When Luo Zhi Qiu came back to the estate that day, he smelled a little like alcohol.
“Who were you out drinking with?” Bo Hua asked her husband, while ordering someone to go and make some sobering soup for Luo Zhi Qiu.
Luo Zhi Qiu answered, “Grand Scholar Zhou and I left the palace together, he insisted on inviting me to drink a couple with him, I couldn't reject his invitation, so I just went.”
“How are things with the Crown Prince then?” Upon hearing that Luo Zhi Qiu was out drinking with Zhou Ning Wen, Bo Hua wasn't worried anymore, so she asked after the crown prince, “Is the injury very bad?”
“Not on the surface,” Luo Zhi Qiu answered, “But he'd been given a blow to the back by the a.s.sa.s.sin, the imperial physician said he'll need to rest and recover carefully from the internal injuries.”
“Rest and recover again?” Bo Hua felt as if her ears were going to be calloused over from hearing these words. Luo Wei's illness didn't look to be getting better, and the imperial physician prescribed rest, now that the crown prince was injured, the imperial physicians were still prescribing the same thing!
Luo Zhi Qiu waved his hand, “How's Xie Yu doing?”
“The same,” Bo Hua said, sounding annoyed, “That Physician Ren also said he needs rest and recovery, his injuries are external, thankfully nothing internal.”
“I'm going to go and take a look at him,” Luo Zhi Qiu stood, intending to see Xie Yu right away.
“You reek of alcohol right now, what if the smell makes him sick,” Bo Hua said, “You should wait until it disperses a little more before seeing him. Beside, he's sleeping ugh now. But you should send someone to give Master Xie the news, don't keep him worrying.”
“Mm,” Luo Zhi Qiu answered, “I'll write a letter to Master Xie and send it over night. Where's Wei Er?”
“He came to see me after getting home, and said he was tired, so I told him to go and rest,” Bo Hua felt worried again as she thought of Luo Wei, “He still doesn't seem to be getting any better. He has no energy to walk, even, what should we do? I asked Qi Zi, he went for a stroll on the streets today too. Doesn't he know how to take care of himself? Is he in the right state to be taking walks like that?”
“Wei Er's been trapped in the estate by bed rest for the better half of a year now,” Luo Zhi Qiu could hear the anxiety in Bo Hua's voice, and quickly gave Luo Wei an out, “A stroll might do him some good, we'll ask Physician Wei to come over and check his pulse again tomorrow, don't bother him too much about it.”
Bo Hua knew that Luo Wei wasn't someone to mention in front of Luo Zhi Qiu lately, so she let it go for now, and asked, “Grand Scholar Zhou has never invited you out for drinks before, why did he ask you today?”
“He had something good to discuss with me,” At this, Luo Zhi Qiu's face gained a hint of a smile.
“Oh?” Bo Hua quickly asked, “He has something good to discuss with the chancellor?”
“You've met the seventh young lady of the Zhou family, right?” Luo Zhi Qiu asked.
Bo Hua answered, “Yes, I've met that girl before. Intelligent and well behaved, and a proper daughter of his official wife, of the main line. Why is the chancellor mentioning her?”
“This girl is born in the same year as Wei Er, younger by half a year,” Luo Zhi Qiu said, “Grand Scholar Zhou wants to marry her to Wei Er, and become in-laws with us.”
The news brightened up Bo Hua. She'd just met the seventh young lady Zhou a few days ago, “And here I was wondering why Lady Zhou had brought the young lady out to the temple that day, complimenting her girl as if she's a flower. Looks like this was what the Zhou family was planning.”
“Do you think she's pretty and good enough of a person for Wei Er?” Luo Zhi Qiu asked.
“She's not bad, but in terms of being pretty, our Wei Er is still better looking than she is.”
“Who'd compare their son's looks to other people's daughters?” Luo Zhi Qiu found it funny, “People are going to make fun of us if this ever gets out, you know.”
Bo Hua answered, “With the way Wei Er looks, would you be happy to marry him to an uglier girl?”
“Fine, fine,” Luo Zhi Qiu knew the time to take a step back, “Just tell me if you think this young lady is suited for Wei Er.”
“I heard she's not bad in the four arts(1), in terms of personality, I think she's calm and obedient enough, not a bad match for Wei Er,” Bo Hua had a pretty good impression of the seventh young lady, “If you're worried, I'll have someone ask around.” Bo Hua never had a say in Luo Qi and Luo Ze's marriages, now that she had a say in Luo Wei's marriage, her enthusiasm was palpable.
“We should ask what Wei Er thinks of this himself,” The worry running through Luo Zhi Qiu's mind now was the fact that, after all the torture and pain Luo Wei had endured, if he'd even be interested in marriage.
“Marriage is natural when a man becomes a certain age,” Bo Hua said, “Why would he be unwilling, young lady Zhou's talented and pretty, the Zhou family is of the right caliber for ours, what's not good about this match?”
“Father, mother,” Luo Ze came back to pay a greeting to his parents, and was just at the right moment to hear Bo Hua's last sentence, “What are you talking about with this young lady Zhou?”
“Grand Scholar Zhou was matchmaking with your father today,” Bo Hua smiled, “He wants to marry his seventh daughter to our Xiao Wei, I'm discussing it with your father.”
Luo Ze didn't know a thing about these young ladies of the upper cla.s.s, he only cared about Luo Wei, “Does Xiao Wei know about this, then?”
Luo Zhi Qiu answered, “I haven't told him yet.”
“You better ask him first,” Luo Ze said, “If you guys made a proper match here and he's not happy with it, are you going to just force him to get married?”
“I'll find a time to talk to him,” Luo Zhi Qiu said. To be honest, in the matter of Luo Wei's marriage, no one in this house can make any hard decisions, it was all up to Emperor Xing Wu in the end.
“You guys can talk it over, and I'll find someone to ask around on my side.” With these words from the father and son duo, Bo Hua could only take a step back.
“I heard that Xie Yu's gotten hurt pretty bad this time,” Luo Ze asked after Xie Yu, “What did the imperial physician say today?”
At this point, the head overseer came in with the sobering soup. After Luo Zhi Qiu finished it, he told Luo Ze, “Let's go see him together.”
Luo Wei had gone to bed for a while before feeling a little more energetic. The cold got worse after nightfall, and now that he was even less good against the cold than usual, Luo Wei had asked Xiao Xiao to bring a small bed table so he could eat in bed.
Luo Ze and Luo Zhi Qiu went to visit Xie Yu, who was still in deep sleep, then came to Luo Wei's part of the estate to see him. When Luo Ze entered room, he felt as if he couldn't breathe. The room was sealed against the wind with warm coals still burning to heat up the room, it was stuffy and hot. He sighed when he took at look at the bed, and found Luo Wei still wrapped in his blankets. If Luo Wei had gotten better, why was he still this afraid of the cold?
Wei Lan was trying to convince Luo Wei to eat some more food. When he saw Luo Zhi Qiu and Luo Ze come in, he quickly stood up from Luo Wei's bedside and addressed both men, “Chancellor, general.”
Luo Ze asked Wei Lan, “Lan, how much did Xiao Wei eat today?”
Wei Lan answered, “A bowl of congee.”
Luo Ze walked up to the bedside, and looked at the dishes on the little bed table, completely uneaten. He sighed at Luo Wei, “Xiao Wei, if you can eat, just put a little more food down, that way you can get better faster. I heard you went to the palace today and came home exhausted, what are you going to do if this keeps going?”
Luo Wei smiled, “Wei Lan's already been nagging at me for a while now, are you coming to help him too, big brother? I've already eaten some snacks and I'm not hungry just now. It's fine, I'll eat more when I'm hungry again.”
Wei Lan shook his head aside. The snack was just a half a piece of walnut cake, how much s.p.a.ce could it possibly be taking up in Luo Wei's stomach?
FOOTNOTES:
1. Four arts – The original referred directly to the four arts by name, but this translation has omitted them for ease of reading. The four are “Qin, Qi, Shu, Hua,” which individually means the qin (zither / gu qin), to show appreciation for music; Qi – the strategy game go, which is akin to chess, and is used to train foresight and strategy; Shu – calligraphy; and Hua – painting. These arts are not specific to gender and most learned people of good upbringing will train in all four.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES:
It's been a while since a double update, and since I have some time this Sunday, I decided to translate two chapters at once! : ) I just want to make clear again that I'm not translating word for word in this novel. I feel like there's a divide between people who will stay very close to the novel and translate the sentences exactly the way it was written in Chinese, but I prefer to make things easier to read by subst.i.tuting some Chinese sentence structures for English sentence structures.
If you're interested on differences / choices, you can read below! ; ) otherwise thank you for following and reading, and for the tips on ko-If!
The author uses a lot of “XX said”, even though they use two different verbs, it still gets very repet.i.tive. Whenever answering a question, I try to use words like answered, replied, etc… to make it clearer and less repet.i.tive.
The structure of some sentences in Chinese goes: “Spoken dialogue,” Something happens in a person's mind, speaker said.
This reads awkwardly in English, so I try to change it to “Dialogue,” speaker said, something happens.
I will also intone some actions because words don't exist in English. Instead of saying the emotion, I try to build it into actions. When there needs to be an extra bit of meaning attached, ie. the Chinese has some bits at the end that makes it sound impatient, but doescn't come across in English, I'll add “impatiently” as an adverb to deliver the full meaning.
On occasion, I will add in a short sentence to explain if in Chinese, it should be obvious what the speaker is talking about / what's happening, but it becomes less obvious in English due to grammar or the way the paragraph is structured.
And of course, I try to change idioms from Chinese ones, such as “responding to grat.i.tude with anger” to English ones like “biting the hand that feeds you”. Or slang like “little rabbit” (CN) to “little a.s.shole” (EN). I feel like this improves the writing somewhat, and makes it easier to read.
So, in the end, if you're a Chinese reader but prefer to read translations, and wonder why things are different, it's mostly to make things coherent in English and easy to read. I don't translate things to English when I read it from Chinese, so I don't want the readers here to have o mentally process Chinese-English to conversational English.
