Chapter 13.2

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In the past, only Fan Changyu’s father dared to stand up to Butcher Guo, keeping him in check. After her parents’ accident, however, Guo had started acting like the street’s self-appointed tyrant, barking orders left and right.

Without sparing Butcher Guo another glance, Fan Changyu sold the last half of the pig’s head and counted the copper coins in her drawer. Today’s pig weighed just over eighty jin, and with both fresh and braised meat sales, she made over two and a half strings of cash. After deducting the cost of the pig, she netted one and a half strings of cash—a solid profit.

Threading the coins onto a string and feeling the satisfying weight in her hands, she couldn’t help but feel uplifted. Soon, the property transfer would go through, and the butcher shop business was steadily getting back on track. Life was bound to get better for her and her younger sister!

Once she saved enough, she planned to take her sister to the capital for treatment. They said the best doctors and medicine could be found there.

After tidying up the shop, Fan Changyu went to the marketplace. She picked up medicine for the two “walking medicine jars” at home, as well as spices for her braising broth. After setting aside the funds for the next pig, she was left with only a few hundred wen.

Fan Changyu sighed softly. It was true—only when running a household did one realize the cost of every necessity.

She picked out a few New Year’s goods and began walking home. Before she even entered the alley, she spotted a snow-white gyrfalcon soaring from the direction of her house into the sky. It looked like the same one she’d seen before.

She wondered if this bird had been coming around often. If it visits regularly… wouldn’t I have a chance to catch it? She imagined how much it might fetch at the market if she could capture it.

The falcon quickly vanished from sight, but Fan Changyu was already mentally calculating its potential value.

When she arrived home, she pushed open the courtyard gate and immediately noticed the half-open window of the man’s room. He sat at his desk, draped in an old, dark robe. His long hair fell around his shoulders, and he held a slender brush in his slender, scabbed fingers, writing something with a calm and focused expression.

Outside his window grew a red plum tree, planted by her father long ago for her mother. Perhaps the tree, too, knew its former caretaker was gone; this winter, it had only produced a single small bud.

Amidst the branches covered in frost and snow, a single bright bud bloomed on the plum tree, its splash of color striking against the white landscape. Even so, it couldn’t hold a candle to the man’s appearance indoors—refined and elegant beyond compare.

The fine snow drifted in through the open window, some landing in the man’s dark hair, creating a stark contrast to his cool, delicate features. Fan Changyu’s breath caught for a moment. As he looked up and met her gaze, she didn’t look away; instead, she held her ground, openly asking, “Aren’t you cold with the window open?”

Xie Zheng’s eyes briefly met hers before he looked away, his brows knitting almost imperceptibly at her unabashed stare. “It was too dim in here. The light is better with the window open.”

His voice was as cold and clear as always.

Fan Changyu gave a simple “Oh,” then placed her things in the main room and checked on her sister, who was napping. Afterward, she brought a brazier into his room.

Perhaps because the window had been open for so long, the room felt nearly as cold as the outdoors.

She glanced at the desk, noticing a stack of ink-covered papers. Unable to help herself, she asked, “What are you writing?”

With so many pages written, he must have been at it all morning. Wasn’t he freezing?

Xie Zheng finished the last character, set down his brush—lacking a brush rest, he balanced it on the chipped edge of the inkstone—and replied simply, “Exam essays.”

Fan Changyu knew what those were; she remembered how Song Yan would often scrimp and save to buy a single volume, each costing as much as three hundred wen.

“You can write exam essays?” she asked in surprise.

Xie Zheng gave her the same explanation he’d used on Carpenter Zhao. “I’ve traveled far and picked up some knowledge. The bookshops in these small towns don’t have high standards; they’ll buy just about anything that sounds impressive.”

Fan Changyu couldn’t help but stifle a chuckle, thinking that those poor scholars buying his essays were rather unfortunate. She also felt a small surge of satisfaction at the thought that the precious exam essays Song Yan had saved so hard for might have been something like these.

She cleared her throat, then remembered his injuries. “It’s snowy, and the roads are slippery. Even if the snow is swept, there might still be thin ice on the ground. Your wounds reopened just yesterday; going out with a crutch like that would be too risky…”

She rattled off her concerns one after another. Was she really just worried about him?

Xie Zheng looked momentarily taken aback, then lowered his gaze slightly and replied, “I asked an old neighbor to take it for me.”

Fan Changyu’s expression softened somewhat, but thinking of his reasons for writing the essays, she pressed her lips together and added, “Since you agreed to the arrangement of temporarily joining my household, I intend to keep my promise and help you recover properly. Right now, we’re only in a pinch because the property hasn’t been transferred yet. You… don’t need to do this.”

The thought of him, injured and braving the cold, struggling to write essays just to help with household expenses, made her feel uneasy.

A cold draft swept through the room, causing his loose hair to stir slightly. Looking at the young woman before him, with her brows knit in concern, Xie Zheng’s indifferent expression took on a subtle shift.

Not wanting her to misunderstand, he said, “I was just passing the time. Writing these essays is just a way to ease my boredom, nothing more—don’t read into it.”

The more he tried to brush it off, the more convinced Fan Changyu became of her suspicions. After all, who would sit by an open window in the freezing cold to write essays just to “pass the time”? Her emotions grew increasingly complicated.

She pressed her lips tightly and said, “Don’t worry about me being poor. I can take care of you!”

With that, she left the room, leaving Xie Zheng alone at the desk. His slender fingers pressed against his brow as he sat there, his gaze deep and conflicted, as though he were pondering something that gave him no small amount of frustration.