After Head Constable Wang left, Fan Changyu sat in the disordered room, holding her younger sister close. She sat there with Carpenter Zhao and his wife, the three of them silent for a long while.

Only after a considerable time did Auntie Zhao mumble under her breath, “Taking in a live-in husband… how could that ever be an easy affair? Having lived to my age, I’ve only heard of the sole daughters of wealthy squires bringing in a husband. For a dirt-poor family like ours, who would be willing to marry in as a son-in-law?”

赘婿 (zhuìxù): A zhuixu, or live-in husband (also known as a matrilocal husband), is a man who marries into the woman's family rather than taking his wife into his own family. If the bride's family has no son, the zhuixu may effectively take on a son's role within the household. Depending on the circumstances, he and his children may also be expected to contribute to or continue the wife's family line and household.
In traditional patriarchal society, a woman typically married out and joined her husband's household. A live-in husband reversed this arrangement, with the husband joining the wife's household instead. Such marriages (matrilocal marriage) could carry considerable social stigma for men, as they were often associated with a man's lower social or economic standing.

Fan Changyu remained silent, offering no reply.

The method Constable Wang had proposed was for her to quickly find a live-in husband. That way, her father would effectively have a son, and the family property would naturally fall to her.

However, with the Song family having broken the engagement and her reputation as a Lone Star of Heavenly Calamity spreading far and wide, it was difficult enough for her even to marry out, let alone take in a husband.

Those legal advocates she had previously entrusted others to ask had likely known of her family’s circumstances as well, which was why it hadn’t even crossed their minds to suggest taking a live-in husband as a way out for her.

After all, people in this world regarded a man marrying in as a matter of shame. Once a man became a live-in husband, it meant giving up even the surname of his ancestors, rendering him unable to hold his head high anywhere. Not to speak of ordinary families, even those idle scoundrels and loafers would not easily consent to marry in.

Carpenter Zhao rested his callous-covered hands on his knees, his wrinkled face looking all the more aged, and sighed, “Marriage is the single most important affair of a lifetime. One cannot simply grab just anyone at random to perform the wedding bows with, or else the one suffering in the future will still be Changyu Yatou herself.”

Hearing this, Auntie Zhao felt all the more heartache for Fan Changyu. When other girls married, whose parents did not pick and choose through a thousand options, thoroughly probing the other party’s character and family background before sending their daughter off with a grand wedding?

Fan Changyu no longer had parents. Right now, pressed to find a live-in husband in haste, let alone assessing the man’s character, so long as his appearance wasn’t as ugly as a gnarled melon or split jujube, it would already be considered good.

Just as Auntie Zhao was about to wipe her tears, she suddenly recalled something. Her gaze froze, and she raised her head to look at Fan Changyu: “That young man you saved, does he have a wife and family?”

The moment the words left her mouth, she dismissed it herself first: “Likely not. You said earlier he fled as a refugee from the north, and he’s the only one left in his family.”

Fan Changyu naturally caught Auntie Zhao’s implicit meaning, yet she stood stunned for quite a while.

Seeing that she offered no response, Auntie Zhao had no choice but to lay the words out even more plainly: “He’s got nowhere to go with all those injuries. How about… Daniang helps you ask that young man what he thinks?”

Perhaps because the idea of matchmaking had already taken root in her mind, as Auntie Zhao looked at Fan Changyu again, the more she looked, the more she felt the girl and that young man were a fine match. Changyu herself was a capable one; even if that young man truly turned into a invalid in the future, she could carry the household entirely on her own.

Moreover, having gone to the Song family today to beg for help only to eat closed-door soup, Auntie Zhao hated that ungrateful thing Song Yan so much her teeth ached. The moment she thought of how that young man’s looks were even more proper and handsome than Song Yan’s, she felt all the more satisfied in her heart.

吃闭门羹 *Chī bìméngēng): An idiom originates from the Tang Dynasty, where a famous courtesan would serve a plain soup to unwanted suitors as a polite signal of refusal. Today, it means being turned away at the door or given the cold shoulder when seeking help.

Fan Changyu’s mind was an absolute mess right now. Hearing those words, she could only say: “Daniang, don’t go ask him just yet. Let me think it over properly by myself first. Once I’ve made up my mind, I’ll ask him myself.”

Auntie Zhao knew Fan Changyu had always been a girl of firm resolve. Having received her word, she spoke no further on it. After helping Fan Changyu tidy up the room with her old man, the couple went back home first.

Changning had a habit of taking an afternoon nap, and having been worn out from crying earlier, she was carried to the bed by Fan Changyu after falling fast asleep.

She too lay down with her clothes still on, looking up at the bed canopy with her mind completely blank.

Song Yan and that man calling himself Yan Zheng overlapped as they floated through her mind.

Truth be told, although she and Song Yan were childhood sweethearts and betrothed from a young age, their memories together were pitifully few.

The idiom 青梅竹马 (literally “green plums and bamboo horses”) usually describes two people who grew up together as close childhood companions, often with an innocent affection that people hope may develop into a lifelong bond.

Song Yan was always very busy. Before passing the entrance exam for the county school, he had been studying bitterly by the cold window continuously. Though both their families lived in the same alley, in order not to disturb Song Yan’s studies, she rarely went to look for him. If she did go, it was mostly because her parents had asked her to deliver something to the Song household, sometimes meat, sometimes pastries.

Back then, Mother Song had been exceedingly warm and pleasant toward her, even saying that Song Yan’s hard studying was all so he could gain fame and an official title, allowing her to enjoy good fortune in the future.

Later, Song Yan passed the exam and entered the county school. Since the county school provided room and board, the days he spent at home grew even scarcer, making it all the harder for Fan Changyu to catch a glimpse of him.

There was one time she followed her father to the county town for the market fair, and Mother Song had made a set of new clothes for Song Yan, asking them to bring it along for him.

That was Fan Changyu’s first time visiting the county school. She only felt that the academy built there was truly grand and impressive. After the gatekeeper passed the message, Song Yan came out to meet her. When she handed over the new clothes Mother Song had made for him, he thanked her with a plain, detached expression.

A passing classmate asked Song Yan with a smile who she was, and he answered that she was his younger sister.

On the way back that day, Fan Changyu felt a heavy stuffiness in her heart all along. She could feel that Song Yan actually did not wish for her to go looking for him.

Having a butcher’s daughter as a fiancée had likely made him feel deeply embarrassed in front of his classmates.

In truth, starting from that time, she had thought that if Song Yan disliked her, she would break off the engagement with him. But her parents had seemed to like Song Yan very much, believing him to be ambitious and promising.

Mother Song, too, had been very fond of her back then, frequently saying in front of others that once Song Yan passed the imperial examinations, she would have the pride and honor to let Song Yan wed her back home. Outsiders never ceased to praise her good fortune.

Fan Changyu had thus only mentioned the matter of breaking off the engagement to Song Yan in private. At the time, Song Yan was reviewing his books. Hearing her words, he raised those eyes of his that rarely held any ripples and asked her, “A great affair of marriage is by the command of parents and the words of matchmakers—is this how you treat it, like child’s play?”

Fan Changyu felt that his response must have meant he refused to break off the engagement with her. Knowing his stance, she never mentioned the matter again.

Then came later still: her parents passed away, and Mother Song came to the door to break off the betrothal using that whole line about their birth date being incompatible.

Perhaps because the passing of her parents had already drained all her grief, or perhaps because there had been very little feeling to begin with, when she thought of Song Yan again now, she actually did not feel the least bit sad.

As for that man named Yan Zheng whom she had saved, her understanding of him was even scarcer.

He likewise knew precious little about her. To rashly ask him whether he was willing to become a live-in husband while he was severely injured and had nowhere to go carried, more or less, a touch of coercing repayment for a favor and taking advantage of someone’s peril.

Her engagement with Song Yan had been established back then precisely because her parents had done a favor for the Song family.

Fan Changyu did not wish to relive the same miserable ordeal as her engagement with Song Yan, yet right now, there truly was no other way out.

She pondered it over back and forth, feeling that perhaps it would be better to discuss it with that man named Yan Zheng and ask if he would be willing to do a fake matrilocal marriage.

She only needed to safeguard her family property. Once his injuries healed, whether he chose to leave or stay would be entirely up to him.

If he wanted to go, Fan Changyu naturally wouldn’t stop him. She saved his life, and he would help her through this crisis with a fake matrilocal marriage. At that point, they could consider the debt paid on both sides.

If he wanted to stay… Fan Changyu thought of that face of his, like clear moonlight upon newly fallen snow, and felt that she wouldn’t exactly be coming out on the losing end either?

·•—–٠✤٠—–•·

In the Zhao family’s loft, Xie Zheng, who had just retrieved a note from the leg of the gyrfalcon, suddenly sneezed.

He knitted a pair of sword-shaped brows with impatience, thinking to himself whether he could have actually caught a cold.

The pure-white gyrfalcon gripped the wooden windowsill tightly with its two iron-hook-like talons, tilting its head slightly as it stared at its master with a pair of intelligent, bead-like eyes.

Xie Zheng unfolded the letter, but upon reading its contents clearly, his expression instantaneously turned foul, a trace of cold mockery creeping onto the corners of his lips soon after.

That person, not having seen his corpse for a single day, was indeed unable to rest easy for a single day; to think they had dispatched someone to Huizhou so quickly to take over his forces—and sent that particular one, no less.

The letter was tossed into the charcoal brazier in the corner of the bed, quickly turning into a heap of ashes.

Xie Zheng leaned back against the headboard. The chilly wind blowing in through the wide-open window ruffled the stray hairs on his forehead, yet could not blow away the heavy gloom covering his face.

The person who had taken over his military power in Huizhou likely wished for his death even more than that individual in the capital. Right now, his long-time subordinates could barely protect themselves; they dared not make the slightest rash move lest that person, like a wild dog catching a scent, track his way over.

Until his injuries healed, he could only lie low in this place for the time being, planning his moves carefully over time.

Xie Zheng glanced down at the fresh bloodstains newly dyed onto his lapel, the expression on his face growing a touch more self-loathing and impatient.

“Coo?” Having waited a long while without receiving any command, the gyrfalcon tilted its head to the other side, continuing to stare at its master with those bead-like eyes.

“Scram.”

Xie Zheng closed his eyes in irritation. His handsome face, owing to its excessive paleness, revealed a rare hint of vulnerability.

The gyrfalcon seemed to hear him say this phrase often. Having received its command, it flapped its wings in thorough satisfaction and flew away immediately.

·•—–٠✤٠—–•·

Xie Zheng had indeed caught a cold.

Fan Changyu had spent the entire afternoon brewing what she would say to him upon meeting. In the evening, she even specially fried two side dishes and sliced a plate of braised pig’s head meat to bring over to him. Unexpectedly, this time she called out several times outside the loft door, but no one answered inside.

Fearing that something had happened to the person within, she pushed the door open and entered directly, only to discover the man lying on the bed, his face flushed with an unnatural layer of crimson, his entire person sunk in a heavy stupor.

Fan Changyu hurriedly called Carpenter Zhao over. After taking the man’s pulse, Carpenter Zhao flipped through his battered, incomplete medical book for a long while before prescribing the most conservative formula for treating a wind-cold chill.

In the late hours of the night, Fan Changyu went to knock on the doors of a closed medicine shop to fetch the herbs. After bringing them back, brewing the concoction, and pouring it down his throat, it wasn’t long before a heavy sweat broke out across his body.

Only, when Carpenter Zhao wiped down Xie Zheng’s sweat and changed his dressings, he noticed that his wounds seemed to have reopened, with quite a bit of blood staining the gauze, feeling somewhat puzzled in his heart.

When Xie Zheng woke up, it was already the following morning.

The fever had subsided and his head was no longer heavy, though his throat was severely dry and burning

To make it convenient for him to pour water himself, the elderly couple had specially placed a round stool by his bed, atop which sat a teapot and a coarse earthenware cup.

Xie Zheng propped himself up into a half-seated position, just about to pour a cup of water to drink, when the door to the room suddenly pushed open. That woman entered carrying a large bowl, and upon seeing him, said: “The tea is cold. You’ve only just broken your fever, so don’t drink it. I’ve simmered a bowl of pig lung soup for you.”

Carpenter Zhao had mentioned that pig lung soup possessed the effects of clearing heat, relieving coughs, and moistening the lungs. From the pig slaughtered yesterday, there happened to be a bucket of offal left over, so Fan Changyu had taken the pig lungs to boil into soup.

Xie Zheng thanked her in a raspy voice. Since this time the food wasn’t those intestines or the like, he took the bowl and began drinking it without the slightest psychological burden.

However, the very moment it entered his mouth, his expression turned odd.

Under Fan Changyu’s gaze, he silently swallowed that mouthful of pig lung soup and asked, “Did you cook this?”

Fan Changyu nodded: “Yes, what’s wrong?”

Even though it was her first time cooking this blasted pig lung soup.

Holding the bowl, Xie Zheng did not drink any further and said, “It’s nothing.”

It was just somewhat difficult to believe that this bowl of pig lung soup and the previous fatty intestine noodles could actually have come from the hands of the exact same person.

Fan Changyu kept persuading him: “You should drink it while it’s hot. Zhao Shu said pig lung soup soothes coughs and moistens the lungs, which is good for your body.”

Xie Zheng: “…It’s a bit scaldly hot. I’ll drink it a bit later.”

He had originally thought that with words spoken to this point, the woman before him ought to be leaving. Who could have expected that she would drag a chair over and sit right down instead: “It seems I haven’t told you my name yet. My surname is Fan, and I’m called Changyu. People in town all call me by my name. In the future, you can call me that as well.”

Xie Zheng nodded faintly. He had heard that aunt call her, so he had already known her name prior to this.

He did not reply much, and so the room fell into silence once again.

Forcing small talk with someone made Fan Changyu feel a bit embarrassed as well, but thinking of her purpose this time, she could only bite the bullet and continue to ask: “You said earlier that your surname was Yan and your given name was Zheng. Which ‘Yan’ is it, and which ‘Zheng’?”

Because the Chinese language features many homophones, individuals traditionally clarify their names by identifying the specific Chinese character, often by citing common words or radical components.

Xie Zheng replied: “The ‘Yan’ of yán zhī yǒu lǐ, and the ‘Zheng’ of zhèng rén jūn zǐ.”

As if feeling that Fan Changyu had never read books and might not necessarily understand which two characters he spoke of, he dipped his finger into the cold tea in the cup, writing down the clean, upright, and vigorous characters for “Yan Zheng” stroke by stroke upon the round stool beside the bed.

These two characters were each formed by taking a radical and component from his original full name.

His real name is 谢征 (Xiè Zhēng). He takes the radical 言 (yán) from 谢 (traditionally written as 謝) and the component 正 (zhèng) from 征.

His index finger was long and slender, with distinct joints like slender bamboo. It ought to have been a pair of hands exceptionally suited for holding a writing brush, yet both the finger pads and the back of his hand bore deep and shallow crisscrossing scars, making it difficult to imagine what he had gone through prior to this.

Even using a fingertip as a brush, the characters he wrote carried a natural, forceful vigor, causing Fan Changyu to fall into a daze watching him for no clear reason.

It was not until he finished writing the very last horizontal stroke of the character “正” (Zheng) that his low, raspy voice sounded: “These two characters.”

Only then did she suddenly snap back to her senses, though when she opened her mouth again, there was a bit of hesitation: “Were you a scholar in the past as well?”

His handwriting of the characters were exceptionally well, looking as though it possessed even more elegance and character than Song Yan’s handwriting.

Yet Xie Zheng said: “Nothing more than a mere martial fellow, how could I dare foolishly claim to be a scholar?”

While these words of his appeared to be humble self-deprecation, they inexplicably carried a touch of arrogant mockery, as if he intensely disliked those so-called scholars.

Fan Changyu breathed a sigh of relief and asked again: “Then what line of work did you pursue in the past?”

Xie Zheng’s brows knitted almost imperceptibly, feeling that she was quite bent on digging down to the very root of things today. But considering that she had saved his life and was willing to take him in to nurse his injuries, it was only within the realm of reason to ask for clarity.

Giving it a brief moment of thought, he said: “It can hardly be called any proper trade. I once worked for others in an armed escort agency.”

镖局 (Biāojú): Private security organizations in ancient China that provided armed guards and transport for valuable cargo, money, and travelers across dangerous territory. Escorts (镖师 - biāoshī) were typically skilled in martial arts.

Who could have expected that the woman’s face would suddenly flash with a look of pleasant surprise: “What a coincidence then! When my father was young, he also traveled the roads as an armed escort!”

Xie Zheng: “…What a coincidence indeed.”

Fortunately, she didn’t continue questioning him about the escort agency. Her two hands were clasped together, appearing quite tense as she asked him another question: “Then… are you married?”

Xie Zheng scrutinized the woman before him. Under his gaze, there seemed to be a bit of embarrassment on her face, yet uniquely lacking any bashfulness.

For a moment, he couldn’t quite fathom her intention in asking this, answering truthfully: “I have not.”

Fan Changyu’s hands were nearly pinched red by herself before she finally gave up on preserving her pride, casting face aside completely to say: “Well… I’d like to ask you for a favor. My family has run into some trouble. After my parents passed away, my eldest uncle has been bent on seizing our house and land. Yesterday, his attempt to forcibly snatch the land deeds failed, so next, he’ll likely go to the magistrate’s office to file a lawsuit. If judged by the government, since my parents left behind no sons, that house and land ought to belong to my eldest uncle. To safeguard the house and land, the sole method left now is for me to quickly recruit a live-in husband.”

Xie Zheng’s eyelids twitched violently: “You want me to marry into your family?”