As Fu Nanhua emerged from Lin Zixuan's residence, he found the maidservant sitting on a small bench in the yard. She held a handful of corn, tossing it to the chickens that milled about her feet—an old hen and its brood of fluffy yellow chicks, pecking at the kernels scattered in the dust.
Fu Nanhua offered her a faint smile. The maidservant’s lips twitched in a minimal response, and that was all. She was not one for pleasantries, whether from
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