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Fatphobia
Hei Xuanyi received the black money pouch and took a close look at it. The money pouch was an amalgamation of three types of spiritual energy; it had Mo and Yao energy, and it also had the spiritual energy that rare materials gave off. It was just that the charms and talismans had been sewn on crookedly1Fun fact, the word here for crookedly is 歪斜 (wai xie), where wai means crooked, and xie means slanted to the side, it refers specifically to the kind of crooked that leans off to a side. But importantly, the word for wai can be broken down into the characters 不 (bu) and 正 (zheng). Zheng has a few different meanings, but in this case, it refers to ‘straight’, and bu means ‘not’. So the character wai that means ‘crooked’ is literally composed of the characters meaning ‘not straight’., the needlework was also especially bad, it was like a novice’s first attempt at sewing. Stored inside the money pouch were Blood Replenishing Pills and Energy Replenishing Pills2I’m gonna be real honest with you, chief, the author mentions these items rarely enough that I forgot how I translated them before. I will dig through the old chapters to check if they show up before, but I’ll do my best to keep the names consistent from here on out. Yay! I checked during edits and they’ve never showed up before this.
For reference, the Blood Replenishing Pills are actually just called 万血丹 (wan xue dan) A.K.A ‘ten thousand blood pill’ and the Energy Replenishing Pills are 一气丹 (yi qi dan) A.K.A ‘one energy pill’.; it was just the medicine pills that he often used.
However, how did Wu Ruo know that he needed these medicines?
Wu Ruo drunkenly asked: “Do you like it?”
“Hn.” Hei Xuanyi’s slender fingertip stroked the embroidery on the money pouch. He suddenly thought back to a few days before, when Wu Ruo’s butt had been stabbed by the needle: “You sewed it yourself?”
If this was some other day in the past, Wu Ruo definitely wouldn’t have admitted that he’d sewed it even on the threat of death, but right now he was drunk: “Yes, I sewed it.”
His drunken face revealed a sliver of smugness: “This is my— my first time sewing a money pouch. My handiwork’s not bad, right?”
Hei Xuanyi was a little surprised3Specifically, the kind of ‘surprised’ used here is 意外 (yi wai) which literally means ‘outside of one’s expectations’, so it’s ‘unexpected’. that Wu Ruo would sew it by himself: “Not bad.”
“I put in a lot of effort to finish sewing it.” Wu Ruo stretched his white and fat hand out to Hei Xuanyi’s face, pouting aggrievedly: “When I was sewing it, I got stabbed by the needle so many times. It was so painful, blow on it for me.”
Hei Xuanyi raised his dark and long eyebrow slightly.
“Blow on it, blow on it for me.” Wu Ruo urged him.
Hei Xuanyi hesitated for a moment, then blew a puff of air at Wu Ruo’s finger.
Wu Ruo won an inch, and now wanted a foot4This is a literal translation of 得寸进尺 (de cun jin chi) which means ‘to be insatiable’ or ‘not be satisfied by small gains’.: “Now kiss it.”
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
He really never thought that this person would love acting coy5Here, Hei Xuanyi says 撒娇 (sa jiao), which came up before. If you’re familiar with Korean stuff, it’s the Chinese equivalent of the word ‘aegyo’. If you’re not familiar with either, it’s something like behaving cutely to endear yourself to someone.
With a romantic partner, this can be a flirtatious action, but it doesn’t necessarily always have flirtatious/romantic connotations. Children can sajiao to their parents, younger siblings can do it to older siblings, friends can do it to each other, but usually, it’s done between people who are close to each other.
Or in the case of a girl trying to flirt with a guy, then I guess you don’t have to be especially close. With the context of them being husbands, you can definitely interpret it as flirting, but it could also just be that Wu Ruo has a habit of acting cute when he’s drunk to endear himself to other people. after getting drunk.
“Hurry and kiss it.” Wu Ruo had an expression of ‘if you don’t kiss it, then I won’t go to sleep’.
Hei Xuanyi took Wu Ruo’s hand and brought it to his mouth, pecking it lightly.
Wu Ruo smiled, satisfied, and excitedly pushed Hei Xuanyi over. However, Wu Ruo didn’t crush Hei Xuanyi with his whole body, he only pressed his arm over Hei Xuanyi’s chest.
“Hei Xuanyi, did you know? I’ve never thought that there would be a day that we would spend New Year’s together, and I never thought that I would even sleep on the same bed as you. Even more than that, I never thought that we would be able to get along harmoniously one day.”
“….” Hei Xuanyi listened quietly.
“In the future, we still have to continue getting along well.” Wu Ruo said, with an intoxicated expression6迷醉 (mi zui): a double play on the English translation of ‘intoxicated’. It is both the ‘drunk’ intoxicated, and also the ‘enchanted’ intoxicated.: “We must get along well, we can’t be like that again…”
When he thought of his previous lifetime, he angrily tugged at Hei Xuanyi’s hair: “Hei Xuanyi, you really make people hate you sometimes.”
Hei Xuanyi frowned slightly.
“Every day, you look so cold and icy, you make it hard for me to guess what you’re thinking, and you don’t like to talk either. No matter what happens, you don’t bother explaining to me; you’re only happy when I misunderstand7This phrase is a little hard to translate. The original is: 非要我误会你才高兴. So there are two ways of reading this sentence, “you’re only happy when I misunderstand you” or “you’re only happy when I misunderstand (the situation)”. In this case, since Wu Ruo mentioned ‘no matter what happens’, I’m assuming he means ‘misunderstand the situation’.
Now, “you’re only happy when I misunderstand” is a weird thing to say in English, I think, but I can’t think of any other way to translate this without skewing the original nuance. In essence, Hei Xuanyi (from the previous lifetime) was content to remain silent/not explain, and might even have deliberately behaved in a manner that would cause Wu Ruo to misunderstand him.
If this is a little hard to understand still, please do let me know! Since Chinese isn’t a second language/I acquired it growing up, there are still some cultural nuances that I don’t realize are difficult to understand.. Did you know? I really hate it when you suddenly turn around and leave; it makes me feel like our relationship8你我之间 (ni wo zhi jian): literally ‘the space between you and me’. Previously, I left it as ‘the space between us’, but have decided to edit it to ‘our relationship’ for a smoother translation and leave this footnote instead. With the context that ‘relationship’ here is expressed as a ‘space’, it makes it so that the next bit where Wu Ruo says ‘is so distant’ can be taken both physically or metaphorically. is so distant, like there’s no way to get closer to you. I also hate the way you don’t ask about or listen to9不闻不问 (bu wen bu wen) translates most literally to ‘not bother to listen or to ask’ and it means ‘to be indifferent to; to show no interest in’. me, it makes me feel like I’m dispensable10可有可无 (ke you ke wu) literally translates to “can do with or without”. Footnotes 9 and 10 are fun because both of them are idioms, but the meaning of it is in the phrase itself. to you…” Wu Ruo looked at him pitifully: “In future, don’t be like that anymore, okay?”
Hei Xuanyi frowned a little, in his mind, he examined his own attitude towards Wu Ruo ever since they’d gotten married; he had indeed been too cold.
Wu Ruo shook him: “Okay?”
Hei Xuanyi didn’t want to take a person who was drunk so seriously11I left the more direct translation in, but I do want to include a footnote that in the original Chinese, it’s implied that Hei Xuanyi doesn’t want to respond so earnestly to a drunk person in the sense that Wu Ruo isn’t going to remember any of this when he wakes up. It’s not that Hei Xuanyi doesn’t take any of what Wu Ruo said to him seriously, which is a completely different thing.
Oftentimes, I choose a more direct translation and leave a footnote instead because 1) I don’t have the author’s permission to translate this into English, I’m merely doing this for my own Chinese language practice and also because I find it interesting.
2) These are purely my own interpretation of the original text, based on my proficiency of Chinese, which admittedly is not as good as plenty of other translators/Chinese people. I’m always conscious of the fact that I’m a native speaker who is much more at the level of a heritage speaker. I hope that everyone can still enjoy the translation, but also keep these things in mind., and quietly hummed in agreement.
Wu Ruo smiled happily: “Then, every morning when you wake up, you have to kiss me.”
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
If he kissed Wu Ruo when he woke up after getting drunk, Hei Xuanyi would probably have to suffer a punch.
“And you have to wait for me to go to the main hall for breakfast together.”
Hei Xuanyi felt that this request was very normal, so he hummed in agreement.
“In future, when I come home from outings, you have to hug me and say ‘you’re back’12I haven’t noticed this in Western/European cultures, but from what I’ve noticed, in Korea/Japan/China, there’s a custom of seeing someone off when they leave the house and welcoming them back when they return from outside. When someone is leaving, you wish them a safe journey to their destination and through whatever they’re doing. When someone is returning, you express the welcome that they safely made their way home. Not everyone practices this, but it’s quite common from what I know. to me. You have to let me know that you care about me.”
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
“And, when we’re walking together, you can’t leave me behind and walk ahead in front of me by yourself. When we’re eating, you should also pick more food for me. I…” Wu Ruo felt that his head was becoming more and more giddy, the person in front of him already had afterimages: “I think I’m sleepy…”
As he said this, he closed his eyes.
Hei Xuanyi gently removed the arm that was on his body.
Suddenly, Wu Ruo opened his eyes again, and looked at Hei Xuanyi with crystal bright eyes: “There’s still something else I haven’t done.”
Hei Xuanyi: “…”
Wu Ruo lifted his body up with some difficulty, and leaned over towards Hei Xuanyi. Then, he lowered his head and pecked Hei Xuanyi’s lips lightly.
When Hei Xuanyi came into contact with those soft lips, his indifferent black gaze flashed with startlement.
“Night.” Wu Ruo closed his eyes immediately once he was done speaking, and simply laid across Hei Xuanyi’s chest and fell asleep.
Hei Xuanyi didn’t snap out of it for a long time; only when the other had crushed him until he couldn’t breathe anymore did he shift them to one side. Hei Xuanyi watched the person sleeping peacefully, who seemed in good spirits and was quite amusing. If from tomorrow onward, he did as Wu Ruo had said, he wondered what kind of reaction Wu Ruo would have.
However, after Wu Ruo woke up, he didn’t remember the things he’d said the night before or the things that he’d done.
From the 1st to the 3rd day of zhengyue13正月 (zheng yue) refers to the 1st lunar month, which is again, different from the word from January (一月, yi yue; literally ‘1st moon/month’). For reference, the 1st to 10th of a lunar month is 初N (chu N, where N is just the regular count for 1 to 10 in Chinese). For the 10th to the 20th, it follows the regular count in Chinese again, then from the 21st to the 29th, they count as 廿N (nian N, where N is the regular count for 1 to 9 in Chinese). The 30th of every month is usually also just ’30’ in Chinese.
For special occasions, like the winter/summer solstice, commonly celebrated Chinese holidays, etc. they’re simply listed as the name of the occasion. Also, the 1st of every month is listed as the name of the month on the calendar, but when you say 初一 (chu yi) you’re specifically mentioning the 1st of the month in the conversation, and not just referring to the month itself., the snow fell heavily, and the cold wind was blowing wildly. Every family and household hid indoors to stay warm. It was only on the morning of the 4th day of zhengyue that the snow gradually stopped.
After Wu Ruo finished breakfast, he went with Hei Xuanyi and the rest to the Wu estate to bainian14There’s just no word to translate 拜年 (bai nian) because there’s simply no such custom in any English speaking countries (that I know of, anyway). Essentially, it’s the practice of going to someone’s home to formally/properly wish them a happy New Year.
Usually, it’s someone of a lower status visiting someone of higher status (younger to older, employee to boss, etc.). So Wu Ruo and Hei Xuanyi must go back to bainian to his parents and the older generation in his family, but Wu Xi can go over to Hei Manor to bainian to Wu Ruo, if they both want to..
After he arrived at the Wu estate, he first went to Bojin Garden with gifts to pay respects to Wu Bofang and his wife, Yao Shuyuan. Then, he went to Xuanwan Garden to bainian to his grandfather Wu Xuanran and his grandmother Mu Xiuwan. Then, he distributed the rest of the gifts to Shujing Garden, Shuli Garden, Shubin Garden and Shutong Garden.
Once Wu Qianjing and the rest heard that Wu Ruo had sent people over with gifts, in a flash, their smiling faces all darkened. They would never forget the humiliation of that day; after sending back all the betrothal gifts, they still had to receive a clan punishment15I think in the previous chapter, I translated 家罚 (jia fa) as a family punishment, or something along those lines. It’s basically a form of punishment only the head of family/clan dishes out, if you break the family/clan’s rules (every family/clan has a set of rules that they have to abide by). I decided to translate it as clan punishment this time around, just so it sounds better than ‘family punishment’.. On top of that, Wu Bofang had dealt with them harshly in front of someone from a younger generation. They had simply lost all their dignity16简直是老脸全部丢尽: literally ‘had simply thrown their old faces completely’. We’ve talked about the concept of 丢脸 (diu lian) before, which literally means ‘to throw face’ where ‘face’ talks about the combination of your reputation/dignity/self-esteem etc., and this is along those lines.
By dishing out the punishment in front of Wu Ruo, who is part of the younger generation, Wu Bofang showed a complete lack of consideration for Wu Xuanran, Wu Qianjing, and the other brothers. It is a huge embarrassment to be old enough to have your own kids, and still be disciplined by your elders, and Wu Bofang did it as if Wu Xuanran and co. were still little children.
So in this sentence, they’re trying to say Wu Bofang made them to ‘lose face’ in front of Wu Ruo, even though they’re grown up and already have their own families. If this doesn’t make sense, please do let me know and I’ll try to explain more clearly.. Outside, rumours about the four of them had made them all the more unpopular17不堪 (bu kan): when used as an adjective either means something along the lines of ‘extremely undesirable’ or when added after a word with negative connotation expresses an emphasis on the negative word. Essentially, the rumours out there reflect on them poorly, but because of how I think ‘undesirable’ can come across in English, I’ve opted to choose ‘unpopular’ instead..
Many people didn’t dare to spend silver to hire people from the Southern main estate for their services18办事情 (ban shi qing) is literally ‘to do tasks’, which is the phrasing often used when Wu Ruo instructs his four handy-dandy corpse servants to do things for him. However, ‘to do tasks’ or ‘run errands’ sounds a bit more servile in English, whereas the Chinese phrase in this context has the nuance more along the lines of ‘hiring a skilled worker to get something done for you’ vs ‘ordering a servant to do a task for you’.
In the next sentence or so, ‘fulfill their end of the bargain’ is actually also 不办事 (bu ban shi) ‘do not do the task (that one has accepted from someone else)’. It sounds better in a less direct translation, so I decided to leave a footnote here like this instead. anymore. This was because, outside, their reputation was notorious. People worried that they would take the silver but not fulfill their end of the bargain. This resulted in the Southern main estate not having any income recently, yet the other main estates were earning big bucks19赚翻天 (zhuan fan tian) is actually modern slang. The original usage of fan tian is after the word 吵 (chao) or 闹 (nao), which means ‘to argue/fight badly’ and literally translates as ‘to argue/fight until the heavens are flipped’. Also on its own, fan tian means ‘to rebel/revolt’ because it is literally ‘to flip the heavens’. Chinese often uses tian/the heavens to reference ‘the will of gods’ or ‘the natural order (of things)’.
The modern slang of zhuan fan tian is something along the lines of ‘to earn so much money that it flips the heavens/the order of nature’ A.K.A ‘earn big bucks’..
After they opened the gifts, they were angered even more. Inside, there were only a few pieces of ginseng that didn’t even have spiritual energy. On the market, it was worth roughly between 1000 to 5000 silver taels. Of course, when compared to the betrothal gifts that Hei Xuanyi had given to Wu Ruo, it really wasn’t as rare. However, the price of one piece of ginseng was already enough for regular commoners to spend the rest of their lifetime securely without worries.
“This Wu Ruo is really too petty, he actually just sent one piece of ginseng over.” Wu Qianjing was so angered that he swept the gift to the ground.
His oldest daughter, Wu Min, saw the ginseng on the floor, and her expression changed slightly. The gift that she and her husband had given wasn’t even as good as Wu Ruo’s, but her dad said that it was petty. Wasn’t he implying that she was also being petty?
Wu Min’s husband Lu Ziding’s expression darkened and he didn’t say anything.
Wu Qianjing’s wife, Sang Dongyi, discreetly tugged on her husband’s sleeve and used her gaze to hint at him to take a look at their own family’s daughter and son-in-law’s expressions.
Wu Qianjing swept a glance at them, but the words had already been said. Saying any other words to make up for it would be a futile effort, he let out a sigh and said: “I’m going to look for erdi.”
Once he left, Sang Dongyi immediately comforted her own daughter: “Your father is just upset with Wu Ruo.”
Wu Min lowered her gaze: “I20Wu Min refers to herself in the third person as 女儿 (nv er) here, which means ‘daughter’, but it felt awkward to put ‘Daughter knows’ so I decided to switch it. know.”
However, the atmosphere was no longer as harmonious as it was before.
After Wu Ruo had finished sending gifts to all the main estates, he brought his people with him to Shuqing Garden.
The moment he entered, he yelled out: “Dad, Mum, dage, xiaomei, we’re back.”
“Xiao-Ruo and Xuanyi are back.” Wu Qianqing, Guan Tong, and the rest came out together to welcome them back, their faces were full of happy smiles.
Hei Xuanyi, who had always been cold and detached, was also affected by their mood21In the original text, it says 受到了感染 which is more literally ‘was infected (by them)’ but I have modified this portion for clarity.; the corner of his mouth turned up in the slightest. Suddenly, he understood the words that Wu Ruo had said while drunk a little more. The feeling of having a family member come out to welcome you home was actually really nice. He could tell that they valued him.
Wu Ruo asked after Wu Qianqing and the others one by one.
Wu Qianqing smiled and said: “The weather is cold, come in quick22In Chinese, it says 快进屋里坐 (kuai jin wu li zuo) which means ‘quickly come into the house and sit’, which is just something Chinese people say to welcome someone into the house. I have modified this portion for flow..”
Wu Ruo sent a glance at Dandan, whose hand was being held by Hei Xuanyi, signalling him to hurry and greet them.
Dandan immediately threw himself at Wu Qianqing: “Hello, Grandfather.”
Wu Qianqing, Guan Tong and the rest were stunned: “Xiao-Ruo, this child is…”
Wu Ruo beamed and said: “My son.”
“Your son?” Wu Qianqing naturally wouldn’t assume that this child was really Wu Ruo’s, but it also wasn’t nice to ask him about it in front of Hei Xuanyi.
He bent down to pick the child up, when he saw the child’s appearance, he couldn’t help but marvel: “This child is really beautiful.”
When Guan Tong and Wu Xi saw that the child was so cute, they both vied to carry him.
Before they came here, Wu Ruo had already taught Dandan how to recognise them, so, when Guan Tong carried him, he immediately greeted sweetly: “Hello Grandmother, hello xiaogugu, hello dabobo23大伯伯 (da bo bo) is the same as the term that Wu Ruo uses to address Wu Qianjing (da bo), just that the word is repeated twice. 小姑姑 (xiao gu gu) refers to your father’s youngest sister, with the gu character also repeated twice. This is just something younger children do, for some reason I don’t really know. There’s no meaning to repeating the word twice, maybe they just do it so that children can pick the word up faster or something..”
His childlike tone of voice melted the hearts of Guan Tong and the rest.
Wu Zhu asked as he played with the little child24I forgot if I mentioned this in a previous footnote, but in Chinese, they refer to a young child as a 娃儿 (wa er) where the word wa also means ‘doll’. I just thought this was really cute, and I’m actually not sure if the word was used to refer to children first or dolls. Like, did they use it to refer to children because they’re as cute as dolls, or are dolls called wa because they were made in the image of young children? Hmm… something to think about and maybe search on Baidu.: “Xiao-Ruo, what’s this child’s name?”
“His formal name is Hei Haoqiong, his nickname is Dandan.”
Wu Xi immediately liked the name ‘Dandan’: “The nickname Dandan is really cute.”
“It’s cold outside, don’t let the child freeze. Whatever you want to talk about, we can talk about it inside the house.” Wu Qianqing let them enter to warm up their bodies.
Once they entered the main hall, Wu Ruo took out the equipment that Hei Xuanyi had crafted and placed it onto the table: “Dad, I got these four equipment crafted from the materials from dabo and the rest. In the future, all of you can carry them with you.”
He picked up a purple bracelet: “This gold-purple jade bracelet is a defensive equipment, it’s most suitable for Mum to wear. The yellow glass25The original text says 佛璃 (fo li) but I think it’s a typo for 玻璃 (bo li) which means glass. Baidu doesn’t come up with anything for fo li either, but please let me know if this is my mistake! waist pendant that deflects curses from others is for xiaomei to use. The last two waist pendants are offensive weapons, Dad and dage can choose whichever one that they like.”
These equipment were equipment that he had purposely asked Hei Xuanyi to craft into wearable items; the purpose was precisely to anger Wu Qianjing and the rest.
Wu Qianqing asked: “Has your equipment been made?”
Wu Ruo pointed to the white jade pendant hanging at his waist: “Mine is here, it’s a defensive equipment like Mum’s.”
Wu Qianqing only relaxed when he saw that his youngest son also had a piece of equipment.
Wu Ruo said: “Xuanyi couldn’t finish it all on his own, so right now only these few equipments have been crafted. When he’s done with the rest, we’ll send it over again.”
Wu Qianqing hurriedly said: “There’s no rush, don’t let Xuanyi overwork his body.”
“Oh26The original sound in Chinese is 咦 (yi), which is the sound you make when you’re surprised. I didn’t leave it as that just in case it evokes ‘disgust’ instead of ‘surprise’.!” Wu Xi looked at Wu Ruo, an expression of astonishment showing: “Erge, I realised that you seem like you’re skinnier.”
Everyone looked toward Wu Ruo.
Guan Tong sized Wu Ruo up closely, and happily said: “It seems like he really is skinnier.”
They had already not seen Wu Ruo for half a month, that’s why they could tell with one glance that Wu Ruo had gotten skinnier.
“Really?” When Wu Ruo heard them say that he had gotten skinnier, he was especially happy.
Wu Zhu smiled and nodded: “You really are skinnier, your whole face isn’t as round27The author uses the adjective 圆润 (yuan run) here, which does mean ’round and smooth’, but according to my dictionary, it’s used to describe handwriting. When used to describe voices, it refers to a ‘sweet and mellow’ sounding voice. as it used to be anymore. Look, the cotton robes you’re wearing are much looser2828 — I think the word the author intended to use is 松垮 (song kua) which means ‘loose’ but the original text uses 松跨 (song kua) which isn’t a proper phrase or term, it’s the words ‘loose’ and ‘stride’ together. If you notice, the pinyin is the same and it looks similar except for the left half of the kua character..”
Wu Ruo also felt that the robes on his body were much baggier, not like it had been before, where his robes were almost about to rip apart at the seams because of him.
Wu Qianqing had a face full of worry: “Xiao-Ruo, you aren’t dieting to lose weight, are you?”
In the past, Wu Ruo had also done this before. However, the more he dieted, the fatter he got. In the end, he got so sick he ended up bedridden.
“I’m not dieting, it was Xuanyi who found a doctor to treat me.”
Wu Zhu patted Hei Xuanyi on the shoulder, and said gratefully: “Xuanyi, thank you for finding a doctor to treat my younger brother.”
Hei Xuanyi replied with a simple: “He’s my wife.”
His words meant: “Wu Ruo is my wife. Finding someone to treat my wife’s condition is a given.”
Everyone understood his words and couldn’t help but smile as their eyes met.
Notes: wow. We’re only 2 footnotes short of a whopping 30 footnotes for a single chapter. This took me a while cause of all the footnotes I had to keep making. Hopefully, the next chapter will not take as long!
