The Princess’ Shadow Guard – Chapter 30
by Little PandaMy Young Miss (Spoiled Rotten)
By the side of the brazier.
Ming Qin, stroke by stroke, gently wiped Murong Yan’s damp hair with a cloth. Seeing that the silver strands in the woman’s hair seemed to have multiplied, her gaze trembled slightly, and the movements of her hands grew ever lighter.
Wrapped in a quilt, Murong Yan squinted her eyes in comfort, raising her head slightly like a cat being petted. Her delicate, jade-like feet dangled over the edge of the bed, the soles a tender pink from her recent bath.
After a while, she seemed to have grown sleepy. With her hair still slightly damp, her body went soft and she leaned into the arms of the person standing beside her.
“You still have to eat later.” Murong Yan hadn’t eaten properly these past few days, and Ming Qin couldn’t help but say worriedly, “Eat first, then sleep, okay?”
“Mn.”
A sound of agreement rumbled softly from Murong Yan’s throat, but her hands seemed to protest, gripping tightly to the other’s clothes.
Ming Qin gently patted Murong Yan’s hand to soothe her, then said, “I’ll go to the kitchen to take a look first.” She walked out of the room, only to run right into a waiter who had come to pass on a message.
“Hey! Miss, perfect timing.”
“What is it?”
“The lady boss is asking what your Miss would like to eat.”
“Of course, prepare the best of everything. My Young Miss is very picky.”
As the sound of the two of them going downstairs faded, Murong Yan, listening from behind the door, held a smile as she combed her own hair.
『My Young Miss.』
She repeated it over and over in her heart.
That was truly a fresh way to be addressed.
It had the air of a wealthy merchant family, and coming from Ah Qin’s mouth, it even carried an arrogant, roguish charm1.
But she didn’t dislike it.
Murong Yan took out a black cord to tie up her hair, then threw off the quilt covering her body. She picked up the clothes Ming Qin had prepared at the side and began to put them on in an unhurried manner.
By the time she had tied her belt and straightened her sleeves, Ming Qin had returned, pushing the door open with her shoulder while carrying a tray of food.
“The food here really can’t compare to the Capital’s.”
Ming Qin placed the items in her hands onto the table, then scooped up Murong Yan’s soft and pliant body and set her down on a cushioned chair, complaining, “And I don’t think that chef’s skills are any good. At best, he’s just a tiny bit better than Shiniang’s.”
She held out her pinky finger, gesturing at the air.
Looking at the person standing there with an indignant expression, Murong Yan found it a little amusing. “If your Shiniang heard that, she’d probably get angry.”
“But I’m not lying. Still…” Ming Qin replied while dishing out rice. She glanced at the glistening, braised pork trotter on the table and sighed. “I suppose the lady boss did her best.”
When the lady boss had seen Ming Qin unhesitatingly pull out a large handful of copper coins and tell her to bring up the best food in the entire inn, the lady boss had indeed tried very hard.
Besides the pork trotter, she had also prepared several dishes of green leafy vegetables that were hard to come by in winter. If not for the lack of time, she probably would have wanted to go kill a chicken in the courtyard herself.
Ming Qin didn’t want to misjudge the lady boss’s kind intentions; it was just that a small town in the mountains truly couldn’t produce any fine dishes, nor did it have any good chefs.
She could only blame herself for not having asked the matron cook from the Shadow Guard Camp for a few pointers back then.
Handing the bowl and chopsticks to Murong Yan and serving her some food, the shadow guard could only pray that the person before her would eat as much as possible to make up for the few pounds of flesh she had lost in the previous days.
Murong Yan looked at the pitiful-looking Ming Qin and felt the urge to laugh. Gazing at the dishes that truly failed to stir her appetite, she set aside her usual pickiness and began to eat with a calm expression.
The slightly yellowish rice was a bit hard, not like the fragrant, soft, and glutinous white rice sent by the imperial chefs, but it was much better than the dry rations that had scraped her throat a few days ago.
The vegetables were a bit limp and the flavor was too bland, while the braised pork shank was too salty and far too greasy.
It was likely that the lady boss, in an effort to show her sincerity, had been a bit heavy-handed.
But using more oil, salt, and sauce doesn’t necessarily mean it will taste good, Murong Yan silently critiqued, forcing herself to swallow the food in her mouth with the rice.
She still forced herself to eat half a small bowl before she couldn’t take another bite.
Ming Qin understood her and didn’t try to coax her. Instead, like a whirlwind sweeping away scattered clouds2, she unhesitatingly shoveled the remaining food into her own stomach.
Although she loved fine food and knew how to appreciate delicacies, she was never a picky eater.
For a shadow guard on a mission, eating was merely a means to maintain physical strength.
Be it rare delicacies, coarse grain buns that were like chewing wax, or even the leftover scraps of others—they were all just tools for survival.
Ming Qin could swallow it all.
Night had already fallen. After finishing the meal, Ming Qin took the plates and bowls downstairs. On the way, she brought a basin of hot water to the well, and in the freezing cold, mixed it with the well’s icy water to rinse her body, ensuring that as a shadow guard, she carried no scent.
Afterward, she went to the carriage to change her clothes, checked on the horses and the carriage wheels in the stables, and upon returning to their room, saw that Murong Yan had not yet gone to bed. She was just silently gazing at the falling snow outside the window, her hand pressed to her stomach with a slight frown.
“Are you not feeling well?”
Murong Yan turned her head and reassured the worried-looking Ming Qin, “It’s just a bit of bloating.”
But inside, she couldn’t help but mock herself.
Truly a pampered commandery princess.
Without fine rice, white flour, and palace cuisine, her body was actually protesting as if it had been spoiled rotten.
Isn’t this just like a caged golden canary3 that, once out of its cage, can no longer survive without its master’s casual feeding?
How detestable.
Ming Qin stepped forward and took Murong Yan’s outstretched hand, carrying her back to the bed. While gently rubbing her stomach, she apologized, “I was careless today. I will be more mindful from now on.”
“Today was already wonderful. I have nothing to complain about.”
Forcefully suppressing the self-loathing in her heart, Murong Yan half-reclined, turning her head to look at Ming Qin, who sat on the edge of the bed with a guilty face, and gave a wry smile. “It is I who am too delicate. Ah Qin, don’t apologize to me.”
“You are not delicate at all.”
Ming Qin protested, her eyes sincere. “All of your feelings are something I should cherish.”
Murong Yan’s heart trembled. Her hand moved to clasp the fingertips of the hand Ming Qin had placed on her stomach, her suppressed tone remaining calm. “Ah Qin, if you keep this up, what will happen if you spoil me rotten?”
The motion of Ming Qin’s hand stopped. She stared into the woman’s eyes. “You were always meant to be thoroughly cherished by the entire world, to live freely and be happy every day. How could there be such a thing as being spoiled rotten?”
After answering without a moment’s hesitation, Ming Qin lowered her gaze and thought.
Those who mercilessly stripped her of her freedom, those who broke her wings, those who silently choked her—they are the ones who deserve to die.
And she herself must cherish her, support her, and allow Murong Yan to live a life of ease and freedom.
She must protect her from the hands of those damned people.
Ming Qin stared at her hand intertwined with Murong Yan’s, a rare storm of fury and ferocity surging in her eyes.
Sensing her hand clenching unconsciously, she feared she would hurt the soft skin intertwined with her fingers. In the next breath, Ming Qin’s expression returned to its usual clarity, and her palm once again began to gently rub the stomach of the person beneath her.
Murong Yan did not notice Ming Qin’s abnormality. She was simply lost in her words, chewing them over carefully in her heart, a lump seeming to form in her throat.
It was like this again. Ah Qin could always, in the instant she was about to lose control and fall into an abyss, pull her into an embrace. She could so easily break through her heart’s defenses and soothe her emotions.
It was like this when she first saw the prosthetic limb, when the phantom pain struck, when they escaped the Cangyue Tower, in the forest, and now, it was like this again.
Time and time again, so easily, she could make her tense self stop worrying.
It was as if, with her here, she could live as wantonly as she pleased, and with a turn of her head, she would always see the safety net woven from her gentleness.
In the silence, she raised her empty hand and covered her eyes with its back, as if to suppress the warmth welling up from the bottom of her heart to her eyes.
Ming Qin merely thought she was tired and silently blew out the oil lamp.
When she felt the breathing of the person on the bed steady, she prepared to turn and leave, but in the darkness, her sleeve was tugged.
“Ah Qin, don’t go.”
A plea.
“Stay with me.”
The author has something to say:
If this green app doesn’t cause trouble, the next chapter should have the follow-up.
LP: Re-translated on July 03, 2025
Footnotes
- 流裏流氣 | liúli liúqì | An idiom describing someone who acts like a hoodlum, gangster, or vagrant. It carries a negative connotation of being roguish or uncouth.
- 風卷殘雲 | fēng juǎn cán yún | Lit. “wind rolls up the scattered clouds.” An idiom used to describe devouring food quickly and completely, or making a clean sweep of something.
- 金丝雀 | jīnsīquè | A golden canary. In this context, it’s a metaphor for a person (usually a woman) who is kept in a lavish but restrictive lifestyle, completely dependent on their keeper.
Fuck, these two are just too cute together
Thanks for the chapter!
Fuck, these two are just too cute together
Thanks for the chapter!