The moon had sunk beneath the frosty sky, leaving only scattered stars glittering overhead.

A man in an apricot-yellow robe left the street where the lantern festival was being held, his face dark with frustration as he headed toward the pleasure quarter.

The lantern festival was still roaring with voices and activity, but the other streets beyond the reach of its lantern light lay like beasts quietly lurking in the night, their eerie darkness tinged with danger.

Fortunately, the pleasure quarter was only one street away. Rows of red lanterns hung high overhead, and the light once again took on a sultry, alluring glow.

As the man in yellow passed through the street he had to take to leave the lantern festival, something suddenly dropped over his head, blocking his view.

Startled, he was just about to cry out when a heavy blow struck him in the abdomen. The pain was so intense that his entire body doubled over, and the cry at the back of his throat lost all its force.

A moment later, he was kicked hard in the buttocks, sending him sprawling into a pitch-black alley nearby. Clubs rained down upon him like a sudden downpour. Clubs here refer to heavy, thick wooden or metal sticks used as a weapon

The man in yellow howled in agony, curling into a ball inside the sack with both hands clasped over his head. “Hero, please stop! Stop! I have money! Take all the silver on me! Hero, please spare me!”

He used 好汉 or hǎohàn. Literally “good man” or “brave man”, but traditionally used when addressing a formidable male stranger, especially a martial-arts type or someone perceived as a bandit.

No one answered. Instead, he took several more punches to the face through the sack.

The man in yellow’s screams grew even more pitiful. Passersby who heard the cries coming from the pitch-black alley were too afraid of getting themselves into trouble to step forward and help. Only after they had run some distance away did one of them shout, “Quick, report it to the authorities! Someone’s being beaten in that alley!”

Fan Changyu heard this and, wary of leaving behind any evidence of the crime, put away the club she had used before cautiously yanking the burlap sack off the man in yellow’s upper body as well.

Only, she pulled a little too hard.

The force sent the man in yellow pitching face-first into the ground, knocking out one of his front teeth. His scream was so shrill and agonized that it could be heard all the way from the pleasure quarter.

Fan Changyu froze for a moment. Hearing the sound of hurried footsteps already coming from the mouth of the street, she had no time to worry about anything else and took off running toward the other end of the alley.

She had deliberately chosen a dark alley with streets at both ends so she would have an easy escape route after lying in wait for her target.

Xie Zheng was waiting at the end of the alley with Changning. The two exchanged a glance and, without saying a word, tacitly hurried away from the scene.

After they had gone two streets, Xie Zheng finally asked, “What did you do to him?”

Judging by those agonized screams, it didn’t sound like she’d merely given him a beating.

Fan Changyu said, “I didn’t do anything to him. He was just too stupid. When I pulled off the sack, he stumbled and landed face-first, breaking one of his teeth.”

Xie Zheng turned his head to look at her, clearly unconvinced by her version of events.

Fan Changyu: “…I really didn’t lie to you.”

Xie Zheng asked, “Are you going after the others too?”

Fan Changyu wondered what exactly he took her for. “No. If I beat all of them up in a single day, I’d basically be announcing that it was me. That one’s mouth is filthy, so I beat him up today just to vent my anger. I’ll deal with the others slowly when I get the chance.”

Meanwhile, the man in yellow, who was still lying in the alley and howling, was finally helped to his feet by the constables who had arrived.

Both his eyes were swollen shut, one of his front teeth was broken, and his mouth was covered in blood. Two streams of blood hung beneath his nose as well. By the light of the torches, he finally spotted his broken tooth lying on the ground and wailed in utter despair, “My tooth is broken! How am I supposed to enter officialdom now?!”

He was the county magistrate’s own Wai nephew, and he immediately started barking orders at the assembled constables. “What are you waiting for? Go investigate for Ben Shaoye! Find the villains who assaulted Ben Shaoye and bring them to justice!”

The constable on duty wiped the sweat from his temple and asked, “Has Gongzi made enemies with anyone recently?”

The man in yellow thought carefully, baring his teeth in a grimace of pain. “A few days ago, that little bastard from the Wang family fought me over a courtesan at Fengyue Pavillion. I humiliated him, so it could very well have been him! Then there’s that son of the Liu family. He prides himself on being so upright, but he failed the metropolitan examination, and I’ve mocked him for it. It could have been him too. And then there’s the Li family…”

The metropolitan examination or 会试 (huìshì) was the exam one should take after passing the examination of becoming a Juren, held in the capital. This was the second most important exam after 殿试 (palace examination).

The constable’s head was already spinning after hearing the long list of people the man had quarreled with.

By the time the man in yellow reached the end of his list, he finally remembered what had happened at the lantern festival that evening. “Tonight, Ben Shaoye even helped Song Xiong mock his former fiancée.”

It was not exactly something he wanted to bring up. After all, with so many people at the lantern festival watching, the county school’s several leading talents had been left utterly speechless by a live-in husband who had talked circles around them. He stopped himself and asked, “Were Song Xiong and the others hurt by the villains?”

The constable shook his head. The man in yellow immediately said, “A butcher’s daughter and her sickly live-in husband? Ben Shaoye doesn’t believe they have the nerve. Go investigate those families Ben Shaoye mentioned earlier!”

The constables went off to investigate, while he was left groaning in pain as people helped him to a nearby medical clinic.

When Fan Changyu arrived at the temporary lodgings arranged by Yixiang Restaurant, the older stewardess in charge was still awake.

Seeing them, she smiled and asked, “Was the lantern festival fun?”

Changning had already fallen asleep on Xie Zheng’s shoulder on the way back. Fan Changyu, still feeling somewhat guilty about the beating, could only answer vaguely, “It was nice. There were people everywhere. It was pretty lively.”

The stewardess led them to a room and opened the door with a smile. “This is the only room we have left. You can make do here for the night.”

Fan Changyu thanked her and asked for a kettle of hot water for washing up. After simply wiping Changning’s hands and face clean, she put the girl to bed.

She washed her own face and found that there wasn’t much hot water left in the kettle. Not wanting to trouble the stewardess to heat another pot in the middle of the night, she poured the water she’d used to wash her face into the foot basin and made do with soaking her feet in it.

By the time Xie Zheng had finished washing his face with the hot water remaining in the kettle, both of Fan Changyu’s feet were still in the basin. When she saw him about to carry the wash water outside to empty it, she hurriedly said, “Let’s pour it into the foot basin.”

Xie Zheng hesitated for a moment before carrying the wooden washbasin over.

Fan Changyu lifted her feet and rested them on the edge of the wooden basin so he could pour the water in more easily.

Perhaps because they rarely saw sunlight, her feet were exceptionally fair, their skin taking on the warm luster of polished jade in the candlelight. A tiny black mole at her ankle somehow stood out against the pale skin.

Xie Zheng only glanced at them before lowering his eyes and looking away.

In the capital, for a woman to let a man see her bare feet was tantamount to losing her chastity. In this border town, however, customs were considerably more open than in the capital. Women washing clothes by the riverbank often went barefoot, and seemed to think nothing of showing their feet.

Fan Changyu had always been rather uninhibited, and this could hardly be considered an improper act. Even so, Xie Zheng couldn’t help feeling a faint stir of something strange in his heart.

Fan Changyu watched him finish pouring the water before settling down some distance away and asked, “You aren’t going to soak your feet?”

Xie Zheng said, “You wash first. I’ll go outside and rinse them with cold water later.”

Fan Changyu’s eyes widened. “In weather this cold, you’re going to wash your feet with cold water? Won’t you catch a chill tomorrow?”

Over the past month or so of living together, she had also noticed that Yan Zheng was a cleanly person. Assuming he simply didn’t want to use water she had already used, she said, “Back home, we always used the same basin to soak our feet. I forgot you’re particular about cleanliness. I’ll go tell the stewardess later and have the kitchen heat another kettle of water for you.”

Xie Zheng frowned slightly, but finally said, “No need. I’ll make do with this water.”

The Fan family were all very cleanly people and changed their shoes and socks frequently, so the water did not look dirty even after being used.

It was his own thoughts that were in disarray.

When he put his feet into the basin, his eyes fell on the traces of water along its rim, and his mind instinctively conjured the image of her feet resting there.

Xie Zheng’s brows drew together even more tightly. The moment his feet touched the water, he hurriedly got up and went to empty it.

Fan Changyu sat by the table. Seeing this, she opened her mouth, then waited until he returned before saying with a complicated look, “There’s nothing wrong with you being particular about cleanliness. I never thought you were looking down on anything. You don’t have to push yourself this far…”

Xie Zheng looked at her sincere, clear eyes in the candlelight. A hint more self-loathing crept into his handsome features, and he only said, “It’s not what you think.”

There was only one bed, and only one quilt. After setting the wooden basin back inside the room, he turned and walked toward the door. “You should get some rest.”

Fan Changyu found him rather strange. “What about you?”

Surely he couldn’t mean to sit outside all night. The stewardess had just said this was the only room left.

Xie Zheng said, “I’ll go ask if I can squeeze in with one of the Yixiang Restaurant workers for the night.”

After he had left and the door closed behind him, Fan Changyu was still sitting there with a bewildered look on her face.

Why was he suddenly treating her like a flood or a wild beast?

Had the sack-over-the-head trick scared him that badly?

Or had that basin of foot-washing water done too much damage?