CH 77

Villainous Prince (19)

Before going to sleep Song Xu Yi summed up her first day’s experience.

On the whole, Nie Qian Yu’s performance on this day was totally unexpected, she never thought that Nie Qian Yu would go to such an extent to deal with those ministers and didn’t seem to get angry no matter how much she tossed and turned!

However, Song Xu Yi did not believe that Nie Qian Yu would continue with her good temper.

After some mutual encouragement with the system, Song Xu Yi decided to try again the next day.

So recalling the appearance of the demonic concubine on a television who didn’t know the depths of the world, she got off the bed barefoot and hugged Nie Qian Yu from behind: “Your Highness, my stomach hurts to death caused by the coming of the sunflower water today, so don’t go to court, stay with me, okay?”

///sunflower water – her menstrual cycle

Song Xu Yi spoke in a whispering voice and gave herself goose bumps, originally thinking that Nie Qian Yu would dislike her lack of understanding but to her surprise Nie Qian Yu actually nodded and said “yes” after a moment of silence and then carried Song Xu Yi back to bed and sent orders to cancel the morning court once again so that people could bring the papers to the bedchamber and started working there.

The eyes of the court ladies who witnessed all this almost fell out of their heads.

Song Xu Yi also did not expect Nie Qian Yu to be so accommodating to her, but for a while it was a bit difficult to ride the tiger:

She had always been in good health and hadn’t reacted too well to the sunflower water, but now that she had already acted like this, she could only meet Nie Qian Yu’s gaze and pour a bowl of brown sugar water with difficulty, lying on the bed and watching Nie Qian Yu’s work with boredom.

There was a different kind of charm about the serious working Nie Qian Yu, who seemed to be able to do everything, and Song Xu Yi couldn’t help but look at her a few more times.

It was probably because Nie Qian Yu was so beautiful that for a moment, Song Xu Yi felt that it was not so unbearable to stay by Nie Qian Yu’s side like this…

But it was only for a moment.

Nie Qian Yu soon noticed Song Xu Yi’s gaze and looked up: “What’s wrong?”

“My stomach hurts!” Song Xu Yi acted like a demon again and continued to cry out in pain, “Your Highness, can you come over and rub it for me?”

Song Xu Yi clearly heard the court ladies serving around her draw a breath of cold air.

Song Xu Yi pouted, but in her heart, she was laughing: now Nie Qian Yu would be annoyed with her, right?

Nie Qian Yu actually put down her brush, took the bowl of soup next to the court ladies, and sat down next to Song Xu Yi…

The court ladies’ eyes dropped, and Song Xu Yi herself was shocked.

Nie Qian Yu, however, didn’t seem to notice the reactions of the people around her. Frowning slightly, she carefully rubbed Song Xu Yi’s abdomen with the soup tonic and asked in a soft voice, “Feeling better?”

Song Xu Yi almost subconsciously complimented Nie Qian Yu on the strength of her kneading, but when the words came to her lips, she remembered her mission of “making Nie Qian Yu loathe her” and hastily swallowed them back, grunting vaguely, “Just barely!

She raised her eyebrows and rubbed Song Xu Yi for a while longer before sitting back down at the table.

Song Xu Yi was intent on tossing and turning, blinking her eyes and grunting once again not long afterwards, “Your Highness, my stomach hurts again…”

However, Song Xu Yi still did not receive the anger she was expecting this time.

Nie Qian Yu instructed a court lady, who nodded and went out, and then Nie Qian Yu kindly rubbed Song Xu Yi’s stomach once again…

After two or three times of this, and after lunch, the court lady came in with a doctor.

Naturally, the Imperial Doctor could not find anything wrong with Song Xu Yi, so he could only advise her to rest more, and in the meantime, he prescribed a bitter and calming soup for Song Xu Yi to take.

Song Xu Yi didn’t expect to hit her feet with a rock, but as things had come to a head, she could only eat the soup with a bitter face, but on the principle of making Nie Qian Yu loathe her, Song Xu Yi pulled her sleeve and forced Nie Qian Yu to feed her, and ‘accidentally’ vomited all over her…

However, Nie Qian Yu only frowned a little, except for loathing Song Xu Yi, she was gentle and careful, and did not even say a word to Song Xu Yi.

For a while, the feeling of guilt in Song Xu Yi’s heart of bullying increased.

And the effects of the calming soup soon came on.

During this period of time, Song Xu Yi was busy researching and developing gunpowder. Fighting against the Wu Empire and Nie Qian Yu, Song Xu Yi’s spirit had been tense, but with the effect of the calming soup, Song Xu Yi finally got a solid night’s sleep.

In her dream, she was locked up in a dark place with a cold embrace behind her, and while she was half-awake, someone was murmuring in her ear, and a cold liquid fell on her neck: “Xu Yi, don’t worry, I’ll definitely survive to find you…”

Immediately afterwards there seemed to be the sound of an iron door opening and a blinding light coming from in front of my eyes——

……

Was this her original memory?

This sleep was extremely long, and Song Xu Yi eventually woke up hungry.

Looking out of the window at the line of red in the sky, Song Xu Yi realized that she had slept into the early morning of the next day.

It was still very early, the room was extremely quiet, and Nie Qian Yu was not sleeping in her bed. She was sleeping on her stomach on a small table full of papers, and looked to have been busy all night…

According to the plan of “making Nie Qian Yu hate her”, Song Xu Yi originally wanted to wake her up.

However, when she looked at the obvious black and blue under Nie Qian Yu’s eyes, and remembered how Nie Qian Yu had indulged her during the day, Song Xu Yi finally couldn’t bring herself to do it. After blocking out the system in her head that was screaming “hit her face” and thinking that the future would be long, Song Xu Yi bit her lower lip and gently opened the door and went to the kitchen to find something to eat.

But Song Xu Yi did not know that almost the moment she closed the door, Nie Qian Yu, who was lying on the small table, opened her eyes: Her eyes were full of laughter as she looked out of the door, not a trace of sleepiness.

Song Xu Yi found a servant girl on duty in the kitchen. It seemed that Nie Qian Yu had already known that Song Xu Yi would be hungry when she woke up, so she ordered the servant girl to warm food for Song Xu Yi on the stove.

After eating the warm congee, Song Xu Yi’s inner guilt reached an unprecedented level and she remained quiet for the whole morning.

However, when Song Xu Yi decided to stop, there were things that prevented her from doing so.

In the previous day, news of Song Xu Yi’s bullying and arrogance had spread throughout the palace, and after Nie Qian Yu left for the morning court, the Emperor sent someone over to ‘scold’ Song Xu Yi. Listening to the words of the court lady who represented the Emperor and came to admonish her, “Don’t be arrogant in your favour”, that suffocating feeling came out of Song Xu Yi’s heart once again.

Never live like a bird in a cage!

So when Nie Qian Yu returned at noon, Song Xu Yi gently and virtuously went to ladle out soup for Nie Qian Yu, and then ‘accidentally’ spilled the soup on Nie Qian Yu…

However, just like before, Nie Qian Yu was still tolerant of Song Xu Yi, not only did she not blame her, but she first held Song Xu Yi’s hand to check if she had any burns…

No matter how much Song Xu Yi tossed and turned, Nie Qian Yu always dismissed it lightly.

In time, the news that the Crown Prince loved Song Xu Yi to death and had even lost his principles for her spread throughout the entire Wu Empire——

And after almost half a month of tossing and turning, Song Xu Yi was the first to lose her temper with Nie Qian Yu.

Was it because the rebelliousness of her childhood had been engraved into her bones that Nie Qian Yu was so unconditionally tolerant of her?

However, Nie Qian Yu’s treatment of others was not at all merciful: when she found out that the Emperor had sent a court lady to look for Song Xu Yi, Nie Qian Yu sent the Emperor into seclusion in a certain village on the pretext that he was sick and needed to recuperate; Nie Qian Yu also did not give an inch in the battlefield, and has now taken over half of the Lishui Empire.

Everything seems to be going the same way as in the original plot summary, but somehow it is different. Nie Qian Yu does not commit murder as described in the plot summary, and orders the Wu army to do their best not to disturb the people after taking the city.

Song Xu Yi sensed something in her heart, but she did not want to think about it: as she saw the size of Lishui’s territory getting smaller and smaller, and how soon it looked like Wu would take over the capital, Song Xu Yi became more and more anxious, but there was nothing she could do while she was stuck in Wu’s palace.

As Song Xu Yi waited anxiously, one day, while Song Xu Yi was walking around the Wu Empire’s palace to explore the terrain, a servant girl seemed to have accidentally bumped into her and quietly handed her a slip of paper.

Song Xu Yi took the opportunity to read the contents of the note while she was bathing.

The servant girl claimed to be a spy sent by the Lishui Empire to meet her and demanded that Song Xu Yi must steal Nie Qian Yu’s military talisman and arrive at a certain place in three days’ time, or else she would kill her mother.

Song Xu Yi pursed her lips: if this servant girl was really from the Lishui Empire, then she could not have been unaware of Song Xu Yi’s true identity.

But the note revealed certain messages that were very useful to Song Xu Yi, and the person who wrote the letter ended by urging Song Xu Yi to destroy the note as soon as possible after reading it, because Nie Qian Yu had some unpredictable means of knowing what people were up to in private.

This explains why Nie Qian Yu was able to calculate everything in the battlefield.

Song Xu Yi tore up the note and soaked it with water, waiting patiently for the day those people had agreed upon to arrive.

As expected, seeing that Song Xu Yi did not take the bait, they sent someone to contact Song Xu Yi again, but to their surprise, Song Xu Yi slipped a note into their arms instead.

Having learned that Song Xu Yi was not to be trifled with, they slowly stopped trying to trap Song Xu Yi. When Song Xu Yi revealed that she no longer wanted to stay at the Palace of Wu, the other party was extremely happy and even agreed to send a secret letter to Wang Mian at Song Xu Yi’s request.

After receiving Wang Mian’s reply and seeing the unique code word on the letter, Song Xu Yi was relieved and also roughly understood the identity of those who had helped her contact her grandfather.

In fact, it all came down to the fact that Nie Qian Yu is born so well.

The daughters of several high ranking officials in the court had fallen in love with Nie Qian Yu at first sight and would happily marry her, but some years ago, Nie Qian Yu was not close to women, so these noble daughters also wasted their time waiting for Nie Qian Yu to change her mind.

With Song Xu Yi, the girls thought they had seen hope and immediately encouraged their fathers to ask them to enter the palace to fill the harem, but Nie Qian Yu rejected all the requests.

If Nie Qian Yu had never favoured a woman, it would have been fine, but with the news of Nie Qian Yu’s favouring Song Xu Yi coming out of the palace, how could these noblewomen not be upset?

The fathers of these noble daughters thought more deeply. The Emperor of the Wu Empire was stupid, and it was not easy to wait for the Crown Prince who could make the country strong, so how can they allow the Crown Prince to indulge in women’s lust again? The ministers were even more worried that the prince would fall under the spell of beauty, and after their daughters begged them for it, they put their heads together and made their daughters’ plan work.

This is why these ministers were well aware of Nie Qian Yu’s methods…

With the help of these people, Song Xu Yi was able to act with half the effort and soon agreed with Wang Mian on a way to escape from the Wu Empire under a different guise.

All was done without verbal communication, all through written communication.

After learning of Nie Qian Yu’s excellent intelligence spying abilities, Wang Mian began to use written communication even in his tent, and with this exchange, the Lishui army finally won several battles on the front line…

Because Wang Mian was Song Xu Yi’s grandfather at least, Nie Qian Yu did not have any leeway to deal with him and intended to persuade him to surrender after he had been defeated, but she did not expect Wang Mian’s resistance to be so fierce that Nie Qian Yu had to spend more energy on the battle and did not notice Song Xu Yi’s secret deployment.

Everything was ready, but all that was needed was an easterly wind, and this easterly wind was soon to come.

Nie Qian Yu’s sunflower water came.

Unlike Song Xu Yi who grew up well nourished, Nie Qian Yu has been suffering from exhaustion since she was a child, and failed to recuperate when her first sunflower water came, and has since been eating poisonous pills to change her voice, leaving her sick ever since, not only is the timing of her sunflower water extremely inaccurate, but every time it comes it hurts half to death.

When she was not with Song Xu Yi before, Nie Qian Yu had to endure it, but now that she had Song Xu Yi with her, Nie Qian Yu did not want to endure it anymore.

Nie Qian Yu has been quietly using medicine to retrieve her memories over the years, but all those years before had been to no avail. However, during the days when Song Xu Yi was around, some intermittent images suddenly appeared in Nie Qian Yu’s mind, and after seeing those images, she was incomparably jealous of the Nie Qian Yu who had been cared for by Song Xu Yi, always thinking of how to make Song Xu Yi more loving to her present self…

When Song Xu Yi opened her eyes, she was shocked to see Nie Qian Yu, who was pale and curled into a ball with her lower lip tightly clenched.

After hearing the words of Nie Qian Yu, who had been in pain for most of the night but had been holding it back to avoid waking her up, Song Xu Yi’s heart fluttered fiercely as she looked at Nie Qian Yu, who looked increasingly delicate due to her frailty.

“You wait for a while.”

Song Xu Yi sighed, pursed her lips and lowered her head, met Nie Qian Yu’s disbelieving eyes, took the initiative to reach out and hug her in a soothing manner, then went out and asked a court lady to summon the Imperial Doctor, asking for many blood tonic and calming medicines in her name.

Song Xu Yi was surprisingly gentle this day.

Nie Qian Yu greedily watched Song Xu Yi’s every expression, feeling as if she was dreaming. She obediently drank the medicine Song Xu Yi fed her and watched as Song Xu Yi covered her stomach with the tonic, whispering, “I know you are very capable, but your body is also very important, from now on you can’t neglect your body like this. Your mind should not be too heavy either, pay attention to your rest…”

Nie Qian Yu curled her lips and took Song Xu Yi’s hand, wanting to tell Song Xu Yi that, “in the future, if I have you to supervise me, I will take good care of myself”, but she didn’t expect the medicine to take effect and a wave of dizziness came over Nie Qian Yu’s head…

She was in a daze and realised what was going on. She looked at Song Xu Yi with wide eyes and saw the little girl smiling as she picked up the corner of the blanket for her, her eyes clear: “Sister Si Yu, I really like you too, but I don’t want to be a bird in a cage, I have more important things to do, and so do you, we both have our own missions…”

Then later on, Nie Qian Yu could not hear what Song Xu Yi said.

She was caught in a dream world of light and darkness, and all those memories from her childhood emerged from her mind:

She remembered all that had happened between herself and Song Xu Yi, understood the ‘mission’ that Song Xu Yi had spoken of, and knew the reason why she had subconsciously and desperately wanted to take over the Lishui Empire…

And when she woke up it was already a day later.

Song Xu Yi had arranged it very well, pretending to have spent the night with Nie Qian Yu. No one noticed Song Xu Yi’s disappearance, nor did anyone know that she was a woman…

After searching for two days without finding any trace of Song Xu Yi, the soldiers knelt down in front of Nie Qian Yu in fear of her anger, but Nie Qian Yu laughed and sent all the soldiers she had saved as a backup to the battlefield, and even went to the battlefield herself!

Now that Wu’s army is nearly double the size of Lishui’s, and Lishui is at the end of its tether, it is only a matter of time before it is crushed by the army.

The Emperor of Lishui was scared out of his wits and once again sent an envoy to beg for peace.

The envoy had no hope and stood trembling at the foot of the stairs, only to see the high and mighty Crown Prince slowly and deliberately tear up the peace proposal that had been handed to him——

“I don’t want to see a peace proposal, I want to see a marriage proposal.”

“If you want to talk about peace, you can ask your eldest Princess Song Xu Yi to come and make peace…”