After Wu Ruo, Hei Xuanyi, and the others had returned to the restaurant in Gaoling City and had their dinner, the sky had already turned completely dark. The lantern viewing festivities had also officially begun.
The whole of Gaoling City was brightly lit with lantern lights; festive lanterns were hung around everywhere. Every major street and small alley was thrumming with people going here and there. Some people were watching the dancing dragon lantern, and there were also people viewing the festive lanterns, and others were guessing lantern riddles. The degree of excitement at night didn’t seem to lose to the degree of excitement in the day.
Wu Ruo acknowledged that his literary talents were not up to par, and so he didn’t go guessing lantern riddles. After taking a look at the dragon lantern and having viewed the festive lanterns, he went together with Hei Xuanyi and the others to the riverside to light lanterns1放花灯 (fang hua deng): literally means to ‘let go of festive lanterns’, usually, people write messages on a lantern, lighting it up and the lanterns are structured so that they float up into the sky. I think the general idea is for the lanterns to float up to the heavens, carrying your wishes, and hoping that the deities up there will be able to receive and fulfil them.
There is also the practice of lighting the lanterns and letting them flow through the rivers, which is what happens here in Loser Wife. Not so sure about the general intent of letting them flow through the river, but I think the gist of it should also be about bringing your wishes to the deities, in hopes that it’ll be fulfilled..
Once Hei Xin heard that they wished to light lanterns, he immediately bought all the lanterns from a stall, so that they could slowly light them up.
Wu Ruo wrote ‘wishing my family a peaceful path ahead2一路平安 (yi lu ping an): this term is actually usually translated to something like ‘bon voyage’ or ‘wishing you a pleasant journey’, and literally means something like ‘peace and safety on the road’. You would normally say this if someone is going somewhere, and Wu Ruo’s family isn’t actually… going anywhere, not literally anyway, so I am assuming the author meant for Wu Ruo to wish this for his family on the metaphorical road that they have ahead of them.‘ onto the festive lantern, then put the lit lantern onto the river, watching as it floated away with the river’s current.
Next to him, Dandan held onto a lotus-shaped lantern and ran towards Hei Xuanyi’s side: “Father, help me to write a few words.”
Hei Xuanyi picked him up into his arms, and asked quietly: “What to write?”
“I hope that Father and Daddy can be together forever.”
Hearing this, Wu Ruo was a little stunned, and he turned his head to look toward them.
Hei Xuanyi also couldn’t help but look at Wu Ruo. At that moment, both of their gazes met each other.
“Father, write it quickly!” Dandan anxiously rushed him.
Hei Xuanyi tore his gaze away, lifted his brush, and wrote Dandan’s wish on the lantern, then watched as Dandan placed it on the river by himself.
Wu Ruo didn’t look at the lantern, instead, he was spellbound by the sight of the father-son pair. Under the illumination of the lantern light, that face full of black scales had become much gentler. It no longer made one feel extremely frightened. Those long and thick black eyelashes fluttered gently at the same rhythm as that of the small toddler in those arms.
As Wu Ruo watched, he couldn’t help but laugh. They truly were related by blood3还真是父子俩: this phrase translates more literally as ‘really were a pair of father and son’. It reflects the Chinese belief that children take after their parents, not just in physical appearances, but also in their behaviour. I’m not sure if other cultures also have this belief, so I’m making a note of it just in case..
When Hei Xuanyi heard the sound of his laughter, he turned to look at Wu Ruo.
Wu Ruo hurriedly averted his gaze, looking elsewhere, and saw that there were many lanterns left of the ones that Hei Xin had bought. As such, he took another one. However, he didn’t know what he should wish for.
Wu Ruo looked around everywhere at the people lighting lanterns, but he caught Hei Xin and Hei Gan sneaking glances towards him.
Hei Xin and Hei Gan hurriedly looked away, pretending to write wishes on lanterns.
Wu Ruo’s gaze flickered for a moment, then he picked up a brush and wrote a sentence on the lantern. Afterward, he placed the lantern onto the river.
Hei Xin glanced at the lantern on the river, and rapidly turned around, aiming a sharp look at a bodyguard behind him.
The bodyguard nodded his head, and quietly left the riverside.
“Daddy, what did you wish for?” Dandan flopped into Wu Ruo’s arms and asked.
Wu Ruo laughed and said: “If I say it aloud, it won’t come true.”
“Ah?” Dandan was stunned, and following that, he looked like he was about to burst into tears.
Wu Ruo thought about how their child had asked Hei Xuanyi to write his wish, and hurriedly comforted him: “Your wish isn’t the same. Your father and I are already together. In the future, of course, we will still be together, and we will never separate from you.”
Dandan’s tears were pooled in his eyes, looking as though they were about to start falling: “Really?”
“Of course.” Wu Ruo looked at Hei Xuanyi: “Hei Xuanyi, can’t you say something?”
Hei Xuanyi hummed indifferently in agreement: “Hn.”
Wu Ruo rolled his eyes: “What do you mean ‘hn’? I asked you to say something, I didn’t ask you to just make a sound.”
“…” Hei Xuanyi said lightly: “Won’t separate.”
Hei Xin and Hei Gan looked at each other and smiled.
The sky grew darker, and the cold winds grew stronger. White snow gradually started to drift from the sky, and the curtain on the lantern viewing festivities thus fell.
After Dandan got onto the horse carriage, he lay in Hei Xuanyi’s arms and fell asleep.
Wu Ruo saw that, even after falling asleep, the corners of this child’s lips were still curled up high, and he also laughed. He could tell that Dandan had, especially, had a lot of fun today.
Hei Xuanyi heard the sound of his laughter and lifted his gaze, asking: “Very happy?”
Wu Ruo froze for a moment, then nodded, not denying it: “Hn, I was very happy today. I haven’t been this happy in a really long time.”
In his previous lifetime, ever since his older brother and younger sister died, he had never been as happy anymore. And he’d never spent such a wonderful Shangyuan Festival anymore.
Today, other than being happy, he had also been very surprised4意外 (yi wai): I remember explaining this in a previous footnote before, but another one here. This word more directly translates as “outside of one’s intentions/expectations”. that Hei Xuanyi would accompany him to sled. In the beginning, he had even thought that he would only be able to stand by the shore and watch their child play.
Wu Ruo thought about how, in this lifetime, his family members were all still healthy and a broad heartfelt smile bloomed across his face. It was as dazzling as a sunflower, attracting one’s attention.
Hei Xuanyi was a little enraptured as if he could already see what Wu Ruo would look like in the future after he had lost weight.
Wu Ruo yawned: “I’m so sleepy, I’ll take a nap.”
He laid down on the soft cushion and closed his eyes.
Hei Xuanyi kept looking at him, and only looked away when the horse carriage arrived at Hei Manor.
Hei Xuanyi handed Dandan, who was soundly asleep, over to Hei Gan to carry him back to his room.
Wu Ruo headed straight back to their room to shower and sleep.
After he left, Hei Xin walked forth to Hei Xuanyi, taking out a piece of paper and handing it to Hei Xuanyi: “Master, this is the second wish that Madam wished for.”
Hei Xuanyi pursed his lips tightly, not quite pleased that Hei Xin had retrieved the piece of paper containing Wu Ruo’s wish.
Hei Xin sensed this and said apologetically: “I beg Master’s pardon, this old one acted on their own wishes and ordered someone to look for Madam’s lantern. However, I would still like to ask Master to take a look at Madam’s wish.”
Hei Xuanyi’s face was full of hesitation, but in the end, he still decided to take a look. Crooked and twisted words filled his gaze, and were written on the paper: I wish that in the future, Hei Xuanyi and I can keep living in harmony together. I also wish that every day, from here on, can be filled with as much happiness as today. Without deceptions and secrets5欺骗和欺瞒 (qi pian he qi man): Both words contain the same ‘qi’ character that means to cheat someone. ‘Qi pian’ refers to fooling/bluffing someone, to cheat something out of them. ‘Qi man’ refers to hiding something from someone, again, to cheat something out of them., and without all sorts of schemes and plots.
Hei Xin said in low tones: “This old one thinks that the Madam purposely wrote this to be seen by Master.”
With Madam’s intelligence, he definitely would have guessed that Hei Xin would send someone to look for his river lantern, to sneak a look at what kind of wish he wrote.
Hei Xuanyi suddenly crushed the paper in his fist and walked out of the main hall without a word.
That night, Wu Ruo didn’t wait for Hei Xuanyi to return to the bedroom to sleep. However, the next morning when he woke up, he saw 23 pieces of top-grade equipment placed on the spot that Hei Xuanyi normally laid on.
He picked up one of the pieces of equipment to take a look, shocked. Then, he sorted the equipment into 5 different portions and packed them well. Only afterward did he call for Shi Yuan and the others to enter and assist him.
When Wu Ruo came out of the inner rooms, he saw Hei Xuanyi sitting in front of the table, drinking tea: “Did you not sleep the whole of last night?”
“Hn. Was making equipment yesterday.” Hei Xuanyi put the teacup down: “Will come back and rest after seeing your brother off.”
Wu Ruo glanced at the shadows of dark circles under his eyes and instructed Shi Yuan to serve their breakfast.
After eating breakfast, Wu Ruo, Hei Xuanyi, and the others arrived at the Wu estate’s Shuqing Garden together.
In the main hall, Wu Qianqing couldn’t stop worrying and kept instructing Wu Zhu on the important things to take note of when on a long journey. As for Guan Tong, she was helping Wu Zhu check over his bag6包袱 (bao fu): calling it a ‘bag’ isn’t wrong, but it’s this specific kind of bag. with red-rimmed eyes, checking to see if he had forgotten anything. And Wu Xi was hugging Wu Zhu, crying all over the place; she couldn’t bear for Wu Zhu to leave.
“Dad, Mum, dage, Xiao-Xi, we’re here.” Wu Ruo called out as he walked in.
“You’re here.” Wu Qianqing took a look at Wu Ruo and company and sighed again. If it weren’t because he was worried that ersao7Wu Qianqing is referring to Wu Yu’s mom here, aka Wu Qianli’s wife, Ruan Lanru. and the others would secretly come looking for trouble with Wu Zhu, he wouldn’t be rushing Wu Zhu to leave just after Shangyuan Festival either.
Wu Ruo got Shi Yuan to take the equipment out, then, he gave one portion of the equipment to Wu Zhu: “Dage, it’s all equipment inside here. You have to keep it well, don’t let anyone else steal it from you.”
It was a pity that his older brother didn’t have an infinite shadow pocket like him, otherwise, he wouldn’t have to carry everything by hand.
Wu Zhu didn’t decline his offer and accepted the equipment, patting Wu Ruo on the shoulder as he said: “I’m entrusting Dad and Mum to you8Long footnote: Just wanted to make a note about this: what Wu Zhu actually says here is something closer to “in future, (I/we) will be relying on you to take care of Dad and Mum”.
Some personal cultural notes on this, which may not be 100% accurate, but I’m sharing based on my own experiences of being Chinese diaspora and what I understood from the dialogue. Feel free to skip over this footnote, as this is just additional commentary from me.
So, filial piety is a big thing in Chinese culture. When a person becomes of age, they’re expected to repay the gratitude of being raised by their parents by taking care of their parents in turn. This doesn’t refer to parents who are incapable of taking care of themselves, for whatever reason. Even if your parents are healthy and perfectly able to provide for themselves, you’re expected to offer help, give them an allowance, shoulder the responsibilities of the family, etc. and not just go off and do whatever you want for yourself.
This responsibility largely falls onto the eldest son, but other children are also expected to fulfil their filial duty towards their parents as well. So Wu Zhu isn’t just saying this because he thinks Wu Qianqing is still disabled (by the novel’s standards), because he thinks his mother has always been disabled, or that they’re incapable of taking care of themselves. He’s saying this out of the filial piety that every Chinese child is expected to fulfill towards their parent.
A few lines down, Wu Zhu also asks Xuanyi to take care of Wu Ruo. Again, it’s not that Wu Zhu thinks Wu Ruo is incompetent, but because Wu Ruo married into the Hei family as Xuanyi’s wife. It’s a whole ‘conventional expectations of a man’s role as a husband and a (wo)man’s role as a wife’ thing. If I elaborated on it, it’ll probably become a whole chapter’s length of a beast..”
Wu Ruo nodded his head: “Of course, dage. Be careful while you’re outside. Even if the other party is someone from the Wu family, you still have to be wary.”
After the matter with Wu Yu, Wu Zhu also wouldn’t believe in others so easily again.
Hei Xuanyi took out a few bottles of top-grade medicine pills and gifted them to Wu Zhu.
“Thank you, Xuanyi. You have to take good care of Wu Ruo from here on.” Wu Zhu bade farewell to everyone one by one, then picked up the few bags that were on the table, and prepared to leave.
Wu Qianqing yelled9If you’re curious about how outsiders can’t hear them, each estate that each family lives in is quite large. The main hall is usually at the heart of the plot of land, so unless you’re within the estate and lurking directly outside the building that they’re inside of, you’re most likely not able to hear much beyond muffled noises if you can even hear anything.
Besides, servants/bodyguards will be standing around outside any building occupied by their master, so unauthorized guests would be caught unless they’re super sneaky/talented in the art of stealth. to stop him: “Xiao-Zhu, take your bags and come with me.”
Wu Zhu was stunned for a moment, then he followed Wu Qianqing out of the main hall.
Everyone else looked at each other uncertainly. Not long after, Wu Qianqing returned on his own.
Guan Tong asked hoarsely: “What about Xiao-Zhu?”
Wu Qianqing said: “I already got him to leave through the secret passage.”
Everyone stared at him, stupefied.
Wu Qianqing explained: “Because of the matter with Wu Yu, ersao thought of all kinds of ways to get back at Xiao-Zhu. However, Xiao-Zhu has been staying inside Shuqing Garden without leaving, so she hasn’t had the chance to take any action. Now that Xiao-Zhu is about to leave, she would definitely take the opportunity while Xiao-Zhu is leaving to teach him a lesson. So, I got Xiao-Zhu to leave through the secret passage.”
Wu Ruo raised his eyebrows; he’d never known that there was a secret passage in their house.
His dad had really hidden it quite deeply.
Wu Xi asked curiously: “Our house has a secret passage? How come I never knew about it?”
Wu Qianqing said: “This secret passage was something that I secretly dug, even your mum doesn’t know about it.”
Wu Ruo’s gaze shifted and he said: “Ever since we got back my betrothal gifts, Grandfather, dabo, and everyone else has had many complaints about us. Now, with the matter of dage beating wuge up at the academy, erbo and his family dislike us even more.
“It’s even reached the point where all the estates are already obviously excluding everyone from Shuqing Garden. If things continue on like this, some unsavory things might even happen. Dad, have you ever thought of splitting the family10Collectivism was a huge thing in China, and still is. The idea of moving out of one’s ancestral home (the physical plot of land) and establishing your own house (the physical thing, not the concept of a family) is a lot less outlandish now, but back in this vague guzhuang era that Loser Wife is set in, it was a pretty big deal.
‘Strength in numbers’ and ‘we take care of our own’ was a huge thing. This could be accomplished if everyone lived together in one huge plot of land. All the familial assets could be kept together, families could help each other out, if emergencies happened, everyone could band together to fix the problem, etc.
For huge, prominent families like the Wu clan, it’s probably also a sort of status symbol to be able to manage such a huge estate of people (since it takes a lot of work and money to build up and maintain). I think under normal circumstances, separating the household just doesn’t happen.? About moving out from the Wu estate?”
Wu Qianqing was stunned for a moment, then his expression turned solemn and he said: “Xiao-Ruo, in future, don’t bring up this matter of splitting the family anymore.”
When Wu Ruo heard this, his gaze flickered.
Just now, when he mentioned splitting the family, his dad actually didn’t get very angry. This was a very positive prospect and also hinted that his dad had very possibly thought of this before. It was just that his dad hadn’t figured out a way to move out. With this, things would be much easier to handle.
Wu Ruo thought of how Hei Xuanyi hadn’t slept for a whole night and thus didn’t stay around to eat lunch. After distributing the equipment to his Dad and Mum, he left the Wu estate.
After returning to Hei Manor, he suddenly thought of something. So he asked Hei Xin about the fortunetelling incident from two days ago: “Xin-bo, did you really help my dage to divine his fortune, or were you just pretending to do it?”
That day, it was he who asked Hei Xin to pretend to divine Wu Zhu’s fortune. The purpose of doing so was to send Wu Zhu to Zuiyue Restaurant under the guise of the divinatory arts.
Hei Xin said: “This old one really did divine Young Master Zhu’s fortune.”
Wu Ruo hurried to ask: “Then, did you manage to divine anything?”
Right now, without Wu Yu by his dage‘s side, and without anyone else, Wu Ruo wondered if Wu Zhu’s destiny was still the same as before.
Hei Xin shook his head: “I could not divine anything at all.”
Notes: This chapter was originally titled Lantern Festival (4) by the author, but I’ve corrected the title here because there isn’t a Part 3 between this chapter and the previous one.
I just wanted to say I find it really cute that Wu Ruo took Hei Xuanyi’s suggestion from a couple of chapters ago to heart. I love the ‘arranged marriage-to-love’ trope and these two are just killing it! 
