Wherein there is warmies and fuzzies... A lovely chapter.
Also, I've been made aware that the site doesn't work in the Wix app on mobiles. So 1) don't install it, my posts glitch and I don't know how to fix it. 2) I've set up a Ko-fi page (link here and in the site's header), if you'd like to support me, you can send a tip my way. It'd be much appreciated and if the donation reaches the set goal, I'll buy ads-free hosting! (If not and you've donated, I'll just buy tea and perhaps something for my volunteer proofreaders :))
As always, thank you to Emma P who caught the many mistakes in this chapter!
Notes
1. Someone doing something imaginatively/with an unconstrained style is described as 天马行空 (or "celestial steeds travelling the sky"). I've translated the idiom literally. The author sardonically contrasts the saying with 三纸看不见一根驴毛 (or "you wouldn't have found a donkey's hair in three pages") to describe WKX's divagations. The latter was a bit of a mouthful and doesn't really make sense if you don't get the meaning of the idiom so I transformed it.
2. 腊八节 (lit. "festival of the eight on the La month"), associated with the date of Sidharta Gautama's enlightenment. The day is celebrated by eating the delicious Eight Treasures Congee.
小年 (lit. "small year") refers in context to the 祭灶节 ("festival of sacrifice to the kitchen god). It's done by cleaning the house, offering food, and painting over the mouth of an image of the Stove God with sweetened liquid. Celebrated either on the 23rd or the 24rd. Since they are in the south-ish, I used the 24th.
3. 记吃不记打 (lit. "to remember the meal, but not the beating"). Meaning someone who doesn't remember past lessons/negative experiences.
4. 撂爪就忘 collq. lit. "to forget after raising its paw". The Chinese goldfish is a generic animal that'd forget after a piss/getting up on its paws.
5. I resorted to a bit of a chinoiserie here. The villagers are said to 拜了又拜, or "to pray" which may entail kowtowing, but can also simply mean moving conjoined palms up and down in the direction of the divinity. Since the latter is a mouthful, I used the former although it may be less accurate.
6. WKX calls ZZS "牛刀" or "Ox knife". It refers to either the idiom "牛刀小試" ("to use an ox knife on small matters") or "牛刀割鸡" ("to use an ox knife to slay the chicken"). Both describe using great skills to deal with small matters, and WKX using the term implies ZZS would be wasting his skills on trivial matters (but he is asking anyway).
7. WKX calls ZZS "贤惠" (lit. "bestowed with virtues"). The term is used to mean women who are virtuous, the virtues being those of a proper and decent wife.
8. 红/蓝颜知己 lit. "red/blue coloured confidant". The colour red is used to describe women and the colour blue to describe men in those phrases. A bit of a chinoiserie again as I tried to render the difference with flowery and verdant.