The old family home was even more run-down than Fan Changyu’s house. Clearly, little effort had been made to keep it in order, and the things inside were haphazardly strewn about. Since they burned a fire pit indoors during winter, a layer of soot had settled over the tables, chairs, and stools, and none of it had been wiped clean.

If one sat down without wiping the stool first, one would get quite a bit of soot on the clothes upon standing back up.

The furnishings were all cheap earthenware jars and the like. Both Fan Da and his son were avid gamblers, and anything of value the family had owned had long since been pawned off by them for gambling money.

The old couple lived in the west room. Standing outside its door, Old Master Fan called, “Lao Pozi, Changyu is here.”

老婆子 (lǎopózi) — A colloquial way for an older man to refer to his wife. Literally, it mean “old wife/woman". but it is a familiar domestic form of address rather than a literal comment on her age or appearance. Depending on context, it can sound affectionate, matter-of-fact, or mildly gruff. Here, Old Master Fan uses “Old woman” as a familiar, old-fashioned way of addressing his wife.

The old woman lying on the bed simply rolled over, turning her back to the doorway. Clearly, she was unwilling to exchange even a single word with Fan Changyu.

Old Master Fan looked somewhat embarrassed as he explained to Fan Changyu, “She’s been like this ever since Daniu died.”

Fan Changyu didn’t take it to heart at all, nor did she bother forcing a greeting. As far back as she could remember, the old woman had never shown her family much kindness.

She used the handkerchief Old Master Fan handed her to wipe down a stool, then sat beside the fire pit in the main room to warm herself.

As Old Master Fan hung the cured meat she had brought above the fire pit to let it continue absorbing the smoke, Fan Changyu noticed the bowls and chopsticks still sitting on the table nearby.

Judging by the remains, the old couple had cooked rice gruel that morning. Yet even on the dinner table during the New Year, there wasn’t a trace of meat to be seen.

Fan Changyu frowned. After Old Master Fan sat down, she asked, “After Da Bo’s death, the authorities gave twenty-five taels in compensation. You haven’t used that money?”

Twenty-five taels was no small sum. For an ordinary household, if they were frugal and no one needed medical treatment or medicine, ten taels of silver would be enough to cover a year’s expenses.

Old Master Fan mumbled, “That money has to be saved for your Tang Ge’s wedding…” Ge is older brother, while Tang means cousin on father’s side.

Fan Changyu raised her brows. “Don’t tell me he gambled it away again?”

Old Master Fan said, “Your Da Bomu is keeping the money. She’s worried that waiting through the mourning period will delay him past the proper age for marriage, so she plans to have your Tang Ge marry while the mourning period is still fresh. They’ve already started looking at prospective brides.”

Hearing that, Fan Changyu said nothing more.

People lived their own lives. The old couple had always saved the best of everything for Fan Da in the past; now that their son was gone, naturally, they were saving the best of everything for their grandson instead.

As long as this family didn’t start coveting her house again, she was perfectly willing to let things remain as they were between the two families as the well water does not disturb the river water.

井水不犯河水 — A common idiom meaning that two parties keep to themselves and do not interfere with one another.

She asked, “What was it you said earlier about my father?”

Old Master Fan’s deeply wrinkled face was illuminated by the firelight, making his already gaunt frame look even more frail. He let out a slow sigh, “Daniu’s misfortune may well have been my retribution.”

Fan Changyu found that strange. She said nothing, simply waiting for Old Master Fan to continue.

“Your father wasn’t my own son, but he was the child of my own brother, so he was still my blood kin. That year, when famine struck, your real grandfather went with the villagers to raid the government granary for grain. The soldiers killed him. Your grandmother gave every last bit of grain in the house to your father, and she herself starved to death. Before she died, she entrusted your father to me…”

As Old Master Fan recounted these things, tears glimmered in his cloudy old eyes. “I wanted to raise that child as my own flesh and blood, but it was a year of famine. People who had starved to death by the roadside were being thrown into pots and cooked for food, and even guanyin soil was being fought over and snatched up. With one more mouth to feed, everyone in the family had to set aside a little less for themselves and share it with your father. Your two aunts whom you never got to meet—the elder was only thirteen when she was given to a local gentry as a concubine, in exchange for half a sack of polished rice and flour…”

观音土 (Guanyin soil) — A type of clay or mineral soil that starving people historically resorted to eating during famines when no actual food remained. It could temporarily fill the stomach but could not provide adequate nutrition and could cause severe digestive problems. The name “Guanyin soil” was named after Guanyin, the Buddhist bodhisattva of compassion.

Old Master Fan’s voice trembled, tears streaming down his face. “Later, that gentry went to another prefecture, and in all the decades since, Lao Pozi and I never saw that child again. We don’t know whether she lived or died. The younger one was only eight. We sold her to a renya for three hundred wen, and we never heard from her again either. By then, all the children left in the family were Daniu, Erniu, and your father, and we still couldn’t fill our bellies. Your father was the same age as my Erniu, but my Erniu was sickly too. He came down with a serious illness on the road while we were fleeing the famine. With no other way to get Erniu treated, we had no choice but to sell your father to a renya as well…”

人牙子 (renya) — 人牙子 (rén yázi) — A person who made a living brokering and selling people, often arranging the purchase and sale of servants, maids, or enslaved people.

“Your father was a sensible child from a young age. When the renya bought him, he even knelt and kowtowed to me three times.” At this point, Old Master Fan was choking back sobs, unable to contain himself. “The five hundred wen we got for selling him haunted me with guilt for the rest of my life… Erniu was a child with little fortune. Even after we forced several doses of medicine down him, we still couldn’t save him. I thought I’d never see your father again in this lifetime. Who would have thought that sixteen years ago, he would return to this town on his own, bringing your mother with him?

“As for the two daughters who were sold off, he spent all those years trying to find out what became of them. He couldn’t find the elder girl, but he did find the younger one. He heard she had married a military household man, but later died in the ravages of war. Famine, war—either one could make a human life as cheap as grass…”

Fan Changyu had never imagined there was so much behind the story of her father having “gone missing” back then. Her emotions were tangled for a long while before she finally asked, “After my father came back, why did he take your second son’s name?”

Old Master Fan said, “When your father came back, he told me he’d made enemies while working as an armed escort outside the town, and asked if he could live here under Erniu’s identity. How could I have refused? So I told everyone that he was Erniu, who had gotten separated from us while fleeing the famine all those years ago. Lao Pozi has resented your father all these years. She thinks that because of him, our two daughters had to be sold. After your parents came to town, she would often go to their house looking for trouble, constantly saying that she had given up her own two daughters for your father’s sake, and took quite a few benefits from your parents in return. Later, when your mother fell ill after giving birth to your younger sister, she saw that your family had no son and started thinking of giving Daniu’s second son to your father as an adopted heir, so that he could inherit your father’s property in the future.”

Old Master Fan let out a heavy sigh, his face full of shame. “She’s become obsessed with it. Even if we hadn’t taken your father in during those famine years, those two girls… most likely wouldn’t have survived anyway. One child after another was lost, until only Daniu remained. She indulged him again and again, and that’s what turned Daniu into the man he became. I’m to blame too. Back then, I simply didn’t have the means to support such a large family. And later, even when I knew she was in the wrong, whenever she cried over our two daughters, I could never bring myself to discipline Daniu…”

Fan Changyu had always disliked Old Madam Fan, thinking her sharp-tongued and cruel toward her family. After hearing Old Master Fan recount what had happened, she could only think that even those who deserved pity could have things about them worthy of resentment. But her opinion of the old woman remained unchanged.

可怜之人必有可恨之处 — Literally, “a pitiable person must have something hateful about them”. It expresses the idea that someone may have genuinely suffered misfortune while still bearing responsibility for their own objectionable behavior.

Just as Old Master Fan had said, even selling Fan Changyu’s father had failed to save Erniu. How, then, could Old Madam Fan possibly believe that if they had simply never taken him in, her two daughters and younger son would never have left her?

Her father had merely become a convenient target for all the resentment she needed to vent.

Fan Changyu said, “What’s past is past. So long as you don’t come to my house looking for trouble again, I’ll treat you the same way my father treated you before.”

Old Master Fan said, “That’s not why I told you all this. Before your parents died, your father came to see me.”

A look of surprise crossed Fan Changyu’s face.

Old Master Fan continued, shame and embarrassment written all over his face. “He had already arranged how your family’s house and shops were to be divided. He even wrote a will, saying the pork shop could go to your Da Bo, while everything else was to be left to you and your younger sister. I asked him whether the enemies he’d made back then had finally come after him. But he refused to say more. He only asked me to look after you sisters as best I could from then on. Who could have known Lao Pozi would be such a gossip? After your parents died, she let it slip to Daniu. Daniu had developed a gambling addiction over the years and grown more and more reckless. He stole the will outright and burned it, intending to seize your family’s entire estate. And these old bones of mine were useless—I couldn’t control him at all…”

When Fan Changyu heard that her parents might have gone to their deaths only after making all the necessary arrangements, her hands and feet turned cold. The two hands resting before her knees unconsciously clenched into fists, and her lips pressed together until they went pale, “Are you saying that before then, my father may already have known that my mother and he didn’t have long to live?”

Old Master Fan hesitated, then nodded.

Fan Changyu felt cold all over, her thoughts a tangled mess.

According to the authorities’ version of events, the bandits searching for the treasure map had tracked down her father to demand the map from him.

Then why would her father have thought that if he died alongside her mother, the bandits would stop coming after her and Changning?

Unless… the bandits had already obtained the treasure map.

But their family had still been attacked by bandits twice afterward, which clearly meant they still hadn’t gotten what they were looking for.

And the two later groups of bandits clearly hadn’t known about her family beforehand. They had only tracked them down after getting something out of Fan Da.

Fan Changyu could think of only one possibility: the bandits who killed her parents and the bandits who later came to her house looking for the treasure map were not the same group.

The former had obtained the treasure map, yet had still killed her parents. Perhaps her parents had known some secret? A secret that meant they had to be silenced?

Fan Changyu had originally thought that once the authorities had wiped out the bandits, her parents’ deaths had finally been avenged. Now, however, she suddenly felt that the people who had killed her parents might not have been brought to justice at all.

After all, not long ago, word had come that the treasure map had surfaced in the hands of the rebels in Chongzhou. Those rebels had also won over a considerable number of bandits and outlaws in the surrounding area. The bandits who killed her parents might well be serving under those rebels.

All the way home, Fan Changyu was weighed down by her thoughts.

As soon as she entered the house, she heard Xie Zheng’s calm voice coming from inside, “Mu, Yao, Mu. Put another Da underneath them, and together they make the character Fan.”

Xie Zheng is teaching Changning how to recognize the character 樊 (fán), breaking the character down visually as 木(mù) + 爻(yáo) + 木(mù) + 大(dà). This is the kind of character-by-character mnemonic often used when teaching children to recognize Chinese characters.

Changning said miserably, “I don’t want to learn to read anymore. I want to learn to butcher pigs like Ah Jie.”

“Your Ah Jie knows how to read, too.”

Changning sniffed, looking as though she were about to cry.

The moment she heard the door open, she immediately ran out on her short little legs, opened her arms, and wrapped them around Fan Changyu’s thigh. Looking up at her, her little face scrunched into a miserable knot. “Ah Jie, why do I have to learn to read if I’m going to butcher pigs?”

Fan Changyu was still preoccupied with what had happened. She merely patted the little topknot on Changning’s head. “Mother used to say that once you learn to read and study, you learn how to conduct yourself properly and understand right and wrong. That way, you won’t take a wrong step in life.”

Changning looked a little blank. Clearly, she was still too young to understand what that meant.

Xie Zheng half-raised his eyes and added, “Never saw you particularly fond of studying.”

There was a teasing edge to his words. Normally, Fan Changyu would have immediately bickered back, but today she merely said wearily, “I’ll read more little by little from now on.”

Only then did Xie Zheng finally notice something was off about her expression. “How did you come back looking like a flower after a frost?”

Fan Changyu sat down beside the fire pit and let out a soft sigh. After telling him everything Old Master Fan had said, she slumped and said, “If my parents weren’t killed just because of the treasure map, then I have to find out what really happened to them.”

After hearing her out, Xie Zheng’s expression darkened as well. If her father had already anticipated what was coming and had even made arrangements for what would happen after his death, then perhaps the person who came for his life had met with him beforehand?

Her guess was not without reason. But what those people were looking for was not some treasure map—it was a letter that Wei Yan had considered extremely important.

The people who killed her parents had obtained the letter. Fan Changyu and her sister truly knew nothing at all about their parents’ past, perhaps that was why the killers had spared them?

Xie Zheng had once been a blade in Wei Yan’s hand, so of course he knew that Wei Yan had always believed in uprooting the weeds completely.

The fact that the other side had spared the two sisters might have been because they had some past connection with her parents. Considering that they had apparently met with her parents before killing them, this possibility seemed all the more plausible.

And then there was the matter of the Wei household’s death warriors coming to her home to kill and retrieve something, followed by He Jingyuan, Governor of Jizhou Prefecture, suddenly dispatching troops to Lin’an Town. The implications of that move were certainly worth pondering.

Most importantly, given his uncle Wei Yan’s ruthless methods, the fact that he could sit still after losing so many death soldiers in Lin’an Town was simply not like him.

If He Jingyuan had been trying to protect the two sisters, and with the current war in the northwest leaving He Jingyuan as the only man under Wei Yan’s command who was actually useful to him, then perhaps the two of them had reached some kind of agreement. That would explain everything.

Fan Changyu looked up and found Xie Zheng staring at her with dark, unreadable eyes. “What is it?” she asked, puzzled.

Instead of answering, Xie Zheng asked, “You want to avenge your parents?”

Fan Changyu nodded. “Of course.”

Only then did she notice that the hair ribbon tied around Xie Zheng’s head was the one she had bought for him before. It seemed this was the first time he had actually worn it.

The deep navy set off his brows and eyes, making his features look even colder and sharper, and lending his whole person an air of detachment.

Xie Zheng said, “If everything the authorities said when they closed the case was a lie, what will you do?”