Note: This is a footnote for the title1喜欢的不得了: where 不得了(bu de liao) is a common colloquial phrase that translates as “extremely, exceedingly”. It’s very hard to translate into English because of its word form, it doesn’t quite work like an adjective or an adverb. It simply exaggerates/emphasizes the word preceding it rather than it having its own meaning. It can also function as an exclamation that means “oh crap, shit’s about to hit the fan”. I tried my best approximation of the meaning for the title, especially because Chinese loves leaving pronouns out and making everything contextual. On its own, the title phrase just means “to like extremely”.. Also, long chapter tomorrow so only one chapter today.
Early the next morning, after Wu Ruo had had breakfast, Shi Jiu brought two portraits for him to look over. The portraits both depicted unmarried2未出阁 (wei chu ge): phrase ‘chu ge’ is a dated form of referring to specifically a girl getting married.
I realise here I might not have explained why Chinese is so fixated on different forms/words of “getting married”. So in Chinese culture, men bring women into their families/family registers when they get married, and women are married into the man’s family/removed from their maiden family’s registers when they get married. This has created a norm where, in a marriage, one family “gains” a new family member, and one family “loses” a family member.
I don’t know the origins of how they decided that men were the ones to carry the family name and not women, but that’s how it generally works. In the case of Loser Wife, Wu Ruo is considered the wife because the circumstances of the marriage arrangement has him marrying into the Hei family.
So, back to ‘chu ge‘, a ge refers to a woman’s personal chambers/quarters, so the phrase literally means for her to leave her chambers/quarters, and presumably move into her husband’s. If anyone is wondering what the ‘wei‘ here means, it just means “yet to/not yet”. So if one hasn’t moved out of their chambers, they’re still unmarried. young maidens. One of them had an elegant appearance, and was slim and graceful. The other one had a sweet and charming appearance, with a gentle and graceful figure, wonderfully graceful3In case you’re wondering why the author’s vocabulary is so limited, it’s not.
All three ways of describing them as graceful were different, but English doesn’t quite have the nuance to differentiate between them. They all kind of just translate as graceful. I’m not good enough at linguistics to be able to break it down either. Sorry, my friends.
Also, they’re graceful in different ways. The first woman is graceful in the elegant, classy lady way. The second woman is graceful in the cute and adorable way. Perhaps the author is slightly strange about describing women. Most of the major characters are men and none of this webnovel passes the Bechdel test at all, just for trivia.. The only similarity between them was that their eyes seemed like they could trap someone’s soul, such that Wu Da and Wu Xiao would go limp and numb looking into their eyes.
Wu Ruo was extremely satisfied with Shi Jiu’s efficiency in running errands, and placed the portraits in front of Wu Da and Wu Xiao: “Which maiden do each of you brothers prefer?”
Wu Da and Wu Xiao were stunned: “Young Master, this is…”
“These are the wives4媳妇 (xi fu): commonly means “son’s wife” or “daughter-in-law”. In dialect, it also means “wife” or “young married woman”. In this case, the context points at it being “wife” but the translation of this term will vary with different contexts. that I asked Shi Jiu to look for, do you not like them?” Wu Da and Wu Xiao were both wild with joy. Just yesterday, they were still worried about whether the young master would find out that they’d swapped the food and punish them. Yet today, the young master had found beautiful wives for them, and it seemed like he hadn’t found out about them swapping the food, so how could they be unhappy: “We like them, we like them, we couldn’t like them more5So, this is the phrase discussed in footnote 1 about the title and the context for it within this chapter!! Young Master, you’re really going to let us take them as our wives?”
“If not your wives, would they be my wives?” Wu Ruo pointed to the portraits: “The both of you should hurry and choose one each, so that you can quickly decide on a date6Chinese culture considers certain days and dates more auspicious or inauspicious for different events like weddings, funerals, celebrations, etc. How they calculate how auspicious or inauspicious a date is a mystery to me, but there is this sort of culture. Of course, people will want to choose the most auspicious day to get married and hopefully ensure that the rest of the marriage will also be prosperous and full of joy. to get married.”
Wu Da carefully asked: “Young Master, both young maidens are so pretty and charming, would they be willing to get married to us brothers?”
He was still pretty aware of himself. He and his younger brother were quite average-looking, how could the two young maidens take a fancy to them?
“No matter what, the both of you are still the personal retainers of a young master of the Wu family. Your statuses are still above that of regular commoners. and they are just daughters of poor humble families. If you really want to argue about it, they’re the ones who are out-marrying to the both of you7I wasn’t sure how to translate this in a better way, but basically Wu Ruo is trying to say the young maidens are from a lower social status marrying up the social ladder if they get married to the brothers..”
Wu Da thought about it again and felt that he was right, and excitedly picked up the portraits to take a closer look. Both of the young women were so beautiful, making it hard for him to choose, if only he could get married to both of them.
Wu Xiao was also unable to make up his mind.
Wu Ruo saw the brothers looking unsure of which maiden to choose, picked up his teacup, and while he pretended to sip the tea, he used the cup to hide the cold smile on the corners of his mouth.
In the end, the two brothers decided to go with Shi Jiu to sneak a peek at the two young maidens. After all, portraits were very different from taking a look at the actual person.
After one shichen8A shichen is two hours long., the brothers returned with triumphant faces full of glee and had decided who would marry which young maiden. In case the two maidens changed their minds, they requested time off from Wu Ruo and hurried home to discuss the details of their wedding day with their family members.
After they left, Wu Ruo asked Shi Jiu: “How did they decide who would marry which young maiden?”
Shi Jiu said: “Both brothers were very pleased with both maidens. Later on, they used the finger guessing game9Also better known as rock, paper, scissors! I know there’s a bit of cultural/regional debate into the proper name of the game, so I left it as the literal Chinese translation, but it’s just rock, paper, scissors. to decide who would marry which young maiden.”
“Both maidens were to both of their likings? Hn, very good.” Wu Ruo instructed: “Shi Jiu, discreetly bring those two young maidens here to see me. Don’t let other people find out, understood?”
“Yes, I understand.”
Shi Jiu was very efficient with errands, it hadn’t even been one shichen and he’d already brought the two disguised maidens in front of Wu Ruo: “Madam, on the left is Liu Xiaoru, and on the right is Chen Xier.”
Wu Ruo stared for very long at the two maidens whose original appearances could not be seen, until they felt fearful, then opened his mouth to say: “Before you came here, my man would already have explained the situation to you. If you want to work for me, you must sign a master-servant contract with me. In the future, you must listen to my commands for everything. You cannot betray me, you cannot even have the thought of wanting to betray me, otherwise, you will end up with your soul in shreds and pieces10魂飞魄散 (hun fei po san): “to be scared out of one’s wits”. I think Wu Ruo is threatening them that the consequences will be so terrifying that they’ll be scared of their wits. However, I think the literal translation suited the overall flow of the text better and so I left it like that..”
He fished out two money bags and put it on the table: “If the two of you agree, the 1000 liang111 liang is a unit of measurement for silver currency in ancient China, it’s more often translated as the tael, and measures the weight of one silver coin. Over here, I think Wu Ruo is giving them paper currency that’s worth 1000 liang, not actually 1000 liang because that’s pretty heavy. The weight and value fluctuates throughout the years, so there’s no standard conversion to modern day RMB (renminbi) value. of silver drafts in this bag is yours. In the future, if you perform well, there will still be more rewards.”
1000 liang was already enough for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, so the two maidens’ interests were very piqued and they only hesitated for a moment before agreeing to sign the contract with Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo broke his skin with his teeth, letting the blood drip onto the pcenter of their foreheads. Following that the fresh blood flashed with a white light and seeped beneath their skin.
The master-servant contract was very quickly finalised. The two maidens happily took the silver drafts and followed after Shi Jiu, leaving Hei Manor.
That very night, Wu Da and Wu Xiao came back to deliver the good news, having decided that they would have the wedding in 10 days time.
Wu Ruo rewarded both of them each with 100 liang of silver12Here, Wu Ruo’s giving them silver coins instead of the paper currency..
The two of them happily took the silver liang and left.
Wu Ruo watched their backs, the corners of his lips curling with a mocking smirk. In the following few days, he would temporarily be able to focus on resolving the matter regarding his dad’s health.
