90 First Visit to the Princess Residence (1/2)
Chapter 90: First Visit to the Princess Residence
Translator: TransnEditor: Transn
Ning Que decided to skip studying at the building for a day, and went to visit Her Highness the Princess with Sangsang, and take a life while he was here. Sangsang on the other hand wasn't too impressed with this decision, not because she didn't like killing people, since having grown up beside Ning Que she had witnessed Ning Que kill so many people that she was pretty much numb about it. It was really because she didn't like the fact that Ning Que couldn't take a good rest despite his poor physical conditions at the moment.
Despite not being in a good mood, the little handmaiden still gave her best when cooking the noddles with fried eggs in the evening. She skipped adding pepper and spring onions not as a form of punishment, but because Ning Que had been experiencing frequent nausea and vomiting in the night lately, and his fragile stomach could no longer bear such spicy condiments.
After they finished eating the noodles and soaked their feet in hot water, Ning Que lay comfortably in bed. Sangsang also washed her little feet with the leftover water and climbed up on the bed. She split her legs to ride on his waist to give him a soothing massage.
Once she made sure he was sound asleep, Sangsang sighed and wiped off the sweat that wasn't really there. She moved to the other end of the bed and enjoyed her sleep, holding her beloved cosmetics box from Chenjinji Cosmetics Store.
Around midnight, she was woken up by Ning Que's painful moaning and constant turning around. She quickly got herself out of her blanket and off the bed, swiftly drew out the bronze basin from underneath the bed and sat next to Ning Que, patting and rubbing his back up and down with her tiny hands.
Ning Que couldn't stop vomiting into the bronze basin as he lay on his side, his face so pale, and his complexion twisted, showing great agony. The food he ate before had already been digested, and he could only throw up the hot tea he drank before going to bed, as well as stomach acid and bile.
Ever since he started reading at the Academy building, he suffered such agony several times each night. This not only weakened his body, but also made Sangsang exhausted in the daytime.
Each night as he fell sound asleep, the ink characters he had seen in the old library during daytime would transform into jet black monsters arising from the depths of his mind to engage in fierce battles and quickly become larger and larger, until they merged into a massive ship sailing across the imaginary ocean in his mind and causing havoc. The entire experience would make him extremely seasick and nauseous, and he could hardly contain the desire to vomit.
It felt like a nightmare but Ning Que knew very well that it wasn't. Instead, he knew it was the enigmatic expression of the shock waves caused by the battle between the Fu created by the Divine Talisman Master of the Second Floor and his own spiritual world.
If only he could remember these ink characters at the cost of suffering such agony every night, it would at least be a consolation. Nevertheless, what's truly frustrating and disappointing is that, while these ink characters played and teased freely in his mind, it was like he was suddenly dyslexic and was utterly unable of making out the meaning or even vaguely recognize any of them despite their clarity...they looked so familiar and yet there was no way he could bring himself to pronounce them.
Every day, he put himself through great pain and suffering in the old library. Every night, he underwent dizziness and nausea at the Old Brush Pen Shop, attempting to recognize characters that were simply unrecognizable. This went on not for one day, but many days. Anyone with slightly weaker will power would have given up already, but not Ning Que. For him, this unbearable and inhuman torture represented the best chance he could ever get in the sixteen years of his life. He would definitely not give up hope until the very last moment.
It was said that your enemy would often be the one who knows you the best. This was not a bad notion. Ning Que was indeed one of those people who knew the most about General Xiahou. But this notion is also incomplete, because after all, you would always know yourself the best. Ning Que knew himself very well, and therefore he was sure that he would never, ever give up until he came to face the ultimate dead end.
He wasn't worried about his safety, as the female professor sat quietly by the east window. He knew that he would continue to climb up to the library and try to read so hard that he would throw up every day until he became weaker over the upcoming period. That was exactly why he urgently needed to cross out as many names from the list as possible.
The second name on the oilpaper was: Chen Zixian, former deputy general of the Xuanwei General.
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As the favorite princess of the emperor, Lee Yu lived in the imperial court most of the time, though she also had a residence of her own in Chang'an. Her residence that was located in a quiet area of the Southern City was where Ning Que and Sangsang were taken to the next day.
Today she wore a red and black short robe over a skirt decorated with large exotic flower embroidery and a blouse with folded collar. The thickly layered skirt panels reached over her feet, looking luxurious and elegant.
”Where is Ning Que?”
Sangsang walked into the back court of the residence on her own.