The Princess’ Shadow Guard – Chapter 56
by Little PandaYou still have one that wears over there?
When Wang Wei, who was immersed in his experiment, finally came to his senses, the sun had long since set.
He twisted his neck and was about to get up when he was startled to find a black figure kneeling at his doorstep.
His heart thumped with fright. He composed himself and only then realized it was Ming Qin from the daytime.
Good heavens, it had already been three shichen1, and this little shadow guard still hadn’t gone back.
Will this shadow guard be punished if her performance doesn’t meet the standard?
Wang Wei stubbornly turned his head, unwilling to meet her eyes, but his bladder was bursting. And as it happened, Ming Qin was blocking the only door, preventing him from going out to the thatched room2.
Damn it, do I have to compromise and talk to her!?
But it feels like the person who speaks first, loses.
The stubborn and competitive fifty-year-old man thought childishly.
But no matter how strong, a bladder always has a time when it can’t hold on. Wang Wei looked at the window in the wooden house and decided to climb out to relieve himself.
Unfortunately, this fifty-year-old mad scientist of an old man completely overestimated his own abilities.
Just as Ming Qin was racking her brain, thinking of how to persuade Wang Wei, she saw the old man awkwardly open the window and try to jump out. The very instant he was about to take a step, his upper body plunged straight down and out.
Although she couldn’t hear the man’s wails in her ears, based on Ming Qin’s years of experience with falls, with that posture and at that age, if he fell just like that, he would probably injure his muscles and bones.
She quickly got up, disregarding Wang Wei’s previous command, and strode into the house. She poked her head out of the wide-open window and, sure enough, saw the old man holding his lower back, lying on the ground and trembling slightly.
“I tweaked my back, I tweaked my back.” At this point, Wang Wei could no longer care about winning or losing. He reached a hand toward Ming Qin and said mournfully, “Quick, help me up. It hurts so much, quickly.”
Nimbly climbing over the window to help the old man up, Ming Qin obediently took Wang Wei to the thatched room before helping him back into the house.
“Hey, hey, hey, be careful not to touch my culture dishes3. What’s inside are my good bacteria babies.”
Wang Wei hung limply on the little shadow guard’s shoulder, arching his body and walking tremblingly while dodging the various things he had placed around the messy room.
“That’s my penicillin, don’t you touch it! And that microscope, I had such a hard time assembling it. If you touch it, it’ll fall apart.”
Ming Qin looked at the pile of bowls covered in mold and the randomly stacked glazed glass, and just obediently dodged them, helping the old man to his bed.
It was a small, crowded, barely habitable empty space surrounded by a pile of books and miscellaneous items.
Wang Wei wailed as he lay down. Ming Qin took out a medicinal wine specialized for bruises and sprains from her pocket and honestly began to apply it for him. The old man let out pained groans, and if she pressed a little too hard, he would cry and wail, making her scratch her head in a bit of a dilemma.
For one night, Ming Qin fetched water, served food, and was occasionally ordered to take care of the ‘good bacteria babies’ on the table. With all sorts of miscellaneous tasks, she was busy from start to finish without a moment’s rest.
When Wang Wei finally felt a bit better, he saw Ming Qin standing obediently to the side and suddenly felt a little embarrassed, but he still turned his head away and said, “Don’t think that this will persuade me to return to the capital. My standards are very high!”
“I didn’t plan on that.” Feeling a bit baffled, Ming Qin was puzzled, and then, as if thinking of something, she suddenly asked, “What are the standards for persuading you to return to the capital?”
“Ah…”
Having just said it casually, Wang Wei didn’t expect Ming Qin to suddenly ask. He scratched his messy hair and hurriedly thought, “…You, you help me carve ten… no, one hundred xiliangguan (pipette)4, and I’ll consider it.”
(It’s something like a straw that can be used to draw up solutions, mostly disposable, often used in medical, biological, and chemical laboratories.)
“Xiliangguan? What is that?” Ming Qin tilted her head and asked with a puzzled look.
He took out two handmade wooden bamboo tubes from his sleeve. The opening in the center of the tube was extremely fine, seemingly ground out bit by bit with an iron needle. (A very crude ancient version.)
“If you can make one hundred bamboo tubes like this.” Wang Wei stroked his non-existent beard and said, pretending to be profound, “Remember, each one must be exactly the same, so the measurements will be precise! Then I’ll consider whether or not to go to the capital with you.”
After speaking, the irresponsible, crazy old man tossed the bamboo tubes to the shadow guard, then carefully supported his tweaked back, turned over, pulled up the covers, and fell into a deep sleep.
After the rhythmic snores began, Ming Qin carefully rubbed the bamboo tubes in her hands and pondered for a moment. She took an iron needle from the table and turned to leave the house.
Three days later.
When the little shadow guard, who he thought had long been scared off by his conditions and retreated, suddenly appeared at his door, Wang Wei was truly very surprised.
Ming Qin took out a bag of carefully polished bamboo tubes and handed it to the man before her. Her fingers were wrapped in bandages, seeping with little dots of blood.
Blinking hard, Ming Qin’s voice was hoarse as she said, “One hundred… xiliangguan. Imperial Phy… Uncle Wang, you can count them.”
Her vision was so blurry that she was a little unsure if there were one hundred or ninety-eight.
The old man looked at the things in his hand, feeling so shocked his jaw was about to drop. It would take him at least half a shichen to polish just one or two of them himself. In just a few short days, this little shadow guard had actually managed to make so many…
This Shadow Guard Xiao Ming is really…
Dedicated, too dedicated.
To the extent that she could be selected as one of the Ten Outstanding Young People5*, Wang Wei thought to himself.
“So now, Uncle Wang, can you consider going to the capital with me?” Ming Qin asked, moving closer to the man, afraid she would miss reading his reply.
Three days ago, as soon as Ming Qin left the small house, she found a pile of wood similar to the template bamboo tubes. At a nearby simple inn, she took out her dagger and began to carefully carve the solid wood in her hands.
It was unknown whether it was because the night outside was completely silent, or because Ming Qin was already oblivious to her surroundings. The young shadow guard just sat by the window, by the faint light of an oil lamp, the movements of her wrist never stopping.
Under the dim light, her eyes, which had been open for a long time, grew more and more sore and tired, and her vision became increasingly blurry.
Not yet.
Ming Qin blinked forcefully. The medicine Song Shuqing had given her had long been finished, eaten as if they were beans.
Before I return to the capital, not yet.
Her eyes throbbed and felt hot. Physiological tears fell uncontrollably. She roughly wiped them away with her shoulder, still stubbornly persisting.
Her already blurry vision began to see double, making it difficult for Ming Qin to polish the holes in the wood with the iron needle.
The sharp needle constantly pierced the palm of her hand, leaving behind bright red bloodstains.
As expected, they say the five fingers are connected to the heart6.
No wonder my fingers, which have no sense of pain, don’t hurt at all, yet my heart aches so terribly.
Yanyan is waiting for me. I have to be faster.
Blood dripped down, drop by drop, making a rhythmic sound in the quiet room. But whether Ming Qin had lost her hearing or not, she didn’t care. She just kept carving.
It was precisely because of this sleepless work that she was able to hand over the items specified by Wang Wei in such a short time.
“Uncle Wang, I beg you, please come with me to the capital.”
Seeing the man before her not answering, Ming Qin spoke again to persuade him. Her injured hand anxiously gripped his shoulder, and she was about to kneel. “If we don’t set out now, it will be too late.”
“I…”
Seeing the young person’s urgent expression, Wang Wei stammered and then sighed as if giving up. “…Forget it. How about you let me see the medical records for now?”
Hearing the old man relent, Ming Qin quickly took out a stack of letter paper from her robes and, fearing Wang Wei would go back on his word, stuffed it into his arms.
Wang Wei spread open the letter paper and began to read reluctantly. Strangely, his eyebrows rose higher and higher, and his fingers gripped the paper tightly, as if he was going to stare a hole through it with fire.
After half a ke, he put down the letter paper and said with a shocked expression, “You still have one that wears over there?”7
LP: Re-translated on August 27, 2025
Footnotes
- 時辰 | shíchén | A traditional Chinese unit of time equal to two hours. Three ‘shichen’ would be six hours.
- 茅房 | máofáng | A latrine or outhouse, literally “thatched room.”
- 培養皿 | péiyǎngmǐn | Literally “culture dish,” the Chinese term for a Petri dish.
- 吸量管 | xīliángguǎn | The Chinese term for a pipette, a laboratory tool used to transport a measured volume of liquid.
- 十大杰出青年 | shí dà jiéchū qīngnián | A modern award given in many Chinese-speaking regions to recognize young people who have made significant contributions in their field.
- 五指連心 | wǔ zhǐ lián xīn | A common Chinese idiom literally meaning “the five fingers are connected to the heart.” It signifies that the fingers are extremely sensitive and an injury to them is felt deeply. It is also used metaphorically to describe the profound pain felt when a close relative (like a child) is harmed.
- 你那儿还有个穿的？ | nǐ nà’er hái yǒu ge chuān de? | Literally, “You still have one that wears (clothes) over there?” This is a pun and a form of slang common in Chinese webnovels about transmigration. 穿 (chuān) is the first character of 穿越 (chuānyuè), which means “to transmigrate”.
That’s cool
It’s so fun that transmigrators seem to be a somewhat common occurrence in this and yet the main characters aren’t. It’s fun, really adds to the world I think. Man I was trying to read faster so the Ming qin could go back with the doctor faster! That poison is bad!
That’s cool
It’s so fun that transmigrators seem to be a somewhat common occurrence in this and yet the main characters aren’t. It’s fun, really adds to the world I think. Man I was trying to read faster so the Ming qin could go back with the doctor faster! That poison is bad!