From Sha Po Lang (Stars Of Chaos) Ch 11,

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 2, Notes 8/8, pages 370 - end

The story is progressing!!!

“muttered into... ear" in Chinese here is 咬耳朵道, "bite ear said." Totally lets you know where Gu Yun is when he's talking to Tan Hongfei, yah?

Chinese for the entire 长庚 quote: 可惜没有长花容月貌，掷果盈车的大帅不肯要。

花容月貌 - flower appearance moon appearance (it sounds good in Chinese, trust me)

掷果盈车 - throw fruit fill carriage. There was this famously beautiful man name 潘安 Pan An (247-300 AD) who was so famously beautiful that when women saw his carriage coming, they would link hands and slow it down just to get a peak at him, and then they would throw flowers and fruit at him in appreciation, so that by the time he got home, his carriage was full of fruit and flowers. Famous Chinese Beauties <3

启明 Qiming -- Pleco: "Classical Chinese name for planet Venus in the east before dawn"

混账. Pleco: Noun. Vulgar. "scoundrel; bastard; son of a bitch"

But you can't say the latter two to Chang Geng, and I don't want to talk about body parts like that between Gu Yun and Chang Geng, so I think we should all read this as "Unreasonable Impudent Scoundrel."

And that's it! I hope you enjoyed learning about heel ropes and pills of immortality and historically significant hotness with me. I learn huge amounts of (Chinese and) Chinese culture every time I pick up a Priest book, and I hope you all can enjoy it as much as I do.

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

WHEN SANITY IS NOT HOME

Starring: DaGe, Director Nie, ErGe, and Yaomei.

Sorry, I can't breathe👻

Will humanity ever be free of the influence of Edna Mode? Can any of us so much as consider the character design for a hero or villain without her manifesting in the room, fully aware of our sins?

I’m annotating the Official Translation of MDZS before I lend it out to non-Chinese friends, and as I was reading I realized that the Chapters are different! Paper Book ch 1 = online book ch 1-4!

Which is ok, fine, sure…but that also means that there are no incredibly cute chapter titles to make the relationship between author and reader feel more intimate. I love MXTX as much as I do partially because every few chapter titles felt like it was a charming little inside joke that she wrote just for me (and her other millions of readers).

Here is a screenshot and link to Awesome Charming Cute Chapter Titles:

Here are the English Translations, courtesy of the MDZS wiki ❤️:

So my questions now:

do I just Pencil In the Cute Chapter Titles in the paper novel where they would/should appear?

Do they matter as much when it’s so difficult to translate the completely different style that they are written in — cutesy slang — vs. the writing style of the novel — proper “period” XianXia? I mean, of all the LWJ references in the chapter titles, she only writes his actual name Lan Wangji “properly” twice. Twice, in over 100 chapters. I learned how to read slang in Chinese because of these chapter titles! (And the end-chapter notes, and some of the comments :)

What’s the best way to introduce this story to a non-Chinese, non-XianXia, non-BL-reader?!?!?

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Volume 4

I finally finished Volume 4! It was great. I love Chang Geng and Gu Yun. And poor Shen Yi and awesome Chen QingXu.

I have a a bunch of little Interesting Cultural Tidbits; maybe two alternative translations; and two places where retaining the webnovel's paragraph breaks would have been very helpful. Here we go:

Yah, so -- they were not planning on visiting friends over the next few days while they were busy infiltrating the rebels; rather, they had, over the last few days, made some good friends and built relations strong enough to make "come over for dinner" seem like a reasonable next step.

No, Gu Yun is not about to eat an American Hamburger; rather, he says that he wants "车大的烧饼把拉车的活驴夹成火烧" which is, roughly, a northern Chinese flatbread sandwich (meat layered between two pieces of flatbread). Word-by-word, this "donkey burger the size of a horse cart is

车大的烧饼flatbread as big as a horse cart

把拉车的活驴 take the live donkey pulling the cart

夹成火烧 and put it in between, to make it into a hot sandwich.

Donkey burger!

Here, Fake Prince Yan is calling his companion, the Fake Xu Ling, "少东家 Young Master" because that's a polite way to refer to your boss's son (or any big boss's son?) when you are talking to him. In normal English, this would read like "Even you have gotten embroiled in this mess."

I think the grammatical tense on this might be off. He hasn't had his birthday yet, so I think it might read more smoothly as "...noodles on his birthday, and he would also have to publicly confess his errors in governance that day." ... 过个生日连碗面都没人给下，还要当着天下痛陈自己执政过错。

Three-headed and six-armed god of war! It's a Nezha reference. You all know Nezha, right? Nezha 哪吒 is my favorite god <3

“Fish in muddy waters" is 浑水摸鱼, which means "to take advantage of a crisis for personal gain" (www.mdbg.net)

This is one my favorite idioms: 瓜田李下， which is short for 瓜田不纳履，李下不整冠, which means "don't fix your shoes in a melon field; and don't adjust your hat/hair-crown in a plum orchard," which we can summarize as "Don't act suspicious."

top: 睁眼说瞎话 eyes open, speak blind words. Blatantly lie. It sounds really cool in Chinese.

bottom: “千金之子，坐不垂堂” I had to look this up. It's a saying from the Han Dynasty. The situation is that roof tiles would sometimes fall and hit anyone sitting below, so they discouraged rich kids from sitting under the eaves where the tiles could fall.

"... and behave yourself!" is a very good translation for the meaning of this sentence.

But it's so much cooler in Chinese: 不准作妖！ which means "don't be a 妖," and 妖 means (mbdg.net again) "goblin / witch / devil / bewitching / enchanting / monster / phantom / demon"

Here's another place where the translation is perfectly good, but 下毒手 is so much cooler. By itself,

毒 = poison, 手 = hand,

下毒手 = to attack murderously / to strike treacherously

You all know the idiom 螳螂捕蝉，黄雀在后, yah? Here comes mdbg.net again: "the mantis stalks the cicada, unaware of the oriole behind (idiom, from Daoist classic Zhuangzi 莊子｜庄子); to pursue a narrow gain while neglecting a greater danger."

把腰扭到胯上。 "...undulating his hips until they were level with this waist..." which I guess means that he was walking with a prominent sway to his hips?

This is the perfect translation for this idiom. The idiom, in Chinese, is 一朝被蛇咬，十年怕井绳 = (modified mdbg.net)  once bitten by a snake, scared for ten years at the sight of the rope used for drawing water out of the well.

大人有大人的道，小人有小人的路。

大人 here is (mdbg.net) "title of respect toward superiors"

小人， in contrast to 大人, means （mdbg.net) "person of low social status (old) / I, me (used to refer humbly to oneself) / nasty person / vile character"

I think it makes a little more sense if it reads "Lords and ministers have their bright open boulevards; small petty people have their own paths."

Never had Fang Qin 碰过这么硬的钉子 since the day he'd left his mother's womb.

碰钉子 literally means "hit nail"; figuratively, it means (mdbg.net) "to meet with a rebuff."

这么硬的钉子 = such a hard nail.

So 碰过这么硬的钉子 gives the image of Fang Qin running into a fence or something with a long, hard nail sticking out of it. :)

Pg 241. 侧耳过去听 just means "turned/leaned his ear (head) closer to listen (better)". No one was putting their ear on Gu Yun's lips here.

发作 means "to lose one's temper". I feel like "bite his head off" is a bit extreme for anyone to except of Prince Yan -- Prince Yan is too refined to bite anyone's head off.

In English, I feel like "what's the matter with you" is very confrontational and accusatory.

The Chinese here is 你到底怎么回事？, which I feel translates better as "What is actually going on with you?" or, more awkwardly, "What is the full situation of what is going on with you?"

This is so cute: "little bastard" is 兔崽子 which literally "bunny-rabbit child" and figuratively (mdbg.net) "brat / bastard". So...

Gu Yun: Which baby bunny was standing guard and ratted me out!?

Chang Geng: I am that baby bunny.

The "pawn" here is a not pejorative. 马前卒 is "lackey / errand boy / lit. runner before a carriage" (mdbg.net).

In the online version I read, there is a paragraph break and a time frame here that really helps with understanding what's going on.

"....civil official who could barely ride a horse.

One year ago, survivors of the navy...."

"In less than a month..." (just showing that they have been there for a few weeks.)

"Silver tongue" in Chinese is 见人说人话、见鬼说鬼话的三寸不烂之舌。

见人说人话、See people, speak people language.

见鬼说鬼话 的 See monsters, speak monster language.

三寸不烂之舌。 three inches not <soft / rotten /worn out> tongue.

Cool way to say "silver tongue," yah?

I think the grammatical tense should be brought forward. The ship is falling apart right now, in book-time.

Another paragraph break that I feel should have been retained to show that we are moving from outside the temple, where we can see the flames, to inside the temple, where Chen QingXu is suffering from the smoke.

__________________________

And that's it! Volume 4. I love you, Chang Geng. You have my heart, Gu Yun!

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

I feel like I am under attack here...he certainly killed me...no question

MDZS Vol 3 Annotations, part 3

Here is Part 3 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 3, pages 219-312. I hope it helps improve your reading experience!

(It's mostly cultural annotations and reminders of appropriately-untranslated words, with a few "remember when..." notes and a few re-translations of really thorny sentences that I admit have no good translation.)

(I had a field day writing "Good boy" over Jin Zixuan and "lame cousin" over JinZixun, but I didn't include all those notes here. Just be sure to pay attention to if Zixuan/Zixun has an "a" in it or not in Ch 15.)

(By the way, "Wintry Room" sounds really pretty in Chinese and not weird at all. Maybe "Winter Room" would be better?)

So, I’m getting to the very end of the novel 镇魂 Guardian by Priest, and I know that everyone is super worried that Chaos 混沌 is about to envelop the world, but the more I read, the hungrier I get…

What a difference one radical makes.

I love Priest's supporting characters. I love how she started Stars of Chaos from supporting characters' POV, and then she keeps dropping in on them and making us love them more and more.

My one complaint is: why doesn't she write more (even more) Extras featuring her supporting characters? We care!

Brief Character Analyses and Spoilers for Stars of Chaos below...

Cao Chunhua 曹春花 / 曹娘子 Cao Niangzi:

曹春花， I love you! How did you get so good at languages and disguise and acting? Did you ever get to catch a nice young man? Or are you constantly catching nice young men in a serial fashion? Ahhh, our little 娘子 <3 I definitely want to read more about you and your adventures.

Li Feng 李丰, "Long An" Emperor, Chang Geng's unfortunate half-brother:

You tried so hard. I don't actually want to read more about you, but I want you to know that I appreciate that you did your best, and validate that you really were a lot better than your dad -- you were just unlucky, and, sadly, you had to die for it. Life is hard. And short, for you.

Fang Qin 方钦

Yah, life is unfair. I don't want to read more about you, either -- I just want to ruminate on how you were a fancy rich popular kid, but all you really wanted was to hang out with the nerds. The nerds were smart and fun and honest and doing cool things, but your fancy rich popular old-money family held you back. Too bad you didn't have any backbone.

Chen QingXu 陈轻絮 and Shen Yi 沈易

What an amazing couple. I feel like Chen QingXu is barely in the book at all, but every time she is mentioned it is with reverence and awe. My favorite scene with Chen QingXu is when she's chaining together Pipa melodies while a battle is literally going on in front of her, then elegantly floats away when her part of the battle is concluded...

And! And! When she figures out that the Spirit Mannequin is actually a "book" and clutches it "like she's never seen wood before," I swooned -- Chen QingXu is a scientist, through and through <3

Every time Shen Yi is mentioned, I know I'm going to have a good time, too. It is through his near-constant consternation at Gu Yun that we see how terribly fun (emphasis on the "terrible") Gu Yun is.

Poor Shen Yi, putting up with his crazy best friend. Accidentally rising to one of the highest positions in the land just because he doesn't want to go home and instead follows his best friend out to the far remote edges of the empire; and is totally willing to give it all up to be a house-husband for the girl he likes, once he gets up the courage to tell her he likes her. What a sweet guy <3

Yah, I want more Chen QingXu and more Shen Yi and more ChenYi.

Old Master Shen 沈老爷子

While we’re talking about the Shen family, I’d love to read more about Shen Laoyezi. He knows everything. His bird cusses out everyone. He’s pretty awesome.

Yao Zhen 姚镇 / 姚重泽 Yao ZhongZe (Chong Ze?) (I'm not so good when a word has multiple pronunciations)

I'm not super hungry for more Yao Zhen content, but I love every bit of Yao Zhen that I get to read. Poor man -- he just wants to hang out and enjoy life, but Gu Yun keeps giving him all these empire-critical, life-and-death-of-thousands responsibilities. The man knows what he wants! But Gu Yun just railroads past those clearly delineated desires and keeps raising him up to higher and higher positions of responsibility!

Living up to your true potential is overrated; sleeping 10 hours/day is the way to go :)

Huo Dan 霍郸

Oh, the stories that Huo Dan could tell... Poor man, having to put up with Gu Yun's peculiarities and Chang Geng's idiosyncrasies and I'm sure he learned very early on to always knock before entering any space that the two of them think they're alone in.

I want more Huo Dan stories ;)

That's pretty much it for me. I love Ge PangXiao 葛胖小 / 葛晨 Ge Chen, too, but I am satisfied with his story already. He's cool, he's sweet, but he's not mysterious like Cao ChunHua and Chen QingXu, or in an entertaining state of near-permanent exasperation because of Gu Yun's shenanigans like poor Shen Yi is. You do you, Ge Chen.

I finally found an English-Language explanation of What Happened in the novel 镇魂 Guardian by Priest! It had been hidden in video…and I had refused to watch any reviews until I had finished watching the drama…

So! If you happen to be as confused as I was after reading (loving!)(confused loving!) Zhen Hun, here’s another person to commiserate with about how unfathomable (illogical) the plot of the novel truly is (but we still don’t care. We just want more WeiLan).

https://youtu.be/jfOH0kFvDuQ