CH 35

There was a tea stand near the city gates of Chang’an that was extraordinarily bustling with activity. … most of them would stop for a moment to rest their feet and drink tea, and then talk idly about the major powers of the five lakes and four seas1.

It was nightfall, and a dark shadow passed in a sudden blur outside the study.

Su Shiyu’s expression remained at ease, still lifting up his sleeve to slowly grind the pine-smoke ink. The room’s door suddenly opened wide, the night breeze dimming the candle-flame buoyantly. A path of frost-glare8 broke through the gloom of the night, bringing with it a gale that hit one’s face head-on.

Su Shiyu indifferently kept his eyelids drooped and didn’t move, quietly pressing the sleeve-dagger in his palm.

The guard watching over the door of the Su residence leaned against the wall drowsily, when he was abruptly startled awake by the sound of footfalls his ears suddenly caught. Turning his head back to see the approaching person, he did not have time to react before he was again shocked by the jade pendant the other person took out, “You……(respectful)”

The guard opened his mouth but was tongue-tied, took a glance at the dim lantern light from the distant study, and moved his gaze with difficulty to Chu Mingyun before him. He opened the residence door in a flustered manner, and could not help glancing at that jade pendant again, then bent his body forward, extremely deferential: “You (respectful)…..please take care13.”

Chu Mingyun cast a sidelong glance at the jade pendant in his hand, and frowned in incomprehension.

T/N: Oh…it’s me again…so updates will be more regular from now as promised. Maybe not daily but at least once every 3 days? This chapter took a whole week because it’s written so well that it defies translation…also I’m trying to improve readability of the translation so I will be replacing/ inserting some words not in the original text [like this] so that the grammatical flow is not impeded (as opposed to a direct translation, because sentences in chinese omit words not considered vital for understanding the sentence).

1.五湖四海 – idiomatic expression basically meaning ‘all over the world’.

2.软骨头 – it’s the equivalent of calling someone spineless / lily-livered.

3. The previous ‘conquer’ was translated from ‘打下来’ to which the person replies, ‘打什么打‘ so I wanted to make it obvious it was a direct response to those words.

4.血汗钱 – literally, ‘blood-sweat money’

5. 一头雾水 – literally, a head filled with mist and water. Common expression meaning one is completely confused.

6.添了气郁 – I’m guessing at what this phrase means, because otherwise this says that his meridians were blocked which I don’t think is what the author is referring to.

7.游侠 – martial artists wandering the jianghu who take on the odd security guard detail or mercenary work. It somewhat means ‘wandering hero’, but is the equivalent of ‘knight errant’.

8.一道寒芒 – this refers to light / glare that makes something look cold/ feel cold. It’s a somewhat unique expression to chinese culture I guess.

9.狗官 – literally, ‘dog official’. Many chinese insults compare the object of your scorn to a dog or a pig, but more commonly the former.

10. 流光溢彩 – idiom that means something sparkles with brilliant iridescence, and that the refracted light resembles liquid in its movement.

11. 波澜不惊. An idiom from Pan Zhongyan’s《岳阳楼记》.

12. 纹兽 – So the vassal kings all have this beast (may be mythical or a real animal) assigned to them that henceforth is representative of them. Like how the eagles represented the Prussian kings in German history I guess. It would be embroidered on all their official outfits and engraved on their seals and used as the motif for all the things relevant to their rule. This is pretty important because it also represents their rank at times. No one but the emperor was allowed to have a dragon pattern on their clothing, for example.

13. 您慢走 – literally, “you walk slowly”. It was used as an expression of concern for respected guests, like ‘walk as slowly as you need to, I won’t rush you away’.