Furthermore, the translator would sometimes say "Ninth Prince" but then alternatively use pinyin to refer to Ninth Prince. Pinyin is not Chinese, it's a guide on pronunciation of Chinese characters. And is especially confusing without the intonation marks.

For people who know Chinese, this becomes even more confusing because in MOST texts, jiu is uncle, not "nine." They have the same pinyin, but because the translation was so inconsistent and flipflopped so many times, half the time my initial impression were that they were saying "little uncle, " not "little nine."

If a form of address that has the exact same character and exact same meaning but are treated completely differently by the translator, it gives the reader the impression that they are not the same people. Which is wrong because they are the same, as intended by the author.

A ton of common ancient phrases were also left in their original pinyin, despite having very commonly accepted translations (like "your highness" and "gentleman"). Some common NON-ancient phrases were also kept pinyin, like "dumplings" and "grandpa."

I almost thought jiaozi was "carriage" for a hot minute... ("dumpling" and "carriage" have the same pinyin when you don't put intonation marks) lol.

At this point, it would be better to put the original Chinese characters in the text, literally would have the same result as footnoting all that pinyin to non-native readers, but at least there's the benefit of readers who know Chinese not getting confused.

MC has been cherished since he was young. He was the favorite of his father, the old emperor. ML is the bodyguard of MC's older brother, the crown prince. ML is about ten years older than MC and even carried him as a baby.

MC loved ML first. While ML was away at war, MC's father died and there was a controversy since there was an imperial edict declaring MC as the new emperor. Although MC didn't want the throne and his brother the crown prince still became emperor, his brother still wanted to kill him. ML discovered this situation and tried to protect MC. In the end they had their happy ending.

Of note, I hope the new emperor lived in regret. I think he did love ML in his own way because he noticed that ML was no longer carrying the jade that he gifted ML.