Cuddling with the Cold Female Protagonist

Cuddling with the Cold Female Protagonist – Chapter 64

by Little Panda

Volume 3: Courtly Winds and Clouds, Each Finds Their Place

Beast Taming

Su Yi¹ stated this with certainty.

Hua Wuying smiled faintly. “Alright, I shall await Miss Su’s good news then.”

“However, Miss Hua might have to wait a little longer.” Su Yi smiled slightly. “We first need to catch the spy who’s hiding.”

“There’s no rush for that. I’ve waited for years already, surely a few more days won’t matter.” Hua Wuying said with a smile, glancing at the sky outside. “It’s getting late, I must take my leave, otherwise someone will report me for slacking off.”

She took out a hook-shaped whistle and handed it to Su Yi. “Blow this, and a flock of white pigeons will arrive following the sound. You can use them to send messages.”

Seeing this, Ji Qingchi’s heart stirred, but she didn’t say anything at the time. Only when she was walking out with Hua Wuying did she inquire, “Miss Hua knows beast taming?”

Hua Wuying nodded. “I know a little.”

“Is this a secret technique? Would Miss Hua be willing to teach me?”

“It’s just a boring trick I figured out myself.” Hua Wuying was happy to grant her a favor, smiling as she said, “If Your Highness wishes to learn, I can naturally tell you.”

After Hua Wuying and Ji Qingchi left, Su Yi pulled Feng Ruoqing over to tinker with medicines that could be used for threats.

Feng Ruoqing felt she wasn’t very skilled and repeatedly demurred modestly, but Su Yi smilingly told her, “It doesn’t necessarily have to be truly effective, as long as it can scare people. For example, you could make the surface of the pill bitter, or make the medicine into strange shapes, something that looks frightening at first glance. After all, poison and medicine aren’t separate fields². Sometimes, what’s a deadly poison in one context might be a healing remedy in another.”

Feng Ruoqing seemed lost in thought. “Hearing Miss Su put it that way, I suddenly understand. I used to think I wasn’t very proficient in poison arts, but if I follow Miss Su’s method and do the opposite, perhaps it could work.”

Su Yi smiled. “That’s exactly the principle.”

Feng Ruoqing gained some confidence. “Alright then, I’ll give it a try.”

Putting words into action, Feng Ruoqing immediately took the medicinal ingredients to her room to study, forgetting to eat or sleep, and didn’t emerge for the entire day.

Su Yi worried she might starve, so she had a maid deliver meals to her regularly. The next evening, having some free time, she decided to deliver the meal herself and check on Feng Ruoqing’s progress.

Just as she stepped out of her courtyard, she saw a group of maids and young servants gathered in the yard, pointing up at the sky.

Curious, she walked over and asked, “What’s going on?”

“Miss.” Seeing her, the crowd automatically parted and bowed to her.

Gancao stepped out from the crowd, pointing excitedly at the sky. “Miss, look quickly! Those wild geese are actually forming words up there!”

Su Yi was puzzled. “Don’t migrating wild geese always form patterns? Like a ‘one’ shape, or a ‘zhi’³ shape? What’s so surprising about that?”

“Ah, no, that’s not it.” Gancao couldn’t explain clearly, stamped her foot, and pulled Su Yi into the crowd.

Walking to the very center of the courtyard offered a panoramic view of the sky.

A few patches of sunset clouds⁴ drifted near the treetops, and dozens of wild geese flew beside them. Looking closely, they had indeed formed characters.

Su Yi shaded her forehead, gazing into the distance. Upon closer inspection, she realized they were spelling out her name.

The maids couldn’t read and were pointing at the geese, exclaiming and sighing in amazement. Seeing this, Su Yi knew someone must have done it deliberately.

As for who…

She took out the whistle Hua Wuying had given her and tried blowing it a few times. After a moment, a flock of white pigeons slowly flew over from the west, and the formation of the wild geese fell into disarray.

Gancao exclaimed, “Ah, the characters are messed up!”

Shaoyao said, “Was it the whistle Miss blew?”

Yan Can quickly added, “The characters formed again!”

Following another melodious flute sound, the disordered geese reformed their pattern. Su Yi deliberately blew her whistle a few more times. The white pigeons flew over and landed above her courtyard, while the geese formation broke apart again.

After this happened four or five times, the flute music stopped. A knock sounded on the side door of Su Yi’s courtyard. The maids opened the door, and a person slowly walked in from outside, tapping a flute, saying helplessly, “Miss Su.”

“Ninth Highness.” Su Yi smiled at her, looking perfectly harmless⁵. “Your Highness’s flute playing is very pleasant.”

Ji Qingchi felt a bit helpless. She knew that whistle sound just now must have been Su Yi causing trouble.

The method she had worked so hard to come up with.

She looked at her, somewhat exasperated. “Weren’t the characters I had those geese form nice to look at?”

Using such a technique to flirt with girls—if someone hadn’t seen it before, they would surely be eagerly engaging her in conversation. But Su Yi, having lived so long across her past and present lives, had seen it all. She smiled, “How did Your Highness learn this?”

“I learned it from Miss Hua.” Ji Qingchi waved her flute, smiling rather proudly. “It only took me a day and a half to learn how to tame these birds, so I thought I’d show Miss Su the results.”

“Your Highness is truly amazing.” Su Yi offered timely flattery⁶, and tacked on a request, “I want to learn too.”

Ji Qingchi put her hands behind her back, pretending to ponder. “Hmm… When I learned this from Miss Hua, I gave her two thousand taels of silver and a token granting access to the Ninth Imperial Daughter’s residence as shuxiu⁷. If Miss Su wants to learn, what will you give me?”

Good grief, Ji Qingchi was quite adept at being a middleman⁸.

Su Yi asked, “What does Your Highness want?”

“Hmm…” Ji Qingchi glanced at the numerous maids and servants in the courtyard, putting on a serious expression. “You are all dismissed for now. This Palace and Miss Su have important matters to discuss. No peeking.”

“Yes.” The servants looked at Su Yi, and after receiving her nod, they withdrew.

Once only the two of them remained in the courtyard, Ji Qingchi tapped her flute and slowly walked up to Su Yi, lowering her head slightly to meet her gaze, the smile in her eyes seeming about to overflow. “I want—”

“It couldn’t be my family fortune, could it?” Su Yi was startled by this display, her mind racing too fast, immediately connecting it to the incidents in the book where Ji Qingchi confiscated assets from many officials. “To be honest with Your Highness, I’m completely broke⁹ right now, actually just a pauper.”

“Relax, I don’t want your money. I just want you to let me hug you once, consider that your payment.”

“Hm?” Su Yi seemed to finally realize, belatedly, that this rascal Ji Qingchi was trying to woo her!

She clasped her hands before her chest, her face set in defiance. “A scholar can be insulted, but not killed!¹⁰ I will not sell my chastity!”

Ji Qingchi quickly explained, swearing to heaven and earth, “I only want to hug Miss Su once, I won’t do anything else!”

Su Yi gave her a sidelong glance. “Really?”

“Really, heaven and earth can witness.”

“Alright then,” Su Yi said with an expression of facing death unflinchingly, closing her eyes. “Go ahead and hug me.”

This kind of deliberate hug still felt rather awkward.

Ji Qingchi clutched her flute, her hands gesturing back and forth as she tried to figure out the most suitable angle to hug Su Yi. She gestured this way and that, unable to decide for quite some time how to embrace Su Yi without making her uncomfortable.

Su Yi found it a bit strange. She opened her eyes to see Ji Qingchi’s predicament and was momentarily speechless.

It was like agreeing to have some fun together, only for her to have already taken off her pants while the other person was still washing their hands, washing their hands, washing their hands.

Just get on with it already, what’s all the hesitation for?

Su Yi called out. “Your Highness.”

“Hm?” Ji Qingchi looked up distractedly, and before she could clearly see her, she felt someone soft and fragrant bump into her arms.

The impact made her heart thump wildly, and her hands, unsure where to go, finally settled on Su Yi’s waist.

The poison in Su Yi’s body had been sealed, and she had put on some weight recently. Her waist felt soft to the touch, making one reluctant to let go.

However, she didn’t dare touch too much. Her hands secretly caressed up and down Su Yi’s slender waist a few times before holding her tightly, careful to leave a small gap for fear of squeezing her too hard and making it difficult to breathe.

After holding her for a while, Ji Qingchi felt rather lightheaded. Previous embraces with Su Yi had mostly occurred when she was injured or in urgent situations. This time, without any of those messy circumstances, just quietly holding her, the feeling was sweeter than eating honey.

After a moment, Su Yi spoke from within the embrace. “Your Highness.”

Her face was buried in Ji Qingchi’s chest, so her voice sounded muffled. Ji Qingchi quickly responded, “Hm.”

“Is the time up yet?”

“Um…” Ji Qingchi wanted to say no, but she feared asking for too much at once would scare Su Yi. Though reluctant, she gritted her teeth and said, “It’s enough.”

With that, she slowly pushed Su Yi away, picked up her flute, and cleared her throat. “Miss Hua taught me some basic beast taming methods. I pondered it a bit and felt that the methods for taming birds might differ from those for taming land animals. Yesterday, I first tried taming birds, and indeed, the results were remarkable.”

She hadn’t expected that when Ji Qingchi said she just wanted a hug, she meant just a hug, and not even for very long.

Su Yi gave her a few extra glances. After Ji Qingchi finished explaining a bunch of techniques, she noticed Su Yi’s meaningful gaze and thoughtfully asked, “Did you not understand? Shall I repeat it?”

“No need.” Su Yi waved her hand. “I think what Your Highness said was very easy to understand.”

Ji Qingchi smiled and handed her the flute. “Then you try it too.”

Su Yi took it. “Your Highness didn’t learn beast taming just to please me, did you?”

Ji Qingchi looked at her with appreciation. “I once heard from the Imperial Astronomical Bureau¹¹ that when the stars shift position and abnormalities appear among birds and beasts, it can endanger the imperial family. Such incidents have occurred several times in the history of Yanxue Kingdom. According to records, the reigning emperor at the time, in order to eliminate calamities and prevent disloyal intentions¹², would dispatch troops to search the homes of officials where strange phenomena occurred.”

Su Yi understood. “Could Your Highness be thinking of using these birds and beasts…”

“Exactly.” Ji Qingchi smiled. “If I want to thoroughly investigate whether those households have spies, I need such a pretext.”

Su Yi winked her right eye at her. “That might not be enough. I can offer Your Highness another pretext.”

“Oh?” Ji Qingchi was interested. “What pretext?”

“It’s—”

“Miss!” Before she could finish, Yan Can ran in frantically, followed by a bruised and swollen Geng Rong.

Su Yi was startled to see Geng Rong in such a miserable state. “Manager Geng, what happened?”

“Miss, someone is causing trouble at our shops!” Yan Can was panting, gasping for breath as he spoke. “A lot of people went to our clothing store to cause chaos… Those customers buying clothes were all beaten up! Also, the people who went to our fabric shop to buy cloth were also beaten and thrown out onto the street!”

Geng Rong also ran up to them, and upon seeing Su Yi, tears and snot streamed down his face. “Miss, I’m afraid we won’t make it through this winter!”

Footnotes

苏伊 | Sū Yī
Original: 毒医不分家 | dú yī bù fēnjiā | Lit. “poison [and] medicine don’t divide the family”; Meaning that the principles or substances used in poison arts and medicine are often related or interchangeable.
之 | zhī | The Chinese character ‘zhi’, which has a shape somewhat like a zigzag or ‘S’. Geese often fly in V or line formations.
火烧云 | huǒshāoyún | Lit. “fire-burning clouds”; refers to clouds brightly colored red and orange at sunrise or sunset.
Original: 人畜无害 | rénchù wúhài | Lit. “harmless to humans and livestock”.
Original: 拍马屁 | pāi mǎpì | Lit. “pat the horse’s rump”; An idiom meaning to flatter or curry favor.
束脩 | shùxiū | Traditionally, bundles of dried meat presented as a tuition fee to a teacher; used here playfully to mean payment for instruction.
二道贩子 | èr dào fànzi | Lit. “second-way peddler”; Refers to a middleman, reseller, or scalper.
Original: 一穷二白 | yī qióng èr bái | Lit. “one poor, two blank”; An idiom meaning utterly destitute or having nothing.
士可辱，不可杀 | shì kě rǔ, bù kě shā | A variation of the saying 士可杀，不可辱 (shì kě shā, bù kě rǔ – a scholar prefers death to humiliation).
钦天监 | Qīntiānjiān | The official institution responsible for observing celestial phenomena, interpreting omens, and maintaining the calendar in imperial China.
Original: 有异心 | yǒu yìxīn | Lit. “have different heart”; Meaning to harbor disloyal thoughts or ulterior motives.

Volume 3: Courtly Winds and Clouds, Each Finds Their Place

Footnotes

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