Wei Wuxian had just opened his eyes when someone kicked him.
Wei Wuxian had just opened his eyes when someone kicked him.
A clap of thunder exploded by his ear: “You think you can play dead?!”
This blow to his chest almost had him spitting blood, head slammed backwards against the ground. Hazily, he thought: you dare kick me, the Laozu? You’ve got some guts.
Wei Wuxian didn’t know how many years had passed since he’d even heard a living person speak, let alone shout such a curse that made his head and vision swim. A young, quacking voice boomed through the ringing in his ears: “Don’t you realize whose land you’re living on now, whose rice you’re eating, whose money you’re spending! What’s wrong with taking a few of your things? They all should have been mine to begin with!”
Immediately, the sounds of violent ransacking came from all around the room, crashing loud enough to tear down the skies and shatter the earth. It took a long time for Wei Wuxian’s vision to gradually clear. A dim ceiling came into view, followed by a droopy-browed sallow face above him, spraying spittle: “And you even dared to complain! You really thought I’d be afraid of your complaints, that there was anyone in this family that would take your side?”
Two sturdy-looking servants came over from one side, saying, “Gongzi,1 we’ve finished destroying everything!”
The quacking youth asked, “How was it so quick?”
The servant replied, “There wasn’t much in this old shack in the first place.”
Quite pleased, the quacking youth turned towards Wei Wuxian and jabbed his finger hard into his nose as if he wanted to shove it straight into his forehead: “You had the guts to complain, and now you’re playing dead? For whom? As if anyone would covet these junk scraps of yours! I’ve destroyed them all, so let’s see how you try and complain after today! You think you’re so great because you cultivated in a prominent clan for a few years? You were still chased back like a stray dog!”
Wei Wuxian, more dead than alive, thought:
I’ve been bones for many years. It really isn’t an act.
Who was this?
Where was this??
When had he ever tried anything like possessing a body???
Having kicked the man and trashed the house, this quacking youth had taken out enough of his anger. He took the two servants and swaggered out, slamming the door. Loudly, he ordered: “You’re on watch! Don’t let him get out and cause a scene!”
Outside the door, the servants hurried to reassure him. Once he’d gone far away, when both the inside and outside of the shack had quieted, Wei Wuxian wanted to sit up, but his limbs refused to obey, and he lay down again. He could only turn himself over, looking at the unfamiliar surroundings and mess scattered all over the floor, his head and vision still swimming.
To one side, there was a bronze mirror that had been thrown to the ground. Wei Wuxian groped for it to take a look, and a pale, bizarre face appeared within. There were two large red spots, neither equal nor symmetrical, caked on the cheeks, one left and one right. All he needed was to stick out a long, bright red tongue, and this would be the face of a hanged ghost.
A little unable to accept this, Wei Wuxian threw aside the mirror. He wiped at his face and came away with a handful of white powder.
Thank goodness, this body had not been born with a strange appearance, only strange tastes. Here was a grown man who not only wore a full face of rouge and powder, but wore it in such an ugly fashion!
With such a shock, some of his strength returned. He finally sat up, and only then noticed the circular spell array beneath him. The circle was crimson and irregular and seemed to be hand-painted in blood. It still gave off the wet smell of rank meat. In the circle were drawn a few twisted and frenzied sigils that had been smudged by his body, and what remained of the shapes and inscriptions had a gruesome and evil air. In any case, Wei Wuxian had for many years been called such titles as “the Great Calamity” or “the Founder of the Monstrous Path”, so he naturally knew these kinds of arrays, which one could tell were no good thing from a glance, like the back of his hand.
He had not possessed another’s body—he had been offered one!
“Offering” was at its core a type of curse. The one who set the array and cast the spell would take a weapon and injure themselves, carving wounds on their body, and use their own blood to paint the array and inscriptions before sitting in the center of the array. By giving the flesh to a wicked soul as the price for its return to the earth, they could summon an unforgivably evil malicious spirit and beg it to take over their body to fulfill their wishes. This was the true opposite of “Possession”: “Offering”. They were both forbidden techniques with bad reputations, but the latter was neither as practical nor as popular as the former. After all, there were very few desires that were so strong as to make a living person freely offer up everything they had. Thus, only rarely did a person cast it, and after a hundred years, it was nearly lost. Out of the examples contained in ancient books, there was not evidence for more than three or four people over thousands of years. The wish of these three or four people, without exception, was vengeance, and the malicious ghosts they summoned all carried out their wishes with perfect and bloody ruthlessness.
Wei Wuxian could not accept this.
How had he been classified as “an unforgivably evil malicious spirit”?
So his reputation was rather poor, and his death very tragic—but first, he had done no haunting, and second, he had taken no revenge! He would dare to swear upon the heavens and the earth that you’d never find a more peaceful and well-behaved lonely soul of a wild ghost!
But the thorny issue was that “Offering” was based on the caster’s will. Even if he wanted to refuse…… he had already accepted the body. This meant both parties had a tacit agreement to the contract. He had to carry out the wish of the caster, or else the curse would rebound. The possessor’s spirit would be completely extinguished, never again able to return to life.
Wei Wuxian tore open the ties on his clothes and raised his hands to inspect them. As expected, his two wrists were crisscrossed with sharp, savage slashes. Though the wounds had already stopped bleeding, Wei Wuxian knew they were no ordinary injuries. If he did not fulfill the wishes of the body’s owner, these wounds would not heal. The longer the delay, the more serious the situation. Once the allotted time ran out, he who had received the body would be torn apart, body and soul.
Wei Wuxian confirmed this several times, repeating, How could this be! in his heart, and finally pulled himself up against the wall.
Although the shack was indeed large, it was both sparse and shabby. The bedsheets and quilts had not been washed in who knew how many days and gave off a mildewy smell. In the corner was a bamboo basket, originally used for trash, that had just been kicked over, and the dirty trash and waste paper had rolled all over the ground. Wei Wuxian noticed the paper balls seemed to be marked with ink and picked one up at random, uncrumpling it to discover it was indeed dense with writing. He immediately scrambled to collect all of the paper balls on the ground.
The words on this paper must have been written when the owner of this body had been venting his bitterness. Some paragraphs were incoherent and disordered; nervous anxiety leapt off the page through the distorted twisting handwriting. Wei Wuxian patiently read through them all, page by page, and the more he read, the more he thought, something’s not right.
With some guesses, he more or less understood a few things. First, this body’s owner was named Mo Xuanyu, and this place was called the Mo Family Village.
Mo Xuanyu’s maternal grandfather was of a rich local family. The clan had few members and no sons, and though he tried diligently for many years, he was only able to have two daughters. The two daughters’ names were not mentioned, but as the eldest daughter was born of his first wife, her husband married into the family. The second daughter, though exceptionally beautiful, had been born of a domestic slave. Thus, the Mo family had originally intended to marry her off without much thought, but who knew she would have a different adventure? When she was sixteen, a great sect leader passed through the area and fell for her at first sight. The two of them made the Mo Family Village the site of their trysts, and one year later, this second lady of the Mo family gave birth to a son. This was Mo Xuanyu.
The people of the Mo clan were originally quite contemptuous of such a thing, but everyone held cultivation in high esteem—in the eyes of the laypeople, those great cultivation families were favored by the heavens, mystical and noble—and that great sect leader would also help the family with outside matters from time to time. Naturally, they began to sing a very different tune. Not only was the Mo family proud of this, others also greatly envied them.
However, no good thing lasts forever. That sect leader, having greedily indulged his cravings for a dish beneath his station, glutted himself before two years had passed, and his visits grew fewer and fewer in number. After Mo Xuanyu turned four, he never came again.
In these years, the Mo clan’s tune changed again, their original contempt and ridicule returning to their lips with an added disdainful pity. But the second lady Mo refused to relinquish her belief that that great sect leader would not be entirely indifferent to his own son. And indeed, when Mo Xuanyu was fourteen, that sect leader sent several people to solemnly fetch the boy back.
The second lady Mo lifted her head again. Though she could not accompany her son, she swept away all her previous despair with pride and elation. She boasted to everyone that her son would surely become a prominent immortal leader, advance through the ranks in leaps and bounds, and bring great honor to his ancestors. Thus, the chattering gossip of the Mo clan changed its tune for the third time.
But before Mo Xuanyu could succeed in his cultivation and inherit his father’s status, he was chased home.
Not only chased, but banished with great shame: for Mo Xuanyu was a cutsleeve2 who even dared to recklessly molest and harass his peers. With this public scandal, along with the mediocrity of his talent and the insignificance of his cultivation progress, there was no reason to let him stay in the family any longer.
To make matters worse, no one knew what kind of shock he’d suffered, but after he returned, he seemed to have gone completely mad. He had good days and bad—it was as if he had been scared witless.
After reading to this point, Wei Wuxian furrowed his brow.
Being just a cutsleeve was one thing, but a lunatic as well! No wonder his face was all covered in powder and rouge like an old hanged ghost, and no wonder no one found the bloody array surprising. Very likely, even if Mo Xuanyu had painted the whole shack in dripping blood, from floor to wall to ceiling, in other people’s eyes, it wouldn’t seem a strange sight. After all, everyone knew he was sick in the head!
After Mo Xuanyu returned to his old home, the taunts came from all directions until they blotted out the sky and covered the earth. This time, it seemed there would be no salvaging the situation. The second lady Mo could not endure such a blow and, with a bitter breath trapped in her lungs, choked to death.
By this time, Mo Xuanyu’s grandfather had already passed away, so the first lady Mo controlled the household. This Madam Mo had probably never been able to stand seeing her younger sister do well, so she had even more scorn for her sister’s illegitimate child. She had only one son—the one who had just come in to ransack the place—called Mo Ziyuan. When Mo Xuanyu was retrieved with such ceremony and grandeur, the first lady Mo expected she should also be able to seize some familial relation with the cultivation sect and hoped that the sect envoy might also take Mo Ziyuan to cultivate while they were passing through. Of course, she was refused—or rather, she was ignored.
Nonsense. This wasn’t like haggling for the price of cabbage, buy one, get one!
It was also unclear where these family members got their self-confidence: all of them had the baffling idea that Mo Ziyuan certainly had the makings of an immortal, that he had innate talent. Surely, they thought, if he had been the one to go instead, he would have been recognized by the cultivation family, unlike his disappointing elder cousin. Although Mo Ziyuan was still young when Mo Xuanyu left, he had had such unreasonable thoughts repeatedly instilled in him from childhood and believed them all wholeheartedly. Nearly every day, he would seize Mo Xuanyu for a bout of humiliation, cursing him for robbing him of the path to cultivation. However, he coveted all of the talismans, elixirs, and magical tools Mo Xuanyu had brought back from the cultivation sect and acted as if they were rightfully his—he took as he pleased and destroyed as he pleased. Though Mo Xuanyu often fell victim to his madness, he still understood that he was being bullied and insulted. He endured and endured, but Mo Ziyuan only grew more relentless until he had nearly picked the shack clean. Mo Xuanyu could finally endure no longer and had approached his aunt and uncle, stuttering out a complaint. Thus, Mo Ziyuan threw a fit at his door today.
The words on the paper were both small and cramped. Looking at them hurt Wei Wuxian’s eyes. He thought, What the fuck kind of life was he living? No wonder Mo Xuanyu would rather offer his body, and offer it to a malicious, violent spirit no less, in order to carry out his revenge.
Once his eyes stopped hurting, his head began to ache. Usually, the one who set the array would silently murmur their wishes as they cast the spell. As the summoned wicked spirit, Wei Wuxian should have been able to hear his detailed demands, but Mo Xuanyu had secretly torn this forbidden technique from some unknown fragmented text, learned it incompletely, and skipped this step. Although Wei Wuxian could guess that he was probably meant to take revenge against the Mo family, how exactly was he supposed to take that revenge? To what degree? Snatch back what was stolen? Beat the family members?
Or…… wipe out the family entirely?
It was probably to wipe out the family! After all, anyone involved in the cultivation world would know what kinds of remarks were most used to describe Wei Wuxian: “ungrateful wretch”, “deranged madman”—was there any candidate more suitable to be called a “vicious, evil spirit” than him? Since Mo Xuanyu had dared to summon him by name, his wish couldn’t be something easily granted.
Helplessly, Wei Wuxian said, “You’ve got the wrong person……”
NON-ESSENTIAL NOTES:
- “Savagery”
泼野 | pō yě
lit. rude, rough; wild, rude, feral
this comes from the expression 泼辣粗野 | pō là cū yě, meaning rude, unreasonable, rough, boorish. I felt like “savagery” captured both the idea of “wildness” and the idea of violent coarseness in the title.
. - “spitting blood”
吐血 | tù xiě
this is a genre thing! if you’ve watched wuxia or xianxia dramas, you’ve probably seen this happen. you spit blood at like, everything. physical damage, psychic damage, illness etc. it’s a shorthand for a lot of things.
. - “his head and vision swim”
头昏眼花 | tóu hūn yǎn huā
lit. head; mixed, confused; eyes; flowering, blurred, patterned
this is an idiom that means to be giddy, dizzy, to feel faint with blurred vision—you get the idea. it’s used a couple times in this chapter and again in the next, but I think I’m going to eventually stop translating it as “head and vision swimming” because it starts sounding awkward the more times you use it. I think it’s also useful to note here that chinese favors four-character phrases.
. - “quacking voice”
公鸭嗓 | gōng yā sǎng
lit. male; duck; voice
I had “duck-voiced” originally, but I think “quacking” is a bit more descriptive of a nasally, grating voice. it reads a little strange in english, but it’s not a strange descriptor in chinese.
. - “whose land”
谁家的地 | shéi jiā de dì
lit. who; family, home; [possessive particle]; land, earth
I’m including this here because I think it adds a certain amount of flavor/implication. Mo Ziyuan isn’t saying just “whose land” but “whose family’s land”. even though they’re cousins, he implies that Mo Xuanyu is an outsider, that he lives there by the graces of a family that is not his own. it flows badly if I include “family” and also places more of an emphasis than I think is meant by the text, so I left it out.
. - “violent ransacking”
翻箱倒柜 | fān xiāng dǎo guì
lit. overturn; chest, box; topple, fall, upend; cabinet cupboard
I think this is a really illustrative idiom! it means both to ransack and to search thoroughly. I didn’t think translating it literally would have served any purpose, but I like the image it evokes, so here it is in the non-essential notes! (four-character phrase)
. - “tear down the skies and shatter the earth”
摔天砸地 | shuāi tiān zá dì
this is pretty literally translated. I don’t think it’s a specific idiom, but you can see it’s a fairly common idiomatic structure in chinese to reference both the heavens and the earth to describe something all-encompassing. (four-character phrase)
. - “droopy-browed sallow face”
眉梢倒吊、眼珠发绿 | méi shāo dào diào 、yǎn zhū fā lǜ
lit. eyebrows tilted down, eyes emitting green
so. obviously it’s the “eyes emitting green” part that’s metaphorical. according to my mother, in combination with the drooping brows, the whole image is meant to convey a sickly or slimy visage. 眼珠发绿 in combination with slanted brows, according to her, would evoke a very different image, one of a fierce expression—not good or evil, reminiscent of certain depictions of gods. alas, Mo Ziyuan has drooping brows, which changes the mood to something negative. (two four-character phrases)
. - “complain”
告状 | gào zhuàng
this verb also invokes the concept of making a report or tattling. I thought complaint was my best option trying to walk the line between too formal (make a report) and too colloquial (tattle).
. - “junk scraps”
破铜烂铁废纸片 | pò tóng làn tiě fèi zhǐ piàn
lit. broken; copper; rotten, worn out; iron; waste, trash; paper; pieces
another moment where I think the chinese is pretty evocative, but to translate literally would’ve been too wordy! it reads more like “these broken copper, rusted iron, wastepaper junk scraps”. chinese will often describe things by placing several examples next to each other to construct an image, but doing so in english is often too awkward and florid.
. - “been bones”
作古 | zuò gǔ
lit. to be, make, do; old, classic, ancient
so this is a euphemism for dying or passing away. I… took a liberty here because Wei Wuxian is speaking in a slightly elevated register thus far, using 本人 | běn rén for “I” instead of the more colloquial 我, and the sentence structure is also a little bit formalized. I didn’t think “I passed away many years ago” would have achieved the same vibe as 本人作古多年. 古 (old, classic, ancient) is a homophone for 骨 (bone), so for fun, I went with “I’ve been bones”. I think it’s a clear metaphor in english, gets me the euphemistic/literary vibe I want, and it’s a pun. is this valid? you decide! my mom approved, so that’s all that matters to me.
. - “the Great Calamity”
邪尊 | xié zūn
lit. crooked, evil, [supernaturally caused] disaster; honorific of respect, venerated
邪 is the bane of my existence. it’s like a combination of evil and deviant, but calling him “the Lord of Evil” or “the Wicked Lord” sounds… bad. thanks @kuro for convincing me on “Great Calamity” instead because it sure sounds better. thanks @kuro and also @roz for all the great shitpost translations. 尊 is indeed the same zun as in 3zun.
. - “unforgivably evil malicious spirit”
十恶不赦的厉鬼邪神 | shí è bù shè de lì guǐ xié shén
十恶不赦 is an idiom for “irredeemably evil”. 厉鬼 is a ferocious ghost and 邪神 is an wicked god. more completely, this says “an unforgivably evil ferocious ghost or wicked god” and that is just TOO LONG. chinese, as shown, likes to reduplicate or juxtapose multiple similar images/similar classes of images in order to evoke meaning. “malicious spirit” really doesn’t have the same flavor as 厉鬼邪神, but I really don’t know that I’m going to be able to capture that vibe without absolutely trashing the flow of the sentence. (two four-character phrases joined by a possessive particle)
. - “in his heart”
心中 | xīn zhōng
lit. heart; center
this means “in [one’s] mind” as well—I think that “in his heart” is fine, but “thought to himself” also works. basically, the words are said silently to oneself as opposed to out loud, that’s all. I thought using “in his heart” flowed better in this sentence.
. - “they began to sing a very different tune”
风向便截然不同了
there’s a running metaphor of wind changing direction to indicate what the rumors are saying in these few paragraphs. I ended up changing it to singing a tune because I think that’s the equivalent idiomatic expression in english. more literally, it says here “the direction of the wind changed completely”.
. - “That sect leader, having greedily indulged his cravings for a dish beneath his station, glutted himself before two years had passed”
那位家主贪一时新鲜打了野食，没吃两年便吃腻了
I think I did pretty good with this one!! this more literally says, “that sect leader was greedy for/coveted for a time freshly hunted/gathered game/wild forage, but he hadn’t even eaten it for two years before he was sick of it [from eating to excess]”. however! 野食 can also mean something illicit. 贪吃野食 is to be greedy for illicit gains. there’s also a sexual connotation to this entire metaphor. so all together, we’re talking about this sect leader having illicit sexual dalliances with someone who isn’t of his same social rank, but through a metaphor about him eating wild food, i.e. a dish not befitting his social position.
. - “the Mo clan’s tune changed again”
莫家庄的口风又变了
same “changing tune” metaphor—here, we have 口风 | kǒu fēng, so “tone of speech” or “intentions of speech”, though literally it’s “mouth wind”.
. - “entirely indifferent”
不闻不问 | bù wén bù wèn
lit. not hear, not ask
this is an idiom meaning “completely uninterested/unconcerned”—to neither hear nor ask about, essentially. (four-character phrase)
. - “the chattering gossip… changed its tune”
议论纷纷，态度转变
pointing out the last instance of “changed its tune”. here, it’s more literally “the comments were numerous, the attitude changed”. (two four-character phrases)
. - “father’s status”
家业 | jiā yè
家业 includes both material wealth/property and also legacy/work/trade. I went with “status” because it was the closest thing I could find that could potentially encompass both aspects of 家业.
. - “cutsleeve”
断袖 | duàn xiù
I’m assuming most people reading this are already familiar with MDZS and the term “cutsleeve”, but just in case. this is a euphemism for a homosexual man, originating from the story of Emperor Ai cutting his sleeve off to avoid disturbing his sleeping lover, Dong Xian. it’s on the wikipedia page for Emperor Ai, but it’s easy enough to find the story elsewhere as well. cutsleeve is not inherently negative, but is often used somewhat pejoratively by characters in MDZS, which is set in a fantasy world with passive homophobic attitudes. homosexuality doesn’t seem to be a cardinal sin per se, but appears to be mostly perceived as somewhat embarrassing or shameful.
. - “To make matters worse”
雪上加霜 | xuě shàng jiā shuāng
lit. to add frost atop snow
I just really love the image of this idiom! but I don’t think it would have been appropriate to translate literally. (four-character phrase)
. - “blotted out the sky and covered the earth”
铺天盖地 | pū tiān gài dì
this is an idiom meaning omnipresent. again, chinese with the heavens/earth complements. (four-character phrase)
. - “with a bitter breath trapped in her lungs, choked to death”
一口恶气闷在胸口出不来，活活噎死了
this is somewhat of a cultural conception of how someone dies from mental trauma—the idea that a person will gather bad energies/air and hold it inside themselves until it kills them is a fairly common idea; we see something similar later in the Xuanwu Cave, when Wei Wuxian provokes Lan Wangji into spitting out stale blood that was poisoning him. I translated 恶气 as “bitter breath”, but more accurately, it would be perhaps “evil” or “harmful”.
. - “Madam”
夫人 | fù rén
the mistress of the house. I am trying something here where I translate honorifics/titles when they are used in narration/in reference, but leaving them when they’re used in direct address. we’ll see if that comes back to bite me or not (it definitely will). “Madam” from here on out will most likely be 夫人.
. - “the fuck”
他妈 | tā mā
lit. his mom
this is a pretty usual curse in chinese. it’s not terribly strong, but it can carry a sexual connotation, so I went with “fuck”. I think “fuck” can be used pretty casually in english as well, so it didn’t seem too out of place. Wei Wuxian specifically says 鬼日子 | guǐ rì zǐ in this sentence, which literally means something like, “cursed/terrible days”, so I think this sentence could have been rendered as “What the hell kind of fucked up life was he living?” but it felt too long and wordy.
. - “wipe out the family entirely”
灭门 | miè mén
lit. extinguish; door, family
灭 is one of my favorite simplified chinese characters because it’s so illustrative and has a really good mouth sound!! it’s just fire under a line, which I think is super cool. unfortunately, “extinguish the family” doesn’t have quite the right vibe. I considered variations on “exterminate” and “annihilate” but the -ate sound also felt like the wrong vibe. :/ so here we are. I’m just sad because I think 灭门 is so elegant in chinese hahaha.
. - “vicious, evil spirit”
凶神恶煞 | xiōng shén è shà
lit. vicious, mean, fierce; deity; evil; evil spirit, goblin, fiend
more reduplication/juxtaposed examples for a four-character phrase!
Aaaaaahhhh you have such a gift for finding really evocative words? It flows very naturally and it’s so expressive!
:3 i love and thank u *chu chu* but also yeah, the struggle of finding evocative words… catch me with seven thesaurus.com tabs open tearing my hair out HAHAHA
Awesome work! Thanks for the effort and care you put into this. I love the footnotes.
aaahh thank you again!!! I’m glad you’re still enjoying it!
Thanks so much for all the careful work you’ve put into this! I really appreciate both your prose style and your attentiveness to preserving the original meanings as much as possible. The non-essential footnotes offer some great insight into the things that might otherwise get “lost in translation.” 🙂
aaahh thank you so much for reading! I am nothing if not obsessive. if I had my way, I would be annotating every sentence lmao. I’m really glad you’re enjoying it, thank you!
I know it’s describing his voice and not his face but now I can’t get the image of Mo Ziyuan with a duck face out of my mind. Peak Comedy!
The translators notes are really interesting! There’s a lot of euphemisms in there, it’s a pity more of them don’t translate well.
ahahahaha honestly mxtx really just roasted mo ziyuan to hell and back with her descriptors, so you know.
I’m glad you like them! yeah, I am also so sad that more of them didn’t translate well TTATT the eternal struggle
Lmao, I also couldn’t help but imagine Mo Ziyuan with an actual duck-like face xD
This is great, thank you! The chapter itself flows really smoothly and I appreciate all of the details in the footnotes; I enjoy learning more about the nuance behind the original Chinese phrases/meanings as well as the translation decisions you’ve made. (I, too, like the Great Calamity as a title!)
aahh thank you! I’m glad you enjoyed this one as well! yeah, my friend saved me with that one hahahahah Lord of Evil really just doesn’t have the same panache. :’)
Thank you, this cliff notes translation is very helpful to get more nuance out of the text.
thank you for reading! I’m glad you find them helpful!! 😀
Oh, I love this so much!!! This chapter flowed really well, and your notes are so informative! I go through all of them like twice lmao. The frost on snow idiom sounds so cool that I may try to pepper it into some conversations… despite not knowing anyone who speaks Chinese (and not speaking it myself)
I’m so glad! really, though, the fact that someone reads them more than once is really touching. ;A; gosh, I know that idiom is really evocative and lovely! I was really sad it didn’t fit in the text. 🙁
great update!!!! as always: loving the notes!!!! so excited to be able to read this novel anew <3
<3 you're a star, thank you for always being so supportive and reading my nonsense <3 <3
Continues to be excellent, and I love all the details in the footnotes! It’s really interesting and educational for someone who pre-MDZS was not in any chinese media fandoms.
thank you for coming back for chapter 2!! MDZS is also my first big chinese-language fandom, so this is a learning experience for me as well (finally, fandom teaching me what several years of chinese school could not hahaha). I’m really glad you’re finding them helpful! <3
I still live all the footnotes you leave, it’s so neat to get read them all!
I look forward to reading the next chapter if you keep on translating. Thank you for your hard work!
Thank you so much!
I’m certainly planning on it, but chapter 3 is going to take a bit more time, since it’s longer and I haven’t been able to properly sit down and do a rough pass yet (eek). Thank you for reading!!
Thank you so much for doing this! The footnotes are really interesting & I love the balance you’re striking between literal translation and flow.
thank you so much for reading it! I’m glad you think it reads well aaahh. I’m always so concerned I’m going to swing too hard in either direction, so I’m happy you think it’s working so far!
I know it’s only been two chapters, but I am absolutely LOVING your translation so far. You’ve managed to marvelously walk the line between translating so literally that it’s incomprehensible for an English-speaking audience and stripping it so far down to bare meaning that it loses all style and flavor from the original text. What you have is understandable but still quite lyrical, and I’m loving all the imagery that didn’t seem to come through in the other translation I’ve read. Thank you so much for sharing this with us! I know it must be an incredible amount of work, so I am very appreciative!
ah goodness, thank you so much! I’m so happy you think it’s lyrical ahaha, that’s one of my favorite descriptors of language. ;A; It’s a really hard balance! I’m hoping I can continue to walk it well for you. Thank you so much!! <3
i second this so hard.
Cooool! This translation amd all your detailed notes continue to be candy for the linguistics loving part of my brain. Thank you for sharing it with us!
Ah! I see you also read chapter two!! Thank you!!
This is so cool! The footnotes are fascinating.
!!!!! oh!! are you greenfionn on ao3 as well, because I’ve read a couple of your fics multiple times this week!!! I meant to comment but I got so overwhelmed with my feelings I had to put it off sldfjslkjf. thank you so much for stopping by!!
I really, really appreciate your efforts! The translation reads really smoothly, and I simply love the footnotes, because there’s obviously so much more to Chinese than can be conveyed in a simple 1:1 translation. (I translate English to German for the OTW, which is so much easier.)
aaahh you’re on team dach? 😀 that’s so awesome!! my English > Chinese skill isn’t good enough to really help with t-chinese, but I can translate tags here and there. :’) thank you so much!! I’m glad you’re enjoying this and the footnotes, even though they’re so long ahaha. <3
“THE GREAT CALAMITY”, i love it. i’m also /fascinated/ by the connotation of “supernatural disaster”, which makes me think of wei wuxian being like, on par with a natural disaster power-wise; this is both hysterical and very evocative of his sheer /strength/. like, no wonder everyone’s so goddamn scared of the man. still absolutely delighting in all your translation notes, by the way. also loving the indignance at the fact that he’s considered a malicious spirit! honey, from my understanding your reputation only gets worse from there.
Ah I am so happy to have found this translation! Thank you for your work!
thank you so much for reading it!! <3
OH I LOVE THIS
sorry, didn’t mean to yell
hm, well, i *do* love this though, seriously. you clearly put a lot of thought in how to not only literally translate the meaning of the words but actually make sure the english has the same ~vibes~ as the chinese. i said this before but it’s super interesting to see your thought process (well, part of it) behind the translations of idioms, all those four-character phrases, etc.
some phrases that stuck out to me and made me smile:
“Wei Wuxian, more dead than alive, thought:
I’ve been bones for many years. It really isn’t an act.”
both of these lines tickle my fancy ;d they ‘sound’ very wwx
“Here was a grown man who not only wore a full face of rouge and powder, but wore it in such an ugly fashion!”
sooo would you have been less annoyed if it had been done better? 😀
“the Great Calamity”
wwx a natural disaster, confirmed
“with perfect and bloody ruthlessness”
this just flows so Well
“she was sixteen”
S I X T E E N i hate jgs
(not a phrase i like, but i had to put down my displeasure)
“they blotted out the sky and covered the earth”
this is just. really nice to read
“What the fuck kind of life was he living?”
yeah
“Helplessly, Wei Wuxian said, “You’ve got the wrong person……””
this one really sums up the whole mdzs huh
also the note about wwx speaking in an elevated register was really interesting bc in fandom he’s not usually depicted as… the kind of person who does that in his own thoughts (sorry, i can’t quite phrase this correctly)? possibly this changes later, idk, but it stood out to me and made me go “hmmm” 😀
I’m honestly always so worried that I’m actually going to convey the WRONG vibes from the chinese because I’ve misunderstood something /o\ but I’m fairly confident I haven’t made any huge mistakes yet!!
but god yeah, I’m having a really great time re-experiencing the novel in chinese this time! wwx’s voice is. really something. XD thank you for this liveblog, it was really nice!!
and yeah! It’s a bit surprising–it’s not SUPER elevated, but it’s a little more formal than how he usually talks. it feels a bit like he’s still in Yiling Laozu mode, talking to some strangers, as opposed to just Wei Wuxian, talking to his friends, you know? he goes more informal pretty quickly haha.
I love this translation so much already, it’s a v enjoyable read wrt flow and all the translation notes are really informative and interesting. Thank you for the work you’re putting into this!
thank you so much for reading and commenting!! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. <3 <3
This translation reads so well! Thank you for your hard work. It’s wonderful to read! And your author’s notes are detailed and interesting, and I love them!
ah, thank you so much! i’m really glad people are enjoying the notes ;A;
Thank you for your translation! As a language nerd who’s just starting to learn Chinese (and who really loves this story), it’s really awesome to come across. Your notes are really thoughtful and I’m looking forward to reading more as you go ^_^
hi there!! thank you so much for stopping by 😀 I’m so glad another language-learner is going to get some use out of this <3 it's going to be really slow going, but thank you for the encouragement <3 <3 I hope you'll continue to enjoy it!
oh this is such a great translation! you really have a great evocative feel, and i think it sounds v natural in english while maintaining that poetic feeling. and your notes are so comprehensive, i really feel i’m learning a lot even in 2 chapters! thanks so much and i hope you continue enjoying this!
oh gosh, thank you so much! ;A; walking the line between clunky and natural without sacrificing the original flavor is proving to be really difficult, but I’m glad that you think it’s working! thank you so much for reading, and I’m glad you’re enjoying the notes!!!
Another excellent chapter! Your English prose just flows so well, and your translation notes show how much thought and effort you’re putting in. Thanks again, I look forward to more whenever you get around to it!
(And I loved your, “my mom likes it so nothing else matters” comment.)
and oh! on this chapter too!! thank you!! yeah, if i can win my mom’s approval on my cn > en translation, it means I’ve won. XD
Lovely, and the notes especially. Thanks for mentioning that Wei Wuxian is using a higher linguistic register – I’m fascinated by register and that was a really interesting note for me. Awesome as always!
ah, thanks for coming back!! 😀 and yeah! tbh I really love it when Wei Wuxian jumps back up into his higher register because it’s like. I mean he CAN he just usually chooses not to. Thank you!! <3
This is such a lovely translation, and the notes are really helpful and fascinating! Thanks so much for your hard work.
thank you so much!! I’m glad you’re enjoying it. 😀 thank you for reading!
Have I told you how I love your footnotes? Because I love your footnotes – I could read a hundred of them. It’s so cool to learn new aspects of Chinese, like the juxtaposition of images, and how easily or not they translate to English.
I also love your mother’s imputs, kudos to her!
Do you know/could you share any more about the idiom 眼珠发绿? I find how it can evoke such different images depending on what accompanies it really interesting. Of course, only if you’d like to share, the last thing I want is to give you even more work xD
Also, I really liked the tune metaphors. I don’t know, MDZS just has this musical vibe going on and I think the change was specially neat.
Thank you once again for all your work translating! Your writing is delicious to read.