Her Highness The Princess Comes from A Thousand Years Ago - Chapter 9

The next morning, Shen Yanbing did not wake until around nine. When she entered the living room, she found Li Mingyue sitting at the small round table, practicing calligraphy. There was no telling how long she had already been at it.

Her Highness was certainly diligent.

Shen Yanbing yawned, then suddenly remembered something and asked, “Have you eaten breakfast?”

Li Mingyue looked up at her and shook her head.

“Why did you only come out now?”

“…”

For once, Shen Yanbing felt slightly guilty.

“This is a perfectly normal time for young people in the modern world to wake up during a holiday.”

Li Mingyue did not yet recognize Arabic numerals, so naturally she could not read the clock hanging in the living room.

But judging from the daylight and the instincts of her internal clock, she knew it was definitely no longer early.

After washing up, Shen Yanbing ordered breakfast delivery. While waiting for it to arrive, she steamed several frozen custard buns.

She called Li Mingyue over to have something to tide her over.

“Didn’t I tell you to help yourself to anything in the refrigerator?”

Shen Yanbing took a bite. The smooth, warm custard touched her tongue and swept away the lingering fatigue of waking.

Li Mingyue clearly liked the flavor as well.

Only after slowly chewing and swallowing several bites did she admit with embarrassment, “I… don’t know how to prepare them.”

Most of the food in the refrigerator consisted of things she had never seen before.

Shen Yanbing smiled.

“That was thoughtless of me.”

She began planning to write a guide explaining the food in the refrigerator.

The two passed the morning peacefully. Shen Yanbing holed herself up in the study to write, while Li Mingyue quietly watched the documentary and took notes.

She had already learned to use the remote control on her own.

Near noon, a sharp ringing suddenly came from the surveillance screen beside the entrance.

The sound startled Li Mingyue. She raised her head, then boldly approached the foyer.

The screen displayed the surveillance footage from downstairs. Someone was pressing the building’s intercom.

When Shen Yanbing emerged from the study, she found Her Highness staring unblinkingly at the monitor, apparently unable to understand what it was.

She chuckled, walked over, and unlocked the downstairs entrance.

The delivery driver soon entered the building and came upstairs.

“This is surveillance footage.” Shen Yanbing pointed toward a corner of the living room and explained, “Do you see that camera? It can observe what happens in this room and send the images somewhere else, such as to this screen or my phone.”

“There are cameras downstairs too. In the modern world, they can be found throughout public places.”

Li Mingyue frowned deeply.

“How can it see something so far away?”

She could not understand it, much less grasp the concept of transmitting images.

Shen Yanbing ran out of words. Troubled by the limits of her own knowledge, she could only resort to her universal answer.

“You’ll understand gradually in the future.”

Fortunately, Li Mingyue did not resent the perfunctory response. Instead, she nodded with complete sincerity.

The delivery driver soon rode the elevator upstairs and knocked on the door. Shen Yanbing accepted the food, opened the packaging, and set everything on the table.

This time, she had ordered two bowls of rice noodles—one hot and sour, and the other without spice.

Li Mingyue had never seen food like noodles or rice noodles before. She clumsily picked at them with her chopsticks and ate at an unhurried pace.

Watching her, Shen Yanbing suddenly laughed.

“You’re far too slow. Look at me.”

She remembered how she had eaten noodles as a child. She would wind them around her chopsticks again and again until they formed a small bundle, then bite into the whole thing.

That way, they would not be too hot, and she would not have to slurp them and splash broth all over herself.

Li Mingyue copied her method and soon produced a fairly neat bundle.

“It’s delicious.”

Her rare smile revealed her teeth, making her look so innocent and radiant that it hardly seemed fair.

Shen Yanbing looked at her, unconsciously stirring her own noodles with her chopsticks as a faint smile appeared on her face.

Perhaps keeping such an adorable little person at home would not be so bad.

The afternoon sunlight was fierce. Not a trace remained of the rain that had fallen over Bincheng two days earlier; only the flourishing greenery remembered the moisture it had received.

Indoors, they could never do without air-conditioning. The temperature was always kept at the most comfortable level.

Li Mingyue flipped through the atlas while happily spinning the globe. She had already developed a keen interest in modern geography.

“We live on a planet called Earth. Earth is a sphere that is slightly flattened at the poles and somewhat wider at the equator.”

She silently repeated Shen Yanbing’s explanation.

“The equator is…”

Her finger traced the equatorial line around the globe.

People in the Jing Dynasty all believed that Heaven was round and the earth was square.

When Li Mingyue was young, she often looked up at the sky. The sun was round, and the moon was round as well.

She had once told her palace tutor that perhaps the ground beneath their feet was round too.

The elderly grand tutor had merely praised Her Highness for her imagination.

Now, as Li Mingyue looked at this globe created through modern science, she felt that the old tutor had not been entirely correct.

She had failed to imagine that the earth was not merely circular, but spherical.

Shen Yanbing watched her repeatedly spin the dusty, long-neglected globe, whose mechanism was no longer particularly smooth, and could not help laughing.

“Can you find where we are?”

Li Mingyue stopped the hand that had been happily spinning it at random and began carefully studying the tiny writing.

She quickly pointed out the general region.

Shen Yanbing nodded.

“Not bad. You recognize quite a lot of characters now.”

Shallow dimples appeared on Li Mingyue’s cheeks.

“I am doing reasonably well.”

She spent the entire afternoon clutching the globe and atlas, wishing she could begin studying world history immediately.

The constant expansion of her understanding brought her tremendous intellectual joy.

Shen Yanbing deeply admired Her Highness’s independent passion for learning and could not help reflecting upon her own lazy, unambitious lifestyle.

Of course, she reflected on it dozens of times every week and then continued exactly as before.

Li Mingyue seriously examined the atlas—political maps, topographical maps, climate maps. The curiosity in her eyes could not be suppressed.

Shen Yanbing occasionally offered an explanation. Most of the time, when she received a question, she looked up information and played an educational video.

“How are these videos made? They’re miraculous.”

Li Mingyue watched the images continuously change while the principles behind various phenomena were explained in simple, clear terms. Her awe and admiration for modern science rose by countless levels, while the superstitious beliefs that had once developed from unanswered mysteries gradually faded away.

“I don’t know how to make them either.” Shen Yanbing raised her eyes, sparing a little attention for the crudely produced science video intended for elementary-school children. “But it probably isn’t difficult.”

Li Mingyue looked excited, her eyes sparkling.

Although Shen Yanbing did not want to discourage her, she had to say, “You’re still a long way from being able to do that.”

Her Highness did not even know what the internet was yet.

Li Mingyue continued smiling and nodded rapidly.

Shen Yanbing suddenly became curious about Li Mingyue’s life before she traveled through time. Presumably, she could not have been an obscure figure.

Li Mingyue was far more vivid and fascinating than any of the princesses Shen Yanbing had encountered in historical records.

Unfortunately, the Jing Dynasty did not exist in this world. No matter how many ancient texts she collected, she would never find information about it.

Every effort would be futile.

Li Mingyue had arrived accidentally from a past time and space. She held almost no significance to the history of Huaguo. Was there truly any need to hand her over to the state and expose her to unknown risks?

Shen Yanbing already had her answer.

The most important thing for an ancient person arriving in the modern world was to survive—and then to live this hard-won second life as well as possible.

She looked toward Li Mingyue, who was turning the pages of the atlas with great care, her eyes shining brightly.

The hour hand gradually approached five.

Shen Yanbing lay on the sofa reading an e-book and procrastinated for a long time before finally dragging herself up.

Li Mingyue looked at her.

“Are we eating… delivery food again?”

Shen Yanbing raised an eyebrow.

“What else?”

“…Delivery is expensive,” Li Mingyue said quietly.

Shen Yanbing was surprised and chuckled.

“You’re quite considerate of my finances.”

After saying that, she also realized that constantly ordering delivery for Her Highness was hardly ideal. She searched through the refrigerator, took out several eggs and some leafy vegetables, then headed into the kitchen.

Although she was hopeless in the kitchen, she could at least wash rice and cook it.

Shen Yanbing ignored all the conventional wisdom about fried rice requiring chilled leftover rice. As soon as the rice finished cooking, she dumped it into a pan, cracked in a few eggs, and stir-fried everything together.

When she brought it to the table, Li Mingyue was presented with a bowl of soft, sticky, slightly scorched fried rice.

“It’s egg fried rice,” Shen Yanbing emphasized.

Although the egg whites and yolks had completely blended into the rice, leaving no visible trace of their original form.

Li Mingyue was amazed that genuine food could be produced in that tiny enclosed space. She had barely even smelled any smoke or fire.

“It may not look especially good, but it should taste fine.”

Shen Yanbing sounded quite confident. Although she rarely entered the kitchen and never followed recipes when cooking, she believed in her ability to improvise.

The Shen family had once analyzed where that confidence came from.

They concluded that perhaps the sense of accomplishment from making something herself truly overwhelmed her ability to taste it objectively.

Li Mingyue took a bite.

The hand holding her chopsticks paused.

She raised her eyes and looked at Shen Yanbing, who was adding chili sauce to her own bowl, then silently swallowed the fried rice in small mouthfuls.

Shen Yanbing’s portion relied entirely on chili sauce for flavor, yet she remained full of confidence.

“Cooking every now and then really isn’t bad.”

Li Mingyue nodded, then hesitantly asked, “May I learn how to cook in the future?”

Everything in the kitchen looked extremely sophisticated. She worried that she would be unable to master it.

“Of course.”

Shen Yanbing would naturally welcome anyone willing to cook.

“I’ll teach you tomorrow!”

Although she never followed recipes herself, she felt no pressure whatsoever about researching them for someone else.

After receiving permission, Li Mingyue relaxed slightly.

At last, she would be able to make herself useful here.

After dinner, Shen Yanbing taught Li Mingyue how to wash the dishes.

Her Highness was fascinated by the kitchen equipment. She squeezed detergent onto the dishcloth and smoothly removed the grease from the bowls and chopsticks.

Shen Yanbing watched her movements. Her fair, delicate fingers stretched beneath the running water as she washed everything with unfamiliar but extraordinary care.

Porcelain bowls had also been common in the Jing imperial palace. The feel of modern industrial porcelain gave Li Mingyue an unexpected sense of familiarity.

Afterward, Shen Yanbing taught her to use liquid hand soap.

Her Highness rubbed the fine bubbles between her hands, smelled their pleasant fragrance, and revealed her shallow dimples.

Although she was still unaccustomed to many aspects of the modern world, everything had gone relatively smoothly.

She felt fortunate.

Shen Yanbing truly was a good person.

Shen Yanbing had no idea she had once again been awarded the “good person” label. Once everything was cleaned up, she said, “Get ready to go out. I promised I would take you shopping for clothes.”

Li Mingyue acknowledged her. Imitating what Shen Yanbing had done the previous day, she awkwardly tied her own hair into a loose, low ponytail.

Shen Yanbing watched Her Highness repeatedly examine herself in the mirror and walked over.

“What’s wrong?”

Holding the comb, Li Mingyue said gloomily, “It doesn’t look much like the one you tied.”

Shen Yanbing studied it carefully.

Compared with yesterday’s lively, refreshing high ponytail, today’s low style made her appear even quieter and more refined.

She smiled.

“It looks good. Leave it like that.”

Li Mingyue had no objection. She changed into the short-sleeved top and cropped trousers Shen Yanbing handed her, put on her sandals, and finally left the apartment.

“Just like yesterday: speak less and observe more.”

Shen Yanbing emphasized the instruction while pressing the elevator button.

No one was in the stairwell, and when the elevator doors opened, the interior was unusually empty as well.

“Perfect. I’ll teach you Arabic numerals.”

She pressed the button for the first floor, pointed to the rows of numbers, and read them aloud one by one.

“One, two, three, four, five, six, seven…”

Li Mingyue quickly matched them with the corresponding Chinese characters.

“What is this?” Shen Yanbing asked, pointing at 19 as though testing her.

Li Mingyue immediately answered, “One-ten-nine.”

“Very good. That number is the floor where we live.”

Shen Yanbing praised her just as the elevator doors automatically opened on the first floor.

“I’ll explain anything else you don’t understand later.”

“All right.”

Still eager to learn more, Li Mingyue followed her out, then glanced back at the elevator doors as they closed automatically.