Chapter Text
Fan Chang Ning did not think she was meddling. She thought she was being helpful. These were very different things, and unfortunately, no one else seemed to understand that.
The problem, as she saw it, was that her Jiefu, Yan Zheng liked her Jiejie, Changyu very much, and Changyu liked Yan Zheng very much, and yet both of them behaved like two polite strangers discussing the weather.
It was extremely painful to watch.
Anyway, the suggestion for this handsome gentleman to become her sister’s live-in husband had originally been her idea (although she got a feeling Mr and Mrs Zhao, even Constable Wang, had the same idea but never dared to say it). Even Mrs Zhao, who possessed many years of matchmaking experience and the confidence of someone who had successfully forced at least six marriages into existence, had said Yan Zheng was an excellent candidate.
But now there were doubts.
Even after weeks of marriage, her sister and her brother-in-law still behaved like housemates who politely shared a courtyard and occasionally discussed salt prices.
This was not the outcome she had envisioned.
“Do you think Jiefu didn’t like my Jiejie?” Chang Ning asked one day while helping Mrs Zhao with the washing. Mr Zhao sat at the table, reading something while smoking his cigarette.
Mrs Zhao glanced at her. “What makes you think of that?”
Chang Ning fell into deep thought.
Her sister was pretty. She was kind and generous to a fault. Not only that, Changyu’s braised pork and intestine noodles were good enough to make grown men cry and reconsider their life choices. And she had even promised that if Yan Zheng stayed, she would butcher more hogs to feed the household. Even the strongest steel would melt in that kind of heat—let alone the stubborn heart of an injured man.
“I don’t know,” Chang Ning finally said. “It’s just… they didn’t act like Mum and Dad once were.”
“Mmm,” Mrs Zhao said. “Well, your sister did sell your mother’s hairpin to raise money for Yan Zheng’s medicine.”
Chang Ning remembered eavesdropping on her sister long before the marriage came into view, when Yan Zheng asked her what if he ended up permanently crippled, would Changyu still keep him? Her jiejie answered him without much thinking.
“That’s because Yan Zheng is handsome,” Chang Ning pretty much quoted her sister.
On a more serious note, Changyu had said Yan Zheng was like a piece of valuable jade she found in the snow—beautiful, smooth, and valuable. But he wasn’t hers. Even if she carved her name on it, he was not hers. Chang Ning didn’t really understand what that meant. She suspected it might have something to do with the possibility that Yan Zheng didn’t like pig intestine noodles, which would be a very serious character flaw.
Mrs Zhao bit her lip. “It can start like that. But people can feel differently after time goes by. Remember, you told me she cried when she thought your Jiefu left without saying goodbye?”
Chang Ning remembered that very clearly. Master Gongsun had left the house in a hurry, and Changyu misunderstood and thought Yan Zheng had left without a word. She cried so hard she nearly salted the entire kitchen.
“What if Yan Zheng never liked my sister?” Chang Ning asked.
Mrs Zhao blinked. “Why not? She is as pretty as a peach and earns a decent living.”
“Jiejie thinks men don’t like to have a butcher as a wife,” Chang Ning said. She recalled that Changyu had told her many times to stop telling everyone she was a butcher. Even though she was.
“If so, he wouldn’t say yes to marrying your sister!” Mr Zhao piped in.
Chang Ning pressed her lips together. “You said if he said no, you would throw him out of the house,” she told Mrs Zhao. The woman looked deeply offended by this accusation, but unfortunately could not deny it.
“I’m worried eventually he will turn into another Son Yang,” Chang Ning said gloomily.
“Yan Zheng, although injured, defended your sister from Song Yan’s mother-in-law and the people at the magistrate. He even fought the thugs who tried to take your house deed. Not only that, he bought back your mother’s hairpin, which cost him a lot of money.” Mr Zhao pointed out.
“Also, he saved you from being kidnapped! Because he knew you are all that matters to your sister,” Mrs Zhao added. “He is not another Son Yang.”
Chang Ning brightened immediately. “Is that a sign that he likes her?”
Mrs Zhao grinned. “I’ve seen more men than your sister has seen pigs. Sometimes love… can take time.”
She dried her hands on a towel and passed the cloth to Chang Ning.
“But men sometimes need a bit of help.”
Mr Zhao scoffed at that, which was immediately met by Mrs Zhao’s glare — the kind of glare that had ended arguments, friendships, and once, possibly, a chicken.
It was a glare he totally deserved.
“A bit of help?” Chang Ning asked. “He needs a lot of help!”
“True,” Mr Zhao agreed immediately. “They have not consummated their marriage yet, and it’s been a week. Usually, the man is the one who should—”
His sentence ended abruptly because Mrs Zhao drove her elbow into his ribs with the precision of a trained assassin.
He wheezed.
“Don’t discuss things like that in front of a little girl,” she hissed at him, before immediately turning back to Chang Ning with a bright smile that did not match the violence that had just occurred. “Please ignore that. Here, have some candy. We have a lot.”
She handed her a bag of tangerine peel sweets, her and Changyu’s favourite.
Chang Ning took the bag, thanked Mrs Zhao, but was still thinking very hard.
“Consummate?” she repeated slowly. “Or was it consume? It must mean something similar.”
She looked down at the candy bag in her hand.
Ah.
Perhaps consuming these sweets was the solution to marriage problems.
This made sense to her.
Mrs Zhao smiled. “You can’t always say things directly. Especially not things like love or romance. Men are often too embarrassed.”
Chang Ning leaned forward immediately. “Why not? If you want something, you should just ask for it.”
Mrs Zhao shook her head. “That’s not how these things work. You have to say it… without saying it.”
“I don’t understand.”
Mrs Zhao thought for a moment, then pointed to the Chen family’s little boy who was walking past with a steaming bao bun.
“Alright,” she said. “Imagine you are very hungry, and that boy has a bao bun. You can’t just say, ‘Give me your bao bun.’ That’s rude.”
“I would just take it,” Chang Ning said honestly.
“I know you would,” Mrs Zhao replied dryly. “But a polite girl would say something like:
‘I haven’t eaten all day… it would be very nice if someone kind shared his bao bun with me.’”
Fan Chang Ning’s eyes widened slowly.
“Ohhhhh,” she said.
Mrs Zhao nodded. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Chang Ning said very seriously. “If you want something, you don’t ask for it. You just talk sadly until someone gives it to you.”
Mrs Zhao paused. “…That is not exactly the lesson, but close enough.”
Chang Ning immediately jumped up. “I have to go help Jiefu!”
Mrs Zhao suddenly felt that she had made a mistake.
Xie Zheng was reading documents when Fan Chang Ning burst into the room like a small, violent storm.
“Jiefu! I figured out romance,” she announced.
He blinked and immediately rolled up whatever he was reading like a guilty official hiding corruption evidence. “You figured what out?”
“You’re doing it wrong,” she said, climbing into the chair across from him and kneeling on it like a general planning a war. “You can’t just stand there and look at my sister like a sad ghost.”
“I am not a sad ghost.”
She ignored that. “Do you like my sister?” she asked bluntly.
Xie Zheng felt like someone had just shoved an entire pig leg down his throat.
“I… I…” he scrambled for an answer, suddenly finding the table extremely interesting.
His silence was answered by Chang Ning’s slow, smug grin—the kind only small children and very dangerous politicians possess.
“I have a plan,” she announced.
Xie Zheng sighed internally and decided the safest thing to do was to pretend to work. He picked up the ink stick and began grinding ink very seriously, as if the future of the empire depended on it.
“And for this plan to work,” she continued, “you need to trick my sister.”
He finally looked up. “I am not tricking your sister.”
She leaned forward and whispered loudly, as if revealing state secrets, “If you want a kiss, you can’t say, ‘Please kiss me.’ That’s stupid.”
Xie Zheng nearly knocked over the ink pot. “Wait, what—? And why would I want to k—?”
“You have to do it like the bao bun,” Chang Ning cut in impatiently.
“Like bao bun?”
“Yes!” she said proudly. “The bao bun method. Mr and Mrs Zhao taught me.”
Xie Zheng felt immediate distrust. The Zhao couple were not bad people. But Mr Zhao had once forced him to drink donkey medicine and proudly declared him his first human clinical experiment. And Mrs Zhao believed pig intestines tasted better if they were only washed once. Based on this track record, Xie Zheng was certain any romantic manoeuvre developed by this household would be extremely dangerous.
Chang Ning explained very seriously, using large hand gestures like a storyteller.
“If I want someone’s bao bun, I don’t say, ‘Give me your bao bun.’ I say, ‘I haven’t eaten all day… it would be very nice if someone kind shared his bao bun with me.’ Then he gives me the bao bun.”
Xie Zheng stared at her, his face caught between embarrassment and exhaustion. He decided pretending to be stupid might be the safest strategy.
“And your point is?” he asked.
“My point is,” she said, pointing at him, “you have to make her want to kiss you.”
Xie Zheng slowly closed his eyes. How he, Marquis of Wu’an, war veteran, survivor of court politics, battlefield strategist, had ended up discussing kissing strategies with his wife’s five-year-old sister was a question the heavens refused to answer.
“This is the worst plan I have ever heard,” he said.
“It is a very good plan,” Chang Ning insisted. “So if you want a kiss, you don’t ask for a kiss. You say something like… something like…” She thought very hard, her face scrunched up. “…‘This candy is very sweet. Do you want some now?'”
“That makes no sense,” he said automatically. Unfortunately, it made perfect sense. His pride, however, as Marquis of Wu’an, would never allow him to admit that a toddler was giving him romantic strategy advice.
“Yes, it does,” she continued confidently. “Then you share the candy. Then, somehow, there is a kiss. I haven’t figured out the middle yet, but it will work.”
“You haven’t figured out the middle,” he repeated.
“The middle is your problem,” she said generously. “I already gave you the bao bun strategy.”
Xie Zheng rubbed his forehead. How could a five-year-old be this terrifying?
“So remember,” she said, pointing at him like an angry little general. “Candy. Sharing. Sad voice. Then kiss. Very easy.”
With that, she tossed a few pieces of candy onto the table like a commander distributing military supplies.
Xie Zheng stared at the candy. Even when it was wrapped, he could smell their scent. Tangerine peel, sour with a hint of sweetness.
Fan Chang Ning slid off the chair and walked toward the door, extremely pleased with herself. Then she turned back and added, very seriously:
“If this works, you have to buy me ten bao buns.”
Xie Zheng sighed. He had faced assassins, political traps, battlefield ambushes, and corrupt officials. None of them had prepared him for this.
“If this works,” he said, “I will buy you the entire shop.”
Xie Zheng was not a man who delayed in fulfilling promises.
On the battlefield, delay meant death. In court, delay meant political suicide. In marriage—
Apparently, delay meant being lectured by a five-year-old about relationship strategies.
So when Lunar new year was around the corner and that he had a reasonable sum of money—thanks to Gongsun, whose methods remained suspicious but profitable—he went to the shop to purchase… a few things.
By “a few,” he meant enough to suggest either generosity or a mild loss of sanity.
After made the tall order, he stood at the counter, expression calm, dignity intact.
“If someone asks,” he said, placing the money down, “please tell them Fan Er Niu had paid for these upfront as provision for the Lunar New Year.”
The shopkeeper paused. He had seen many things in his years of business: Dramatic lovers. Secret gifts. Questionable purchases involving ropes and… tools. But this? This was new.
“…Of course,” the shopkeeper said carefully, deciding that customers who paid this well were allowed to have mysteries.
Then Xie Zheng paused, as if remembering something deeply important.
“Oh yes,” he added. “Do you have something for chapped hands?”
The shopkeeper’s eyes lit up. Ah. A practical man. A thoughtful man. A man who could be sold more things.
“Of course we do,” he said smoothly, already reaching for the good stock.
A good salesman never disappoints a customer—especially one clearly going through… something.
When the goods arrived at the Fan household, they arrived in bulk.
Not a box.
Not a basket.
Bulk.
Mr Zhao stared.
Mrs Zhao stared.
Only Fan Chang Ning did not stare.
She grinned.
Not just any grin—the kind of grin that suggested she had just won a very serious bet against heaven, fate, and possibly the Emperor himself.
“What… is all this?” Mrs Zhao asked slowly.
The delivery boy cleared his throat and checked the list again. “These were paid for in advance by…” He squinted at the paper, then looked back and forth at everyone as if hoping the answer might be written on someone’s forehead. “Fan… err…”
“Fan Er Niu,” came Chang Ning’s piping voice.
The delivery boy visibly relaxed, like a man who had just survived a difficult exam. He gave Chang Ning a grateful look, as if she had saved his career.
Mrs Zhao and Mr Zhao looked at each other. Both seemed shocked, terrified, and slightly impressed all at once.
“Could it be,” Mr Zhao whispered, “that Fan Er Niu really had predicted his own death and made provisions ahead of time?” It sounded creepy, disturbing and impossible. And it begged the question of an insane amount of clam oil that could smooth out the entire Lin'an.
“Or,” Mrs Zhao whispered back, “someone rich and powerful has fallen madly in love with one of the Fan sisters.”
They both looked at the mountain of goods again.
“Are we opening a shop?” Mr Zhao whispered.
“Be quiet,” Mrs Zhao whispered back. “I’m trying to understand how this is somehow our fault.”
“Or maybe not,” Mr Zhao said slowly, looking at Chang Ning, who stood there with her hands behind her back, looking extremely satisfied — like a tiny noble lady receiving tribute from foreign kingdoms.
Mrs Zhao crouched down to her eye level. “Chang Ning, do you know these goods are coming?”
“Psst,” Chang Ning said, grinning and leaning forward conspiratorially. “I won a bet and got all these. But don’t tell Jiejie, or she’ll send everything back.”
Mrs Zhao blinked. “What bet?”
Chang Ning puffed up proudly. “That my Tangerine Peel kissing method worked!”
Mr Zhao frowned. “Tangerine Peel… kissing… method?”
Mrs Zhao rubbed her temple. So this little girl had exchanged her romantic advice for a pile of goods. Clever indeed.
“Be careful, this child negotiates like a war general,” she muttered.
Mr Zhao nodded slowly. “I’m honestly a little scared.”
Just as they were discussing, Changyu and Yan Zheng entered the scene.
Her expression slowly shifted from surprise… to concern… to pure financial horror. This was the face of a woman mentally calculating how many pigs she would have to slaughter to recover this amount of money. Yan Zheng stood beside her, hands behind his back, calm as a cucumber.
Something in Mrs Zhao's head clicked. Mr Zhao, catching on half a second later, turned to look at Yan Zheng and then the goods—and then broke into a wide, deeply inappropriate grin.
Mrs Zhao immediately followed his gaze… and spotted it. At the bottom of one of the boxes: a large sack of tangerine peel candy.
She turned her head very slowly to look at Chang Ning. The toddler was eloquently making excuses to her sister not to return the shipment. Especially not the enormous amount of tangerine peel candy she requested (and Yan Zheng was a little too happy to comply. Those sweets were proven to be handy).
Just as Changyu was fussing over the goods and where to put them, they heard Chang Ning say quietly to Yan Zheng. "I'll teach your children how to slaughter pigs, and you can build my sister a larger pig pen, what do you say?" Then she pulled out a small sack of tangerine peel candy and handed it to him like a merchant making a discreet business transaction.
Yan Zheng visibly blushed but accepted the down payment for his future with not much resistance.
Mr Zhao whispered to his wife, “Did we just witness a business deal for future grandchildren?”
Mrs Zhao sighed. “Yes. Yes, we did.”
After a long pause, Mr Zhao leaned toward his wife and whispered very seriously, “You know what? That child is going to run the empire one day.”
Mrs Zhao did not disagree.