In the dark of the night, there came the vague sound of a horse-drawn cart. In accordance with His Higness’ order, the death row prisoner will be loaded onto the prisoner cart to be sent to the Pucheng dungeon.
It was quiet on all sides, with no appearance of a strong guard presence. It really wasn’t necessary anyway since the prisoner was already at death’s door after all the brutal torture. Even if you had let her out of the cage she probably wouldn’t have the strength to crawl more than three steps.
The room where Miss “Wang Shaoyao” was at was also very quiet. The special prisoner is very ill, thus only maids and physicians are coming in and out of the room. The guards lazily leaned against the door frame and chatted in a low voice.
Although the scene seems to be serene and relaxed but there was an invisible tension in the gloomy night air.
The night drum was hit two more times. (To signal time. Roughly between 9pm-11pm)
In the silent room, she suddenly opened her eyes.
She first looked towards the floor by her bed and saw the maid was sleeping deeply on the footrest. She slowly lifted her blanket and got out of the bed slowly.
She made no sound as her foot touched the floor, the maid didn’t wake up.
She walked out of the room like a wandering spirit. The guard sitting by the door held a long lance as his head nodded in his sleep, not noticing at all as she walked past him.
At the end of the corridor, a team of guards was just in the middle of changing shifts and missed her.
She glided across the long corridor in silence. As it so happened, the maid had put a black nightdress on her so she did not stand out at all.
Past the corridor, into a courtyard, there were no guards in the courtyard but there were guards at the moon cave door.
The guards at the moon cave door hid in the shadows, with their heads bent together over some racy books, chuckling all the while with no thought of sparing a glance at their surroundings.
She glided past them and turned towards the back of some flowering trees.
The guards seemed completely unaware of her presence but then immediately raised their heads and exchanged a look with one another.
A dark shadow silently appeared behind them causing the guards to immediately drop the racy books and stood to attention with their heads down.
“She went out?” The person asked in a deep voice.
The guards nodded.
The man under the moonlight looked solemn, an unreadable emotion flashed across his eyes. The man was none other than Jin Siyu.
Silent for a long moment, he finally waved the guards away, leaving the racy books all alone with no one to pick them up.
“Your Highness, should we…” Someone behind him asked in a low voice.
Jin Siyu replies: “I will follow her myself, you can just wait here with the others.”
The man took his orders and left. Jin Siyu stood still for several moments before he finally chased after the thin shadowy figure. He followed her all the way through the hall, through the garden, past the small bridge…and gradually realized that something is off.
This road, doesn’t seem to be the one heading towards the underground prison?
His brows furrowed, Jin Siyu came to a stunning discovery that she is actually gliding none too steadily towards a small pond in the backyard.
What was she doing here?
Thinking all the while that she must be heading for the underground prison, Jin Siyu had waited for his prey with mixed emotions. Now baffled, he followed behind her, watched her stumble through the dewy grass, stepped across the white stony ground, swaying all the way…heading straight for the pond.
The pond is manmade. In an effort to achieve elegance, the owner had raised some cranes by the pond. After the cranes died, the pond was left unused, the clear water shimmering under the moonlight.
She walked to the pond and without stopping, stepped right into it…
Jin Siyu immediately jumped out.
He moved like lightning, his leaping body stretching out like a crane, rushed to her in the next instant, and grabbed the back of her lapel.
However, it was still too late. With a plop, the water splashed all over.
She fell in, and neither was he spared since he was in such a rush that he couldn’t pull himself back in time.
The water wasn’t deep, it was just bone-chilling cold. The moment he fell in he immediately fished her out. She didn’t struggle in his hand as a drowning person would, in fact, he saw in the next moment that her eyes on her pale face were actually closed.
Closed?
Sleepwalking?
A wet and dumbfounded Jin Siyu shivered in the cold but then heard the person in his arms muttered “Bath…”
The reason she ran out in the middle of the night like a ghost is because she is dreaming of taking a bath?
He wasted all that time following her around just to join her for a cold bath in the winter pound?
Jin Siyu was so furious that he forgot to get out and grunted angrily in the water. By now, the torches have all lit up, the guards come running over. Stunned by the view that greeted them, the lead guard quickly took off his own cloak to deliver it up to Jin Siyu.
Both soaking wet, Jin Siyu carried her out of the water. Lowering his head to see her clothes are now completely wet and plastered on her curvaceous body, innocent yet alluring at the same time, Jin Siyu quickly pulled down the cloak around his shoulders to wrap it tightly around her after seeing the expressions of discomfort on the surrounding guards and ordered “Get the physician immediately. Bring over three fire basins and brew ginger drink. Quickly!” (Ginger drink supposedly is good for warming up the body.)
Lifting a hand to touch her forehead, it was indeed as hot as fire. A sense of anxiousness slowly filled Jin Siyu. Even with a warm supple body in his arms, Jin Siyu had no amorous thoughts but quickly made his way back to the room and ordered the maids to quickly change her clothes. Trying to suppress the rising anxiousness inside him, Jin Siyu paced back and forth in the front room until a maid timidly reminded him that he had not changed out of his wet clothes.
By the time his clothes were changed, the physician has already arrived. Upon taking her pulse, the physician immediately let out “Ah,” and said “How come her illness has worsened? It is a big problem now…”
His heart sinking, Jin Siyu dropped his gaze upon the person on the bed. She is burning up so fiercely that one can even feel the stunning heat if one just gets close to her. Yet, the heat will then abruptly drop off and turn ice cold. Alternating between the fiery hotness and freezing chill, it makes one worry that if she will suddenly shatter in the next instant.
Her mind no longer clear, her hand kept on scratching her chest, seemingly attempting to dig out the very blood that is irritating her. Worry that she will hurt her still healing hands, Jin Siyu pressed down on her wrist with his elbow but then heard her muttering “Bath…”
Jin Siyu thought to himself that after this woman was captured, she had laid on the ground of the prison cell and then couldn’t take a bath because of her illness. She is probably a clean person by nature so even in her dream she wanted to take a bath and ended up causing him to take a dip in the cold water with her.
“Would taking a hot bath help?” Seeing how uncomfortable she is, Jin Siyu asked the physician.
The physician gave Jin Siyu a strange look while thinking to himself that His Highness had asked a really dumb question. Why bother with a bath when it might be time to bury the girl?
“Your Highness…” The old man stroked his beard and replies, “In her condition, I am afraid she will soon have to be completely purified…”
According to the custom of Da Yue, before the dead enter into the coffin, the body needs to be completely purified.
Taken aback momentarily before catching on, Jin Siyu asked angrily “What do you mean by that?”
The physician doesn’t dare to say anything more, but neither did he move to write out a prescription. He bowed down humbly and said, “Perhaps Your Highness could ask the imperial physicians to come…”
Jin Siyu was silent. Imperial physicians don’t usually leave the capital, and this place is quite far from the capital so it would probably be too late anyway even if they came.
The physician standing in front of him is already the leading doctor in the northern region of Da Yue. If there is nothing he could do, then there really is no one close by who can help.
“Your Highness, there are actually many crouching tigers and hidden dragons within the commoners. (The movie title “Crouching tigers and hidden dragons” is actually a Chinese saying. It means there are capable people hidden in plain sight that one would not expect.) And there are some secret ancestral medicines that are surprisingly effective.” The physician suggests, “Why not either seek publicly or privately for such persons. Perhaps there is still a glimmer of hope.”
Jin Siyu remained silent. His face half-hidden in the shadows, his expression unreadable. After a long while, he nodded.
You guys have been super patient! I usually try to truncate what I can so we don’t go too long without at least one of our boys, but this part is so awesome that I really didn’t want to skip over any parts especially since the drama pretty much butchered this part of the story. Anyhow, we will start seeing a few of our male leads starting next week!
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Thank you so much for the translations!!!
I’m watching the series again. Can’t get enough!
Thank you!!
Hello Ninja ! Thank you very much for the translation. It is amazing to have this full pages translated and not lost one single drop of this amazing story ! So happy you are translating this ^^
Hi Ninja,
Thank you for your translations. I’ve been reading them for quite sometime and can sense your love for the story through your writing. Your translations are beautifully written. Can’t wait to see who will come to rescue her. Are we nearing a reunion between our two leads? I don’t think we’ve ever gone this long without a reunion.
In terms of the story, yes but it might still feel like a bit once I translate each scene out. This particular author really likes to send her heroine off for long periods of time without the hero which is why previously I try to summarize/skip over some minor scenes since this would be how the whole book feels like if I didn’t do that. This author’s books are really mainly about her heroines so the drama added a lot of political intrigues to give Ning Yi a bigger part of the story. We are at some of my favorite parts of the story though…which is why for once I am translating pretty much word for word.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I can’t say it enough 🙂 Super interesting!
Thank you very much for your beautiful translation, I notice and enjoy the love and detail that you put in each chapter! I’m looking forward to reading the next one! Thanks!
Love this ! It’s an amazing story and even a better translation. Thank you ninja !
Thank you so much for your beautiful and constant translation! You manage to capture the subtleties and nuances of the original story and put them into English! You are really talented and we appreciate your hard work so much♥️
I like Jin Siyu, he is a good alternative to Ning Yi. He is more expressive in term of affection than NY, to me anyway. I found him intriguing. I like the novel with FZW is the main character. In the drama, Ning Yi and his father are the main characters.
Thank you for the translation.