Special thanks to Blackcat for the tip on ko-fi!
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Minor character death, murder, funeral proceedings, derogatory insults
After Wu Qianqing received news of what had happened to Wu Chu, he first waited for people from the other estates to visit Wu Chu, then he brought Guan Tong with him and leisurely embarked from Shuqing Garden. He was no longer like before, anxiously rushing off to visit the other party at the first moment that he received any news. Oftentimes, in the past, he was always the first person to arrive at the other’s estate.
Not long after they left for Shujing Garden, they came back very quickly.
Wu Ruo, who hadn’t left the Wu estate yet, said in astonishment: “Dad, Mum, how come both of you are back so quickly?”
Wu Qianqing’s expression was grim, and he sat down on the chair without a single word.
The rims of Guan Tong’s eyes were a little red, and she said, choking back sobs: “Xiao-Chu’s injuries were just too severe. By the time we went to Shujing Garden, he’d already passed on.”
Wu Ruo’s eyebrows twitched minutely. He was a little surprised; surprised that Wu Chu had died so easily.
Wu Zhu and Wu Xi didn’t dare to believe the words that they’d heard with their own ears: “How did it turn out like that? Who hurt sange?”
Wu Qianqing sighed and said: “Your dabo believes that this was done by Anrun. Just now, he’d already brought a bunch of people with him to the Northern main estate. Xiao-Ruo, you should head home first. Come back again later when it’s time for the funeral to send Xiao-Chu off on his final journey.”
“Hn.” Wu Ruo, Hei Xuanyi, and the others left the Wu estate together.
Only when he’d returned to his rooms in Hei Manor did Wu Ruo ask Shi Yi: “How did Wu Chu die?”
Shi Yi replied: “After Wu Chu left the Wu estate, our people sent word to Wu Anrun. When Wu Anrun found out that Wu Chu was drinking by himself outside, he sent people to murder1刺杀 (ci sha) is usually translated as ‘assassinate’, but in English, an assassination is politically motivated and murder is for non-political/personal motivations. In this case, since the killing is not politically motivated like the attempt in previous chapters on Ling Mohan, so I chose to use ‘murder’ instead. Wu Chu. Wu Chu was no match for them, so he died in their hands. Our people have already left clues for Wu Qianjing and the rest, as long as they send people to investigate, they will be able to pin it on Wu Anrun very quickly.”
“That’s good.” Wu Ruo’s lips curled up slightly: “In the future, the Wu family’s days will be very exciting.”
The next morning, Wu Zhu and Wu Xi came to Hei Manor to fetch Wu Ruo to attend Wu Chu’s funeral.
As the person who had died was someone young from the younger generation, so, the funeral rites couldn’t be too extravagant. The elders2白发人 (bai fa ren) is more literally ‘white-haired people’, but it refers to the older generation.
It’s not so much that elders literally can’t attend the funeral of someone from the younger generation, just that there’s this sort of custom that elders usually don’t do it. For one, some people believe it’s inauspicious. For another, most Chinese people generally believe that elders can’t take the emotional trauma of sending off someone younger than them (usually your own child or niece/nephew).
It’s generally seen as a tragedy for someone older to send off a younger person since deaths at a young age are usually violent/not by natural causes/due to painful disease. I’m not sure if this sentiment translates to other cultures? Please do let me know in the comments how you view this topic. couldn’t attend the funeral either, so Wu Qianjing handed the matter over to his eldest son, Wu Anqi, to arrange.
Wu Anqi arranged for the funeral rites to be done at a Wu family memorial hall on the outskirts of Gaoling City. The rites were extremely simple and cheerless. There weren’t many people attending the funeral; all of them were youngsters from the younger generation.
When Wu Xi alighted from the carriage, she said quietly: “A person’s life is so fragile, when it’s gone, it’s gone, just like that.”
Wu Zhu frowned: “Anrun tangge was really ruthless too, he actually murdered his own relative because of a woman.”
Wu Ruo pretended not to know and asked: “It’s already been confirmed that it was done by Anrun tangge?”
“Hn. The evidence was irrefutable. At the place where sange was killed, they found a directive from the Northern main estate. Dabo wants them to pay for a life with a life, but naturally, Northern main estate’s dabo isn’t willing. Right now, our Southern main estate and the Northern main estate are in a serious deadlock.
“Great-Grandfather doesn’t know how to deal with this matter right now either. After all, both parties are his own flesh and blood3手心手背是肉 is literally ‘his palm and back of his hand are both flesh’.. If he lets it off too lightly, it isn’t fair to dabo. But if he punishes severely, the Wu family will definitely lose another living person4多了一条人命 out of context is literally ‘one more/another human life’. This phrase is used to describe when another life is lost/someone dies, for whatever reason, despite the first character in the phrase meaning ‘more’..”
What Wu Zhu felt was the most lamentable, was that Wu Chu hadn’t successfully finished his training, so he couldn’t be bestowed the ‘An’ generational character. After his death, his memorial plaque couldn’t even be placed in the Wu family ancestral hall, which was basically equivalent to the Wu family not recognizing him as their Wu family descendant.
When they arrived at the entrance of the memorial hall, all of them took the initiative to remain silent.
Inside the memorial hall, everything was covered in white. At the top of the main wall hung a large “dian” character5Long footnote: 奠 (dian) is a character that is a little hard to translate on its own. Basically, in China, at funerals/memorials, they hang up a large banner of the word like this (the link leads to a picture of an actual funeral, so please click at your own discretion. There is no gore or depiction of the dead body, but it is still a picture from an actual funeral).
In the picture, you can see the dian character is hung at the table near the center of the picture. That’s probably the table set right in front of the coffin. It can be hung in different spots (doesn’t have to be in front of the coffin), but it’s usually displayed at a funeral. The character dian originally meant ‘to serve wine/alcohol and food for worshipping’, if my Baidu search didn’t fail me.
Usually the dian character is used in the word 祭奠 (ji dian), which means ‘to hold or attend a memorial service’, or ‘to offer sacrifices (to one’s ancestors)’. I did read a short write-up about the two characters and how they form one word, but it didn’t quite explain why one was chosen over the other for use at funerals.
Also according to that write-up, if you break down the ji character to decipher its meaning, it technically means ‘to use one’s hand to put meat on a shared table to worship the spirits, ancestors, and your kith and kin’. In essence, I think the rationale for why this dian character in particular is used at funerals has been lost to time, since it’s quite an old tradition.
If anyone knows more about the history of this, please do drop me the links and let me know!
The short write-up I read for reference can be found here in Chinese., a black coffin was placed in the middle of the main hall. Wu Anqi and his younger siblings stood beside it, crying quietly. The people attending the funeral first offered joss sticks6上香 (shang xiang) means ‘to offer joss sticks’. This is not an action exclusively done at funerals. When you pray to Chinese gods/deities, your ancestors, or the deceased, you can ‘offer joss sticks’. The norm is to take three joss sticks (link leads to picture of joss sticks in a huge offering bowl, at a temple), light them up, do a short prayer, then stick them in an offering bowl that is filled with old incense ash.
If I’m not wrong, modern-day Buddhism and Taoism still practice this, so you can check up on it more if you’re interested. My grandparents are Taoists, but I was raised in a separate religion, so my experiences with these practices are sort of along the periphery. I can say though, the smell of the incense burning is actually pretty calming and nice. At least for me, it invokes a lot of nostalgia for being at my grandparents’ house. They do joss stick offerings at least once a day, so the house always had this lingering smell of incense., then offered a few words of comfort to the family of the deceased, and thereafter turned around to leave the main hall.
Wu Ruo cast a glance across the entire memorial hall and saw that his cousins from the Southern main estate were all sneakily looking towards them. To put it accurately, they were all staring at both Wu Zhu and Wu Xi.
If he hadn’t guessed wrongly, they had realized what materials had been used to craft the waist pendants that Wu Zhu and Wu Xi were wearing.
Wu Xi also seemed to have noticed their gazes. She discreetly tugged on Wu Zhu’s sleeve and quietly said: “Dage, I want to leave this place.”
Wu Zhu saw that everyone was still around, and it also wasn’t good to leave immediately after just arriving. However, he had also noticed that some people kept staring at them, so he said: “Let’s step outside the main hall.”
“Hn.” Wu Xi hurriedly nodded her head; once they walked out of the main hall, she immediately breathed out a huge sigh. After that, she said quietly to Wu Zhu: “Dage, did you notice it? Qige and the rest kept staring at us, their gazes were so harsh and frightening, it was as if they wanted to eat us up.”
“Don’t be afraid.” Wu Zhu patted her lightly on her shoulder: “They’re probably still holding a grudge about the betrothal gifts, we’ll just ignore them.”
“Hn.” Wu Xi looked at Wu Ruo and comforted him: “Erge, don’t be afraid either. We’ll protect you.”
When Wu Ruo heard this, he was a little stuck between crying or laughing, but he also felt quite touched.
At this moment, Wu Yu walked out, smiling as he walked towards them: “Sige, Xiao-Ruo, Xiao-Xi, so you7Just a note: actually in English, ‘you’ in English can be plural or singular. In the case when you see a character referring to a bunch of people, but they just say ‘you’, it’s the plural form of ‘you’ that I’m using. I didn’t want to correct it to ‘all of you/three of you/etc.’ because that’s not what the author actually uses in the original text. In previous chapters, I’ve tried to compensate with phrasing it as best as I could, but I think from this chapter onward I will simply be writing ‘you’. were hiding here. It’s so cold here, why don’t you go inside to avoid the cold winds?”
Wu Zhu replied: “Seeing sange go, just like that, it’s simply too heartbreaking, so we came out to take a breather.”
Wu Yu sighed quietly: “Nobody thought that this matter would become like this, you shouldn’t be too upset about it either. Oh, that’s right, I came out to look for you about something.”
Wu Zhu asked: “What’s the matter?”
“The thing is, a while before, sishu received an important task. After the task is completed, our Southern main estate will get 200,000 taels of silver. Originally, we weren’t going to tell you about this matter, after all, sanshu‘s spiritual field…”
When he said this, Wu Yu paused for a moment, then continued speaking: “But because previously, due to the Xishan Theatre matter, our Southern main estate had to fork out a large sum of silver. This caused the Southern main estate to not have any money to divide amongst ourselves at all. With things like this, your Shuqing Garden might end up in the situation where you can’t pay your servants their salary.
“That’s why I wanted to ask you to go with sishu and the others to complete this task. After all, in Shuqing Garden, only you, sige, and Xiao-Xi have spiritual energy. But Xiao-Xi is still young, sishu would never let her go, but it’s not the same with you. For you, joining this task, firstly, you can get silver. Secondly, you can gain some experience beforehand. Thirdly, there’s a possibility that this task can be counted towards your internship assessment.”
When Wu Ruo heard this, he snorted coldly in his heart.
He didn’t believe that those uncles of him would willingly give them 40,000 taels of silver.
Wu Zhu frowned.
Ever since after his father got hurt, Shuqing Garden’s income reduced day by day. Right now, all the expenses by their estate were covered by the money that his dad had saved up previously. So, he had already thought of taking on some tasks to earn money, so that he could take care of the family. However, his father just wouldn’t allow him to take on private work.
Wu Xi pouted: “I want to go too.”
She also wanted to help with supporting the family.
Wu Ruo asked: “Wuge, could you tell us about what kind of task it is?”
“This…” Wu Yu muttered softly: “I only know that we have to capture a huge Yao, but I’m not clear about the rest. Because I had some injuries a while ago, and now, it’s almost time to go out for the internship, so my dad won’t let me participate, and he also didn’t talk to me about it.”
When Wu Ruo heard the words ‘huge Yao‘, his eyes flickered slightly. In his heart, he’d already guessed where his sishu had received the task from.
He said meaningfully: “Is that so?”
Wu Yu had a feeling like he’d been seen through. For a split second, he was especially guilty, and he didn’t dare to look Wu Ruo in the eye. However, there was no way that this useless loser knew what he was thinking. Only at this thought did he calm down: “The main reason why I proposed to let sige participate in this task is because I thought, sige is about to go off on his internship, it must be hard to set aside family matters in his heart.
“But if it’s after receiving money from the task, the situation won’t be the same. Not only will it lighten sanshu‘s financial burdens, but sige‘s apprehensions will also be reduced by a lot.”
Wu Zhu said: “But, will sishu and the rest agree to let me go?”
“I’ll persuade sishu and the rest.”
Wu Xi smiled and said: “Wuge, you’re really great.”
Wu Zhu was also looking at Wu Yu with an expression of gratitude.
Wu Ruo: “…”
These two idiots who didn’t know how to judge people.
Wu Yu noticed that Wu Ruo kept staring at him, so he hurried to change the topic: “Sige, Xiao-Xi, your waist pendants are so beautiful, they must be equipment, right?”
Wu Xi excitedly nodded her head: “They’re equipment that erge gifted to us, I really like it.”
Wu Ruo continued from what she said: “We still need to thank erbo and the rest. If not for erbo and the others lending us materials, we wouldn’t be able to make such beautiful equipment.”
Wu Yu: “…”
Why is it that he felt today’s damned fatty was different from in the past? His words constantly felt like they contained a few overtones that people couldn’t decipher. Could it be that he was overthinking?
Wu Zhu saw that the people in the memorial hall had just about all left, so he opened his mouth to say: “We should also be going back.”
Wu Xi already wanted to leave this place from earlier on, so she hurriedly agreed.
Wu Yu smiled and said: “You can go ahead first, I’ll wait for my ge and the rest to leave.”
“Alright then, we have to send Xiao-Ruo back, so we won’t be waiting for you.”
Wu Yu watched them leave.
“Xiao-Yu, why do you want Wu Zhu to participate in the task this time?” Wu Anyi, who had been hiding behind the door of the main hall this whole time and eavesdropping, walked out of the main hall with a displeased expression. Wu Bo, Wu Shi, and Wu Qiantong’s oldest son, Wu Xiao, followed behind him.
Wu Shi said angrily: “Wuge, by doing this, you are simply letting their Shuqing Garden earn 40,000 silver taels for nothing.”
Wu Yu laughed coldly: “In your eyes, can you only see the 40,000 silver taels? If I said these 40,000 silver taels can buy Wu Zhu’s life, wouldn’t you feel it’s worth the price?”
Wu Anyi’s expression turned apprehensive: “Xiao-Yu, you mean…”
“No one can guarantee what will happen in the process of capturing the huge Yao.”
Wu Shi immediately understood his intent, and guffawed: “That’s right, people dying at the hands of a huge Yao is a very common occurrence. When the time comes, we just have to…”
“Xiao-Shi, you just need to be clear about it in your heart.” Wu Yu stopped him from continuing.
Wu Xiao stared at the entrance of the memorial hall, burning with anger: “If it’s really like that, it’s worth losing 40,000 silver taels We’ll see if they still dare to be complacent, if they still dare to go around wearing and flaunting the equipment made from our materials.”
Originally, his dad had already promised, when he got married, his dad would make a top-grade weapon from the Xiaoyun sand8Pre-edits, this was ‘Roaring Skyfall Sand’, but I noticed during edits that it was previously mentioned as ‘Xiaoyun sand’ so I’ve edited it to be consistent.. Yet he never thought that it would be borrowed by sanshu. Just thinking about it, he felt angry. Now, they were actually even going around wearing equipment made from the Xiaoyun sand. They really deserved to die.
Wu Bo looked at them, eyes wide: “You… you guys can’t be thinking of…”
Heavens.
His cousins9Pre-edits, this was ‘older brothers’ but then I realized that it should be cousins instead. actually wanted another gege‘s life.
Wu Yu put his index finger to the middle of his lips, shushing: “Xiao-Bo, you can’t tell anyone about this10In the original text, it says 这件事情可能说出去哦, but I’m assuming here that the author might a typo and meant to say 这件事情可不能说出去哦. Essentially, the meaning of the sentence goes from “can talk about this” to “cannot talk about this”. In the context of this conversation, I think it’s a typo., okay?”
Wu Bo: “…”
Notes: oh, Wu Bo, you have no idea how messed up your family is. I really pity the members of the Wu family who actually have morals but are being tangled up in these affairs just because they have no other choice (e.g: too young to make any significant/meaningful changes).
