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Fatphobia (internalised and from others), casual misogyny, implied homophobia, mentions of fictional (within the story) deathWu Ruo remembered from his previous lifetime that Wu Anrun, because he had passed his assessment internship, started to regard himself as a man of superior achievements. Regarding his future wife, he also naturally had a lot of requirements. Not only did her family background have to be good, her appearances had to be extraordinary, with high cultivation. So, for him to get married to a young maiden he had never met before, it would naturally cause conflict and dissatisfaction. Moreover, Zhuang Qiurong’s family clan was smaller than their Wu family side branch. Just from this point alone, Wu Anrun felt that she didn’t have the qualifications to be his wife.
Afterward, Wu Anrun heard from who knew where that Zhuang Qiurong looked very ugly, and he even got a hold of Zhang Qiurong’s portrait. After confirming that the other party was so ugly that she was difficult to look at, he looked for various reasons every day to destroy the wedding. To get out of this arranged marriage, he even found a prestigious young lady that roughly fitted his requirements to claim that he had an affair with.
Wu Anrun’s father could only cancel the marriage with the Zhuang family, letting Wu Anrun get married to that prestigious young lady. What a pity, after marriage, the two people did not in fact have a blissful life, often arguing and fighting. They spent their days unbearably vexed with each other.
Yet, after half a year, Wu Anrun heard that the Southern main estate’s third young master, Wu Chu, had returned after his successful internship and was thus preparing to marry Zhuang Qiurong from Zhunan City’s Zhuang family in half a year.
When he found out about this news, he turned up his nose at it. Later, on Wu Chu’s big wedding day, after he saw Zhuang Qiurong’s flower-like features and moon-like face, he regretted so much so that his intestines turned green1A literal translation of the Chinese text 悔得肠子都青了. It’s a folk adage in Chinese that means to “absolutely regret something”. Your intestines only turn green after you die, so it means to regret something to your death.. Never in his dreams would he have thought that Zhuang Qiurong’s appearances would be so dignified and beautiful. In his eyes, wives were supposed look just like that. Unfortunately, he was the one who tried to destroy the wedding, now Zhuang Qiurong was to be married to his tangdi, there was no use in regretting anymore.
However, ever since Wu Anrun saw Zhuang Qiurong, he started to think of her all the time. What one thinks of in the day, they dream of at night. Wu Anrun thought of Zhuang Qiurong during the day, so he would dream of her at night. Unwittingly, he even went as far to call out Zhuang Qiurong’s name in his sleep.
When Wu Anrun’s wife, who slept in the same bed as him, knew that her own husband’s heart held another woman, she kicked up such a fuss that it was hard to even be civil. Wu Anrun was increasingly unable to endure such a wife, and all the more yearned for Zhuang Qiurong who was dignified and elegant.
Eventually, Wu Anrun unintentionally found out that Wu Chu and Zhuang Qiurong had already known each other since before he and Zhuang Qiurong had gotten engaged, and that they had also mutually pledged love tokens to each other. He immediately linked it back to how he’d once heard the news that Zhuang Qiurong was ugly, and guessed that this incident was definitely false news that Wu Chu deliberately spread to be with Zhuang Qiurong, so that Wu Anrun would cancel the wedding agreement.
The more Wu Anrun thought about this, the more likely it seemed to be, so he confronted Wu Chu. Following that, the two people got into a great fistfight. After, it took much mediation from the clan head Wu Bofang before the matter was left unsettled.
It was just that no one knew how this lifetime would change.
Wu Ruo was a little impatient to find out about what would happen in the end, when he came back to his senses, he had already arrived at the entrance of the third floor wing.
Pushing the door open and entering, he could immediately see the stage downstairs, and their wing was just face to face with the stage, an especially good spot.
Wu Ruo said, satisfied: “This spot’s not too bad.”
Shi Jiu supported him to sit on a big chair that Shi Yi had instructed the theatre lads to switch in beforehand.
Wu Ruo slapped the seat next to him with some excitement, saying to Hei Xuanyi: “Sit here.”
Hei Xuanyi sat on the seat, and glanced disinterestedly towards the babel of voices. He frowned slightly, he wasn’t fond of this sort of lively spectacles.
Wu Ruo asked him: “Have you come to a theatre to watch an opera before, or have you invited a troupe to the manor to perform a show before?”
In his previous lifetime, he had never seen Hei Xuanyi watching operas. Ordinarily, he was always coming and going all alone, or he would spent time in calm and quiet places.
“No.”
Wu Ruo’s lips curved into a smile: “I haven’t either.”
No matter if it was this life or his last, he had never been to a theatre to watch an opera. At first, it was because he was too fat, with his low self-esteem, he didn’t want to go to crowded places to let people laugh at him. After he lost weight, he was learning medicine from Nu Mu. And even later, he unsealed his spiritual energy, so he spent on his time on cultivating. And since the Wu family head Wu Bofang felt that performers were of low status, the Wu family also didn’t invite any troupes, so he had never watched a show before.
Shi Yi presented the theatre’s performance list of the day to Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo skimmed through it. The title of the second opera on the list immediately attracted his attention, because its name was “Ugly and Fat Husbands”. The words ‘ugly’ and ‘fat’ made him extremely sensitive, in the next moment, he asked: “‘Ugly and Fat Husbands’? How come this opera’s name is so strange?”
Shi Yi explained: “According to the theatre lads, this was adapted from Master and Madam’s story.”
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
The temples on Wu Ruo’s forehead throbbed madly: “I want to see just what kind of story they’ll sing about in that opera.”
The first opera started very quickly. However, since his mind was full of thoughts about the second opera, so, he also didn’t really listen to what the first opera was about.
When it reached the second opera, Wu Ruo and Hei Xuanyi couldn’t help but straighten up and focus all their energy on staring at the stage to watch.
After the opera started, a big fatty performer appeared on stage first. No matter if it was his face shape or his body shape, it was all very similar to Wu Ruo. Even the clothes on his body were made almost the same as Wu Ruo’s usual style of dress.
After the big fatty appeared on stage, he immediately tumbled into a fall. Once he fell, he couldn’t get up, immediately drawing raucous laughter from all the audience.
The corners of Wu Ruo’s eyes twitched.
Following that, a middle-aged couple appeared on stage. The big fatty immediately wailed that he didn’t want to get married. In the end, he was still forced to get onto a huge bridal sedan carriage to get married to a hideous man.
Hei Xuanyi watched this, and gave Wu Ruo a deeply meaningful look.
Wu Ruo kept discreetly looking at Hei Xuanyi’s reaction, so he naturally noticed Hei Xuanyi’s gaze on him. He was both ashamed and angry: “I’ve absolutely never made a fuss like that fatty on stage.”
Letting a man like him be married to another man, there was no lack of protests. Being contradictory and throwing tantrums had happened, but he’d never cried like a woman.
Hei Xuanyi’s eyes flashed with amusement, his gaze turning back to the stage, and he said simply: “I know, you wanted to marry me so badly, why would you cry and make a fuss?”
Wu Ruo: “…”
He had known Hei Xuanyi for so many years, this was the first time he’d realised that Hei Xuanyi had such thick skin.
“I say, where did you learn this skill of ‘saying blind words with open eyes2A direct translation of 睁眼说瞎话, which means to lie blatantly.‘?”
“I just grasped it.”
Wu Ruo: “…”
The opera on stage acted that the two men didn’t have a happy life after marriage. The big fatty often picked fights with the ugly man, and later even took fancy to a widow. However, how could the ugly man allow his own male wife to be with another woman? So he used a scheme to get the big fatty and the widow to break up, and caused the death of the widow. When the big fatty found out the truth, he chose to go down together with the ugly man3同归于尽 (tong gui yu jin): means to take someone else down with you when you die or to end in mutual destruction. My apologies for the lacklustre phrasing, I can’t figure out how to get the meaning across directly in text..
Wu Ruo was so angry that he hit the railing forcefully: “Shit, who came up with such a story that distorts the truth?”
Shi Yi replied: “I heard from the theatre lads, because everybody doesn’t like stories about cut-sleeves4The phrase cut-sleeves was commonly used in the past to refer to gays (specifically men loving men). More on that and being queer in ancient China here., so the ending was adapted this way to please everybody.”
Hei Xuanyi narrowed his eyes and swept a cold look at him.
Shi Yi felt a wave of cold sweat all over his body in an instance.
This opera wasn’t adapted by him, what was the point of glaring at him?
“I don’t want to watch anymore.” Wu Ruo’s mood to watch the operas had been ruined by this show, so he rose up to go downstairs with Hei Xuanyi.
The two of them got onto the horse carriage. Hei Xuanyi who was sitting across from him kept staring at Wu Ruo with narrowed eyes.
Wu Ruo felt uneasy all over because of his cold gaze, as if he was the big fatty from the show, who would betray him: “What are you staring at me for? It’s not like I’ll run away with a widow like the person from the opera, then be stupid enough to cause our mutual demise.”
In his previous lifetime, no matter how much he hated Hei Xuanyi, he had never had the thought to kill Hei Xuanyi, and he had never had the thought to be separated from Hei Xuanyi either. Even though Ruan Zhizheng had advised him to do so before, he had also only just laughed at the idea.
The cold aura around Hei Xuanyi immediately lessened a lot, he leaned against the carriage seat and closed his eyes to meditate5The dictionary definition for 养神 (yangshen) is to “rest to attain mental tranquility”. It’s a little hard to translate shen, which refers to your mentality/mental fortitude. So, yangshen is when you rest to regain your mental fortitude/mentality. In this case, I’m assuming Hei Xuanyi is doing so because practicing/using his magic skills will probably take a steady and calm mind. This bit just gives off the vibes that Hei Xuanyi is very in control of himself and very meticulous about maintaining a good mentality..
Wu Ruo sighed in relief.
Actually, he was quite curious in his heart. If he were to run away with someone like the big fatty in the show had done, he wondered what Hei Xuanyi would do to him. It wouldn’t stop at something as simple as scheming to make him and the widow break up, would it?
“Ah~~” Suddenly, the tortured and shrill cries of a whole bunch of people came from within the theatre, followed closely by a whole crowd of people rushing out from the theatre.
“What’s going on?” Wu Ruo heard the sounds, and immediately asked the people outside the carriage.
“Madam, there’s nothing wrong.” Hei Gan replied, then, he drove the carriage away.
Wu Ruo: “…”
It didn’t seem like nothing was wrong.
Unfortunately, it was currently winter, the curtains on the carriage had been sealed shut, so there was no way to look at the situation outside. He could only deduce from the sounds that it was as if everybody was being chased by murderers, screaming and running out of the theatre one after another, riding away in their horse carriages. Following that, the sounds of fighting came from within the theatre.
Wu Ruo’s horse carriage grew further and further from the theatre, and so he couldn’t hear anymore sounds.
Upon returning to Hei Manor, Hei Xin came up to them all full of smiles to say: “Master, the egg has moved.”
“What egg?” Wu Ruo asked curiously.
“The big white egg that you gave birth to, Madam.”
Wu Ruo: “…”
When did he ever give birth to a big white egg?
Ah, wait a minute, it couldn’t be that egg that Ji Xi gave him, could it?
Wu Ruo asked Hei Xuanyi: “You kept that egg?”
Eh, it’s good that they kept it anyway, who knew, maybe the egg really was his.
Hei Xuanyi headed straight to the study room in the residential quarters.
Wu Ruo hurriedly followed along, walking into room adjacent to the study along with Hei Xuanyi, and saw a big crow Guai6怪 (guai): the word itself means ‘weird, strange’. When used as a noun, it refers to a ‘strange’ creature. In this novel, it seems like Guai are sentient animal-like creatures. another one of the fantasy species’ in this novel. incubating the egg.
The big crow Guai saw Hei Xuanyi walking in, and hurriedly stood up, letting Hei Xuanyi see his big white egg.
Hei Gan carefully scooped the egg into his arms, bringing it forth to Hei Xuanyi.
Hei Xuanyi put his hand onto the white egg, using his spiritual energy to inspect the situation inside. Following that, the corners of his lips curled up slightly and he retracted his hand.
“Madam, you should take a look at the little young master too.” Hei Xin, who was following behind them, said, full of smiles.
Wu Ruo heard this form of address, and the corners of his eyes twitched. Hei Xuanyi hadn’t really taken this big white egg as his son, had he?
He put his hand onto the big white egg, using his spiritual energy to feel around at the living thing inside. Then, he saw that the lump of white flesh from before had actually become a fetus, frightening him so much that he hurriedly retracted his hand, asking Hei Xuanyi: “This… this is really that egg that I gave to you?”
How did the lump of flesh inside the egg become a fetus? Wasn’t that too terrifying?
However, if the egg was really a child birthed by a Yao, a flesh lump turning into a child was also not strange.
Wu Ruo thought along these lines, and in an instance, sighed in relief.
The next time Ji Xi came to look for him, Wu Ruo had to ask him properly about this matter.
Hei Xin put the egg back into the nest, allowing the big crow Guai to continue incubating the egg: “In about a month, the little young master will be able to hatch.”
