Fu Xuan slowly demonstrated the entire set of Soft-Gentle Fist, then asked, “Got it?”
“My eyes say they have. My fists haven’t yet.” Fu Xi Yan gave a response commonly used by people in later generations, but Fu Xuan failed to appreciate the humor hidden within it and simply told him to try the set himself.
Fu Xi Yan had expected to forget moves here and there and perform the whole thing crookedly, but to his surprise, aside from several movements that were not quite precise enough and needed correction, he actually completed the entire sequence smoothly in one go.
Fu Xuan seemed reasonably satisfied. “I taught Zhong Xin and Geng Geng several of these moves. Since you’ve already learned martial arts from them, naturally you’ll pick this up with half the effort and twice the result.”
Fu Xi Yan was becoming a little excited himself.
After going through the entire set of Soft-Gentle Fist, he could already feel its benefits.
As he moved through the forms, the true qi inside him circulated with the same fine, continuous softness suggested by the technique’s name. Yet the moment his fist struck, the force concealed within that true qi could erupt in an instant and injure his opponent before they had time to react.
He did not know that this particular characteristic was unique to him. Fu Xuan’s Soft-Gentle Fist, at least, could only entangle an opponent and overcome hardness with softness, allowing his true qi to seep gradually inward from the surface.
Fu Xuan watched him practice several more times. Once he saw that there were essentially no mistakes left, he departed for work.
That was precisely why he had dragged Fu Xi Yan out of bed in the middle of the night. Northern Zhou granted one rest day every ten days, and Fu Xuan still had several days to go before his next one. When it came to martial training, however, the sooner Fu Xi Yan began, the better.
After Fu Xuan left, Fu Xi Yan continued practicing alone until the entire set flowed without the slightest hesitation and every punch stirred the air.
By then, daylight had flooded the room, yet strangely, none of the servants had come to call him to breakfast.
He picked up a towel and wiped the sweat from his face, preparing to go mooch breakfast from Little Chen Xing. Fu Xi Yan had been sleeping there for the past few days, and Fu Chen Xing’s servants had already grown accustomed to it, setting aside an extra portion every morning.
Just then, Fu Fu walked in with his hands clasped behind his back. “Your uncle said you were practicing here. Come on, show me the set.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…”
He had always wondered why the adults in his family had never dragged him out as a child and demanded that he perform something for their entertainment. Apparently, they had simply been waiting until he developed true qi. Still, as a filial son, Fu Xi Yan obligingly fulfilled his elderly father’s wish.
Fu Fu watched with shining eyes and said emotionally, “If your mother could see this, she would certainly be happy.”
Fu Xi Yan froze.
Madam Fu, whose interests seemed to revolve almost entirely around the household steward, would be delighted to watch him practice martial arts? Was Father sure about that? Then Fu Xi Yan realized he was probably talking about Concubine Bai.
Concubine Bai had died too early and left behind far too little. Fu Xi Yan had asked about her several times when he was young, but the handful of scattered remarks he received from other people had never been enough to form a complete picture of her. Inevitably, he wanted to hear more. “How do you know?”
“Because this martial art came from her,” Fu Fu said.
Fu Xi Yan stared at him.
In his mind, Concubine Bai had always been a delicate beauty from a fallen family who had been forced to flee from disaster. Yet she had possessed a martial-arts manual valuable enough for even Count Yongfeng’s Estate to treasure? There were… quite a few possible stories behind that.
“She didn’t know martial arts herself,” Fu Fu continued. “Although she brought this fist manual into Count Yongfeng’s Estate as part of her dowry and allowed anyone in the Fu family to learn from it, I knew that deep down, she still hoped her own son would be the one to carry it on.”
So he really had been talking about Concubine Bai.
At this point, Fu Xi Yan simply could not hold himself back any longer. “Why did Mother have a martial-arts manual in the first place? Father, didn’t you ever find that strange?”
Fu Fu lifted his head, seemingly lost in memory. “According to your mother, your maternal grandmother was a wandering heroine of the jianghu and an extremely powerful martial artist. Later, she offended a formidable enemy, and everyone in the family was killed. Only your mother managed to escape. She didn’t know martial arts, so she couldn’t take revenge and had no choice but to seek protection from Count Yongfeng’s Estate.”
“Who was the enemy?”
Fu Fu shook his head wistfully. “I asked her that too. She wouldn’t tell me. I assumed she didn’t want to implicate me, nor did she want you growing up surrounded by hatred.”
“Did anyone ever come after her later?”
“No. Until the day your mother died, no one ever came looking for her.” As he spoke, Fu Fu pulled a book from inside his robes. It was the manual for Soft-Gentle Fist. “You should keep this from now on.”
Fu Xi Yan accepted it and flipped through the pages while muttering, “Our family really does have a lot of treasured books. When I was little, Uncle even gave me an entire encyclopedia of the jianghu.” After reading several pages, he noticed that while the fist technique itself emphasized softness, the handwriting was forceful and vigorous. Several sheets of rough straw paper had also been inserted among the pages, suggesting that whoever had written the manual had not been living under particularly comfortable circumstances.
Aside from its name, nothing about the manual struck Fu Xi Yan as something that had belonged to a woman. It was far too rough.
“Was this fist manual passed down through Mother’s family?”
“I knew very little about your mother’s background.” Fu Fu seemed to have opened the floodgates today and could no longer quite stop himself. “Your mother probably changed her name.”
Fu Xi Yan looked up from the manual. “Wasn’t her name Bai Ping?”
“When I first met her, she called herself Bai Ping Zhou.”
A thousand sails passed, yet not one was the one she awaited; the slanting sun lingered over the endless flowing water.
Her heart broke on White Duckweed Islet.
This world had that poem too. It had still been written by Wen Tingyun, and it still carried that same heart-wrenching ache of longing. Fu Xi Yan and Fu Fu thought of it at exactly the same moment.
Elio’s Notes: Bai Ping Zhou (白苹洲) echoes 白蘋洲, “White Duckweed Islet,” the final image in a famous ci poem by Wen Ting Yun about a woman waiting in vain for her absent beloved. The name therefore carries a conspicuously romantic undertone.
There was something Fu Xi Yan found extremely difficult to ask, yet absolutely had to ask. “How many months after the marriage was I born?”
Fu Fu snapped out of his memories and immediately smacked him on the head. “Your mother didn’t conceive you until two months after she entered this household, and then she carried you for a full ten months before giving birth! No matter who she might have been thinking about before that, you are my son. What, did you think you were Nezha?!”
Fu Xi Yan breathed a sigh of relief and rubbed his head with a foolish grin.
Elio’s Notes: In Chinese mythology, Nezha remained in his mother’s womb for an extraordinarily long time before being born, making him a natural punchline for an impossible pregnancy timeline.
He really could not be blamed for letting his imagination run wild. His mother’s old name was simply far too suggestive.
Whatever melancholy nostalgia Fu Fu had felt for the beautiful woman vanished completely. “After practicing this set, has your cultivation bottleneck loosened at all?”
Ever since Fu Xi Yan had advanced to Glory Gold I— No, wait. Ever since he had reached the peak Bone Forging Stage, he had vaguely sensed that he was only one breath away from breaking through. Yet no matter how much he cultivated, that breath remained stubbornly lodged there: visible, tantalizingly close, but impossible to release.
Fu Xi Yan shook his head. “Maybe I just need to wait a little longer.” Wasn’t this how novels always worked? The protagonist would reach a life-or-death crisis, the bottleneck would suddenly loosen, and then he would transform into a Super Saiyan on the spot and beat his opponent’s head into the shape of a dog’s.
Fu Xi Yan had no desire whatsoever to become a Super Saiyan, so he was not in any hurry.
Fu Fu nodded without commenting and changed the subject. “The Lower Yuan Festival is in a few days. The family will open the ancestral hall and hold the ancestral rites. Some of your uncles and elder relatives will be coming. Behave yourself.”
Fu Xi Yan found the special warning rather strange.
Any uncles or senior relatives who could participate in the ancestral rites would naturally be connected to them by blood. Yet the direct and collateral branches of the Fu clan had been on bad terms for years. At the height of the conflict, the old Count Yongfeng had even built his own ancestral hall inside the estate and loudly threatened to split from the clan altogether. The clan elders had eventually persuaded him not to go through with it, but from then on, the collateral branches never came to this ancestral hall for the annual rites, while the direct branch never returned to the clan’s.
What Fu Xi Yan did not know was that the old Count Yongfeng had stayed away because he disdained them. Fu Fu and Fu Xuan stayed away because they were ashamed.
When all was said and done, the old Count Yongfeng had been considerably more in the wrong back then.
Fu Fu still remembered what one of the clan elders had earnestly told his father before leaving: “Direct branch or collateral branch, you are still brothers of one family. Only by sharing the same breath and joining your branches can the family prosper. When brothers feud within their own walls, outsiders are the ones who find an opening.”
Back then, Fu Fu had not yet become head of the household. He had not understood what it meant to stand alone in Haojing, surrounded on every side by hungry wolves.
Recently, he had often wondered whether Emperor Jianhong had chosen the Fu family precisely because the two brothers lacked the support of a wider clan, making them seem particularly isolated and easy to bully among all the noble houses.
Fu Xi Yan watched his father’s departing back. Since Fu Xi Yan’s return, Father had been waking earlier than before and looked older than he remembered, which could only mean one thing— Not getting enough sleep really did give people wrinkles!
Fu Xi Yan went to Fu Chen Xing’s courtyard, took a bath, skipped breakfast entirely, buried his head beneath the blankets, and promptly fell into a deep sleep.
When he woke, his head somehow felt even heavier. A servant brought water for him to wash his face, and once he had cleared his mind somewhat, Fu Xi Yan remembered the day’s schedule. First he had to report to the Ministry of Personnel and collect his official credential, then visit the designated imperial supplier to have his official robes made.
Ordinary official robes were kept ready in standard sizes, but Fu Xi Yan’s figure was unusual enough that there was nothing suitable in stock. He therefore had no choice but to pay an additional rush fee and have an entirely new set made.
By the time he finished running around, it was already noon, and he was ravenously hungry. Fortunately, he was in the East Market and planned to find somewhere nearby for a quick meal. Then he turned his head and spotted something familiar. Well, would you look at that. The bank his uncle had mentioned—the one bearing the Bai Ze emblem—was not far away.
A thought stirred in Fu Xi Yan’s mind. He swaggered inside and discovered that the bank actually had several separate service windows. Choosing one at random, he pulled out the copper coin. The clerk glanced at it and casually pointed toward one corner. “Loan repayments are handled inside.”
A heavy black curtain hung there, bearing a large 还—“repay”—inside a circle.
Fu Xi Yan lifted the curtain. Beyond it were rows of small, partitioned windows, and somewhere inside, someone was ringing a bell.
Only then did Fu Xi Yan suddenly realize that the Luoyang branch had relatively few customers and mediocre business, which was why he had never encountered anyone else whenever he went in or out. Haojing, however, lay beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet and was crowded with nobles and powerful families. Demand for information was much greater here, so naturally there would also be far more holders of copper, silver, and even gold coins.
If someone asked a question involving something as private as the scandal surrounding Consort Dowager Chen’s nephew and the person in the next booth overheard it, that would hardly be ideal. As Fu Xi Yan continued inward, he happened to pass someone coming the other way wearing a mask. The contrast made Fu Xi Yan, whose face was completely exposed, feel distinctly disadvantaged.
Then again, even if he wore a mask, there was no concealing his build.
Another realization followed. Any place where information constantly flowed in and out was bound to conceal countless secrets unknown to outsiders. Perhaps he really ought to hand the copper coin over to his father and uncle and let them decide how to use it. He probably should not come here again.
While thinking all this, he had already reached the booth where the bell was being rung.
He pushed open the partition door. Inside stood a small counter, and beyond the bars he could just make out the graceful silhouette of a woman.
“What would Young Master like to ask?”
Her voice was soft and melodious, incomparably more pleasant than the pawnshop keeper’s in Luoyang.
Fu Xi Yan lost focus for a split second, then immediately recovered. A faint vigilance rose inside him, though his tone remained deliberately careless. “This young lord recently heard about several martial-arts manuals. How many of them can you track down?”
“Please name them.”
“The Great Shift of Heaven and Earth, Nine Yin Manual, Little Li’s Flying Dagger, Secret of Immortality, Soft-Soft Fist, and Restore-My-Beauty Fist.” He had originally intended to slip Soft-Gentle Fist into the list, but after that instant of mental blankness, he changed his mind.
He did not believe the lapse had been caused by sleep deprivation. The sensation during that single second had felt much more like the change that occurred when Xuan Ou Zi used his oppressive aura on him and Fu Xi Yan’s body automatically adjusted itself in response.
Which meant the woman had probably just done something to him.
Fu Xi Yan remembered Lou Wu Zai saying that he had once spent a period in a daze so severe that he felt compelled to self-detonate. Fu Xi Yan wondered whether the two experiences were related.
The woman was silent for a moment. “Do those books truly exist?”
“Of course they do. Little Li’s Flying Dagger never misses and ranks third beneath Heaven. The Great Shift of Heaven and Earth is the Ming Cult’s supreme treasure… You’ve never heard of them?” His voice dripped with suspicion.
This time, the silence lasted considerably longer. “I know the whereabouts of Soft-Gentle Fist. Would you like to hear them?”
Fu Xi Yan’s heart leaped, but he immediately suppressed his excitement and complained, “Soft-Soft Fist and Restore-My-Beauty Fist are both for my fiancée. The first few are the ones I actually want to learn.”
“We don’t have those.” The woman was obviously getting irritated now, and her answer was decisive.
Fu Xi Yan looked astonished. “You’re angry. Why are you angry? Are you angry at yourself because you don’t have any of the things I asked for, or are you angry because a handsome and distinguished man like me already has a fiancée?”
The woman clearly had no desire to waste words on him. “The whereabouts of Soft-Gentle Fist. Five hundred taels.”
“This lousy fist technique’s whereabouts are worth five hundred taels? Are you trying to cheat me?”
“Soft-Gentle Fist was once the signature art of Wanderer Shanbei and was renowned throughout the martial world. It is not some technique meant only for women.”
“Who’s Wanderer Shanbei? He doesn’t sound very impressive.”
“Thirty years ago, Wanderer Shanbei relied on this fist technique to defeat every challenger north and south of the Yellow River.”
Fu Xi Yan was beginning to admire her dedication to customer service. “But I asked about all those manuals and you don’t have a single one. The only thing you do have doesn’t even match the name I gave you. Shouldn’t I at least get a discount?”
“…Fine. Two hundred and fifty taels.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…” I’m beginning to suspect everyone who uses Bai Ze as an emblem enjoys calling me a two-hundred-and-fifty.
He pulled out a banknote and pushed it through the bars.
The woman said, “Before Wanderer Shanbei died, he met two people: Mo Xiao Ran and Jin Yuan Xiu. The manual should be in the possession of one of them.”
Fu Xi Yan’s heart tightened. Why was it the Puppet Path again?
“You’re charging me two hundred and fifty taels for a clue this terrible? Are you joking? You just told me he was undefeated north and south of the Yellow River, and now suddenly he’s dead.”
The woman remained unmoved. “The cause of his death costs extra.”
Fu Xi Yan stood up unhappily. “No need to ask. Mo Xiao Ran obviously killed him. If the manual is with Mo Xiao Ran, then even if I learn the technique, I’ll still end up getting beaten to death by him. Why would I bother looking for it?”
“It may also be with Jin Yuan Xiu.”
Fu Xi Yan followed up naturally. “Oh? Then where is Jin Yuan Xiu?”
The woman fell silent again.
Fu Xi Yan continued grumbling in dissatisfaction.
From the other side came what sounded like a chair being pushed back as someone rose to leave.
Fu Xi Yan emerged from the bank still muttering curses under his breath. He bought a piece of flatbread from a roadside stall and began eating it in enormous bites.
Unlike the pawnshop in Luoyang, this bank looked perfectly ordinary from the outside, yet while walking through it he had constantly felt a cold, shadowy atmosphere circling around him. Even after both feet crossed the threshold and he stepped back beneath the sunlight, the eeriness he carried out with him lingered for quite some time before finally dispersing.
Fu Xi Yan was beginning to think that Lou Wu Zai’s theory might indeed contain some truth. His analysis at Zizui Tower had not simply been something Lou Wu Zai invented because he was fighting alone and wanted to drag Fu Xi Yan into becoming an ally.
Both of them understood that appearance and the Hundred Filial Piety Illustrations were merely superficial similarities. There had to be some deeper connection linking all six of them.
For example— their entanglement with the Puppet Path.
Fu Xi Yan’s own connection to the Puppet Path seemed to be gradually surfacing alongside Soft-Gentle Fist. His father’s explanation that the fist manual was simply an heirloom passed down through his mother’s family was clearly no longer convincing. Then what secrets were hidden in Lou Wu Zai, Liu Zhi Yuan, Count Jianning’s eldest and second grandsons, and the others?
Fu Xi Yan was unbearably curious.
⸻
When he returned to Count Yongfeng’s Estate, the servants were running about in a panic. Behind them, a white tiger was enthusiastically chasing them back and forth, apparently finding the entire game extremely entertaining.
The servant assigned to Fu Xi Yan spotted him and immediately rushed over to block his path. “Young Master, hurry! Get away!”
Fu Xi Yan was deeply touched. So adversity really did reveal true feelings! Who would have imagined that the servant who immediately wanted to go home and rest whenever Fu Xi Yan left the estate would actually shield him with his own body at a critical moment?
But things were different now. With his current martial arts, Fu Xi Yan could tell at a glance that the white tiger had no intention of hurting anyone. “Everyone, don’t worry. Actually, it—holy shit!”
A gigantic tiger head came flying straight toward him. Fu Xi Yan spun around and ran.
His furious, panicked roar carried through the wind. “WHO LET IT IN?!”
“I did.”
Pei Yuan Jin reclined on a soft couch, gently stroking the tabby kitten’s back as he calmly answered Fu Xi Yan’s accusation. His slightly raised brows even seemed to convey a trace of dissatisfaction at Fu Xi Yan making such a fuss over nothing.
Fu Xi Yan protested, “People at least put dogs on leashes when they take them out!”
“The white tiger isn’t a dog.” For one brief instant, Fu Xi Yan was actually persuaded. It was true that ordinary shops probably did not sell tiger leashes— but that was no excuse for letting a wild animal roam freely!
Pei Yuan Jin looked at him strangely. “Why are you so afraid of the white tiger?”
“Don’t you think it’s huge?”
Pei Yuan Jin gave a derisive snort. “You aren’t small either.”
If he was going to resort to personal attacks, then there was no point continuing this conversation!
Fu Xi Yan asked, “Where’s Aunt Yu?”
“Not here.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…” Thank you so much for informing me of a fact I could verify with my own eyes and thereby reassuring me that I haven’t gone blind.
Pei Yuan Jin might have talked tough in front of Fu Xi Yan, but when Yu Su Huan finally finished compiling the reports from the various regions and stepped out of the study, she found the white tiger standing pitifully on the right half of the courtyard.
A white line had been drawn on the ground in front of it. Several times, the tiger cautiously stretched a paw across the line. Each time, a burst of force shot from inside the room and knocked the eager paw back.
“Awoo!” The white tiger growled in displeasure.
Yu Su Huan stroked its enormous head. “What did you do wrong this time?”
The tiger wanted to pounce toward her, but apparently feared the person inside the room. It could only remain where it was, anxiously awooing its grievances at her.
Yu Su Huan entered and saw Pei Yuan Jin using chopsticks to feed dried fish to the tabby kitten. She could not help thinking that men’s tendency to favor the new and tire of the old apparently applied to absolutely everything.
Pei Yuan Jin explained, “The owner of this place doesn’t allow it to run around.”
Yu Su Huan said, “The owner of this place? When did you start calling him that?” Hadn’t he previously called Fu Xi Yan “fatty” every other sentence? It was fortunate Pei Yuan Jin’s martial arts were so high and Fu Xi Yan’s temper was so good, or the two of them would have fallen out long ago.
Pei Yuan Jin answered a different question instead. “What about the residence prepared by the Rain Division? We’ll move there.”
The white tiger had encountered some difficulty when entering Haojing. Had the Lightning Division members accompanying it not displayed the Immortal Treasury Palace token and provided Count Yongfeng’s Estate as a clear destination, it might not even have been allowed through the city gates.
Pei Yuan Jin was accustomed to doing whatever he pleased and was beginning to grow impatient with Haojing’s endless restrictions.
Yu Su Huan sighed helplessly. “Then what about Fu Xi Yan?”
“Bring him.”
Yu Su Huan: “…”
She hesitated. “What if he doesn’t want to go?” She could see that the Fu family was extremely close. Fu Xi Yan had no reason to leave home.
Pei Yuan Jin gave her a meaningful look, as though asking how that could possibly be considered an option.
Yu Su Huan changed the subject. “Speaking of which, the Rain Division received an anonymous report yesterday accusing the Wind Division of secretly operating a pawnshop in Haojing. The Rain Division forwarded the report to the Lightning Division, but by the time the Lightning Division followed the address, the pawnshop had already closed for business the day before we entered the city.”
When the Wind, Rain, Thunder, and Lightning Divisions were first established, strict rules had required each to perform its own duties without crossing into another division’s area of responsibility. If the accusation was true, the Haojing Wind Division had committed a serious violation.
Pei Yuan Jin said, “That coincidental?”
“The Lightning Division investigated. The pawnshop had already been operating for two years, and business was mediocre.”
“Who oversees the Haojing Wind Division?”
“Tan Bu Ju. Elder Tan’s only son.”
Pei Yuan Jin frowned slightly.
⸻
Fu Xi Yan’s rush-order official robes were finally completed before his first day in office. He tried them on and immediately discovered that they produced a completely different effect from his Brocade Guard uniform. In the Brocade Guard uniform, his size had been painfully obvious. In the robes of the Prison Warden, however, he looked surprisingly harmonious.
Northern Zhou’s economy was thriving, and the living standards of government officials had steadily improved. The clearest evidence was their increasingly prosperous waistlines. Perfectly reasonable.
The Prison Warden was a subordinate official within the Censorate and belonged to the civil bureaucracy. The position was somewhat unusual, however: the Prison Warden was responsible for the security of the prison and commanded a group of prison guards, so military officers had also held the post in the past. Fu Xi Yan’s transfer from the Brocade Guard was therefore not especially strange.
On his first day reporting to his new office, he naturally went to greet his superiors first. He did not get to meet the Left or Right Censor-in-Chief, nor either of the two Deputy Censors-in-Chief. The Right Assistant Censor-in-Chief, however, received him courteously and even offered a few encouraging words. For someone of Fu Xi Yan’s mere senior eighth-rank status, that degree of consideration was obviously being given for the sake of the powers standing behind him.
Afterward, the prison guards came to meet him.
In addition to the ordinary prison guards, Fu Xi Yan had two unranked prison officers under his command who functioned as minor supervisors among the guards.
Fu Xi Yan copied the Right Assistant Censor-in-Chief’s earlier encouragement almost word for word and delivered it to his own men. The prison guards were deeply moved. Their immediate superior might have come from both the Yulin Guard and the Brocade Guard, but judging by the way he spoke, he was clearly a cultured man!
Fu Xi Yan felt that since everyone had already brought up culture, they naturally could not neglect drinking-table culture. He arranged for all of them to have dinner at Zizui Tower after work sometime within the next two days and told them to organize their duty rotations accordingly.
After two days of adjustment, Fu Xi Yan had successfully integrated into his little corner of the Censorate.
Then the Beginning of Winter arrived.
By Northern Zhou custom, students visited their teachers on this day and helped with work around the household. Fu Li An and Fu Dong Wen each had their own teachers, while Fu Xi Yan and Fu Chen Xing happened to share the same one.
Fu Chen Xing tilted his head back to look at his tall, broad fourth brother and said seriously, “Teacher mentioned Fourth Brother just a few days ago. Come with me.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…” Who would have imagined that even after transmigrating, he would still have to endure a cordial summons from his elementary-school teacher?
“Fourth Brother has work,” he said.
Fu Li An, who was preparing the gifts nearby, immediately contradicted him. “Isn’t today a rest day?”
With no excuse left, Fu Xi Yan could only obediently carry the gifts his elder brother had prepared and follow his younger brother to visit their teacher.
The instant the teacher opened the door and saw him, Fu Xi Yan would swear upon Heaven that he clearly saw the shock of Why is this person here? in the man’s eyes.
Inside his head, Fu Xi Yan had already begun singing: I shouldn’t be here. I should be under the car…
Still, a teacher was a teacher. He quickly composed himself and assigned work according to each student’s individual abilities.
Fu Xi Yan was sent into the courtyard to pull weeds.
Fu Chen Xing and his young classmates sat beneath the veranda on gooseneck-backed benches, eating pastries provided by their teacher’s wife while supervising his labor.
Fu Xi Yan: “…”
Was this the tragedy of adulthood?
No! He was only sixteen! He was obviously still a minor too!
After leaving their teacher’s house, Fu Xi Yan gently pinched his younger brother’s topknot and asked, “How exactly did Teacher mention me the other day?”
Fu Chen Xing suspected nothing and answered with perfect honesty. “Teacher said that he used to have a student who never applied himself, and now that student has gone off to watch over a jail.”
Fu Xi Yan: “…”
You really are my biological little brother. You actually managed to figure out he meant me.