Chapter 412: Extra 7.

The vendor wrapped the sweets in paper. Bai Li paid him and added a few coins for the next child in line. The vendor tried to refuse the extra money, but Bai Li said it was for the trouble of making the skewers so carefully. He accepted after Yan Cijin gave him a warm smile and thanked him for his work.

They found a quiet bench beside the river. Yan Cijin sat close enough that their shoulders touched and took the first bite of candied hawthorn with a small, satisfied hum. Bai Li watched her as she chewed.

"Is it good?"

Yan Cijin swallowed and considered the question as if she were judging a rare medicinal herb. "Acceptable."

Bai Li looked at the skewer in her hand. "Acceptable?"

"Very acceptable."

"You nearly abandoned breakfast for this."

"I did not abandon breakfast. I delayed it."

"You delayed it for half an hour."

"A wise person knows when a delay is worthwhile."

Bai Li offered her own skewer. Yan Cijin leaned over and took a bite from it, deliberately catching the fruit near Bai Li’s fingers. When she drew back, she looked far too pleased with herself.

"Yours is better," she said.

"You chose the same kind."

"Perhaps you have a better way of eating it."

Bai Li glanced at her. "Do you want me to demonstrate?"

Yan Cijin tilted her head. "Not here. People are watching."

"You began it."

"I am innocent."

"You have never been innocent a day in your life."

Yan Cijin laughed so brightly that a passerby turned to look, then smiled without knowing why.

For a while, they sat by the river and watched the town move around them. A fisherman carried a basket toward the bridge. Two shopkeepers argued over the price of a bolt of cloth. A pair of children raced along the far bank, one holding a wooden sword, the other waving a branch as if it were a spear. Ordinary life moved at its own pace, indifferent to the fact that two of the strongest people in the world were sharing sweets on a bench nearby.

Bai Li liked that. She liked the way a town could continue to be a town even when legends passed through it. She liked the way people argued about prices and worried about their children and hurried to finish their errands. Their strength mattered because there were lives here that deserved the freedom to remain ordinary.

A small girl stood several paces away, watching them with wide eyes. She was perhaps seven years old, dressed in a patched brown jacket that was too large at the shoulders. One of her shoes had been repaired with a strip of cloth. When Yan Cijin noticed her, the child quickly looked down as if she had been caught doing something wrong.

Yan Cijin held out an extra skewer. "Would you like one?"

The girl looked up. Her eyes flicked toward the sweet, then toward the shops behind her. She hesitated long enough for Bai Li to understand that the child had been taught not to accept things from strangers, even harmless things that she wanted very much.

"You can take it," Yan Cijin said. "I bought too many. My wife is always telling me that I have no restraint when I find something I like."

Bai Li raised an eyebrow. "I have never said that."

"You said I was demanding. It is almost the same thing."

"It is not even close."

The girl looked between them, uncertain whether the adults were arguing. Yan Cijin smiled at her, and the child finally stepped forward to accept the skewer. She held it carefully in both hands, as if it were something much more valuable than a few pieces of fruit covered in sugar.

"Thank you," she whispered.

"You are welcome," Yan Cijin said. "What is your name?"

"Xiao Mei."

"That is a lovely name. Are you here with your family?"

The girl nodded, then glanced toward a narrow lane beside the market. She explained in small, hesitant words that her mother had injured her ankle carrying water, and that the local clinic had given them medicine but asked for payment they could not afford. Her father was away looking for work. She had come to the market with a neighbor and had been waiting outside the shop while the adults discussed what to do.

Yan Cijin’s expression did not change much, but Bai Li felt the small shift in her beside her. The warmth remained, yet her attention became precise. She asked where the clinic was, what the healer had said, and whether the injury had been examined properly. Xiao Mei answered as best she could, growing less frightened as the questions stayed gentle.

Bai Li stood. "Let’s go see your mother."

Xiao Mei’s eyes widened. "You don’t have to."

"I know," Bai Li said. "We would still like to."

They followed the child through the narrow lane. Her family lived in a small room behind a shop selling cooking pots and woven baskets. The child’s mother was sitting on a stool with her injured foot resting on a folded blanket. She looked embarrassed when two strangers entered, especially two women whose bearing suggested that they were not accustomed to being turned away.

Yan Cijin knelt to examine the ankle. She had learned enough from the medical hall to recognize a severe sprain, though she did not pretend to replace a trained healer. The ankle was swollen, but there was no obvious sign of a broken bone. She asked whether the woman had been given a proper bandage and whether the pain worsened when she tried to stand. The woman answered quietly. It turned out that she had been told to rest, but she had continued working because the family could not afford to lose even a few days of income.

Yan Cijin looked up at Bai Li. Neither needed to say much. Bai Li went to the nearby clinic and spoke to

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TO BE CONTINUED.