Chapter 974
What I Heard
Boss Sun's wife placed the tray on the table, smiled, and said, "Young lady, have something to eat," before leaving. After closing the door, she stood in the corridor for a moment, patted her chest, and said to the old woman, "That girl's eyes gave me the creeps. They didn't look at a person, they looked at a ghost."
The old woman didn't say anything, but took a bowl of porridge inside.
This time, the old woman placed the porridge on the small stool by the bedside, and sat on the chair by the door, facing outwards with her back to the bed.
She didn't say a word.
A moment later, the sound of bowls and spoons clattering came from behind me.
The old woman looked at the locust tree in the yard, her face expressionless.
Zheng Yi did not visit her in the morning.
He went to Wanping Wharf and finalized the deal for that batch of frozen ore. The new manager, surnamed Gu, was a shrewd middle-aged man who spoke slowly and deliberately, each sentence laced with inflection. Zheng Yi negotiated with him for nearly two hours, sticking to the price they had agreed on last time, not budging an inch.
Manager Gu finally laughed and said that Young Master Zheng was more like a native of Beining City than the people of Beining City themselves.
Zheng Yi smiled but didn't say anything else.
It was already afternoon when he returned to the inn. He tied his horse to the door, went into the lobby, and found He Liang reconciling accounts with Boss Sun. When he saw him return, He Liang looked up and said, "That girl spoke."
Zheng Yi took off his outer robe and draped it over the back of the chair.
"What did you say?"
"I don't know." He Liang shrugged. "The Bone Granny said a few words to her, and she replied with a few words. The Bone Granny didn't look well when she came out, and she didn't tell me what she said. You should go up and take a look."
Zheng Yi went upstairs.
The guest room window was open, letting in a little breeze. The old woman sat on a chair by the door, her hands resting on her knees, gazing out the window in a daze. Hearing Zheng Yi's footsteps, she turned her head, and there was something on her wrinkled face that Zheng Yi had never seen before.
It seemed like hesitation.
"What's wrong?" Zheng Yi asked.
The old woman raised her chin towards the house.
Zheng Yi followed her gaze.
The woman sat up against the bed, two pillows supporting her back, and a blanket covering her. Her face was a little better than yesterday; the swelling had subsided, revealing her other eye. That eye was black, very black and bright, like the moonless sky on a deep winter night.
She looked at Zheng Yi.
This time, there was no death-defying fear in her eyes. But she remained vigilant, like a shield erected to keep everyone who approached her out.
Zheng Yi didn't go in; he just stood at the door.
“Girl, my name is Zheng Yi. I come from the north and am going north. You can stay here for now, don’t be afraid.”
The woman looked at him, neither nodding nor shaking her head.
Her lips moved slightly, then closed again.
The old woman stood up from her chair, walked to Zheng Yi's side, and whispered a few words to him.
“I asked her what her name was and where she was from. She said two words,” the old woman said in a low voice, “Shen family.”
"The Shen family?"
“Just those two words. Nothing else.” The Bone Woman paused. “But when she said those two words, her eyes were off. It wasn’t fear, it was… she didn’t know how to put it, like she was afraid to say it.”
Zheng Yi was silent for a moment, then nodded.
Take your time.
He didn't approach the woman again, nor did he ask any more questions. Before leaving, he simply picked up the pot of water that had gone cold from the table, went downstairs to get a hot one, and placed it on the stool by the door.
The woman looked at the pot of water, her eyes flickering.
For the next two days, Zheng Yi would stand at the door of the guest room for a while each day.
She didn't go in, didn't ask questions, and didn't say much. Sometimes she would bring a bowl of hot soup and leave it at the door, and sometimes she would bring a clean fur robe over—a replacement for her tattered clothes, borrowed from a woman in the Firemane tribe. Although it was a bit big, it was clean and warm.
At first, the woman wouldn't even let him stand at the door.
Every time he went up the stairs, before he even reached the guest room door, he could hear the bed creak – the woman had shrunk into the corner of the bed.
Zheng Yi put his things down at the door and turned to go downstairs.
The old woman said she was so terrified that she wouldn't recover in a day or two.
"What kind of person could be so scared?" Granny Gu sat on the stone stool in the courtyard, twisting hemp rope as she spoke. "I've lived for over sixty years, and I've seen people scared by wolves, I've seen people scared by people, but I've never seen anyone so terrified and yet remain completely silent. Most women would be crying their eyes out in this situation. But she doesn't cry. Not a single tear."
As the old woman spoke, she looked up at Zheng Yi.
"This kind of person is either born tough, or... crying is useless."
Zheng Yi squatted down next to the water vat in the yard to wash his hands. He poured cold water on his hands, rubbed them a couple of times, and shook off the water droplets.
Which one do you prefer?
The bone-groom thought for a moment: "The second one."
On the evening of the third day, Zheng Yi, as usual, brought a bowl of mutton soup upstairs. The mutton was bought by Boss Sun from the market that morning and had been stewing all day; the soup was thick and whitish, with a layer of golden oil floating on top. Zheng Yi himself hadn't eaten dinner yet, and as he carried the soup upstairs, Chi Ya smelled the aroma at the bottom of the stairs and couldn't help but swallow.
"Is this soup for her?" Chi Ya asked.
"Ah."
What are we having for dinner tonight?
Zheng Yi glanced at him: "He Liang will go pack some food later."
Chi Ya smacked his lips, said nothing more, and turned to find He Liang.
Zheng Yi carried the soup upstairs and walked to the door of the guest room.
The door was ajar, not closed properly. He gently pushed the door with his foot, and it creaked open.
The woman did not shrink into the corner of the bed.
She sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, her hands on the blanket, her fingers unconsciously picking at a loose thread. When she saw Zheng Yi come in, her body tensed slightly, but she didn't curl up into a ball like before.
Zheng Yi placed the soup bowl on the table and took two steps back.
"Lamb soup. It's not too hot now, you can drink it."
He turned to leave.
"Wait a moment."
The voice was soft and hoarse, like the sudden sound of someone who hadn't spoken in a long time. It was so hoarse it didn't seem to come from a human mouth, but more like the wind blowing through dry reeds.
Zheng Yi stopped walking, but did not turn around.
He stood there, his back to the bed, waiting.
There was silence behind him for a long time. So long that he thought that the words were just his imagination.
"You're... from the north?"
His voice was still so hoarse, each word sounding as if it had been rubbed against sandpaper.
Zheng Yi turned around.
The woman looked at him, and in the one eye that was exposed, there was no fear, no wariness, but something complex and indescribable. It was like a drowning person seeing a branch reaching out from the shore, wanting to grab it, yet afraid that the branch would break.
“I come from the north,” Zheng Yi said. “I do some business in the north.”
"North...where?"
"Further north of Beining City. The Northern Wilderness."
When the woman heard the words "Northern Wilderness," her pupils dilated slightly.
She probably had never met anyone from the Northern Wilderness, nor did she know what the Northern Wilderness was. But the name "Northern Wilderness" itself was enough to conjure up an image of a vast, desolate, uninhabited land that could swallow anything whole. "You saved me," she said.
It's not a question.
“It wasn’t a rescue,” Zheng Yi said. “My men carried you back.”
The woman lowered her head and looked at her hands resting on the blanket.
Those hands were indeed very slender, with long, thin fingers, and dried dirt still under her fingernails. She was still wearing that silver bracelet on her right hand, which dangled on her thin wrist as if it might slip off at any moment.
"Don't you have anything you want to ask me?" she suddenly said.
Zheng Yi remained silent for a moment.
Yes. But I won't ask if you don't want to talk about it.
The woman's hand stopped.
She looked up and glanced at Zheng Yi again. This time, something in her eyes softened—not a complete relaxation of defenses, but rather the kind of tension that had reached its peak, a moment when it could finally break down.
Her mouth opened and then closed. When she opened it again, her voice was a little steadyer than before, but it was still hoarse.
"My name is Shen Yuan."
"Shen from the Shen family. Yuan, the 'Yuan' in 'paper kite'."
Zheng Yi nodded.
"Miss Shen."
When Shen Yuan heard the words "Miss Shen," her lips twitched slightly, as if she wanted to laugh or cry. But in the end, no expression formed; the address merely brushed against her face like a breeze across water, causing a ripple that quickly subsided.
"The Shen family you mentioned... which Shen family is it?" Zheng Yi asked cautiously, his tone as calm as if he were asking about the weather.
Shen Yuan remained silent for a long time.
Zheng Yi thought she wouldn't answer.
"Jiangnan."
When she uttered those two words, her voice was flat, without any inflection. It was as if she were talking about something that had nothing to do with her.
But her hands were shaking.
It wasn't a violent tremor, but a very slight, almost imperceptible tremor, like the last leaf of autumn hanging on a branch, trembling in the wind, but not falling off.
Zheng Yi saw it but didn't say anything.
“The Shen family of Jiangnan,” Shen Yuan repeated, as if confirming something, “They’re in the tea business.”
Zheng Yi searched his memory for the Jiangnan merchants he knew, but couldn't find the name "Shen Family." His understanding of Jiangnan was already limited, and the tea business was even more of a completely foreign concept. But when Shen Yuan said "doing the tea business," there was an unconscious certainty in her tone, as if she were stating something self-evident, requiring no proof.
"How did you end up in Beining City?" Zheng Yi asked.
Shen Yuan stopped.
She lowered her head and looked at the silver bracelet on her wrist.
"Because I offended someone."
"who?"
Shen Yuan didn't answer immediately. She turned the silver bracelet around her wrist, making a very faint metallic scraping sound.
“A member of a sect,” she said.
"What sect?"
Shen Yuan raised her head and looked at Zheng Yi. A thin layer of tears welled up in the one eye that was exposed, but she didn't let them fall.
"I do not know."
Zheng Yi frowned slightly.
Shen Yuan noticed his furrowed brow and, thinking he didn't believe her, her voice suddenly became more urgent: "I really don't know. I only know they wore the same clothes, carried the same knives, and the leader's surname was... what was it again..."
She suddenly froze, as if the surname was on the tip of her tongue, but she couldn't say it. Her brows furrowed, her lips trembled, her fingers gripped the blanket, and her nails dug into the cotton fabric.
"Surname..." She thought hard for a moment, then suddenly froze.
"My surname is Qiu," she said.
"hatred?"
Shen Yuan nodded.
“The leader said… said the Shen family offended someone they shouldn’t have. He said… said our Shen family shouldn’t have accepted that shipment. I don’t know what kind of shipment it was. My father never discusses business at home. I really don’t know…” Her voice grew softer and softer, as if she were talking to herself, not to Zheng Yi.
Zheng Yi did not press further.
He knew that pressing Shen Yuan for answers at this point would only make her back down.
"Where are your family members now?" he asked, changing the subject.
Shen Yuan stopped.
She looked at Zheng Yi, and the last glimmer of light in his eye slowly, slowly went out.
"It's gone."
Two words. Very light.
It was as light as a leaf falling from a height and landing on the ground without making a sound.
Zheng Yi stood there without saying a word.
“My father, my mother, my younger brother, my sister-in-law, the family accountant, the housekeeper, Aunt Liu who cooks…” Shen Yuan counted them one by one, very slowly, as if she had to stop and confirm that the person was really gone after each name. “Uncle Zhang who guards the gate, and the big yellow dog in the backyard…”
She suddenly smiled.
That smile came too suddenly, like a crack suddenly appearing in a wall, and what shone through the crack was not light, but deeper darkness.
“They didn’t even spare the dogs,” she said.
Zheng Yi clenched his fist at his side, then released it.
Shen Yuan didn't shed a single tear when she said these words.
Her face was expressionless, as if she had suppressed all her emotions beneath a thin layer of ice. The ice was thin and could break at any moment, but she refused to let herself break.
“Four guards escorted me out,” Shen Yuan continued, her voice growing flatter and flatter, more like reading a list than speaking. “One of them died at the gate, slashed in the back while carrying me. He threw me off when he lay down, and I rolled behind the flower bushes. They didn’t see me.”
Her speech suddenly quickened, as if she was afraid that if she stopped, she wouldn't be able to continue.
“I ran away. I didn’t know where to run, so I ran north. Because my father once told me that if you go north, cross the river, cross the Huai River, and cross the Yellow River, once you get to the north, no one will care whose family you are. You don’t need a travel permit in the north, and anyone can live there.”
She stopped abruptly at this point.
“My father was laughing when he told me this. He said that when he stopped doing tea business, he would move the whole family to the north, buy a piece of land, raise a flock of sheep, and never deal with those officials again.”
Shen Yuan lowered her head and looked at the silver bracelet on her wrist.
"The north my father was talking about isn't here."
She looked up and glanced at Zheng Yi.
"The north he was talking about was even further north than here. He said there were grasslands, snow-capped mountains, and endless wastelands to the north. He had never seen any of those things; he had only heard about them from others. But he believed it."
Zheng Yi remained silent for a long time.
How long did you run?
Shen Yuan thought for a moment. (End of Chapter)