The Princess’ Shadow Guard – Chapter 58
by Little PandaYou, Give, Me, Shut, Up! (Awakening)
Murong Yan felt that she had a very, very long dream.
In the dream, she and Ah Qin were upon a small skiff1, drifting on the calm lake surface with the ripples that arose when the wind blew.
Ah Qin wore a green shirt2, just like a handsome scholar3, steadily poling with a punt pole4.
And she herself was lying there bonelessly and languidly, her charming eyes like silk5, like a fox wanting the focused person before her to touch her, to sink into depravity together with her.
The gentle breeze blew slowly, the scenery was excellent.
At some unknown time, a light jolt came.
They had reached the shore.
Stretching out both arms, the beloved woman put down the punt pole in her hands and embraced her, their ears and temples rubbing together as if wanting to knead their two bodies into one.
Comfortably tilting her head up, letting the kisses dense as rain fall on her neck, time and space, everything of everything, seemed to no longer matter.
Just as her eyes were hazy and she seemed to only want to drown in this forever, Ah Qin stopped, took her hand, and gently and cautiously, helped her ashore.
『Ah Qin, come.』
She extended her hand, also wanting to help the woman who had not yet come ashore.
But she just smiled and shook her head, picked up the punt pole to push against the riverbank, and pushed the small skiff farther and farther away.
『Ah Qin, don’t!』
The originally calm lake surface suddenly stirred up a hurricane, the sky turned a sheet of gray, and the storm blew the small boat, shaking it without cease.
The black water formed a surging, violent wave, and in an instant, it swallowed everything, including the person and the boat.
『Ah Qin, Ah Qin, don’t! Don’t leave me!』
The feeling of suffocation surged up again, her heart twisted in pain, and lying on the bed, Murong Yan suddenly opened her eyes, her forehead beaded with sweat, uncontrollably panting heavily.
“The Commandery Princess is awake!”
“That’s wonderful.”
“Quickly go and call Imperial Physician Wang.”
The surprised voices of the surrounding maidservants poured into her ears. She wanted to raise her hand to wipe away the sweat, but her body was sore and stiff, so she just lowered it powerlessly. Her consciousness felt as if it had been filled with paste6, and every single thought was extremely difficult.
A tiger walked to the bedside, raised its front paws to support its body, and staring with its gray eyes, it affectionately rubbed against the woman’s thin cheeks.
Hu’er has grown a bit bigger again, how long have I slept?
Pulling away from the vexing nightmare, the memory in her head only stopped at Cangyue Tower, at the moment she was force-fed poison by the Crown Prince; the events after that were a complete blank.
Could it be that I have been saved?
“Is the Commandery Princess awake? How are you feeling?”
Song Shuqing was the first to open the door and enter, with obvious dark circles under her eyes. She looked at the person who was trying to struggle up, and while taking Murong Yan’s wrist, she said, “You were in a coma for a month, you’d better not push yourself too hard for now.”
A month?!
Murong Yan felt only disbelief. She wanted to speak but found her throat was dry and sore, and for a moment, she could not make a sound.
Weakly dry-coughing, looking at Song Shuqing whom she had not seen for a long time, Murong Yan widened her eyes and mouthed something.
Song Shuqing lowered her head, the expression of pretending to seriously diagnose the pulse7 was full of bitterness, but her tone was natural as she said, “I don’t know where Qinqin is. After Cao Yun and I finished our mission, we went to the Shu region. She did not rendezvous with us. I only returned to the capital city a few days ago, and I have not yet received any news of Qinqin.”
Hearing these words, Murong Yan’s forcefully supported neck dropped dejectedly, and she silently closed her eyes, allowing Song Shuqing to perform acupuncture8 on her.
“Miss Song, you came so quickly!”
Wang Wei, with a bright red nose and messy hairstyle, walked into the room and carelessly opened his medicine box, not noticing the unusual silence between the two. “I just knew you wanted to inherit my robe and bowl9 and become the World Medicine King10, you truly are my good disciple.”
“You smelly old man, who wants to be your disciple! I’m about to perish, Medicine King my ass.” Song Shuqing secretly breathed a sigh of relief. While having Murong Yan put an arm around her shoulder to help her sit up, she said in annoyance, “I’ve said it a hundred times and you still don’t understand.”
“Hmph! You person whose mouth is not where your heart is11, you clearly want to change this world with me.” Wang Wei mumbled, passing the prepared medicine in his hand to Song Shuqing, letting her slowly help Murong Yan take it.
Flipping through the medical records at hand, and then observing the complexion of the woman who was drinking the medicine, Wang Wei said as if sighing, “It seems the Commandery Princess is all stable now! That’s really great, now I can finally be at ease. This way, it won’t be in vain for Shadow Guard Xiao Mi…”
Before he could finish speaking, he was interrupted by a death-dealing eye-knife12 from Song Shuqing.
『You, give, me, shut, up!』
Taking advantage of Murong Yan lowering her head to drink the medicine, she turned her head and silently signaled to the crazy old man before her.
“Oh oh… right right.”
Thinking of the instructions Song Shuqing had given everyone beforehand, Wang Wei guiltily touched his nose and rarely shut his mouth, becoming quiet for a moment. Then he still couldn’t help but ramble at the Commandery Princess on the bed, “Eh… miss… Commandery Princess, you just woke up, you still have to take your medicine on time. For food, try to eat some congee, it’s easier to digest. Increase it slowly, don’t eat too much at once, and you also have to go walk more, rehabilitation is very important, rehabilitation…”
After finishing the extremely bitter medicinal liquid in small sips, there was no particular expression on Murong Yan’s face. She just lowered her eyelids, and it was unknown if she had listened or not.
“You have to take good care of this body of yours, don’t have great joys or great sorrows again. You’re only thirty and your hair has already turned white. Although people in here generally living to sixty is considered a long life, with you like this, I’m not even sure if you can live properly to fifty.”
Wang Wei didn’t mind that no one replied, he just closed his medicine box and sighed, “I worked so hard, traveling over mountains and across rivers, and even got carsick… oh no… horsesick to come save you. If you die too early, wouldn’t that be too unfair to me and Shadow Guard Xiao Mi…”
Seeing that the old man was about to let it slip again, Song Shuqing directly reached out and pressed down on that babbling mouth, forced a fake smile towards Murong Yan, and then grabbed Wang Wei by the collar and dragged him out the door.
“Hey hey hey! Miss Song, my clothes, my clothes are going to break.” Wang Wei carried his medicine box, struggling in dissatisfaction.
“Damn… you smelly old man.”
Song Shuqing closed the door, then let go and lowered her voice, saying, “If you dare to mention Qinqin in front of the Commandery Princess again, I will really choke you unconscious next time.”
Wang Wei straightened his clothes aggrievedly, his wrinkled face pouting, “I didn’t do it on purpose. The body that Shadow Guard Xiao Ming exchanged her life for must be properly recuperated.”
“You think I don’t know that?” Grabbing her head in annoyance, Song Shuqing said with some irritability, “But if you let the Commandery Princess know that her own life was exchanged for Qinqin’s health, do you think she would be happy?”
“Never mind great joy or great sorrow, she might just follow her in the next second.”
“Alright, alright, I know, my fault, my fault.” Wang Wei raised his hands in a surrender gesture.
“Ai.”
Sighing, the vexed woman loosened her collar and started walking. “Now that the Commandery Princess has more or less recovered, we don’t need to be distracted anymore. We have to hurry up and research Qinqin’s antidote.”
“Concocting an antidote to extend her life is one thing. Shadow Guard Xiao Ming’s body has antibodies so she won’t die, but… it’s unknown if the damaged parts can recover.”
Scratching a non-existent beard, Wang Wei’s usually crazy face showed a trace of dejection. “To be honest, Shadow Guard Xiao Ming’s current situation… might be even worse than….”
“Damn it, don’t give up!”
Kicking the old man’s butt, Song Shuqing, completely disrespectful of her elders and with no spirit of respecting the old and cherishing the young, glared with great anger. “Aren’t you supposedly a world-class genius, a miracle from the dinosaur age? Get serious for me!”
“I know, I will find a way to save Shadow Guard Xiao Ming.” Rubbing the spot that was kicked sore, Wang Wei wasn’t angry, just slowly said as he walked, “Hey! Do you think this useless Crown Prince is also some kind of genetically mutated poison scorpion genius? Otherwise, how could he have managed to get such a hard-to-deal-with poison.”
“Who knows. Who cares where he got it from. Anyway, hurry up and use your modern medicine Ph.D. wisdom to crush him.”
One old and one young, bickering noisily, walked towards the Shadow Guard Camp.
The author has something to say:
For the extra stories, besides Shijie, I also plan to write the stories of a few supporting characters (Cao Yun, Xiao Shiyi13), probably just a short one or two thousand words to explain their follow-up like this.
I will mark them out, so if you don’t want to see the men’s stories, it’s okay to skip them~
LP: Re-translated on August 29, 2025
Footnotes
- 扁舟 (piǎnzhōu): Literally “flat boat”. A small, light boat or skiff, often featured in classical Chinese poetry and paintings to evoke a sense of scholarly reclusion or wandering.
- 青衫 (qīngshān): Green shirt/robe. 青 (qīng) is a color that can describe shades of green, blue, or black. In historical contexts, it often refers to the simple attire of scholars or young martial artists.
- 书生 (shūshēng): Literally “book person” or “scholar”. A term for an intellectual, usually one who has studied the Confucian classics. They are often depicted as refined, sometimes physically frail, and can be protagonists in both romance and wuxia stories.
- 篙 (gāo): A punt pole or barge pole, a long pole used to propel a boat through shallow water by pushing against the riverbed.
- 媚眼如丝 (mèi yǎn rú sī): A chengyu (four-character idiom). Literally “charming eyes like silk threads”. It describes eyes that are alluring, seductive, and captivating, often with a hint of languidness.
- 糨糊 (jiànghu): A thick paste or glue, traditionally made from rice or wheat flour and water. It is used metaphorically here to describe a mind that is slow, muddled, and unable to think clearly.
- 诊脉 (zhěnmài): To feel the pulse, a key diagnostic method in Traditional Chinese Medicine.
- 施针 (shī zhēn): Literally “to apply needles”. The act of performing acupuncture, a key component of Traditional Chinese Medicine where thin needles are inserted into the body at specific points.
- 衣钵 (yībō): From the Sanskrit “pātra-cīvara”. Literally “robe and bowl”, referring to the possessions of a Buddhist monk. In Chan (Zen) Buddhism, the master would pass his robe and bowl to his chosen successor, symbolizing the transmission of his teachings and authority. Metaphorically, it means to inherit the legacy, skills, or mantle of one’s master or predecessor.
- 药王 (yàowáng): Medicine King. An honorific title for a physician of legendary or supreme skill. In Chinese folk religion and Daoism, Yaowang is also a deity of medicine.
- 口是心非 (kǒu shì xīn fēi): A chengyu (four-character idiom). Literally “mouth is, heart is not”. It means to say one thing but think another; to be duplicitous or disingenuous.
- 眼刀 (yǎndāo): Literally “eye knife”. A colloquial term for a sharp, piercing, or menacing glare, as if one’s eyes could cut like a knife.
- 小十一 (Xiǎo Shíyī): A name or code name. 小 (xiǎo) means “little”. 十一 (shíyī) means “eleven”. So, “Little Eleven”.
They tried to bait us there. Well she’s finally awake! Now for Ming qin
They tried to bait us there. Well she’s finally awake! Now for Ming qin
I want more 😭
I want more 😭