Thanks to 25mandalynn and Holland for the ko-fis!
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Mentions of infidelity, descriptions of sexual assault, mentions of suicidal ideation, descriptions that may be mistaken as suicideAfter Wu Sheng left, other than Wu Xia and Chen Hou, everyone else also found excuses to leave the private room.
Wu Xi, seemingly drunk, asked: “Where has everyone gone?”
“They just went out for some fresh air1吹吹风 (chui chui feng): literally ‘to blow air’. Except it’s not referring to people blowing air out of their mouth, but air being blown at a person by a breeze., they’ll be back really quick.” Chen Hou smiled as he stood up: “There’s not enough food to eat, I’ll go to the kitchen to check if there’s still anything else good to eat. I’ll get the staff to fry us up a few more dishes. Xiao-Xia, you’re the pickiest with food2嘴叼 (zui diao): literally to ‘hang in sb’s mouth’. Not unlike when a cigarette hangs out of someone’s mouth. So the food ‘hangs in the mouth’ and isn’t ‘eaten’., do you want to go and take a look with me, and choose two dishes that you’ll like to eat?”
Wu Xia nodded and put his wine glass down, leaving the room together with Chen Hou.
Wu Xi saw that everyone had left and slumped drunkenly into Wu Ruo’s arms without a care for her public image: “Erge, the Yuanxiang wine is so delicious, can we buy home a pot from Chen Hou?”
A sliver of profoundness flashed in Wu Ruo’s drunken gaze: “I’m only afraid we’ve already finished it all.”
“What a pity.” Wu Xi felt more and more sleepy: “Erge, I’m going to take a short nap. Call me when you’re leaving.”
“Sleep.” Wu Ruo helped her over to the chair in front of the window and seated her properly3Here I’m assuming it isn’t just a single-seater chair, but something more like a luohan chair, which is closer to a two-seater/loveseat and can be lounged on. However, JYB doesn’t specify and merely refers to it as a ‘chair’. before he turned around, adjusting the flames of all the candles in the room and making them brighter. Then, he returned to his original seat and continued drinking the wine.
Not long after, the room to the door was pushed open.
“Xiao-Ruo.”
When Wu Ruo heard that, he raised his head to take a look. The person who had entered was unexpectedly Ba Se.
“Xiao-Ruo, I heard that you were here having a meal, so I came to greet you4看看你 (kan kan ni): more literally ‘to take a look’, but in this case, Ba Se means he came in to say hi real quick. Or, that’s what the phrase is usually supposed to mean..” Ba Se quickly sat down in front of Wu Ruo, looking at him with a face full of infatuation: “I haven’t seen you recently, how have you been?”
Wu Ruo’s expression was cold and aloof: “Because of you infecting them with gu parasites, it caused me to be wronged by everyone from the Southern main estate, how do you think I’ve been doing?”
Ba Se hurriedly explained: “It’s because I owed Wu Anshu a debt, so I had no choice but to act against the Southern main estate. But I swear to you, when I infected them with the gu parasites, I never thought to harm you or your family members. And I never thought of causing the Southern main estate to wrong you, you have to believe me.”
Wu Ruo lowered his eyelids and didn’t speak. His delicate features under the fiery red reflection of the candlelight were like a tender and charming peony flower5Fun fact: the national flower of China is the peony, so beautiful women are often compared to peonies.. He was so beautiful that it caused one to lose their senses6摄人心魄 (she ren xin po): First time seeing this phrase. Baidu says it means ‘to cause one to lose their sense of self, to the point where it is akin to their soul being stolen away’..
Ba Se couldn’t help swallowing his saliva: “Xiao-Ruo…”
Wu Ruo glanced up at him subtly7More accurately, he ‘lifted’ his eyelids but it sounds more comical in English than in the original Chinese so I modified this slightly., his beautiful eyelashes were like feathers8I don’t think the other people from Tianxing (the fictional country this story is set in) would use the same ‘feathers’ descriptor for someone beautiful. If we look back at the way the Tianxing people described Ba Se, it seems to indicate that his culture values feathers in their attire and perhaps as status symbols. I do believe that describing Wu Ruo’s eyelashes as feathers is meant to be specific to Ba Se and his cultural definition of beauty, rather than setting-typical beauty standards., tugging9撩 (liao): may contain flirtatious connotations, especially in this context. lightly at Ba Se’s heartstrings. It made Ba Se unable to hold back from grabbing Wu Ruo’s hands anymore.
Wu Ruo’s reflexes were especially fast. The second that Ba Se touched his hands, Wu Ruo rapidly pulled them away and stood up.
Ba Se was afraid that Wu Ruo would leave, so he also anxiously stood up. However, his foot hooked onto a chair and he almost crashed to the ground. He hurriedly steadied himself with the table and chairs. When Ba Se looked up and saw that Wu Ruo was still standing in his original spot10Translator’s note: Take note of this moment. There’ll be a footnote connecting to this later in the chapter., he immediately walked over and held onto his hand: “Xiao-Ruo, won’t you forgive me?”
It must have been because he’d had too much to drink, but Wu Ruo, embarrassed as if he was a maiden, obediently hummed in response: “Hn.”
Ba Se held his breath and fiercely pulled the other person into his embrace: “Xiao-Ruo, did you know, from the first time I saw you, I already liked you? I don’t care if you have spiritual energy or not, and I don’t care if you already have a husband. I just like you, I like you so much! Every night, I always dream of you. Won’t you come back to my clan with me? I will definitely treat you right.”
Wu Ruo looked at him, embarrassed and at a loss: “Really?”
Ba Se gazed at those moist red petal-like lips and couldn’t resist lowering his head, kissing them.
Downstairs, Wu Sheng saw the horse carriage from Hei Manor arriving and hurried over to receive them. After that, a man with a face full of black scales alighted from the carriage.
Wu Sheng was stunned. He hadn’t thought that Hei Xuanyi himself would personally come to fetch Wu Ruo. However, it was even better this way.
“Where’s Xiao-Ruo?” Hei Xuanyi swept an indifferent look at Wu Sheng.
“He’s just upstairs. He’s had too much to drink tonight, he wouldn’t stop no matter how we tried to persuade him. Halfway through the meal, he passed out drunk.” Wu Sheng spoke as he brought the person up to the third floor where they had been having their meal. Yet Chen Hou and the others, as well as the Northern main estate’s Wu Anshu, Wu Rui, and a few disciples from the Western main estate were all gathered outside the room without entering.
The light in Wu Sheng’s gaze subtly shifted, but he feigned ignorance and asked: “Why are you all standing outside without going in?”
Chen Hou and the others had faces full of awkwardness.
Wu Sheng asked: “What exactly is going on?”
Chen Hou pointed to the room: “Sheng-ge, you’d better listen for yourself.”
Wu Sheng doubtfully walked up to the room’s door until sounds that would make a person’s face turn red and their hearts beat faster traveled out. He turned around and glanced at Hei Xuanyi, then he said awkwardly: “This… how did this happen?”
Chen Hou quietly said: “I don’t know how it happened either. When we came back from the bathroom, we could already hear these sorts of sounds coming from inside the room. It wouldn’t have been appropriate for us to go in and interrupt either11It’s not explicitly stated in Chinese, but the ‘wouldn’t have been appropriate’ refers to the fact that Wu Ruo is technically Hei Xuanyi’s wife and should not be seen in any state of undress or anything less than pristinely clothed other than by his husband or his immediate servants A.K.A the four Shi corpse servants. It doesn’t exactly refer to them barging in on two people having sex..”
Wu Sheng looked toward Hei Xuanyi.
Hei Xuanyi’s expression was icy. He stepped forth and broke the door with one strike. Then, he saw the two men who were tangled together. One of them couldn’t stop calling out the name ‘Xiao-Ruo’.
The group of people behind Hei Xuanyi were stunned silly by what they saw. Following that, they looked at each other and when their eyes met, they hid their laughter behind their fists.
Chen Hou turned his head to glance at the situation downstairs and saw a few people frantically rushing up. He hurriedly whispered softly into Wu Sheng’s ear: “Wu Ruo’s father and Wu Anyi and his lot have arrived.”
When Wu Sheng heard this, he also glanced over at the situation downstairs. When he turned back, he saw Hei Xuanyi, emanating murderous energy, walking forward and forcefully kicking off the person who was on top.
“Ah!” Ba Se shrieked and his whole body slammed viciously into a corner of the walls, passing out in a dead faint. The person beneath had also fainted from being grossly violated.
Wu Sheng and Wu Anshu, who was beside him, made eye contact and smirked meaningfully. Suddenly, Chen Hou shouted: “Xiao-Xia!”
Wu Sheng was stunned: “What’s wrong with Xiao-Xia?”
Chen Hou’s expression was pale and he pointed disbelievingly at the person on the floor, shouting: “It’s Xiao-Xia, Sheng-ge! That person is Xiao-Xia!”
Wu Sheng quickly turned around and, through the other person’s disheveled hair, faintly made out the other person’s face.
He was shocked and he hurriedly threw himself over, pushing aside the other person’s hair, then he said in disbelief: “Xiao-Xia? How come it’s Xiao-Xia? Xiao-Xia, get up quick!”
Other than the disciples from the Western main estate, everyone else’s expressions started changing one after the other.
“What’s happened?” Wu Qianqing, who had been notified to come and fetch his daughter, and Wu Anyi and his lot who were following behind squeezed past the crowd of people. When they entered the room, they saw Wu Sheng anxiously shouting as he held onto Wu Xia, whose robes were in a mess. On top of that, there was another man who wasn’t dressed lying in the corner of the room. With a careless conjecture, anyone could hazard a guess about what had happened.
Chen Hou came back to his senses and hurriedly picked up a robe off of the floor, covering Wu Xia’s body. He mumbled to himself: “How could… how come it’s Xiao-Xia?”
He had clearly gone downstairs together with Wu Xia and after that…
Wu Xia had said that he wanted to go to the bathroom, and Chen Hou hadn’t seen Wu Xia again after that.
With a ringing “pa—!” sound, Wu Sheng slapped Chen Hou across the face, anguished and furious, howling: “Wasn’t Xiao-Xia together with you!”
“He was supposed to be with me, but later he said he wanted to go to the bathroom, so I…” Chen Hou’s voice became softer and softer: “So I didn’t follow along.”
“What’s going on here? How come there are so many people?” A pleasant-sounding voice traveled into the room.
Everyone looked out one after another. Wu Ruo was holding onto Wu Xi, who was still a little drunk, as they walked into the room.
“Wu Ruo—!” Wu Sheng’s eyes were red with anger as he glared viciously at the person entering the room.
Wu Ruo glanced at Wu Sheng holding onto Wu Xia and also glanced at Ba Se, who was by the wall: “What’s wrong with Xiao-Xia? Hey12The original sound is 咦 (yi) but ‘hey’ was a pretty good approximation without butchering the original, so I opted to translate it instead. To be clear, the sound is supposed to convey surprise., how come Ba Se is here as well? And he’s not wearing any clothes either.”
“What?” Wu Anyi glared angrily with wide eyes. He pointed at the man in the corner and asked: “That man is Ba Se?”
“Yes. I’ve met him before a few times at the academy.”
“Motherfucker13他娘的 (ta niang de): Quite difficult to literally translate but is something along the lines of swearing on your mom’s name (I think). In any case, as mentioned much earlier on in the story, most Chinese swearing is based on cursing out a relative., we searched for him for so long and we actually ended up finding him here.” Wu Anyi turned to Wu Anqi and said: “Dage, let’s capture him.”
Wu Anqi nodded his head and worked together14合力 (he li): Literally to ‘unite strengths/ability to do something’. with Wu Anyi to tie Ba Se up.
“…” It wouldn’t do for Wu Anshu to stop them, so he could only stand by and watch as Ba Se was taken away by the others15On one hand, Wu Anshu was the person who brought Ba Se to the Wu estate to cause havoc, so he technically owes it to Ba Se to back the guy up. On the other hand, it’s inappropriate for him to stop his own family member from seeking revenge against an outsider so it’s not like he can tell Wu Anyi or Wu Anqi to stop..
Wu Ruo’s gaze fell upon Hei Xuanyi, who had not spoken up the entire time, and he said with shock: “Xuanyi, what are you doing here?”
Hei Xuanyi went over to him and took Wu Ruo into his arms: “You’re alright16没事吧 (mei shi ba): Literally ‘nothing happened, right?’?”
Wu Ruo gave a small smile: “I’m alright.”
“Let’s go back.” Hei Xuanyi pushed Wu Xi into Wu Qianqing’s arms and pulled Wu Ruo out of the room.
Wu Qianqing didn’t want to let his daughter look at such an unsightly scene, so he also hurriedly brought her away.
The others who were left behind all looked at each other.
The disciples from the Western main estate quietly said: “What exactly happened here?”
Someone had informed them to come and spectate on a good show, was it all to catch Wu Xia having illicit sexual relations with someone else?
However, this matter was also quite shocking. They never would’ve thought that Wu Xia would like men, to the point where he would even come to a restaurant17酒楼 (jiu lou): Your typical restaurant/inn in guzhuang dramas where characters can go in for a meal and there are private dining rooms, as well as rooms for staying in. The term is used to refer to hotels in the modern era and contextually has been used to refer to the restaurant portion of Zuiyue Restaurant, so I translated it as ‘restaurant’. But that is, as you can now see, not 100% accurate. for a secret rendezvous18私会 (si hui): literally a ‘private meeting’. This term carries a sexual/illicit connotation to it., doing something that corrupted common decency19伤风败俗 (shang feng bai su): literally something along the lines of ‘to damage one’s dignity and fail to abide by common convention’. It is quite frowned upon to engage in pleasurable sexual activity and it was considered a vice. It’s not so much the gay part that is a shocker here, although it definitely is surprising. It’s the second half where ‘Wu Xia’ goes to the inn and has a secret rendezvous that’s more shocking.
Nobody’s really going to bat an eyelid if you have a gay lover that you spend a lot of time with doing respectable hobbies like having scholarly debates, as long as your household is managed properly but if you book a room to have sex with said gay lover? Good grief, what a shocker!.
Someone said: “This matter doesn’t seem as straightforward as it looks on the surface.”
Wu Sheng heard their conversation and roared furiously: “Get out! All of you, get out!”
Wu Anshu and Wu Rui hastily chased everyone from the Western main estate out and only closed the door after warning them not to spread rumors.
At this moment, Wu Xia came around and saw Wu Sheng, who was holding onto him. Doubt flashed across his eyes: “Ge, what happened to me?”
After he finished speaking, he realized that his own voice was very husky. His throat was also so hoarse that it was uncomfortable.
Wu Sheng feigned steadiness and said: “You just passed out from getting too drunk.”
How could Wu Sheng possibly tell Wu Xia that he had been sexually assaulted by a man? If Wu Xia knew the truth of the situation, he would definitely go crazy.
“Ge, my body hurts so much, especially…” Wu Xia felt like the bottom half of his body was on fire. He was so ashamed that he couldn’t even say it out loud.
Wu Sheng lowered his head and didn’t speak, tidying Wu Xia’s clothes for him.
“What exactly happened to me?”Wu Xia lowered his head and saw that his own chest was covered in splotches of green and purple20He’s referring to hickeys. His chest was covered in hickeys..
Everyone lowered their heads and didn’t dare to look at Wu Xia or speak.
“Was I beaten up by someone?” Wu Xia said, uncomprehending: “If I had been beaten up, how come I have no impression of it at all? I remember going downstairs together with Chen Hou, then later on…”
No one knew what Wu Xia had thought of but his expression became uglier and uglier. Suddenly, he let out an anguished and infuriated shout.
Wu Sheng anxiously asked: “Xiao-Xia, what’s wrong?”
“I remember it now, I remember everything.” Wu Xia remembered that after he had separated from Chen Hou, he had gone to the bathroom. After that, he hadn’t known why but his body wouldn’t listen to his own commands. After that, he climbed straight to the third floor from the back gardens. He flipped into the room that they had previously been eating in through the windows of the other rooms.
Following that, Ba Se forcefully embraced him and kissed him on the lips21Translator’s note: In the footnote from before where I asked you to take note of how ‘Wu Ruo’ is still standing in the same spot after Ba Se tripped is probably the moment Wu Xia got swapped in. More explanation on this in the next chapter..
He had wanted to resist, but his body wouldn’t listen to him and even wanted more.
After that…
Wu Xia didn’t dare to continue down that train of thought. He let out a loud howl as if he had gone crazy and shoved Wu Sheng aside. With the rims of his eyes reddened, he glared at everyone present and roared, anguished: “All of you saw everything, didn’t you? Saw me with Ba Se, right?”
Chen Hou hurriedly denied it: “No, we didn’t see anything at all!”
“All of you still want to lie to me at this point? I’ve already remembered everything.”
Wu Sheng anxiously tried to comfort him: “Xiao-Xia, it’s not what you think.”
Wu Xia’s eyes were about to pop out of their sockets: “Not what I think? Then what is it? It was all because of your22Here, Wu Xia is referring to all of them present in the plural form. stupid idea! To lure Wu Ruo out, you forced me to apologize to him. You said that you wanted to use the opportunity to frame Wu Ruo. But what now? Where is Wu Ruo? And who is the one that everyone saw getting sexually assaulted instead? Tell me! All of you, tell me!”
At this moment, he even wanted to die23想死的心都有了 (xiang si de xin dou you le): something along the lines of ‘had even gotten the heart to want to die’. .
The heartwrenching roars made Wu Sheng’s heart ache anxiously. With the rims of his eyes reddened, he choked back his sobs and said: “We didn’t think that things would turn out this way, we…”
“What’s the point of explaining this to me now? The reality is that I was pressed down by a man and was even seen by so many people. In the future, how will I still have the dignity to face anyone?” Tears of grief and anger rolled down from the reddened corners of Wu Xia’s eyes in two tracks. Suddenly, he turned around and jumped down from the window.
“Xiao-Xia!” Wu Sheng hastily hurried to the window, but he only saw that Wu Xia was already riding atop a horse and leaving Zuiyue Restaurant.
He turned around and said to Chen Hou angrily: “What are all of you still doing here instead of chasing after him?”
“Yes, sir24In Chinese, there is no mention of ‘sir’, but it feels very abrupt and unnatural to have them say just ‘yes’ in English without anything else added.!” A few of them hurriedly rushed out of the room.
Wu Sheng looked at Wu Anshu with fury and hatred: “Shouldn’t you explain this whole fiasco to me? You clearly said that the person Ba Se likes is Wu Ruo, and you also agreed to go up against Wu Ruo together with me. But what’s going on now? How do you want me to go back and explain everything to my father?”
Wu Anshu: “…”
He had known about the dispute between the two brothers and Wu Ruo, so he made use of them to lure Wu Ruo out and get him drunk. Then, he would hand everything else over to Ba Se. But he had never thought that things would end up like this. What exactly had happened here?
“Wu Anshu, if anything happens25三长两短 (san chang liang duan): ‘three long, two short’. This idiom refers to any sort of tragedy or disaster but is now commonly used to refer to a person’s death. There are a couple of guesses about what the ‘three long, two short’ refer to but it is thought to have originated from a piece of literature from the Ming dynasty.
Common guesses for what the idiom refers to are: the wooden planks that make up a coffin or wooden strips used to secure coffins before nails were used or the three joss sticks and two candles used during funerals/ancestor worship/worship of the dead in the family. No one knows for sure and there are some other theories, but these were some of the popular explanations offered by Baidu.
Wu Sheng means if Wu Xia commits suicide, he’ll hold Wu Anshu responsible. Even though this was his own stupid idea. to Xiao-Xia, our Eastern main estate will not forgive your Northern main estate26誓不两立 (shi bu liang li): this idiom came up before! It refers to ‘irreconcilable differences’. It was very difficult to retain the nuance or meaning of it without defying English grammar/sentence conventions..”
Wu Sheng flipped the side table over with one kick, then turned around and left the room.
“Dage, what exactly is going on?” Wu Rui was so frightened that he couldn’t even think clearly.
Before coming, his dage had said that he wanted to bring Wu Rui to the Zuiyue Restaurant for a good show, how did it end with the Northern main estate becoming enemies with the Eastern main estate?
Wu Anshu sighed and said: “Let’s go back and explain this clearly to Father first so that Father and the others can prepare themselves27He’s saying something like “so they can brace themselves” for whatever the Eastern main estate might throw at them for this. Made me think of that gif of that old lady going “honey, you’ve got a big storm coming”. Honestly, that gif is a really good reaction gif for this whole novel LOL.”
This time, the Eastern main estate definitely wouldn’t let them off easily.
It really was an unlucky year28流年不利 (liu nian bu li): the same phrase as the chapter title. Liu nian refers to one’s luck in any given year according to fortune-telling. The second half of the phrase just means ‘unlucky’. This phrase was interesting to me because I’ve never heard of liu nian before and it was interesting that there’s a phrase for such a specific thing. Anyone else knows of a similar phrase in other languages or even in English?. They had just ‘reconciled’ with the people from the Southern main estate last night and had already run into a mess like this with the Eastern main estate today.
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