Chapter 32

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After the fireworks, firecrackers were still popping sporadically in the distant streets and alleys, and the faint barking of dogs could be heard through the night.

Xie Zheng lightly knocked his half-clenched fist on the edge of the table where Fan Changyu was lying: “Wake up.”

Under the combined influence of alcohol and drowsiness, Fan Changyu only mumbled a vague response, shifted her head to a more comfortable position on her arm, and continued sleeping deeply.

Seeing that she couldn’t be roused, Xie Zheng hesitated for a moment before getting up and walking over to help her up, preparing to carry her back to her room.

This commotion did make Fan Changyu drowsily open her eyes. Her cheeks still bore patches of red, making it hard for Xie Zheng to tell whether she was awake or still drunk. He supported one of her arms to prevent her from falling and asked, “Can you make it back to your room on your own?”

Fan Changyu tilted her head to look at him, her hair disheveled from sleeping, making her look both dazed and endearing. Her eyes were unfocused, as if she hadn’t recognized who was standing before her.

Xie Zheng was momentarily stunned, then looked away and frowned: “You don’t even know your own tolerance and you dare drink recklessly.”

He grabbed her hand, intending to help her up halfway, when he heard her mumbling something incoherently. Xie Zheng couldn’t make it out, so he had to lean closer: “What?”

Fan Changyu’s consciousness wasn’t clear at all, her head nodding drowsily. Just as Xie Zheng leaned in to hear what she was saying, her head happened to droop down again, her lips lightly brushing against his cheek as her head nestled into the hollow of his neck. Her already dazed and sleepy eyes closed, completely unaware of what she had done.

Xie Zheng went completely rigid.

Time seemed to freeze in that moment—the sound of wind, snow, and the crackling fire all stopped. Her fluffy head rested against the side of his neck, her breathing long and shallow. She appeared to be fast asleep. Xie Zheng remained motionless for a long while, until a weak voice came from nearby: “Sister?”

Xie Zheng turned his head to see Changning, who seemed to have just woken up. She was still holding her red envelope in one hand while rubbing her sleepy eyes with the other, looking at him and Fan Changyu in confusion.

He pressed his slender finger lightly to his lips, making a “shh” gesture. His tousled hair fell across his forehead, and his eyes were dark and calm in the lamplight: “Your sister is asleep. Don’t wake her.”

Changning obediently nodded.

Xie Zheng pointed to the oil lamp nearby: “Can you carry the oil lamp?”

Little Changning nodded even more vigorously.

She held the oil lamp with both hands and walked ahead, while Xie Zheng slipped one arm under Fan Changyu’s armpit and the other under her knees, lifting her horizontally into his arms before walking steadily behind Changning.

Fan Changyu had carried him back from the wilderness twice, but this was his first time holding her.

She was even more slender than he had imagined.

That’s right—in just two short months, she had experienced the death of both parents, the breaking of her childhood engagement, her uncle seizing her family’s property, and more recently, these two assassination attempts would be enough to terrify an ordinary person for a lifetime.

On the surface, she acted as if nothing had happened, still going out early and returning late every day to earn money and support the family. At the dinner table, she never seemed to lose her appetite, and when coaxing her younger sister, she would still laugh and play with the child.

Xie Zheng had previously thought she was simply carefree, but in this moment he suddenly realized that perhaps… she wasn’t carefree at all. She simply knew she couldn’t remain sad and grieving forever, so she worked hard to earn money, ate well every day, slept well, not daring to let herself fall ill or become despondent.

Because her sister had only her to rely on—she couldn’t afford to collapse.

The path from the main room to the north room wasn’t long, but amid the interplay of darkness and lamplight, Xie Zheng’s heart surged with many complex emotions. When they reached the north room, Changning was too short to place the oil lamp on the table, so she first set it on a round stool.

Xie Zheng placed the sleeping Fan Changyu on the bed, and Changning immediately ran over, grabbing Fan Changyu’s shoes with both hands and pulling hard backward, helping her sister take them off. The child put all her strength into it but still lacked proper technique. Xie Zheng said, “Let me do it.”

He helped remove both shoes and was about to cover Fan Changyu with the quilt when Changning said, “Sister’s jacket is still on.”

Xie Zheng’s fingertips paused slightly as he coaxed the child: “Your sister is asleep. Taking off her jacket might wake her up. Let her sleep like this.”

Only then did Changning give up.

As he covered Fan Changyu with the cotton quilt, the child also kicked off her shoes and climbed onto the bed, tucking in the corners of the quilt for her sister like a little adult.

Xie Zheng waited until the child had also lain down before placing the oil lamp on the nearby wooden table. He turned back to glance toward the bed curtains, where in the dim yellow lamplight, Fan Changyu’s face bore the faint flush of intoxication, her sleeping expression obedient and serene.

He suddenly recalled that night when he had taught her the laws of Great Yin—how she had fallen asleep while reciting legal codes, slumped over the desk, and in her dreams had choked out that single word: “Mother.”

That strange and unfamiliar emotion rose in his chest again.

Seeing him staring in their direction, Changning blinked and called out to him. “Brother-in-law?”

Xie Zheng snapped back to attention and said, “Don’t tell your sister about what happened in that room earlier.”

Little Changning looked confused: “What happened?”

Xie Zheng fell silent for a moment, thinking that she had just woken up then and might not have seen anything, so he said, “Nothing.”

As he prepared to extinguish the oil lamp, the child asked, “Brother-in-law, don’t you need a lamp to go back to your room?”

“No.”

With those words, the oil lamp was already extinguished, plunging the room into complete darkness. Xie Zheng walked calmly through the darkness and left the room, closing the door behind him as he went.

Before returning to his own room, he also took the gyrfalcon from its cage by the fire pit. Once inside, he lit an oil lamp, ground ink, and finished the letter he hadn’t completed during the day. Then he placed it in a bamboo tube and tied it to the gyrfalcon’s leg.

The gyrfalcon’s wing and leg injuries had mostly healed. These past days, having not flown outside and being fed a large bowl of fresh meat scraps or organs daily, the entire bird had grown noticeably rounder.

When Xie Zheng raised his arm for the gyrfalcon to perch on it, feeling the weight on his forearm, his brow furrowed almost imperceptibly: “After delivering the letter, fly outside until dark before returning.”

The gyrfalcon’s beady eyes instinctively glanced toward the large bowl of meat scraps in the main hall. Sensing the sudden chill in the aura of the person behind it, it quickly flapped its wings and flew into the deep night sky.

After the gyrfalcon had flown far away, Xie Zheng didn’t go inside either, but stood under the eaves with his hands clasped behind his back, watching for a long time the heavy snow falling like catkins.

When he had asked Zhao Xun to buy grain, he had already anticipated that the authorities would eventually take notice.

A few days ago when Zhao Xun came to see him, he had already instructed Zhao Xun to first transport the grain to a location he had designated. The letter the gyrfalcon was delivering was to have his former subordinates move the grain.

The Wei family thought they could eliminate him without lifting a finger, then take over his hundred thousand troops in Huizhou. Their calculations were quite shrewd, but since he hadn’t died, the good times for that father and son duo had come to an end.

The rumors about the Battle of Jinzhou from sixteen years ago that had suddenly surfaced months earlier—he hadn’t believed them at first. But when his dear uncle learned he was secretly investigating that battle and directly set a trap on the battlefield to take his life, it undoubtedly confirmed those rumors.

Before reclaiming military authority in Huizhou, he still needed to use the Wei family to first pull out the spies they had planted around him.

Thinking of how he had acknowledged a thief as his father for sixteen years, the corners of Xie Zheng’s mouth curved with nothing but mockery.

If that woman hadn’t chosen to follow his father in death upon learning of his father’s demise, would he have been spared from being raised by Wei Yan’s hand, spared from acknowledging a thief as his father for sixteen years?

He closed his eyes heavily, the lantern under the eaves casting his prominent nose bridge in shadow across his face.

Somehow, his thoughts turned again to those two sisters from the Fan family.

For a moment, Xie Zheng actually felt somewhat envious of that child.

When he had suffered upheaval in his youth, he had been about her age, but when the Xie family’s great mansion collapsed, there was no one left behind him to shield him from wind and rain. How fortunate that child was—having lost her parents, she still had a sister who held up a piece of sky for her…

When he opened his eyes again, all emotions in Xie Zheng’s gaze had settled into stillness.

He turned and went back to his room. Having just removed his outer robe and lain down, he felt something amiss beneath his pillow. He sat up, moved the pillow aside, and when he saw the red envelope placed underneath, his handsome face showed a moment of obvious bewilderment.

New Year’s money.

“Sui” sounded like “ghost,” so folk belief held that New Year’s money could ward off evil spirits and ensure safety.

Had that woman placed this here for him?

Xie Zheng opened the red envelope to find several small silver ingots inside. Each one weighed less than a tael, but holding them now, they felt surprisingly heavy.

He couldn’t remember how long it had been since he’d last received New Year’s money. After his parents died, the only time he’d received it was from his grandmother while she was still alive.

Wei Yan had been cold-blooded and stern his entire life. Not only did he never show kindness to this nephew, he had never even shown warmth to his own son, so naturally he wouldn’t have had red envelopes prepared for them during the holidays.

Xie Zheng lay back on the bed, one hand pillowed behind his head, the other holding a silver ingot up before his eyes, quietly examining it in the candlelight. His beautiful features took on several other emotions.

After her parents died, no one would give her New Year’s money anymore, would they?

The next day, when Fan Changyu woke up, she just felt her head was somewhat swollen and aching. Due to the drinking, she had gotten up rather late, and Changning was no longer in the room.

She slowly climbed out of bed and discovered that her clothes were still properly worn on her body. She tried hard to recall the events of last night, but no matter how much she thought about it, her post-drinking memories remained a complete blank. However, if she had managed to return to her room, either she had walked back on her own, or Yan Zheng had helped her back.

Just thinking about the latter possibility made Fan Changyu’s face burn with embarrassment.

This was truly a massive loss of face—getting drunk on rice wine of all things. If word got out, wouldn’t people laugh at her?

She pressed her throbbing temples, and after getting up and finishing a simple wash, she heard Changning’s crying coming from the main hall. Walking out, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

Changning was crouched beside the chicken coop, crying with snot and tears streaming down her face: “Sunsun is gone…”

Seeing the empty chicken coop, Fan Changyu was also stunned for a moment, then said, “Maybe the cage door wasn’t closed properly last night. Once that goshawk’s wing injury healed, it flew away.”

Changning cried even more heartbrokenly.

Fan Changyu felt helpless and could only bring out the explanation about how the goshawk had to return to find its hawk father and hawk mother. Only then did Changning gradually stop crying.

Xie Zheng had probably also heard the crying from his room. After coming out and seeing Changning still guarding the chicken coop with tears in her eyes, he said, “It will fly back again.”

Changning lifted her tear-filled eyes: “Really?”

Fan Changyu thought he was just coaxing the child, and worried that after he told such a lie, Changning would be even more upset when she discovered it was false. Forgetting about the embarrassment of possibly making a fool of herself while drunk last night, she shot Xie Zheng a meaningful look.

At first, Xie Zheng didn’t understand that look. Later, after Fan Changyu had coaxed Changning away, she said to him, “You don’t need to deceive her like that. Changning is probably just too lonely. When spring comes, I plan to raise a brood of chicks. Once she has new playmates, she won’t remember that goshawk anymore.”

Xie Zheng said, “I wasn’t coaxing her.”

This time it was Fan Changyu’s turn to look completely bewildered.

Since he couldn’t yet reveal the matter of using the gyrfalcon to deliver messages, Xie Zheng lied without batting an eye: “With hawks and falcons, after training them to a certain point, you naturally release them back to the wild. Only when they fly back on their own are they considered fully tamed.”

Upon hearing this, Fan Changyu realized this was still an unknown outcome.

She looked at Xie Zheng suspiciously several times: “You’re just that confident it will fly back?”

Xie Zheng nodded calmly and unhurriedly.

Although Fan Changyu still had some doubts in her heart, she didn’t understand hawk training herself, so she didn’t say anything more.

The cured meat she had smoked some time ago was still hanging above the fire pit. Most of it was meant for selling, with only a small portion kept for eating.

In the past when her parents were still alive, every year on this day her father would take a piece of meat to visit the Fan family elders. Now that her parents were gone, although Fan Changyu wasn’t close to the old couple, they were still her elders, so she had to keep up appearances.

After breakfast, she also planned to take a piece of cured meat to give to the old couple and then return. After asking Xie Zheng to help keep an eye on Changning, she took the cured meat and left the house.

Fan Da had died not long ago, so the New Year celebration at the old Fan family home was rather bleak.

When Fan Changyu arrived, only the old Fan couple were home. Liu had taken her two children back to her maiden home for the New Year.

Perhaps because they had lost two sons in one year, the old couple had suffered quite a blow. Old Lady Fan was bedridden and couldn’t get up, while Old Man Fan’s already graying hair had turned almost completely white. Even the clothes he wore for the New Year were dirty and wrinkled.

Whether it was because he had no heart to tidy up, or because his daughter-in-law was now in charge and life wasn’t going well, it was hard to say.

When he saw Fan Changyu, he asked her to come inside and sit by the fire to warm up.

But Fan Changyu only wanted to give her gift and leave, saying, “Changning is still waiting for me at home, so I won’t stay long.”

Old Man Fan looked at the cured meat she had brought, probably remembering how his younger son used to bring a piece of meat every New Year, and his eyes reddened as he said, “Come sit inside for a while. There are some things about your father from the past that I think I should tell you.”

Fan Changyu was stunned when she heard this. What things about her father from the past didn’t she know about?

Seeing Old Man Fan shuffle toward the house after saying those words, Fan Changyu hesitated briefly before following him inside.

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TN: I’m conflicted on whether to use gyrfalcon or goshawk. I thought I had to translate it as gyrfalcon but this chapter made me wonder. What if Changyu THINKS it’s a goshawk when actually it’s a gyrfalcon? And she doesn’t know?
I may just keep the two terms from now on, but know it’s the same bird regardless.

Also, thank you for not giving up on this novel! I haven’t, and I’ve been working on it these days. Expect some chapters in the coming days hehehehehehehehhehehe

Also also would you rather I post a big batch or space it out a bit? Let me know in the comments below!

Also also also it’s been a while if I messed up some terms or misspelled something do let me know so I can fix it.