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Тори Ни «Цин Але», трилогия издана в 2025 году издательство RUGRAM
Перевод на английский: Райская Елена
At the time when Qing Ale turned eighteen and had not yet returned to the capital with her crowned brothers, the people of the Northern Principality did not know much about her. There were rumors that the old prince and his second wife had a daughter many years ago with a demonic appearance — golden hair and dark azure eyes, could such an event be just an accident? Therefore, the prince hid his daughter in the farthest lands of the principality — on Mount Sha, where one of the main theological schools of the north, Peak Sha, was previously located, but with the arrival of the ruler's daughter, for reasons unknown to people, the school's students were distributed to other theological schools.
The school, once inhabited by Taoist followers, quietly ceased to exist, its students dispersed to new monasteries, it was strictly forbidden to discuss the transfer, people were silent, not wanting to anger the ruler, who was strict in punishment, and later, a dozen years later, his son, who took the princely throne after his father's death. At the Peak Sha, the most dangerous secret of the deceased prince was hidden from prying eyes, because who wants gossip and backstage whispers, it's easier to remove the child from the public eye.
"It's a good thing they left you alive," aunts wailed in the northeastern villages a few days away from the Sha Pagoda. "What is the child's fault? "
"If a son had been born, would he not have sent him to the God—forsaken wastelands, and would we all have seen how he would have nursed a demon in the palace of his capital Hanshan, and what about a daughter?" a merchant from a small town near the capital argued to the visitors.
"And I heard that a child has a disability from birth, the disease is hidden, and therefore no one should approach Peak Sha closer than five hundred li," a peasant woman confidently declared at an evening gathering around the campfire.
"Nonsense, my brother lives in a foothill village, the young lady is healthy and there is nothing of a demoness in her, since when has a girl's beauty been attributed to the manifestation of dark forces? The young lady is running around the slopes, playing in mountain streams, and the whole village gets along well with her, though they stopped letting people from neighboring villages through, maybe our old prince was afraid and took care of his daughter, and the young prince is now not up to solving this issue? The far northern lands are fertile and clean, the best place to grow a flower, you all shouldn't spread gossip, the time will come soon, we'll see how our young lady will come out of the shadows," the old man reasoned wisely.
"Poor child, torn from her native nest," the women cried in the Wushan pagoda, which was located to the west and closer to the capital of the principality of Hanshan, "I have not seen maternal affection and tenderness, growing like a sorghum bush of acalifa* under the supervision of a mentor, the young prince does not know how his unfortunate sister is doing, if they were alive parents...
"Wasn't it this demonic fetus that killed the princess in childbirth?"
"What if the young prince was waiting for the young lady to grow up and blossom in order to profitably marry her to General Ye's ally, otherwise why now, after so many years of separation, the prince is taking the young lady from Peak Sha to the capital of Hanshan? Rumor has it that the prince has scheduled a visit to the lands of Ye. Isn't a marriage useful to the principality the only possible reason to pick up a sister abandoned in childhood?" people couldn't get to the truth.
"You're all lecherous gossips! Venerable General Ye is too old for a young lady," the old mentor, a teacher from one of the schools in the northwestern village of Ushi, became angry, "haven't any of you heard that the young lady was blessed by the heavenly god Yang Ying Tian himself at birth?! Would he have poured divine light on the offspring of the Blue Abyss? And would the young prince, in turn, blithely plan his sister's marriage, because nothing is yet clear about the fate of the Empire itself?! Peak Sha has the best healing mountain springs, it's obvious that the young lady's spiritual core needed strengthening after her mother's difficult birth, and the mountain is the best place to heal wounds.
The arguments of the respected Taoist who intervened were very convincing, but how could one sound thought stop this wave of discussions that had gathered speed on the slopes of the Northern Principality, because it is not every day that the young Prince Qing Ling himself with his personal army, and picking up the younger brother of General Qing Bei from the military training ground in the vicinity of Sha, travels through the whole principality To take my sister home. It seemed to people to be such an incredible event that it became the only topic of discussion and gossip. With joy and anxiety, with worries and worries, people followed the news and developments, and the latest most powerful wave of conversations, supported by "reliable" news from the palace itself, reinforced in people's minds one of the most logical versions of what was happening: the young prince, who abandoned his younger sister for eighteen years in the Sha monastery (as the place was called after the dissolution of the school), who had not visited her once in all these years, was tormented by conscience, and he decided to reunite the family. This thought was so audacious and at the same time touching that it was firmly ingrained in the minds of countless huge crowds of residents of the Northern Principality.
At that time, in the Southern Kingdom, where the viceroy's family had been ruled by Ne—direct imperial descendants for more than a decade, they had not heard anything at all about the young lady and the plans of the ruler of the North. Bending like a slow snake with shimmering scaly skin, the Yangtze river split the once-solid Empire in half after the main artifact that gives the empire power broke. Eighteen years have passed since then, and there is almost no connection between the inhabitants of the Northern Principality and the Southern Kingdom. It was a forced lull in the clan war.
Peak Sha from a dragon's flight, when the mythical dragon Yang Lun flew around the mountain for the last time before going to bed, covering the foothills and plains with the shadow of majestic white and golden wings, looked like the most heavenly place on this earth, one name is that the edge of the world. It was not for nothing that the cunning Yang Lun chose this blessed mountain to cultivate his delicate Qing Ale flower, and sleep sweetly in a cave under the liquid hot sun poured from heaven: truly, the nearby sun poured like gold on the peaks and ridges of Sha. Once again, without showing his face, the white dragon rested, with one half-open red eye with an elongated black pupil, watching from the height of the mountain how the prince's daughter was growing up. This child who came into the world at the wrong time is now almost his child, the princely daughter turned out to be so important. Yang Lun himself was actually assigned as a nanny to the prince's offspring, but there were reasons for that.
The gilded roofs of the halls of Peak Sha reflected the celestial palette and the light slid from them lower and lower, along the broken walls, falling through the open windows and spilling onto the floor in golden autumn vague pools of rays. At this time, at the Peak Sha Qing Ale, she tightly locked herself in her Dao Tian Hall, propping the door from the inside with two heavy tables, pushing an equally heavy chair after the tables, so that her mentor, who was going crazy with anxiety, could not pass this line of defense and see her in such a state. She didn't know what bothered her more—shame in front of her mentor or just unwillingness to discuss the latest news with anyone.
A worried middle-aged man shifted from one foot to the other under the door, his temples were marked with noble gray, and his gray robe was framed by a golden border with the coat of arms of the principality and the former empire: a half-dragon, half-dragon, mythical creature. The exemplary mentor of Peak Sha, Gu Jiu, was more worried than usual, his face was gray and several wrinkles lay on his forehead, he had never been able to be convincing and verbose, in all the years while he was raising and mentoring the princely daughter, he never lost his temper, raised his voice, or insisted on anything, He couldn't even really object to the young lady — it might have seemed from the outside that he didn't care, and this Taoist was simply carrying the responsibility imposed on him by the ruling family, but nevertheless, his shortness of breath and the way his chest heaved convulsively under layers of simple grayish teacher's robes betrayed his hard-to-hide concern. He simply did not know what to do, how to react, or how to persuade the young lady to finally listen to him.
"Qing Ale, please, you've never behaved like this, open the door, we'll sit down, have tea, Mrs. Gu Wei will bring rice cakes. The ones from the flower pollen, you love them so much, the three of us can talk, Mrs.Gu will guide and prompt," mentioning his wife, and knowing how warm the relationship was between her and the young lady, Gu Jiu hoped to reach the princess's heart in this way.
From behind the closed doors of the Dao Tian Hall, after a pause of silence, a soft, pleasant girl's voice was heard:
"Mentor Gu, let me be alone. I know you're worried, it's okay, I need to think about it, and what's more, I'm not in the mood to drink tea. When Gong** and General Qing Bei arrive (Qing Ale deliberately avoided calling her older brother by his first name, showing indifference to his important person), I will meet him and not embarrass the mentor. If the mentor is worried about this moment of the meeting.
"Young lady, I beg you, open the doors!" Gu Jiu's voice sounded hoarse, it was more difficult for him than ever, he had been looking after the young lady for eighteen years, and now he had to accompany her on the road.
In previous years, it seemed to Taoist Gu that when that day came and the brothers finally took his sister home, he himself, venerable Gu, would be free and would be able to return the students who had been dismissed years earlier, return to the former life of a spiritual school teacher, and he was truly waiting for this opportunity. But now that this day had come and was more real than anything real and tangible, he did not feel release, somewhere deep in his chest, under his ribs, there was an inexorable ache. Somewhere deeper, behind his heart, his spiritual core of a celestial shone faintly, an equally weak soul shuddered, and if it hadn't been for the circumstances of the farewell, he would never have discovered this treacherous gap in himself.
"Don't get attached to the child, Gu," he instructed himself long ago at the beginning of the journey, "this child will cause problems for all of us."
But as the years passed, Qing Ale's expressive dark turquoise eyes, her bright smile and her pure soul did their job, germinating the roots of the mentor's hidden, deep and painful affection for his student.
Qing Ale no longer paid attention to the knocking. Even when there were more voices outside the door, and she could clearly hear dear Mother Gu Wei's footsteps, the clink of the cups she brought on the metal tray, and the way Mrs. Gu spoke anxiously to her husband in a hurry and at one point, which was unheard of and strange, even raised her voice at him.
Qing Ale covered her face with her hands. You can't cry, or rather, of course, you can, but what's the point? Completely upset the exemplary mentor and his wife, and nothing, absolutely nothing, can be changed by these empty tears. If only the stream of tears had been so huge that it flowed into the Huang he (Yellow River) in deep currents and carried her away with it—away from her cold and indifferent brother, who had never shown interest in her in all these years. But it was now that he decided to actually ruin her life — to force her to obey his will, to leave her native place, for what, why did this trash need her right now? And yes, it gave her a strange pleasure to think of him as the last trash, so she could not fall into painful tears, Qing Ale had no reason to hate this man, because he had not done anything wrong to her at all — until that day. However, he hadn't done anything good either, he just didn't exist in time and space for her, in her remote Sha monastery. Over the years, only the other brother, the soft-hearted, good-natured Qing Bei, often visited her, not particularly advertising these visits to anyone, perhaps he was hiding communication with his sister from his older ruling brother.
Ignoring the movements on the other side of the door of the Dao Tian Hall, Qing Ale tried to concentrate her attention and think again, it seemed to her that there was probably some solution that was not immediately obvious. It was pointless to refuse to leave home, Qing Ling traveled with an army through so many lands, the road from the capital of Hanshan to Mount Sha took about ten days, it was no joke, to leave all the capital's affairs and go to the edge of the lands himself (why did he do this and why did he not send subordinates, or at least did not trust to bring his sister to Qing Bei alone, whose military training ground was located only a day away from Peak Sha, and why did he choose to travel by land rather than faster with swords?), and of course, that's how the prince turned back at the request of his sister, to whom he had not shown even a drop of interest in all the years of existence. It's stupid to think that if you ask him and he suddenly agrees, his brother obviously had his own plan and his own vision of the situation.
To tearfully ask her to leave her at Peak Sha for another year, and then voluntarily go to the capital, who are you kidding, Qing Ale? He won't listen to you, this whole completely insane delegation has already stirred up the principality. It's useless, it's useless... to resist, they'll take you away under escort, what a terrible shame in front of an exemplary mentor, and how Mother Wei will look after you. All this is very, very shameful and unworthy of the name of a princely descendant.
The wound on his shoulder and shoulder blade from a recent adventure in the mountains has not yet healed, but then there will be an interrogation from the prince about what happened and how this wound was received, then Mentor Gu's family may suffer for not keeping track of the careless princess, is it possible to allow such a thing? The wound must be hidden, and that's the most important thing, yes, Qing Ale, it's immensely important, think, think, think.
The girl went to the window and through a thin veil, gently swaying in the wind, looked down from the height of the Dao Tian Hall at the mountain slopes, the broken line of the palace roofs of Peak Sha, the golden metal reflected the beautiful heavens at any time of the day, like a slightly clouded mirror, it was incredibly beautiful. Her house, her mountainside, falling down after the observation deck of the peak: if you roll down it on a cart, you can break your legs. Qing Ale knew this firsthand, and as a child she had already received severe punishment for bruises and broken wheels of a play cart, but to fly down like on the wings of a white dragon living on top of a mountain, to rush — and the wind in your face, until you roll down to the forest, framing the dark green crown of the Sha Pagoda, a place where you no longer want to make noise and run headlong. And below, under the Pagoda, is the picturesque village of Sha, where sheep graze behind paddocks and the friendly family of her beloved friend Su Li lives, with whom they have run around all the mountain slopes in recent years, all year round, regardless of the weather, other things and the grumbling of the mentor. When will they be able to see their only friend again? Holding back the tears that had risen too high in her throat, Qing Ale kept looking for ways to escape, but she couldn't find them.
Sighing heavily, the girl covered her face with her hands again, sitting down on a chair near the open window, there really was no escape, except to die here and now, but she would not give this trash such pleasure.
So, it became clear: none of the options would help to deploy his brother's army and send him back to the capital. Think, Qing Ale, think, and let your head explode with thoughts. The most important thing was to protect her loved ones from punishment, and as for punishing her, the girl didn't care if her prince would put her on his knees in front of the ritual hall to atone for mistakes, guilt, or be more strict — all this was not so important, and it was completely unclear in her mind. The very image of this trash was also blurred, and the more she thought about meeting him soon, the more nauseous she felt.
The light golden unruly curls of the girl's hair fell in flowing streams on her face, and the first evening rays of the sun appeared through the window, they gently crept along the cracks of the window sill lower and lower to the floor and slid to the feet of the young princess. Her dress was simple, matching the student robe of Sha Peak in gray-purple tones with a gold border, but even without the exquisite fabrics and jewelry, the girl's appearance had a refined nobility and innate beauty inherited from the deceased mother of Princess Qing A. There was only evening left, and night, the last night at home before the unknown. She would have to meet this man in the morning...
Finally removing her hands from her face, Qing Ale raised her deep and slightly moist dark azure eyes: there was no way out, she would have to obey in order to save face and preserve the safety of the Gu family, so that no one would dare to accuse them of how clumsily they had prepared her, their only Qing Ale's student.
But in the capital of Hanshan, upon arrival at the palace, she would not come close to this man, who was only her family in name. But in fact, he left her alone in the company of a mentor and mentor, and showed no interest in seeing her for many years. But no one could give an answer to the question of why it was so urgently necessary to take the prince's daughter to the capital right now — both the mentor and his honest wife remained silent. Of course, Qing Ale was not completely alone, her mentors treated her warmly, as did the remaining couple dozen warriors at Peak Sha (hired to protect the Peak from any external interference), as well as her only friend, young lady Su Li from Sha village under the slope of Peak Sha.
There was another brother, about whom Qing Ale turned out to know almost nothing. Due to congenital dementia or some strange mental illness, the younger son of the deceased Prince Qing Sa, deprived of the gods, never left the capital, and the mentor tactfully evaded Qing Ale's questions, and in general he always told very little and concisely, as if he was afraid to blurt out too much.
But the second, middle brother, the appointed general of the Northern Principality of Qing Bei, had been visiting his little sister all these years, and since Qing Bei's supervised training ground was only a day away from Peak Sha, he did not miss the opportunity to visit his younger sister every time military exercises allowed and when he himself was not in the capital. Qing Ale was sincerely happy as a child every time she saw his slender figure on a black stallion in the distance, ran to meet him, and when the young man finally jumped nimbly off the horse, smiling, brushed water splashes from his brown hair and looked at her with amber kind eyes, she jumped to him shouting.
"Brother, brother, you have arrived! Let's go to the Dao Sha Pavilion (the main hall of the Sha Peak Spiritual School), I want to show you something," and they ran, holding hands.
And then barefoot, tanned young lady Su and her little brothers would come running, and together they would have fun until the evening, eating dinner prepared by Mother Gu Wei.
Qing Ale knew that her brother's duties as a general would not allow him to stay in the Sha foothills for long, and he always left at dawn in the morning, and she watched sadly, catching every moment when the retreating figure disappeared over the horizon. At the last moment, when she could still see his image, the glossy horse's fur and the warrior's cloak with a blue tint and a gold border shone from afar.
When Qing Ale was still a child, she asked Qing Bei why Qing Ling's brother didn't come, and the guest always evaded the answer. Gradually, she stopped asking. The young lady tried not to think at all about the motives of the prince who ascended the throne. But the dark shadow of resentment, mixed with an incomprehensible longing, weighed heavily on her young heart, which did not know real life in the capital. Flipping through the memories in her memory now, on this warm autumn evening, like the pages of her own chronicle, the young lady returned briefly to those moments when it seemed to her that she was happy.
Peak Sha was truly her abode, and now the last thing she had left was her home. Here, in her native place, the first years of her life, while the old prince, her father, was alive, until his illness broke him, he visited her every birthday, here in the cold mountain springs he and Su Li ran like wild goats and fished. Here, in the colorful thickets and on the long narrow mountain paths, they played catch-up and other simple games with all the lively, tanned cubs of the Su family under the northern sun. Here was her dry and restrained, but still familiar mentor, who little by little taught the young lady to comprehend the sciences, calligraphy. His wife was here, a gentle-hearted mother who always showed affection and care for Qing Ale. Perhaps this place was not the best place in the world, but the woven network of childhood memories that turned into youthful ones firmly connected the princess's soul with Peak Sha, the northern region was valuable to the heart, and the shadow of misunderstanding grew like a dark hedge in the heart and separated Qing Ale from his older brother from here from the mountain ranges — and to his cursed a capital that will definitely never be able to replace a house. Most of all, the girl did not want to become a malleable toy in other people's plans, and there were undoubtedly plans, otherwise why would Qing Ling need to change everything and come now.
If in the early years after the death of the old prince, Qing Ale dreamed that her older brother would come to her and hug her in the same way as her father did, and to some extent replace her father, smoothing out the acute longing, then the more years passed, the more the benevolent image of the prince weakened in her mind. The old image was replaced by a more distant, alien and cold image of a stranger with his unknown plans for her future, and finally, after deciding to ruin her life, this weak image turned completely black and received the status of eternal garbage. Which, of course, could not be said directly to the eyes, but I would really like to do it at the first meeting after the greeting.
"Greetings to the venerable scoundrel who has invaded my sacred Taoist lands, a heartless barbarian who goes to subjugate a secluded monastery with a weapon at the ready, an insignificant scum who thinks that he can subjugate the free soul of a young lady who grew up in the mountains with his dull will. Would you be so kind as to get out, honorable prince, into that hole in the capital from which you so crowningly emerged? To get out and never again disturb the young lady who lives here with her attention" such a wonderful speech was no less than the edge of a sharpened sword.
But this speech would only take the heads of the mentors off their shoulders. And so the idea had to be abandoned. At the same time, heavy thoughts persisted: why would a free-spirited Qing Ale suddenly have to fulfill other people's whims? Why now would she have to bow at this man's feet, smile at him and greet him as an older brother and prince, bow to the ground, honor him and receive him as an honored guest? If he hadn't gone further away from her...
the only thing Qing Ale wanted right now was to wake up. And to realize that all the preparations are just a nightmare in the night, and then never to know the news about the capital, the prince and his plans, not to talk to him, not to see him, to be as far away from his life as possible, and just live your happy life among the northern nature of this corner.
However, the reality was insurmountable and even harsh: a week earlier, General Qing Bei had sent Qing Ale an urgent letter, the contents of which had completely upset the girl's mood.
"My dear unsurpassed Mei-mei ***, I sincerely ask you, as your elder brother and as the general of the northern lands, knowing your reluctance to see the prince and return home to Hanshan, to take into account the importance and indisputability of this decision. Accept that His Grace Gong's will is non-negotiable, do not resist with words or deeds, and do not ask the Supreme Prince for anything when meeting in the Tao Sha Pavilion, accept his supreme will and kneel humbly, show dignity and upbringing, restrained humility and respect, worthy qualities of a humble disciple of the exemplary mentor Gu Peak Sha."
After reading the letter, the young lady almost vomited blood, and in order to clearly comprehend what was said, she had to reread the general's brother's instruction twice more.
There was a postscript below the seal:
"On the day the prince arrives at Peak Sha, I will join his army and together we can share the day of the meeting. With love and joy for the day ahead, wrapped in sunshine is your brother, Qing Bei..."
Wrapped in sunshine Qing Bei was not stingy in his expressions about himself, and at another moment this little thing would have amused the girl, but now sour longing has already poured out of the glass, staining not so much the dress as the soul.
"Qing Bei is coming too", Qing Ale's heart skipped a cold beat.
She didn't want to disappoint him, as well as her precious mentors, because this man had shown her a warm brotherly attitude many times. And it was only thanks to his attention that she did not remain completely alone all these years.
After thinking everything over carefully, Qing Ale got up from her chair, went to the door and, with some effort, pushed the tables away from the entrance, several figures stumbled into the wide opening with sighs of concern: mentor Gu, his wife, servants with tools in their hands (who seemed to be about to break down the doors), the mentor's son, the young student Gu Yao and even the librarian of the study hall, they all stared at the princess with alarm on their faces, whether she was crying, whether she had hurt herself from the heavy grief of losing her native places, whether she had ruined her clothes and jewelry in anger, whether she was planning to resist tomorrow at a meeting with His Grace Hong.
"Stop it", Qing Ale breathed out, "all this is worthy of an acting scene in Sha village (although she herself would be the main character in this scene)," annoyance mixed with discontent sounded in her voice, gathering the whole Peak to court her and check what mood she was in. Is it really so unclear what's wrong? "Mother Gu, I see you've brought cakes," Qing Ale pointed to the tray, sighed, and motioned for the mentors to enter.
"Dear, we are all very worried about the arrival of the prince tomorrow, you should know that we will share this burden with you and you are not alone. You can write letters and complain any day, if something goes wrong in the capital, in the palace, then old man Gu and I will come and disperse everyone who dared to contradict our young lady."
Looking at the agitated face of this middle-aged woman, Qing Ale couldn't help but smile from the corners of her lips:
"I'll survive, Mother Gu, I'm not going to give up so easily."
"That's what we're all afraid of, that you won't be able to accept your brother's will and get yourself into trouble!"
Late in the evening of the same day, when the inhabitants of Peak Sha went to their rooms in anticipation of the fateful morning, Qing Ale was left alone with Mentor Gu.
"Show me the wound," the woman asked, "I can't imagine how it's possible to hide this blow from the prince." From a young age, he is endowed with healing energies in addition to military prowess, he is a talented healer and, of course, he will feel, you'll see, the wound has just begun to heal. Oh, it's not a good time, honey, you ran off to the mountain to look for your dragon," Gu Wei sighed, changing the bandage, applying a cloth soaked in a decoction of medicinal herbs from her shoulder to her shoulder blade, the wound no longer festered, but still looked terrible. "You can deceive old man Gu, he has become quite inattentive over the years, but you can't deceive me," the woman continued softly, "such a blow could not have been inflicted by a random mountain spirit, the wound is too deep."
"I do not know who it was, Mother, I do not remember anything", Qing Ale lied. There was no need to burden the mentors with this annoying oversight and put them at risk of the prince, but in order to hide the lie in many true details, she added. "Then I lost consciousness and opened my eyes in the cave of the white dragon, he protected me from the mountain demon, so I escaped."
In fact, Qing Ale, in secret from her mentors, dragged herself to the golden-winged sleepy Yang Lun at least once a year, in an attempt to extract at least some information from the grumpy mountain dweller, and the last outing led to a completely unexpected encounter with a dangerous mountain demon, which, by the way, had not been seen in the vicinity of Sha for many years. If Yang Lun hadn't woken up in time and scared off the impudent man, it's hard to say how the meeting might have ended. And the fact that an unknown demon had injured her vulnerable body was solely her own oversight.
"You don't remember anything at all?" The woman raised her worried eyes.
"Absolutely", Qing Ale replied, it was a good thing that she was sitting with her back to her mentor, and she could not see the expression in her eyes. "If the prince notices, I'll say I fell on a walk in the mountains, stumbled, hurt myself on the rocks, I'll come up with something, I don't think he'll care about the details."
"Do you take him for a fool?" the mentor smiled with a heavy heart. "Maybe he will, but only if he doesn't see with his own eyes what kind of wound it is, a paw blow can't be hidden by falling. Our prince has an innate talent for seeing a change in qi energies, such as happens with deep wounds."
"How will he see, Mother Gu? Who would dare take off my clothes? I'll be careful, I promise. "
Qing Ale hurriedly got up and changed her nightgown for bed, threw a snow-white robe over her shoulders, in which her image seemed very bright and delicate, but she still did not want to sleep, too many emotions agitated the girl's mind:
"If it weren't for the mentor and the exemplary mentor, I wouldn't care what the prince thinks! But, so that the shadow of his wrath does not fall on our house, I will not give a sign that I have met this mountain demon."
So Qing Ale didn't even have time to blink an eye, as eighteen years of her carefree life, free from the influences of the ruling family, filled with the scent of mountains and the lapping of mountain streams, came to an end, flew by in one disappearing moment. Arriving in the capital, she will have to forget the way home forever. Today, more than ever before, she felt especially lonely, and soon she would no longer have any familiar faces, her only friend, or the home of Peak Sha.
Qing Ale leisurely took fruits from the tray — tangerines and grapes, slowly peeled the peel, exposing the juicy inside of the tangerine, her fingers stained with the juice of the ripe fruit, the gilded tray reflected the faint evening light setting over the horizon, her soul reflected the darkest coming night, like a black mirror. No matter how hard it was, she had to endure, not lose face, not show weakness, and not let this stranger plan her life upon arrival in Hanshan. Qing Bei would help her, she could count on him, he would always cover her up, as he had promised many times, and this brother always kept his word.
Notes after the chapter:
* acalifa — the bush of a plant growing in China is considered rather weedy, the stems of the plant contain poisonous juice and are dangerous, here, when compared with this plant, the demonic nature of the child was meant: although it is a pity for the young lady, but she is certainly dangerous and does not have the same blood in her veins as ordinary people.
** Gong - is the title of a prince in ancient China.
*** Mei-mei (妹妹) is an address to a younger sister.
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