Priest - Blog Posts
supplication
In nomine Patris
I love them dressed like this ❤️
gross nasty gross boy
Zhanlu from can ci pin
Love him!
sha po lang
changgu chang geng + gu yun
chibi
https://kre.pe/ZPQd 전신스디 1.5
Zhan lu in can ci pin
Liu Yao memes I made months ago that I forgot to post. Beware of spoilers
“My heart sleeps in the Emerald dream”
Our new digital painting fanart, Tyrande from Warcraft. We really hope you like!
STAND AS ONE! Our Fanart of Anduin from Warcraft Battle for Azeroth, we hope you like!
My old painting so the blog won't be empty maybe you'll like it idk
Okay so one bastard is down.
I kinda feel like i rushed this one. Maybe in the future i'll touch him up :D
Ladies and Gents i present to you... Abel Nightroad!!
honorary mentions:
Link for anyone interested:
All you have to do is download the package with the imagies and then replace then change in the shimeji folder. Make sure not to rename them, or the program wouldn't be able to read them into animation.
.. also a tutorial on how to get shimeji working:
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
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Volume 3, Notes 5/5, Pages 358 - end
The "Imperial Censorate" here is 御史台, which is the department, not the person. Chang Geng would never slap another person in full view of the court; but he would not hesitate to admistratively slap another department if he felt it was justified.
So. The classic punishment for adultery was to be put in a pig cage and thrown into the river to drown. I don't know how I know this little bit of trivia, seeing as I was raised in the west and my only contact to Chinese culture was my very conservative Chinese mother; but I know this. Adulterers get drowned.
谋事在人，成事在天。 Plotting depends the person, success depends on the heavens. I just wanted you to know that it's symmetrical in Chinese, even though it doesn't translate that way.
The "tactlessly" here is a translation of 不长眼色， which I think could be explained better as "not reading the room" or "not taking hints."
It's not that Ge Chen is tactless so much as he is clueless to the tension between Gu Yun and Chang Geng.
In the online Chinese version that I read, the line is "Zixi! Don't go!" which explains why Chang Geng is reaching out to grab him in a panic -- he thinks Gu Yun is leaving him.
Page 382
Top: The Chinese here is "看看我说话!" which can be translated as either
-- "Look at me while I am talking to you," (though that feels weird) or -- "Look at me and speak - respond to me,"
...both of which are a little different from what is actually written in English. The "look at me when you speak" translation threw me for a second because Chang Geng isn't speaking and hasn't said anything for a while.
Bottom: Liangjiang is 两江 which is Two Rivers. (The north side and the south side of the river?)
This section is actually so pretty:
“天时地利、花前月下、水到渠成”
The perfect time (天时) and place (地利); in front of the flowers (花前) and under the moon (月下); when success is assured (where water flows (水到) a canal will inevitably form (渠成)).
Carriage Door. The carriage door opened, and out came Shen Yi. He had hitched a ride with Miss Chen so that he could leave his home unnoticed.
(When I read the English, I thought that the door was the courtyard door and got really confused.)
----
And that's it for Volume 3!
I love 杀破狼 <3
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Volume 3, Notes 4/5, Pages 267 - 350
I had to look up this poem and its meaning. In essence, the poem is about revolution. Kicking out the old aristocracy and installing a new regime. Via nice, sweet poetry about birds flying away from Wang and Xie's homes (the "noble halls") into the homes of ordinary folk.
The nice Chinese 5-word version of "heads up their asses" is a much more elegant "顾头不顾腚" = attend to the head an forget the buttocks, as in "can only handle things coming from one direction".
Croaker is a type of small fish. 小黄鱼。
“若非烂到根里，恐怕也不会养出这种滚刀肉一样胆大包天的地方官。”
The "stubborn as cheap jerky" phrase is the translation of 滚刀肉, which is, broken apart, "rolling""knife""meat", like meat that is so sinewy and hard that it turns your knife instead of just letting itself be cut.
The "in their crooked ways" phrase is, I think, just an extra little modifier to help you understand that these difficult officials are not just stubborn, (and definitely not righteous,) but also crooked.
Pg 304: When I read this in English, it felt to me like the emperor was questioning if he himself still held power; in Chinese, it sounds to me more like he is stating that someone is trying to hide a really big secret, and he is questioning who that wrong-doer is.
"朕倒不知道这朝中是谁一手遮天了。"
Bad translation: "We (royal) do not know who in this court is using his hand to cover the sky." (一手遮天 One hand cover sky = "to hide the truth from the masses" mdbg.net)
Here is another place where the English confused me a little bit. Because, of course, it's really hard to translate.
方钦心里暗叹一声“扶不起来的东西”
Bad translation: Fang Qin sighed in his heart (he did the sigh entirely in his head, so no one actually saw him sigh), "hold him up and he still can't stand, that less-than-human thing."
Fang Qin is majorly disparaging Assistant Minister Lv here.
It's customary for older, retired men to put their bird in a carry-able size cage and then take it out on a walk to a local park or into the local wilderness, swinging the cage all the while so that the little bird can exercise its perching muscles and enjoy some fresh air. It's called 遛鸟, just like walking your dog is 遛狗。
The verb used here is 讹 é = error / false / to extort （mdbg.net), and where I have found elsewhere as "blackmail" or "cheat".
Sassy bird, yes?
"White Cut Chicken" is 白斩鸡 which is an amazing dish that we used to have every time we had banquet-style dinners at any Cantonese restaurant. It's super good. The only way I like to eat chicken. Very tender boiled chicken, served with a side of green-onion oil. Oh I'm getting hungry.
Top: Chang Geng is limping. His leg was hurt in the crash-landing.
Bottom: A 肚兜 is a cute hanky-sized bit of cloth with ties that go around the neck and the waist. It's meant to keep the belly warm. I usually only see little kids (like, babies and toddlers) in period movies wear them (and that's all they wear if it's warm enough).
If you watch the animated masterpiece Nezha 1979, a dudou is the only thing that Nezha wears from the time he emerges / is born until he kills his first dragon prince. You have to prove yourself as a dragon-killer before you get to wear pants.
They come in adult (woman) sizes, too, but that's for another day.
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Volume 3, Notes 3/5, Pages 152 - 265
Cute trivia: in the online novel, this entire paragraph is One Sentence. 9 commas. No semi-colons.
This is (part of the reason) why it takes me 3-12 months to read a single Priest novel.
In case you don't already know, there is a lovely story about an emperor who had a male lover who fell asleep on the long, voluminous sleeve of his robe; and rather than wake the lover, the emperor just cut off his sleeve so that he could go work without bothering his sweetie. And now 断袖 "cut sleeve" is another word for "homosexual man."
I love the idiom for this situation: 投鼠忌器 "throw" "mouse" "afraid" "devices," or "afraid to throw anything at the mouse for fear of breaking the vases."
So, 蹂躏 does translate as "violated," but it also translates as "savaged" or "trampled," both of which I think fit here better.
Here, 完蛋 a little more vulgar than I like to think of it. I'm pretty sure this is a phrase you can use around elementary school kids. It means "to be done for," like "Uh oh. We've been caught."
Top: "Bat out of hell" in Chinese is 赶投胎似的 = like he's rushing to be reincarnated. (I find Western theology- based idioms disconcerting in Daoist/Buddhist- based novels. I understand that they convey the meaning most accurately, but it still weirds me out.)
Bottom: So cute! They are using food-based euphemisms. The Chinese for "eat his fill" is 吃了顿荤的 = "eat a meal with meat" ¬‿¬. And then they break the metaphor with "ended up in the wrong position" (on bottom instead of on top). And then return to the food euphemism with "nearly choked to death." Cute, yah?
xiansheng 先生 = "Teacher", in this context.
I added a （1) and a (2) because I started getting confused.
I also added unnecessary Chinese on "If you're so smart", that it started out (in the online version, anyway), as "你有注意" "If you have ideas,..."
OMG. If you go to a robust Chinese dictionary and search for the Chinese translation for "me," you will get SO MANY WORDS back.
One of those many words is 孤, which was used by feudal princes for a time? And 孤 usually means "lonely" or "solitary."
He climbed on Gu Yun's shoulder. 肩膀。
Either way, he's being carried around by Gu Yun and leaving drool marks on Gu Yun's shoulder <3
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Volume 3, Notes 2/5, Pages 97 - 151
This was actually a really easy read, maybe because it's been almost a year since I last read this in Chinese and so I am not remembering awesome idioms every page; but, anyway! Here we continue <3
In case you don't already know， a huli jing 狐狸精 is a fox spirit. Famous for being super sexy.
In the online Chinese version I read, there was no actual mention of Gu Yun's movements, but more his mindset: 失魂落魄地走了 = "walked off in a daze". Because of the steel plates and all his injuries, I guess it was not a smooth "walking off" so much as a forlorn stumbling, but I don't like the word "hobbled" used on Gu Yun.
Chinese: "整日里便是在我耳边嘀咕." The meaning is the same as "yakking my year off," but it sounds much more elegant in Chinese, of course: "All day, is at the side of my ear, muttering / whispering / chatting quietly...”
Top: again, it just sounds better in Chinese. English is "like a house on fire," Chinese is "投缘" = "kindred spirits" or, broken apart, "thrown, fate."
Bottom: many official ceremonies are carried out with official, kneeling, head-to-floor bows. In this case, it will be an official ceremony to celebrate Ge Chen becoming Zhang Fenghan's adopted son.
(I love how Chang Geng never actually says "So! Ge Chen wants you to adopt him," but instead says a bunch of nice things to Master Fenghan, and Master Fenghan says some nice things back, and then Chang Geng concludes with "We'll call you with the date of the Adoption Ceremony. Bye!")
I love names in Chinese!
So, Du Wanquan is 杜万全， where
Wan 万 = 10,000 ("a very large number") and
Quan 全 = "complete, all", and
the two words together 万全 = absolutely safe / surefire / thorough （mdbg.net).
Good name for the God of Wealth, yah?
In case you don't remember, Zhong-lao is Old Master Zhong / General Zhong, who came out of retirement to help lead the forces in the South. He trained up both Gu Yun and, much later, Chang Geng.
"Speak of the Devil" in Chinese is "说曹操曹操就到."
曹操 Cao Cao was the king of Wei during the 3 Kingdoms Period (the very very beginnings of the 3 Kingdoms period).
Though I think in the actual story, Cao Cao actually saved a fellow ruler who had been thinking of asking him for help against an attack; but before the fellow could send out his messenger with the request, Cao Cao and his army suddenly appeared and crushed the attackers.
The translation is fine. I just feel like in the phrase 朝廷挤出点口粮实在不容易, using "must have" for the English just feels better.
"When a person hid their wounds WITH THEIR TWO HANDS so that none could see, no one had the right to pry AWAY their hands."
It all makes sense once you realize that the verb used here is 捂 wǔ = "to enclose / to cover with the hand (mdbg.net)."
脏癖 dirty habits/inclinations (because Liao Ran didn't like bathing）
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links
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
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
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
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Vol 2, Notes 6, pages 263 - 333
This novel is really too beautiful.
"Adoptive father" is usually the guy who takes care of you after your own parents die; but here, the "adoptive father" is someone that the young people took in to take care of in his old age.
I like how in the Chinese formatting, Priest just ends the previous paragraph with "... ..." and then starts the next one with "Until the easterly winds of change..."
This sounds weird to say, but I really like the formatting and syntactical style of all the Chinese novels I've read.
... 一条漆黑的阶梯舌头凭空垂下来...
I got confused with "staircase unfurled", since staircases don't move.
The end of the staircase is likened to a tongue, 阶梯 舌头, and, of course, tongues unfurl.
More translation confusion: in Chinese, 阶梯 doesn't distinguish between a solid staircase and, say, a rope ladder; and the (online) text 凭空垂下来 translates to "hangs down, out of nothing," kind of like "appears out of thin air" except it's hanging, so, "from nowhere."
矿物. I had the worst time trying to translate this. It is, officially, "ore," but Violet Gold is a liquid whereas "ore" is a solid.
I gave up and just wrote that little note that 矿物 means "thing that you have to mine out of the earth," regardless of its physical state.
I really liked those paragraphs that aren't in this version.
So, those 7 paragraphs:
Everything metal that was on Gu Yun had been taken away, but that didn't mean that Gu Yun was at the end of his tether / didn't have options available.
He had a secret skill -- when he and Shen Yi were little, they used to play a game in the marquis's compound, "who can steal pieces off the puppets the fastest." Two wild children -- when they had nothing else to do they would get together to study how to disassemble the puppets guarding the marquis's entrance. There was one time when Shen Yi didn't dodge fast enough, and when he was being naughty the puppet mistook him for an enemy and hit him so hard that he was thrown up to the roof and his little life almost ended. Of course, Gu Yun was not able to escape a beating from the old Marquis.
The blood-lesson (beating) did not help Gu Yun gain any memory (learn from his mistake), and instead he became even more bold. The two of them repeatedly studied for a long time -- they were sure that there must be a special/secret/expert method, to be like those slight-of-hand pickpockets and pull a piece off the puppet as they passed by.
In the end, they discovered that, yes, there were pieces that could be taken off, but only parts of the mask or the piece on the elbow where the label/mark was, those types of non-critical parts, so Gu Yun's unrivalled skill had never had a chance to be demonstrated.
But, now it looked like it could be used.
The first day that the puppet delivered food, Gu Yun stealthily (eyes quick hands fast) reached out his hand, hooked and pulled, and easily removed the rusty label-plate from the puppet's elbow ----
He sharpened that plate on a rock, used it pry open his handcuffs, then finally did a big lazy stretch. Afterwards, he cut a piece of his bedsheet and braided it into a rope, caught a little rat, and at every meal he would save two mouthfuls of food to feed it, and play with it when he had nothing else to do.
top: More edited-out lines :( If Priest didn't want us to fall in love with these lines, why did she give them to us in the first place :(
"...resist heaving a sigh and spinning the metal plate he was playing with like a pinwheel."
bottom:“ 他还不如每天嫌我给他捣乱呢。” which the translators did a fine job translating, but I like "giving him trouble" more than "getting on his nerves". 捣乱 is, literally, "pound/beat disorder," so you can see how it suggests more "messing things up."
I find it very interesting that a typical (I think? I'm not really that well-read) form of address for a high-ranking Senior Official is 爱卿, which I think translates better to “My dear Senior Official ..." rather than "subject".
一视同仁 "treat all alike." Which means that the old marquis treated his dumpling-sized son the same as he treated everyone else (though he did finally relent to hold his little son's hand).
"谁要是这时候给我热俩烧饼，我就把谁娶回家” In Chinese, it's really easy to avoid numbered and gendered language. In this sentence, the word "谁" "whoever/someone" works in both parts of the sentence.
top: A little bit was added.
bottom: Same as last time. The Chinese is very symmetrical: "Whoever is afraid to die is the first to die."
We are getting close to the end.... :)
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Vol 2, Notes 3, pages 63 - 87
Another ten pages of notes!
Like I've posted before, Priest has more plot than I have reading comprehension, but, after a few rereads, I think I know what's going on.
In case you are in my same boat but you can't read my handwriting: Fu Zhicheng was originally a bandit, so the emperor at the time (the previous one) was worried (with good cause); but Fu Zhicheng was still given command because there was no other option at the time -- no one else was strong enough to hold the area.
土地公. Soil God. Local god.
I learn all my Chinese Mythology and Religion via trying to understand Priest novels.
静虚 Silent Empty. It's a very good name for a Daoist monk.
穿一条裤子 Wear one pair of pants. Isn't that super evocative? :)
And yet another place where I feel that the original paragraph break would have been very helpful for reader comprehension.
"Consolatory" = to console him on the loss of his mother.
It's the same poem referenced on page 54.
In the version I first read, the implication was that the wooden bird was there the entire time, and you only noticed it as it was flying away.
望穿秋水 look, penetrate, autumn water ( autumn water = "trad. description of girl's beautiful eyes" according to mdbg.net).
Nice way to describe looking at/for something really intently, yah?
Yet another sentence that was not in the (pirated) online version that I read. It doesn't really matter, I know, but I lived in that book for a year, so, well. It wasn't there before.
Another possibly different version, plus different ways to translate 冷笑 (if that is what was in the newer edit given to the translators).
In the version I read, there is no mention of facial expressions; Chang Geng just acts.
If Priest added a 冷笑 (I think that phrase has been used with Chang Geng before), then I would translate that as a Bitter Smile or a Cold Smile rather than as a sneer, since, in my head, only yucky villains sneer, and Chang Geng is a super elegant handsome symmetrical graceful mastermind who sadly but frequently lifts the corners of his mouth without any warmth reaching his eyes.
绊马索 trip horse rope.
Top:
男鬼 male ghost/monster/zombie (some type of supernatural being, derogatory)
...pulverizing the double layer of iron. Those mech-suits are Thick.
Bottom:
远在天边，近在眼前。 Far as the side of the sky, close as in front of the eyes. <3
And that's another ten! Just 44 more to go... :)
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links