Snow was falling on this Twelfth Month (of the Chinese Lunar Calendar) day. In the courtyard, a large pot was boiling hot water. Before the fine snowflakes could even land in the pot, they were melted by the rising steam.

The snow on the ground had been trampled into a muddy slush. Beside the stove, a door plank was propped up on wooden benches, with half a side of pork laid out flat on top.

Fan Changyu raised her cleaver and brought it down, swiftly severing a rear pig leg. The chopping board trembled, sending bone fragments and bits of minced meat flying.

The heavy cleaver in her hand had a thick back and was pitch-black all over, except for the tip, which gleamed as bright as snow. It was terrifyingly sharp at a mere glance.

A splitting knife and a boning knife also rested on the board, featuring the same black iron bodies and snow-bright blades, clearly forming a set with the cleaver in her hand.

Today, the Chen family in town was slaughtering a New Year pig, inviting neighbors, nearby friends, and clan relatives; it was extraordinarily lively.

The guests gathered around the indoor firepit to warm themselves took a quick glance at Fan Changyu busy at work in the courtyard, whispering among themselves: “Fan Er’s family just finished their funeral affairs. How come the Chen family invited this young lass Changyu over to slaughter the pig?”

樊二 (Fán èr): Lit. The Second Fan. "Second" (二, Èr) indicates her father's birth order among his siblings (the second brother). Referring to a family by their birth order rank was standard address in traditional village settings.

“The Chen family and Fan Er’s family have a good relationship, so why would they care about so many taboos…” The person speaking perhaps recalled the Fan family’s tragic state, their voice subconsciously trailed lower, casting a brief glance outside.

Fine snow fell like catkins. In the courtyard, the young woman handling the knife to carve the pork wore a somewhat worn, plain gown. She had a tall stature, with her raven hair pinned up, revealing half of a clean, fair, and beautiful profile. She looked slender and thin, yet she worked with remarkable swiftness.

When Fan Er’s wife arrived at Lin’an Town with Fan Er back then, she had drawn many envious, covetous eyes, with even some jealous, sour-tongued women privately cursing that she might have come from a brothel—showing just how exceptionally striking her looks were. Her two daughters took after her in looks, both born extraordinarily pretty.

The younger one was only five years old, so one could not tell much yet, but as for the eldest daughter—had she not been betrothed to the Song family’s lad from a young age—the matchmakers coming to the door over the years would have likely worn down the Fan family’s threshold.

That person sighed: “Fan Er and his wife died at the hands of mountain bandits, leaving behind only two young lasses in the family. Fan Da is an unconscionable one, thinking only of usurping his brother’s family property. Changyu and her sister have truly had it hard! I thought once Song Yan passed the provincial examination and became a Juren, Changyu could marry over and live a somewhat better life, but who knew this marriage would fall through as well. That lass Changyu is unyielding enough, though; taking up her father’s trade, relying on butchering pigs to keep food on the table, she managed to hold the Fan family up against the odds. The Chen family inviting her over to slaughter the pig is also considered looking out for her business.”

举人 (Juren): A degree holder who passed the imperial provincial examinations (乡试, Xiāngshì). Achieving juren status was a major turning point in traditional China, elevating a scholar and their family into the gentry class with political privileges and exemption from certain taxes and labor services.

Hearing these hidden details, the crowd could not help but sigh with emotion, yet a voice kept extremely low said: “How come I heard that it was the Fan family’s eldest daughter who brought bad luck that killed her parents, and that her younger sister born from the same womb has been frail and sickly since birth because of her curse too? It was precisely when the Song family went to match their birth dates that they calculated her destiny to be a Lone Star of Heavenly Calamity, which was why they rushed over so desperately to break off the engagement…”

合八字 (Matching the Eight Characters): A traditional fortune-telling practice before marriage where the birth year, month, day, and hour (represented by eight Chinese characters) of the bride and groom were compared to check for spiritual compatibility, potential bad luck, or clashes in destiny.
天煞孤星 (Lone Star of Heavenly Calamity): An extreme, ominous astrological pattern in Chinese fate-analysis. A person cursed with this astrological alignment is fated to bring misfortune, illness, or death to everyone close to them while remaining isolated and solitary throughout life.

The person who spoke just now let out a sigh: “Do you know where the Song family went to have those birth dates calculated?”

The collective sighs of the crowd grew a bit louder. With the Song family rushing to break off the engagement at this precise juncture, any clear-eyed person could see what was truly going on.

As the old saying goes: Get promoted, get rich, and the wife dies. Song Yan had passed the examination to become a Juren, making him a man destined to become an official in the future. How could he still marry a butcher’s daughter?

升官发财死老婆 (shēng guān fā cái sǐ lǎo pó): A cynical old vernacular saying that summarizes three supposed 'fortunes' or advantageous milestones for an ambitious man in a patriarchal folk tradition. The first two—升官发财— comes from an idiom meaning 'being promoted and gaining wealth'. The final 死老婆, literally 'one’s wife dies', reflects the cynical idea that a man’s success could be accompanied by the loss of his wife, freeing him from marital obligations and potentially allowing him to remarry for further social or financial advantage.

Where the chopping block was placed in the courtyard was not far from the main room. Fan Changyu was forced to catch an earful of the discussions about herself, yet no emotion could be seen on her face.

Her parents had been deceased for over a month now, she had long since come to terms with it.

Between her and Song Yan, it was nothing more than the story of Qin Xianglian and Chen Shimei.

秦香莲与陈世美 (Qin Xianglian and Chen Shimei): A legendary folklore story from the Song Dynasty, famous across Chinese opera and culture. Chen Shimei was a poor scholar whose wife, Qin Xianglian, supported him through years of hardship. Once Chen Shimei scored top marks in the imperial examinations and was chosen as the Emperor's son-in-law, he abandoned, disowned, and even attempted to assassinate his original wife and children to protect his newly gained high status. It is the ultimate literary cultural archetype for an ungrateful, ambitious husband who abandons his spouse upon coming into power.

Back then, the Song family could not even afford a single coffin. Mother Song had taken Song Yan and knelt on the street, kowtowing to passing pedestrians, begging them to help buy a thin wood coffin to bury her husband. Even though she knocked her forehead raw until it bled, no one rendered assistance. Her parents saw this and could not bear it, which was why they stepped in to buy a coffin for the burial.

Mother Song was moved to tears of gratitude, taking the initiative to propose an engagement between her and Song Yan, saying that once Song Yan passed the higher examinations, he would marry her to live a life of comfort.

Later, the two families became neighbors, and her parents often helped out the orphaned boy and his widowed mother. Mother Song was single-mindedly set on having her son take the imperial examinations, yet could not afford the tuition. Before Song Yan was admitted to the county school, much of his tuition had been advanced with her father’s financial help.

One little interesting fact:
束脩 (Shūxiū / Tuition), originally referring to dried meat tied in bundles used as a token gift for a teacher. This term evolved into the standard traditional idiom for a schoolmaster's fee or academic tuition.

Song Yan turned out to be ambitious and capable. A few years back, he had already passed to become a Xiucai, and in this year’s autumn provincial examination, he became a Juren. Many local gentry scrambled to curry favor with him, and even the county magistrate regarded him with high favor, rumor having it that he was quite inclined to recruit him as a son-in-law.

秀才 (Xiucai): An entry-level scholar degree awarded to those who passed the imperial examination at the county level (童试, Tóngshì).

Mother Song’s attitude then turned subtle, appearing to feel that a butcher’s daughter was not worthy of her Juren son.

Her mother felt that Mother Song was no longer as easy to get along with as before. Fearing the other party might misunderstand that they were leveraging kindness to demand repayment, she proposed calling off the marriage. Yet Mother Song adamantly refused, declaring that her Song family was by no means the sort of ungrateful, treacherous people who forgot favors.

Once her parents unexpectedly passed away, rumors spread out of nowhere, alleging that her unlucky fate had brought about her parents’ deaths.

When Mother Song came to the door to break off the engagement, she used this very same set of excuse—stating that she had consulted a fortune-teller who saw that her and Song Yan’s birth dates were incompatible, and if they truly wed, it would not only bring bad luck to Song Yan, but since she no longer had parents above her, the curse would also go to Mother Song.

Song Yan thus naturally annulled his marriage engagement with her without being tainted by the slightest stigma of being ungrateful, leaving only Fan Changyu to become the Lone Star of Heavenly Calamity whom everyone avoided like the plague.

Fan Changyu cut off her train of thought and exhaled a breath of turbid air.

A heap of frustrating matters—better not to dwell on them.

Having finished carving up the pork, she took her butchering wage and departed from the host family without even stepping through the front door of the main house. During the New Year festival, people prioritized good omens; her family had just concluded a funeral and although the Chen family did not mind this when inviting her to slaughter the pig, she had good sense in her heart.

The host family did not insist on keeping her, giving her a bucket of pig offal before she left.

This was an unwritten custom in the countryside: when hiring someone to slaughter a pig, besides paying the wage, one was also expected to give a piece of pork to the butcher, though most of the time it was pig offal.

Before carrying the pig offal home, Fan Changyu first went to the pharmacy to pick up two doses of medicine.

One dose for her younger sister, and one dose for the man she had rescued.

Yesterday, she had taken a job to slaughter a pig in the countryside. On her way back, she picked up a man covered in blood lying in the snow, who looked like he had been attacked by mountain bandits.

Because her own parents had also died at the hands of mountain bandits, Fan Changyu felt a surge of compassion and carried him back on her back.

Who could have expected that none of the medical clinics in town dared to take in and treat someone with half a foot already inside the Gates of Hell? She couldn’t very well throw him directly out onto the street either, so she had no choice but to treat a dead horse as a living one—bringing him home and asking the neighbor uncle, who had been a veterinarian for over a decade before switching professions to become a carpenter, to try and treat him.

How the treatment turned out, Fan Changyu did not know, but for now he hadn’t breathed his last yet.

This prescription was also written by that neighbor uncle.

Having picked up the medicine, Fan Changyu headed straight back home.

The Fan family’s house was situated in a residential alley in the western part of town, where houses pressed tight against one another in extreme crowding.

The alley was dark and damp, with moss growing along the bases of the walls. The houses on both sides were old, their wall plaster mottled and peeling, their wooden doors and windows decrepit and broken, exuding a decay-ridden stench.

As luck would have it, just as Fan Changyu stepped into the mouth of the alley, she came head-to-head with the Song family mother and son.

Both wore freshly tailored winter garments made of exceptionally fine fabric; Mother Song even wore gold earrings, her expression no longer bearing the slightest trace of her past pitiful subservience, carrying quite a bit of proud swagger instead.

After Song Yan passed the provincial examination and became a Juren, local gentry and wealthy merchants offered him gifts of silver and courtyards alike, making the Song family naturally glorious and grand nowadays.

As the saying goes: Clothes make the man, just as a saddle makes the horse. Song Yan wore a raven-blue long gown embroidered with bamboo leaf patterns, radiating a scholarly aura, elegantly refined, no longer bearing his past shabby poverty, possessing quite the air of a noble young master.

竹叶纹 (zhú yè wén or Bamboo Leaf Pattern): In classical Chinese culture, bamboo symbolizes upright integrity, noble character, and scholar-gentleman virtues (君子, Jūnzǐ). Wearing bamboo-embroidered robes was a common aesthetic choice for scholars wishing to project an air of high moral standing and elegance.

Fan Changyu had only just come over from slaughtering the pig at the Chen family’s home, carrying the leather pouch that held her butchering knives, her patched old coat was stained with blood spatter from slaughtering the pig, with one hand carrying the medicine packets and the other holding the wooden bucket of pig offal—she truly looked somewhat disheveled and untidy.

Mother Song quietly stepped back to avoid her, even pulling out a handkerchief to fan before her nose. She was actually wearing a gold ring on her hand as well.

Truly come into wealth and power now.

The alley was narrow. Neither mother nor son spoke, nor did Fan Changyu spare them much of a look. Acting as if she had not even seen the pair, she carried her bucket of pig offal and walked straight inward: “Watch the path—”

The instant they brushed past each other, the bucket containing the pig offal happened to graze Song Yan’s new clothing, the bloody water on the bucket wall instantly leaving a large wet stain across it.

Watching Fan Changyu’s back as she strutted off, Mother Song’s face turned green with fury, saying in heartache: “That blind careless lass. This is Hangzhou silk fabric!”

杭绸 (Hangzhou Silk): Premium silk produced in Hangzhou, legendary for its fine texture, smoothness, and high cost. It was a luxury textile associated with wealth, government officials, and elite status.

No emotion could be seen in the depths of Song Yan’s eyes, saying only: “Mother, let it be.”

Mother Song looked full of disgust: “Fine then! In just a few more days, we will be moving out of this wretchedly poor dump anyway!”

Meanwhile, as soon as Fan Changyu arrived before her house door, a five-year-old little snowball scampered out from the neighboring house at the sound: “Ah Jie, you’re back!”

雪团子 (xuě tuánzǐ) is an affectionate Chinese metaphor used to describe a cute, chubby, fair-skinned young child bundled up in puffy winter clothing.

The little snowball was carved of white jade, thoroughly adorable. She opened her arms wanting to hug Fan Changyu, a missing tooth showing at the side of her mouth when she smiled.

Fan Changyu lifted her younger sister by her back collar: “Don’t touch, my clothes are dirty.”

Little Changning obediently stopped in her tracks, and seeing her elder sister holding so many things, she took the initiative to take over the medicine packets.

She possessed a pair of almond eyes identical to Fan Changyu’s, except that due to her young age, the corners of her eyes looked rounder, and her cheeks were chubby and fleshy, like a plump porcelain doll.

The neighbor auntie heard the commotion and came out, smiling when she saw Fan Changyu: “Changyu is back.”

The neighbors were an elderly couple. The master of the house was surnamed Zhao and worked as a carpenter, having to head out during the day to build household furniture and utensils for people or go to the market to set up a stall selling rattan baskets, returning only in the evening.

The relationships between the two families were extremely good. Whenever Fan Changyu went out, not feeling at ease leaving her younger sister home alone, she would leave her with the neighbor auntie.

She gave an “Ai” in response, picking out a piece of pig liver strung with palm leaf from the bucket of pig offal and handing it over: “Dashu enjoys this bite. Take it to stir-fry and make a dish to go with his wine.”

棕榈叶 (zōnglǘ yè or Palm Leaf Strings): In traditional rural markets before plastic bags existed, butchers and vendors tied meat, fish, and offal securely with tough, dried palm leaf strips or straw strands to make them easy to carry.
下酒菜 (xià jiǔcài or Wine-accompanying dish): Savory, rich, or fried small dishes specifically prepared to complement drinking alcohol or Chinese rice wine during supper.

Auntie didn’t stand on ceremony with Fan Changyu either. After accepting it with a smile, she added: “That young man you carried back last night has woken up.”

Fan Changyu was taken aback upon hearing this and said: “Then I’ll head over to take a look in a bit.”

With her parents deceased, leaving only herself and her younger sister in the household, it was inappropriate to rashly let an outside man stay inside. Last night, after bringing the man to neighboring Uncle for treatment, she borrowed a room from the neighbors to temporarily settle him over there.

Little Changning tilted her head up and said: “That Da Gege is so pretty!”

Pretty?

Fan Changyu did not know whether to laugh or cry, patting the topknots on her younger sister’s head: “How can you use ‘pretty’ to describe a man?”

However, when she picked that man up, his face was smeared all over with dried, blackened blood, making him almost unrecognizable as human. Bringing him back on her back yesterday had been late in the evening, and in her rush to seek medical help, she had not cared to wipe his face clean at all.

She truly did not know yet what that man looked like.

Fan Changyu returned to her room to change out of the clothes she wore for butchering before heading next door.

The winter twilight always arrived exceptionally early. Before the Yǒu hour had even passed, the sky had already darkened down.

In the traditional Chinese system of twelve two-hour time periods (地支, Dìzhī), the period of yǒu corresponds to 5:00 PM – 7:00 PM, the time around dusk when the sun sets.

When Fan Changyu entered the room, the interior light was dim and murky. She only saw the humped curvature of a form beneath the quilt on the bed.

The smell of herbal medicine, the stench of blood, and the odor of sweat mingled together inside the room, forming an indescribable stench.

The weather was bitterly cold. Uncle Zhao and Auntie Zhao, presumably fearing this man might not pull through, had sealed the doors and windows tightly shut, and even lit a charcoal brazier in the room, the thermal heat steaming that smell into something far more potent.

Having frequented pigsties when catching swine, Fan Changyu did not react much to this stench, merely knitting her brows slightly after entering before going to the table to light the oil lamp.

A single bean of warm, orange light illuminated this small, narrow space. When Fan Changyu turned around to look toward the bedside once more, she caught sight of that man’s appearance, momentarily dazed.

一豆橙色 (A single bean of orange light): A poetic Chinese literary description comparing the tiny, flickering teardrop-shaped flame of a traditional wick oil lamp to a small bean.

She now understood why Changning had said he was pretty.

⟡ Aewoo’s Ramble ⟡

Hi guys! I know there are already quite a few completed POJ translations out there, but somehow I never really found one that completely satisfied me, so I decided to just translate it myself instead ^^

Honestly, this is mainly a project for myself because I really, really love POJ and wanted to have a version that I could read and enjoy in the way I wanted. I also just genuinely enjoy translating, so I thought, why not? 😆

I’m definitely not a professional translator, so there might be parts where my interpretation differs from other translations. I’m translating based on how I understand the original text and how I feel the characters/scenes should come across, so please take mine as *my* interpretation rather than the definitive translation!

That being said, if you happen to want to read my translation too, it would honestly be an absolute pleasure for me 🥹🫶🏻 Knowing that someone else is reading something I translated purely because I love this story would make me really happy.

Anywayyy, this is going to be a little passion project of mine, so please bear with me as I slowly work through it hehe. I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy translating it 🤍

p/s: I really love POJ so much. Like. A LOT.