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Internalised fatphobia, humiliating situation involving a fat person
Hei Gan saw the body that had been squeezed out of its usual shape because of the doorjamb and stuffed his fist into his mouth to keep down his laughter. He turned his head to order some servants to take apart the door. He also ordered them to take apart all the doors within the manor that were smaller than seven chi11 chi is equal to 0.333 meters or 1.094 feet, so all the doors smaller than 2.3 meters or 7.7 feet need to be widened. For reference, a quick Google search says that the standard for interior doors is 0.85 meters or 2.8 feet. The standard for exterior doors goes up to 0.9 meters or 3 feet, at their widest. wide and correct them the following day.
Wu Ruo learned his lesson after being stuck once. After being rescued out of the doorjamb, he did his best to avoid all the small doors in the residential quarters on his way back to his own quarters. Then, he let the corpse servants remain guard by the door.
As he was about the close the doors, Hei Xuanyi walked in.
Wu Ruo looked at him uncertainly: “Is there a problem?”
Hei Xuanyi glanced into the room with an indifferent expression, indicating that he wanted to sleep together for the night.
Wu Ruo: “…”
In his previous lifetime, Hei Xuanyi hadn’t come to his quarters. Even though they developed marital relations2The marital relations I’m referring to is a euphemism for sex. It is also a euphemism in the original text: 夫妻之实 (fuqizhishi). later on, they still never really shared a bed together to sleep. Even after making love, they would immediately separate to sleep. From this, it was evident to see how much he hated Hei Xuanyi at the time.
Although there were some changes in this lifetime, he was still unable to accept doing intimate actions3The intimate actions here is less of a euphemism for sex and more referring to intimate, couple-y actions like sleeping in the same bed (without sex), holding hands, being affectionate, etc. with Hei Xuanyi.
Wu Ruo faced Hei Xuanyi, and straightened his back to show off his round stomach: “You’re sure that the little bed inside can accommodate the two of us fine gentlemen4尊大佛 (zun da fo): translates to “respectable Buddha”. For those of you who have not seen how Buddha looks, a quick Google search will show you that Buddha is often portrayed as a big, burly dude. Wu Ruo is trying to say he’s super fat and Hei Xuanyi is similarly extremely big in build, so they won’t fit on the bed without breaking it.? Hmm?”
The bed in the inner room was just seven chi wide, which was only big enough for one person to lie on.
“…” Hei Xuanyi narrowed his eyes, staring at Wu Ruo’s waist for a long while, and then left without saying a single word.
Wu Ruo feared that he would change his mind and quickly closed the room doors, heaving a sigh of relief as he leaned against the doors.
In his past life, when he’d had marital relations with Hei Xuanyi, he had already slimmed down. In this lifetime, he didn’t think Hei Xuanyi would be inhuman enough to want to have sex with a big fatty5黑渲翊应该不会禽兽到连大胖子都能吃的下嘴才是: more literally “Hei Xuanyi shouldn’t be inhuman enough to be capable of eating even a big fatty”. The only reasons why I left this footnote is because I just want anyone reading this to know that just because you’re fat doesn’t mean you’re undesirable. Also, I am pretty sure Hei Xuanyi is interested in ‘eating’ Wu Ruo. If you know what I mean..
Wu Ruo straightened his body, looking at the big red “double happiness”6The “double happiness” characters refer to these stickers. They’re very common wedding decorations, and you can read up more about them here. characters plastered on the walls with extremely mixed feelings. In his previous lifetime, he had stayed here for over ten years. After being reincarnated, he had still come back to this place.
He pulled his focus back, holding onto the box, and dragged his body with difficulty to the inner room, lying down on the bed to open the box. He took out the engraved white jade longevity plaque, his fat face filling with excitement once more. After gaining his spiritual energy, he would be able to take revenge for his previous lifetime.
Wu Ruo recalled the scene of his murder from his previous lifetime, and his heart was filled with hatred once more. Since he was alone in the room now, he no longer had to conceal his emotions and was free to express all of his resentment. His clear eyes flashed red, like a malevolent ghost seeking revenge. His entire chubby face turned ferocious and terrifying.
He broke apart the longevity plaque in a flash and immediately felt the seal in his chest being destroyed. Following that, the immense spiritual energy that had been hidden away in his cultivation field flowed through his whole body in an instance. It was like receiving a bone marrow transplant, removing all the impure waste materials inside of his mind and body, cleansing his bone marrow and all his vital energy pathways. After that, his body felt like it was being corroded by tens of thousands of ants, with every pore screaming in pain. Very quickly, sweat started beading at his forehead, and his face and lips lost all blood. After who knew how long, the pain slowly began to recede, and yet his mind was filled with a pile of golden characters.
Wu Ruo breathed in deeply, weak, and waited for himself to recover some energy before gathering his focus to examine the secret skills and techniques in his mind. There were 7 in total, among which was the Shadow Stealing Technique from his previous lifetime that still had no explanation or method to learn it. The other six secret skills and techniques were divided into Ghost Capture, Spirit Control, Spirit Contract, Shadow Realm, Shadow Conceal, and Shadow Kill7The author went into great detail about all these here, but rarely uses the actual skill names in detail. They also frequently explain these skills again whenever they show up later in the story, so don’t feel stressed about familiarising yourself with them here..
The Ghost Capture skill allowed him to immobilise people around him in an instance. The stronger his spiritual energy, the longer he could keep everyone immobilised for and the more people he could immobilise. Users of the skill could take the opportunity while their opponent was immobilised to kill them.
The Spirit Control skill was similar to Yinyang practitioners’ Speech Spirit skill. It allowed one to control other people’s state of mind. The Spirit Contract skill was also similar to Yinyang practitioners’ Manipulate Spirits skill. However, Yinyang practitioners could only control yao, mo, gui, guai, ling, shen8妖, 魔, 鬼, 怪, 灵, 神 (yao, mo, gui, guai, ling, shen): these are fantasy/folklore creatures and often come up in translations as monsters, or some kind of variation of that.
I did not translate them here for 2 reasons, a) you only really need to know that Wu Ruo is capable of contracting with more diverse races/species than Yinyang practitioners, b) the author goes on to portray them as sentient beings with their own tribes, cultures, countries, etc.
This is different from the portrayals of them as mindless creatures that humans come in contact with and has them more like individuals of their own. Think like the Chinese version of elves, orcs, dwarves, etc. fantasy species.. Spirit Contract allowed the user to control all kinds of beings with different kinds of contracts. It would force the other party to submit to the user’s will, pledge allegiance to the user, be loyal to the user, and could even be used to sign a life contract to share lifespans.
The Shadow Realm skill allowed him to shape a shadow void into a storage space, and also allowed him to make use of his own shadow’s boundaries to kill an opponent.
The Shadow Conceal skill allowed him to hide himself in any shadow. Even if it was a shadow only as big as a needle, he would be able to hide inside and conceal himself from anyone’s notice.
The Shadow Kill skill allowed him to injure a person’s physical body by injuring their shadow. If he killed his opponent’s shadow, it would be equivalent to killing the opponent. The stronger a user’s spiritual energy, the more destructive they could be, the same as the rest of the secret skills.
Wu Ruo confirmed that all the secret skills and techniques were the same as his previous lifetime, then felt at ease enough to close his eyes and finally rest.
