21. He is avoiding her
A hole in the window with a few crooked wooden boards nailed to it could not block out the howling sound of the wind outside. The flickering flames in the fire pit made the whole room flicker.
After a strange silence in the air, Xie Zheng said, "I am making things complicated. Just do it your way."
Fan Changyu shook her head quickly. This man saw her when the people from the bank asked her to collect debts in broad daylight. If she really put Fan Da in a sack, the other party might really think she was some kind of poor and vicious person.
She said somewhat embarrassedly, "If there are other ways, I definitely won't take this risk. If the truth is revealed, I will be sued."
Xie Zheng half-lowered his eyes, his dark pupils reflecting the firelight without much warmth. He suddenly said, "If you don't mind the trouble, it would be easier to just kill Fan Da directly."
His tone was cold and indifferent, as if it wasn't him who had just said he would teach her the law and go to court.
Fan Changyu naturally understood what he meant by "finish" and goosebumps instantly appeared on his arms. He looked at him with wide eyes: "Kill... kill people?"
Seeing her reaction, Xie Zheng's thick eyelashes drew a shallow arc in the firelight. He turned his eyes to look at the burning fire and said in a tone that didn't sound like a joke at all: "I'm joking."
The tone was lazy and a bit nonchalant.
If someone had bullied him to this extent, that person would have had his head removed long ago.
He said that teaching her "The Great Yin Code" to help her was the best way he could think of from her perspective. However, although the other party's temper was stronger than he expected, he could not be described as cruel.
When Fan Changyu's suspicious eyes scanned his handsome face, he half-raised his eyes and met her gaze: "I will teach you the Great Yin Law now?"
Fan Changyu immediately ignored the embarrassment of being caught for secretly glancing at someone, and nodded bitterly with a frown on his face.
She had disliked studying since she was little and would get a headache whenever she saw words. She could read now thanks to her mother who forced her to learn with bamboo sticks.
The pen, ink, paper and inkstone were all in the south room. Fan Changyu went to Xie Zheng's room and, for the convenience of lighting, he brightened the wick of the oil lamp on the desk.
There was no book on the Great Yin Code at home, so Xie Zheng memorized the rules on the spot and asked her to recite them.
This was related to whether the family property could be preserved, so Fan Changyu naturally studied with great concentration. However, perhaps because it was late at night, or because the laws and regulations on paper were too sleep-inducing, her eyelids began to droop as she was studying.
Xie Zheng was sitting on a bamboo chair beside him with his eyes closed, dozing off, but it was as if he had eyes on his forehead. As soon as Fan Changyu's head started to pecking at rice, he would open his eyelids, and knock twice on the desk with his bony hands half-clenched into fists.
Fan Changyu woke up instantly, yawning repeatedly while holding the pages of paper, and tears welled up in the corners of his eyes. He forced his eyelids to continue reciting: "The Seventeenth Article of the "Da Yin Law·House Order·House Extinction Chapter" states that if a household is extinct, if there is a son, the eldest son shall be made the heir; if there is no son, the heir shall be made the heir..."
"They are all extinct, so how can 'the eldest son be made the heir' come true'?" A cold voice came from the side.
Fan Changyu shuddered when he heard his voice, like a student who was caught dozing off during morning class in the classroom. He woke up with difficulty and read the laws he wrote, and continued to read with his eyes half closed: "If a family is extinct, an heir shall be chosen and established. If no heir is chosen, the parents and siblings shall share the property and raise their unmarried daughters. If a family is extinct and there is a bribe, the son-in-law shall not share the property, the daughter shall inherit it..."
Xie Zheng spoke up at the right time: "According to this law, the family property left by your parents should have all belonged to you. But your grandparents are still alive and ill, and your uncle is idle. If you go to the county government in three days, and the other party uses the "Da Yin Law·Filial Piety Book" to make an argument, at least half of the family property left by your parents must be allocated to your grandparents. Your grandparents and your uncle have not separated, so this money will eventually fall into his hands."
Fan Changyu's sleepiness was instantly wiped out by the anger. She frowned and said reluctantly, "Then I'll take my grandparents over to raise them?"
Xie Zheng looked at her and asked, "Are you close to them?"
Fan Changyu shook his head.
When her parents were alive, her family was not close to her grandparents.
Her mother had a difficult delivery when she gave birth to Changning, and she almost lost both her life and body. The doctor had a great deal of trouble in saving her, but he said that she would probably never get pregnant again.
The old couple came to congratulate, holding the infant Changning in their arms. Their conversations were all about how her mother had failed to give her father a son, so they asked her parents to adopt a boy from the Fan family so that they would have someone to rely on when they got old.
Her parents ignored them. The old couple went back and said that her mother was jealous and unfilial, and was always whispering in her father's ear, trying to make the Fan family extinct.
Her father personally went to the old house and the situation calmed down, but there was almost no contact after that. Only during the New Year holidays, her father would bring a piece of pork to the old couple, but he never left any food, and would just leave the food and leave.
Xie Zheng said, "According to Article 11 of the Supplementary Records of Yinlu, if you find a neighbor to testify and prove that Fan Da is a gambler, then you can manage half of the money that was allocated to your grandparents."
Fan Changyu was used to being straightforward and could not understand all these twists and turns. He asked in confusion, "Is this any different from how I support those two old people?"
Xie Zheng was silent for a moment, pressed his brows, and patiently explained to her: "If you take the person in, you must take care of him. Hold the money in your hand, it's up to you whether to give it to him or not."
Fan Changyu was so excited that he slammed the desk, "This is a good idea! Although it is a bit damaged, it is not an exaggeration to use it on the Fan family! How do you know so much?"
Xie Zheng glanced at the desk that had been shaking for a long time after she slapped it. He had no doubt that if she slapped it a little harder, the desk would fall apart.
He used his slender fingers to open the next page of the book on his knees, and he lied without blushing or breathing heavily: "I have been traveling a lot, so I have heard a lot of anecdotes. There was a rich businessman's daughter who was bribed by her relatives and her family property was robbed. She hired a famous local lawyer, and the lawyer gave her this method."
Fan Changyu praised sincerely: "That lawyer is really smart!"
Xie Zheng said nothing, but raised the corners of his lips slightly.
Fan Changyu glanced at him guiltily, "Well... I already have a way to deal with it, can I not recite it?"
Memorizing is really a headache for her. These strange and difficult to understand rules give her a headache even more than those incomprehensible articles.
Xie Zheng said calmly, "In court, if the other party asks you which written law you got the quote from, you don't have to recite it if you can answer it."
Fan Changyu wanted to ask him to go to court with him, but when he thought about his injured leg and the fact that he would have to kneel in court, which might be very bad for his injury, he swallowed his words back.
Her face was wrinkled like a bun, but she resigned herself to her fate and continued to recite it.
Xie Zheng was flipping through the volume of miscellaneous books in his hand nonchalantly. He listened to the sound of her reciting which changed from a mosquito's buzzing to a continuous muttering. He could not help but lift his eyelids and look over.
The next moment, the other person's extremely sleepy head had dropped onto the table, and his breathing gradually became even.
Xie Zheng: “…”
He, the tutor, had not gone to bed yet, but she, the main student, had fallen asleep first.
It was the first time he saw her sleeping appearance up close. The candlelight cast a long dark shadow on her eyelashes, her fair cheeks were covered with a layer of soft light, her red lips were slightly pursed, and she looked completely different from when she was awake.
However, she seemed to be troubled even in her sleep, with her brows slightly furrowed, her hair falling down, and a cloud of mist hidden between her brows.
Xie Zheng realized that he was distracted, frowned, looked away and was about to wake her up and let her go back to the room to rest, but he heard her mumbling softly in her sleep: "Mom..."
With a nasal sound, as if crying.
Xie Zheng frowned and looked at her again. She rested her head on her arm, holding down a few strands of black hair. In the candlelight, her face looked even smaller than the size of a palm.
He had thought she was thin before, but her vigorous energy overshadowed everything else. Now, looking at her figure half-bent over the desk, he suddenly felt that she was not only thin, but even a little frail.
A strange and unfamiliar feeling suddenly arose in her heart. Xie Zheng stared at her, and his handsome brows wrinkled even tighter.
…
At the hour of Mao, Fan Changyu woke up as usual. The room was pitch dark. The moment he stood up, his hands and legs felt numb.
The memory before going to bed came back to her, and she realized that she should still be lying on the table. She took out a tinder, lit it, and barely illuminated the room.
The lamp oil on the desk had burned out, and she was about to find a candle, but when she turned around she found that Xie Zheng had also fallen asleep beside her, with a piece of his hand pressing on her sleeve, which she had to pull out with great force.
However, this movement also woke him up. When he met his eyes, he saw a pair of dark and cold pupils. Fan Changyu was stunned for a moment, thinking that he was so irritable after waking up: "Did I disturb you?"
The ferocity in his eyes quickly faded away as he looked at her, but for some reason his brows were wrinkled tightly, and there was a red mark on his fair and handsome face.
Fan Changyu said dryly, "You also fell asleep while reading?"
The other party just said "hmm" vaguely.
Fan Changyu said, "I'll go find a candle."
The fire starter in your hand cannot burn for long and the lighting level is also limited.
The moment she stood up, the numbness in her feet had not yet worn off and she fell to the side.
With a loud bang, both of them fell to the ground along with their stools, and the fire starters in their hands fell to the ground and went out.
Fan Changyu's hands and feet were bumped in several places, and she grimaced in pain. Thinking that there was a flesh pad underneath, the situation would only be worse than hers, so she quickly groped to get up and help him: "How are you? Did I not break the wounds on your body?"
"It's okay." The answer was a bit reluctant.
It was obvious that something was wrong, because he didn't even get out of bed for the next two days.
Fan Changyu felt that Xie Zheng was probably annoyed with her. He had been much colder towards her in the past two days than before. He would not talk to her if he could avoid talking to her and would not see her if he could avoid seeing her.
Even if I can't avoid her, when I see her, I either ignore her or frown.
Fan Changyu apologized, but the other party said that it was okay, but he was still quietly distancing himself from her.
Fan Changyu couldn't figure out the reason, and he was memorizing those laws. He originally wanted to ask him about some things he didn't understand, but he didn't feel comfortable enough to do so.
She had been reciting it at home for the past two days, and when she had some free time in the shop, she would take out those pieces of paper and recite them silently. Finally, she had memorized most of it, and she also asked some neighbors to serve as witnesses.
On the morning of the day of the trial, she thought about Yan Zheng's abnormal behavior in the past two days, and went to the south room and said, "Your handwriting is good. If you have time today, please draft the divorce agreement. After I transfer the property to my parents, I will come back and write my name on it. When your injury is healed, you can go wherever you want."
He had said from the beginning that he would leave after his injury healed. The only thing Fan Changyu could think of at the moment was that he was afraid that he would go back on his word and transfer the property but not fulfill his original promise.
If I write the divorce letter to him, he might feel more at ease.
The author has something to say:
Xie Hou (confused): My bridge was demolished before I could cross it?
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