Snow drifted down from the sky of the twelfth lunar month. In the courtyard, a large cauldron of water was boiling, its steam melting the snowflakes before they could even touch the surface.
The snow on the ground had been trampled into a muddy slush. Next to the cauldron, a door panel rested on a pair of benches, serving as a makeshift table. Half a pig carcass was laid out flat upon it.
Fan Changyu’s hand rose and fell, and with a single chop, she severed a hind leg. The board trembled as bone fragments and bits of meat flew into the air.
The bone cleaver in her hand had a thick spine and was pitch-black all over, save for its tip, which glinted as brightly as snow. The mere sight of it was terrifyingly sharp.
On the board also lay a skinning knife and a boning knife. With their identical black iron bodies and snow-bright blades, they were clearly a set with the cleaver in her hand.
Today, the Chen family of the town was butchering a pig for the New Year, and they had invited their neighbors and clan relatives to a lively feast.
The guests, warming themselves by the fire pit inside the house, glanced at Fan Changyu busying herself in the courtyard and began to whisper. “The Fan Er family just finished their mourning rites. Why would the Chens invite that girl Changyu to butcher their pig?”
“The Chens and the Fan Er family are on good terms; they aren't so bothered by taboos…” The speaker, perhaps recalling the Fan family’s tragic circumstances, unconsciously lowered their voice and glanced outside.
Fine snow fell like catkins. In the courtyard, the young woman carving the pork wore a simple, half-worn, plain-colored blouse and skirt. She was tall and slender, her dark hair tied up, revealing half of a fair and pretty profile. Though she looked delicate, she was remarkably deft at her work.
When Fan Er’s wife had first arrived in Lin’an Town with him, she had attracted many an admiring gaze. Some jealous old women had even privately cursed that she must have come from a brothel, a testament to her striking looks. Her two daughters had inherited her appearance and were both exceptionally beautiful.
The younger one was only five, so it was hard to tell, but if the elder daughter hadn't been betrothed to the Song family’s boy since childhood, the number of matchmakers at their door over the years would have likely worn down their threshold.
That person sighed. “Fan Er and his wife were killed by mountain bandits, leaving only two girls at home. And Fan Da is a heartless man, bent on seizing his brother's property. Life is hard for Changyu and her sister! We thought that once Song Yan passed the provincial exam, Changyu’s life would get better after marrying him, but who knew that engagement would fall through too. That Changyu girl is tough, though. She followed in her father’s footsteps, supporting her family by butchering pigs, and managed to prop the Fan Family up again. The Chens inviting her to butcher their pig is their way of supporting her business.”
Hearing these private details, the crowd couldn't help but sigh. But then another voice, hushed extremely low, said, “How come I heard that it was the Fan family’s eldest daughter who jinxed her parents to death? And that her younger sister has been frail since birth because she jinxed her too? The Song family went to have their birth charts compared and found out she was born under the Star of Doom and Isolation. That’s why they rushed over to break off the engagement…”
The person who had spoken earlier let out a scoff. “Do you know where the Song family had those charts read?”
The crowd’s sighs grew louder. For the Song family to break off the engagement at such a time—anyone with eyes could see what they were up to.
The old saying goes: get promoted, get rich, and your wife dies. Song Yan had passed the provincial exam and was destined to become an official. Why would he still marry a butcher’s daughter?
The makeshift table in the courtyard was not far from the main house, so Fan Changyu was forced to overhear the entire discussion about herself, though her face betrayed no emotion.
Her parents had been gone for over a month. She had long since come to terms with it.
Her and Song Yan—it was nothing more than a classic tale of Qin Xianglian and Chen Shimei.
Back then, the Song family couldn't even afford a coffin. Mother Song had knelt on the street with Song Yan, kowtowing to passersby and begging them to help buy a simple coffin to bury her husband. Even after her head was bleeding, no one helped. Her parents couldn't bear to see it and stepped in to buy a coffin for the burial.
Overwhelmed with gratitude, Mother Song had taken the initiative to propose an engagement between her and Song Yan, promising that he would marry her and let her live a life of comfort once he achieved success in the exams.
Later, the two families became neighbors, and her parents often helped the widow and her orphan son. Mother Song was determined for her son to take the Imperial exam but couldn't afford the tuition fee. Before Song Yan was accepted into the county school, it was her father who had paid for much of his tuition.
Song Yan had lived up to expectations. He had passed the prefectural exam a few years ago and then the provincial exam this autumn. Many country squires vied to curry favor with him, and even the county magistrate looked upon him favorably, with rumors that he was quite keen on making him his ideal son-in-law.
Mother Song’s attitude then became subtle. It was as if she felt that the daughter of a pig butcher was no longer worthy of her son, the new provincial graduate.
Her mother had sensed that Mother Song was not as easy to get along with as before and, fearing they would be misunderstood as demanding repayment for their kindness, suggested calling off the marriage. But Mother Song had adamantly refused, insisting that her Song family was not the type to forget favors.
Then, after her parents’ accidental deaths, a rumor started from who-knows-where, claiming that her harsh fate had jinxed her parents to death.
When Mother Song came to their door to break off the engagement, she used this very excuse, claiming she had consulted a fortune-teller who said her and Song Yan’s birth charts were incompatible. If they were to marry, not only would she jinx Song Yan, but since she no longer had parents, she would go on to jinx Mother Song as well.
Thus, Song Yan had logically dissolved their engagement. He was not tarnished in the slightest by the infamy of being ungrateful, while she, Fan Changyu, became the Star of Doom and Isolation that everyone shunned.
Fan Changyu cut off her thoughts and let out a turbid breath.
It was a pile of troubles. Better not to think about it.
After finishing the butchering, she collected her wages and bid farewell to the hosts without even stepping into the main house. People valued auspiciousness during the New Year festival. Although the Chen family didn't mind and had hired her despite the recent death in her family, she knew her place.
The hosts didn't press her to stay, but as she was leaving, they gave her a bucket of offal.
This was an unspoken rule in the countryside. When you hired someone to butcher a pig, besides paying them, you were also supposed to give the butcher a piece of pork. Most of the time, however, offal was given instead.
Before heading home with the offal, Fan Changyu went to the apothecary to pick up two prescriptions of medicine.
One was for her younger sister, and the other was for the man she had rescued.
Yesterday, she had taken a job butchering a pig in the countryside. On her way back, she found a man covered in blood in the snow, looking as if he had been attacked by mountain bandits.
Because her own parents had also died at the hands of mountain bandits, Fan Changyu was moved by compassion and carried the man back.
Unexpectedly, none of the clinics in town dared to treat someone with one foot already in the grave. She couldn't just throw him onto the street, so she decided to try a desperate remedy. She brought him home and asked her neighbor, an uncle who had been a veterinarian for over a decade before becoming a carpenter, to try and treat him.
Fan Changyu wasn't sure how the treatment was going, but at least he hadn't stopped breathing yet.
The prescription was also from her neighborly uncle.
With the medicine in hand, Fan Changyu headed home.
The Fan Family’s house was located in the residential alleys of the west side of town, where houses were packed tightly together.
The alley was dark and damp, with moss growing at the base of the walls. The houses on both sides were old, their plaster mottled and their wooden doors and windows old and dilapidated, emitting a musty, decaying smell.
It must have been a case of enemies being destined to meet. Just as Fan Changyu entered the alley, she came face to face with Mother Song and her son.
Both were dressed in newly tailored winter clothes of excellent material. Mother Song even wore gold earrings, her expression no longer pitiful and timid as before, but rather quite proud.
After Song Yan passed the provincial exam, gentry and wealthy merchants had sent them money and houses. The Song family was now naturally prosperous.
As the saying goes, clothes make the man. Dressed in a raven-blue long robe embroidered with bamboo leaves, Song Yan exuded a scholarly and refined air, a far cry from his previous poverty-stricken appearance. He now had the look of a noble young master.
Fan Changyu had just come from butchering the pig at the Chen family's. She carried a leather satchel with her butchering knives, and her patched old jacket was spattered with blood from her work. With a packet of medicine in one hand and a wooden bucket of offal in the other, she looked rather disheveled.
Mother Song subtly moved aside and even fanned the air before her nose with a handkerchief. She was wearing a gold ring on her hand as well.
She truly had become wealthy.
The alley was narrow. Neither mother nor son spoke, and Fan Changyu didn't spare them a glance. Acting as if she hadn't seen them, she walked straight ahead with her bucket of offal. "Watch your step—"
As they passed each other, the bucket of offal happened to brush against Song Yan’s new clothes, and the bloody water on its side instantly left a large wet stain.
Mother Song’s face turned green as she watched Fan Changyu’s departing back. “That blind girl!” she said, her heart aching. “This is Hangzhou silk!”
Song Yan’s eyes showed no emotion. He only said, “Mother, let it go.”
Mother Song’s face was full of disgust. “Fine! In a few days, we’ll be moving out of this wretched place anyway!”
Meanwhile, just as Fan Changyu reached her front door, a five-year-old snowball of a child heard her and darted out from the neighbor’s house. “Big Sis, you’re back!”
The little snowball was as exquisitely carved as jade and utterly adorable. She opened her arms to hug Fan Changyu, a missing tooth visible in her smile.
Fan Changyu grabbed the back of her younger sister’s collar. “Don’t touch. My clothes are dirty.”
Xiao Changning obediently stopped and, seeing her older sister’s hands were full, took the medicine packet from her.
She had the same almond-shaped eyes as Fan Changyu, but due to her young age, the corners of her eyes looked rounder, and her cheeks were chubby, like a plump porcelain doll.
The neighboring aunt came out at the sound of their voices. Seeing Fan Changyu, she smiled. “Changyu, you’re back.”
The neighbors were an old couple. The husband, surnamed Zhao, was a carpenter who went out during the day to make furniture for people or to sell rattan and bamboo baskets at the market, only returning in the evening.
The two families were very close. Whenever Fan Changyu went out, she was uneasy leaving her sister home alone, so she would always leave her with the neighboring aunt.
“Auntie,” she replied, then picked out a pig’s liver strung on a palm leaf from the bucket of offal and handed it over. “Uncle enjoys this. You can fry it up as a side dish for his wine.”
The aunt didn't stand on ceremony with Fan Changyu. She accepted it with a smile and then said, “That young man you carried back last night has woken up.”
Fan Changyu was taken aback. “Then I’ll go over and see him in a bit.”
With her parents gone, it was just her and her younger sister at home. It wouldn't be proper to rashly let an unrelated man stay with them. After bringing the man to Uncle Zhao for treatment last night, she had borrowed a room from them and temporarily placed him there.
Xiao Changning tilted her head up. “That big brother is so pretty!”
Pretty?
Fan Changyu didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She patted the little topknots on her sister’s head. “Who uses ‘pretty’ to describe a man?”
However, when she had found him, his face had been caked with dried, blackened blood, making him almost unrecognizable. It was already dusk when she brought him back yesterday, and in her rush to find a doctor, she hadn't had a chance to wipe his face or anything.
She truly didn't know what he looked like.
Fan Changyu went back to her house to change out of her butchering clothes before heading next door.
Dusk always came especially early in winter. It wasn't even five o'clock, yet the sky was already dark.
When Fan Changyu entered the room, the light was dim. She could only see a raised shape on the bed.
The room was filled with an indescribable smell—a mixture of medicinal herbs, blood, and sweat.
The weather was frigid. Uncle Zhao and Aunt Zhao, likely afraid the man wouldn't make it through, had sealed the doors and windows tightly and even lit a charcoal brazier in the room. The heat only intensified the smell.
But Fan Changyu had been in pigsties while catching pigs, so she didn't have much of a reaction to the smell. After entering, she only frowned slightly before walking to the table to light the oil lamp.
A single bean of warm, orange light illuminated the small space. When Fan Changyu turned back to look at the bed, she saw the man’s face clearly and was slightly stunned.
She now understood why Changning had called him pretty.
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