The Dreamer in the Spring Boudoir

Even the horse was startled and came to a quick halt. Ning Mingjie looked around, coughed to clear his throat, and pulled on her horse’s reins to lead her to the side to talk. “What are you doing?”

“Me?” Pengxin blinked. Swish. She pulled out her three-ring sword from the scabbard that was on her horse’s back. “I’m going with you to fight, ah.”

“Outrageous!” Ning Mingjie’s face had changed colors. “Is war a child’s game? You’re a mere woman...”

“We met on the battlefield.” Pengxin cleaned her ears and harrumphed. “My sword has killed countless enemies. Even if I spent the last year embroidering for you, I still know how to use my sword!”

Seeing that he was going say more, Pengxin took out a yellow cloth scroll. “Oh yeah, the emperor appointment me to come along. Here’s the imperial edict. Do you want to take a look?”

Ning Mingjie was stunned. He took the imperial edict from her. It really did have the emperor’s seal. The emperor was allowing Yuzhen’s princess, Pengxin, to follow the army.

“This...” After thinking it over, Ning Mingjie understood.

Who had possession of the emperor’s seal? Ning Yuxuan.

Who did Ning Yuxuan listen to? Ji-shi

.

These cousin-in-laws were like actual sisters, ah. She even helped Pengxin to this degree. Ning Mingjie sighed. He let go of her horse’s reins. “Why are you coming with me to battle? It’ll be very hard and tiring.”

“I’m not scared of hard work,” Pengxin said, “Someone told me that it’s better for me to be myself. I thought it over. I have to go with you to fight. When you charge ahead, I’ll help you chop down your enemies. When you capture a city, I’ll guard your back. That’s what the real me would do. I’m not suitable for staying at home to embroider and plotting out schemes against them, really.

Ning Mingjie couldn’t help it; his heart felt warm. “Alright, you have to do a good job with protecting me then.”

“En!” Pengxin placed her sword onto her shoulder and took a long breath. “It feels much better to speak loudly like this.”

Ning Mingjie’s heart felt a bit distressed. It seemed that this Yuzhen Princess had felt horribly stifled in his inner court.

—

“I still feel really worried about Pengxin following the general to the battlefield.” Zhu Yurun said to Ji Man while cracking melon seeds between her teeth. “Wouldn’t it unfairly help those wretched women in the general’s household if she dies on the battlefield?”

Ji Man thought that Zhu Yurun must have suffered a shock recently. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have said words like wretched women.

“That’s alright. Pengxin still has a big move that she hasn’t used yet. Once she uses it, she’ll be arranged inside the camps and won’t even have to lift a finger.” Ji Man spat out a melon seed’s shell. She narrowed her eyes as if she was focused on looking at a goal. “Pengxin actually has a very likable personality. It’s only that other people take Ning Mingjie’s attention away, so he can’t properly spend time with her and get to know her. They’ll be staying in Jiangxi for three years. By the time they come back, they’ll have a child together. Their feelings will have had time to grow. While they’re away in the military camps, no one will be scheming or bullying Pengxin. Her life couldn’t be better.”

Zhu Yurun doubtfully looked at her. “How can you know the war will last three years?”

Ji Man coughed. She didn’t feel right pointing out to this fool that she had an inside source for the imperial court matters. She went to sleep hearing all sorts of national secrets, so how could it be possible for her to not know something minor like this?

She had originally only wanted to help Pengxin a little bit, but once Ning Yuxuan found out that she wanted to develop the relationship between Ning Mingjie and his wife, he didn’t say another word before getting an imperial edict and sending Pengxin off to join the army.

That’s why she had felt okay with divulging a spoiler in advance by telling Zhu Yurun that she could tell Pengxin her good days weren’t far.

It would be so pointless just to change yourself. While you were striving to change yourself, you might as well change him too.

Ji Man felt that it was easy for people to feel sympathetic for foolish, young women. It was unlikely that she would ever change into a foolish, sweet person herself, so she would dote on these foolish, young women. She would teach them how to live properly and get people to believe that true love was invincible.

—

Pengxin had blocked an attack for Ning Mingjie, and there was a wound on her arm as a result. Furious, Ning Mingjie was about to go after the scattered remains of the enemy army to get revenge for her. Unexpectedly, Pengxin, who should be feeling weak and lying down, acted as if she was perfectly fine. She raised her large sword and ran quicker than anyone else to cut off the enemy’s hand.

Ning Mingjie, “...”

His anger was gone, but he felt a bit distressed.

Pengxin sucked in a breath of cold air, Looking at him, she said, “I’m going to head back to the tent first.”

The enemy soldiers were pretty much wiped out. Seeing that her expression looked pained, Ning Mingjie went back to the camp with her to check on her injury.

As a result, he heard an army doctor saying she was in her third month of pregnancy!

Ning Mingjie immediately flipped the table. Three months! This girl had come along with him into the battlefield, protected him, and taken a wound meant for him when she was three months pregnant? Was she Yuzhen’s princess, or the Monkey King? How could she be so lively?

He was speechless with anger. It was only when he saw that Pengxin’s complexion had changed that he anxiously asked the doctor what to do.

The army doctor hadn’t treated a woman before. He sighed and said, “Prepare medicine to help stabilize her condition.”

And so, the dignified, great general of the nation sat outside the tent and earnestly cooked medicine. His expression was stern, and the soldiers that passed by him saluted and stopped by the side to see what he was out here doing.

More and more people came to watch this spectacle. When Ning Mingjie returned to his senses, his surrounding was already a solid blanket of black. The pot of medicine was bubbling over.

Translator Ramblings: It’s strange that Ji Man can find stupidity cute. Isn’t that Wen Wan’s defining character trait?