Chapter 53

Daili faintly remembered having a dream, but upon waking, everything was veiled in a hazy mist, preventing her from seeing clearly the wondrous dream that had brought her such joy the night before.

Lying dazedly on the bed, Daili stared at the canopy overhead, trying to recall fragments of the dream.

Just then, the low murmur of conversation drifted in from outside.

"I went in to check a moment ago; the Madam hasn't woken yet. It's almost si-shi (9-11 AM). In a moment, I'll go to Mr. Ding's place and invite him over."

"Should we inform the Marquis?"

"Not yet. Let's wait until after Mr. Ding has examined her. By the way, the young master truly is the Madam's son. Between you and me, I thought last night that if it weren't for the scars on his face, the young master would surely be exceptionally handsome."

Daili jolted with a start, all drowsiness instantly vanishing. She immediately sat up. With her movement, something slid from the bedside onto the footstool below.

Daili turned her head and saw it was a black outer robe.

Unlike the kind Qin Shaozong wore with silver-trimmed cuffs, this robe was very ordinary, made of the most common linen. Such garments usually never appeared in her room.

It wasn't a dream. Zhouzhou had returned!

Daili hurriedly got out of bed, but her first step made her gasp sharply in pain. Losing her balance, she fell to the floor with a thud.

The conversation outside ceased, and Nianxia and Bipo hurried in at the sound.

"Madam!" The two quickly helped Daili up.

"Please be careful. Your left foot is badly injured; you must take care with it these next few days."

Gripping their arms, Daili asked with a touch of nervous intensity, "Has my son returned?"

"Of course. The young master is outside; he's been out there since early morning," Nianxia nodded.

Daili suddenly relaxed. "I'd like to wash up. Thank you for your trouble."

"Madam, you're always so polite with us servants," Bipo said with a light laugh.

Once she was properly dressed and presentable, the door opened.

Bright, warm sunlight streamed into the room, seeming to dispel all shadows.

Bathed in the sunlight, Daili saw a tall, slender figure standing as straight as a pine tree outside the door. She was about to call him in when her gaze fell upon him, and she couldn't help but pause in surprise.

The young man's face was as fair as jade, radiant and glowing. His features were particularly striking, with eyes that were the quintessential peach-blossom shape—their contours like peach petals blooming in spring, the upper lids layered, arching up slightly at the outer corners like fine brushwork in a painting, bearing the same exquisite beauty as his birth mother.

The horrifying "fleshy worms" were gone from his cheeks. His skin was smooth, flawless, and pale, glowing softly in the sunlight.

Qin Yanzhou had changed into a moon-white brocade robe with distinctive ink-black piping at the cuffs. Not yet of age to wear a guan cap, his jet-black hair was simply tied back at the nape of his neck with a ribbon.

Now, looking at him, he was completely different from the man of last night.

If the Qin Yanzhou of last night had been an ugly, plain-clad assassin—a cold blade casually thrust into the mud—then the present him was like jade immersed in a hot spring, the very image of a handsome, wealthy young master from a privileged family, seemingly untouched by the hardships of the world.

He seemed somewhat unused to such attire, and under Daili's unwavering gaze, he grew a little shy, murmuring softly, "Good morning, Mother."

The cruel river of time began to flow backward. Daili felt as if she had returned to the beginning, before everything had happened.

Her nine-year-old child, woken by her each day, would rub his eyes and, as if about to fall back asleep at any moment, say to her, "Good morning, Mother."

Years had passed. A different place, a different time, but the same—yet not entirely the same—person stood before her once more.

"Good morning, Zhouzhou." A mistiness rose in Daili's eyes as she remembered the two scars on his neck.

If the ones visible were so dreadful, what of the unseen ones? How many more were there that she couldn't see? Her child had suffered untold hardships in places she could not see...

Daili lowered her head, breathing rapidly twice, yet still feeling an unbearable tightness, as if an invisible rope were tightening around her own neck.

Seeing her lower her head to wipe her eyes, Qin Yanzhou quickly took two steps forward. He wanted to say something but momentarily didn't know where to begin, leaving him somewhat flustered and at a loss.

Sensing his distress, Daili struggled to push aside the suffocating grief and looked up, beckoning him. "Come, sit down. Have you had breakfast yet?"

Qin Yanzhou sat down opposite her, sweeping his robe aside. "Not yet."

"Then have it here with me." Looking at his now-unblemished face, the sorrow in Daili's heart lightened somewhat. Yet, this relief was mingled with a thread of unease she couldn't quite name.

"Zhouzhou, I heard you were adopted by Fan of Yanzhou many years ago. Exactly how many years ago was that?" Daili felt inexplicably uneasy.

She had learned about Fan of Yanzhou adopting her son last night while listening to Qiao Wangfei's report. The exact words were: "This person claims he was adopted by Fan of Yanzhou many years ago and renamed Quanjie."

The name "Quanjie" was a thorn in Daili's heart. Whoever gave her son that name was dismissive and full of malice, not regarding him as human at all.

Qin Yanzhou was silent for a moment. "Seven years ago."

Daili's breath hitched slightly.

Seven years. It was actually seven years.

In that moment, Daili suddenly understood the source of that earlier thread of unease.

The timelines didn't match.

Nianxia and Bipo had gone to the kitchen to fetch breakfast, leaving only Daili and her son in the room.

Today there was no rain or gloom; the sky was clear and the air fresh. The morning summer sun was warm—a rare, fine day. Yet Daili felt inexplicably cold in her hands and feet, and the ankle she had injured last night began to throb with a needle-like pain.

"Zhouzhou, tell Mother the truth. Before you went to the Fan residence, where else were you?" Daili's tone was urgent.

It wasn't ten years ago.

It was seven years. Her son had only gone to Fan of Yanzhou seven years ago. This meant that before being adopted by the Fan family, he had spent three years somewhere else.

And nine years ago, this region had experienced a great famine. Its reach was vast, affecting not only the central plains and the north but also causing significant disruption in the south.

Ten years ago, Old Man Sun had seen her son standing by the riverbank in Qiantang, meaning Zhouzhou was in Qiantang at that time. Travel in ancient times was extremely difficult; a commoner might take nearly half a month to cover a hundred li.

Long journeys were nearly impossible, let alone for Zhouzhou, who at the time had no travel permits and no family by his side—he was essentially a person without status.

She suspected that when the famine struck, Zhouzhou likely hadn't managed to escape the disaster zone. In that great calamity where selling children and even exchanging children to eat were commonplace, who had taken him in?

"By a twist of fate, I was adopted by a kind, wealthy family. They lived deep in the mountains, isolated from the world, with their own fertile land providing grain. They had substantial stored provisions, so taking in one more mouth was easily manageable," Qin Yanzhou said, lowering his gaze to avoid Daili's eyes.

Daili's expression softened slightly. "The disguise on your face... was that also taught to you by that wealthy family?"

Qin Yanzhou nodded. "That wealthy family had two young masters around my age who were particularly fond of studying all sorts of esoteric arts and secret techniques. They said my face was too striking and would be inconvenient when traveling, so they taught me a method of disguise. After the famine passed, I posed as a servant and traveled around various regions with a branch of that wealthy family. Unfortunately, one day we encountered bandits on the road. I fell into a river and was swept away, becoming separated from them. Later, I was unexpectedly rescued by Fan of Yanzhou, who took me in as his adopted son."

After saying this, Qin Yanzhou added, "I do have some scars on my body, but those were all from before that family took me in. Life wasn't so difficult after I met them."

Daili felt something was a bit off and was about to ask more when, after her son finished speaking, he immediately asked her, "Mom, why are you in the northern army? What is your relationship with Qin Shaozong?"

Daili instantly froze. "...That's a long story, not something that can be explained clearly in a short while."

Qin Yanzhou sat quietly, looking all ears.

Just then, however, Nianxia and Bipo returned.

The two maids brought in the morning meal. Previously, while idle in the residence, Daili had improved the era's stone mill to satisfy her own culinary cravings.

The stone mill at this time was in the mid-stage of its development. The pattern of its grinding teeth was a radially partitioned diagonal design, which was more efficient than earlier versions but still considerably inferior to the later eight-zone diagonal design.

The improvement of the stone mill most significantly affected wheat. Because even after hulling, wheat grains remained coarse; even when cooked, they felt rough and scratchy in the throat.

This was also why soft, smooth, and exquisite-tasting millet rice was favored by noble families and the wealthy, a symbol of affluence.

Those who ate wheat meals were mostly commoners with limited means or the thousands of soldiers in the army, to keep military expenses as low as possible.

But if wheat grains were ground into fine wheat flour, its texture would improve tremendously. Furthermore, it could give rise to things like steamed buns and noodles.

What Bipo and Nianxia were serving now was noodle soup. Not the common soup with dough strips of this era, but soup noodles improved by Daili's hand, identical to those of later generations.

Thin, white noodles, topped with shredded meat and an egg, sprinkled with a small handful of chopped green onions, and floating with a couple of drops of golden oil.

A very ordinary bowl of noodles in modern times, perhaps costing less than ten dollars, found everywhere on streets and alleys, yet Qin Yanzhou gazed at it for a long time.

Some memories are like old photographs. Even if you take them out to look at again and again, over time, the corners become frayed and curled from handling, and the images grow blurry.

A small bowl of noodle soup, seen again now, felt like a lifetime apart.

After looking at the noodles, he raised his head to look at Daili across from him, as if confirming she was still there. Only then did Qin Yanzhou begin to eat.

He ate very slowly, chewing carefully, as if trying to completely recapture the feeling from ten years ago, to erase all the hardships and struggles in between.

Neither mother nor son spoke, yet the atmosphere wasn't the least bit stiff.

After the morning meal, maidservants came in to clear away the bowls and chopsticks.

The cooling-off period during breakfast had allowed Daili to figure out how to explain things to her son.

She took the initiative and began from the beginning. "Zhouzhou, I arrived here via the river six months after the school bus fell into the water. I haven't been here long—less than four months. When I first arrived, I accidentally ran into Qin Shaozong. He hadn't taken Yingjun yet at that time and happened to need a woman to help him put on a show to deceive the salt smuggler's underlings. I wasn't affiliated with any faction, so he chose me, and I used his resources to look for you."

She paused, then continued, "The 'salty stone' popular across the provinces is a formula I gave him. Qin Shaozong and I have a cooperative relationship."

As for the twists and turns in between—how she escaped to Taipingjun, how he caught her and brought her back, and the one-year agreement between her and Qin Shaozong—Daili felt there was absolutely no need for her son to know.

Zhouzhou had suffered enough these years; he didn't need any additional burdens.

"Mom, do you want to leave this place? If you do, I can make arrangements for you," Qin Yanzhou suddenly said.

Daili's heart skipped a beat.

Arrangements?

How could Zhouzhou make arrangements? Did he have the capability to do so?