CH 71

I am not a child, I am Ming Qin (Entering the Shadow Guard Camp for the First Time)

It all began with a bottle of wine and a heart overflowing with compassion.

Had it not been for the pitiful sight of a helpless kitten mewing on the road, or the haze in her head from the alcohol she had imbibed at her company’s party, Song Shu Qing, at the age of 25, would not have clambered over the fence and ran onto the asphalt road alone. Nor would she have frozen in terror like a statue when confronted with a truck running a red light, unable to dodge it in time.

Even the tiny feline, lighter than her, jumped out of her arms and vanished into the bushes at the sight of the approaching headlights.

As expected, those who meddle in other people’s affairs often meet with dire consequences…

But never mind, at least the kitten was safe.

This was Song Shu Qing’s final thought before she closed her eyes.

After experiencing such a horrendous car accident in the darkness, Song Shu Qing believed that she would either miraculously awaken in a hospital bed or be greeting God in the afterlife.

However, life has a habit of surprising people. When she opened her eyes once more, she discovered that she was in a rudimentary wooden cabin with a dozen or so children who were unmistakably minors and covered in injuries, asleep around her.

Just as she was bewildered and preparing to contact the Child Welfare Center to report child abuse, she noticed that her fingers had suddenly become short and thick like plump sausages.

Impossible!

It’s impossible!

It can’t be!

She had just spent 500 yuan on getting her nails done, how could they look like this?

Like a child’s hands…

Song Shu Qing panicked and tried to get up, but her limbs were weak, and she accidentally fell off the bed.

As she touched her forehead, she realized that she had a fever.

“Is anyone there? What kind of sick joke is this…” She hoarsely called out, struggling to get up from the ground. Her whole body was swaying. “Is anyone there?”

“Shh!” A tall boy sat up and glared at her fiercely. “Be quiet, do you want to get us all in trouble?”

“Ouch…how scary.” Song Shu Qing was shocked and wanted to go out and take a look, but she felt weak and had no choice but to climb back onto the bed. “This must be a dream, it has to be a dream…”

Mumbling to herself, as if hypnotized, Song Shu Qing fell into a deep slumber with an incredibly heavy head.

“Get up! Get up!”

It was still dark outside when a boy with braids shook Song Shu Qing, who was still sleeping soundly.

“…let me sleep a bit longer…” Groaning in pain, Song Shu Qing pushed the boy’s hand away and pouted.

Frowning, the boy persisted, “Junior Sister, wake up quickly! If you’re late, you’ll be punished.”

Unmoved by the girl’s doubts, he reached out to touch her forehead. Twelve-year-old Cao Yun was startled and shouted to the tall boy outside, “Dalinzi, it’s not good, Junior Sister Song has a fever!”

Fourteen-year-old Lin Yan walked in and looked at the pale-faced girl with a troubled expression. “Oh no, our master isn’t here today, and it’s Qin Shibai who’s in charge of our training. He’s the most fierce…”

“What should we do then?” Cao Yun bit his lip, looking worried.

“Well, let’s go first. We can’t be late ourselves…” Lin Yan decided helplessly, looking sympathetically at the suffering Song Shu Qing on the bed before leaving with a clenched jaw.

As the feverish Song Shu Qing lay in a daze on the bed, she vaguely saw a stern man yelling at her, and the next second her mouth was gagged with a torn cloth. She was lifted up, and a bamboo stick mercilessly struck her leg.

The still-unconscious girl was stimulated by the sudden pain and immediately struggled, tears filling her eyes as she groaned in agony from her throat.

“Making you late! Making you late!” The more the girl resisted, the harder Qin Shibai hit her. “You’re just a group of orphans. You should learn to earn your own meals. You won’t be eating today!”

Nearly beaten to unconsciousness, Song Shu Qing was thrown into a narrow wooden hut filled with clutter. The wretched girl felt hungry and sore all over her body, her head frozen in place.

What kind of place is this?

They are abusing children and not letting them eat.

It hurts so much. Could it be that I have traveled through time and space?

No, I just got promoted and moved out of that annoying house. Damn it…

Continuously reminding herself that she is a mature adult with a 25-year-old mentality, she must not cry over such trivial matters. However, the crying Song Shu Qing lying on the ground could not suppress the tears flowing down her cheeks. Her legs, with skin ripped open from being hit, twitched and throbbed, making it even more unbearable for her.

『Clang』

A stacked wooden box suddenly fell down, giving the emotionally unstable Song Shu Qing a big scare. “Damn it…”

“Could it be a mouse?” she croaked, dragging her feet and wriggling backwards.

Just then, the moonlight shining through the window revealed a small girl with wild, unkempt hair and a thin frame, who popped her head out from behind a box. Clutching a package of unknown contents, she deftly jumped to Song Shu Qing’s side.

Relieved that it wasn’t a mouse, Song Shu Qing closed her eyes and let the little girl attend to her injuries. Feeling the cool ointment on her burns, she was surprised when she opened her eyes and saw the girl was just a child.

“How did you get hold of medicine?” Song Shu Qing asked.

“I got first place in training and this was my reward,” the little girl replied, nonchalantly.

Impressed, Song Shu Qing raised an eyebrow and noticed that the girl was also covered in bruises and bumps.

“You’re giving me such a valuable reward. Aren’t you going to regret it?” she asked.

“Getting first place is easy,” the little girl said matter-of-factly. She then offered Song Shu Qing a hard steamed bun from her pocket, which she accepted with gratitude.

As she nibbled on the dry bun, Song Shu Qing asked the little girl why she was so concerned about her.

“Senior Brother Yun and Senior Brother Lin sent me to find you because I’m the best at not being discovered,” the little girl replied earnestly.

“Really? Those two boys who woke me up this morning?” Song Shu Qing recalled as she took the last bite of her steamed bun. “And, little girl, what’s your name, and do you know how to leave this place?”

“I’m not a little girl, I’m Ming Qin,” the girl introduced herself, puffing out her chest proudly. “My name was given to me by my master.”

“Okay, okay, Ming Qin,” Song Shu Qing replied absentmindedly, not really paying attention to what the girl was saying. She asked again, “So, Ming Qin, do you know how to leave this place?”

The girl tilted her head and thought for a moment. “Tomorrow, when Lord Qin’s anger subsides, if he remembers you, he will let you out,” she said bluntly, nodding as she spoke.

Trying to keep calm, Song Shu Qing took a deep breath and asked patiently, “I mean, how can I leave this cursed place without getting beaten or having to participate in some crappy training?”

“Just graduate,” Ming Qin said matter-of-factly, holding up her fingers to count. “After graduating from Night Mist Court and becoming one of His Majesty’s direct shadow guards, you won’t have to get beaten anymore. You can earn money, have your own room, and eat whatever you want…”

Song Shu Qing’s eyes lit up when she heard this. “How can I graduate?”

“Just pass the training,” Ming Qin said with a shrug. “If you don’t pass the training, you can’t graduate, and you’ll be sent away. Maybe you’ll be sold to a wealthy family as a maid, or if you look good, you’ll be chosen to go to the Green House.”

“You’re so pretty, you’ll definitely be sent to the Green House first,” Ming Qin said without hesitation, seeming to praise but not really making Song Shu Qing laugh.

Overwhelmed by all this information, Song Shu Qing’s head spun. Looking at the girl in front of her with shining eyes, she felt like Ming Qin was trying to drive her crazy.

(It wasn’t until later, when she got to know Ming Qin better, that Song Shu Qing realized that her straightforward junior sister had no ill intentions and was just giving her the most sincere answers…)

Once a corporate drone, Song Shu Qing reluctantly accepted the fact that she had crossed over and landed in the most arduous Shadow Guard training camp after being held captive for three days and three nights.

In television dramas, people usually cross over as princesses, young ladies, or at worst, illegitimate daughters of some prince.

Why did she have to be so miserable?

She had believed that her advanced 21st-century wisdom would easily guide her through any challenges. However, the moment she faced a cold, flashing blade, she was so scared that her legs trembled, and she watched as a strand of her hair was sliced off.

“Senior Sister, you can’t do it like this, you have to dodge!”

Ming Qin looked at her senior sister with a puzzled expression.

Ever since this senior sister had been beaten and poisoned after a fever, her quiet temperament had changed drastically. She babbled about things that Ming Qin couldn’t understand, and her mediocre martial arts skills had become incredibly poor. If it weren’t for Ming Qin sheathing her sword in time, she might have accidentally chopped off the person in front of her.

“I… I… I also want to dodge, but I’m scared…”

With a wrinkled face, Song Shu Qing felt like she was about to cry. She shook her head repeatedly and said, “I’ve never even chopped meat before, let alone a person. I can’t do it, I’m not capable…”

Ming Qin looked up at the girl who was five years older than her and scratched her head. She felt that Song Shu Qing looked pitiful despite being older than her.

Hmm…it seems I need to take on more responsibility.

She put away the sharp blade in her hand and awkwardly stood on her tiptoes to pat Song Shu Qing’s head, which towered above her own. “Don’t worry,” she said in a stuttering voice. “I won’t cut you. We just need to practice more.”

The two of them hid from the others’ sight every night and Song Shu Qing received Ming Qin’s lessons from the beginning.

As Song Shu Qing’s blisters on her hands kept breaking and reforming, she complained tearfully, and Ming Qin, with a wooden expression, applied medicinal ointment for her.

“Whew, it doesn’t hurt anymore, Senior Sister…the ointment makes it better.”

The seven-year-old girl said, as she puffed up her face and gently blew on the wound, carefully wiping the medicine.

Ming Qin, aware of her senior sister’s distaste for knives, swords, and bloodshed, used her excellent lightness skills to steal a secret manual on hidden weapons from the Shadow Guard’s collection and secretly showed it to Song Shu Qing.

“I’ll give it to you when I learn it… so even if you don’t touch the blade, you can knock down your opponents from a distance during the assessment!” Excitedly sharing her plan with Song Shu Qing, Ming Qin urged her senior sister to practice every day and secretly taught her the techniques she had learned in the early morning.

Over time, although Song Shu Qing was not as talented as Ming Qin, she could still hold her own against her peers during sparring and occasionally use her cleverness to gain an unexpected advantage.

Even so.

Song Shu Qing still believed that she was merely a transient visitor in this unfamiliar era.

She thought that no matter how long she stayed, she wouldn’t develop any emotions that could tether her to this world.

Perhaps, on a stormy night or when a comet fell from the sky, she would suddenly return to her original world. Or perhaps not.

Thus, Song Shu Qing watched everything around her with cold, indifferent eyes.

Her sole aim was to escape from the hellish Night Mist Court.

Three years went by in a flash.

“Hey, Dalinzi, where’s Qin Qin?” Having just finished dinner, Song Shu Qing looked around and stopped Lin Yan in the hallway. “I went to the training ground earlier, but I didn’t see Qin Qin there.”

“Ah, don’t even mention it.” Lin Yan sighed helplessly. “Qin Qin stole something earlier, it was a martial arts manual. It was discovered yesterday, and stealing is a major taboo in the camp. Being expelled from the sect is the least of one’s worries…”

“Thankfully, Master Xicai is merciful, and Qin Qin only received a severe beating. But I heard it was pretty brutal, and she’s probably still locked up…”

Song Shu Qing gasped and didn’t say much to Lin Yan. She hurriedly rushed to the small wooden house without looking back.

Frantically prying open the locked door, Song Shu Qing, her face ashen, discovered the ten-year-old Ming Qin lying on the ground, her back covered in bloody lash marks, barely breathing.

“Qin Qin, are you insane?”

She examined the wounds, her hands trembling with nervousness. “Why didn’t you tell our Master or the senior brothers that you had a reason for stealing? Why did you let them beat you like this?”

Ming Qin, her face pale, opened her eyes and gave a weak grin. “If I told them… you would be punished too, Senior Sister.”

“You’re so afraid of pain, and you will cry again…”

Before Song Shu Qing could finish her sentence, the little girl’s body gave out, and she lost consciousness.

“Qin Qin… you!”

She’s a lunatic!

Damn it!

Recalling the medical knowledge she learned in class, Song Shu Qing searched the nearby woods for familiar herbs.

Mashing up the bitter leaves and grinding them into a paste, Song Shu Qing applied it to Ming Qin’s oozing wounds. The usually detached and aloof woman suddenly felt a sharp pang in her heart.

It seemed as though she could no longer remain an outsider.

At least for the girl in front of her, Song Shu Qing had established a bond that was deeper than mere blood ties. This emotion, so similar to that of familial love, made it impossible for her to just watch idly.

“You insolent little brat…you had better stay alive!”