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Mentions of threatened corpse servant death
When Wu Ruo came out of the inner room, Hei Gan gave him the Life Force Jade Tablets that were connected to the corpse servants and explained to him: “The characters carved onto the Life Force Jade Tablets is the corpse servant’s full name. Those with just one character are low-grade corpse servants’ names, those with two characters belong to mid-grade corpse servants. If anyone of them doesn’t obey you1您 (nin): the respectful way to refer to someone as “you”. This is mostly used by someone of a lower status toward someone of higher status (e.g: a servant to a master, a younger person to an older person, etc.) and its usage is meant to show the person you’re speaking to that you’re elevating them above yourself.
Chinese doesn’t really have as much formal vs. informal language as other East Asian languages (think Japanese and Korean), but there are still some ways to indicate respect for the person you’re speaking to. I think all of the Hei Manor servants/staff all refer to Wu Ruo respectfully, and I’ll make it a point to mention if they particularly don’t/or are speaking to Wu Ruo disrespectfully., you may break their Life Force Jade Tablet, and they will become flying ashes and dissolving smoke2灰飞烟灭 (hui fei yan mie): left this as the literal translation just because Chinese really is such a poetic sounding language, even without intending to. Basically, Hei Gan is telling Wu Ruo the corpse servants will just disappear into ashes..”
Wu Ruo received the jade tablets and stuffed them into his sleeves3In case you’re not familiar with ancient Chinese robes, they look generally like this. I’m not well versed enough in China’s time periods and fashion to tell you which specific kind of robe the author has in mind, but the idea is that they have long, sweeping sleeves that sometimes double up as pockets and wallets. It’s not uncommon for people to store small, lightweight items inside.. In the space where others couldn’t see it, he placed them into his shadow void4The shadow void the author is referring to here is the Shadow Realm skill, which was introduced in chapter 12. The author doesn’t use the name it was introduced as and will frequently, if not always, from here on out, refer to this skill as Wu Ruo’s shadow void.. Then, he thanked Hei Gan genuinely: “Thank you.”
By giving him the Life Force Jade Tablets of the corpse servants, Hei Xuanyi was making it clear that he would not probe into Wu Ruo’s matters. So, he was really grateful to Hei Xuanyi for not meddling in his affairs.
“The low-grade corpse servants can only be responsible for simple errands, things like cleaning the gardens and living spaces, they can do it all. Mid-grade corpse servants are indistinguishable from regular people. They are at Madam’s disposal.” Hei Gan introduced four mid-grade corpse servants to him: “These four are the mid-grade corpse servants: Shi Yi, Shi Yuan, Shi You, Shi Jiu5Fun fact! The “Shi” in their names is the same character used in the word for corpse servants. Their names all mean “Corpse something”. It also kind of makes them all seem like they’re from the same family, with the same family name and all..”
“Greetings to Madam,” the four mid-grade corpse servants immediately bowed respectfully towards Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo said: “Right now, I want to bathe and change my clothes.”
Shi Yuan immediately instructed the low-grade corpse servants to prepare the hot water.
After Wu Ruo was done washing up, the low-grade corpse servants again helped him to the main hall in the front yard to eat breakfast together with Hei Xuanyi.
He saw the breakfast dishes covering the entire huge table and said: “Today’s breakfast is pretty rich6Just in case this confuses anyone, the “rich” here refers to “containing a large amount of” as opposed to “wealthy”. I think the way Wu Ruo says it in the original Chinese text is meant to be a little sarcastic/snide, but I couldn’t think of a better way to get the feeling across..”
The breakfasts that he’d eaten before were either plain buns with plain porridge or plain vegetables with plain porridge. They were very simple and unlike the breakfast before him now with a variety of pastries, comparable to those from the royal palace’s kitchens.
Hei Xin, who was serving them beside him, inferred his implied meaning from his words and asked: “Were the breakfasts for the past two days not suitable for Madam’s tastes?”
Wu Ruo thought for a while, and asked again: “Were the dishes for the past two days as abundant as today’s breakfast?”
“Yes, they were.”
Wu Ruo immediately understood that his food had been swapped by someone, and who it had been swapped by went without saying.
Honestly, the him from his previous lifetime had been stupid enough. He didn’t even realise that someone had been swapping his food for so many years. He’d even thought that the housekeeper and servants of the Hei family despised him and thus served him a table full of plain tea and simple food for his meals. And, he’d often been left hungry.
Ah, ah7Honestly, this feels awkward translated into English but I don’t think there’s any expression in English that really encompasses the “ah, ah!” Wu Ruo is trying to say here. If anyone reading has a better suggestion, I’m all ears. For reference, he’s literally going “呵，呵！Ah, ah!” in the original Chinese text.!
Wu Da, Wu Xiao, the both of you really had such guts!
To be impudent enough to swap their food with his, their young master’s.
Wu Ruo’s gaze grew profound, and he picked up his chopsticks to eat.
Hei Xin was very perceptive. From their simple conversation, he could guess the gist of what had happened, however, this was the madam’s affairs and it wouldn’t be appropriate of him to interfere and meddle. He waited until Wu Ruo had finished breakfast and returned to the residential quarters, then he handed over the list of the betrothal gifts for Wu Ruo’s perusal.
The list was extremely long and recorded all the names of the betrothal gifts. Even from just a brief glance, Wu Ruo could tell that someone had taken a small portion of his betrothal gifts. The reason why he’d never discovered this before was firstly because the betrothal gifts hadn’t been delivered directly to Shuqing Garden.
Secondly, it was because Hei Xuanyi had really given so many betrothal gifts. There was so much to the point that, even though people had taken away a portion of it, it still made one feel in awe of the number of betrothal gifts Hei Xuanyi had gifted.
He put down the list expressionlessly, confirmed that Wu Da and Wu Xiao were not in the vicinity, before instructing Shi Jiu in low tones: “Go out and find two young maidens for me. They must have beautiful and charming appearances, with good figures. On a regular basis, they must know how to serve a man, and…”
His words became quieter and quieter, Shi Jiu nodded along and left Hei Manor with the silver drafts8银票 (yin piao): silver drafts is a dated term referring to the paper form of currency/money. Most currency was in the form of bronze/silver/gold coins, and sometimes in paper money. Following the theme of an ancient Chinese setting, the currency also mainly deals in bronze/silver coins and then bigger denominations in paper cash. given by Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo picked up the list of betrothal gifts, and slowly folded it up bit by bit as if he was warning himself not to be hasty. Everything required meticulous planning and preparation, only then could he catch his enemies in one fell swoop.
When he was done folding the list, he placed it into his shadow void. At this, Hei Xin walked over to say: “Madam, please wait in the gardens for a while. We’re going to tear down the wall between the inner room and the room next to it9把内间和隔壁房间打通: more directly translates as “to get through/open up the inner room and the room next door”. I’ve translated it less literally for clarity of what is meant: they’re tearing down the walls between Wu Ruo’s bedroom and the next room to make it a bigger room to fit the bigger bed., and change to a new bed that is bigger.”
Before the master had gotten married, they’d already known that their future madam was very fat. So, they’d already specially ordered a 7 chi101 chi is equal to 0.333 meters or 1.094 feet, so the specially ordered bed would’ve been 2.3 meters or 7.7 feet wide. wide bed, but they’d never have thought that it still wasn’t big enough to sleep in.
Wu Ruo: “…”
