We got something for you! Oh, and here is a picture of a stance that shows up in the chapter:
Also, our announcement is to mention how we plan to deal with the tons of translator notes. Particularly with action scenes, we feel that translator notes, no matter how gloriously hilarious/beautiful/fitting they are, are distracting if you can’t just slip in for the ride, right? We had always been wondering how to deal with it effectively, since the author chooses to use so many, since we want to learn them so we can sound professional and educated to our clients (for work), and since we just wanted to be true and accurate to the novel. I think this chapter really helped settle the issue since it was action packed, but the translator notes were bulky and distracting. Thus, we will take a step towards ‘localization’, wherein we try to find the closest parallel and use that. It is not ‘translating’ strictly speaking, since it will contain completely different words but we will try to match connotation, tone and situation. Also, we will try to find parallels with similar words.
Some of these idioms and other cultural references can take a lot of effort to research, and with the novel being so long we figured it was a good idea to store the data in the form of notes and so readers could also know what it was. This way if we forget, we can quickly reference it and re-translate it if it comes up again. So far, so clumsy. We will instead put up some translator notes down here for you if you’re curious and also to serve as our reference. We will still choose to leave some up if we believe it will improve the reading experience.
So that was wordy, but without further ado, we will introduce the non-essential Translator Corner!
Translator Corner
To capture brigands, first capture the king
*擒贼先擒王 jin zei xian jin wang – It has a lot of interpretations, such as prioritization or looking for crucial points.
He was the first to eat crab
Means to try something new; refers to story of Yu the Great constructing flood controls. There was a massive insect infestation so they had dug-out pits full of boiling water. Some crabs fell in and turned red. Previously they were thought to be some ferocious beetles and then they discovered they were delicious :3
Some little fool who had never seen the market
Never seeing the market: means ignorance and lack of experience. A market is a very ordinary thing but a country bumpkin would never have seen it.
Mecha Mushroom Translations 