Chapter 29

Parsed with an automated reader. The content accuracy is not guranteed.

“This is the one I used; how can I give it to someone else?” Zhu Yan, frowned and pointed to the new, large red woven gold shawl next to it, “Pick a new one and give it to that little brat!”

Grandma picked up the shawl and compared it to the child’s body, and couldn’t help but laugh, “Once you wear it like this, you’ll be simply a stunning little girl.”

Looking at the brightly colored shawl, the child pressed the back of his shoulders against the barrel, gritting his teeth, a look of resistance in his eyes, but unable to move his body; he had to let the old woman come over and pick him up, wrapping himself in layers with the soft shawl. By the time Zhu Yan had finished combing her hair, Grandma Sheng had also tidied up the boy.

“Here, look, Your Highness,” Grandma Sheng held the child and turned it around to show her, “Isn’t he beautiful?”

Zhu Yan was sticking the Jade Bone back on her hair when she saw the child in the Nanny’s arms in the mirror, and for a moment her eyes lit up and she blurted, “My goodness… this little brat looks so good when he’s cleaned up! It’s going to be great when he grows up! I’ve made a fortune this time!”

The child, shrinking in the old woman’s arms, glared at her with a cold, angry gaze that was not befitting his age, as if he resisted being wrapped up in such a casual dress, but could do nothing about it. The little pale face, framed by the big red shawl, had a frightening, demonic beauty that could take one’s heart away at the very first sight.

Even Yuan doesn’t seem to have had such magical beauty, does he? No wonder that merchant on the road was taking the risk of smuggling this ownerless shark. Such a child, even with all the physical defects, just bring it to Yecheng, find a doctor to remove the tumor in his stomach and eliminate the black mole on his back, there’s no telling what kind of sky-high price it could fetch at auction!

“What’s your name?” She couldn’t resist asking again.

However the boy twisted his sharp jaws, grunted and turned his head away.

“Little brat! If you don’t listen to me, I’ll sell you!” Zhu Yan was so angry that she threw another blow at the child’s head, but her palm was as light as a mosquito’s slap. After all, such a beautiful child is like a delicate and fragile glass, who can really bear to hit it?

When they entered Yecheng and arrived at the Red King’s Palace, Zhu Yan found that her father was not there. His carriage, horse, sword and outer robe had all been left at the palace, yet the man was no longer there.

“The King has an urgent matter and has gone ahead to the Capital,” the steward of the Palace was a man in his forties, able and calm and obviously the confidant that the Red King had always placed in Yecheng, and said respectfully, “He instructed the Princess to wait for him here for a few days, when the matter is over, he will come to the Palace to look for you.”

“What’s going on?” She instantly became displeased and couldn’t control her temper, “Father has ignored me all this way, why didn’t he even bring me with him to the Capital?”

“The King said that when he is done with his business, he will come back to keep the Princess company properly, and it will not be too late to go to the Imperial Capital one more time after that.”

The housekeeper gave an apologetic smile, his tone was very polite, “The King has instructed me to prepare some delicious and enjoyable things for the Princess, they are all placed in your room – if the Princess needs anything else, we can take you for a walk to the market tomorrow.”

“Really? Great!” Zhu Yan’s spirit was lifted and she gave this knowledgeable steward a quick glance, “What’s your name? Why haven’t I seen you before?”

“My name is Shifei, I have been following the Red King for more than twenty years, I have always been in charge of this Palace in Yecheng; I have never been to the Celestial Wind City for an appearance, so your Highness has not seen me before.” The housekeeper smiled, “If you need anything here, you can come and find me. Where you want to go and what you want to see, just name it and I will provide.”

“Well…” She looked at him up and down for a moment and said, “Then you are not allowed to tell father that I picked up a little shark.”

“Aye.” The steward nodded and smiled, “I will not say anything.”

“Help me arrange another small secluded courtyard, let Grandma Sheng take that little brat to live in, that courtyard needs to have a big pool.” Zhu Yan instructed, “By the way, there must also be more people outside the courtyard to watch – if that little guy escapes, I will only blame you!”

“Yes.” The housekeeper simply promised, “It will be done.”

“Umm… go find me the best physician in Yecheng one more time!” Zhu Yan frowned and pondered for a moment before saying, “That little brat has a tumor in his stomach, he has to be cured urgently.”

The steward asked, “Should I find a physician who is able to heal the sharks?”

Zhu Yan could not help but be a little surprised: “A doctor for sharks? Are they different from the other doctors?”

“That’s absolutely true. Sharks born in the sea are very different from those born on land. They can breathe through their gills, for example, and their heart is right in the middle of their chest.” The steward smiled, “Ordinary doctors can’t treat their illness. I’ll go to the Dragon Slayer for the Princess and find doctor Shen Tu, he’s the most skilled at treating sharks.”

“A dragon slayer? What is that?” Zhu Yan was stunned to hear, “Are you kidding me? Except for the one that was subdued into the Cangwu Abyss by the Xingzun Emperor more than seven thousand years ago, where is there a real dragon to slay in the Yunhuang today?”

“That’s not a real dragon of course, it’s just a placeholder. This is a long story.” The housekeeper laughed, “Your Highness should go back to the house and take a good rest first, I will come back to report to Your Highness tomorrow when I have found a good doctor.”

“No!” She was itching to do something instead, “I want to go out for a stroll this afternoon!”

“In such a hurry?” The housekeeper was slightly confused, but still nodded and said, “Good, then I will immediately order to prepare the carriage and horses.”

“No need, we change our clothes, sneak out to see around then come back!” Zhu Yan waved her hand and said with a smile, “Why make such a big fuss? It’s not fun to be followed by so many people.”

“We still have to send someone to protect the Princess closely,” the housekeeper did not comply with her this time and said, “Yecheng is not very peaceful lately, there are always shark restoration rebels out there. Although the governor just killed a group of insurgents and seized several of their strongholds in Yecheng, the big camp in Mirror Lake is still there, so one has to be careful.”

The Restoration Army? Zhu Yan instantly remembered those sharks last night and couldn’t help but feel a thud in her heart. They were a group of aggressive sharks who were not afraid of death and were completely different from the soft and beautiful sharks. Are such sharks, also mutated?

“Don’t worry, Your Highness, the Restoration Army is only a few thousand men, they can only come out to cause trouble once in a while, they are not yet capable of shaking the foundation of our Kongsang.” The steward saw her face change color and thought she was afraid, so he reassured her, “Right now, Yecheng is still very safe under the Governor’s rule – but just in case, let’s send some guards to secretly protect Your Highness this afternoon.”

“All right.” She casually replied.

Zhu Yan returned to her room and took a short rest, ready to go out shopping in the afternoon. The Red King’s Palace in Yecheng was magnificent and grand, several times larger than the other courtyard outside the city, she had walked from the front hall to the courtyard in the back garden for nearly half an hour.

However, just as she reached the veranda, she heard Grandma Sheng say to her maids inside, “Quick! Hurry and call the Princess to come and see…”

“What is the matter?” She had rarely heard such panic in the old Nanny’s voice and couldn’t help but step inside with a quick uncover of the curtain, “What happened?”

On the soft couch was lying the skinny shark child, his eyes closed, his chest undulating, no longer with his usual fierceness, just motionless. Grandma Sheng was leaning over stroking the child’s forehead; when she saw her enter, she hurriedly said, “Your Highness, come and take a look, this child was a bit unwell on the way into Yecheng, but he wouldn’t say anything when we asked him, and now, it seems that he has started to have a fever!”

“Fever?” Zhu Yan was taken aback and went over to check the child’s forehead – but the warmth of his face was even cooler than her own palm.

“There’s no fever?” She was a little stunned, “Where is it?”

“Oh, Princess! Have you forgotten?” Grandma Sheng sighed and stroked the child’s soft aqua blue hair, “Shark people are different from humans, their blood is not as hot as that of the humans, it is the same temperature as the seawater – can you please touch and see if this child’s body is much hotter than the seawater now? That’s sickness!”

“Ah…” Zhu Yan touched him again, and this time was taken aback. Looking at this little guy lying sickly there, letting people touching him without resistance, one could tell that he was really sick – thinking about him travelling from the Western Wilderness to Yecheng, thousands of miles of road walking and suffering, it is a miracle that this child was still alive, how can he not be sick? She became a little anxious, so she immediately asked the housekeeper to send for the doctor.

However, a moment later, the housekeeper came over and said, “Your Highness, I have already sent someone to invite him, but the Dragon Slayer replied that the physician Shen Tu had to operate on several sharks today and would be busy until the evening, so he would probably not be able to come any time soon.”

“How can that be? This little one has a fever!” Zhu Yan was anxious, “Can’t we pay him more?”

“The Dragon Slayer said that the physician Shen Tu had already gone into the room to start the operation and that the process could not be stopped halfway. He has a violent temper and no one dares to go in and alarm him.” The housekeeper replied, cautiously, “How about… we try another doctor first? If we don’t succeed, we will summon him again?”

“Why is it so troublesome?” Zhu Yan stomped her foot, “He refused to come to the consultation? Then I won’t go shopping this afternoon! Can I take the child to his place? I’m sure he’s not the only doctor in that area, so if this one doesn’t help, let’s go find another one – it’s better than waiting here.”

She was quick-tempered and immediately leaned down and picked up the sick child from the couch.

The sick child leaned limply against her shoulder, no longer fierce and stubborn as usual, his cool face pressed against her neck. He exhaled a tiny breath on the side of her neck, probably confused by the fever, and when she picked him up, he cried out vaguely, “Mother,” and willingly pushed his small face against hers.

Zhu Yan gently caressed the child’s tiny head, and her heart instantly softened to the core.

“Come,” she turned to the steward, “prepare the carriage and let’s go to the doctor!”

The carriage drove them out of the Red King’s Palace and down the avenue at a great speed.

As the most prosperous and affluent city in the Yunhuang, Yecheng is densely populated and thriving in trade and commerce, with merchants from all over Yunhuang and even from the Midlands and the Seven Seas were all gathering here, bringing with them wealth that could rival that of a nation. The streets are wide and flat, with opera houses and taverns on both sides, and shops along the streets filled with a wide range of goods.

However, Zhu Yan didn’t care to look at them and only pushed the housekeeper who was outside, the entire time, “How much longer until we get there?”

“Almost there, almost there! It’s just ahead,” the steward replied, pointing somewhere as he sat beside the coachman’s seat, “just around the corner at the end of the East Market, in that little stretch of cottages, it’s already in sight.”

The carriage rushed forward, turning from the avenue onto an alley, moving left and right, the road began to bump incessantly; Zhu Yan held the child in her arms and swayed in the carriage, not really knowing how long it took before it finally stopped. A conversation between the steward and someone else came from the outside, she lifted the curtain to take a look and found that there were unexpectedly some heavily armed soldiers.

“In the carriage is the Princess Zhu Yan of the Red King’s Clan,” the steward briefly exchanged a few words and handed over his waist tag, “one of her most favored shark slaves is ill and had to rush here to see physician Shen Tu.”

The guard carefully examined the waist tag, looked through the side window to see the number of people in the carriage and recorded a few notes on the wooden compendium, before stepping back in full unison, allowing the carriage to pass. “Strange, why is there an army here?” Zhu Yan was a little puzzled.

Loved my translation? Buy me a coffee! Scan on Click the image.

Thank you for your generosity!💖

NOTE: This translation belongs to me. It is prohibited to copy / Re-translate / Re-distribute my translations without my prior permission. Thank you.

Like this:Like Loading...

Related