Chasing Jade (Zhu Yu)

The flickering candlelight cast a warm glow over the simple, dilapidated room. The man lying on the bed was quiet, his face washed clean of blood—pale, refined, and strikingly handsome.

He appeared quite young, with a lean but not frail build. Perhaps due to excessive blood loss, he had fallen asleep again. His long lashes rested against his eyelids, casting fan-shaped shadows under the lamplight. His nose was straight, and even in unconsciousness, his thin, cracked lips were pressed tightly together, suggesting a stubborn temperament.

Such a face paired with his battered body was like a pine tree broken by winter frost yet still standing tall, or a piece of unpolished jade wrapped in rough stone, chiseled full of holes—inevitably evoking pity.

Whether disturbed by the light or the prolonged gaze, his lashes fluttered, and he slowly opened his eyes.

His pupils were dark as ink, yet devoid of any emotion. The slightly upturned corners of his eyes carried an innate coldness.

Fan Changyu showed no discomfort at being caught staring and calmly asked, "You're awake?"

The man didn’t respond.

Seeing how severely chapped his lips were, Changyu assumed his injuries were too severe or his throat too dry to speak. "Would you like some water?" she asked.

He nodded slowly and finally spoke: "You saved me?"

His voice was hoarse, like gravel scraping against a broken gong, a stark contrast to his face, which resembled fresh snow under a clear moon.

Changyu walked to the table, poured him a cup of water, and handed it over. "I found you collapsed in the snowy wilderness and carried you back. But it was Zhao Da Shu who truly pulled you from death’s door."

She paused, then added, "You’re staying at his house now. He used to be a physician."

Though a veterinarian.

The man struggled to sit up. The hand that took the chipped earthenware cup was covered in abrasions, barely an inch of unmarred skin. After a few sips, he coughed into his hand, his disheveled hair falling forward, making his jawline appear even paler.

"Drink slowly," Changyu said. "You don’t seem local. Since I didn’t know your name or where you were from, I didn’t report to the authorities. Were you attacked by bandits at Tiger Pass?"

He suppressed his coughs, lowering his gaze until most of his face was hidden in the shadows beyond the candlelight. "My surname is Yan, given name Zheng. I fled from Chongzhou in the north... because of the war."

Ling’an Town was just a small settlement under Jizhou Prefecture. Changyu had never even left Jizhou and knew little of the current situation. But in autumn, the authorities had requisitioned grain—likely for the war.

Her eyelid twitched. A lone refugee fleeing war likely meant his family had met tragedy.

"Do you have any relatives left?" she asked.

At this, the man’s fingers around the cup whitened from gripping too tightly. After a long silence, he rasped, "No."

So his family was truly gone.

Having recently lost both parents herself, Changyu understood his grief. She pressed her lips together. "I’m sorry."

The man muttered, "It’s fine," but then began coughing violently, as if blood were clogging his throat. The fit worsened until he couldn’t hold the cup, and it shattered on the floor—as though he were coughing out his very lungs.

Changyu froze for a moment before snapping into action, calling for Aunt Zhao while stepping forward to pat his back and help him breathe.He bore numerous wounds from blades and swords, with bandages wrapped tightly from his shoulder blades to his chest. To avoid pressing on the injuries, he wore only a loose inner robe.

Now, after that bout of agonizing coughing, his robe had loosened, revealing the defined muscles of his abdomen beneath the bandages in the dim candlelight. But the violent coughing had torn open his wounds, and blood slowly seeped through the gauze.

Fan Changyu shouted louder toward the door, "Aunt Zhao, hurry and call Uncle Zhao back to take a look!"

Aunt Zhao responded from outside and rushed out to find her husband.

The man continued coughing violently, his originally pale face flushing crimson. By the end, he leaned over the edge of the bed and spat out a mouthful of clotted blood.

Fan Changyu was startled, afraid he might collapse to the ground, and quickly steadied his shoulders. "How are you?"

Cold sweat drenched his forehead, and his neck down to his chest was soaked, as if he had been pulled from water. The thick scent of blood clung to him, his disheveled hair scattered across his brow—a picture of utter misery. "Better now, thank you."

He wiped the blood from his lips with the back of his hand, then leaned back weakly against the bedpost, gasping for breath, his neck exposed like a dying beast that had given up struggling.

His condition was far from "better," despite his words.

As Fan Changyu watched him, she couldn’t help but recall the moment she first found him—half-conscious, forcing his eyes open to look at her, like a mortally wounded wolf.

By the time Zhao Mu Jiang finally returned, the man had already passed out from exhaustion, his breathing faint as a thread.

Fan Changyu sat at the doorway, her face as gloomy as a farmer struck by famine, pondering: If this man died, should she go all out in her kindness—buy a cheap coffin and bury him properly—or just dig a shallow pit and toss him in?

Feeling the few remaining copper coins in her pocket, she decided the latter was more practical. She and her younger sister still needed to eat. Digging a pit was already generous enough.

After a while, Zhao Mu Jiang emerged from the room with a grave expression, saying nothing as he first went to the main hall to pour himself a cup of cold tea.

Fan Changyu assumed the man was beyond saving. "Uncle Zhao, don’t blame yourself. If he can’t be saved, it’s just his fate. Once he’s gone, I’ll carry him up the mountain and find a decent spot to bury him."

Zhao Mu Jiang choked on his tea, coughing for a while before recovering. "Nonsense! He’s still alive and well!"

Fan Changyu froze, then scratched her head awkwardly. "He coughed up blood earlier, and you came out looking so grim. I thought he was done for."

Zhao Mu Jiang said, "That young man has a strong constitution. Spitting out that clotted blood means his life is saved—for now. But whether he fully recovers depends on careful recuperation and his own luck."

The implication was clear: he would likely become a weakling, unable to lift or carry anything.

He asked Fan Changyu, "Do you know where he’s from? Does he have any family left?"

Remembering the man’s story, Fan Changyu sat back on the threshold like a famine-stricken farmer. "He said he fled from the north. His family’s all dead, and then he ran into bandits here. Now he’s got nowhere to go."

The old couple exchanged a glance, opening their mouths but finding no words to say.Saving someone in the moment was one thing, but continuously caring for an invalid was another matter entirely. The man's injuries were severe, not to mention the expensive medicine required, and an extra mouth to feed meant another bowl and pair of chopsticks.

After a long silence, Zhao Mu Jiang asked her, "What do you think about this yourself?"

Fan Changyu picked up a stick and absentmindedly drew a few circles on the ground before answering, "I already carried him back from the snowy wilderness. I can't just drive him away now."

Aunt Zhao fretted for her: "Your parents have passed, and Ning Niang has been constantly ill, needing medicine. Taking in another idle person—how will you manage?"

Changyu also felt she'd brought back trouble, but there was no other choice at the moment. "Let him recover first. Once his injuries improve, we'll see what he plans to do."

Inside the house, the man who had just been treated with a set of acupuncture needles by Zhao Mu Jiang slowly regained consciousness and overheard this conversation. His dark, jade-like eyes flickered slightly toward the door.

Outside, heavy snow began to fall again under the darkened sky, cast in a warm glow by the candlelight inside, making the cold seem less biting.

The young girl, dressed in an old apricot-colored padded jacket, sat crouched by the threshold. Her elbows rested on her knees, one hand propping up her snow-pale cheek while the other idly poked at the ground with a small stick. Her delicate brows were slightly furrowed, as if she had made some difficult decision.

The elderly couple sighed.

The man's gaze lingered on the girl's face for a moment before he slowly closed his eyes again, suppressing the cough rising in his throat.

That evening, after returning home and ensuring her younger sister was sound asleep, Fan Changyu retrieved the wooden box hidden in the rafters.

Opening it, she found several land deeds stamped with official seals and a handful of copper coins.

The land deeds were what remained after her parents' passing, while the copper coins were what Changyu had earned herself from butchering pigs.

Truth be told, her family had once been relatively well-off. Their current financial strain stemmed from her father's decision the previous year to invest a large sum in building a pigpen.

Her father had been a well-known butcher in town and thought it unwise to keep buying pigs from dealers. He planned to set up his own pigpen in the countryside and hire help to raise the animals. But before the pigpen could be completed, both he and his wife met with misfortune.

The funeral expenses had nearly drained all the available family savings. With no income left, Changyu had no choice but to take up pig-butchering to make ends meet.

She had considered selling some of the land to ease their situation, but according to the laws of the dynasty, if parents passed away without a written will, their daughters could not inherit any property. If the deceased had no sons, the estate would go to their siblings.

As a daughter, Changyu couldn't transfer the deeds to her parents' land and property, nor could she mortgage or sell them for money.

Her uncle was a gambler, drowning in debt, and constantly schemed to seize her family's property to settle his gambling dues. He would often come to harass her, demanding she hand over the land deeds.

Changyu naturally refused. The house was where she had lived with her parents for over a decade—every plant and tree held memories. If she lost even this shelter, where would she and her sister go? The streets?

Fearing her younger sister might inadvertently reveal the hiding spot if coaxed by someone, Changyu hadn't even told her where the deeds were kept.

She poured out the copper coins from the box and counted them—three hundred and seventy in total. These were the meager savings she'd managed to set aside from her butchering work after covering daily expenses.

Truth be told, even without taking in the injured man, her family was already on the brink of destitution.Making a living by helping others slaughter pigs wasn't a sustainable long-term plan. Business only picked up during the twelfth lunar month when many households slaughtered pigs for the New Year celebrations. After the New Year, there was hardly any business left. Fan Changyu figured she needed to reopen the family pork shop.

She did some calculations in her head: during the twelfth month, live pigs cost fifteen copper coins per pound. Buying an eighty-pound pig would require an investment of one string and two hundred coins.

After slaughtering, there would be about sixty pounds of meat left. Selling it all as fresh meat at thirty coins per pound would net her six hundred coins profit per pig.

If she braised the pig's head and offal to sell as prepared dishes, the price could go even higher.

During the New Year season, every household needed to entertain guests, but most ordinary families lacked a complete set of seasonings and couldn't prepare decent dishes. Many would buy ready-made food from the streets, making braised meat quite marketable during this period.

The idea was good, but the difficulty was that she currently didn't even have enough silver to buy a single pig.

Fan Changyu sighed deeply, putting the copper coins into her sleeve pocket and placing only the land deed back into the box on the roof beam.

She needed to find a way to gather enough money to buy at least one pig first.