lucky brother will have the fortune one day—if he could marry Miss Fan, his ancestral tomb wouldn’t just be smoking with good fortune; it’d be outright on fire!”

Immediately, someone elbowed him and whispered, “Watch your mouth. Miss Fan already has a husband!”

The man who didn’t know asked quickly, “Miss Fan is married?”

Xie Qi had come to help, but his real task was to secretly protect Fan Changyu. Carrying a freshly decocted pot of medicine, he entered and overheard the group discussing her heatedly. He grew indignant on her behalf and said, “Miss Fan came all the way up this mountain from afar just to find her husband.”

At once a wounded soldier asked, “Who is Miss Fan’s husband? Has she found him?”

Xie Qi lifted his chin proudly, ready to answer, but a wounded man who had heard some rumors spoke first. “She found him—but I heard he’s about to die, only barely hanging on.”

Xie Qi: “……”

The crowd sighed at first, then began chattering all at once again. Some even quietly straightened their hair when Fan Changyu came in later.

Their gazes were so eager it was as if they were all silently wishing that Fan Changyu’s husband, who was “barely hanging on”—would hurry up and stop struggling and die already.

After leaving the infirmary, Xie Qi couldn’t hold it in any longer and hurried off to report everything to Xie Zheng.

· ─ ·✶· ─ · 

Elsewhere, Fan Changyu had just set the medicine the physician sent to boil when Xie Wu came rushing to find her.

“Miss Fan! Bad news! Your husband suddenly coughed up blood, come quickly!”

Fan Changyu was startled and asked urgently, “How did he start coughing blood?”

Xie Wu didn’t dare meet her eyes. Wearing a pained expression, he said, “I don’t know either. When I went in to deliver the medicine, I saw he was coughing so badly the whole bedding was covered in blood!”

Fan Changyu thought to herself—coughing like that, how could he possibly last? She immediately called the physician who had been treating Xie Zheng to go back with her and take a look.

The young soldier who had been helping her decoct medicine—the same one she had once thrown out of an enemy encirclement—watched her and the physician leave in a rush, and sighed. “So Sister Fan’s husband really is going to die, huh?”