Wherein there is comedy.
Perhaps a warning: priest tends to make fun of physical deformities and there is some in this chapter. Although, it is somewhat amended in the next instalment.
Even though the descriptions are quite unsympathetic and I tend to want to tone it down, I mostly let it stand as is because I like letting people judge. Also, I guess that if people weren't prejudiced against characters afflicted with physical ailments in the fw-verse, there would be less dramatic tension in their quests to obtain super-secret artefacts that can cure them.
As always, many thanks to Emma P whose proofreading is precious!
Notes
1. 蚍蜉撼树, idiom (lit. "ants shaking up a tree") in the original.
2. Small inconsistency here. The text doesn't mention whether Zhou Zishu flicked out a pebble or flicked at the air with some kind of energy blast thing. Both are equally likely so I left it as is.
3. 春宫图 (lit. "pictures of the spring palace"). As a side note, I find it hilarious that the Chinese Wikipedia entry on 春宫图 insists on the fact that they were sex-education manuals, instead of just good ol' porn. Though it seemed attested that erotic books were sometimes part of a woman's dowry, so as to teach her how to please her husband.
Interestingly, erotic albums were also believed to have the properties of warding off fires and thus kept in kitchens: rain is associated with sex because the earth is fertilized by its fall in the Chinese imagination. Hence, representation of the sexual act symbolises the water element which, according to wuxin (the five elements), counteracts the fire element. That or it was an excuse for people to have a stash of porn in their houses.
The Japanese term for a similar art form is 春画 (shunga or "spring drawings").
4. Fireworks on Chinese new year's eve is a festive tradition because, amongst other reasons, the racket they make is believed to scare ghosts/devils away. Every household used to buy fireworks for the occasion and set them off on the streets/in their backyard/balcony. The practice was banned due to fire hazards some thirty years ago.
5. ZZS and WKX are described as "not being good jujubes" (不是好枣) in the original.
6. 千斤坠 same technique as the one used against the giant dog in the cave.
7. 粽子, filled glutinous rice cakes wrapped in bamboo leaves and tied up with lengths of strings.
8. The original pun is "给个棒槌就当针" or "being handed a baton and taking it for a needle". The word "needle" is homophonous with "truth" so the alternative meaning of the phrase is "(you can't) take a baton for a needle/the truth"
9. The original pun is WKX saying "好剑!" ("Great sword move!"), pronounced "hao jian", and ZZS saying "好贱." ("What a sleazeball.") also pronounced "hao jian".
A misc. note on how the author did a "Disney" with the murdered man in the wheelchair: one instant he is pierced by a sword, and the next his corpse seems to dematerialise as it's never mentioned again. I thought it was a clever way to not make the text too gory.
Love to see WKX and ZZS getting along better 😭 Even more that ZZS is letting himself lean on WKX (literally and figuratively 😂)
Oh wow, what a horrible fate to be tied to the bed like that for who knows how long. Thanks for the chapter!