LWSL Chapter 72

Special thanks to Xuanyue for the tip on ko-fi!

Wu Ruo couldn’t shake off his dream. The aftershock and lingering fear that he felt towards seeing the Hei Xuanyi of his dreams turning into ashes kept shrouding his heart. He also didn’t understand why, when he saw Hei Xuanyi disappearing, he would be so anxious, afraid, anguished, and pained. Hadn’t he always hated Hei Xuanyi?

“Daddy, why do you keep looking at Father?” Dandan crawled onto his lap and asked curiously.

After rising out of bed, Wu Ruo kept staring at Hei Xuanyi. When they were eating breakfast, he was still looking. After they boarded the horse carriage, Wu Ruo couldn’t take his eyes off of Hei Xuanyi even more, staring until he zoned out. It was as if no matter how Wu Ruo looked, it would never be enough.

Wu Ruo came back to his senses, meeting with Hei Xuanyi’s dark gaze that seemed to be filled with mirth yet also seemed to be mirthless.

He cleared his throat uncomfortably: “He’s my husband, do I need a reason to look at him?”

Hei Xuanyi: “…”

Dandan pouted his lips: “Then, I’m your child, how come I don’t see you looking at me?”

“I’ll look at you more now, alright?” Wu Ruo pinched his little face in a good mood: “When I’ve slimmed down, I’ll look at you as I hug you every day.”

Dandan sprawled himself happily across Wu Ruo’s soft belly and giggled.

Wu Ruo lifted his head and looked at Hei Xuanyi: “Where are we going now?”

Hei Xuanyi said simply: “Temple fair in the morning, sledding in the afternoon, lantern viewing in the evening.”

“You already made plans much earlier on?”

“Hn.”

At this moment, the horse carriage stopped in its tracks. Hei Gan, who was outside the carriage, said: “Master, there’s too many people ahead. The carriage cannot keep going.”

Wu Ruo said: “We’ll alight the carriage and continue on foot.”

Hei Gan found an alley to stop the horse carriage in.

Once Wu Ruo alighted from the carriage, he saw the crowded throngs of people outside of the alley in a glance: “The streets are so crowded today.”

Hei Xin, who had alighted from another horse carriage, smiled and said: “It’s mostly thanks to the good weather today.”

Since New Year’s day, if it wasn’t snowing, then the sky was dark and heavy. Today, there was a rare bit of sun, so everyone was out for a breath of fresh air.

Hei Xin carried Dandan and indicated to Hei Gan, Shi Yuan and the others, and the bodyguards with a glance.

Everyone met each other’s glances wordlessly with smiles and followed behind Hei Xin out of the alley.

Wu Ruo was dumbfounded: “Where are all of you going? Isn’t anyone going to help me?”

Actually, right now, he had already slimmed down a lot. Even without anyone supporting him, he could walk by himself. However, after walking for a stretch, he still needed to stop and catch his breath. Moreover, there were many people today, it would be easy to get knocked into by others.

Shi Jiu turned around and said: “Steward Hei said that we’ve been given a day off today. The matter of taking care of Madam will be seen to by Master.”

Wu Ruo: “…”

Hei Xuanyi: “…”

The two of them looked at each other wordlessly.

Wu Ruo saw that Hei Xin and the others had already walked out of the alley, and thought in his head that they couldn’t just keep standing here staring at each other.

He stretched his hand out: “Aren’t you going to wait upon your wife?”

“…” Hei Xuanyi took his hand, and unconsciously pinched it. The meat on Wu Ruo’s palm and the back of it had already reduced by a lot, but it was still very soft and felt very good to touch.

Wu Ruo glanced at him questioningly, but he pretended as though he hadn’t noticed Hei Xuanyi’s actions.

When they walked out of the alley, Wu Ruo saw Hei Xin and the rest of them standing by the mouth of the alley, beaming as they waited for the two of them.

Dandan immediately called out: “Father, I want tanghulu.”

Hei Xuanyi glanced at a peddler who was carrying tanghulu on their back and walking past him, and simply spat one word from his thin lips: “Buy.”

Hei Gan immediately dug a silver ingot out of his pockets and gave it to the peddler.

The peddler thanked Hei Gan as they handed over their entire stock of tanghulu to him.

Hei Gan plucked off one stick of tanghulu and handed it to Dandan first: “How are we going to finish all of this?”

Hei Xin smiled and said: “It isn’t a lot, it’s just enough for us to have one stick each.”

Hei Gan plucked off another stick of tanghulu and gave it to Hei Xuanyi.

Hei Xuanyi had never eaten this sort of thing before, so he hesitated for a moment, then he took it and lightly bit a mouthful. As he did so, he frowned: “Too sweet.”

Wu Ruo saw that he was about to throw it to the ground, and hurriedly said: “Don’t waste it! Give it to me.”

He quite liked eating tanghulu.

Hei Xuanyi said: “I’ve already eaten from it.”

Wu Ruo said, unthinking: “It’s not like I’ve never eaten your saliva before.”

Hei Xuanyi: “…”

Wu Ruo only realized what he’d said after the fact. Immediately, his face turned red and hot. He’d already forgotten that their kissing was still something from his previous lifetime.

He snatched the tanghulu from Hei Xuanyi’s hand with a red face and bit a mouthful, using this to cover up his own awkwardness.

Hei Xin and the others all discreetly covered their mouths and laughed behind their sleeves.

Hei Gan distributed a stick of tanghulu to every person, with enough for a stick for himself as well.

All the passersby walking past them couldn’t help but glance at all of them a few more times, because the sight of one big group of men holding onto and licking tanghulu was truly too spectacular. Especially because, amongst them, there was even a little toddler who was extremely pretty. It made it even harder for people to resist looking a few more times.

When Dandan had eaten half of his tanghulu, he called out again: “Father, I want a kite.”

Hei Xuanyi glanced at the kites: “Buy.”

Dandan pointed again at a stall of toys at a side: “Father, I also want to mold a sugar figurine.”

“Buy.”

“Father, I want to eat a roll pancake¹圈圈饼 (quan quan bing): this could be a number of things, but considering the setting of the story, I opted for what I think would make sense for the vague time period this is set in. The ‘roll pancake’ would look something like this, like a cinnamon roll.



I think it would more likely be filled with savoury fillings than sweet cinnamon sugar though.



If anyone has any other ideas about what it might be, feel free to leave a comment and let me know!.”

“Buy.”

“Father, I want…”

Without waiting for his child to finish, Hei Xuanyi directly said: “Buy it all.”

All the children in the vicinity looked at Dandan enviously.

Wu Ruo watched as the amount of toys and food in the hands of the bodyguards kept increasing, and the corner of his eye twitched. However, seeing how happy his child was, he didn’t say anything to stop them either.

The closer they got to Lingcheng Temple, the greater the amount of people, and the livelier things were. From far away, they could already hear drumbeats: “Dong-dong-qiang, dong-dong-qiang²This is so nostalgic because during Chinese New Year’s, we would always get a troupe of lion dancers and there was always a drummer and someone with a handheld gong. My parents would always refer to them by the Chinese onomatopoeia for drums and gongs, ‘dong-dong-qiang‘, instead of using the actual word for ‘dance troupe’.



陵成庙 Lingcheng Temple: the Gaoling in Gaoling City means ‘high hill/mound’. The ling in Lingcheng is the same ling as Gaoling. Lingcheng can be translated as Ling City, so Lingcheng Temple can be translated as Ling City’s Temple, or Hill/Mound City’s Temple.!”

When Dandan heard this, he immediately climbed up around Hei Gan’s neck and got comfy. He pointed ahead and yelled excitedly: “Gan-shushu, let’s hurry ahead and take a look.”

“Alright.” Hei Gan carried him and weaved through the throngs of people, coming to the side of the major street in front of Lingcheng Temple.

Everyone had taken the initiative to leave a broad path through the middle of the street, allowing the parade procession to proceed unobstructed. When the children nearby saw that the troupe of lion dancers were approaching, they immediately burst into applause and loud cheers.

Every ‘lion’ had two people cooperating, one person dancing as the ‘head’, one person dancing as the ‘tail’. According to the beat of the drums and gong, the two people would masquerade as a lion, acting out a lion’s various behaviours and actions.

Behind the lion dancer troupe was the ‘paddling land boat’. The land boat wasn’t really a boat. It was two thin planks put together in the shape of a boat, made of bamboo wood. It was decorated with colourful cloths, strung onto a maiden’s waist, as if she was sitting on a boat. In her hands, she held an oar, making rowing gestures. As she ran, she sang a few local ditties, dancing as she sang.

By her side, there was a man masquerading as a customer sitting on her boat, playing the part of a chou³丑 (chou): more commonly translated as ‘clown’, I opted not to use that translation because it might conjure up the image of a Western clown with the dramatic make-up and all, which isn’t exactly accurate for the scene.



Chou as an adjective instead of a noun is used to describe someone as ‘ugly’, which can be a descriptor for their physical appearance or their behaviour. The role of a chou in performance is, as the story describes, someone who deliberately does silly things for comedic value.. He used various comical actions to entertain the audience.

Following that were the stilt performers. The stilt performers were not just in costumes on the stilts, but their faces were also layered thickly with dramatic make-up. They alternated between song and dance and often acted out the highlights of some operas. The performers on the stilts were of different heights, so they were all of various shapes and sizes, their heights uneven.

Behind them, there were even beautiful maidens in rich attires, performing as gods and deities; representing everyone’s offerings and prayers. And after that was a troupe of performers with waist drums, as well as a long procession of performers with floral baskets and colourful fans. Everyone was bedazzled as they watched; they couldn’t bear to walk away.

After the parade ended, everyone entered Lingcheng Temple to offer joss sticks and pray to the gods.

In the temple, there were as many joss sticks being lit as the temple ever received in a year. Dense smoke filled the air, and it was extremely irritating to people’s throats.

Wu Ruo was so affected by the smoke that his tears were flowing freely. After he finished offering the joss sticks with Hei Xuanyi, he hurriedly dragged Hei Xuanyi with him to leave.

At this point, it was already wushi⁴午时 (wu shi): 11 am to 1 pm..

Hei Xuanyi brought everyone for lunch in the private room of a restaurant that had already been reserved beforehand. After eating lunch, they headed to a riverside outside of the city to sled.

Although it was currently the dead of winter, with everything covered in a vast expanse of white, with even lesser things to shelter one from the freezing wind at a countryside river, and everyone’s teeth were clattering from the wind, but it couldn’t dampen everyone’s passion for competitive sledding. Many people had brought their own handmade sleds to the riverside, and there were others who spent money to buy a little sled from peddlers selling sleds.

When Wu Ruo saw that everyone was sledding in their sleds on the surface of the river that had frozen over, he couldn’t help but wriggle with excitement too. However, what was miserable was that the sleds with their tiny sizes simply could not bear such a venerably fat Grand Buddha as he.

Hei Xuanyi took a glance at Wu Ruo, whose bright gaze had turned dark, and instructed to Hei Gan: “Bring our sled over here.”

Wu Ruo was dumbfounded: “We have our own sled?”

Hei Xin beamed: “Madam, we made this sled by working through the night yesterday, and it was specially made to specification for your and Little Young Master’s bodies.”

Wu Ruo’s gaze brightened up again: “Really?”

Not long after, the bodyguards carried over a huge sled that looked like a purple dragon. In that instant, everyone’s attention was attracted.

“Wu Ruo?” Suddenly, someone called out.

When Wu Ruo heard this, he turned to look. The person who had called out was a clean-looking handsome man, dressed in rich dark blue robes.

He frowned and only after a moment did he realize that the other person was his tangge, Wu Sheng, from the Eastern main estate.

“Sheng-ge, you’re here to sled too?”

Wu Sheng nodded, and took a look at Hei Xuanyi who was standing by Wu Ruo’s side: “Is this your husband?”

Wu Ruo gave a simple introduction: “That’s right, this is my husband, Hei Xuanyi. Xuanyi, this is my tangge, Wu Sheng.”

Hei Xuanyi and Wu Sheng both nodded at each other and counted that as having greeted each other.

Wu Sheng looked toward their sled: “Xiao-Ruo, my younger brother and his friends are over there. They just happen to be preparing for a sledding race, would you be interested in racing together with us as well?”

Wu Ruo looked hesitant. In his heart, he was also thinking that it would be pretty boring just to sled on the ice. It would be much more exciting to compete with someone else.

“Alright.”

Wu Sheng spoke again: “We have betting stakes. Every round is worth one hundred taels of gold, how about that?”

When the commoners around them heard that their betting stakes were one hundred taels of gold, they all gasped a cold breath. One hundred taels of gold was enough for a few households to spend for their entire lifetimes.

Wu Ruo looked at Hei Xuanyi: “Did you bring money out?”

Hei Xuanyi looked at Hei Xin.

Hei Xin immediately took out a silver draft worth 10,000 taels of silver and handed it to Wu Sheng: “Young Master, is a 10,000 tael silver draft alright?”

Wu Sheng beamed widely as he took the silver draft: “It’s alright, of course it’s alright. Let me go and tell my younger brother and the others about it first.”

He returned to the side of his younger brother, Wu Xia, and quietly said: “Wu Ruo already agreed to compete with us. Look, he even gave me a 10,000 tael silver draft. You better not lose later.”

Wu Xia laughed coldly: “He’s so fat, can the sled even move?”

All of Wu Xia’s friends laughed ‘haha’, and said: “I think even the ice will be broken by him.”

Wu Sheng said: “If his sled can’t move, isn’t that even better? Then we would’ve gotten these 10,000 taels of silver without even doing anything.”

Wu Xia thought about it and agreed. He raised his eyebrows at his six friends: “You know what to do later, right?”

His friend, Chen Hou, beat his own chest and guaranteed: “I guarantee that he’ll lose so badly later, he won’t even have pants to wear.”

After saying that, the eight of them burst into ‘haha’ sounds of laughter again.

Notes: I’m aware that the terminology used in each chapter kind of fluctuates, which is because I’ve been hopping back and forth between what I want to prioritize when I translate — readability or faithfulness to the original work.

As much as possible, I will try to go back and edit the previously published chapters, as well as work on the glossary which I haven’t edited in a while now ? I seek everyone’s understanding while I iron out the kinks. Edit: I’ve gone over the previous chapters during the port over to KnoxT, but if there’s still any mistakes left, please feel free to point them out to me!

Also, AJU Nice Translations has exceeded 125k views on all posts, with 46 followers receiving update notifications. I forgot if I’ve already mentioned this, but we are also now moving on to brand new chapters that have not (to my knowledge) been translated before.

Thank you to everyone reading, liking, and commenting. I started off translating Loser Wife because I really enjoyed the story and I wanted an English translation for myself. I really didn’t expect so many people to enjoy the story and my translations as well. I am grateful for all the support, encouragement, and kindness from everyone! I hope we can all enjoy the story together to the end.

• 1
  圈圈饼 (quan quan bing): this could be a number of things, but considering the setting of the story, I opted for what I think would make sense for the vague time period this is set in. The ‘roll pancake’ would look something like this, like a cinnamon roll.
  
  
  
  I think it would more likely be filled with savoury fillings than sweet cinnamon sugar though.
  
  
  
  If anyone has any other ideas about what it might be, feel free to leave a comment and let me know!
• 2
  This is so nostalgic because during Chinese New Year’s, we would always get a troupe of lion dancers and there was always a drummer and someone with a handheld gong. My parents would always refer to them by the Chinese onomatopoeia for drums and gongs, ‘dong-dong-qiang‘, instead of using the actual word for ‘dance troupe’.
  
  
  
  陵成庙 Lingcheng Temple: the Gaoling in Gaoling City means ‘high hill/mound’. The ling in Lingcheng is the same ling as Gaoling. Lingcheng can be translated as Ling City, so Lingcheng Temple can be translated as Ling City’s Temple, or Hill/Mound City’s Temple.
• 3
  丑 (chou): more commonly translated as ‘clown’, I opted not to use that translation because it might conjure up the image of a Western clown with the dramatic make-up and all, which isn’t exactly accurate for the scene.
  
  
  
  Chou as an adjective instead of a noun is used to describe someone as ‘ugly’, which can be a descriptor for their physical appearance or their behaviour. The role of a chou in performance is, as the story describes, someone who deliberately does silly things for comedic value.
• 4
  午时 (wu shi): 11 am to 1 pm.