LWSL Chapter 10

When the carriage was preparing to return to Hei Manor, a loud crash came from outside the carriage, and Hei Gan immediately reported from outside: “Master¹主子 (zhuzi): translates closer to “owner/main head of house” rather than the 老爷/少爷/爷 (laoye/shaoye/ye) that the servants in the Wu estate used to refer to various masters they have within that household. Personally, I think this form of master has connotations of the servant “choosing” to serve this master, whereas the usual laoye/shaoye/ye are just respectful forms of referring to your contractually obligated master. This is just my own take, which could just be from the vibes that the servants from the Hei Manor give off, versus the Wu estate servants. The only factual thing I can say about this is that it’s actually a different word, but it’s still translated as master., the madam’s²夫人 (furen): can be literally translated to “person of/belonging to the man, the man’s person”, at the very basics. It’s commonly used to address the wife of someone with status, kind of like ladies of court, or a diplomat’s wife. It’s also simply a courteous way to refer to someone’s wife. By referring to Wu Ruo in this manner, Hei Gan is very respectfully acknowledging Wu Ruo as his master’s formal spouse. In Chinese, there’s plenty of ways to throw shade at your master’s wife (mostly by implying the person is not a formal wife or an official wife), but in this case, it seems like Xuanyi has schooled his household about being respectful. carriage has collapsed.”

Hei Xuanyi did not make a sound.

Hei Gan continued hurrying the car back towards Hei Manor.

Wu Ruo’s pupils flashed with cold intent: “Hei Xuanyi, could you assign two corpse servants to my quarters?”

In his previous life, Hei Xuanyi had gotten Hei Gan to assign four corpse servants to his quarters. However, he had chased them away harshly, detesting them. At the time, Hei Gan had been so angry that he’d turned and simply left with the corpse servants.

These corpse servants were servants that were made from the recently deceased, also equivalent to the so-called living dead. The corpse servants were extremely loyal to the person who controlled them, and corpse servants could be divided into three grades: low-grade, mid-grade, and high-grade. Low-grade corpse servants only had a little bit of soul, their speech and movement were slower, and they could only do what their masters instructed them to. If the instructions were too complicated, they wouldn’t be able to fulfill them either. With the permission of their master, other people could command them to complete tasks as well.

Mid-grade corpse servants had complete souls and were indistinguishable from humans besides their pale, bloodless skin. High-grade corpse servants were the same as mid-grade corpse servants, but they were more independent and their attitudes were a little more conceited. If one was not their master, other people simply had no way to order them to do anything.

Hei Xuanyi narrowed his eyes.

How did Wu Ruo know that the manor had corpse servants?

Wu Ruo felt goosebumps all over his body from his stare and suddenly remembered his past life. He had only known about the corpse servants half a year after getting married. Around this time, even if he’d seen some slow servants around the manor, he still wouldn’t have known that such people were corpse servants.

Hei Xuanyi looked away and continued using his fingertip to jab at his stomach, indicating that he’d agreed to Wu Ruo’s request.

Wu Ruo secretly heaved a sigh of relief, knowing that this was his way of not pursuing how Wu Ruo knew about the corpse servants.

At this moment, the carriage came to a stop.

From outside, Hei Gan said: “Master, we’ve arrived.”

With the support of the corpse servants, Wu Ruo got off of the carriage with much effort.

The head steward of the house, Hei Xin, walked forward and said: “Madam, there’s a young master looking for you. He’s already been waiting in the manor for a long while.”

“A young master?” even though Wu Ruo racked his brains, he couldn’t think of who this person could be. In his previous life, no one had come to look for him. No, that wasn’t right, he’d fainted, he hadn’t known if anyone had come to look for him.

Wu Ruo entered the main hall of Hei Manor, doubtful, and saw an expressionless young man sitting on the chair.

The young man had a plain appearance, rising immediately when he saw Wu Ruo and enquired: “Wu Ruo?”

“Yes, and you are…?” Wu Ruo was pretty sure that he’d never seen this person before.

“I was sent by your maternal grandfather to deliver this congratulatory wedding gift to you.”

“Maternal grandfather?”

Wu Ruo furrowed his brows. He’d heard his mum speak of this once; because his mum had ignored her father’s protests, bent on marrying a clan outsider, that’s why her name had been removed from the family registry and she was chased out of her clan, hence forbidden from returning to the clan.

Afterward, his maternal grandfather had sent his mum a few dozen cars of dowry and then never contacted her again. So, he had never met his maternal grandfather before, and also didn’t know who his maternal grandfather was. However, his mum would write home to her clan once a month, but she had never received a response before.

“Yes,” the young man responded after scrutinizing Wu Ruo closely and then scrutinizing Hei Xuanyi behind him. Only after that did he take the red package off of his back to present to Wu Ruo: “I represent your maternal grandfather to wish you and your husband a blissful marriage to a ripe old age, and an eternal union.”

Wu Ruo hesitated for a moment, before receiving the package: “Thank you.”

“Farewell.” The young man turned around and left the main hall.

Wu Ruo hurriedly asked: “It’s already so late, wouldn’t you like to stay for one night before leaving?”

The young man completely ignored him and walked directly out of the manor.

“What a strange person.”

Wu Ruo opened the package, revealing a red box, and saw that the very familiar character for “sacrifice” was carved on the face of the box. His whole body froze, and he almost dropped the box to the ground.

• 1
  主子 (zhuzi): translates closer to “owner/main head of house” rather than the 老爷/少爷/爷 (laoye/shaoye/ye) that the servants in the Wu estate used to refer to various masters they have within that household. Personally, I think this form of master has connotations of the servant “choosing” to serve this master, whereas the usual laoye/shaoye/ye are just respectful forms of referring to your contractually obligated master. This is just my own take, which could just be from the vibes that the servants from the Hei Manor give off, versus the Wu estate servants. The only factual thing I can say about this is that it’s actually a different word, but it’s still translated as master.
• 2
  夫人 (furen): can be literally translated to “person of/belonging to the man, the man’s person”, at the very basics. It’s commonly used to address the wife of someone with status, kind of like ladies of court, or a diplomat’s wife. It’s also simply a courteous way to refer to someone’s wife. By referring to Wu Ruo in this manner, Hei Gan is very respectfully acknowledging Wu Ruo as his master’s formal spouse. In Chinese, there’s plenty of ways to throw shade at your master’s wife (mostly by implying the person is not a formal wife or an official wife), but in this case, it seems like Xuanyi has schooled his household about being respectful.