“Son!” A soaking wet Liu Mu Dan comes running not sparing a glance at the dead bodies “Don’t kill Kelie, he is pretty decent looking….”
Helian pushes his mother away in one shot. Liu Mu Dan stumbled back a few steps and was steadied by Zhi Wei.
“Who are you?” Liu Mu Dan who was ready to throw a temper tantrum stopped when she turned and saw Zhi Wei. Looking Zhi Wei up and down with the “I can measure your bust and waist with my eyes” gaze, she suddenly says “You are not that Princess something who was given to my son by the Emperor? My heavens! Why do you look like you are malnourished? Could it be Lucky (Helian) is like his dad who doesn’t know how to control himself and is using you every night?”
“Liu Mu Dan!” Helian yells angrily, “Get lost!”
“You get lost!” Liu Mu Dan points at her own nose and declares “This Grand Queen is in the middle of training your woman, why are you a man interrupting? You,” Signaling Zhi Wei to come forward with her hand, she orders “Why aren’t you coming and bowing to your mother-in-law?”
“Mother-in-law” haughtily sits on the throne, summoning her servant to come forward.
*Cough* Umm…actually it is Miss Liu Mu Dan squatting on a rock that is holding down a corner of the tent. Her clothes are covered with mud and grass. Her upper red blouse is matched with a green bottom, paired with a yellow belt…the color matching is enough to spark some serious contemplation. Miss Liu Mu Dan is currently cocking her fingers to signal the princess, the new Queen to come forward and bow to her.
The moment her words were out, there were at least ten plus people who wanted to stuff her under the rock she was squatting on.
All smiles, Zhi Wei looks at her while pondering what sort of greeting she should give to her “mother-in-law”? Before she could decide, Master Gu, with two gold monkeys on either shoulder and a babe in arm, was already rushing towards their direction.
Sensing the situation is about to get out of hand, Zhi Wei immediately grabs Liu Mu Dan’s hand and says with the utmost sincerity “Mother-in-law, here is not a good place to give you my greeting. Look, your clothes are soaked…we can worry about the greeting once we have rested in the tent.” Zhi Wei’s eyes pointedly sweep across Liu Mu Dan’s chest.
Immediately puffing up her chest proudly, Liu Mu Dan belatedly realizes her robe is in a state of disarray, her top slightly gaping revealing her chest that is not bound by underclothing. Unembarrassed nor making any attempt to cover herself, Liu Mu Dan instead pushes her chest closer to Zhi Wei and says proudly “Aren’t you jealous? Filled with admiration? This Grand Queen is forty-five years old this year, my boob hasn’t dropped! Even with Lucky, that wolf cub who bit me so hard my boob didn’t drop…”
*plop* The Grand Queen was shoved into the tent by her Lucky who couldn’t hold back anymore.
Wagging her finger at Helian, Zhi Wei says with all seriousness “Lucky, one has to be good to one’s parent.” before going into the tent to serve her mother-in-law.
Standing in the cold wind, Lucky’s face turned several different colors.
In the tent, the mother and daughter-in-law are having an intimate heart to heart “chest” talk while outside of the tent, a worried Helian asks the Eight Braves “What do I do?”
“The Grand Queen…um…wouldn’t go too overboard, she probably, most likely won’t do…too much.” A not so confident Third Brave assures him, his voice getting quieter and quieter.
The self-proclaimed “the only flower of the wildgrassland that cannot be found in heaven or hell” Liu Mu Dan Grand Queen, with the exception of the old King, from Lucky Helian to the sheepherder child in the far off tribe, there is no one who cannot come to the brink of collapse after spending 15 minutes in her presence.
Zhi Wei has gone into the tent for this long…is she still alive?
The tent flap opens, someone walks out causing Helian to immediately jump up. Turning around, Helian sees two Queens walking out happily with their arms linked.
Liu Mu Dan lovingly holds Zhi Wei’s hand “…you must remember to drink it every day, it would be best after having se…”
Zhi Wei immediately cuts her off “When there is a chance, Peony should teach me embroidery.” Liu Mu Dan’s name means Peony so this conveys a sense of closeness.
“Sure.” Liu Mu Dan immediately forgets what she was saying “I will teach you to sew one (a bra) just like mine. I have thought of a new phrase for you, the left one will be “Immediately puff up” and the right one will be “Develop quickly”….”
“Penoy, I am hungry, let’s go eat.”
Her train of thoughts cut off yet again, Liu Mu Dan joyfully goes with her daughter-in-law to get something to eat.
A stupefied Helian watched the two women walk away. Turning stiffly to the Eight Braves, he asks “I am not dreaming right?”
None of the Eight Braves paid him any heed, all of them were too busy staring after Feng Zhi Wei with reverence and worship in their eyes.
“The Princess IS a goddess…even Peony Flower couldn’t kill her off…”
—————————————-
Only when Peony dived into the food did everyone dared to enter into the tent– Only when the Grand Queen is eating, is she especially focused and won’t be too shocking to be around her.
Holding Zhi Xiao in his arms, Gu Nan Yi beelines it towards Zhi Wei and blurts out “No milk.”
The nursemaid who came with them was so frightened by what happened last night that her milk suddenly dried up. Unfortunately, Gu Zhi Xiao is very picky and refuses to eat rice gruel so Master Gu could only come to seek help from Zhi Wei.
Zhi Wei glares at him— Why are you asking me? Do you really think this is my daughter?
“Where did this baby come from? And such a beautiful one?” Her eyes sparkling, Peony suddenly stopped chowing down all the food in sight. Wiping off the crumbs on her lips, “My precious Wei Wei, you are so capable. The wedding has not even been held but the baby is already out. Lucky, you are not bad either…” In a lightning fast move, she opens the little blanket and quickly covers it back up. Pursing her lips she continues “…just the seed is a bit lacking, why is it a girl?”
The milk tea Helian was in the middle of drinking came shooting out, causing poor Zong Chen to go change into yet another white outfit for the third time.
“It’s not mine…” Helian says weakly “We found it.”
“Oh.” Sighing with a voice that is hard to discern if she is disappointed or glad, Liu Mu Dan reaches for the baby “Let me feed her.”
Of course Master Gu pays her no heed. Helian retorts loudly “You will? You will with what? Do you have milk?!”
“You are right!” Liu Mu Dan puffs up her chest proudly and declares loudly “I! Have! Milk!”
“!!!….”
The tent full of people froze on the spot as Peony arrogantly bounced her chest towards Gu Nan Yi’s face “You want to see? You want to see? Is there milk or not, one look and you will be able to tell!”
For the first time in Master Gu’s life, he is losing ground again and again in front of his enemy…
Sweeping Gu Zhi Xiao into her arms, a smiling Peony teases the baby then tells Zhi Wei “Precious Wei Wei, when you have a baby, it can’t be uglier than this one okay.”
Taking Peony’s words in stride, Zhi Wei nods with a serene smile. She is quite grateful that the nickname Peony chose for her is just Precious Wei Wei instead of some strange Catty Wei or Bunny Wei.
“You..had another one again….” Helian struggles to get his words out “I haven’t left that long, you…had another one again?”
What does he mean have another one again? Did the Grand Queen give birth a lot?
“What do you mean have another one again!” Peony suddenly became furious, yelling as she jabbed her finger at the direction of Helian’s nose “I just had seven in all these years! It’s all you, who is a wolf reincarnated. The prophet Dama was right when he said your life energy would kill off all of your other brothers! I gave birth to seven and seven died! I left this eighth one behind when I was kidnapped, so he probably…won’t live either! You wolf reincarnated!”
Helian falls silent, seemingly feeling guilty. Her anger dissipated the moment she finished venting, Peony eagerly opened her robe “I can finally squeeze it out, I was dying…”
The tent full of people emptied out in the next instant.
So on a lark, I had checked my Paypal donation account a couple of weeks ago and was completely floored when I saw the list of readers who had taken the time to donate. To be completely honest, I had only set up the donate button because a really kind reader had asked about it so I never checked the Paypal account again since I assumed it would have like $5 in it in a few years. I can not begin to describe the warm and fuzzy feeling I got as I looked over the donation list. The donation amount varied in size but I was touched by the sincerity and the encouragement by every single one of them no matter what the amount was. Thank you!
I was feeling so grateful that I really wanted to come up with a thank you gift so here is a little gift I came up with: I am going to be emailing in the next day or so those of you who donated a little scene I skipped over in today’s post. I skipped over about 800+ words of a short scene of Zhi Wei’s conversation with Liu Mu Dan. The conversation is not vital to the story but it was still a fun scene. I will be using the email you use for your paypal account so double-check if that’s not your main e-mail account. (Shout out to reader Vanessa: You didn’t have an email with your Paypal donation so please shoot an email to ninjareflectionblog@gmail.com and I will send the translation part to you.)
Please please don’t feel like you have to donate if you haven’t or had never planned on doing so. The extra tent scene will be posted at a later date for everyone to read so you won’t be missing anything. (I am thinking about posting it as an extra scene in Feb in celebration of Valentine’s day) I am grateful to all who take the time to read my blog. The only thing I actively encourage would be to leave a comment since it really helps me to feel like I am not just posting into empty space. I especially love comments that shares your feelings and thoughts about the story or the characters!
All text copyright @ www.Ninja-Reflection.com
Oh my goodness 😂😂 Helians Mom is overwhelming! I know Zhi Wei is capable and calm but how long can she keep redirecting and using her energy on this woman without getting exhausted? I am so curious to see how things keep progressing and how the relationship between Zhi Wei and Helian progresses. I am wondering if Zhi Wei will develop any feelings for him or not and also curious to see how Nan Yi is doing and to learn how he found out about Zhi Wei being married and leaving.
Thank you Ninja Reflection!
Also! What was the first language you learned? I see that you translate from multiple different languages and I would love to know more about how you progressed between different languages. I am in the process of teaching myself mandarin using duo lingo and an app called chinese skill. It is very enjoyable but also somewhat slow 🙂 thank you for another very fun and engaging translation!!
Mandarin is my first language. I wish I could translate multiple languages, alas Chinese is the only one. I don’t have any real tips on language learning especially since there seems to be plenty of great advice on youtube but I did read A LOT and probably should’ve watched more dramas…if that’s possible.
Hahaha more dramas is always good 😉
I recently started watching the drama, and i just can’t accept the ending, it is really sad. I hope the book is different. Been reading your translation of the book for the last couple of days and i look forward to every monday. Thank you thank you so much.
I just wanted to say I read every translation every Monday! I look forward to it every week. Thank you so much for making Monday mornings something to be excited about. 💕
Thank you for the extra post – and so heartened to hear you got lots of donations! My goodness, you’ve earned it with these TROP translations alone!!
I have been rewatching this show (along with a rewatch of Chuno to really spoil myself!) and am actually at the part where Zhi Wei and Helian are back at Jinshi – and it is nothing like this! 🙃 Makes me wonder again about the choices made. I’m still loving the show, despite being highly aware of the disastrous ending on its way. Still loving your translations, which helps make better sense of certain aspects of the drama and which, of course, makes an ending worthy of our leads.
Just to add, the drama is SO beautiful to look at : scenery, locations, costumes. Does the author detail in the same way? The acting in the drama is excellent too 😍
Chinese novels in this genre typically do a great job on descriptions so I would rate this one as good but not great. Come to think of it, if she was verbose in her descriptions then that would just make translating it even harder…
The world the novel is set in is a fictional one so the costumes and everything else in the drama seemed to have taken more reference from a mesh of Chinese histories. As for the acting, it was indeed awesome. Of the many bones I can pick with this show, acting is certainly not one of them.
Thank you so much for the extra excerpt today! I was so surprised and excited to read it! I hope you know how much your translations are appreciated! Not everyone makes comments so it must be hard to tell how many people are actually reading, but my guess is there are quite a lot. Usually, during or after watching the drama, people crave more. This is the perfect place to get a taste of what was in the books. Have a fantastic New Year and I think everyone reading your translations are looking forward to another year of great reads.
I am enjoying the book so much more with your excellent translations. It is unfortunate that so much was left out in the drama. Liu Mu Dan is hysterical.
I MUCH prefer this Liu Mu Dan than the one in the show! 🤣
This week’s translation is hilarious! Thanks so much
Muito interessantes essas cenas realmente hilariante. Mais uma vez obrigada. FELIZ ANO NOVO!!!!!!
I’m relating the ZW right now so hard… having a couple outrageous members in my own family – one learns the ways of the ‘smile/nod/redirect’
So funny!
I don’t alway comment because I am not very good at it. Haha. I am an avid reader and I think you are an amazing writer. I know transiting chinese to English require some skills and this is at the top of the list.
Your hard work is my only 2nd to my morning coffee 😁.
Thank you