Daylight streamed in through the doors and windows, filling the entire room with brightness. The young woman’s vitality and radiance seemed all the more impossible to contain as she said, almost as though it were only natural, “Of course it’s a pity. In the several-hundred-year history of the Great Yin Dynasty, how many Marquis Wu’ans have there ever been?”

Fan Changyu counted on her fingers as she listed his achievements. “He retook Jinzhou, the gateway to the northern frontier. He also recovered the twelve prefectures of Liaodong, which had been fought over for decades at the cost of countless capable ministers and renowned generals. The Battle of Jinzhou may have been heavily criticized, but when Jinzhou was seized by Beijue back then, weren’t the people of the Central Plains within the city massacred too?”

“Old General Xie died standing to preserve his dignity, only for Beijue to hang his corpse from the city walls and leave it exposed to the elements. The civil officials have condemned Marquis Wu’an in word and writing, calling him cold-blooded and brutal—but were the soldiers and civilians who died in Jinzhou sixteen years ago not innocent as well? Why should they get to move their lips and, just like that, lightly brush aside Beijue’s crimes on behalf of the dead? Without Marquis Wu’an, who knows who else could hold the northwestern frontier?”

Xie Zheng had heard far too many self-righteous condemnations of him over the Battle of Jinzhou. This was the first time someone had ever spoken in his defense.

A strange feeling stirred within him, and he could not help but take a fresh look at the woman before him. “You really dare to say that.”

Fan Changyu looked at him in puzzlement. “What the officials say is their business. But we common folk aren’t fools. Marquis Wu’an’s methods in military and political affairs may indeed be ruthless, but he’s hardly as monstrously guilty as those scholars make him out to be. Should we common folk not curse those corrupt officials who squeeze us dry, but instead curse Marquis Wu’an for being too good at killing the enemy? How badly does something have to be wrong with your head to think like that?”

Xie Zheng: “…Don’t people use his name to frighten children into silence at night?”

Fan Changyu replied somewhat sheepishly, “My father looks pretty terrifying when he slaughters pigs. People in town often use his name to scare their children too.”

Xie Zheng: “……”

He raised a hand and pressed at his brow. For a long while, he said nothing. Yet, as if by some miracle, a little of the hostility and gloom buried deep within him had dissipated at that moment.

·•—–٠✤٠—–•·

At noon, when it was time for the meal, Fan Changyu first lit a stick of incense before the memorial tablets of her parents. Having heard her mention her father earlier, Xie Zheng also glanced at the memorial tablet on the altar table against the wall of the main room.

After making out the name inscribed on it, he suddenly asked, “Was your eldest uncle named Fan Daniu?”

Fan Changyu looked at him in surprise. “How did you know?”

“Your father’s memorial tablet.”

Fan Changyu looked at the three characters “樊二牛” (Fan Erniu) on her father’s tablet and immediately understood what he meant.

樊大牛 (Fán Dàniú) / 樊二牛 (Fán Èrniú): These are rustic, old-fashioned male names, with 大牛 (Dàniú) meaning “Big Ox” and 二牛 (Èrniú) meaning “Second Ox”. Names using 牛 (“ox”) were common among rural and working-class families, while the numbers could sometimes indicate birth order or simply distinguish siblings. 大 (Dà) also is used to denote the first order of something, like how the villagers sometimes calls Fan Changyu Fan Da Guniang meaning eldest young lady of the Fan family.

She explained, “My father’s given name was Erniu. He got separated from his family when he was little, but when he grew up, he searched for his family himself and eventually found his way back. Later, the people in town gave my father the nickname ‘Fan Laohu’, and everyone just started calling him by that nickname.”

Xie Zheng merely nodded, his gaze passing over her mother’s memorial tablet. He noticed that it did not even bear a surname. The name inscribed on it was simply Lihua, which looked like the sort of casual name people in the countryside might give a girl.

He could not help asking, “Did you and your younger sister have your names chosen by someone else?”

The names Changyu and Changning did not exactly seem like something this couple would have come up with themselves.

As I mentioned before, their names mean “Everlasting Jade” and “Everlasting Peace.” Both are more refined and meaningful than the rustic names their parents have.

Fan Changyu brought the dishes over and set them on the table. “No. My mother came up with them.”

When she spoke of her mother, a small note of pride appeared in her expression. “My mother was really capable. She could read and write, and she also knew how to make scented powders and blend fragrances. Other butchers always have a strong smell about them after slaughtering pigs, but after our clothes were washed, my mother would always fumigate them with the fragrance she made. They never smelled at all.”

A trace of surprise appeared in Xie Zheng’s usually cool, detached eyes. “Was your maternal family rather well-off?”

Being able to read and write and knowing how to make fragrances and scented powders—either skill alone would suggest a family that was hardly ordinary. For someone to possess both, she must have come from a well-established, prosperous household.

Fan Changyu shook her head. “I’ve never met my maternal grandfather. My father met my mother years ago when he was working as an escort outside the county. She wasn’t the daughter of some wealthy family either. She had only worked as a maid in someone else’s household.”

Lihua certainly sounded like a maid’s name.

If the maid had come from a prominent family, then it would not be surprising for her to possess such skills.

Fan Changyu said, “It’s a shame I’m so stupid. I used to learn how to read with my mother, but whenever I looked at a book, I’d get a headache. I never learned much about making fragrances and powders either. Otherwise, I’d have another way to make money by now.”

Xie Zheng recalled the sight of her swinging a stick at people and said meaningfully, “Perhaps you’re more talented in other areas.”

Fan Changyu nodded in wholehearted agreement. “I think so too. If I hadn’t learned how to slaughter pigs from my father, who knows? By now, our house and land might already have been taken away, and Ningniang and I would be sleeping on the streets.”

Little Changning was struggling to pick up a meatball with her chopsticks. At that, she looked up with a pair of round, dewy grape-like eyes. “Ningniang doesn’t want to sleep on the streets.”

Fan Changyu helped her younger sister by picking up the meatball she had been struggling with for ages and placing it in her bowl. “We’re not going to sleep on the streets. We’re going to buy ourselves a big house in the county town someday.”

Only then did Changning feel relieved. She went back to doing battle with the meatballs in her bowl with her chopsticks, occasionally chatting with Fan Changyu.

Compared with the sisters’ constant chatter while eating, Xie Zheng barely spoke at all once he picked up his chopsticks. He truly lived by the saying: Do not speak while eating; do not speak while sleeping.

from 食不言，寝不语 — a traditional maxim that comes from the Analects and describes proper/conventional conduct.

His table manners were refined and proper. Fan Changyu, on the other hand, was not.

Slaughtering pigs was physically demanding work, and she expended a great deal of energy every day, so naturally she ate more than an ordinary woman.

She simply picked up a large bowl and shoveled rice into her mouth. Changning followed her example, practically burying her entire face in her rice bowl.

The big one and the little one moved with astonishingly perfect synchrony.

When they finished and set down their bowls, they both let out a satisfied sigh, as though the meal had somehow tasted even better because of it.

In all his years, this was the first time Xie Zheng had ever seen women eat like this. The expression on his face was rather complicated.

That afternoon, Fan Changyu asked Carpenter Zhao to come repair the broken front door of their house, while she herself tucked some silver into her pocket and headed to the market to buy a pig.

To fend off Fan Da, she had closed her newly opened butcher shop for three days for the marriage. If she didn’t reopen it soon, all the reputation she had built up with her braised offal would have gone to waste.

Before leaving, Xie Zheng suddenly asked her, “Your mother could read and write. Did your family happen to have any paper, ink, brushes, and inkstones?”

Fan Changyu said, “We do. Do you need to use them?”

Xie Zheng nodded. “I’d like to borrow them for a while.”

Fan Changyu went and dug out the four treasures of the study that her mother had bought years ago. Since they had been left unused for so long, the paper had yellowed, a large chunk was missing from the inkstone, and the soft goat-hair brush had already fallen apart into something resembling a broom.

文房四宝 (wénfángsìbǎo) — “the Four Treasures of the Study.” This is the traditional collective term for 笔(bǐ), 墨(mò), 纸(zhǐ), 砚(yàn) — brush, ink, paper, and inkstone.

When Xie Zheng saw the four treasures laid out before him, he fell silent for a moment before thanking her.

At any rate, they were still better than writing on cloth with charcoal.

Fan Changyu didn’t ask what he needed the paper and brush for. Since he could read and write, she figured that perhaps being stuck at home with an injured leg had left him too bored, and he simply wanted to practice his calligraphy or something.

After Fan Changyu left, Xie Zheng ground the ink and began writing. The quality of the ink was poor, and once ground, it barely dissolved evenly in the water.

He resisted the urge to throw the brush, whose bristles had splayed out like a cockscomb, and the ink stick out the window. Instead, he patiently endured it and, before Carpenter Zhao finished repairing the front door, wrote a model essay.

时文(shíwén) were polished essays written in the kind of style that scholars were expected to master for the civil service examinations. They weren't just essays sitting around for people to read, either - model essays were actually published and sold as study materials, so aspiring scholars could read them, study how they were written, and imitate their structure and style when preparing for the exams.

He asked Carpenter Zhao to take the essay to a nearby bookshop and see if they would buy it. “The Spring Examination is just around the corner, so examination essays should be selling briskly at the various bookshops. Could you please make a trip to the bookshop and see if they’ll take this sort of essay?”

Carpenter Zhao couldn’t read, but he could tell that Xie Zheng’s handwriting was exceptionally good. He asked in surprise, “Young man, you’re a scholar too?”

Xie Zheng merely said, “I studied for a few years when I was young. While traveling far and wide as an escort, I gained some experience of the world. Now that I’m injured and don’t have a penny to my name, I thought I’d try writing examination essays to see if I could earn a little money.”

The imperial family is in decline, and unrest is spreading across the northwest. Once these few examination essays of his circulate, they will surely stir up a massive wave of condemnation against the Wei clan among scholars throughout the realm, keeping that father and son occupied and leaving them with no time to continue searching for him.

He could also use the essays to convey certain pieces of information to his former subordinates in veiled ways.

Having the gyrfalcon suddenly appear in towns was simply too conspicuous. If anyone with ulterior motives happened to track it down, it would inevitably bring trouble.

Hearing him say this, Carpenter Zhao immediately felt his eyes grow hot with emotion. “You’re a good lad. Changyu that girl has had such a hard life. You were injured out in the wilderness and somehow happened to be rescued by her—perhaps the two of you were simply fated to meet. Seeing how much you care for her, your Zhao Daniang and I can rest easy now…”

Xie Zheng realized that the old man had misunderstood his talk of earning money as him caring for that butcher’s daughter. He wanted to explain himself, but at the moment he couldn’t come up with a better excuse, so he could only remain silent.

To Carpenter Zhao, however, that silence was as good as an admission.

The strange feeling in Xie Zheng’s heart grew stronger. Worried that Fan Changyu might misunderstand as well, he deliberately acted even colder after she returned home. Unfortunately, his face rarely showed much expression to begin with, and Fan Changyu was rather oblivious when it came to such things. She didn’t notice anything unusual about him at all.

·•—–٠✤٠—–•·

That night.

Fan Changyu made up the bed in the north room and let her younger sister go to sleep first. She then went to the kitchen and finished braising the pork she would sell the next day. Remembering that Yan Zheng was injured and would probably feel cold at night, she put the glowing coals left in the stove into a brazier and carried them to him.

Having lived in this house for more than a decade, she still hadn’t gotten out of the habit of simply walking into her old room. As soon as she entered, she discovered that he was once again half-dressed and applying medicine to his wounds.

This time, however, Fan Changyu didn’t have time to feel embarrassed. His entire back was stained with spreading patches of blood, and quite a bit of it had seeped onto his white inner garment.

She had wanted to help him apply his medicine during the day, but he had refused. She had assumed that his wounds hadn’t reopened too badly. She hadn’t expected them to have become this serious.

The moment Xie Zheng heard her push open the door, his handsome brows furrowed. He was just about to put his clothes back on when a pair of warm, strong hands pressed down on his shoulders.

The shiver that ran through him when their bare skin touched made his brows knit even tighter. He instinctively tried to brush away the hand resting on his shoulder, only for her to restrain him, pinning him in place so firmly that he couldn’t move.

Xie Zheng’s breath caught. A flicker of bewilderment appeared in his beautiful eyes. He couldn’t tell whether he was more startled by the sheer strength of the woman before him or by the fact that she could be so bold. “You…”

“You what? Are you trying to die? Is it really so difficult for you to ask someone to help you apply some medicine?”

Seeing the wounds that had split open across his back, Fan Changyu didn’t bother being nice to him. She had no idea what he was being so stubborn about. With injuries like his repeatedly reopening, how much money would he have to spend on treatment?

As she picked up the medicine bottle from the table and sprinkled the powder over the bleeding wounds on his back, she couldn’t help muttering, “You’re a grown man. What are you being so fussy about?”

矫情 (jiáoqing) means someone is being overly fussy, delicate, particular, or making a needless fuss, especially when they could simply accept help.

Xie Zheng’s temple throbbed violently. The woman’s hand was still resting on his shoulder, and half of his shoulder felt as though it had been branded with a red-hot iron. His brows drew tightly together. “Men and women should not have physical contact.”

男女授受不亲 (Nánnǚ shòushòu bù qīn)— This is a traditional Confucian propriety saying, literally means that men and women should not touch hands when they are giving or receiving things. But the phrase is conventionally understood as “men and women should maintain physical propriety.”

Fan Changyu said, “I carried you back from the wilderness myself! Whether it counts as shòu (giving) or shòu (receiving), we already had qīn ages ago!”

亲 (qīn) could also means intimacy/kissing. So her response accidentally sounds like “Whatever that means, we've already been intimate!”.

The moment the words left her mouth, the entire room fell silent.

Fan Changyu realized she’d misspoken too. She hated studying more than anything, yet this man insisted on speaking to her in such an affected, scholarly manner. Irritated, she scratched at her hair. “I didn’t mean that I’d kissed (qīn) you… Ai…”

Xie Zheng’s eyelid began twitching too. Before she could say anything even more astonishing, he cut her off. “I know what you mean.”

Fan Changyu hurriedly nodded. “As long as you know.”

Afraid that he might misunderstand and think she had feelings for him, she gritted her teeth and lied against her conscience. “Don’t worry. I have no designs on you. I… I haven’t gotten over my former fiancé yet! We grew up together, after all. He was so handsome, and so clever. He was the only person in the entire county to pass the provincial-level examination and become a Juren. How could I just say I’ve gotten over him and actually be over him?”

After saying all that, Fan Changyu practically broke out in goosebumps from her own words.

The expression on the man before her was impossible to read. He merely said, “My condolences.”

Fan Changyu: “?”

Song Yan wasn’t even dead yet!