Chapter 23.6

Our Discord Server: https://discord.gg/PazjBDkTmW

Xie Zheng stayed silent. His breathing, which had been ragged and uneven after the nightmare, gradually steadied. The lingering dread and turmoil from the dream seemed to dissipate, remarkably quelled by her casual remark.

He furrowed his brow, casting a faintly perplexed glance at the woman sitting at his bedside. After a moment, he pushed himself upright with visible effort and extended a pale, slender hand toward her. “Give it to me.”

Even in his weakened state, his face was striking—elegant and composed, though pallid.

Fan Changyu blinked in surprise before realizing he was asking for the bowl of medicine in her hand.

She hesitated, glancing at the hand wrapped in thick layers of gauze. Out of concern, she offered a reminder. “That hand of yours has two deep cuts from a sword, and the webbing between your thumb and forefinger is torn. The doctor said you shouldn’t strain it for now.”

Without a word, he switched to his other hand. Only then did she pass the medicine bowl to him.

Xie Zheng downed the foul-smelling medicine in one go, the bitterness curling his lips briefly before he handed the empty bowl back to her.

Fan Changyu’s mind wandered to the time she had force-fed him medicine while he was semi-conscious. She could still hear his gritted-teeth shout of “It tastes awful!” It struck her as almost funny—he was usually so stoic and silent, yet it seemed he had a distinct aversion to bitterness.

Reaching into her sleeve pocket, she rummaged for a moment before pulling out a piece of candy—the kind she often used to placate her younger sister, Changning. She held it out to him. “Here. Eat some candy. It’ll help with the bitterness.”

Xie Zheng, who had endured countless doses of medicine without complaint, could instantly guess why she had offered it this time. Even a fool could see it. His face darkened slightly, and he closed his eyes. “No need.”

But in the next moment, someone grabbed his jaw with deft force, making him open his mouth, and the candy was pushed in.

“You—!” He glared at her angrily.

Fan Changyu sat back at a distance, smiling brightly. “Sweet, right? Being afraid of bitterness isn’t something to be ashamed of. You’re always so inexplicably stubborn!”

Perhaps it was the faint winter sunlight streaming through the window behind her, but her smile seemed especially warm and radiant—far warmer than the smile of the woman from his dream, whose face he could no longer clearly recall.

The faint sweetness of the candy dissolved on his tongue, dispelling the lingering bitterness from the medicine. It was as if a ray of sunlight had broken through the shadowy, damp place covered in patches of moss.

Xie Zheng suddenly fell silent, turning his head away and pressing his lips tightly together, refusing to speak.

It had been a long time since he had eaten anything sweet—ever since that woman had coaxed him to go outside and eat a plate of osmanthus cakes. By the time he came back, she had already departed from this world, leaving with a white silk ribbon.

Over the years, a deep-seated resentment and self-loathing had taken root in his heart. If only he hadn’t left with that plate of osmanthus cakes. If he had stayed by her side, perhaps she wouldn’t have had the heart to leave.

He hated osmanthus cakes. He hated sweets. Over time, no one around him had offered them to him again.

Fan Changyu noticed his low spirits but didn’t know the reason behind them. She simply reminded him, “Your injuries this time are worse than the last. The doctor repeatedly stressed that you must rest properly. At least until your wounds heal, you absolutely cannot carry heavy objects. A lot of people have died at your home, and the authorities are investigating. For now, it’s impossible to stay there, so you’ll have to recover here in Aunt Zhao’s attic.”

Xie Zheng had already recognized this as the attic he had previously used to recover at the Zhao residence. Hearing her words, he simply gave a faint nod.

Fan Changyu hesitated for a moment before continuing, “Thank you for protecting Changning.”

Her words overlapped with the voice he had heard just before slipping into unconsciousness, and he finally realized it hadn’t been an illusion after all.

At that time, she seemed to have said something else too.

“This is the second time I’ve had to carry you back from the snow.”

The first time he was injured, Xie Zheng had been entirely unconscious. This time, though he was groggy and dazed, he retained some faint awareness.

He could feel how thin the back carrying him was.

Now, as he looked at Fan Changyu again, noticing her slender shoulders and the faint glimpse of bandages beneath her sleeve, his chest felt as if it were stuffed with damp cotton—stifling and heavy with an uncomfortable moisture.

When she carried him back, she was injured as well.

His pale, chapped lips moved slightly as he said, “You saved me first.”

With just that one sentence, he fell silent, as though subconsciously unwilling to define this favor too clearly.

When those people had broken in, he initially thought it was the Zhao family who had betrayed him and led the killers to him. But their actions—attempting to kill both him and the child while nearly turning the Fan household upside down—clearly indicated they were searching for something.

Thinking of the waist token he had picked up from the snow, Xie Zheng’s eyes darkened further.

He asked, “Has the government investigation uncovered anything?”

Fan Changyu shook her head and explained that several other households had suffered similar tragedies that day.

Fan Da’s death, at least, had been determined to have no connection to her. The county office had already completed the process of transferring all the property deeds her parents had left behind into her name.

With money in hand, this was probably the only thing that gave her some peace of mind at the moment. At the very least, she no longer had to worry about running out of funds to pay the doctor for Yan Zheng.

Hearing that others in the county had also suffered misfortune, Xie Zheng furrowed his brow and fell into a brief silence before suddenly asking, “Do the other victims, like Fan Da, have anything in common?”

Fan Changyu thought for a moment, then shook her head. “Seven households in total were attacked. The victims included men and women, the elderly, and children—there doesn’t seem to be anything they had in common.”

Xie Zheng frowned deeply but did not respond.

Those people had targeted seven households in total but ultimately focused on Fan Changyu’s family. It was clear they were initially conducting a broad search and only zeroed in on the Fan sisters after extracting information from Fan Da.

Based on what he had observed in the Fan household, Xie Zheng deduced a possible reason and asked, “Did any of those families once live elsewhere and later return to Lin’an Town?”

Fan Changyu felt that if this were true, it was likely someone seeking revenge against her parents. However, she couldn’t understand why, since her parents were already deceased, those people still refused to let it go. She replied, “I’ll ask Captain Wang about it later.”

After Fan Changyu left the attic, Xie Zheng struggled to sit up. From the pile of bloodstained clothing on the low stool by the bed, he retrieved the waist token he had picked up from the snow.

Frowning, he held the token in his hand and examined it for a moment before clenching it tightly in his palm.

It was a token belonging to a Wei family death guard.