Ok! Ok. So I’m Going At MDZS Vol 4 Very Very Slowly, And It Took Me Until Today To Remember That Other,

So during my second time watching Jiang Cheng walk across what I now know is a random mountain to meet Wen Qing, all I could think about was Wei Wuxian, Wen Qing, and Wen Ning’s plan and the fact that they must have been following him, like:

Wen Qing: should he really be walking across that field?

Wei Wuxian: I don’t know, I thought he would follow the path

Wen Ning: should we stop it now so he doesn’t trip and fall?

Wei Wuxian: naw let’s wait a bit, he needs to think it’s difficult

Wen Ning: is this a good place? can I ring the gong now?

Wei Wuxian: I think it’s good. wen qing?

Wen Qing: yeah yeah it’s fine. ring the stupid gong - I’ll lead him to a better spot

Wen Qing: I’m not going to wear the hat

Wei Wuxian: c’mon, you need to wear the hat

Wen Ning: yeah, wear the hat, a-jie

Wen Qing: he’s wearing a blindfold! he won’t be able to see my face anyway

Wei Wuxian: but what if he takes off the blindfold? what then, hmm? the hat is key

Wen Ning: yeah a-jie, the hat is key

Wen Qing: uuuuugh fine I’ll wear the hat

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Vol 2, Notes 7, pages 339 - 366.

Another eight notes...

The idiom for "too late" in Chinese is 黄花菜都凉了 "The Yellow Lilly (chrysanthemum? Yellow lily?) dish is already cold", which I had to look up.

Apparently, there was a time and place in ancient China where, when the fancy nobles would throw a banquet, they would serve 黄花菜 as the final dish. If you delayed attending so long that the 黄花菜 was already cold, then you had completely missed the banquet. You were too late.

牲口 is, technically, "draught animal" or "beast of burden," but I'm pretty sure what Priest means here is "those cold-blooded war beasts."

top: I think of it as two separate, unrelated, consecutive actions.

bottom: 铁膝飞足, iron knees flying feet, is so easy to read in Chinese. (This is the first time I've ever seen the word "poleyns.")

top: "young and inexperienced" in Chinese here is 初出茅庐, "first time out of the thatched cottage."

初出茅庐 is the coolest little idiom. So, in the Three Kingdoms period, there was a scholar called Zhuge Liang. Liu Bei, leader of the Shu Han, begged Zhuge Liang to become his advisor and, after three visits, Zhuge Liang agreed. This was the first time that Zhuge Liang accepted such an advisory position, and the "first time" that he left his thatched cottage (it was wartime. There was a lot of travel involved with advising a king/warlord).

Anyway, Zhuge Liang was a genius and immediately won a lot of battles through superior strategy.

next: for "dig in his heels before the capital," I feel like that could be more clearly written as "hold the capital."

next: regarding "unsalvageable situation," he's talking about his relationship with the emperor.

last: "No eggs remain when the nest overturns" is a common idiom, 覆巢之下无完卵。 We're all in it together.

"running to the market" 赶集 is a way to describe how things are noisy and busy and people are running back and forth (not bright and merry with people buying gifts for each other).

I think... the indescribable smell is the mix of gunpowder and blood...

If you don't know already, the Origin Myth for Where Humans Come From is that the half-snake goddess Nuwa made humans out of clay :)

I'm not sure why, but in English I thought that one of the Western soldiers was laughing; but in Chinese it's really clear that none of the soldiers are laughing.

Four more...

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

every day people tell me that the untamed is good, i’ve seen the first episode, stop gaslighting me

My Highly Responsible Teenage Daughter keeps reminding me to Clean Up My Phone (delete images and video), so I can’t really justify keeping albums and albums of Zhou Shen pictures on my phone, but I really really want access to Lots of Zhou Shen photos without having to scroll through tumblr for (how long has it been? That’s not sunlight coming through the window, is it?) -

BaikeBaidu to the rescue:

https://baike.baidu.com/pic/%E5%91%A8%E6%B7%B1/15089196?albumId=3139037095&bk_fr=view_album&hit_contrast=1

Stars of Chaos 杀破狼

Volume 3, pages 1-84

First, let us all show our appreciation for the illustrator who put horrified soldiers in the background when Gu Yun is about to play a little song on his jade flute:

(sorry my color balance is all wacky. Please pretend you see the lovely blue sky and the snowy white robes.)

(The "yet" confused me, so I changed it to an "And.")

...to land in a kneeling position, all cool-like.

In Chinese, the phrase equivalent to "snatch from the jaws of death" is "从阎王那里抢回了..." = "snatched back from (the Ruler of the Underworld) Yan Wang (or Yanluo Wang)."

In English, it's "harbor improper intentions," but that makes me feel like someone is going to seduce and then abandon someone else; whereas in Chinese, the phrase is "心怀不轨,” which is more along the lines of "intentions that do not follow the proper rules." 'Cuz god-sons are not supposed to think romantic thoughts about their god-fathers.

The “bei" here is the word for "North". 北。

And does anyone else like to laugh at how Chang Geng's new title, 雁王 Yàn Wáng, is now a homophone of the Ruler of the Underworld 阎王 Yánwang ？

天地没良心。 Heaven and Earth do not have a conscience / kindness.

It's super minor, but I was a little confused until I re-worded this in my brain to be "My actions here are not done out of my filial obligation to you; these actions are just me doting on you."

Chang Geng is not being disrespectful by denying filial piety to a godfather, but, rather, he is showing that he is doting on Gu Yun as a lover.

急行军 is translated as "forced march" in my pre-installed iphone Dictionary, but the Chinese explanation is "in order to complete an urgent task as quickly as possible, act with the utmost speed."

So I understand "急行军中实在被他们弄得基恩恼火” as "it was infuriating to have to deal with them while we were in such a terrible rush."

My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost

Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links

Xiao Zhan & Yibo // Wei Ying & Lan Zhan

MDZS Vol 5 Annotations 6

Part 6 of 6, page 383 - end

♥️

Chinese is so fun. 让他追在我后面跑 I think translates better to “make him run away, but I’ll be in front so he’ll be chasing behind me.”

More under the cut.

And that’s it! The whole story.

Thank you for reading with me.

MDZS Masterlist.

All the Books I'm Annotating Masterlist.

refseek.com

www.worldcat.org/

link.springer.com

http://bioline.org.br/

repec.org

science.gov

pdfdrive.com

Regarding May 12 Dracula Daily / Re: Dracula,

SO! Cloaks do not “spread out like great wings” when you’re crawling face-down the side of a building UNLESS you have arranged some hooks or clips or some such to keep the cloak in place.

I wanna see Dracula getting annoyed at his cloak, which keeps falling over his head when he’s climbing downward head-first, Until he finally devises some method to attach the cloak to his wrist and waist / thighs / ankles, which cleverly keeps the cloak spread out on his back despite the best efforts of gravity.

Can anyone here draw? Or has anyone already done this? Please point me to the right place!