Wherein the author tease at Wen Kexing's back story.
Thank you Emma P for proofreading!
Notes
1. 龙孝 "pious dragon" - pious as in "filial piety" which is such an important concept to the Chinese culture that it gets its own character.
2. See note above.
3. 哪壶不开提哪壶 colloquialism translated literally. The phrase contains a wordplay as "lift" and "mention" are homophonous; it means somebody is mentioning something that shouldn't be mentioned.
4. 羽追. The character 追 also means "to carve", making the name translate as "carved with feathers".
5. Quote from Records of The Grand Historian by Sima Qian. Fan Kuai (樊哙) was a famous general allied with Liu Bang during the Eighteen Kingdoms. He used the line to respond to Xiang Yu (their rival who was at the time more powerful) during the Hongmen Feast held by Xiang Yu as a scheme to assassinate Liu Bang. Fan Kuai's intervention in demonstrating his brave character helped Liu Bang (and himself) avoid death.
6. Another joke around turtles (meaning "bastard"). The original calls Ye Baiyi a "hundred years living turtle, thousand years living tortoise/bastard".
Thank you for the translation ❤️
I wonder if the epiphany ZZS had was about the lifelike automatons being made based on Rong Xuan and his wife. Or maybe it was something else he concluded? 👀
Really love that moment when Zhou Zishu recognizes Long Que as true hero. That's some amazing resolve. And I think Wen Kexing was moved to see someone who loved and respected his parents this much.
I'm curious what about Long Que's way of raising his son inspired this much hatred. Or maybe it was mostly due to being raised so isolated. When Long Que built this mansion and dismissed the servants, he ensured that his son would grow up with no real human interactions except for a father that hated him for his wife's death. I'm not really surprised he became mad and hateful.
Thanks for the chapter ❤️