SFLQT CH 18

Hope everyone had a good Valentine’s Day! It was then followed by a 3 day weekend for me since NYC/US has President’s Day off (at least my company)! My children have midwinter recess. This winter has been really warm. I hate the cold but not at the expense of our environment…

Should I be alarmed that the moment I post a chapter, Novel Updates automatically updates without my input? Is this normal? I guess one less thing for me to do at least, I shouldn’t complain. 😉

I also check from time to time if any aggregate websites scraped my translations, they captured my TL notes instead! I got a kick out of that. I suppose the image posting is working pretty well to prevent it for now… (knock on wood) >.>

This chapter wasn’t as long as CH 17, which was a good 30-40% longer than normal.

Thank you all for your support and feedback! Please enjoy the chapter!

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If you are not seeing this on hongbaihe.net, this is a stolen translation Please do not repost without permission!! Please support the original translator by viewing it at the source!

If you are not seeing this on hongbaihe.net, this is a stolen translation Please do not repost without permission!! Please support the original translator by viewing it at the source!

If you are not seeing this on hongbaihe.net, this is a stolen translation Please do not repost without permission!! Please support the original translator by viewing it at the source!

If you are not seeing this on hongbaihe.net, this is a stolen translation Please do not repost without permission!! Please support the original translator by viewing it at the source!

If you are not seeing this on hongbaihe.net, this is a stolen translation Please do not repost without permission!! Please support the original translator by viewing it at the source!

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Author’s Note:

This… I have an extremely daring mature idea, but… I feel you guys… can’t accept it…

Not sure what she means by this… Since she is being vague, it’s a bit hard to translate accurately too…

Jinjiang is fixed up! All fixed up!

TL: Referring to jjwxc, which is a site that hosts the author’s novel along with many others… Apparently, the website has random bouts of downtime where pages don’t load though usually, the site comes back up very fast and users can start browsing again after refreshing a few times.

Still 200 red envelopes. See you tomorrow!

Gradually losing control of update timing _(:3∠)_

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TL Notes:

My mom is shocked (震撼我妈) is a term rumored to originate from a poor translation of a battleship named Le Terrible from a French MMO called World of Warships. Sort of how “all your base are belong to us” became an internet meme. This is used is to highlight how something is particularly shocking.

I was so confused translating 霹雳娇娃 because when I was searching for the term, Charlie’s Angels came up and I was like WTF? It didn’t make sense in context until I read off Baidu that it’s a term that originated from that movie. So random. I guess it has a connotation of like biker chicks or tough beauties and entered the Chinese slang vernacular that way?

I was so surprised that Yuan Ze immediately reacted so furiously with smashing the wine glass against his own bandmate’s head! Like, just wrecking people is his go-to move before he even uses his brain! He is so darn hotheaded!! A raging bull for sure – very scary! On top of that, A-Ken wasn’t even upset! How normal of a reaction is this for Yuan Ze in order for his friends to not be the least bit surprised or pissed??????

This phrase 脱离苦海 was used by Yuan Ze to white wash Su Nuo’s abandonment. It is associated with a Buddhist connotation of severing one’s self from worldly affairs and leaving behind all suffering. It literally translates to escaping the bitter sea. I translated it as passing through a crucible, maybe light at end of tunnel would have a similar meaning too.

New characters and therefore name analysis!

• A-Ken (阿肯) is a very simple name as the first character is simply Ah, which is a common Chinese add on familiarize any name, kind of like Bob becomes Bobby or Rob into Robbie or Lin Zhi calling Ah-Ze for Yuan Ze. Then Ken literally means willing, able, can, agreeable, etc. So it seems like a very canned name for a Yes-man, haha! I suppose this is a hint that A-Ken is like Yuan Ze’s right hand man or loyal follower? I definitely don’t think that Ah is his surname. I would be very surprised if that were the case.
• Liao Zheng (廖正) has a surname meaning few or scanty and his name means upright, straight or righteous. So I would assume that the author is hinting Liao Zheng has a sense of justice as a character. I’m not sure if she is combining it with the surname to mean that he only has small sense of justice or if it means he has a rare sense of justice that isn’t commonplace… we will see, won’t we?
• Wu Dong (烏冬) when you put it through Google translate, it spits out udon noodles!!! Puhahah! But the Wu means crow or dark/black and isn’t the normal Wu/Ng (吳) that is used for surnames, Dong means winter or can be used as onomatopoeia for drum sounds. So his name basically means dark winter. His nickname Mian Mian (面面) can mean face or noodles (hahaha, I guess that’s why they use this as it suits him more). I guess the machine translation of udon noodles wasn’t that far off since Wu Dong seems to be the vulnerable type/damsel in distress you devour and he also has the handsomest face in the band as per Yuan Ze.

I really get the sense that the author hides a lot of hints in the character names and she is also not too serious with the names, especially the side characters (cannon fodder). Come to think of it, Shen Wang’s buddies are also a group of three… I suppose she is really setting up Shen Wang and Yuan Ze as foils for each other.

Also, first official appearance of the word, siscon (妹控), to describe Yuan Ze has appeared! He has definitely earned that moniker so far. The Chinese counterpart is half directly translated and half romanized since 妹控 = mei kong. Mei is little sister (or imouto in Japanese) in Chinese. The kong is the con part, like when the Japanese say things that sound the same as their English equivalent but somehow adding a Japanese touch to the pronunciation (e.g. milk = miruku). The Chinese definitely do that too (ex: Mike becomes Mai-ke or New York becomes Niu Yue/ 纽约, meaning Knobbed Appointment).

I am guilty of this also if I am speaking English phrases/terms in a Mandarin Chinese context, despite being fluent in English. Bilingual ABC really means they are fluent in Chinese (whatever dialect), English and Chinglish!

Su Nuo basically defended Yuan Ze’s siscon tendencies despite going overboard protective with the wheelchair through this idiom: 伤筋动骨一百天. This means that no matter how big or small the injury, once it impacts the bones/tendons, the general wisdom is to recover for 100 days so as to not cause issues down the line. Just funny since she was so embarrassed by the wheelchair in the first place.

Puhahah, everyone seems to meet Su Nuo and then ask her brothers to become in-laws. So funny how everyone keeps getting rejected right away for whatever reason. Also realized that Su Nuo has had 2 make overs already and none of them are to impress the potential love interests! Very feminist and modern! The first one when she was first returning home and dyed her hair black, then the other at the mall with Yuan Ze and them when she cut her hair short.

This idiom 庸脂俗粉 was a bit hard to translate. Yuan Ze used it to describe the prepared gigolos before switching tactics to recommend the virginal Wu Dong (his nickname, Mian Mian, is also a bit feminine). While researching, I read that it’s like expecting a beauty but getting a fat, ugly, old lady dressed up in heavy rouge blush and powder. A bit of false advertising. I tried my best to get that across but it was difficult.

Yuan Ze’s favorite phrase seems to be “guaranteed”. I try not to be repetitive when translating unless I’m following a theme off the original text but he really loves to use 保准 all the time, which really only translates into “guaranteed.”

So amusing that Yuan Ze is willing to let his little sister be a big player/heart breaker. Usually, sis-cons are so protective that no one can approach them, period. He has an extremely modern viewpoint, which is at odds with the very patriarchal quality to protect your female relatives, which is usually associated with safeguarding their chastity too.

It sort of a very bizarre way of cheering someone up though well intentioned and oddly sweet. I think Su Nuo would just say that Yuan Ze is frigging perverse. Haha!

Also need to explain Asia’s night culture for clubbing for those that don’t know. I’ve never personally experienced it so take this with a grain of salt. You can think of it similar to bottle service for tables in night clubs for Americans. People tend to get rooms like at a karaoke and order alcoholic drinks. Then girls usually go to the room to “book” it and become the set hostesses for that room’s particular patrons. They can play drinking games to accompany and entertain the customers. They get paid for this service, of course. I’m not too certain as to the particulars but I imagine that the drinks are up-charged by an extremely large margin.

This type of fun is also closely associated with call girls, escort work and the prostitution trade at large. You also see this being done by males though less frequently. I believe the Japanese male hosts originated the female equivalent. This is what Yuan Ze euphemistically references by men finding fun or men going clubbing and women seeking happiness.

Hence a big shock for a legitimate A-list celebrity like Zhao Yunqing to appear and serve this function. All for his baby sister, Su Nuo! Only the best will do, lol. Yay, our ML appears again! Very curious as to his true agenda. I’m assuming that he doesn’t mean any harm to our heroine for now.

In terms of causing one’s heart to itch with a scratch, it commonly means to stir up one’s desires. It’s a very common idiom in Chinese and is also associated with someone being coquettish, which means teasing or flirting. Coquettish is the best way to describe it but I dislike using this word since it’s really not commonly used in the English language and seems a bit archaic.

Don’t really get Shen Wang’s deal. You want Su Nuo to leave you alone, she does that and now you want to go over and fake concern? Where was that so called concern when she got stabbed in the back by the damn abductors???

I bet he is approaching her for a power play to try and be controlling. So hypocritical, makes me want to slap his face. Either you care about Su Nuo or you don’t, can’t have it both ways. You can never win with people like Shen Wang. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. There are truly people like Shen Wang out there, that’s why his character is pretty believable and also super annoying. Cue rolling eyes.

Wow! If you read this lonnnnnggg rambling TL note, you deserve a medal!

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