Stars Of Chaos 杀破狼
Stars of Chaos 杀破狼
Volume 3, Notes 4/5, Pages 267 - 350
I had to look up this poem and its meaning. In essence, the poem is about revolution. Kicking out the old aristocracy and installing a new regime. Via nice, sweet poetry about birds flying away from Wang and Xie's homes (the "noble halls") into the homes of ordinary folk.
The nice Chinese 5-word version of "heads up their asses" is a much more elegant "顾头不顾腚" = attend to the head an forget the buttocks, as in "can only handle things coming from one direction".
Croaker is a type of small fish. 小黄鱼。
“若非烂到根里，恐怕也不会养出这种滚刀肉一样胆大包天的地方官。”
The "stubborn as cheap jerky" phrase is the translation of 滚刀肉, which is, broken apart, "rolling""knife""meat", like meat that is so sinewy and hard that it turns your knife instead of just letting itself be cut.
The "in their crooked ways" phrase is, I think, just an extra little modifier to help you understand that these difficult officials are not just stubborn, (and definitely not righteous,) but also crooked.
Pg 304: When I read this in English, it felt to me like the emperor was questioning if he himself still held power; in Chinese, it sounds to me more like he is stating that someone is trying to hide a really big secret, and he is questioning who that wrong-doer is.
"朕倒不知道这朝中是谁一手遮天了。"
Bad translation: "We (royal) do not know who in this court is using his hand to cover the sky." (一手遮天 One hand cover sky = "to hide the truth from the masses" mdbg.net)
Here is another place where the English confused me a little bit. Because, of course, it's really hard to translate.
方钦心里暗叹一声“扶不起来的东西”
Bad translation: Fang Qin sighed in his heart (he did the sigh entirely in his head, so no one actually saw him sigh), "hold him up and he still can't stand, that less-than-human thing."
Fang Qin is majorly disparaging Assistant Minister Lv here.
It's customary for older, retired men to put their bird in a carry-able size cage and then take it out on a walk to a local park or into the local wilderness, swinging the cage all the while so that the little bird can exercise its perching muscles and enjoy some fresh air. It's called 遛鸟, just like walking your dog is 遛狗。
The verb used here is 讹 é = error / false / to extort （mdbg.net), and where I have found elsewhere as "blackmail" or "cheat".
Sassy bird, yes?
"White Cut Chicken" is 白斩鸡 which is an amazing dish that we used to have every time we had banquet-style dinners at any Cantonese restaurant. It's super good. The only way I like to eat chicken. Very tender boiled chicken, served with a side of green-onion oil. Oh I'm getting hungry.
Top: Chang Geng is limping. His leg was hurt in the crash-landing.
Bottom: A 肚兜 is a cute hanky-sized bit of cloth with ties that go around the neck and the waist. It's meant to keep the belly warm. I usually only see little kids (like, babies and toddlers) in period movies wear them (and that's all they wear if it's warm enough).
If you watch the animated masterpiece Nezha 1979, a dudou is the only thing that Nezha wears from the time he emerges / is born until he kills his first dragon prince. You have to prove yourself as a dragon-killer before you get to wear pants.
They come in adult (woman) sizes, too, but that's for another day.
My DanMei Literary Adventure Masterpost
Stars of Chaos - All Notes Links
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青 is a great color! It can mean anything you want it to mean! 😝
Speaking of “Qing”, I highly recommended “Why isn’t the sky blue” by Radiolab. You can also read the Transcript, if you prefer.
青, or the most confusing colour word in old Chinese ever.
This is because while there is a modern distinction between 綠 green and 藍 blue, in the past we had 青 / qing for ‘nature’s colour’. In any old text (and old words still used) it could mean, depending on context:
blue
youthful / young
pale yellow.
green / verdant
the band of colour just above blue in the rainbow (紅橙黃綠青藍紫, which puts 青 in between green and blue）if you’re a kid but when you get to form 1, you get that the rainbow is actually 紅橙黃綠藍靛紫, so the blue-green we thought was blue green is now blue.
The blue of blue white porcelain (青花瓷）
clear sky blue - 青天.
indigo blue (青出於藍而勝於藍 / qing comes out of the indigo plant and yet it is more vibrant than indigo)
black.
Also, 青衫 may read “green clothes,” but together and describing historical / mythical figures it just means “scholar’s robes,” where the word 青 means ‘young’ and the robes could be any colour. It describes the style, not the colour.
A line from Peach Blossom Debt: 青衫公子站起身，本仙君驚且喜，恍若東風拂過，三千桃樹，花開爛漫。 The young noble clad in scholar’s robes stands, and this immortal one is pleasantly surprised, as though the east wind chanced by and every brilliant flower on three thousand peach trees blossom.
So, a very important question — what colour are Kunlun’s robes? Chapter 68:
Keep reading
"More missing text!"
"Why are there extra sentences in the English version?"
there's a very simple explanation here called "pipi likes to edit" 😅
｡ﾟヽ(ﾟ´Д｀)ﾉﾟ｡ Why?!? Why?!?!!
I'm linking some of MoonIvy's reddit posts, in case you'd like to read about their language learning journey. They are awesome! They're one of the authors of the Heavenly Path Reading Guide! That guide is super helpful, and I followed a lot of it's advice (and Heavenly Path's recommendations) once I was starting to read more. Heavenly Path also has a ton of recommendations of things you can read that are different difficulty levels, so I suggest browsing their suggestions if you have no idea what to read.
Also, if you use Readibu app, the app can give you a rough estimate of the HSK level of the chapter you're reading (you'll just open the chapter you're reading, click the book icon in lower middle of screen, then click Stats. You'll see a Comprehension % by reader's HSK level). For beginners, I suggest you try to find novels that say 90% or more over the HSK 4 level, or at least 80% and up if you can't find anything easy at first. Once you've moved from graded readers to simpler kids novels like 秃秃大王, novels with a 90%+ comprehension at HSK 4 level above will be the next easiest for you to read. (Later on: if you're looking to extensively read and barely look words up, look for 95-98% comprehension at the HSK level you think you're roughly at). For example, I'm reading 盗墓笔记 and it's 93% comprehensible for HSK 5 level, 98% comprehensible at HSK 6 level, and my vocabulary range is between HSK 5-6 roughly so it makes sense I can read dmbj extensively if I want (without word lookups and still understand it), but still have several unknown words I could look up if desired.
From intermediate to native webnovels in 18 months (Some wonderful mentions of what MoonIvy read. I also read 秃秃大王, 大林和小林, and 笑猫日记 by 杨红樱 and felt they were really good novels to read after graded readers but before novels like 盗墓笔记 and 撒野).
21 months of reading native books, and breaking into native platforms
Learn Mandarin Chinese to read danmei — it will be challenging but worth it
I can read novels without a dictionary after 3 years of reading danmei (Chinese boy love)
I reached 3,000 unique character knowledge by reading children's books and danmei (Chinese boy love)
Some little notes of my own experience, I guess in relating to the journey others took. So: for me, I read stuff WAY harder than graded readers, when I initially tried to read webnovels. It was hard, and it probably made me feel more exhausted than I needed to feel. But it was motivating. So if you really enjoy X difficult novel, you can try to read it whenever, and keep reading it as long as you feel the desire to.
There was one person who shared their reading experience on the chineselanguage subreddit (I'm trying to find the post again) who read 撒野 after like 3 months of initial study. That's way faster than I would've tried! That's a huge spike in difficulty from knowing nothing to reading a novel with thousands of unique words in a few months! But some people just will find that they enjoy doing that, and it works for them, so don't be afraid to just TRY doing what you want to do and see how it goes. It might go awesome. And if it's so hard it's demotivating, you can always go look for something easier for a while.
I tried to read 镇魂 from pretty much my first month, and never got farther than a couple paragraphs until over a year of study. I'd take a glance at it once in a while, and see if it was easier to read, until one day it was 'doable' to actually try reading (while looking unknown words up). I tried reading 默读 from like month 5 onward, usually using a parallel mtl text and only picking up a few words, it was not doable to read until maybe 1.5-2 years into learning. I was already reading the mtl of 默读 because the english translation only had like 20 chapters back then, so I just would try to read the chinese original in small sentence pieces at times. Around 8-10 months I started trying to read 天涯客, and it kind of was doable in Pleco app's Reader as long as I looked up a lot of words. It used to take me 1.5-2 hours to get through a chapter, then over the next 6 months things got better and it'd take 1 hour then 40 minutes then finally 20-30 minutes per chapter. At the same time as reading 天涯客, I also read 小王子 around month 12 extensively (looking no words up) because I had the print book and wanted to practice reading extensively, I read 笑猫日记 by 杨红樱 read in Pleco while looking up words (which was easier for me to read than 天涯客 and helped me build up reading stamina and basic vocabulary a bit), and I read a pingxie fanfic called 寒舍 by 夏灬安兰. I read around 60 chapters of that fanfic, and 30 chapters of 天涯客, over those 6 months. 寒舍 was harder to read than 笑猫日记, but easier than 天涯客, so I would switch between all 3 stories depending on how hard/easy I wanted my reading to be. Eventually 笑猫日记 felt readable without word lookups, so I used 寒舍 as my 'easier' read and 天涯客 (and added 镇魂) as my harder reads. Then 寒舍 became readable without word lookups if I wanted (still had unknown words but they no longer affected my ability to follow the plot and most important details), so 镇魂 became my harder novel to read.
And that's pretty much the strategy I continued to use: I would bounce between a 'easier' novel I could read extensively, a medium difficulty novel I could just look keywords up with (if I didn't feel like looking up a ton of words) to understand, and a 'harder' novel I had to look up words in order to read. Maybe 2 years in (I don't quite remember now), I picked some 'easier' novels from Heavenly Path's recommendations with only 1000-2000 unique words, and read some of them to fill in gaps in my basic vocabulary (so looking up unknown words) and practice extensive reading with some of them. I think that was a really helpful decision, and improved my reading comprehension and stamina a LOT. If I could go back, I would've read a lot more 'easier' 1000-2000 unique word novels before trying to push right into the novels I did. But then, on the other hand? I think pushing right into 'difficult' novels helped me learn vocabulary to read priest's writing in particular, much faster, which was rough going at the start but now pays off because I find that author's stories have more words/phrases/sentence structures I'm comfortable with, and also a decent murder mystery/investigative vocabulary base which is helpful since it's a genre I like reading. Without all the 镇魂 reading I did in the past, I think 破云 would be almost incomprehensible to me. But instead, since I did read those investigative words a lot early on, novels like 默读 and SCI are now 'medium' feeling novels to me, and 破云 is harder but readable if I look words up.
And now I figure out where to hang my mermen and unicorn-man…
MDZS Resources & References:
OR, a collection of meta fiction for MDZS writers and enthusiasts:
Grandmaster of Demonic Timeline by chrisemrys
The timeline of Wei Wuxian’s life with some bonus, worked for my own notes and shared for understanding of my MDZS fic(s)!
MDZS Timeline by thewickling (Diviana)
A guide to MDZS’s confusing chronology that I unwrangle in my spare time.
On Character’s Ages by thewickling (Diviana)
A collection of meta on the possible ages for different characters in MDZS and what ages they would be during key events in the timeline.
Mo Dao Zu Shi Writer Reference: Novel Chapter Summaries by threerings
A breakdown of all the chapters in the Mo Dao Zu Shi/ Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation novel, with what happens when. To help in referring back to specific scenes, because who can remember with every version happening in a different order.
Reference for Modao Zushi Writers: Chinese terms & Naming Conventions by chaoticjoy
This is to provide a reference for writers who are unfamiliar with Chinese literary conventions or terms used in canon. Hopefully someone will find this helpful.
Chinese naming basis for fanfiction writers by miqqumi
I notice a lot of people struggling with how to use Chinese names in fanfic, so I put together a guide. I hope it’s helpful to someone.
The Untamed / MDZS, resources link post, stuff I needed as a writer by AteanaLenn
Discovering and writing in a new fandom is difficult, but especially in one whose culture you know nothing about. I started writing a The Untamed fic the other day, and ended up spending hours looking up reference posts and blog posts, in order to try and avoid the most obvious mistakes at least.
Eventually, I ended with a lot of info, so here you go, useful stuff I found to understand this fandom.
MDZS Audio Drama Episode Guide by pumpkinpaix
An episode guide for all seasons of the MDZS Audio Drama, so if you’re searching for a specific scene/quote, it’s easier to find. A breakdown of novel chapters already exists, courtesy of the wonderful threerings, but the audio drama does slightly different things and has some really beautiful changes/scripting, so this is a supplemental guide for anyone who wants to reference the AD instead of the novel for any reason.
Obviously, spoilers for the entirety of the plot.
MDZS Meta Collection on AO3
Saturday, August 7, 2021. That’s the release date for Mo Dao Zu Shi season 3!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!
Excuse me while I go schedule my Season 1 and 2 marathon so that my memories will be perfectly fresh and ready for Season 3 on August 7!!!!!!!!!
(Sources: https://youtu.be/YzvNsFSw0RY and https://www.yualexius.com/2021/01/mo-dao-zu-shi-season-3.html. I really really hope that they’re right!!!!!!)
I watched that movie of Journey to the West! It was good. It didn’t register at the time that I was watching mpreg. But now I know, and knowing is half the battle.
Ah? What do you mean mpreg is built into the setting of MDZS?
I mean exactly what I said. It's part of the setting. Mpreg is part of MDZS setting.
Or rather, mpreg is part of any and all xianxia or Chinese fantasy settings. Mpreg is not impossible... or even truly rare... in xianxia setting. There are at least three different regular ways for men to get pregnant in this kind of setting, even for low xianxia like MDZS.
Xianxia is Chinese fantasy. Cultivators cultivate until immortality. The upper level of cultivation, an immortal becomes a facet of reality and bends the world to their will. Some can even create an entirely new world wholesale. What's getting pregnant compared to that?
Sure, the setting of MDZS is low xianxia. But we know at the very least a lot of MDZS cultivators are at the Jindan stage. Do you know which stage comes right after the Jindan stage?
元婴 Yuanying. The common English translation for this stage is Nascent Soul. But its real meaning is nascent / origin child/baby/infant.
How does yuanying come about? Well, a cultivator at the end of Jindan stage will go through tribulation. If they pass through tribulation successfully, the jindan (golden core) in their belly will collapse and out comes a baby. This baby then takes over the task of the jindan, circulating the cultivator's chi and feeding off of it. The baby will grow alongside the cultivator's progress, eventually maturing and potentially becoming a separate person should the parent allows it.
(Game interface from a Chinese cultivation game)
This stage is very well documented in actual real-world ancient texts by Wu Liupai, dating back to the 16th century. It's not a modern concept made up for entertainment. It's part of actual real-world Daoist practices and beliefs.
...And xianxia is the brought up to eleventh fantasy version of real-world Daoism. Think about it.
So in truth, every single high-level Jindan stage cultivator in MDZS is just one stage and one successful tribulation away from getting preggo whether they want to or not. (Yes. Every single one of them. Not just Wei Ying or Lan Wangji, but also Jiang Cheng, Lan Qiren, Lan Xichen, Xiu Xingchen, Song Lan, Nie Mingjue... if he didn't die, etc... Not Jin Guangyao, though. He's too weak to get pregnant. Jin Zixuan, maybe)
You don't even have to be a cultivator or in a xianxia setting to get pregnant (whether you are male or female or whatever). Artificially induced pregnancy has been a thing in Chinese folklore since the Summer and Autumn period (BCE). Several different classics mention a fruit called 孕果 yunguo (Lit. Pregnant Fruit). This fruit bestows the ability to get pregnant to anyone who eats it, regardless of gender. Sexual activity with a man is still required, though. Can't make something out of nothing.
And the most famous and widely known in Chinese folklore: water from the River of Mother and Child 子母河. Anyone who drinks this water becomes pregnant, regardless of gender (or even species, actually). You know the most famous person who drank it? The monk Tan Sanzang... and his disciple Zhu Bajie (a male pig), and Sha Wujing (a male fish). It's been made into several TV series and movies. In one of those movie adaptations, Tang Sanzang even carried the pregnancy to term as he wasn't willing to terminate a life and saw this as an opportunity to experience the female side of life.
In the same story, Journey to the West, a rock was pregnant with Son Wukong and gave birth to him.
You have to remember this. Ancient Chinese didn't really think of pregnancy as a biological process requiring sperm and eggs like we do today. They thought of it as a concentration and condensation of qi (breath of the world) until the 'mother body' was saturated with fetal qi and gave birth.
Real-world folklore texts are chockful of such instances where things got pregnant with the breath of the world and gave birth. And that's just regular folklore, not the brought-up-to-eleven version that is xianxia.
MDZS Vol 2 Annotations, part 6
Here is Part 6 of my annotations of MDZS Volume 2, pages 321 - 351.
Thanks for reading! Let me know if any of my notes are too fuzzy or squiggly to read, and I'll let you know what I meant to write.
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