The little Princess ran away from home!
History is a mirror that reflects the rise and fall of nations.
Hua Zhao was the last princess of the Hua Dynasty. She wanted to know how her country had finally died! That night in the museum, she’d only taken a hasty glance; she’d only seen, but not understood, that the Hua Dynasty had died because of the Hun invasion. She had no time to take in the details.
Her question seemed to catch Li An off guard.
Li An subconsciously let slip, “The Hua Dynasty? Why are you interested in such a small dynasty?”
“… A small dynasty?”
“Yeah.” Li An continued her line of thought, talking freely. “The Hua Dynasty died after three generations and didn’t even last for 100 years — isn’t that a small dynasty? When the Huns went south, the imperial family straight-up abandoned their people and fled. If it weren’t for the Hua Princess choosing to sacrifice her life instead of being humiliated, I’m afraid even more people would’ve died! Rulers like those who are only interested in saving their own lives — even if the Huns didn’t come, the Hua dynasty would have died, or, should have died.”
While Li An spoke the truth, Hua Zhao was extremely uncomfortable when she heard it. But she couldn’t deny it. The imperial family had abandoned the capital and fled, this was even more shameful than surrendering without a fight!
Of course, Li An didn’t know what she was thinking about. She continued: “The last Emperor died right as he was escaping…”
Hua Zhao instantly threw away all of her messy thoughts and anxiously interrupted her, “Father Emperor, no, I mean, the Emperor, how did he die? Was it due to fatigue on the journey and his body couldn’t make it?”
Li An shook her head. “Of course not. If a subjugated king died from illness, that would be a proper death. He was killed by the peasant troops that rose up — the last Emperor of the Hua Dynasty was self-centered and incompetent ruler, through and through. He never went to the imperial court. In order to keep up his life of luxury, he arbitrarily squeezed the blood and sweat of the people away from them. During his reign, the entire imperial court was corrupt. Even amidst the flames of war and thousands of miles of corpses outside, he was still addicted to his pleasures. The people had long since detested him…”
“ —Presumptuous!!” On the other end of the pitch-black screen, the girl’s voice was raised in a panic. “The Emperor is absolutely not that kind of person! The Hua Dynasty is not how you said it was, either!! If you keep on running your mouth, I will, I will…”
Her words came to an abrupt end without continuing.
Li An curiously looked at the camera, pricking up her ears for any movement on the other end of the connection.
Li An couldn’t see the person on the other side of the screen. She could only judge her mood based on sound.
The girl asked her to tell her about the history of the Hua Dynasty’s death, so she told her the truth. Li An had never run her mouth; historians had always had this judgement of the Hua Dynasty. She only repeated it as it was and nothing more.
Not long ago, the hit “Princess Hua Zhao” had been all the talk in streets and alleys. Even she, a history major, got caught up and watched a few episodes. Maybe this mysterious female student was also that show’s loyal watcher, so that was why she wanted to know the historical events surrounding the Hua Dynasty’s death.
How would Li An know — this “stupid student” she’d been carefully teaching for the past week wasn’t a fan of “Princess Hua Zhao” at all, she was Princess Hua Zhao herself!
For a while, there was no sound from the other end of the connection.
Vaguely, Li An thought she heard a sob that seemed as if its owner had nothing left.
Li An: “…Hey, are you okay?”
She never received a response — the other person broke off the call.
……
“Xingfei, wake up, we’re back.”
As the nanny car slowly drove into the underground garage, Sister P looked at the sleeping Cheng Xingfei in the backseat and lightly shook her.
Cheng Xingfei hadn’t slept well. Most recently, every day had been packed full with shoots and she was only able to sleep three or four hours every night. The thick dark circles underneath her eyes could only be left up to the makeup artist to conceal.
When she heard Sister P’s voice, Cheng Xingfei opened her eyes.
Her complexion wasn’t good because she lacked sleep, and combined with the conditions on the road home, she had an awful headache.
When she got off the car, her foot slipped and she nearly fell to the ground.
Sister P jumped in fright and hurriedly rushed to support her.
“I told you before, stay the night in Yang City before heading home, but you wanted to catch a flight!” Sister P’s heart hurt for her family’s artist. Cheng Xingfei’s body was already on the thin side, but during this time, she’d rushed all over the place shooting public announcements and lost another three kilograms in one week.
Today, Cheng Xingfei took the first flight out to Yang City from the capital. The two locations were separated by 1,000 kilometers. After landing, they immediately went to two interviews and a cover-page shoot. Because there was a delay in between changing sets, the sky was already dark when they finally finished shooting the cover picture. Without stopping for a moment, Cheng Xingfei took the latest flight to get back to the capital; by the time she landed, it was the middle of the night.
Cheng Xingfei borrowed Sister P’s arm to steady herself.
“Hua Zhao’s alone at home, how can I relax?” Cheng Xingfei had some misgivings about the driver and assistant next to them, so she could only lower her voice as much as possible. “She’s a living person, not a kitty or a puppy that’ll be just fine if you leave out enough food.”
Cheng Xingfei was busy with work and couldn’t spend every moment watching over Hua Zhao. Every time she went out, she could only shut Hua Zhao in the master bedroom, which was a huge room with a personal balcony and bathroom. She taught Hua Zhao how to take classes on the iPad and gave her a few single-player games to pass the time. As for eating, she could only hire someone to send food to the door every time, not allowing them to see each other.
Because she couldn’t stop worrying about Hua Zhao, Cheng Xingfei had done her best to not take any jobs from other provinces and to return home every day.
But this wasn’t a long-term solution.
Sister P said, “If it’s in China, you can go there and back in a day. But next month is the Europe Fashion Week, which you absolutely can’t miss. When you do fly to Europe to watch the show, you’ll be gone for a week, so what should we do?”
Both she and Cheng Xingfei wouldn’t be in the country. They had to find someone to watch over Hua Zhao.
But where could they find someone suitable for that?
“Well, let’s not think about it right now.” Cheng Xingfei waved her hand and stepped into the elevator. “Let’s go back home first. This is the first time Hua Zhao’s ever been at home alone for so long, so she must be mad.”
……
Cheng Xingfei only returned home in the middle of the night. She had thought she would see an angry Hua Zhao throwing the house into a mess, but how would she know that the room was completely empty — she couldn’t even find a strand of hair!!
The bedroom door was locked from the outside, so it was absolutely impossible for Hua Zhao to go out from the entrance door. But the windows to the master room’s balcony were open. The night wind poured in through the window, making the thin muslin curtains ripple and flutter.
Scared to death, Cheng Xingfei rushed to the windows and looked down.
“Hua Zhao?!!”
The apartment she’d bought was on the top floor, and her house on the 28th story was more than 100 meters high. When she looked down, it was a silent night.
On closer inspection, she could see a circle of European relief carvings around the outside wall of the balcony, which continued to the windows along the staircase. Because of the style the walls were decorated in, the relief was extremely thin, no thicker than 10 cm. If someone stepped on it, it could barely manage to hold the front half of a foot — but on top of that relief, there was half a shoe print!
Based on the size of the footprint, it was, without a question, Hua Zhao’s.
Cheng Xingfei clutched her chest, looking at the endless night. She felt as if her heart was about to jump out of her throat.
Behind her, Sister P rushed over with her phone. “Xingfei, I just called my assistant manager. She said, during class, Hua Zhao asked the private tutor about the death of the Hua Dynasty, then she started acting weird.”
So the truth of the matter was nearly revealed.
Hua Zhao was such a proud person, and when she heard the truth about the death of the Hua Dynasty, in her moment of surging sorrow and anger, she’d escaped from the house!
But this was the twenty-eighth floor! If she slipped even for a second…
Cheng Xingfei didn’t dare to continue thinking. She already had a low fever, and could barely keep standing. She hurriedly reaching out to support herself on the wall.
Sister P also looked at the footprint on the outer relief of the wall.
Sister P was both shocked and anxious. “Is this girl crazy? She doesn’t know anyone here, and it’s the middle of the night, does she know how dangerous it is outside? And this is the top floor! How could she have so much guts, who gave her the courage?…”
“ — Of course she has courage.” Cheng Xingfei interrupted her with a low voice. “Don’t forget who she is. Princess Hua Zhao even had the courage to die for her country. What’s twenty-eight floors to her?”
……
Hua Zhao did not yet know that she’d received such a high evaluation from Cheng Xingfei.
At this time, she was walking alone beneath the moonlight.
She’d fled from Cheng Xingfei’s house on impulse, but after she’d run away, she couldn’t even say where she wanted to go.
She just… She just didn’t want to stay in that room!
She didn’t want to play games, nor did she want to take any classes, nor did she want to sleep in that soft bed, nor feel the wind of the AC.
She didn’t belong here, she only… wanted to go back to where she came from.
But it was impossible.
She didn’t know why she transmigrated a thousand years; just like she didn’t know why her country and Father Emperor could sound so unbearable in Li An’s mouth.
— It wasn’t true!
Her Father Emperor was a literary talent who liked playing the piano and composing poems; one slip of his calligraphy was priceless. All of the officials in the imperial court fought to sing his praises.
Her country spanned a vast territory with a huge population. Moreover, they had contacts with all of the different nations on their borders. They even had a fleet that went to the Southern Seas and brought back all sorts of rare treasures.
She remembered. She remembered everything.
But in the same way, she also remembered—
While she was dressing up, playing pretend as a man to go out of the palace, the singing and dancing in the city were all flat. While she was living her life of gold and luxury, everywhere outside city was starving to death. The people were on the border of death. When she went to the Imperial Study to look for Father Emperor to go flower-viewing, she saw several ministers die for their remonstrations that accused those in power of embezzlement and forced unpaid labor. The little eunuch at her side had sobbed, saying that because his whole family had perished in the famine, he voluntarily castrated and sold himself into the palace…
Before, Hua Zhao had thought that she would not care about these petty things. But in the end, when all these petty things piled up together, they drove her to climb the wall and give her life for her country.
Li An’s words kept echoing within her head as she mindlessly walked down the night road.
Though it was in the early hours, the night market was still filled with voices.
The Hua Dynasty had a strict curfew culture, but this place had a prosperous street stall culture.
The bustling people on the street crowded together; both sides of the road were filled with all different types of small carts; the stream of people pushed Hua Zhao into the night market. Even a pair of eyes weren’t enough to take everything in!
Fortunately, she’d put on a baseball cap when she left. The baseball cap covered her face, or else the people in the night market would discover — the recently-popular little flower, “Cheng Xingfei,” was among them.
She’d transmigrated for nearly half a month, but she was stuck in Cheng Xingfei’s house every day. Where could she have ever seen such a lively place?!
A dazzling lineup of stalls heaped with small goods, cheap clothes, gaudy hairbands and earrings, countless snacks… As long as Hua Zhao could think of it, she could find it!
When she took another look at the people walking inside the night market, no matter if they were male or female, they were all wearing stylish clothes. The white-collar lady who’d just gotten off from overtime was wearing a suit skirt and thin high heels; the programmer brother who’d switched day and night around was in flip-flops and wearing a muscle tank top… There was no ‘proper distance between men and women,’ no need to follow the rules!
— This was already no longer the Hua Dynasty. This was already no longer the country that had disappeared into the river of history.
Hua Zhao was trapped by the flow of people, facing the changes of these thousand years.
She walked from the streets to the alleys, looking at many things, walking very slowly.
Li An thought she was a stupid person who couldn’t even memorize the English alphabet. Actually, Hua Zhao was quite clever when it came to the street. As she listened to the stall owner’s and the customers’ conversations, she quickly determined how the currency worked.
Pink is 100 yuan, which can buy four T-shirts at the night market.
Green is 50 yuan, which can buy a sling dress at the night market.
Yellow is 20 yuan, worth a pair of shiny earrings.
10 yuan is a plate of vegetable buns plus a soy egg. 5 yuan is fried stinky tofu without onions or coriander. 1 yuan, which is a bit small, can only buy a skewer of roasted wheat gluten. 5 cents barely covers a pack of spicy strips… Hey, that’s weird, the more she thought about it, the hungrier she got.
Hua Zhao rubbed her stomach, finally realizing that she didn’t seem to have eaten dinner before running away.
Just as she was worrying about how to resolve the issue of food and clothing, she suddenly heard a pleasantly-surprised female voice — “Look, it’s Princess Hua Zhao!”
Hua Zhao startled, thinking that she’d been discovered.
As it turned out, the girl who’d spoken wasn’t even giving her a glance. She was excitedly talking to her best friend.
They stopped in front of a Shaxian Delicacies food stall.1
The food stall was small, with only six tables. There was a TV mounted on the wall broadcasting the TV drama of the moment, “Princess Hua Zhao.”
The girl excitedly pulled her friend: “Let’s just eat at Shaxian Delicacies tonight.”
The friend helplessly rolled her eyes. “Lady, we can eat so many things on the street, so why do you specifically want Shaxian? Just because they have a TV with ‘Princess Hua Zhao?’ Didn’t you already finish watching it?”
“It’s such a good show, it’s worth rewatching!” the girl said righteously, dragging her best friend into the Shaxian Delicacies.
They entered the stall arm in arm, never noticing Hua Zhao, who they had just brushed past.
After a week of correction, Hua Zhao was no longer the country bumpkin who’d be scared into a screaming mess by the little people in the TV! Now, she knew what was called a TV, and also knew what was called the TV drama — it was when a group of actors gathered together to perform, then they shot it with a thing called “video camera” to broadcast it on the TV.
But… “Princess Hua Zhao”?
There was a TV drama named after her given name?2
Hua Zhao was extremely curious. She really wanted to watch this show!
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1 Shaxian Delicacies is a food stall chain in China, essentially considered part of the food culture.
2 As opposed to her title as a princess.
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Did you notice that Hua Zhao uses “I” instead of “bengong” this chapter?
lilypad translations 