"Does it hurt?"

"It’s... it’s okay."

"Just bear with it for a moment. I’ll be quick."

Though Zhao Jing’s words were proper, his gaze was dangerously deep.

The skin beneath his palm was soft and smooth, exquisitely fine, a sensation that was hard to forget.

Perhaps it was the pain that made her flinch. At a sight like this, Zhao Jing should have felt nothing but heartache for her, and he truly did. Yet, beyond the heartache, a dense, tingling itch spread from his heart, making him swallow hard as his body began to stir restlessly.

For both of them, applying the ointment was a form of torture.

Fortunately, Zhao Jing finished quickly. After carefully helping her lie down on the bed, he swiftly left the room.

The room fell silent, with only the pungent scent of medicinal oil lingering in the air. Chen Wanqing carefully turned to face the wall, burying her face in the covers.

Even though Zhao Jing was gone, the skin on her knee still seemed to tingle from the pressure of his powerful kneading. The force of his grip on her calf, so strong and commanding, also seemed to linger.

...

The sun rose early on the second day of the New Year, but it cast a pale, whitish-yellow light that offered no warmth. With a biting wind blowing, it was hardly good weather for visiting relatives.

However, this was the day all married daughters were expected to return to their parents’ homes.

It was the one day married women could openly and properly visit their parents and family.

Before heading to the county town, Chen Wanqing and Zhao Jing first made a trip to the old family residence. Chen Wanqing went in alone, presenting a New Year’s gift to the old master and matron and offering greetings to everyone present.

The old master was, as always, smoking his long-stemmed pipe. Even when his own granddaughter came to kowtow, he merely nodded without a word.

The old matron looked as if she wanted to criticize Chen Wanqing’s gift for being too meager, but Wanqing remembered the advice from Jing and her mother to interact with the people of the old residence as little as possible.

’I had to come this time, but that doesn’t mean I can’t leave quickly.’

She made the excuse that she was in a hurry and turned to leave before the old matron could start nagging.

At the doorway, she ran right into Mrs. Li and Chen Wanyue.

Mrs. Li warmly invited them to stay for a meal. "Your aunt is coming today, so you two should stay and eat with us. The county town is so far away, and it’s freezing. You’ll get sick from the cold on the way there."

Then she pursed her lips and grumbled about Xu Su Ying, "I don’t know what the big rush to move was. She lived in this village for nearly twenty years, you’d think she’d be used to it by now. It wouldn’t have been too late to move after the New Year, but no, she insisted on moving right before, making things so unsettled for the children."

"Third Aunt, my mother had her reasons for moving before the New Year. It didn’t require any effort from you, so you needn’t worry about it. You must be about to start preparing lunch, right? I won’t keep you. I’ll be on my way, no need to see me out."

Mrs. Li pursed her lips. ’Who said anything about seeing you out?’

’You’re just a junior. As an elder, if I were to see you out, could you even handle the honor?’

Mrs. Li’s face, contorted in a frown and a pout, looked utterly ridiculous. The old matron saw her and threw a broom in her direction. "Weren’t you going to prepare lunch? Well, get to it! If Meizi gets here and lunch isn’t on the table, you can pack your things and go straight back to your mother’s house."

The old matron had injured her head and had nearly died at first. Fortunately, the doctor Chen Song had hired was highly skilled and managed to snatch her back from the jaws of death.

The experience had terrified her. For the past few days, she hadn’t even dared to step outside, lying in her room to rest from morning to night.

But now it was the New Year and clansmen would be coming to pay their respects. Her room was so filthy you couldn’t even find a place to stand, so she had finally gotten up and made Mrs. Li help her clean.

But because Mrs. Li tended to favor outsiders, the old matron looked at her with utter contempt. If she wasn’t needed to manage the household right now, the old matron would have long since had her third son divorce her.

The old matron couldn’t help but feel a sense of relief, thankful that it hadn’t been Mrs. Li and her children who had saved that rich merchant.

That whole family was greedy and shortsighted. ’If they’d been the ones who had a life-saving claim on that rich merchant, they probably would have been ’sent’ to the Prefecture the very first time they opened their mouths to ask for a reward. And if that had happened, would they have made it back alive?’

Thinking of this, the old matron couldn’t help but think of Wanyue again.

’How could Wanyue’s information have been so wrong?’

’To be so careless about a life-or-death matter... We were lucky this time, and the whole family is safe. If our luck had been bad, she would have gotten us all killed.’

Because of this, the old matron now held a grudge not only against Mrs. Li, but against Chen Wanyue as well.