Princess Agents - 特工皇妃楚喬傳
Translator’s notes: After going through my Game of Thrones withdrawal, I finally feel ready to tackle my other projects, including reading a bunch of romance novels on my new Kindle, cleaning my house, finishing my Regency period pelisse and finishing this translation. (I have a lot of hobbies.)
I think this may be the first and last novel I translate since it really is quite a task! After a reader suggested Legend of Fu Yao to me, I thought about it because I love Fu Yao, but yeah, I think I’ll pass. Still, I want to finish what I started here.
So I’ve put on my iTunes Chinese soundtrack (not only drama soundtracks like 楚喬傳 but also pop music that I think sets the mood for stars/moon 星/月 inspiration) and I’m diving right in.
I’m still crossing fingers for a 2nd sequel series of 楚喬傳 …. But until then, I’ve also started listening to a podcast that is super interesting and puts a lot of the Chinese cultural references and holidays of Chu Qiao Chuan into perspective. Why is the author fascinated by the New Year? Why is there a Lantern Festival? What time period did Chu Qiao transport into? Was this a parallel to the Chinese bronze age (B.C.E.)?
The podcast is literally called The History of China and it’s really well done. Being raised outside of Asia (in the West), this is not something I would have studied at any time in my life since it had nothing to do with my major in university. From the mythical beginnings to the first emperors, to the Summer and Autumn periods of the Zhou Dynasty (where I think the time period from 楚喬傳 is modeled after) it’s a really well done account of all the kings, all their struggles, and all their legends. So far I’m in the Zhou Dynasty (3rd? dynasty with a written record) where a king (like the emperor of DaXia) tricked and executed a loyal but powerful vassal duke (like Yan Xun’s father) because he was afraid of his power. And then later, another powerful vassal state (like Qing Hai) rose from the ashes from nothing to become the power that deposes that dynasty. I think my mind is really twisted by Korean and Chinese TV dramas because I keep thinking every dynasty I hear about could be its own drama series ^__^;
Every dynasty seems to have its share of greedy uncles and regents, crazy kings and concubines and exiled princes. And, if you thought only crazy fictional ladies like Chu Qiao and Mulan put on armor and fought armies, around the time of the Egyptian pharaoh King Tut, there was once a female queen/general called Fu Hao who won pretty much all the battles she fought for her husband the emperor (reminds me of that quirky Chinese drama Oh, My General). Why doesn’t she have a drama yet?
So how many times have you all watched the 1st series of Chu Qiao Chuan by now? If we’ve watched more than twice, is that something we can admit out loud? Hang in there, everyone. LOL
-Kero
Chapter 185: The Yan Family Memorial
When the ShangYuan festival (TN: Lantern Festival on the fifteenth of the first month of the lunar calendar) arrived, the Royal Palace held a large banquet. Perhaps to divert attention from the prior year’s turmoil, this night’s dinner party was especially sumptuous. Even Zhuge Yue, who was under house arrest to ponder his errors in seclusion, had been invited. Had it been during peacetime, he could have found some excuse and claimed to be ill, but had he done this, it would have been difficult for him to avoid the onslaught of the boundless well wishers. (TN: ^_^; Zhuge Yue is so anti-social) At dusk, Zhuge Yue donned his court attire and entered the palace in a very low key fashion on horseback (TN: the source material uses the words 轻车简骑, translated literally as light ride, single mount, but it also sounds a lot like the idiom, 轻车简从, which refers to a very distinguished person traveling with few attendants, incognito)
Chu Qiao stayed in her room. Lately she always felt tired after a short period of time and her appetite was poor. (TN: Omo…O_O is she pregnant??) Eating, then sleeping, it seemed a rather indulgent, charmed existence.
A sudden creak at the door was followed by the door being pushed open and Mo’er entering with halting steps. He walked over to Chu Qiao’s side looking slightly nervous, his nose red from the cold.
“Mo’er, what’s the matter?”
Mo’er hesitated a bit, then turned his head to look towards the door, and after a while longer, he asked in a small voice, “Mother, are we not going out tonight?”
If she counted correctly, Chu Qiao was only about ten years older than this child. In the beginning, hearing him call her mother all day was a bit uncomfortable. But then, she gradually got used to it, and now she thought nothing of it.
She sat up straight and furrowed her brow, “Go out? Go where?”
“Today is the ShanYuan holiday. There are temple festivals and lantern viewings going on outside.”
Mo’er’s eyes lit up with excitement, and when Chu Qiao turned towards the door, she noticed the sounds of a few more loiterers outside.
These days, since Zhuge Yue was confined, those in his manor also rarely ventured outside. She pinched Mo’er’s cheek and smiled, “Very well. Let’s go.”
The continent was a vast land. By modern accounts, it was roughly 40 million square kilometers, which was near five times the size of modern China. The land had been imparted and inherited for many years now, even through the chaos of war and the frequent unrest. But the people had always flourished, and the city of Zhen Huang was the capital of the nation, so the population was also very dense.
Chu Qiao and her group walked along the street, only to observe brilliant lanterns in all directions, beautiful lanterns of every eye-catching color vying for their attention. The commoners of the capital, regardless of gender, age, wealth or nobility all came out to celebrate the occasion. A hundred stage plays were going at the same time, all the musicians were creating a myriad of sound, and everywhere the scene was bustling and lively.
This year’s ShangYuan Festival was a little more festive than the last, with the cacophony of human voices, and the deafening sound of gongs and drums.
The children were laughing heartily, but as soon as an hour passed, it started snowing. The north wind came whistling forth, the wind stirred the level ground turning it into white tendrils of flurries and the entire scene of colorful lanterns was blown apart. JingJing and the others cursed loudly as they got into the carriage, and the guards waved their whips to hurry back to the manor. But the wind became stronger and stronger, and the carriage horses were unwilling to move forward further. When they reached a more secluded area, one horse suddenly startled, and it broke away from its harness.
Yue Thirteenth ran up to tell them the storm was getting too big, and it was better for them to find a place to shelter through it.
Chu Qiao nodded in agreement, and just happened to see the image of a shadowy building ahead, and ran up to knock on the door before noticing that it was actually a temple for the goddess of Yanbei. (TN: irony…)
Even though Yan Shicheng was born into the royal family, because he was marked a traitor to the empire, he could not be entombed in the ancestral temple. The name of this mansion was the Temple of Peace, but it was actually a memorial. It was not only the resting place for Yan Shicheng and his children, but it was also the resting place for a few commoners nearby. In the beginning, DaXia had sent some guards to strictly keep a lookout, but since YanXun had returned to Yanbei, there had been no attempts by the Datong Association to steal the bodies. Gradually, the place became more desolate, and the empire was no longer willing to justify the expense of sending soldiers to guard a pile of white bones.
Chu Qiao and the other entered the sloping antechamber. (TN: the words 偏屋 can literally mean “partial house” but the word 偏 also means slanted, and in this case, I think the words refer to the architecture. I could be wrong, but it sounds better in English this way.) The guards found some candlesticks and torches and the interior gradually became brighter. It revealed a clutter of memorial tablets arranged inside the gloomy hall. There are also over twenty coffins, shrouded under a display of pure white candles. At a glance it was both horrible and ghastly.
Jing Jing’s face went pale, as if she was a bit scared, and she stayed close behind Duoji, tugging on his sleeve. Her usual quick wit was absent.
MeiXiang said to her with a laugh, “Never thought there was actually something that would scare our Miss JingJing. At one point I even thought you were a little demon incarnate, afraid of no one in this world.”
Upon hearing her playful banter, the atmosphere momentarily became lighter.
Rong’er was now one years old, constantly babbling to practice speaking, wobbling as he walked around out of doors rather like a duckling. He was dressed all in red, rolled up in a red padded jacked. He used his chubby little hand to stifle a yawn, and burrowed into Chu Qiao’s arms, adjusting to a more comfortable position to take a nap.
Chu Qiao stood up and handed Rong’er to Mei Xiang, saying softly, “I’m going out.”
“Miss, where are you going in a big storm like this?”
Chu Qiao mentioned the boxes of foodstuffs Mei Xiang had packed, and lit a lantern. “I’ll just go next door and take a look. You needn’t follow.”
As soon as she said this, she exited through the chamber doorway.
The wind outside was astonishingly strong. In the fifteen years she’s lived on this continent, she had never witnessed such gales. The lantern in her hand quickly extinguished. Chu Qiao’s large, fur cloak flew upward and cold snow pelted her face in multiple pricks, as if being hit by pebbles. Chu Qiao tightly held onto the collar of her cloak and with great difficulty she walked forward, walking for a while before stopping before a dilapidated room. She then reached out her hand and slowly pushed open the groaning doors.
In that moment the heavy gale suddenly rushed in, it stirred up the layers of dust all over the floor. Chu Qiao coughed a few times then quickly close the doors, pulling a chair to hold the doors in place.
The deathly quiet in this room was the same, and it seemed colder than the outside. In several places the roof had caved in, and the wind stirred in the rafters. All around the pitch darkness was deep enough so one couldn’t see their own fingers in front of their face, but she was well acquainted with the floor plan here. She took out her fire starter and after several tries, managed to light all the candles around her. Faint candlelight quietly ignited, slowly turning the room bright. Four, deep black colored coffins were placed within without spiritual tablets, without banners or tapers, or even a single marking. They had just been nonchalantly left there, with straw and litter all around, and a few pieces of frozen buns scattered everywhere. Normally, this place was a temporary shelter for wandering beggars.
Chu Qiao placed the food box to one side, rolled up her sleeves and began to tidy up. Her movements were fast and although she didn’t have any cleaning tools handy, the garbage on the floor was cleared away. She tied the straw together to make a makeshift broom and swept the cobwebs aside and the space within looked much tidier. Then, one by one, she took out the dishes inside the box, placed them on the floor, and knelt down, bowing deeply a few times in homage.
Indeed, these four coffins were the remains of YanXun’s father, his two brothers and his sister. In those years before, on the anniversary of the King of Yan’s death, she and YanXun would secretly come to worship. In those days, there were still officials and soldiers guarding here, and in coming here they would have to expend a lot of effort. But nowadays, this place had already become so desolate.
Since returning to the capital, she never even thought about returning to pay homage here. Moreover, she never thought she would wander here by mistake today. Perhaps this too, was a kind of fate.
There were no incense sticks, so they were replaced by incense. There was no paper money, so there was a silk cloth as a substitute. There was no good wine, only one pot of goat milk and two cups of green tea.
Your Highness, I’ve come again to see you.
She got up with a few splotches of dust slightly soiling her knees. Snowflakes fell down from where there was no roof, covering the coffin lids bit by bit. She quietly stared at those coffins, trying hard to recall those bloody, severed heads from long ago, and it left a vast, bleak feeling in her heart.
Earlier, before LongXi experienced the snow disaster of a generation, Yan Bei had already sunk into its own catastrophe. The people’s homeland was destroyed, and the snows that hit the Blue City was particularly bad and would affect its people for generations to come. Thousands of livestock froze to death in the lands around ShangShen, the people were not eating, and Yan Bei was in danger.
However, while the hundred DaXia ministers were clapping in glee, Yan Bei secretly mobilized 100,000 guards from the Dragon Pass who trekked over the Lan He Plateau and the over 6,000 meters above sea level rise of Dusk Wolf Peak, to enter the territory of Da Tang. Bypassing TangJia Pass, they suddenly attacked the Da Tang checkpoint, robbing over 200,000 sacks of food, then returning to Yan Bei with lightning speed. The entire operation took less than four days. When Da Tang’s border war report reached Tang Jing City, the guards from Dragon Pass had already returned to their post, and even crossed swords twice with DaXia troops who had wanted to take advantage of Yan Bei’s disaster to attack.
When word got out, it was like a drop of water dropping into a vat of sizzling oil, which set off a fierce reaction.
DaXia and Bian Tang were furious, but had no means of taking on Yan Xun. DaXia’s imperial censor and his lot wrote passionate declarations, saying Yan Bei was born of thieves, their base nature was to burn, kill and loot, doomed to disobey the righteous path. The old scholars of Bian Tang had even more fire in their eyes, raising a hue and cry all over the world, calling out Yan Xun’s ancestry and forefathers in a flood of invectives.
Moreover, they wrote books to lash out at the injustice, in agitation barely letting their anger pass.
But this was the only thing they could do. The Dragon pass was an impenetrable fortress, Yan Bei’s army was cruel and ruthless. In the current situation, as long as they did not come out and fight in open war, they could only burn the incense high. (TN: burning incense can be akin to waiting, or letting time pass; or praying to the gods for a breakthrough) Who would dare go up to the door and provoke them?
When Chu Qiao heard the news, she couldn’t help but smile in contempt. The soft will always fear the hard, the hard fear dying, and that was the way of it.
Fittingly, Zhuge Yue continued to disapprove, facing down the court and commons and continuing to ignore their cries to go to war. Everyone knew that DaXia was now unable to even fend for itself, and the situation with several of its princes vying for power was already reaching its apex. In a time like this, who had the time to go out in open war? It was only griping. If he had really wanted to amass the army towards Yang Ming, what those old bastards feared would really come to pass: blood three feet deep, a demonstration of sincerity by death. (TN: traditionally, in olden days, people would commit suicide, or posture themselves to suggest they would do it, to demonstrate their sincerity and conviction in their belief. That is what the phrase 以死明志 means. In this case, Zhuge Yue knows it would be a pure bloodbath)
When he heard the news, he was slightly surprised, saying that he did not think Yan Xun would do such a thing.
In fact, aside from him, it was doubtless the entire continent would not have thought it either.
After all, once upon a time, he had used all of Yan Bei in a bet, positioning its soldiers and civilians as bait, leading DaXia’s army into the pass, and dispersing his own army. Not long after that, he eradicated the dissidents to his rule and completely destroyed the Da Tong Association who had once helped him onto the world stage, taking the head of even his own teacher.
In the face of such a man, it was doubtless that no one would have thought he would do something like this for Yan Bei’s people, and at such a risk.
Even Chu Qiao couldn’t figure out what the catch was.
However, it was good that the commander of the Tanghu Pass was the son of the Bian Tang empire’s Prince Jing’an. Even though he had aligned himself with the crown only after Prince Jing’an met his end, he held military power and oversaw critical holdings of the empire. In the end, it was still difficult to make them completely at ease. Every time Yan Xun went after him, it was not DaXia’s loss.
And it was Da Tang’s grain that was lost.
Chu Qiao’s brows slowly lifted, in her mind she once again recalled living in those years on Shang Shen Plateau, and returned to the snowy mountain…. and the simple herdsmen and common folk there….
Yan Xun’s capabilities were becoming more and more impressive. Hiding for a thousand li (TN: a li is a little over a mile), in rapid action, tens of thousands of troops were mobilized without stirring the slightest breeze, without anyone noticing, in a perfect strike. His methods were accurate, his vision sharp, his daring strong, his men were first class in the world’s ranking. As long as he is there, DaXia can’t imagine breaking through the Dragon Pass. Even if Zhao Che himself attacked, there wasn’t even the slightest opportunity. Though perhaps in tactics, military strength, intelligence, weaponry, logistics, supplies and other aspects he was slightly better. But no matter how ruthless or how tenacious, there was no way to surpass Yan Xun’s ability.
The terrible thing about Yan Xun on the battlefield was his ability to make perfect use of everything around him to aid in his victory in warfare. His ability to fathom the human heart had already reached great heights.
In this world, the only one comparable to him was perhaps Zhuge Yue.
Yan Xun’s strength was in his hate, while Zhuge Yue’s strength was in his cunning.
Like this, if the two of them were able to meet on the battlefield free of other worries, they might in fact have a legendary battle worthy of being recorded in the annals of war.
She shook her head slowly. Although she had given up that lifestyle, when she was idle, her mind would still unintentionally drift towards these things. She would take news that she had heard, take it apart and piece it together over and over, creating a rough model of the situation, and then deducing, calculating and rearranging. Like a chess player who loves to play chess but doesn’t play anymore, she imagined all sorts of game play in her mind.
In actuality, though she and Yan Xun ultimately ended up being at odds with one another, she did not wish to see him fall.
Therefore, after knowing that he had successfully attacked Tanghu Pass, she was still a bit delighted, completely disregarding her status as Bian Tang’s XiuLi royal.
In between the two of them, though they could not remain side by side, they also didn’t have to be at odds trying to kill each other to survive. (TN: um, girl, he tried to turn you into Swiss cheese....)
The wind suddenly became stronger, and the door groaned aloud, pushing the chair aside a bit. She thought it was the wind and turned back to close it, but who knew that at the moment she reached the doorway, the door would suddenly be pushed open. A man in a black cloak stood amid the flurry of snow fall, behind him, only a single escort dressed in dark clothing.
She couldn’t see his face, and momentarily, could only see a pair of eyes, black like an abyss, aiming unflinchingly at her person. (TN: the words used here by the author remind us that Yan Xun is an excellent shot)
Endnotes: Wow, that’s interesting! Is that really Yan Xun?? She can tie up this loose end, finally. So many pop songs going through my head right now in songfic form. ^_^ What soundtrack would you play for this moment? I imagine their soundtrack would include 简单 (Simple) by Claire Kuo, 崇拜 (Worship) by Fish Leong, 很久很久以後 (A long time from now) by Christine Fan. Maybe Irreplaceable by Beyoncé? ^___^;
I wonder if Zhuge Yue will be upset he wasn’t there? I doubt he would be jealous, since he knows she loves him and not Yan Xun.
I really like how the author compares and contrasts Zhuge Yue and Yan Xun in this chapter. They had always been polar opposites in youth, and still are in adulthood. Except they both switched places. The young Yan Xun who was carefree died in tragedy, and in struggle he was reborn a ruthless, vengeful man of hatred. The young and cruel Zhuge Yue was redeemed by love, and in struggle was reborn and saw a different path to live, using his cunning to achieve what was right. They are both two sides of the same coin. And whereas Yan Xun never really understood Chu Qiao though he knew her value, he set her aside when she became inconvenient. Zhuge Yue always knew her value, learned how to understand her, and cherishes her as the love of his life regardless of how inconvenient.
I think that’s what makes Zhuge Yue one of my favorite fictional romantic heroes, right up there with Mr. Darcy from Pride and Prejudice and Mr. Thornton from North and South. —KERO
