Cuddling with the Cold Female Protagonist – Chapter 69
by Little PandaVolume 3: Courtly Winds and Clouds, Each Finds Their Place
Sweet Sour Jujubes
Su Yi was like a cat grabbed by the scruff of its neck, completely under control.
Facing Ji Qingchi’s reproachful gaze, her eyes darted around a few times, looking utterly adorable, making Ji Qingchi itch to reach out and pinch her cheek.
Su Yi saw through her intention in time and quickly shielded her face to prevent her demonic claws, “Your Highness, show mercy! It’s not good to always be cooped up in your own room. If Your Highness can’t think of anything, why not go out for a stroll on the streets with me?”
Before Su Yi’s health improved, she had always been cooped up in her room and had been thoroughly stifled; whenever she had the chance, she wanted to run outside.
She hadn’t been out much these past few days, so it was clear she was feeling thoroughly stifled.
Ji Qingchi smiled, “Alright, if I still can’t think of anything after going out, Miss Su will have to help This Palace think.”
It wasn’t that she needed Su Yi to do anything; as long as Su Yi stayed by her side, her heart could calm down a bit, and perhaps she would quickly come up with a countermeasure.
This black-hearted Ji Qingchi, always pulling people in to work for her.
Su Yi hmphed, “Fine.”
The two of them, along with their maids and guards, went out. The fifteenth day of the first lunar month1 had already passed, and people who had returned to their hometowns to visit relatives were gradually returning to the capital. The number of artisans and merchants on the streets was increasing.
Su Yi walked along the road, curiously looking left and right. Whenever she saw something fun or delicious, she would buy it. Unwittingly, Yan Can was once again holding a large pile of things.
Last time, it was because she was holding things and couldn’t look after her young mistress that her young mistress got bumped into by someone, resulting in a large bruise on her shoulder when she returned, which scared Yan Can to tears.
Seeing her young mistress buy many more things and still tirelessly squeezing towards the front of the stalls, Yan Can quickly stopped her, “Young Mistress, don’t buy so much. Look, not only us, but even the guards are holding a pile of things. We can’t even hold any more things, how can we protect you?”
Su Yi was reluctant, “I didn’t buy that much, just a little of each.”
Yan Can was very helpless, “Young Mistress, look at how many small stalls there are here. If you buy a little from each stall, soon our hands won’t be able to hold anything anymore.”
Gancao and the other maids chimed in with agreement.
“Mm, your maid is right.” Ji Qingchi, at the side, smilingly chimed in to help, “You’ve bought a bit too much to carry.”
“Alright then.” Persuaded by several people, Su Yi regretfully gave up the wooden mask she was holding and turned to browse the next stall.
There were many snack vendors nearby. At this time of year, there were even vendors selling sour jujube skewers2. Not long after she had transmigrated, she had secretly eaten half of one. It was an appetizing thing, sweet and sour, and tasted very good. She saw it and wanted to eat it, but was afraid the jujubes weren’t ripe enough and would make her teeth ache. After thinking for a moment, she bought one skewer and handed it to Ji Qingchi. “Your Highness, for you.”
She would let Ji Qingchi test the taste for her. If Ji Qingchi ate it and said it wasn’t sour, she would buy another skewer for herself.
Ji Qingchi looked at the thing in front of her, then at Su Yi, and smiled, “What, you couldn’t win against your maid just now, so you want to bribe This Palace to side with you?”
Su Yi hmphed, “If Your Highness says so, then it is so.”
“Alright then, This Palace will reluctantly accept this bribe.” Ji Qingchi took the item smugly. As soon as she bit into one, her expression froze.
Too sour, so sour her cheeks almost couldn’t close.
Su Yi quickly leaned over, “Your Highness, how does it taste?”
Seeing Su Yi’s eager little expression, Ji Qingchi belatedly realized she had been used by Su Yi as a taste-tester3.
She tried hard to keep her expression composed, looking at Su Yi with a very happy smile, “It’s sweet.”
Su Yi looked at her suspiciously, “Really?”
“Of course, it’s true. Is there any need for This Palace to lie to you?”
Su Yi still didn’t quite believe it, “Then Your Highness, eat another one.”
“Tsk, Miss Su is this wary of This Palace?” Ji Qingchi, holding the sour jujube in her mouth, raised an eyebrow. Just as she was about to speak again, something seemed to happen on the street ahead where they were standing. The crowd became agitated; some people were crying, some were constantly pushing to the side, and the crowd surged, pushing and shoving.
Su Yi was somewhat bewildered, and even turned her head with gossipy interest to look at the chaotic crowd, “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?”
“Young Mistress!” Yan Can and the other maids and guards were holding things, their hands blocked, making it difficult to move forward. They were pushed behind by the crowd, separated by a large distance. Seeing Su Yi still curiously craning her neck forward, they couldn’t help but call out to her.
“Be careful.” Ji Qingchi also reacted, pulling Su Yi into her arms with one swift motion, using her cloak to shield her tightly, preventing her from being bumped by others.
“Mmph…” Su Yi turned her head, wanting to respond to Yan Can, and happened to meet Ji Qingchi who was lowering her head to speak to her. Unexpectedly, her nose bumped against Su Yi’s lower lip.
It was clear that Ji Qingchi’s nose was definitely original equipment4, so hard!
“My apologies.” Ji Qingchi subconsciously went to rub her lower lip. As she rubbed, she felt her fingertips grow hot. Su Yi’s lips were pale, a light pink, soft and tender, like touching silk.
She swallowed, feeling that the sour jujube in her mouth was indeed exceptionally sweet.
“Oww… it hurts so much…” Su Yi’s eyes welled with tears, letting out a wolf-like howl. She felt like she had knocked her tooth, so she opened her mouth, “Your Highness, help me see if my mouth is bleeding?”
Caught off guard, Ji Qingchi’s finger was taken into her mouth. The warm, moist touch made her heart pound violently, and her mouth felt a bit dry. She quickly pulled her hand out.
Su Yi only felt as if she had taken something like incense into her mouth, a fragrant scent filling it. Then she saw Ji Qingchi withdraw her hand with lightning speed5, and then couldn’t help but pull Su Yi entirely into her embrace.
Su Yi felt as if she were hugging a furnace; Ji Qingchi’s body temperature hadn’t seemed this high just a moment ago.
Puzzled, she nuzzled a few times in her embrace, “Your Highness?”
“Don’t move.” She didn’t know if it was her imagination, but she felt that when Ji Qingchi said this, she was panting quite a bit.
Although Su Yi didn’t know what was happening, she obediently didn’t dare to move, carefully nestling in her embrace.
The two of them stopped moving, but the crowd outside became even more chaotic. The faint sound of horse hooves could be heard, and people were pushing and shoving them towards the sides.
After a moment’s pause, Ji Qingchi finally suppressed the fire in her heart. She diligently protected Su Yi in her arms from being bumped, and hearing the loud clamor outside, she frowned, “What’s happening over there?”
Su Yi couldn’t help but poke her head out, eager to see, “I don’t know, Your Highness, shall we go take a look?”
Ji Qingchi looked at the expression on her face and felt that if she weren’t still holding her, Su Yi would have definitely rushed through the dense crowd to get there.
She smiled and nodded, “Alright, let’s satisfy Miss Su’s wish.”
As her words fell, she leaped lightly from the crowd while holding Su Yi, landed on the eaves of a nearby house, and with a light tap of her toes, floated down gently into the center of the noisy crowd.
“Aiyowei6, these two can fly…”
People cried out in alarm one after another. When they landed on the ground, the people who had originally formed a circle also retreated a few steps, looking at them curiously.
“What’s going on?” As soon as Ji Qingchi put her down, Su Yi impatiently rushed into the center of the crowd to spectate the drama7.
Among the surrounding people were a few Capital City Guards who were on regular patrol. Seeing Su Yi and Ji Qingchi, they were startled and were about to salute when Ji Qingchi stopped them, “Answer Miss Su’s question first.”
“Yes.” The Capital City Guard pointed to a richly dressed woman kneeling on the ground with disheveled hair, then pointed to a young man beside her holding an infant, still in shock, and an angry woman next to him, saying, “This woman is a kidnapper. According to this young lady, she and her fulang were holding their child and looking at accessories with their family when this woman suddenly rushed up and tried to snatch the child from their arms. When bystanders tried to stop her, the kidnapper’s accomplices pushed them away. We were patrolling here, heard about this, and hurried over.”
“Our family head is not a kidnapper!” Hearing this, several women sitting around the richly dressed woman immediately stood up to refute. The leading woman, about forty years old and dressed as a steward, saw that Ji Qingchi and Su Yi were richly dressed and that the Capital City Guards were so respectful, guessing they were important people. She took out a nameplate from her waist and said respectfully, “You two Daren8, this lowly one is surnamed Xiao. That is this lowly one’s family head, also surnamed Xiao. We are from Liangcheng9. We have a few acres of land there and are in the restaurant business. We are definitely not kidnappers. If you don’t believe it, you can check the household registration, and you’ll know we are absolutely not lying.”
“Xiao10?” Ji Qingchi took her item, looked at the surname carved on it, and sized them up with interest. She remembered that old fox Xiao Quan’s hometown seemed to be Liangcheng. “Do you know Xiao Quan?”
“I don’t know him.” The steward looked bewildered. “To be honest with Daren, I was rescued by the family head from someone else’s hands, so I joined the Xiao Residence later. I don’t know much about the family head’s relatives, only that the family head has an older sister.”
Ji Qingchi smiled, “Listening to you, your family head is also a landowner. Why would she, out of the blue, come to the capital to be a kidnapper?”
“This is truly a colossal misunderstanding!” The Xiao steward repeatedly cried out about the injustice. “Daren, you don’t know. Eight months ago, our family head’s daughter, who was only a few months old, disappeared. It’s not embarrassing to say, our family head has already given birth to eight sons and never had a daughter. Finally, the ninth was a daughter, wasn’t she cherished like a precious gem11? Who knew, it was so unfortunate, some time ago the family head went out for business, and the wet nurse watching the young miss dozed off. When she woke up, the young miss was gone. Our family head was heartbroken12, spent money asking people to find the young miss. We finally got a clue and traced it to the capital, but the family head, due to the shock, her mental state has been erratic. When she sees other people’s daughters, she thinks they are her own.”
Su Yi tugged at her sleeve, looked at the woman on the ground, feeling a bit sympathetic, and whispered, “Your Highness, that woman is acting erratically, but what she’s saying doesn’t seem to be false.”
“Hmm…” Ji Qingchi looked at the disheveled woman on the ground, thought for a moment, and asked the steward, “Hasn’t your family head seen a daifu13?”
“How could we not?” The steward sighed. “We’ve seen twenty or thirty of them. Every one of them said she couldn’t be cured. Before coming to the capital, the family head only had occasional episodes. After coming here, her illness seems to have worsened; she has several episodes a day. This time, we just came out for a meal, and the family head saw someone else’s child and had an episode.”
Su Yi couldn’t help but walk a few steps closer to the woman. Ji Qingchi quickly pulled her back to her side and said softly, “You stand here. People with unstable minds can easily hurt others. This Palace will go over.”
Su Yi knew her combat power was zero and she would easily be a burden14, so she obediently took a step back. “Your Highness, be careful.”
“Don’t worry.” After Ji Qingchi finished speaking, she slowly walked towards the kneeling woman.
Unexpectedly, she didn’t try to harm anyone. She just knelt on the ground, the whites of her eyes showing somewhat, looking a bit frightening, and kept muttering, “I want to be a good mother, let my daughter have a mother’s love, she must have a mother’s love…”
Ji Qingchi frowned. The woman’s hair was very long, covering her face, so she couldn’t see her appearance, nor did she know if she was related to Xiao Quan.
However, there weren’t many prominent Xiao families in Liangcheng. She had specifically sent people to investigate before, and it was said that Xiao Quan’s two daughters were from wealthy local families; it seemed the younger daughter ran a restaurant.
With the mentality of rather mistakenly kill a thousand than let ten thousand escape15, Ji Qingchi moved closer to her and said, “Do you know Xiao Quan? Xiao Quan, is—”
“Ah!” Before she could finish her sentence, the woman suddenly raised her head, her expression frantic, as if she wanted to swallow her alive. “Xiao Quan! You old thing! You dog thing! I’ll kill you! Ahhhh—”
She lunged forward to grab her neck. Ji Qingchi was startled and dodged to the side, letting her pounce into empty air. The great momentum made her fall to the ground. Before she could get up, Ji Qingchi struck her unconscious with a chop to the neck.
“Family Head!” The surrounding people quickly gathered around, and the steward also ran over. Several of them glared angrily at Ji Qingchi.
Ji Qingchi quickly said, “Don’t worry, I just made her faint. I know a daifu whose medical skills are superb; she can cure your family head’s illness.”
The steward asked suspiciously, “Really?”
“Of course.” From the woman’s actions just now, one could guess she must have some connection with that old fox Xiao Quan. Ji Qingchi also wanted to take the person away and ask about the situation. “The one in our residence is a divine doctor. She can even cure people who are terminally ill, let alone a mere madness.”
“That’s right.” The terminally ill patient herself also stepped forward to give Feng Ruoqing a little advertisement, and by the way, pinched the soft flesh of the arm of Her Highness beside her, who had just spoken rashly, saying with a smile that didn’t reach her eyes, “Her medical skills are excellent. She even cured the Imperial Daughter’s chronic skin itching.”
Ji Qingchi tried hard to maintain her composure. “That’s right. There was a young lady who had a strange habit of ‘chopping hands’16, and she was also cured by the daifu.”
She had unintentionally taught her the term ‘chopping hands’. She didn’t expect Her Highness the Ninth Imperial Daughter to be such a quick learner, actually using it here.
Su Yi’s smile was somewhat contorted. “Indeed, there was an Imperial Daughter whose heart was said to be completely black17, and she too was cured by that daifu.”
The two secretly competed, praising Feng Ruoqing to the skies18.
Their extravagant praises made the steward completely believe them. Overjoyed, she had the accompanying guards carry the family head on their backs and follow Su Yi to find Feng Ruoqing.
Meanwhile, at the distant border of Yanxue Kingdom.
Jingdu already had a touch of warmth, but here it was still a cold winter with howling north winds.
It had snowed heavily just yesterday, and a layer of snow covered the military camp in white. However, because the soldiers were warmly dressed, this year was much better than previous years. They even took the opportunity to capture two more cities from Dongli Kingdom.
The cold wind howled. A furtive shadow entered one of the large tents and then hurriedly left.
After that person left, the three women in military supervisor attire, sitting around a table inside the tent and looking at the opened letter, all had grave expressions.
The slender woman spoke first, “Teacher… is truly becoming more and more outrageous.”
“Asking us to collude with the enemy?” The woman with snow-white skin shook her head. “I think she’s gone senile.”
Anyone who had been to the border would not say such a thing as colluding with the enemy.
Yanxue Kingdom was a country where women were in charge. In contrast, Huachen Kingdom and Dongli Kingdom were mostly run by men.
The soldiers on the battlefield were also like this: Yanxue Kingdom had women, while those two countries had men.
Logically, once on the battlefield, everyone should realize they were all the same, just weapons of war. But those men from Huachen and Dongli Kingdom, it was as if they were uncastrated pigs, only able to see them as women, knowing nothing else.
Every time they went onto the battlefield, their eyes would turn green like wolves staring at prey.
They hated such gazes, feeling that those men didn’t see them as opponents, not even as people, but merely as slaves they could enslave, objects for them to vent their lust on.
So every time they went to battle, they would inevitably gouge out a few eyes. And the way Yanxue Kingdom recorded merits also changed from the original severed heads to freshly gouged-out eyeballs.
For their fallen comrades, they often fought with all their might to retrieve their bodies; otherwise, they would be snatched by those stud pigs, and ghost marriages would be the least of it; their corpses would even be defiled.
How could the soldiers endure their comrades being insulted like this? Who would want such a fate after their own death?
They could not retreat; retreating meant only enslavement, only a dead end.
The soldiers were always bloodthirsty every time they went to battle, and they would also remind each other that if they unfortunately died in battle, their comrades must retrieve their remains. Even if they had to use corpse-dissolving liquid to dissolve them, it didn’t matter; they absolutely could not fall into the enemy’s hands.
So, people at the border, over time, came to hate the people of those two countries to the bone, even wanting to kill any man they saw. How could they possibly collude with the enemy?
“We were, after all, promoted by her. You know what kind of person she is. If we refuse, she will inevitably trip us up19 and have someone report us to Her Majesty. In Her Majesty’s eyes, we are tied to her. Since someone is reporting us, Her Majesty, in order to weaken her power, will surely eliminate us. We will then be unable to protect ourselves. To protect ourselves, we will inevitably help her.” The slender woman sighed. “I’m afraid she was certain of this before sending the letter, otherwise she wouldn’t have been so audacious. So, how should we refuse her?”
“This is indeed a troublesome20 matter.” The woman with gentle features mused, “We must think carefully, otherwise, we will surely be utterly defeated.”
“What matter is so troublesome that it’s making our Three Great Strategists21 so distressed?”
As her voice fell, the tent flap was lifted, and then four women clad in armor walked in.
The leading woman had several scars on her brow, looking fierce and menacing22. She walked straight to the gentle-featured woman who had just spoken and smilingly kneaded her shoulders. “Tell us about it.”
Walking on the left was an athletic woman with rather dark skin, who silently walked behind the woman with snow-white skin and tucked a hand warmer into her hands.
The woman on the right was extremely tall and seemed not to like talking much. After fetching a stove to boil hot water and brew a pot of tea, she placed the hot tea in front of the slender woman.
The woman who walked in last, “…”
She silently lowered her head and walked to a seat at the very side.
She had never known that these women of Yanxue Kingdom were into this sort of thing.
Even though it wasn’t the first day she had seen it, the sight of these paired-off people in the Yanxue Kingdom military camp still had a great impact on her. She needed to calm down, she really needed to calm down.
Footnotes
- 正月十五 | zhēngyuè shíwǔ | The Lantern Festival, marking the end of Chinese New Year celebrations.
- 酸枣串 | suānzǎo chuàn | Skewers of sour jujubes, often candied. Similar to tanghulu (candied hawthorn).
- Original: 当成试药的了 | dàngchéng shìyào de le | Lit. “treated as one for testing medicine”; colloquially, used as a guinea pig or taste-tester.
- 原装的 | yuánzhuāng de | Lit. “original packaging/parts”; colloquially means genuine, not fake, or in this context, natural (not surgically altered).
- 迅雷不及掩耳之速 | xùnléi bùjí yǎn ěr zhī sù | Lit. “as fast as a sudden clap of thunder that leaves no time to cover one’s ears”.
- 哎呦喂 | āiyōwèi | An exclamation of surprise or amazement, similar to “Oh my goodness!” or “Wow!”.
- 吃瓜 | chī guā | Lit. “eat melon”; a popular internet slang term meaning to watch a drama unfold or gossip, often with a sense of detached amusement.
- 大人 | Dàren | A respectful term of address for an official or person of high status; “Lord,” “Your Excellency,” or “Sir/Madam.”
- 凉城 | Liángchéng
- 肖 | Xiào | A Chinese surname.
- 宝贝疙瘩 | bǎobèi gēda | Lit. “precious lump”; a term of endearment for a beloved child or thing, a treasure.
- 伤心欲绝 | shāngxīn yù jué | Lit. “heartbroken to the point of expiring”; grief-stricken, devastated.
- 大夫 | dàifu | Doctor (traditional Chinese medicine).
- 拖后腿 | tuō hòutuǐ | Lit. “drag the back leg”; to be a burden, to hold others back.
- Original: 宁可错杀一千,不能放过一万 | nìngkě cuòshā yīqiān, bùnéng fàngguò yīwàn | A variation of “宁可错杀一千，不可放过一个” (rather mistakenly kill a thousand than let one escape). This version says “cannot let ten thousand escape,” emphasizing even greater thoroughness or ruthlessness. The core idea is to be extremely cautious and not miss any potential target, even at the cost of harming innocents.
- 剁手 | duòshǒu | Lit. “chop hands”; internet slang for obsessive online shopping, implying one should chop off their hands to stop buying things. Here, it’s used metaphorically for a bad habit.
- 心肝都黑了 | xīngān dōu hēi le | Lit. “heart and liver are all black”; describes someone as being thoroughly evil or malicious.
- 天花乱坠 | tiānhuā luànzhuì | Lit. “heavenly flowers fall in disorder”; to describe speech as being extravagantly exaggerated or flowery, often to persuade or deceive.
- 使绊子 | shǐ bànzi | Lit. “use a leg-trip”; to play tricks, to obstruct, to make trouble for someone.
- 伤脑筋 | shāng nǎojīn | Lit. “injure the brain”; troublesome, vexing, a headache.
- 三大智囊 | Sān Dà Zhìnáng | Three Great Masterminds/Strategists. 智囊 (zhìnáng) means “think tank” or “wise counselor.”
- 凶神恶煞的 | xiōngshén èshà de | Lit. “fierce god, evil demon”; looking fierce and malevolent, like a devil incarnate.
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