The Rise of Phoenixes Novel Translation #76

Ning Cheng stealthily comes in without making any noise after the sounds of Zhi Wei’s footsteps disappear. 

“Before three days end, don’t appear in front of me.” Not looking at him, a closed eyed Ning Yi says.

“Eh? Don’t do that!” Alarmed, Ning Yi protests “What are you going to do without me protecting you?” 

“Without you, I will finally have peace.” Ning Yi ignores his protests.

Ning Cheng rolls his eyes then says after a short pause “That woman is too difficult, I was trying to prescribe the right medicine for the ailment.” 

“You don’t even have a clue of her condition, what prescribing can you do?” Ning Yi says lazily “Stop fooling yourself.” 

“If you want my advice, you should just take away her fighting abilities, get people to assassinate Gu Nan Yi, chase away Helian, ignore everything and just carry her back to your manor in a palanquin. Wouldn’t all this be done then?” Ning Cheng honestly feels his master has not been wise when it comes to dealing with this issue. 

“Then you will have to prepare a coffin three days after she enters into my manor, hers or mine.” 

Unconvinced, Ning Cheng protests “I am not some useless decoration.” (Meaning Ning Cheng is confident he can handle whatever Zhi Wei might do.)

“Don’t underestimate Feng Zhi Wei.” Ning Yi replies “Her gentleness and restraint are all an act. She simply doesn’t like to make enemies for no reason but once you crossed the line she has set then ten of you Ning Cheng will be no match against the bloodthirstiness and brutality deep in her bones.” 

Ning Cheng stills wants to say something more, but Ning Yi is already continuing on “Go now, remember, three days.” 

A grumpy Ning Cheng turns to leave until Ning Yi suddenly adds “Send a letter to the Capital, use our secret channel. Tell them that there is no need to make any move. Just wait until I get back.”

Ning Cheng turns to look at Ning Yi who remained unmoving in the darkness. Returning back to his own room in silence, Ning Cheng takes out a piece of paper, writes out the words Ning Yi had said then after thinking for a bit, with the utmost seriousness wrote the following words “The king’s heart has been disturbed, I am very concerned. Sir, you are very shrewd so must have a way to solve this.” Folding the letter, Ning Cheng’s expression is one of a strange determination under the candlelight. 

A few explanations, in these sort of Chinese Wuxia novels, fighters requires internal energy and it is possible to “take away” someone’s fighting ability by making it so their bodies no longer can store internal energy. This is usually done either as punishment or to one’s enemy. Ning Cheng is also assuming that Ning Yi would not marry Zhi Wei but merely taking her in as a concubine since he suggested the palanquin, the same thing Yan Huai Ying was carried on into Ning Yi’s place. Before you guys jump on Ning Cheng’s case for being a total jerk, Ning Cheng’s thought process would be seen as reasonable to most people in his world. Ning Yi IS a prince and a prince fighting for the throne no less, so no one in their right mind would believe he would be willing to waste the title of his wife on a girl who doesn’t have a powerful family to help him attain the throne. This also again proves Zhi Wei’s previous lament on the low status women have in their society. Women are seen as things, so Ning Cheng saw nothing wrong with taking away Zhi Wei’s fighting ability and making her into a concubine. The other reason why Ning Cheng is going this far is because he along with many other people are betting their lives (and the lives of their families) that Ning Yi will be the next emperor. Anything and anyone who will become an obstacle to their goal is to be sacrificed for the greater good. A few or even a lot of lives lost are better than having a bad emperor who will cause the destruction of an entire country and endless suffering. To Ning Yi’s men, there is nothing wrong with their master wanting to sleep with some woman but it becomes a big problem if it is not simply lust but love…especially the kind of love where Ning Yi would start placing the woman above his own well being and his pursuit for the throne. 

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Yan Huai Ying continues to yell and cry through the night, demanding to see Prince Chu or Feng Zhi Wei. Unfortunately, Zhi Wei didn’t pay any heed to her but ordered someone to send Yan Huai Ying off to bed after stuffing her mouth and tying her up. Finally settling down for a quiet night, Zhi Wei’s sleep was regrettably not too peaceful but was instead filled with dreams. In the dream, Ning Yi is standing far away on the palace steps and saying “Zhi Wei, Zhi Wei, life is filled with too many unavoidable choices. Neither of us can just be who we want to be.” 

After waking up, she stared at the ceiling for a long time thinking to herself: Ning Yi is sure despicable, he really is only willing to tell her the truth in a dream. 

Opening her bedroom door, Zhi Wei is greeted by the sight of Master Gu already munching away on his walnuts. Last night she had lied to Gu Nan Yi and told him that she was planning to go beat up Ning Yi, which is why he had happily let her leave. This morning, the moment Gu Nan Yi saw her he said “Lied.” 

Feeling a bit bashful, Zhi Wei says “I did, not on the face though so you can’t see it.” Feeling even more guilty after the words came out of her mouth, Zhi Wei can’t help but feel like she might have been telling the truth. 

After breakfast, Zhi Wei prepares to go see the officials to talk over the matter of building the maritime office. Yan Huai Shi and the senior members of the Yan clan rushed over to greet her. Yan Huai Shi has already been informed of what Yan clan did last night and his expression is quite grim while the rest of Yan clan member keeps looking towards the direction of Ning Yi’s bedroom eagerly. 

“Brother Yan,” Zhi Wei chatted politely for a few minutes then said offhandedly “His Highness is extremely kind and gifted a beauty to be my concubine last night.”

Surprised for a moment, an expression of joy burst from Yan Huai Shi’s eyes “Is that so, congratulations Official Wei.

 Exchanging a look of dismay, a Yan clan member asks tentatively “Congratulations sir, was it a beauty that accompanied His Highness from the Capital?”

“You all sure are forgetful.” Zhi Wei smiles “When we came, was there any women accompanying us? Didn’t the Yan clan send one over last night?”  

The members of Yan clan looked as if they have been struck by lightning while all the other clans’ leaders are clueless of the ins and outs thus assumed that Yan clan had gifted a woman who must’ve gained favor in the Royal Envoy’s eyes. With shaking hands, Yan clan leader stiffly received all the other clan leaders jealous congratulations. A few people could sense something was amiss and secretly ordered their people to investigate. In no time, the fact that Yan clan sacrificed all by sending their eldest granddaughter to be a concubine but ended up getting passed on by Prince Chu to his subordinate was soon noised all over the area. 

The whole Yan clan was so stunned by this turn of events that they were completely at a loss for words. Coldly taking in their reaction, Zhi Wei didn’t bother to say any more to them but instead took the academy students with her to go see the officials. 

Gu Nan Yi and Ning Cheng are also accompanying Zhi Wei. Ning Cheng is of course going none too willingly– Ning Yi is not part of the Royal Envoy party so it would be inconvenient for him to directly be involved which is why Ning Cheng got booted out to come along. On the surface, Ning Cheng is acting as Zhi Wei’s guard but everyone knows he represents Prince Chu and Prince Chu’s support of Zhi Wei. Considering himself as the beloved personal guard of Prince Chu, Ning Cheng sees it as a great humiliation to not only have to act as a guard to a mere third level official but one he dislikes at that. 

Zhi Wei is not exactly excited to have a troublemaker with her either. By now, she has figured out Ning Cheng must’ve been behind last night’s fiasco so she is not really in the mood to have him within her sight but neither of them was able to convince Ning Yi to change his mind. In Ning Yi’s words, if she wasn’t willing to take Ning Cheng then why keep the useless thing around? Go back to the Capital! 

Zhi Wei obviously can’t have Ning Yi lose his best fighter right now so she can only let the guy ride next to her carriage as he tries to strike up a conversation with Gu Nan Yi. 

At first she didn’t pay any heed to what was happening outside of her carriage and had closed her eyes for a quick rest but it didn’t take long for her to notice the conversation outside has taken a strange turn– Ning Cheng seems to be trying to figure out Gu Nan Yi’s background. 

“Brother Gu sure has amazing fighting skills.” Ning Cheng keeps on chatting nonstop “When are you going to give me some pointers…” 

Master Gu crushed eight walnuts at the same time as a warning to Ning Cheng that he is extremely impatient and angry right at this moment.

“Master Ning.” Zhi Wei opens her carriage window “Brother Gu does not like to converse with people. Please don’t bother him. If you still have questions, then why not come into the carriage and I can discuss it in detail with you.”

Not embarrassed at all to have his intentions called right out by Zhi Wei, Ning Cheng replies “Ah, that’s alright, I really want to be Brother Gu’s friend the moment I met him so I am just hoping we can be best buds.”

Zhi Wei gave Ning Cheng half of a smile and sat back into her carriage while thinking in silence: If you can be best buds with Gu Nan Yi then I would be able to get Ning Yi to dance around in a dress. 

So the question came up last week in the comments about our heroine’s feeling towards Ning Yi at this point. My personal opinion is that both of our leads know very well how they feel about each other. Ning Yi and Zhi Wei are such good opponents for each other because they are very alike in certain ways and neither of them is the type to lie to themselves. The simple fact that Ning Yi would hold Zhi Wei AND Zhi Wei would let him hold her, speaks volumes of their feelings for each other. (Gu Nan Yi doesn’t really count because he is more like an innocent child right now.) So if their feelings are certain then what is the question they have been dancing around? Well, let me rephrase that. Zhi Wei doesn’t really have a question because she can already foresee their ending but the thing that Ning Yi wants to know is if Zhi Wei’s feelings for him will outweigh her love for her family, her duty, and her desire for freedom. In the end, it is not about if Zhi Wei loves Ning Yi but that love is not worth it for her to have her wings broken.

The other question is regarding Zhi Wei’s attitude towards marriage. It is interesting to note that the ideal marriage Zhi Wei described is most likely what her mother was trying to live but never achieved. Her mother was a female general who could’ve had everything and anything she wanted, yet she gave it all up for love. Unfortunately, the man her mother chose never put her mother above his own duty. It makes one wonder, knowing how much Zhi Wei idolizes her mother if the marriage she described is the sort of family she wished her mother and thus herself could’ve had.

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