Yao Nie Bing Wang (WSK) Chapter 152-153

Chapter 152

A solo’d week of translations! It lacks DT’s PENETRATING GAZE which is Super Effective against errors cuz he was busy. There was another censored word, and also another usage of the name of a move.

Translation Notes:

司马昭之心路人皆知 Sīmǎ zhāozhī xīn lùrén jiē zhī – ‘everyone knows Sima Zhao’s heart (intentions)’, or as google machine translates, ‘the villain is obvious’. I dunno if ‘the villain is obvious’ is actually a kind of saying, but the Chinese one references the Three Kingdoms period again! Actually so does Tang SanGuo, whose name is literally “Tang Three Kingdoms”.

In history, Sima Zhao is the son of Sima Yi, the Supreme Commander of the Wei Army who had been recruited by Cao Cao. After Shu eventually fell to Wei, the Cao Clan, descendant relatives of Cao Cao (who had passed away years before) had set up their own dynasty replacing the bygone Han Dynasty, and though they had used Sima Yi to unify the lands, they were jealous and fearful of Sima Yi’s talents and his influence in court.

Sima Yi had many enemies, and was constantly fearful of having his clan executed by the incompetent Cao Clan. He feigned illness and tried other reasons to be excused from public service, but each time the Cao Clan encountered troubles it couldn’t solve by itself, namely, Zhuge Liang of Shu attacking, they would summon Sima Yi and force him into service, only to dismiss and exile him each time after.

During this time, the Cao Clan had become corrupt and excessive, using ham-fisted ruling methods and were lavishly wasteful and corrupt. Sima Yi finally saw a chance when he feigned illness and the Regents of the Cao throne decided to go on a hunting party with the pretext being visiting their clan’s tombs. Sima Yi summoned all of the generals who fought with him on the front lines and destroyed the Cao Clan. After Sima Yi’s coup, the majority of ministers supported him.

Sima Yi did not establish a dynasty, however his son wished to become Emperor. Thus, the saying, ‘everyone knows Sima Zhao’s intentions’ is a reference to his ambitions which led to an even more corrupt and incompetent Jin Dynasty (265-420, not the 1115-1234 Jin Dynasty), which is part of the reason Wei is vilified today. If not for Cao Cao suppressing Liu Bei and Shu, thereafter, the Cao Clan being easily crushed by the Sima Clan, which led the chaos and destruction during the Jin Dynasty, then things would’ve been better.

儿 Er – is an endearment suffix. Name + er, such as Jiu-er would be like ‘dear Jiu’ or ‘Jiu dear’. However, that makes the speaker sound like a nice grandma in English or something, and so it was omitted.

五毒行者 Wǔ dú xíngzhě – ‘five poisoner’, or Penta Poisoner as we have liberally translated.

Saviors, or ‘the favor of saving (a) life’ 救命之恩 Jiùmìng zhī ēn, in Chinese culture means that you owe that person your life. If not for them saving you, you wouldn’t have anything anyways – no happiness or anything, so in literature and probably a lot in Wuxia, becoming the servant of the person who saved your life is considered acceptable.

眼缘 Yǎn yuán – ‘eye affinity’, is kind of like ‘love at first sight’, but doesn’t only apply to love. I translated it as ‘fated affinity’ to try to prevent the wordiness I would get from trying to include the ‘eye’ part. It’s kind of like seeing someone, and just feeling deep affinity, and when mutual, that’s when you get things like the Oath in the Peach Garden! Bromance, romance alike!

不愧是有白云居士一称  bùkuì shì yǒu báiyún jūshì yī chēng – ‘worthy of a scholar from the White Cloud residence’, but I just put ‘very wise’. This is a saying which I can’t think of a good parallel to in English, but I suspect that one exists, possibly originating from the Mediterranean region. Anyways, a Daoist School was established near modern-day Beijing, which has been translated as White Cloud Temple, and was famous for intelligent scholars.

BTW this extremely praising language is a way of showing respect – it’s a norm as opposed to ass-kissing to be liked. I blame the ass-kissers for doing it so much, it makes anyone doing less look bad. Also, I’ve never heard such praise to anyone in my life, idk how it factors into the modern usage of the Mainland usage of Chinese.

According to google, my only find of an air view of the White Cloud Temple. Inside looks like typical ancient Chinese architecture.

刀剑无眼 Dāojiàn wú yǎn – ‘blades and swords have no eyes’, so don’t be surprised if I CUTCHA.

换脸的还快 Huàn liǎn de hái kuài – ‘faster than changing faces’, I think this is a reference to face-changers, a part of Sichuan Opera. The usual verb with face-changers is ‘bian’, not ‘huan’. IDK how strictly the verb association is to this, but it seems that way to me.

Face-changers can change their masks as quickly as a gesture past their face.

Another pic on the other side of that city square I posted a few weeks ago. I can’t help but to think Halo xD