Terms You Might Want To Know For Your Wuxia/Xianxia Fic

The Husky and His White Cat ShiZun, volume TWO 2 二

(The one with the very pale cover)

(English 7Seas version) Notes 1 of 4

Pages 1-132

I am constantly impressed with how well 2Ha has been translated. It has been an absolute joy to re-read, but this time in English.

I don’t expect everyone to know that “zizi” is another word for “older sister,” though, so here are some notes to help you get through the novel if you aren’t already a fluent Chinese-xianxia reader:

(Also, I’m on mobile today, so Vol2 notes will be separated into four 🙄 posts instead of two.)

More under the cut…

Link back to my Masterlist

MDZS Vol 3 Annotations, part 2

Here is Part 2 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 3, pages 92-217. I hope it helps improve your reading experience!

(It's mostly cultural annotations and reminders of appropriately-untranslated words, with a few re-translations of really thorny sentences that I admit have no good translation.) (And a few places I re-translated to take out the fanciness. WWX, especially, usually speaks in a very simple, colloquial manner.)

So, "regarded him askance" is a totally legitimate translation. I just never speak like that; and yet "gave him the side-eye" felt too casual.

The Husky and His White Cat ShiZun, volume TWO 2 二

(The one with the very pale cover)

(English 7Seas version) Notes 3 of 4

Pages 208-327

More under the cut.

Back to my Masterlist.

@mdzsnet 24 August 2020 Lan Jingyi Birthday Event (ฅ'ω'ฅ)

AKA The Most Unlan Lan to Ever Lan

I spent a fair potion of my formative years idolizing Frank Frazetta / his artwork. He gave hope to all those who didn’t look like modern-day wraith-thin models. Though you have to do a Lot of working out to look like His models. Time to go do some push-ups!

older lotr illustrations sometimes depict éowyn wearing ridiculously small armour. apart from the problem general sexualisation of the only female character (who really does anything), there’s another hilarious thought:

éowyn pretended to be dernhelm, a man. to fit in, she must have worn men’s armor. so the armor in the illustrations is normal for rohirrim.

therefore, all the rohirrim rode to war just like that:

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 2, Notes 7, pages 339 - 366.

Another eight notes...

The idiom for "too late" in Chinese is 黄花菜都凉了 "The Yellow Lilly (chrysanthemum? Yellow lily?) dish is already cold", which I had to look up.

Apparently, there was a time and place in ancient China where, when the fancy nobles would throw a banquet, they would serve 黄花菜 as the final dish. If you delayed attending so long that the 黄花菜 was already cold, then you had completely missed the banquet. You were too late.

牲口 is, technically, "draught animal" or "beast of burden," but I'm pretty sure what Priest means here is "those cold-blooded war beasts."

top: I think of it as two separate, unrelated, consecutive actions.

bottom: 铁膝飞足, iron knees flying feet, is so easy to read in Chinese. (This is the first time I've ever seen the word "poleyns.")

top: "young and inexperienced" in Chinese here is 初出茅庐, "first time out of the thatched cottage."

初出茅庐 is the coolest little idiom. So, in the Three Kingdoms period, there was a scholar called Zhuge Liang. Liu Bei, leader of the Shu Han, begged Zhuge Liang to become his advisor and, after three visits, Zhuge Liang agreed. This was the first time that Zhuge Liang accepted such an advisory position, and the "first time" that he left his thatched cottage (it was wartime. There was a lot of travel involved with advising a king/warlord).

Anyway, Zhuge Liang was a genius and immediately won a lot of battles through superior strategy.

next: for "dig in his heels before the capital," I feel like that could be more clearly written as "hold the capital."

next: regarding "unsalvageable situation," he's talking about his relationship with the emperor.

last: "No eggs remain when the nest overturns" is a common idiom, 覆巢之下无完卵。 We're all in it together.

"running to the market" 赶集 is a way to describe how things are noisy and busy and people are running back and forth (not bright and merry with people buying gifts for each other).

I think... the indescribable smell is the mix of gunpowder and blood...

If you don't know already, the Origin Myth for Where Humans Come From is that the half-snake goddess Nuwa made humans out of clay :)

I'm not sure why, but in English I thought that one of the Western soldiers was laughing; but in Chinese it's really clear that none of the soldiers are laughing.

Four more...

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

I finally found an English-Language explanation of What Happened in the novel 镇魂 Guardian by Priest! It had been hidden in video…and I had refused to watch any reviews until I had finished watching the drama…

So! If you happen to be as confused as I was after reading (loving!)(confused loving!) Zhen Hun, here’s another person to commiserate with about how unfathomable (illogical) the plot of the novel truly is (but we still don’t care. We just want more WeiLan).

https://youtu.be/jfOH0kFvDuQ

Xiao Zhan & Yibo // Wei Ying & Lan Zhan

For all the people out there who are dealing with insane amounts of pain on a regular and frequent basis.

One of my friends fixed her endometriosis by changing her diet according to a Tibetan Healer’s recommendation.

Another fixed her debilitating monthly pain by cutting one ingredient out of her diet on an acupuncturist’s offhand advice.

And another finally went to her normal usual western doc and got some hormonal medication that makes it so she doesn’t pass out from pain anymore.

There is a solution! Find your cure!

whenever i have those brutal searing being-dissolved-from-inside period cramps during school or work i pretend i am a viking warlord who has been stabbed in the abdomen but i killed the assailant so i’m the only one who knows im injured and i have to carry on normally til the end of the battle to keep up my mens morale

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Volume 3, Notes 3/5, Pages 152 - 265

Cute trivia: in the online novel, this entire paragraph is One Sentence. 9 commas. No semi-colons.

This is (part of the reason) why it takes me 3-12 months to read a single Priest novel.

In case you don't already know, there is a lovely story about an emperor who had a male lover who fell asleep on the long, voluminous sleeve of his robe; and rather than wake the lover, the emperor just cut off his sleeve so that he could go work without bothering his sweetie. And now 断袖 "cut sleeve" is another word for "homosexual man."

I love the idiom for this situation: 投鼠忌器 "throw" "mouse" "afraid" "devices," or "afraid to throw anything at the mouse for fear of breaking the vases."

So, 蹂躏 does translate as "violated," but it also translates as "savaged" or "trampled," both of which I think fit here better.

Here, 完蛋 a little more vulgar than I like to think of it. I'm pretty sure this is a phrase you can use around elementary school kids. It means "to be done for," like "Uh oh. We've been caught."

Top: "Bat out of hell" in Chinese is 赶投胎似的 = like he's rushing to be reincarnated. (I find Western theology- based idioms disconcerting in Daoist/Buddhist- based novels. I understand that they convey the meaning most accurately, but it still weirds me out.)

Bottom: So cute! They are using food-based euphemisms. The Chinese for "eat his fill" is 吃了顿荤的 = "eat a meal with meat" ¬‿¬. And then they break the metaphor with "ended up in the wrong position" (on bottom instead of on top). And then return to the food euphemism with "nearly choked to death." Cute, yah?

xiansheng 先生 = "Teacher", in this context.

I added a （1) and a (2) because I started getting confused.

I also added unnecessary Chinese on "If you're so smart", that it started out (in the online version, anyway), as "你有注意" "If you have ideas,..."

OMG. If you go to a robust Chinese dictionary and search for the Chinese translation for "me," you will get SO MANY WORDS back.

One of those many words is 孤, which was used by feudal princes for a time? And 孤 usually means "lonely" or "solitary."

He climbed on Gu Yun's shoulder. 肩膀。

Either way, he's being carried around by Gu Yun and leaving drool marks on Gu Yun's shoulder <3

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links