Transient Days, one of the most popular prose of Zhu Ziqing, a famous modern essayist and poet in China, is exquisitely structured with concise and poetic expressions, which is of high literary and aesthetic value. However, there are few studies aimed at its translation versions or translation strategies. Zhang Peiji’s translation exactly conveys the aesthetic value of the original text to English readers and conforms to the horizon of expectations and aesthetic reception of the target readers by virtue of combining literal translation and free translation. Therefore, this paper studies Zhang Peiji’s translation from the perspective of reception aesthetics, and analyzes the application of the three core concepts of “horizon of expectations” “fusion of horizons” and “indeterminacy” in prose translation with specific examples excerpted from Transient Days, and discusses specific translation principles and strategies in the translation.