It was as if Ning Yi had been struck by lightning. As one who never loses his composure no matter what happens, Ning Yi stood dumbstruck.
Before Ning Yi snaps out of his shock to form a coherent thought, Zhi Wei has already flipped the table to the ground!
“You Highness insults!” Zhi Wei yells as the teapot and cups fall to the ground, spilling tea everywhere. Ignoring the mess, Zhi Wei rips her own sleeve and pops open the knot on her shirt before jumping into the tea water so it splashes on Ning Yi and her clothes. Picking up a broken porcelain piece, Zhi Wei dashes out as she waves the broken piece around before finally holding it to her own neck “The shame! One can be killed but one cannot be humiliated!”
His mind still stuck on savoring the pain and titillating thrill of that one bite, Ning Yi can’t stop replying the soft velvety feel of her lips and the electrifying shots it sent into his body. In a blink of an eye, the woman has already flipped the table and finished putting on a whole show.
If someone was slower in the head, how are they suppose to keep up with her.
The ruckus soon drew everyone out. A crowd gathered as people rush out from all directions. Completely stunned by the sight of a disheveled Zhi Wei making a scene crying that she doesn’t want to live anymore, everyone wondered silently: Weren’t those two just having a lovely time chatting? So how did everything fall apart in such a short time?
Some in the crowd with especially keen eyesight soon spot the teeth mark on Prince Chu’s earlobe. The teeth mark was not hard to discover because that particular spot even has a tiny tea leaf on it.
The newfound discovery set off a wave of excitement as everyone’s inner love for gossip is awakened.
Teeth mark! Open collar! Something smells fishy!!!
Scholars apparently have great imaginations as everyone quickly “figured out” the whole story in their head in the next instant: Ah, so the reason why Prince Chu is extra nice to Assistant Director Wei is because of his “preference for men” which is why he jumped on the chance to use this opportunity to threaten/seduce Assistant Director Wei. Of course Assistant Director Wei refused but how could Prince Chu let such a perfect opportunity go and rips Assistant Director Wei’s collar while attempting to force a kiss. Furious, Assistant Director Wei bites Prince Chu on the ear in his determination to guard his virtue. Someone as pure as Assistant Director Wei couldn’t stand being humiliated in such a manner and that’s why he wants to kill himself. Yap, that must be what happened!
A few in the crowd with the tendency of being worriers are already thinking about the rumor of Princess Shao Ning also liking Assistant Director Wei. So…does this mean the two siblings are going to share? Or are they going to duke it out?
“The snare of beauty…” A white elderly man sighs heavily. (It took me a while to figure out how to translate this one here. The Chinese phrase here is a play on words in that the original wording is usually referring to beautiful women becoming great men’s downfall but here, the wording is changed to beautiful men being the source of trouble.)
Besides the small number who are too busy gossiping, most of the people rushed up to grab the broken porcelain from an “anguished” Zhi Wei and joining the chorus of consoling voices.
“Director, nothing is more important than being alive.” This one is the optimistic sort.
“Director, in truth, this is really nothing…” This one is an honest sort.
“Director, in truth, you might come out ahead on this…” This one is the uninhibited sort. (This one is especially funny because the guy is suggesting that since Ning Yi is actually the better-looking one of the pair Zhi Wei might as well enjoy the attention. Hmm…now that I wrote that sentence out it seems rather offensive. Oh, well. I guess you guys just have to trust me that the sentence is actually pretty funny in Chinese.)
“Director, you are forever pure and virtuous in my heart…” This one is just using the opportunity to blurt out a love confession.
While “reluctantly” letting go of the broken porcelain, Zhi Wei doesn’t forget to use her “anguished” teary eyes as a further confirmation of a certain someone’s crime. Her eyes twitching violently in her effort to send secret signals to our still thunderstruck hero for him to leave, Zhi Wei complains silently in frustration.
Go! Go! Why are you not using this chance to get mad and stomp off? Why are you just standing there in a daze? And why are you caressing your earlobe while looking like you are remembering some cherished memory? I know you are touching your earlobe to make sure people notice the teeth mark but do you have to drag on the show for this long?
Why is it always such bad luck whenever she meets Prince Chu? She either has to pretend to be crazy or she has to throw a tantrum for all to see. Sigh! Her good name…
“You dare!” Ning Yi very reluctantly comes down from the heavenly cloud he had been floating on. Casting a longing glance at Zhi Wei’s red lips, Ning Yi thought to himself that they should put on a show like this again sometime. “How dare you sprouting nonsense! You wait, I am going to submit a formal complaint to the royal court!”
“Go ahead, anytime!” Standing in the crowd, Zhi Wei yells back, acting as if she would rather die than be humiliated.
“You just wait! You will lose your official post and end up in jail!” Leaving behind a yell of threat, Ning Yi stomps off.
“I will be waiting!” Zhi Wei jumps up to hurl herself forward after Ning Yi but was restrained by the death grip of everyone around her.
To think that their assistant director was willing to go head to head with a prince and even almost lost his virtue in the process, all the students’ gaze upon Zhi Wei turned to ardent admiration.
A “furious” Ning Yi took the half-naked officials and guards with him. Happy to be rescued but not feeling vindicated at all, the officials silently mutters- Ah, so His Highness really like that scrawny kid. Sigh…I guess we will never get that kid to pay for what he did to us.
Ning Yi took Feng Hao with him as well. Zhi Wei made it very clear to Ning Yi– He is not suspicious? Then make him (Feng Hao) suspicious and lock him up for a year or two to keep him out of trouble.
The academy soon returned back to normal. Master Gu was slightly displeased when he went back to find his walnut and found it missing. (Remember Ning Yi ate the walnut Ning Yi?) As for Helian…the guy was grumpy and refused to talk to Zhi Wei the whole day.
The next day, Helian finally talked and the conversation was as followed:
“What’s wrong with you?”
“Nothing, my ear itches.” (Referring to common saying that one’s ear will start to itch if someone has been talking about you behind your back.)
“………..”
“What are you thinking about?”
“I am pondering if my dad dies, should I marry my stepmother or my sister-in-law.” (This is a jab at Zhi Wei for what she said to Ning Yi about him.)
“………….”
All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com
Wonderful! I especially appreciate your parenthetical comments on your own translation struggle to impart a good sense of the literature. Great service to us who love and are enjoying this story.
Thank you for your translation! I’m so happy you’re translating the whole thing.
Also your PayPal isn’t verified so my donation got sent back. Please correct it. You should be rewarded for your hard work
Thanks for letting me know! Pretty new to this whole PayPal thing so had no idea I even had to do that. I am working on it now! Thanks again.
Morning Ninja, another great translation. Thanks for the insight into play and choice of words from the translation. A quick question, from 10 Miles of Peach Blossom and the notoriety it received, I am always perplexed as to how homosexuality is perceived in modern Chinese Literature. Is it taboo? From my current reading, and also alluded to in this translation, it seems to be matter of fact and accepted. Care to comment?
BTW because of your translation of Rise of the Phoenixes, I started reading more about Princess Agent and watched the drama. What a cliff hanger ending (won’t spoil for others). Any more gossip on if there will be a Season 2?
Yes, I’d be interested to know that too. The crossing/ confusion of genders is a frequent trope too. Sometimes it seems progressive but often it’s offensive.
Hmm…I will try my best to answer. I am no historian but in my understanding homosexuality has always existed in Chinese history. However, in contrast to our modern day where homosexuality happens between consenting adults (at least let’s hope so), that’s usually not the case back then. Young boys are often the victims of the rich and powerful to be traded or sold. As you can guess, men who enjoy abusing young boys are never the normal sort so they often are involved in even more terrible dealings. (Case in point, in Princess Agent there is that powerful crazy old dude who killed the heroine’s older sister? He wasn’t killing boys but that gives you an idea.) That’s not to say those who practice homosexuality in historical novels are always portrayed as villains but at the very least they are usually characters who indulge in their own carnal desires.
Now, if you want to talk about comic books then that’s a completely different story. In comic books homosexuality is treated so favorably that there is a whole genre focused on same-sex romance.
Despite the fact that homosexuality has existed in Chinese history and literature, that acceptance didn’t translate into its society though. In a society where the utmost importance is placed upon carrying on the family name you can understand why that would be a problem. So here is where it gets a bit confusing. There seems to be a big divide between what is acceptable in comic vs literature vs TV. Comics are where we have the most lax standards where everything under the sun is acceptable. The bar is just a smidgen higher for web novels. Kick that bar quite a few notches higher for published literature. The bar is the highest for TV dramas. (There is a big difference between T-drama and C-drama though. Taiwanese drama has a lot more freedom compares to C-drama on what is allowed on TV)
So…I wrote all that to say the answer is…complicated. If you judge Chinese society completely based on comics we read then we are free for all, a lawless people. If you go by our popular literature in the last 20 years then we are a very open minded people, albeit somewhat addicted to the concept of traveling back in time or a chance of reliving one’s life. If you go by our dramas, then we are slowly becoming more accepting but we are easily distracted by messy palace intrigue.
The Princess Agent drama is really only the first half of the book which is too bad since I think all the best stuff in the last half. According to the rumors, it seems pretty certain that we will have season two but we have no filming date as of yet. My personal guess that Zhao Liying (who played the heroine) is the biggest deciding factor since she just barely gave birth to her first baby so season 2 will either have to wait for her return or choose to go ahead without her (which is a big risk). That’s of course assuming Zhao Liying has no other project in the queue.
I am assuming you found my Princess Agent translation?
Ahaha! Awesome scene! Glad to have monday again.
Special thanks for explaining the meaning of words and expressions. It is very valuable.
In the novel, really, a lot of humor. Interestingly, will this persist throughout history? Or how in the series the humor disappears towards the end?
I look forward to the next chapters in your translation.
The story does get more serious towards the end so the number of funny scenes will decrease. However, unlike the drama, our two leads’ character will stay very consistent throughout the whole novel. The story gets quite intense towards the end (most of which is missing from the drama) so I don’t think you guys will miss the funny scenes too much.
OK ))
Exactly. Like many viewers, I am disappointed that the main character not only did not become more mature and strong, but also broke down after the death of the mother. Therefore, I was looking for the original story – a novel.
Are you aware that KakashiSensei writes a fandom based on your translation? ))
Your translation really gives plenty of imagination to ficwriters.
I wasn’t aware about the fanfiction but that’s fun to hear!
Yes, love the translation. The question, not everyone knows that ZW is not a man in the novel right? Everyone mentioned homosexuality what role did it play or any. We know that it was the relationship between the lead that really stood out to me in the drama and so far as I can see in the novel as well. I thought it was interesting that the emperor married his wife sister in the drama as well. Was that the same in the novel. Does Ning Yi seem to be smitten in the Novel by ZW as well as the drama?
Very very few people know that Zhi Wei is Wei Zhi (those who are in the know includes the three male leads, Zhi Wei’s mom, Zhi Wei’s aunt and uncle). So that’s why everyone thought Ning Yi likes men who he didn’t bother to hide his interest in Wei Zhi. I know in the drama Wei Zhi and Zhi Wei looks exactly the same since they are placed by the same actress, but in the novel Zhi Wei’s disguise would’ve looked nothing like her real self so most people would not be able to tell her true identity. (You guys also need to remember that Zhi Wei really never show her real face to anyone anyway since her face would’ve stunned anyone who knew the Princess. Ning Yi only saw Zhi Wei’s real face the first time they met because she got dragged into the water by her uncle’s concubine. Her disguise back then was more makeups but her Wei Zhi disguise is actually a skin mask I believe.)
I can’t remember about the Emperor but that would be pretty normal back then especially for an emperor. (In instances where the wife dies leaving children behind, sometimes the husband would marry the wife’s sister with the hope that an aunt would treat the children better than a stranger.)
You guys are not going to believe this until we get there in the translation but Ning Yi is actually much more smitten with Zhi Wei in the novel than in the drama.
Yippee! Can’t wait! Thanks for the explanation about the different portrayals of homosexuality in Chinese literature and TV too. It’s pretty much the only thing that irks me about these otherwise wildly entertaining shows. I haven’t been able to do PayPal either and had assumed it was to do with different countries. I shall try again. All your translations have been great, especially TROP, and you should be paid!! 😊
Every culture really do have very different sense humor and unfortunately, Asian humor sometimes involves using homosexuality as way of teasing. One weird thing I do have to point out is that most of the teasing probably don’t have as much malice as one would assume. This example is kinda weak but it’s the best I can think of. Picture a scene where a Chinese woman says to another Chinese woman “Ah, you have been letting yourself go lately! Look how fat you are!” Out in the west, that would be considered extremely rude but that’s not always the case for the Chinese. Now, being called fat is obviously never a happy thing for a girl no matter what race you are. However, in this example, if the two women were close friends or family then that comment could either be teasing or genuine concern. You guys also might’ve picked up from some modern C-school dramas that it is not uncommon for a person to have “Fatty” as their nickname. Being called “Fatty” is indeed an insult but NOT if they are a nickname used by your closest friends. The Chinese attitude towards homosexuality is really a very complicated thing the more I try to explain it. While it is difficult to imagine the Chinese’s negative attitude towards homosexuality is going to change anytime soon but they might also be much more accepting of it than you could possibly imagine since it really has always exited in their history. I never put this together until lately but Mama Ninja often tells me of her glory day back in high school and to prove to me how popular she was in her all girl school, she would tell me the many love letters she gets…obviously all from girls. When she said this, there was not judgement in her attitude about those girls and I imagine most of her other Chinese listeners would have the same attitude as her. In fact, there is not even expectations that those girls would only like girls from then on. Those young girls had a crush and it just happened to be on my mom who happened to be a girl.
Did I miss the Pay Pal information? I did not see any account information? Thank you for your information on homosexuality in C- drama. I did not know about the comic book that’s interesting, I thought that since China is more of a conservative country they would not allow it to be displayed so openly. Thank you, I can’t wait for more translation, you are really much appreciated.
There is a Paypal donation button on the top right of the page. A few awesome readers had asked for a way to donate so I set it up but apparently didn’t really know what I was doing and had to fix some stuff. Hopefully it works now.
I don’t know how strict China is on the comics, but most comic lovers would’ve found a way to read them online. By the way, most of the comics would’ve been from Japan but K-comics and C-comics are obviously working very hard to catch up.
The leads and their games are hilarious, first she’s crazy now he’s gay/bisexual. So Helian was eavesdropping all this time? To have heard such a private conversation would be considered disrespectful then and now I’m guessing.
Ning Yi already knew Helian was there which was why he looked towards the tree. Zhi Wei most likely would’ve known too so Helian was more like “not so discreetly” eavesdropping.
OH, I thought it was Gu Nanyi in the tree. Makes sense he was also eavesdropping in the drama also. Thanks.