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The window had become his favorite place in the room over the past few days, sitting by it more often than not throughout the day. Although it didn’t offer anything particularly remarkable or beautiful except lending him an almost bird’s-eye view of Xigu Alley – an advantage he very much preferred – he liked it because it was also the only thing in the room that changed.
Xie Zheng sat propped against the headboard with a folded blanket behind his back to keep him upright, and another over his legs for warmth. The book that had occupied him for the better part of the morning was lying open and long forgotten near his thigh, its pages moving in the winter breeze as his gaze drifted toward the street below instead.
Being confined here was a personal torture. Xie Zheng had spent most of his life outdoors ever since he could walk: he was either horse-riding, practicing martial arts, or exploring the family estate. As an adult, he travelled wherever a battle called for, and slept under the stars more often than not with his soldiers. He wasn’t one to stay idle or be cooped up inside – but with his injuries, he had no choice at the moment.
So, Xie Zheng, courtesy name Jiuheng, the great Marquis of Wu’an, resorted to simple people watching in his desperation, following the slow, unremarkable rhythm of Lin’an from a single window.
Below, a man carrying bundles of firewood over one shoulder paused on his way on the side of the road, his breath fogging faintly in the cold as he shifted the weight before continuing on.
A woman with a basket balanced against her hip stopped to bargain, her gestures animated, with a vendor whose annoyed voice carried faintly even through the distance.
And somewhere further down the road, a group of children darted past in a blur of movement before disappearing into a crowd that swallowed them whole, leaving behind nothing but the echo of quick footsteps and laughter.
It was, by all accounts, nothing worth watching. And yet, for someone who had spent most of his life moving between palace walls and battlefields, between strategy and bloodshed, between constant, underlying danger and vigilance, the sheer peaceful ordinariness of it held his attention far longer than it should have.
Despite starting the activity to simply ease the monotony of his days here, as well as keep watch of anything suspicious happening outside, now it was a thing he actually looked forward to.
He shifted slightly, the movement careful – still not free of pain, no matter how much time had passed since he had first been dragged back from the edge of death and placed in this unfamiliar bed. The bandages had been changed regularly – the scent of fresh herbs and medicine clinging stubbornly to his skin, no matter how often he was washed and the room was aired out. His strength had begun, gradually, to return, but he was not yet in a state where he could pretend the injuries no longer existed. Even sitting upright like this for too long left a dull ache behind – a quiet but persistent reminder that his body was still very much recuperating.
Healing was a slow process that demanded patience he never did particularly have when it came to his own injuries.
But again – it was better than being dead.
Likewise, people watching – no matter how silly he felt over it sometimes – was much better than lying flat and staring blankly at a ceiling, slowly going mad. This way, there was something to look at, and something to occupy his thoughts that was not the growing list of questions he had yet to find answers to, at least.
Xie Zheng had learned a few things, however – about commoner life in a small town, about the war’s impact on them, and about the family that currently housed him.
There were the Zhaos – Zhao shu, who had treated his injuries with steady, practical hands and humbleness, and his wife, Zhao daniang, who had sharp edges but spoke kindly, always ensuring that he was cared for at all times without fail.
Then, Fan Changning – the little girl who seemed like the glue that kept everything together and in better spirits in this house; too bright, too open, too unguarded towards him in a way that still left him faintly uncertain how to respond sometimes. She was the one whom Xie Zheng saw most often, actually, aside from Zhao daniang – she periodically came in to sit on his bed to keep him company with childly chatter.
(He was still surprised by how much he didn’t mind that.)
And then, there was Fan Changyu – the one who had saved his life.
(If Xie Zheng was surprised by his own reaction to the little sister, he was outright baffled when it came to the big one.)
She unsettled him – if he was honest with himself. Not particularly in a bad way, but definitely in a way that was foreign to him. He was fighting his budding curiosity about this deceptively fragile-looking and objectively beautiful and strong woman; battling the trust that was developing far too quickly for his taste, the instinct to relax around her, and the effect her warmth had on him.
Thankfully – or maybe not – Xie Zheng had seen her almost the least out of the little family, with her always being out in town; she was leaving early and returning late, carrying the smell of iron, smoke, and meat that clung to her clothes. Not that he paid much attention or anything.
(Tentatively, he once asked Changning where her sister went each day. She answered quite bluntly that her a’jie was working hard to make more money to be able to feed him.)
(Xie Zheng tried not to feel like a burden – and promptly failed.)
His gaze drifted back to the street, following the slow progress of a cart as it rattled unevenly along the worn and snow-covered stones, its wheels catching briefly before rolling free again. In the quiet, he became fully aware of the hollow, persistent pull in his stomach – the reminder of hunger.
He had eaten – of course he had.
Meals were regular in this house – breakfast, lunch, and dinner, sometimes simple snacks in-between – and shared at a low table where conversation flowed with an ease that suggested long familiarity. Where Changning chattered with her mouth full and was only gently scolded for it, where Changyu was being the perfect host, tending to everyone but herself, and where the Zhaos joined when time allowed, their presence steady, warm, and making the meals feel more… complete.
Xie Zheng had been included without question, without ceremony – a place and plate ready for him as though he was a long-lost friend and not a stranger, as if it was the most natural thing in the world. He had accepted what was offered without complaint, mindful of the effort behind each dish and of the care taken to prepare food that, while simple, was given freely and kindly.
And yet the fact remained that the household was not well-off – something that had become increasingly difficult to ignore the longer he stayed. The ingredients used were modest, stretched carefully to serve more mouths than they might comfortably provide for, the dishes often centered around what could be acquired cheaply and prepared efficiently – scrap meat stewed until tender, broth seasoned heavily to mask unpleasantness, rice divided with care so that no bowl appeared more filled than another.
Xie Zheng had noticed the small things – the way portions were measured without comment and the way members of this family kept sneaking bits into someone’s bowl when the other was distracted enough, giving away their supposed best bites to others quietly.
(He didn’t know how to feel when they started to include him in it – they tried to be sneaky, but Xie Zheng noticed it from the start, out of the corner of his eye. The last time someone did that, he was nothing more than an innocent child – his mother placing bits of meat delicately on his mound of rice with a fond smile.)
Seeing all that, Xie Zheng felt absolutely awful that he couldn’t stomach some of the dishes they prepared.
Organ meat was deemed generally dirty, smelly, cheap, and unsafe to eat by nobility – preferring preparing cuts of the actual muscle meat more. Xie Zheng – a noble himself since birth – had never eaten any in his life until now.
It wasn’t that dishes like pork liver soup, pig organ pancakes, and intestine noodles weren’t tasty – Changyu and Zhao daniang cooked really well, preparing and seasoning the organs in ways that masked their origin so seamlessly, Xie Zheng wouldn’t have known what he ate if they hadn’t told him.
But years of conditioning and social-hierarchical difference couldn’t disappear in mere days – the thought of eating offal, combined with the unfamiliar flavors and textures his body wasn’t used to, made it hard to swallow each bite.
So he chose to eat only what was necessary – enough to avoid offense and enough to sustain himself without drawing from what little the household could spare. The result was that, most of the time, he remained slightly hungry. It was not sharp or urgent, but it was present all the same, slowly becoming a normal sensation as he continued to watch the world outside move on.
The sound of a knock, soft and tentative, drew his attention back to the room.
He turned his head toward the door, the motion unhurried and relaxed – not reaching for a chopstick to break in half to defend himself in desperation – now that he felt more or less safe in this house.
(More or less – as he was still distrustful, still cautious, still watching. The Zhaos and the Fan sisters seemed like honest people, but Xie Zheng knew very well that people could be bought anywhere; you only needed to find the right price. He was acutely aware that his life was hanging in the hands of people who could definitely use a few taels of silver.)
After a brief pause, the door creaked open just enough for a small head to poke through.
“Can I come in?” his visitor whispered much louder than probably intended, blinking at him with innocent, big brown eyes and chubby cheeks.
Xie Zheng – already expecting her – nodded silently, curious to find out what she was up to today.
Changning entered as if she was trying to be stealthy – mindful of the noise of her shoes against the floor, and pushing the door to a close slowly and quietly.
(Xie Zheng didn’t deem it necessary to point out that her earlier whisper-shouting in front of the door probably betrayed her to Zhao daniang already.)
Once inside, she turned to look at him, her face brightening at once as if the simple fact of finding him awake and upright was something to be joyful about.
“A’ge!” she chirped, her voice brighter than the winter sunshine outside.
She started calling him her older brother recently – all natural, affectionate, and absolutely without care about what he thought about it. He was too stunned each time to say anything – not that he would have had the heart to make her stop anyway.
Xie Zheng regarded her for a moment before his gaze shifted, drawn almost immediately to what she held in her hands.
There were two items, both handled with a degree of care that suggested they were important – wrapped loosely in paper, faintly steaming in the cool air of the room.
Changning followed his gaze, and her expression shifted into something that bordered on excitement and anticipation.
“I brought you something,” she announced, still trying to lower her voice – and failing – as she stepped closer and held her hand up, shielding her mouth as if sharing a secret meant only for him.
Before he could respond and voice his confusion, she had already crossed the space between them, climbing onto the bed with practiced familiarity – or at least trying. With her little hands full, her balance and grip strength weren’t what they should’ve been, and Xie Zheng’s hand, lightning-quick, had to support her on her back so she didn’t fall to the floor.
(He tried not to examine too closely the way his heart clenched in fright when she slipped.)
Changning, unbothered, settled beside him on the bed without hesitation, her small body occupying the space next to him easily as if it had always been hers. She sat next to him comfortably with her little legs in a pretzel, pressing against his thigh, fussing with her items in her lap.
The scent reached him then. It was warm and hearty, carrying the unmistakable notes of cooked meat, spices, and sesame, and his stomach tightened, letting out a faint growl in response before he could stop it.
Changning began unwrapping the papers with chubby, careful fingers – first revealing a generously-sized baozi nestled within, with its surface soft and pale, still holding warmth that was rapidly fading as the trapped steam in the paper now could rise more freely.
The second item was a piece of shaobing – golden, full of sesame seeds, lightly crisp, and just as fresh as the baozi.
For a moment, Xie Zheng couldn’t say anything, because he had not realized how utterly hungry he had been until dishes he liked, and was familiar with, were placed in front of him. His stomach was trying to eat itself in desperation, and his mouth flooded embarrassingly fast with saliva.
Changning did not hesitate. She tore the baozi in half, the division definitely uneven but not overly so, and held the bigger portion out toward him with complete certainty, like the matter had already been settled for her long before she entered the room.
“This is yours,” she said with a sweet smile, and then gently waved hers, “And this is mine.”
Xie Zheng opened and closed his mouth a few times in confusion before he could say anything.
“Why –”
She simply shrugged. “You don’t like what a’jie cooks.”
Xie Zheng internally winced. If even the child picked up on his hesitance over offal, then the adults most definitely did. There went his plans of not offending them.
“That’s not –” he started, but started over in his haste to explain after a sigh. “I don’t hate it, I just – I’m not used to it.” He pushed her outstretched hand back towards her gently. “You should be sharing this with your sister, or your uncle and aunt, not me.”
Xie Zheng didn’t think he deserved it after being so ungrateful. And even if he wasn’t feeling guilty – really, who was he to take such a delicious and admittedly rare opportunity away from any of them? He didn’t understand why she was doing this, anyway.
Changning regarded him silently long enough that Xie Zheng started to feel uncomfortable under her serious gaze. Sometimes she behaved far too clever and old for her age.
“A’jie isn’t hungry – you are,” she said quietly, and her voice only turned softer as she continued. “Mama always said no guest should ever feel hungry in our house.”
She offered the baozi to him once more, her little smile far too earnest.
“You are big – you need more food.”
Despite the winter chill, Xie Zheng felt inexplicable warmth radiating out of his chest. In the face of those simple, yet meaningful words, those chubby cheeks and innocent eyes, he simply didn’t stand a chance.
He accepted the baozi wordlessly – trying to ignore how her little satisfied smile made him feel –, the warmth seeping into his fingers immediately. He brought it to his mouth without allowing himself to reconsider, taking a bite out of the pale softness of it. The flavor of wheat dough, minced pork, cabbage, and spices greeted him in a familiar fashion, the filling slightly burning his tongue the same way it usually did when he was too eager to wait for it to cool down.
The baozi was incredibly similar to what he would’ve eaten at the Xie estate or at a street vendor at the capital – maybe even slightly better, as it had more spices in it that added more flavor to it. It was deeply satisfying.
For a brief moment, everything else fell away – the room, the questions, the careful restraint he had maintained in this house – and he swallowed quickly before taking another bite messily, the hunger for a familiar taste overpowering the habits and etiquette he had formed over years.
Xie Zheng was enjoying the third bite when his brain began to catch up.
The Zhaos, nor Changyu had the money to buy food from a street vendor – and they definitely wouldn’t have given a five-year-old money to buy them for herself either. So how did she acquire them?
His gaze lowered to the remaining portion in his hand, then shifted to the shaobing resting between them, and finally turned to the child munching merrily next to him.
“Where did you get this?” he asked, his tone carefully even and his brows furrowing slightly.
Changning blinked up at him from her bun, made a face, then shook her head immediately.
“I didn’t steal it,” she defended, as if she could hear what he was thinking.
A faint pause followed as Xie Zheng stared at her. She didn’t seem to be lying, but something was going on here for sure.
“I didn’t say you did.”
“But you thought it,” she replied with a pout and a glare that was as threatening as a little puppy’s bite.
Xie Zheng did not confirm or deny that. Instead, he chose to ask, “Alright. Then how?”
She brightened at once, pleased to explain; shifting slightly as she spoke, her attention divided between her story and the food in her hand.
“There was a man at the market,” she began, mouth full, “and he was selling them, but I didn’t have any money, so I asked if I could have one, and he said no, so I told him I could do something for it, and then he thought about it and said if I did it and told no one, he would give me one, and he told me what to do, but I said I wanted a shaobing too, and he agreed, and I did it and then he gave me food as promised.”
While her quick description of the situation was a bit hard to follow, her satisfaction about it was unmistakable. But she was the only one feeling that way.
The more Xie Zheng heard, the more his brows furrowed deeply, and his expression darkened as his brain jumped to a certain unacceptable and disgusting conclusion, his mind filling in the blanks with things that made his blood boil in an instant.
He had to concentrate not to squish the baozi in his hand into pulp in anger.
Though he kept his expression composed, there was an underlying danger in his next words that had not been there before when he asked to make sure.
“What did he make you do?”
If he just touched a single strand on her head inappropriately, I will kill him, Xie Zheng thought murderously, meaning it like a vow.
Changning, chewing happily and unaware of the deadly tension in the room, answered without concern.
“He couldn’t leave his cart and deliver his baozi to some lady’s house, so he gave them all to me, and I did it for him,” she said proudly, as though it were the most ordinary thing in the world – which to her it likely was.
The murderous intent that had risen in Xie Zheng eased, relief taking its place. He jumped to the wrong conclusion; nothing happened; she was okay.
Although Xie Zheng wasn’t in the mood to murder certain baozi-selling men anymore, the tension still did not disappear entirely in him.
He watched the child for a moment longer, weighing something he was not entirely certain how to phrase. The unfamiliarity of the situation left him, for perhaps the first time in a long while, unsure of the correct approach.
But he couldn’t just not say anything. This situation could’ve gone wrong in so many different ways, and the adults around her might not have even known about it until later.
“Changning,” he said after a brief pause, his voice quieter, more serious. “If… someone, an older man, asks you to do something that feels strange, or – ”
She blinked at him, tilting her head slightly.
“Strange?” she repeated, a bite of baozi puffing out one of her cheeks.
Xie Zheng exhaled slowly, looking out the window and searching for words that would make sense to her without saying too much or scaring her. He was acutely aware of how little experience he had with speaking to someone her age about anything, and now he was trying to warn her about a certain kind of predator that, while looking deceptively less harmful, was just as dangerous as a tiger. If not more.
“If someone older, especially a man, makes you uncomfortable,” he ended up saying, choosing the simplest path he could find, “or if you are not sure why they are asking what they are asking, why they want something from you in exchange for money, food, or anything… You should not engage with them.”
Not quite what he wanted to convey, but still better than nothing.
“Just… don’t talk to older men other than Zhao shu and me,” Xie Zheng added after a beat, thinking it through.
Changning considered him for a moment, then nodded, understanding shining in her eyes. She looked like she was unsurprised by all that Xie Zheng said.
“A’jie told me all this already,” she said, picking at her baozi.
Xie Zheng’s shoulders eased just a fraction.
“She did?”
“Mhm,” Changning nodded. “She said if someone tries to trick me, touch me, or do something bad, I should bite them or kick them, then shout and run, and go find her or Zhao shu,” she continued, her voice even, as if reciting a rule that was drilled into her. “She also said not to take things from people I don’t know.”
Her sudden guilty expression told him she very much knew that her market stunt was definitely toying the barrier of disobedience. Changning was trying to keep this a secret, not just because she only wanted to share the food with him, but also because she wanted to avoid getting scolded.
Xie Zheng huffed through his nose.
This child.
She paused, then added quietly, looking at him with devastating puppy eyes. “But that uncle wasn’t bad – he just needed help. And you were hungry.”
The last sentence made the blood in his veins freeze, and leave his face, making it parchment white.
“NingNiang.”
He had Changning’s attention with that word alone, as Xie Zheng never called her the affectionate nickname her family used before.
Xie Zheng held her gaze with the seriousness of a Marquis giving an order to his soldiers.
“Do not do things like that for me, ever. Even if I’m starving to death, I’d rather have you safe and sound, not talking to strangers. Do you understand?”
“Yes, a’ge,” she said quietly, pouting, dropping her eyes.
He didn’t realize how tense he got once again until she uttered those words, and he felt his lungs letting the air leave that was stuck in his chest, his shoulders relax, his heartbeat slow, and his body shrinking smaller.
It was like a scared animal, which puffed itself up in its fright, slowly started going back to normal with the danger passing.
Xie Zheng studied her, the tension in him easing by degrees. Changning was properly chastised – she was quietly poking the remains of her baozi with a pout, her good mood and appetite gone, and Xie Zheng suddenly felt the absolute worst for ruining this for her just because he became… well, overprotective.
“Good,” he said, gentler – much gentler, finishing the matter; then letting a cautious smile bleed into his tone. “You know, despite everything, you negotiated well. Great job.”
Thankfully, the little praise did what he hoped for.
Changning picked up her head with starry eyes and a smile, and all was right again. She turned her attention back to the food without further concern, breaking off a piece of the shaobing and eating it with visible enjoyment, crumbs already beginning to gather on the bed and at the corner of her mouth.
Xie Zheng noticed – and without thinking, he reached out to brush them away with his thumb, the motion simple and instinctive.
She did not react, or even pause in her nomming, like such contact was absolutely normal and required no acknowledgment. But Xie Zheng’s hand lingered for the briefest moment in confusion before withdrawing.
He said nothing.
But as he finished what she had brought him, the quiet hunger that had lingered all morning easing at last, he couldn’t help but feel that something small yet irreversible had shifted inside him.
And he was powerless to stop it.