The Princess’ Shadow Guard – Chapter 45

In life, demand to see the person; In death, demand to see the corpse (The full story)

When Murong Yan awakened with a start, she saw her older brother Murong Can, his hair in disarray and eyes rimmed red, gripping her hand.

“Brother…” Murong Yan spoke with difficulty, her throat parched and cracked.

“Yue’er! You’re awake? Where is the doctor, the doctor?” The man, seeing his sister regaining consciousness, hurriedly called for someone to check on her.

As soon as Murong Can finished his training and returned to the mansion, he saw his sister Murong Yan standing alone in the midst of a pond mixed with crushed ice, her body trembling and unsteady.

He quickly lifted her nearly fainting body out of the water. Had he not faintly felt her weak pulse, he might have almost mistaken the ice-cold, pale woman in front of him for a corpse.

In a hurry to hand his sister over to the attendants and the doctor, Murong Can urgently inquired the servants about the whole story. Fuming, he barged into the main hall, and upon lifting his eyes, he saw his father and his half-brother placating Murong Fu, who was wailing and throwing a tantrum.

No one noticed Murong Yan, who had nearly died alone by the pond.

No one.

His anger was uncontainable. Departing from his usual gentleness and without regard for others trying to stop him, Murong Can strode over to Murong Fu and delivered twenty hard strikes to his thighs with a plank. After driving everyone else out of the hall, he was left to converse in depth with Prince Yu.

His indignation on behalf of his sister could no longer be contained. His heart, previously a storehouse for restraint, poured forth in speech. Be it his father’s partiality, his mother’s bitter hardships, his half-brother’s hypocrisy, Fu’er’s arrogance, as well as Yan’er’s silent endurance and grievances over these many years—all were laid bare.

Murong Can was uncertain how much his father would take to heart, but at the very least, he hoped his dissatisfaction would be recognized.

Or at the very least, acknowledge the sacrifices his sister had made for the family.

After the flurry of activity from the physician and the maidservants, Murong Can sat at the bedside, watching his sister weakly half-reclining as she drank the warm medicinal broth, her eyes utterly devoid of spirit, feeling a bitter acidity in his heart.

Taking out the clean hair tie he had washed himself from the wide sleeve, Murong Can extended the item in his hand to his sister, saying gently, “Yue’er, I return this to you.”

In the two days the woman was unconscious, he had ordered all the ponds in the mansion to be drained, involving over a hundred people to search through the muddy pond bottoms. It was only in a fish pond in a side courtyard that they finally found the treasured item of his sister.

Murong Yan’s eyes widened as she gazed at the object in the man’s hand, her normally indifferent expression shattering. Her fingertips trembled as she took the hair tie, holding it dearly against her cheek, her eyes heating up, unable to speak for a moment.

Seeing his sister’s reaction, Murong Can softly said, “Is this from the shadow guard who brought you back? Yue’er… you treasure it greatly, don’t you?”

Closing her eyes, Murong Yan clenched the black knot tightly, her voice hoarse as she spoke, “…I treasure everything about her.”

Murong Can simply nodded slightly upon hearing this.

In his heart, he had already deduced from the few words his sister had let slip about her escape that the shadow guard’s fate was likely grim, but seeing Murong Yan, always so composed and unruffled, now showing such unrestrained genuine emotion, he chose to remain silent.

After carefully ensuring the small tiger he had fed was settled on the bed, Murong Can tenderly gave a few instructions, then took his leave.

In early spring, green sprouts break through the soil.

The Lord of the Northern Territory, Prince Yu, bearing the late Emperor’s edict, proclaimed to the world the Crown Prince’s great treachery in plotting rebellion and usurpation.

Afterwards, he led his son, the ever-victorious General Murong Can, to march southward, intending to sweep away the traitorous Crown Prince’s party in reverse order, arriving in the capital to uphold the eleventh prince’s accession to the throne.

With the tiger tally in hand, the armies from various states outside the capital quickly pledged their allegiance, merely waiting for an order to gather, converging into an overwhelming force.

Yet, all of these had nothing to do with Murong Yan.

The only thing she truly cared about was whether she could see the person she longed for day and night when passing through the forest that always appeared in her nightmares.

Her frail arms could no longer carry the three or four-month-old tiger cub that had been fattened on goat’s milk and minced meat within the Prince’s mansion.

Yet the cub, still attached to the woman, lay by her side, its large head gently nudging her hand for affectionate strokes.

When the army encamped in the local prefecture, Murong Can brought three bound men before Murong Yan, who was resting in a luxurious tent.

“These thieves have confessed during interrogation that they were once involved with Xiao He in pursuing the mission to capture you,” Murong Can said, and after a pause, he handed a greaseproof paper package to the woman, “Before sentencing them to prison, I thought you might want to talk to them.”

For reasons unknown, Murong Yan felt some apprehension, yet she still accepted the item handed to her by the man.

Strangely, the small greaseproof paper package felt somewhat hot to the touch.

Holding it just in her hand, she then gazed at the three people kneeling on the ground, their hands tied behind their backs, and asked in a hoarse voice, “…So, do you know… the whereabouts of the shadow guard who accompanied me that day?”

Her tone carried a hesitation that others couldn’t detect, as if she were resisting knowing the answer.

“If you’re referring to the woman in the black robe…” One of the bearded men hesitated before speaking, “I fear… she may have been killed by Marshal Xiao…”

“Impossible!”

Murong Yan interrupted the man, his voice filled with panic and almost out of tune, “You’re lying! Ah Qin can’t be dead!”

The little tiger cub, seeing Murong Yan’s intense reaction and thinking that the three people before them had bullied his master’s beloved woman, jumped down from the couch. It growled with a mix of cuteness and ferocity, baring its sharp white teeth.

The bearded man stuttered to clarify, “I’m not lying, that woman indeed…” but his voice got softer as he noticed the woman’s agitated response.

Murong Can, frowning, stood to the side and demanded, “What exactly happened that day? Spit it out and tell us everything!”

“The shadow guard accompanying that princess was indeed very strong.”

Watching the bearded man shrink back, another bald man kneeling spoke up for him, “That day, she, a single woman armed only with a sword, stopped us in our tracks. At that time, we estimated…” He looked over at the man with a braid, seemingly seeking confirmation.

The man with the braid took over, “Including Marshal Xiao, there were fifty one people.”

“Yes, fifty one people. That woman drew a line on the ground and would not let anyone continue the pursuit past it. Even as dozens of us fired arrows simultaneously, she could find safety amidst the hail of arrows.”

The bald man, recalling the event, continued, “Anyone who dared to cross that line would be beheaded from their horse immediately. After a dozen or so deaths, no one dared to try again.”

“Afterward, Marshal Xiao ordered me to delay that woman while the others continued to chase after her through a detour…” The bald man hesitated for a moment, took a deep breath, and continued, “That woman was blocking Marshal Xiao’s attacks while she managed to injure all the others’ horses with her sword. And then… she went mad.”

He shivered.

“Went mad?” Murong Can was a bit puzzled. “What do you mean by ‘went mad’?”

“She went mad… she really went mad. I was standing at the front at that time, and I saw it all very clearly.”

The bearded man stared with wide eyes as he recalled, and then in a trembling voice, he said, “At that time, she had almost bled out, and she was poisoned on her shoulder, but she seemed completely indifferent to the fact that she was about to die… But after Marshal Xiao said a few words to her, she went crazy like a wild beast and started hacking at Marshal Xiao without caring about her own life.”

The woman, her eyes reddened and bloodied, had a fierce and ruthless gaze that flickered after conversing with Marshal Xiao. Her whole body emitted a suffocating bloodlust, as if she were Rakshasa walking through hell.

Even though her right hand was soaked in blood and could barely hold the sword, and her body had been hacked multiple times, she continued to dance wildly with her broken body, seemingly unconcerned, vowing to take Marshal Xiao down with her.

“The two of them fought relentlessly in the forest, with blades flashing and shadows of swords. The rest of us couldn’t get close at all…” the bearded man whispered, nodding towards the paper package in Murong Can’s hand. “Later, Marshal Xiao came back alone from the forest after killing her. He even cut off one of her ears, and the remaining body… was thrown into the lake.”

Upon hearing this, Murong Yan felt as if she were about to suffocate. She shakily opened the tightly held paper package in her hand.

Inside lay a blood-stained garnet earring.

It’s the same garnet earring that hung from her own earlobe.

Her heart plummeted.

She was unable to breathe.

“To be able to cripple Marshal Xiao’s arm when she was covered in wounds, she truly is admirable.” Despite once being the enemy, the bald man still muttered with respect.

The man with the braid reminisced, “Before the two disappeared, I did hear that woman shouting something.” He then looked up puzzled and said, “Kill you?… protect… Yan? Yanyan?”

Hearing these words, Murong Yan abruptly stood up, but then she wobbled and squatted down, hugging herself as she shivered violently, her teeth chattering as if she might faint at any moment.

“Yue’er! Yue’er!” Seeing his sister behaving so abnormally, Murong Can approached anxiously, trying to support her while he called his subordinates to take the three kneeling men outside the tent.

“Ah Qin… dead!? How can she die. How can she die… because of me…”

Murong Yan clutched tightly at her brother’s collar, her heart in agony as her body shook uncontrollably, gasping for breath without any pattern, “Ah Qin can’t die… I won’t allow it, I won’t allow it!”

The woman collapsed powerlessly into her brother’s arms, her eyes reddened, yet not a single tear could flow, her expression hollow as she kept muttering low, “I don’t allow… I don’t allow it…”

Murong Can had not anticipated that his sister would become so distraught over the death of a shadow guard. The woman’s despairing expression seemed as though the next second she might pass away alongside that person.

He felt a heart-wrenching pain, regretting his decision to let his sister meet with the three men, and in a helpless and frantic attempt to comfort her, he said, “It’s just an earring, Yue’er. Just an earring.”

Seeing Murong Yan’s somewhat returning consciousness in her eyes, Murong Can continued, “The Emperor’s shadow guards don’t die that easily. Just an earring can’t prove anything, right? Yue’er?”

The noise surrounding them seemed to be muted.

The woman couldn’t hear anything, just intently watched her brother’s moving lips, pondering his words.

Indeed.

In life, one must see the person.

In death, one must see the body.

It’s just an earring, after all.

Just an earring.

It can’t prove anything, right?

Ah Qin.

The next second, Murong Yan collapsed like a puppet with cut strings, losing consciousness.

Now only Murong Can was left in the tent, holding his fainted sister, frantically pressing her philtrum, while shouting for a doctor outside.

LP: Re-translated on March 01, 2024