Crop top Tuxedo

Corresponding ExR: Arrogance part 3 FW pages 73-81

三毒 san1du2 (jp: sandoku) “Three poisons”–the name of Jiang Cheng’s sword. Explanation from Wikipedia. (There’s more Buddhism in this book more thank I expected.)

In the Buddhist teachings, the three poisons (of ignorance, attachment, and aversion) are the primary causes that keep sentient beings trapped in samsara (cycle of reincarnation).“

忘機 wang4ji1 (jp: bouki) “To be free of worldly concerns”–the name of Lan Wangji and his qin. Explanation thread from Taming Wangxian (I'd love to get my hands on their translation if anyone has, but that seems like a hell of a long shot at this point). According to the Fukyuuban jitsu via Kotobank, there’s a Li Bai 李白 poem I should take a look at, 下終南山過斛斯山人宿置酒 “descending the Zhongnan mountains, passing by Husi sanren’s inn, and preparing wine for dinner”. I will translate this in a separate post.

沢蕪君 takubukun = zewujun. I’d love to know about why Lan Xichen is lord swamp turnip. There’s clearly some sort of Daoist textual reference I’m missing, but I would not know where to even start looking for that.

梢頭 shoutou “outermost edge of the treetops”. Adding this because I could only find it in a kokugo dictionary.

乾坤袋 kenkonbukuro “qiankun bag”. Firstly I’m surprised that the more common character for “bag” is used here, as opposed to 嚢 (because of 鎖霊嚢 sareinou “chained spirit bag” last time). Secondly, 乾坤 kenkon is actually translatable. “Heaven and earth”, “yin and yang”, “the universe”, “Northwest and southwest”. The Fukyuuban jitsu even leads me to a Du Fu poem, 登岳陽楼 “Climbing Yueyang tower”, which I will also translate in another post. It seems to be a term used in religion and mysticism but my preliminary research doesn’t point to any one belief in particular. Baike points me at Daoism. Other sources point at the I Ching, which isn’t necessarily a Daoist text; it appears to be an unaffiliated mystic text in that it predates other religions or major philosophies. I’ve also seen it as part of the names of some Buddhist temples. (I found a translation+commentary in the library of the I Ching and I am utterly terrified. It's enormous! At least 700 pages with a hard cover.)

照妖鏡 shouyoukyou demon reflecting illuminating mirror I’ll give ExR a pass because Mandarin bridge says 照 zhao4 can mean “to reflect”. Japanese carries no such meaning. To reflect in a mirror is 映る utsuru.

燃陰符 nen'infu gloom yin burning talisman, which burns dark yin energy. (This is a straight up mistake from overtranslation.)

Don’t think I don’t print out a chapter of Exiled Rebels every weekend to not scrawl all over it with a red pen. You better believe I’m fixing it, and I will be fixing my Seven Seas books on the reread too!

Moving onward to quotations…

Also, Jiang Cheng’s sword, “Sandu,” had never made actual contact with Lan WangJi’s sword, “Bichen,” and it was not yet decidable whose hands would the deer die on. (ExR)

それに、江澄の剣「三毒」は蘭忘機の剣「避塵」とまだ一度も正式に手合わせをしたこともなく、どちらが上かわからない。(FW pg. 74) Besides, Jiang Cheng’s sword “sandu” had never formally contested Lan Wangji’s sword “bichen”, so [missing subject] did not know which was better.

ExR, there was no good reason to foot note this idiom.

As Wei WuXian pulled the corners of his mouth, Lan WangJi spoke again, “Do your tasks.” The command was simplistic and clear, without any fancy vocabulary for decoration.

魏無羨も口角を少し上げると、意外にも蘭忘機が口を開いた。 「――夜狩だ」 その一言は簡潔明瞭で、飾り気のない言葉だった。(FW pg. 75) No sooner did Wei Wuxian raise the corners of his mouth, Lan Wangji unexpectedly opened his mouth. “–[We’re] night hunting.” That brief comment was clear and concise, and candid.

From what I can see here, 飾り気のない kazarike no nai is a set phrase in Japanese, but ExR either doesn’t have the same circumstances or they’re taking it overly literally. 飾り気 kazarike means “affectation, pretense,” or, literally, “decorated atmosphere”, therefore “without pretense” = “candid, plain, unaffected, frank, unpretentious”. If I shove it into Chinese-Japanese weblio, I get 直性子 zhi2xing4zi5 which is borderline nonsense when I shove that back through Mandarin Bridge. What it suggests instead is 直腸子 zhi2chang2zi5, a forthright person, or literally 直 zhi2 “straight” + 性子 xing4zi5 “temper”. Meanwhile the example sentence is 私は飾り気のない人が好きだ = 我喜欢直爽的人 = “I like straightforward people.” 直爽 zhi2shuang3 is at least a word I can look up! I really need a better Japanese<>Chinese dictionary.

Continuing that scene…

After a moment, Lan WangJi spoke again, “Do what you can. Don’t force anything.” (ExR)

しばらくして、蘭忘機は言い渡した。 「全力を尽くしなさい。だが、無理は禁物だ。」(FW pg. 75) After a bit, Lan Wangji ordered: “Do your best. But, excess ought to be avoided.”

Truth be told I didn’t realize 全力を尽くす zenryoku wo tsukusu and 頑張る ganbaru were synonyms. Now I know. Now you know.

The voice was deep and alluring. (ExR) His voice was deep and captivating. (7s pg 85) 彼の声が低く重厚で… (FW pg 75) His voice was low and profound…

Is the Chinese narrator trying to say “masculine timbre” = “sexy” to WWX-who-is-definitely-not-attracted-to-men-at-this-time? From what I can tell, the Japanese narrator is trying to establish a characterization here. LWJ is a solemn, composed, and dignified ideal Confucian gentleman. I always imagine him as a man of few words, and when he does speak, it’s generally not much louder than a whisper, since he rarely raises his voice at anyone.

He couldn’t let a single grain of sand appear in his eyes, which was why he had never approved of Wei WuXian cultivating the dark path. (ExR)

Verdict: Disagree

Back then, he’d been extremely against Wei Wuxian cultivating the demonic path. (7S pg. 84)

Verdict: DISAGREE

間違いは決して見逃さず、魏無羨が鬼道を修練することに関しても強く反対していた。(FW pg. 76) He absolutely would not turn a blind eye toward a single mistake, and strongly opposed anything concerning Wei Wuxian cultivating the ghost path.

The above should speak for itself. Good grief…

Ever since then, he had reminded himself of the Yunmeng Jiang Sect’s motto—do it even if it was impossible. 雲夢江氏のあの家訓を忘れるな――「成せぬと知りても、為さねば成らぬ」と。(FW pg. 78) Don’t forget that Unbou Jiang clan family motto–“Even if you know you cannot succeed, if you don’t try it won’t happen.”

In case this one made your head spin, let’s go through the entry for nasu. 為す is just the verb “to do”. It’s spelled that way because sometimes Classical Chinese uses 為 wei2 as the verb “to do”. (為 tame “purpose” is derived from 為 wei4.) From there you can also extrapolate “to perform, to attempt” as secondary definitions. Meanwhile 成す is the transitive of “to become” which in turn becomes “to make something thus, to form, to succeed at, to accomplish”. They’re going heavy handed with the classical here. To make this easier to parse, in modern Japanese you’d read it 「なせないと知っても、なさなければ、ならない」と。That make more sense?

Back on tumblr i had a really long meandering post about trying to parse out some glossary terms for this section that really didn't work out well and I still haven't figured out how to repost it in a clear, concise manner. That having been said, the following are based on my attempts to hash out that glossary so every type of beast or spirit introduced has a unique entry.

It lit up as soon as it was taken out, meaning that there was a spirit not far away from Wei Wuxian. (ExR)

取り出してすぐ火についたというのは、近くに陰霊がいるということだ。(FW pg 79) Catching fire as soon as it was taken out mean that there was a shade nearby.

As much as every word containing 霊 can mean “spirit”, I’m purposefully trying to tease them apart. 陰 is “yin” but it can also be read kage “shadow”. That’s how I arrived at “shade”.

This was a ghost, probably killed with a weapon which was smashed onto his head. (ExR)

この老人は「死霊」だ。おそらく誰かに凶器で頭を殴られて殺されたのだろう。(FW pg. 80) This old man was a “spirit-of-the-dead”. He was probably bludgeoned to death [lit. beaten and killed] by someone with a dangerous weapon.

ExR, you’re dropping adjectives again.

This wasn’t the soul that a living human had lost. (ExR) これから考えても、これは生きている人間から魂だけ離れた「生霊」ではない。 Even thinking about it from here, this wasn’t a “wraith”–just the soul separated from a living human.

Not sure if the Japanese side decided to embellish here, but I’m including it because it’s yet another new term.

One cultivator answered, “They left here, for Goddess Temple.” (ExR) 「彼らならここを離れて、天女の祠に行きましたよ。」 (FW pg. 80) “Them, they left and went to the Celestial Maiden’s Shrine.” “Them, they left and went to the Devi’s Shrine.”

She’s not quite a goddess, she’s a ten'nyo, a tian1nü3! This word can go one of a couple ways. One is in the realm of Immortals, Xian 仙–“Celestial Maiden.” Literally “heavenly lady”. Pretty self explanatory. The other is Buddhist, that’s a devi, ie. the feminine of “deva” (which is 天人 tenjin/tian1ren2 for those of you who want to do more research). In Buddhism, devas are not necessarily “gods” either. Based on my Wikipedia research they sound more like super humans or titans. “Minor god” is stretching it.

To quote the Buddhist cosmology Wikipedia page:

It is to be understood that deva is an imprecise term referring to any being living in a longer-lived and generally more blissful state than humans. Most of them are not “gods” in the common sense of the term, having little or no concern with the human world and rarely if ever interacting with it…

Based on the depiction of the statue in question in the donghua, I am leaning toward a Buddhist interpretation. (When I first saw it, I thought the statue was of a bodhisattva, since statues of 觀音/观音Guan1yin1/観音 Kanon, the Bodhisattva of Compassion, are exceedingly popular. I was wrong. It had too many arms.) As far as I know, only Buddhist icons have multiple arms like that in far east Asian traditions outside of India. I am open to correction.

One more thing! 祠 hokora is Shinto. It’s a wayside shrine built for minor folk 神 kami. In Japanese tradition, they’re supposed to be tiny. In Chinese tradition, they appear to be full sized shrines. Below is a Japanese hokora. OP guesses it probably isn’t much taller than a child. Shot in the dark: maybe 1.3 m or 4 feet max.

This Chinese website explains the difference between a whole ton of different types of religious institutions: 寺 si4 (temple, often Buddhist), 廟/庙 miao4 (ancestral temple), 祠 ci2 (memorial temple); 觀/观 guan4 (daoist temple); 庵 an1 (small hut or hermitage/small Buddhist temple/nunnery). This image below of a Chinese ci2 comes from the linked website.

OP cannot make out the name of the place. The image is too compressed to be legible. To reiterate for the nth time, my Mandarin is absolute trash. From what I can make out without resorting to machine translation, this kind of shrine is usually built to commemorate some sort of great personage and maintained as an ancestral hall. DO NOT TAKE MY WORD FOR THIS. If I were to venture a guess how tall this thing is, (considering that a standard door frame is 7 feet) maybe 4.5 m/15 feet total?

The point I’m trying to make is in China, 祠 are a full sized building, while in Japan they are puny scale models because they serve completely different purposes. Gotta set expectations.

Wei WuXian inquired again, “Which deity is the temple built for?” (ExR) 「どういう神が祀られているんだ？」 (FW pg. 80) “What sort of divinity is enshrined [there]?

Ok ExR, you get a pass this time. For my own pedanticism’s sake, I’m going to stop rambling and just link some wiki pages for kami 神 and shen2 神 respectively. Teasing these apart is a headache and I’ve already been at this post for who knows how many hours I’m getting a screen headache for real.

“The round-faced girl spoke, “I, I think it’s a natural stone statue of a goddess.” (ExR)

「ええと、自然にできた一体の天女神の石像らしいです」 (FW pg. 81) “Um, it appears to be a naturally formed stone statue of a celestial maiden spirit.”

Having both ten'nyo and kami in feels unnecessarily redundant. I’d really prefer either “devi” or “divinity” but not both.

In addition according to this fan blog (which may not be live anymore):

舞天女尊（ぶてんにょそん）…食魂天女（しょっこんてんにょ）とも呼ぶ。元々自然にできた石像だったが、それを見た人々が崇めるようになり怪物に化けた。参拝者の願いを叶える代わりにその者の魂を吸い取る。ドラマ版では陰鉄を刺されたことで怪物に化け、アニメ版では鬼腕が取り憑いて怪物に化けた。 There revered dancing devi, aka the soul consuming devi. Originally a naturally formed stone statue, but the people who saw it came to worship it and it transformed into a monster. Instead of granting the worshipers’ prayers, it absorbed their souls. In the drama, it transformed into a monster because it was stabbed with yin iron, while in the anime it transformed into a monster because the ghost arm possessed it.

I think I have an answer for whether the 食魂殺 shokkonsatsu soul-eating killer is a 鬼 ki or a 怪 kai. I would at this point categorize it as a 怪 kai not because it’s dead but because it never lived in the first place, combined with the specific use of the term 怪物 kaibutsu (“monster”).

I really need to fix my glossary.