The Night fell, and the distant and melodious songs of the grassland still echoed.
The herdsmen, unaware of the Emperor Qi’s grief and indifferent to the misfortune of the prince in the capital, rode on sturdy steeds, traversing bright water marshes one after another.
They would occasionally let out a clear whistle or burst into song, and the silver moon and stars in the pool splashed onto the totems embroidered on their robes.
Such songs only existed in the distant wilderness.
Within the heavily guarded tent, Xiao Jin could only hear faint echoes. She was also surprised how someone could endure loneliness to this extent in the late hours of the night. With no microphone or audience, what was the point of singing out loud?
After a moment, she figured it out. Disturbing others didn’t require a reason. As long as these men couldn’t sleep, no one else could either.
Xiao Jin silently criticized this selfish behavior in her heart.
Meanwhile, Chu Shao, who sat opposite her, raised her chin and reminded her, “Your Highness, it’s your move.”
Xiao Jin realized she had been distracted and responded, “Okay.”
She looked down at the chessboard, contemplating and contemplating, but couldn’t come up with a heroic way to die in the face of the white stones that had reached a deadlock.
Both sides had already formed four connected stones. What more could she do? Surrendering was undoubtedly the most sensible choice.
Yes, as a modern young woman, even if she wanted to challenge the biological clock of ancient people with some pastimes, she wouldn’t choose to assassinate time with Go.
Faced with Chu Shao, whose military prowess and intelligence clearly surpassed the setting, she ultimately chose the basic game of Connect Five that almost everyone in the modern era knew how to play.
Although Connect Five seemed to have been invented during the era of the Yellow Emperor, Go remained the mainstream in ancient times.
Xiao Jin didn’t quite believe that the female lead of an alternate history novel would know how to play Connect Five, so she happily invited Chu Shao to play against her.
As it turned out, Chu Shao really didn’t understand the rules of the game at first.
She frowned as she watched her own pieces being slaughtered by Xiao Jin, but she always gently picked them up and put them back in her hand. “Your Highness, let’s play another round.”
Xiao Jin established the rule that the winner would switch to playing with black pieces and enjoyed a brief moment of victory.
After that, she always ended up with white pieces.
After losing her feeling due to numbness, Xiao Jin rubbed her temple and finally placed her stones on the board, admitting defeat. “Princess, your skills in the game are excellent. I lost.”
Chu Shao smiled and said, “Your Highness is too modest.”
Xiao Jin had a strong competitive spirit, and it was impossible for her to let others win.
So, she accepted her defeat wholeheartedly, openly admitting it.
After all, Chu Shao was the original female lead in the novel. She could recite poetry when she was two or three years old, attract the attention of the male lead at five or six, and grow up to be a stunning beauty at fourteen or fifteen.
Not to mention winning a few games of Connect Five, as the female lead, it would be reasonable for her to cheat in any aspect.
Could Xiao Jin control the destiny of a paper character?
She understood this point and casually put away the stones in the chess box, pretending to be disappointed. “It’s getting late, I should sleep.”
Chu Shao asked with a smile, “Didn’t Your Highness say you couldn’t sleep?”
After a pause, Xiao Jin grasped a topic and casually chatted, feigning nonchalance, “My Fifth Brother was seriously injured. Perhaps I should visit him tomorrow.”
In the darkness, Chu Shao listened to Xiao Jin’s increasingly chaotic heartbeat and answered with a smile, “Alright.”
Xiao Jin didn’t know what exactly was good about it. She only knew that she wouldn’t be able to sleep tonight. The tent was quite spacious, as expected for royal use, so there was no need to feel crowded.
However, the hot summer breeze seeped through the curtains, feeling like a scorching rain.
Xiao Jin’s hair stuck to her damp skin, making her feel stuffy and itchy.
Living in a world without air conditioning was barely tolerable but had a terrible experience.
Ancient times weren’t so great.
She wouldn’t come back again.
Xiao Jin tried to hypnotize herself.
The pounding rhythm of her heartbeat should have been caused by the sultry heat, not because there was someone lying beside her.
However, when Chu Shao found a folding fan from somewhere and gently fanned it in front of her, Xiao Jin could clearly feel that it wasn’t just her heartbeat that was in disarray, but her brain, which was already on the verge of being overwhelmed by the heat.
Chu Shao fanned Xiao Jin while extending hrr hand to gently brush away the sweat-soaked strands of hair from her temple.
Her fingertips accidentally touched her soft yet slightly cool earlobes.
At that moment, the person beside her stiffened, and their breathing and heartbeat became even more chaotic.
Chu Shao found it strange because although Xiao Jin was clearly hot, her earlobes were cold.
It wasn’t until she put down the folding fan and lightly touched her own earlobe that zhe realized it was just as cold as Xiao Jin’s. It was such a trivial matter, but Chu Shao couldn’t help but smile.
Her laughter was clear and cool, like ice cubes tinkling in a jade bowl. Perhaps it was the sultriness of the summer night that caused Xiao Jin’s voice to sound muffled. “Why is the princess laughing?”
Chu Shao thought, “Because I am very happy.”
“Why are you happy?”
Chu Shao smiled but didn’t answer.
Her happiness stemmed from the warmth she felt at her fingertips.
Such a small matter could prove that she and Xiao Jin were similar in certain aspects.
Compared to the distant hometown that Xiao Jin mentioned, that elusive site that couldn’t be found no matter how far she traveled, this tangible reality could be considered a form of resonance.
You see, she didn’t understand Xiao Jin completely, but just like how blood would eventually gather in the heart, their temperatures were equally cold, and the breaths they took were equally scorching.
Using the night’s luminescent pearl in the corner as a borrowed light, Chu Shao looked at Xiao Jin’s black hair scattered on the pillow, as well as the cold and icy eyes that peeked out from beneath her eyelashes like flying snowflakes.
She reached out and gently hooked a strand of soft hair, twirling it around her fingertips. Xiao Jin’s legs were the only thing she couldn’t move, not her hands.
But the tingling sensation that made one’s heart tremble was like a thin thread, extending from the tips of the hair to the nerves, impossible to escape.
This reminded Xiao Jin of the second day when she first arrived here, when Chu Shao’s fingertips had also passed through her hair, lightly scraping against her with a wooden comb.
The sunlight shone through the exquisite window, filling the room with delicate threads of light, gentle as a radiant snowfall.
At this moment, Chu Shao played with her hair and asked softly, “Your Highness, what was your name before?”
“Just call me Xiao Jin.” Xiao Jin understood Chu Shao’s meaning and answered honestly.
“Is it the same Xiao and the same Jin?”
“Yes.”
Chu Shao asked again, “Then, Xiao Jin, do you like me?”
“I do.”
“Will you leave me?”
The air on this summer night was stifling, and Xiao Jin fell silent for a moment.
After a while, she said, “I don’t know.”
Chu Shao couldn’t help but laugh, her eyebrows and eyes curving like a moon descending into a pond. “Your Highness, you say you like me, yet you think about leaving me. Truly, all people in this world are equally strange.”
Xiao Jin also didn’t know why people could be so strange. All she knew was that many things in the world were not necessarily perfect, so she only sought to have a clear conscience. And now, she felt guilty.
Chu Shao seemed to be in a great mood today and didn’t dwell too much on this topic. Instead, she smiled and said to Xiao Jin, “Your Highness, since you can’t sleep, how about I tell you a story?”
Xiao Jin was puzzled. “A story?”
“Yes, a story. I want to hear the stories you used to tell on the pleasure boat.” Chu Shao added, “I remember you called those stories fairy tales.”
Xiao Jin honestly hadn’t expected that Chu Shao would ask her to tell a story. After all, it had been several months since she last told stories to Qin Xueyi. But Chu Shao remembered it so clearly and even recounted those embarrassing lines.
Xiao Jin coughed. “Fairy tales are meant to deceive children.”
Chu Shao frowned. “Don’t you want to deceive me a little?”
“…Fine.”
Chu Shao was stronger.
Even though Xiao Jin had the ability to suppress romance, at this moment, she couldn’t refuse Chu Shao’s words.
So, as an illiterate person, she searched her mind for the few fairy tales she knew and definitively said, “Then let’s tell ‘The Happy Prince.'”
Who knows why Xiao Jin chose to tell the story of “The Happy Prince” to the person she liked? After all, the main characters of the story were a statue and a swallow.
But fortunately, Chu Shao’s thought process wasn’t entirely normal. Lying beside Xiao Jin, she listened attentively as she continued.
After hearing the first paragraph, Chu Shao immediately raised a question, “Why do the common people place the statue of the Happy Prince in the center of the city? He is just a prince, not an emperor.”
Xiao Jin tried to explain, “Because the Happy Prince comes from a kingdom on the other side of the sea. The people there think he is very happy, living a carefree life. So, they adorned him with jewels and leaves made of pure gold and placed him in the center of the city, hoping to be as happy as he is.”
“But the Happy Prince is not happy because he stands high above and sees the poverty, hunger, and suffering of every person in the city. Even though his heart is made of lead, he can’t help but shed tears for those who are destitute and in pain.”
Xiao Jin told the story without any particular techniques, simply narrating it in a straightforward manner, but her voice was gentle, deliberately softened and slowed.
She spoke of the traveling swallow who, to escape the cold winter, was supposed to be flying to Egypt but couldn’t help but stay for the weeping prince.
The Happy Prince asked the swallow to peck off the ruby from the hilt of his sword and give it to the poor embroiderer’s sickly child, and the swallow did as he was asked.
He asked the swallow to take his sapphire eye and give it to the young man who was about to die, and the swallow tearfully agreed.
In the end, the Happy Prince gave away all his glittering gold ornaments to the suffering people. He became dilapidated and no longer beautiful.
At this moment, he said to the swallow, “I am glad that you are finally going to Egypt.”
He knew that the swallow would fly to the second waterfall of the Nile, and when the morning star rose in the night sky, it would sit on the granite wall with its companions, gazing at the stars and letting out a joyful cry. Their eyes were emerald green jade, and their cries were louder than the cascading waterfall.
But the swallow said, “No, dear prince, winter has arrived. I am going not to Egypt but to the House of Death. Farewell, dear prince!”
Then it softly asked, “Dear prince, would you let me kiss your hand?”
Upon hearing this, Chu Shao asked, “What did the Happy Prince say?”
Xiao Jin replied, “The Happy Prince said, ‘No, you should kiss my lips because I love you.'”
Chu Shao seemed to fall silent for a moment before asking softly, “What is the ending of the story?”
“The swallow kissed the prince’s lips and fell dead at his feet. The leaden heart inside the prince also cracked in two.”
“What happened next?”
“Afterward, the statue of the Happy Prince was melted down by the people. Such a dilapidated statue could not stand as a representation of the city in the center anymore.”
Actually, Xiao Jin vaguely remembered that in the end of this story, both the Happy Prince and the swallow seemed to be picked up by God.
But she felt that the first half of the ending seemed easier to understand.
If they were to continue discussing it, she didn’t know whether she should replace God with Guanyin Bodhisattva or Buddha.
After listening to the whole story, Chu Shao smiled and said, “So, the swallow originally wanted to go where it was planning to go, but the Happy Prince insisted on having it stay to help those who were suffering.”
“Yes,” Xiao Jin recalled this fairy tale and explained briefly, “Actually, the swallow initially wanted to fly away because it was very cold in winter, and if it stayed, it would undoubtedly die, and it also yearned for Egypt. But the prince became blind and lost his beautiful appearance. It was then that the swallow decided to stay and accompany him.”
Chu Shao smiled and said, “Strange, this prince has compassion for the people in the whole city but is cruel to the swallow that loves him.”
“He has a great love in his heart.” Xiao Jin coughed.
“Even though this prince is noble and selfless, I still can’t understand him. But if we put it in another way, then I can completely understand it.”
Xiao Jin was curious, “What way would that be?”
Chu Shao’s voice was gentle and pleasant to the ear, but the words that came out were enough to shatter one’s worldview: “If that prince didn’t have compassion for the world, and he allowed the swallow to peck out his eyes and gave away all his gold to others, it was actually just to keep the swallow, which was about to leave him. This way, everything can be explained.”
“… ” Xiao Jin was hearing such a unique interpretation for the first time.
According to Chu Shao’s perspective, it turns out the Happy Prince was just putting on a show, intentionally making himself look like a wet dog in the rain. All for the sake of making the swallow stay with him until his death?
Even Oscar Wilde himself would be infuriated to the point of opening his coffin lid if he heard that.
After expressing her viewpoint, Chu Shao felt even more that the Happy Prince was truly clever.
If it was just like that, he could keep the person he wanted to stay.
That wouldn’t be so bad either.
But after Chu Shao came back to her senses, she asked Xiao Jin another question, “Your Highness, what was the Happy Prince’s last sentence to the swallow?”
Xiao Jin replied, “He said, ‘You should not kiss my hand; you should kiss my lips because I love you.'”
Chu Shao lowered her gaze and leaned closer, planting a light kiss on Xiao Jin’s lips, and smiled, “I love you too.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Translator’s note: I can’t handle that much dog food~ ah! A yandere can also be a sweet talkerðŸ¤ðŸ¤ðŸ¤ðŸ˜†.
Me: ehemm… I love you more!.
TO BE CONTINUE…
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