#either that or the imperial official exam

[a-very-fond-farewell]

strained my hand taking too many notes for my studies and now I’ll have to go even slower as I write down stuff 🙃 cannot stop to catch a break eh? thank u universe 🙃👯‍♀️

[takeurexam]

dynasty || masterlist

teaser

genre:

non idol au, time travel, romance, rivals to allies to friends to lovers, crown prince to emperor taehyun, reader gets appointed as an concubine, inspired by korean history

pairings:

taehyun x reader

(warning, this does not reflect the REAL idols personality, and no smut will be written to respect the idol, and i am not comfortable as well, the taehyun in this ff is not the actual taehyun)

summary:

in which you, an excellent law student about to graduate collage suddenly get dragged into the past, meeting the famous-fawned over emperor of the kang's dynansty. but you getting dragged into this mess was beyond a mystery, and it seems like you have something deep to discover. meddling with the past is a risky decision after all.

inspired by korean history and mr. queen so yes, i'll be using korean outfits and the palace will be inspired as well.

❅❆❇❈❉❊❅❆❇❈❉❊❅❆❇❈❉❊❅❆❇❈❉❊❅❆❇❈❉❊

chapters:

[teaser]

1:

𝑻𝒘𝒊𝒔𝒕 𝒐𝒇 𝑬𝒗𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒔

Your life seems to be going well, good grades, graduation, friends, life was going so well. Two days before your graduation, you find yourself in a whirlpool to another era, in where the Kang's lead the country, The Kang Dynasty. Confusion washes you over as you explore and adjust to the world, finding ways to get back home.

2:

𝑴𝒐��𝒏𝒕𝒂𝒊𝒏

After meeting other people and realizing the situation you're in, you decide to explore around the area, because why.. not? You might find info about where the hell you are and how to get back to where things were.

3:

𝑬𝒏𝒄𝒐𝒖𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓

You didnt expect to meet a royal too soon, and you share moments with him, which you either hate or cherish.

4:

𝑩𝒐𝒕𝒉𝒆𝒓

After leading the Crown Prince, Kang Taehyun, back to his royal camp, you are met with a new bother in life; the crown prince himself. Staying for a while to offer help to the royal camp struggling with a certain problem, your talents are shown and appreciated which drags you to a mess with the ladies in the palace and town.

5:

𝑵𝒖𝒊𝒔𝒂𝒏𝒄𝒆

You are dragged into a scandal, which gives off a hint of what is your current purpose in this world. Kang Taehyun is still a nuisance but sometimes you feel bad for him.

6:

𝑰𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒑𝒆𝒏𝒅𝒆𝒏𝒕

You are reunited with Hobak and Odi, and a new adventure comes up. You set for a new town, and the palace has obvious corruption spread on the whole town.

7:

𝑺𝒆𝒍𝒆𝒄𝒕𝒆𝒅

Settling your goals and your destiny in the current dynasty you're in, something meddles in between your planning. Something good. You also meet Soobin's family with shocking histories. General Beomgyu offers you a deal that maybe can get you rich. (just like you wanted)

8.

𝑷𝒆𝒄𝒖𝒍𝒊𝒂𝒓

You settle in for a while, taking your time to adjust to your new future and life style. Definetely weird, but a new experiance for you.

9.

𝑬𝒙𝒂𝒎𝒔?!

Meeting the high-ranked officials, you all get a test whether you are good for the future emperor or not. A test where in you go through different stages of betrayal and backstabbing. How amazing.

10.

𝐇𝐢𝐝𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐒𝐞𝐞𝐤

You couldn't hide from the Crown Prince forever, and you suffer because of it. One exam remains, the ones determining whether you pass or not. The Palace may be bad, but it was suprisingly tolerable. Although, it feels as if the palace is hiding something within the pillars.

11.

𝑨𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒄𝒊𝒑𝒂𝒕𝒆

You discover a secret hidden within the palace walls that no one dares to spill. The Cheol Family has dirty work spilled all over, that no one wishes to clean up. Kang Taehyun finally meets you after a while, after your round of hide and seek. Your last exam comes up, as you anticipate with an ounce of hope that you pass.

12.

𝑳𝒂𝒔𝒕

Entering the royal court for the last test, you cant help but be nervous. How well you do is what lies ahead in the future.

13.

𝑪𝒐𝒎𝒑𝒍𝒂𝒊𝒏𝒊𝒏𝒈 (𝑶𝒓 𝒏𝒐𝒕?)

A feast is hosted for your new achievement. But after achieving the "Imperial Concubine" title, things start to get busy for you. Coming from the position of being almost useless to one of the most crucial roles in the palace, you cant help but complain. Complaining is in your nature anyway. But your complains give a whole different outcome from what you wanted. (You're both okay and not okay with it.)

more chapters to come!

updates every 1-4 weeks, depending on my schedule

[rarepears]

There's all these AUs where Shen Jiu and Shen Yuan are brothers/twins and Shen Jiu is a good brother! Or at least a brother whose intentions are good (even if the execution sucks major ass).

Give me an AU where Shen Jiu actually is a terrible brother. He takes advantage of their similar appearances to foist all the blame and punishments from the slavers onto Shen Yuan, steals Shen Yuan's meager scrapes of food and money, and hogs all of Yue Qi's attention and love.

Shen Yuan is left out in the dust.

Shen Jiu is concerned for only his own survival and that of Yue Qi who's treated him well and can protect him. Shen Yuan cannot - Shen Jiu sees no reason to like or wish to protect such a twin; he doesn't need such a deadweight, so he uses what advantages he has to having a brother but no more than that.

So when the brothers part, it's on bad terms. Shen Jiu stays in the Qiu manor with his broken legs and Shen Yuan slinks in the shadows, sneaking out of slavery by following a few steps behind Yue Qi's escape route.

Shen Yuan is jaded by his second life, growing up as a street rat. Shen Jiu's treatment and lack of brotherly affection hasn't improved things either - he's no brother in Shen Yuan's books, just someone that Shen Yuan happens to share a last name with. He doesn't feel obligated to help Shen Jiu.

He can only help himself. And armed with the knowledge of PIDW and all of its plants and animals, he does more than help himself.

Shen Yuan prospers.

And the next time he runs into Shen Jiu - now slated to become Shen Qingqiu, next Qing Jing peak lord - it's as the famed scholar and rising political power in the imperial courts, engaged to the prime minister's daughter (for wooing her was an easy task when Shen Yuan was already aware of her likes and desires as the sad widow who was defrauded by her first husband, a conman who passed the imperial government official exam and stole all her family's money after her father's dead, and later became Luo Binghe's wife #294 in PIDW).

Shen Yuan doesn't realize that he's practically just co-opted the protagonist role and the scum villain is his twin brother Shen Jiu :)

And like in the role of protagonist of a stallion novel, his first wife was only to get his pillar wet, but not for love. No, his actual harem is a harem of men chasing after the very oblivious protagonist... like Liu Qingge and Tianlang Jun.

[More in #shen yuan and shen jiu: a brotherly relationship of hatred and animosity AU]

[fwoopersongs]

On a couplet from the Yuelu Academy

by 旷敏本 (Kuang Minben,1699 - 1782)

是非审之于己，毁誉听之于人，得失安之于数，陟岳麓峰头，朗月清风，太极悠然可会； Right or wrong, examine it yourself. Ruin or acclaim comes from the decisions of others. Gains and losses are predestined - accept them with equanimity. Ascend to the peak of Yuelu. The moon is bright, the breeze refreshing. The Zenith may be met with, leisurely.

君亲恩何以酬，民物命何以立，圣贤道何以传，登赫曦台上，衡云湘水，斯文定有攸归。 How can we repay the kindness of our leaders and parents? How can the life of the people be firmly established? How can the way of the sages be transmitted? Climb atop Hexi Terrace. The clouds of Mt. Heng, the waters of River Xiang; for sure, the educated have responsibility.

...........................................................

This post is dedicated to @liberty-or-death who dug a hole for me on the last day of 2022. Thanks friend xD

(The reason I was excited to see this place mentioned in that article was because it’s on my travel wishlist.)

Background

Yuelu Mountain (岳麓山) is located on the west bank of the Xiang River at a tributary of the Wu River in Changsha, Hunan, and is noted for its many scenic spots. Located at its foot is the Yuelu Academy (岳麓书院), officially established in 796 CE during the rule of Emperor Taizu of Song. It is one of the four famous academies in ancient China - the others are the Bailudong, Songyang and Suiyang Academies. But among these academies of classical learning, Yuelu is the only one to have evolved into a modern institution. Today it is known as Hunan University. 

The Hunan University campus, in their own words, combines ancient architectural complexes and modern facilities. Many of the original structures of Yuelu Academy were preserved, and now open to the public. Here’s a video of a walk through the school! (x)

If you don’t need english subs, there is a wonderful MangoTV documentary on Yuelu Academy available on youtube.

The academy was frequently renovated throughout its >1000 years of existence, and many of the current buildings were constructed during the Qing Dynasty. The main Lecture Hall, also called the ‘Hall of Loyalty, Filial Piety, Integrity and Chastity’, is a core building of the Academy. It is located at its heart, and was the most important place for teaching and momentous ceremonies. 

A horizontal plaque with imperial inscriptions from the Kangxi Emperor hangs in the front of the hall. On the inner walls of the hall, there are four big Chinese Characters - I can’t really tell if they were engraved or painted - loyalty, piety, honesty and integrity (Simplified: 忠孝廉节 | Traditional: 忠孝廉節). They come from the hand of the great scholar Zhu Xi of the Song Dynasty. Zhu Xi along with Zhang Shi gave the first ever joint lecture in the history of Confucian academies in this place.

And it is within this Lecture Hall, placed on either side, between the words piety & integrity, and loyalty & honesty that these this yinglian (楹联), a type of couplet, is pasted on the walls on either side. It was written by Kuang Minben, who passed the entry level examination at the age of 24 and was recommended  into the Imperial Academy the following year. During this time, his studies were interrupted by the death of his father and requisite period of mourning. He later passed the imperial exams at the age of 37 and joined the Hanlin academy as an apprentice writer, though had to retire for health reasons. 18 years later, at the age of 55, he was engaged as principal (山长) at Yuelu Academy in the year 1754. He went on to lecture there for three years before the death of his mother. It was during this period of his life that he wrote the couplet that now still hangs in the Lecture Hall.  

Actually, the couplets that are there now are a copy carved in 1983 as the original was destroyed in the Sino-Japanese War.

Here’s a photo of the Lecture Hall from the academy’s Chinese wikipedia page.

From twitter user 徐昕 @xuxin1970 ① 是非审之于己，毁誉听之于人，得失安之于数，陟岳麓峰头，朗月清风，太极悠然可会； ② 君亲恩何以酬，民物命何以立，圣贤道何以传，登赫曦台上，衡云湘水，斯文定有攸归

If for some reason, you’re wondering about the placement of the letters and the couplets…

Exit for the hall 廉                   節 ①                   ② 忠                   孝 Head of the hall

This seems to follow the principle of seating on the North (head of the hall), facing the South (exit), and then the left (East) as superior to the right (West). 

Brief Translation Notes

This was a rough translation as working on this couplet was a very spur of the moment. Here is how I understand it and maybe other interesting things.

For ①

On the rights and wrongs of a matter, one should examine (审) it inwardly with one’s own judgment [internal]. Whether one ends up ruined for it or acclaimed, that outcome lies with others [external]. And whatever one will gain or lose in this is up to the Heavens (数), and ought to be accepted with equanimity (not in our hands anymore, so be chill about it). Having done this, one steps out and up the mountain, finding that they have reached the utmost goal in becoming one with nature (太极). 

You might have noticed the plaque with the inscription of 学达性天 above the hall in blue? That was mentioned before as being bestowed by a Qing Dynasty emperor. But this has also been the ultimate goal of Confucian and Chinese education for thousands of years. It’s a reference to both the Analects and Doctrine of the Mean; through learning to live properly as humans, we may reach our original heaven endowed nature and become one with nature, which is also being attuned to the Way of heaven. So, a maxim for educational goals in a lecture hall supported by the couplets also hanging in the same room. That’s the intention, and how do we reach it? By keeping at This.

When a person has reached that state of mind and state of being, even in the face of difficulty or problems regarding ethics, reputation, temptation and so on, they can face it unaffected and calm. 

For ②

The earlier part was on an individual level. What someone can do for themselves. But in order for one to exist and be in such a position, they owe it to their ruler / their lord and then their parents for giving body and life. This half of the couplet pair is about responsibility. That a person who cares for the world around them will wonder how to make it a better place to live in, ensuring stability and that the good way of living is widely practiced and passed on. Go out to Hexi Terrace and look: the mountain is still beautiful, the river still flows. Certainly, the educated have a responsibility and their rightful place*. 

*The word 攸归 comes from the idiom 责有攸归 (zé yǒu yōu guī) literally, responsibility has its rightful place ie. with the correct person.

Now’s the time to mention: It’s the furthest thing from easy that Yuelu Academy still stands today. You can read about its history in this article. The original Hexi Terrace too. The structure that exists today is, in fact, Hexi Terrace 3.0 and is not even in the original location anymore. It was originally at the peak of Mt. Yuelu, where Zhu Xi liked to climb to watch the sunrise (hence its name of sunrise splendor). Then war came, there was restoration work, a tower was built in its place (though the function of this location remained the same), and the terrace was rebuilt at the foot of the mountain in the form of a pavilion. Hexi 2.0 was destroyed in the Sino-Japanese War, and Hexi 3.0 is actually an existing stage that was renamed in memory of 1.0 and 2.0.

I am reminded actually of a song that goes ~ be your own light ~. That light should shine from within. Observe and contemplate, and at the same time cultivate yourself both in education (knowledge) and character. Be your own light, and next step… the world!

[aworldforastage]

that sadness of going almost 700K into a super-long novel before realizing, nope, it's not actually getting better

I'm going to be so mean and petty in this rant (but I'll be nice and not name the novel on this blog)

It comes down to the protagonist/narrator coming off as a bit mean-spirited and really not as smart as the novel would like you to believe, in a mary sue-ish plot will validate them every single time.

The protagonist transmigrates into an alternate history as a newborn shu-son of a noble family. He has all the memories and cognitive functioning from his previous adult life in the modern world, and a lot of his "wins" from the first story arc comes down him, an adult in the body of a child, is competing with literal babies and children.

The protagonist is a shu-son born to a concubine, and they are both not treated well under the polygamous system. However, the narrator emphasizes that his mother is a "respectable concubine" who is legally a free citizen, as opposed to a "common concubine", whose legal status is a slave. The narrative brings it up again and again (like almost every chapter) that she has some legal protection and cannot be bullied like the other concubines for this reason. It's feels like they want to both be an underdog, but at the same time want to lord it over other people who are beneath them in the food chain.

And then, most people are awful and not likeable. ("Nothing is my fault.") The father is a spineless and greedy philanderer. His official wife, the di-mother, is jealous, stupid, and cruel. His half siblings are either spoiled and shallow (di-siblings) or weak-willed and useless (shu-siblings). The other adults are only focused on their own interests. The only exception being the protagonist's long-lost uncle (who cares about his sister and nephew), and other teachers the protagonist wins over or recruits later. Basically, the only good people are the people like him, and vice versa.

The setting is basically a Han Chinese imperialist fantasy. The Ming Dynasty is toppled by a Han Chinese rebellion instead of the Manchurians, creating an alternate history in which the Han Chinese maintains control of Central Plains, and more. Japan and Korea have been made into vassal states after aggressive military campaigns at the founding of the dynasty, and before I stopped reading, the main story line hints at the Navy establishing control over parts of the Philippines 🙃 The founder of the dynasty is hinted to be also have been a transmigrator, who did all these military things precisely because of modern political sentiments, but still keeps polygamy system, and adds a law that forces women to get married at 20, like WTF man

And later, we go full-scale transmigrator golden thumb. He knows a an effective home remedy for chickenpox. He invents multiple types of ammunition. He is introducing arabic numerals and double-entry accounting. He establishes a successful "cram school" to help all his buddies pass the Imperial examinations. He places first in the Provincial Exams as a teenager. He is building a warship and giving input on military strategy based on his expertise from surfing on the web in his original lifetime.

The prose is ridiculously and unnecessarily wordy. The author seems to write out everything little thing they have researched and every tangent their thoughts went on to boost the word count. Some of it reads like a laundry list. A few times information is repeated word-for-word (copy & pasted) from a previous chapter.

One of the first chapters introduces the entire extended family and where they live on the estate. Most of that chapter is completely irrelevant because not only do most of those people turns out to have no role in the plot, half of those people move out of the estate (and drops out of the plot) and everyone else's living situation is re-arranged before they start to become involved in the plot!

The protagonist's mother gets a promotion as a titled madame, and we get a laundry list of the entire nine-tier ranking system for women along with the jewellery and behavioral protocol for each tier, even though only one is relevant to the story.

The protagonist needs a medical ingredient, and we spend paragraphs after paragraphs of trivia on Chinese medicine.

I can live with the meandering plot and slow pacing in this genre because I can believe that this author is enthusiastic about the universe and wants to explore all the ideas they came up with, but the effort that went into the technical aspects of writing is abysmal.

And it just made me appreciate who another novel which handled a similar premise much better: 嫡子为难 by 石头与水. In both stories, the main character transmigrates into an alternate history as a newborn and needs to deal with the conflicts in large polygamous households. In DZWN, the main character Mingzhan is the the di-son born to the official consort whom his father does not like; he is also born mute (though he is able to talk much later in the story) not a very good-looking as a kid despite his intelligence, so the plot feels more balanced.

But where 嫡子为难 really wins in this is that the cast is much more intriguing and likeable. This is by no means an idealized novel or romance, but most people are not going out of their way to act like a one-dimensional villain. Everyone is just looking out of their own interests, they have their own strengths and loved ones.

The protagonist is a di-son, and while he has conflicting and competing interests with his shu siblings, he still treats them like siblings and vice versa outside of direct conflicts of interests. The older half-brother isn't as smart as the protagonist, but you can tell he has tried his best and has his own morals and principals. The protagonist's father does not like him, but makes reasonable decisions in the best interest of the entire family and doesn't back off from his parental responsibilities. The protagonist's mother does love him and is super smart and well-respected, but between the lines you realize she is incredibly ruthless and possibly one of the scariest people in the entire story. And to this day I can't stop thinking about the Emperor and the decision he makes at the end of the story, like it's such a painful sacrifice but it's so self-serving in a strange way.

(Anyways, yeah, I went and reread a lot of 嫡子为难 recently because of that abandoned novel)

[golvio]

I’m not exactly an expert, but I did study courtesans in urban life in Imperial China, so here’s what I do know.

In the Imperial Chinese courtesan industry, poor women were sold to the women who ran specific “houses.” (I’m not sure whether to call these women “madams” because there’s a big cultural distinction between courtesans versus sex workers, so courtesans��� quarters wouldn’t be considered brothels.) They were taught to read and write, and were trained to be professional conversationalists who could wealthy men at parties. The industry had a symbiotic relationship with the imperial schooling system that trained up boys from wealthier families who could afford to give their sons educations to take the entrance exam that could guarantee them a position in the local or central government, financially setting them for life. Courtesans were fixtures of the parties older, more established men and officials used to network with students and each other, as being able to hire courtesans was a status symbol as well as a guaranteed way to liven up a party with poetry and other games.

However, while courtesans were better educated than even some upper-class women, they were less like indentured servants and more like slaves in that they couldn’t leave until they “retired,” partly because they were owned by their employer who rented them out and partly because a single, lower-class woman in Imperial China had few job prospects, and these women were also separated from their families upon purchase & couldn’t rely on outside support. Their options were to either age out & live the rest of their lives as destitute old women, own a courtesan house or a brothel themselves & continue the cycle, or catch the eye of one of the well-to-do literati who rented their company for parties. A lower-class woman could never hope to become a rich man’s first wife, even a woman trained to be as literate and socially refined as your average courtesan, but she could at least become his concubine if he bought her and brought her home to live with him. (Courtesans also weren’t supposed to consummate relationships with clients, which was why particularly lovelorn men would try to buy out and marry a courtesan they were infatuated with to the point where it became a common trope in romances at the time. There was a “class distinction” between courtesans, who were considered “high-end” entertainment fit for nobles and gentlemen because they rented their company and weren’t supposed to sell their bodies, versus actual sex workers, who were “low-end” entertainment and had fewer conditional labor rights or hopes of social mobility than courtesans, although that’s a whole other can of worms. Taking a courtesan as a concubine was the only chance rich men had at marrying for love, as their first wife was usually from an arranged marriage between their family and another rich, influential family to join their holdings & build/maintain local political ties.)

So, while Izutsumi and Inutade definitely aren’t courtesans, and Shuro’s country is a better analog to historical Japan than Imperial China, their stories sounded familiar as lower-class girls separated from their families who were sold/kidnapped into and exploited by the “floating world” of the entertainment industry, as a sideshow attraction and a sumo wrestler forced to fight for betting matches respectively. It seems like tallmen girls who were merely orphaned have greater chances of class mobility and therefore have more of an indentured servitude arrangement where they can eventually leave or get promoted to higher-ranking servant positions within the household if they stay, but girls who are less socially mobile like ogres and demihumans are stuck in more permanent arrangements where they can’t really leave even if their contract has a time limit. They don’t belong to themselves because they weren’t legally treated like real people by the entertainment industry and don’t have any options outside of servitude in the manor. In that case, it’s easy to see why Izutsumi just getting up and leaving was such a huge deal, especially to Inutade, who’d been a servant her whole life and couldn’t imagine freedom.

Because they’re treated better than what I or anyone like me would associate with the word slavery, I’m certain people just forget they’re owned by Shuro’s father.

Yeah, I don't know enough about Japan's history to know what being a "servant" that was bought to serve an important family entails. But considering there was monetary exchange they were BOUGHT I assume his father "owns" them.

It's definitely different from what slavery was here in the Americas, but going by Izutsumi I think its safe to say they don't have the option to leave.

I've seen Shuro's defenses saying maybe he doesn't know what is being done to Izutsumi or that these aren't his slaves but his father's slaves but honestly, being able to not care and not know what happens between them shows his privilege.

Look at their reactions to him finally acknowledging them and THANKING them

This guy is not a great boss is he LOL

[dangermousie]

Mousie’s absolutely subjective, very biased Top 10 web novels list

Please note that this is hardly aiming to be objective, if one can even be properly objective about a work of fiction. It is 110% based on my preferences, which means this list is heavy on the angst and has nothing set in the modern day. It is also heavily danmei-centric, even though I read way more het romance than danmei, because for whatever reason, most of the danmei I’ve read has been insanely good.

10. Return of the Swallow - one of the two non-danmeis on this list. Smart and nuanced and with a large cast of characters. Our heroine is a long-lost daughter of the family that is brought back in and has to cope with familial struggles, crazy royals, court intrigue, invasion et al. It’s SO GOOD! There is romance with the sexy smart enemy general but honestly, it’s the heroine that is the main selling point for me.

9. Transmigrator Meets Reincarnator - the only other non-danmei novel on this list, this was my very first web novel and what drew me into this insanity. This is just a ton of fun, probably the lightest novel on this list, not an ounce of angst to be found. But it’s hilarious and features competent heroine and tsundere hero and I will always love it for opening a new world to me. Anyway, our heroine transmigrates into the novel as the female lead. Unlike the original lead though she doesn’t want to seek adventures and angst - she just wants to comfortably live with the wealthy, nice husband heroine has. Alas, said husband is no longer nice since he has previously lived this story where he was betrayed by FL and then transmigrated/reincarnated into the past. Oh well, the heroine opens up businesses and makes friends. And eventually, her husband realizes his wife is way different this time around. This actually doesn’t have much romance, not until close to the end, but this is so fun I don’t care.

8. Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

7. Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation (MDZS) - oh come on, how are you even on this tumblr if you don’t know MDZS/The Untamed? This was my very first danmei and it’s so much fun! I love everything about it - the unreliable narrator, the looping structure, the main OTP, Wei Wuxian’s laidback, traumatized insouciance, everything. Anyway, the plot in the event you somehow transported here from 2005 is that the Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation, Wei Wuxian, was defeated by the righteous sects over a decade ago and fell of a cliff to his death. Only now that same Wei Wuxian opens his eyes in another body and everything that was supposed to stay in the past starts again.

6. Heaven Official’s Blessing (TGCF) - people either love its meandering narrative, picaresque structure and cast of thousands, or find it a detriment compared to much more compact MDZS. I love it even more than MDZS for those very qualities. It does have a rock-solid, darling OTP, but what really elevates it to me are the MXTX trademark combo of snarky/light tone hiding a ton of trauma underneath, the insanely intricate world-building, and what it has to say about the nature of grace and goodness. Xie Lian is one of my top 5 web novel characters and probably in top 10 from anywhere. Oh, and while MXTX’s stuff is not as angsty for me as Meatbun’s or even Priest’s, there are always exceptions, and there is one chapter in this novel that pretty much broke me and sometimes I still flashback to it and feel unwell.

Anyway, what is it about? There is a commotion in the heavenly realm - Xie Lian, the Crown Prince of a long-destroyed kingdom, has ascended to Godhood. That in itself is not so exciting. However for Xie Lian this is the third time (!!!!) as he’s ascended and lost his godhood twice prior. And now, the biggest joke of the divine realm is back, throwing the heavenly realm into chaos. And elsewhere, Hua Cheng, one of the four most powerful demons of that Universe, sits up and takes notice.

5. Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is also finding the middle path between their two very different philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

4. Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

3. To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant, sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two take up farming, get involved in the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

2. Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

1. The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

[ashlinyack]

Forbidden Phoenix Chapter 2

Li Xifeng stood at the entrance of the palace, her hands firmly clasped before her in nervous anticipation, as her hazel eyes stared at the large walls. It was late in the afternoon and the bustle of the Capital was all around them. Her maid, Qian, was finishing to unload her belongings from the carriage as they stood there outside the palace walls, the sun shining lightly from behind the clouds in the sky, while her father talked with other prominent Ministers that had brought their own daughters for the selection. Today prominent officials and ministers from across the Capital were bringing their daughters to enter the palace in a hope that they may enter the palace’s harem to serve the Emperor. Currently, aside from the Empress, there was only a total of nine women who were in the harem serving the Emperor. For this day to happen, it was an auspicious occasion for many.

The Emperor had only taken the throne two years prior and this was the first official gathering of beauties to occur. Many said it was because he was loyal to the Empress, others stated it was because he was loyal to the country and did not overburden himself with needs in the harem. Xifeng’s father was a Minister in the Department of War and Defense and they resided within the capital, unlike some of the others in the department, so as he could speak at length with the Emperor at all times. Her father never indicated which way the Emperor leaned when it came to the Harem, so maybe he did not know. All she knew was that the Harem was a constant battle ground for the attention of the Emperor, and to stay relevant within a world so precarious. She was leaving the world of freedom to be placed into a gilded cage at her Father’s insistence – and she had no choice in the matter.

Being the youngest of four children, and the only daughter, this was a most auspicious occasion for her family. Her brothers had married and either become scholarly or entered the military alongside their father. The eldest of her brothers had passed the Imperial Exam easily during the reign of the last emperor, becoming an official alongside their father quickly. He now expecting his first child but had wished her all the best of luck today with her entrance, as did her sister-in-law. Her second and third brothers had become military men, becoming extremely skilled in martial arts and horseback riding early on in their years. Though it was no lie that everyone in her family was well verse in horseback riding, the skills her second and third brothers could show were far past the standard for any natural rider. The skills they showed on the field for their country brought honour to the family and to the Emperor.

A soft press at the elbow brought her from thoughts of her family and the daunting task of entering the palace. Standing beside her in a soft cream dress was her handmaid Qian, the only person that was allowed to accompany her into the selection process along with her personal belongings. “My Lady, it is about time we entered. You should do your final farewells. We do not wish to be late for the Welcome Banquet.” A soft smile tugged at the corners of Qian’s features as she placed a reassuring hand to Xifeng’s, allowing her to calm down some in the stress of things. Knowing that a friend was going to be by her side in this adventure was likely the most welcoming of prospects for she would not feel so isolated among all the strangers in the coming days.

Nodding her head slightly, Xifeng raised a hand slightly to ensure not a piece of hair or even a pin was out of place before moving to where her father stood. He was deep and vibrantly in conversation, and she felt slightly abashed to interrupt the deep discussion occurring. From what she could gather it was something to do with the recent enemy movements towards the southern border that had made her father become so engrossed in conversation with another Minister, and it brought a smile to her features to know that he took pride in his work and all he did for the country. Placing a delicate hand to his arm, she gently touched it to gather his attention, appreciating the contrast of her hand and her own light robes against his dark ones. The simple nuance amused her ever so slightly, making her think of how her Father and Mother were for a moment, before his dark eyes moved to glance at her with a questionable look.

“Father, please forgive me for interrupting your discussion. It is time for me to enter the palace. I may see you in a just a few days time, or perhaps it may be longer. Only His Majesty may decide my fate from this day forward. I thank you, and Mother, for raising me, instilling in me kindness, compassion, virtue, and a tolerance of others. I pray that our ancestors are with me on this journey, and I do not bring shame to you, or our family.” Lowering herself carefully to her knees, Xifeng’s arms circled before her, as she began to kowtow before her father. After three, her father helped her from the ground, tears seeming to crease his eyes in appreciation of his daughter before him. In a loving embrace, his arms wrapped in a tender affection about her, a soft sigh escaping the two of them in the moment.

“The children of the Li Family have always brought me pride. I expect nothing less of my beloved and only daughter. Now, go on before you are late because of an old fool like me. Have Qian send word once you know.” After a soft squeeze of her hands, her father let go and turned back to the officials and ministers he had been talking to and resumed their discussion. Xifeng’s heart twisted in her chest as she began her walk into the palace with Qian at her side, her hands resting lightly in front of her. Once she knew – whether she was to be part of the Harem, or whether she would be returning home. Either way she would eventually be someone’s wife.

Once past the initial Western Gate upon entering, Xifeng spotted a frazzled eunuch pacing back and forth between the walls that lead down the various areas of the palace. The eunuch was short in stature, and quite skinny by the way his robes clung to him. He couldn’t be much more than sixteen at the most judging by his size and stature. The stress and panic that was radiating from the eunuch was very real, through his movements and the raising of his arms into the air, the constant mumbling of panicked phrases added to his stressed behaviour as well. Approaching the eunuch, Xifeng placed a hand gently upon his shoulder, startling him from his pacing and bring him to a stand still. “Excuse me, but what has you in such distress Sir?”

Eyes widening for a moment, the eunuch bowed at the waist, his arms coming out in front of him out of respect for her station. “Please… please forgive me My Lady for not seeing you approach. My mind was distracted with the task I must perform.” Looking past her, a frown curved his lips as he removed the hat from his head, gripping it tightly in his hands out of concern for what might occur. “See… I am to escort the Lady Li to the banquet that welcomes the beauties for the selection into the Harem, and I have not seen her yet. And if I do not bring her to the banquet my Master will punish me. May I ask My Lady her name? Or if she saw the Lady Li on her way in through the Western Gate?”

Xifeng let out a small laugh, shaking her head as she turned to Qian who was covering her mouth in a crude attempt to remain proper. “Qian, please remember this one. He is sweet and brings delight.” Turning her attention back to the eunuch, she took the hat from his hand’s and placed it back upon his head, ensuring it was straight and not crumpled looking. Brushing away any dirt or look of worry with a silk handkerchief she kept in her hand, Xifeng stepped back and gave a soft bow of her head. “I am Lady Li. Do not worry. You will not be punished by your Master. Do tell me your name though so I may remember it fondly. And if things show favourably for me within the palace, perhaps I can have you by my person.”

A deep breath escaped the eunuch, and a smile came to his lips that made his chocolate brown eyes brighten in the sun. Bringing his arms to half circle before him once again, he executed another bow before standing a little straighter and formal. “Lady Li, it is a delight to meet you. Please forgive me for being so disheveled a moment earlier. I am Yi Chen and I study under Qin Qiao of the Imperial Department. I shall lead you towards the Imperial Gardens where the banquet is being held and you can mingle with the others who have come for the selection before you are taken to your lodgings for the week.” Bowing at the waist he gestured for Xifeng to move forward down the path and to follow, and she gave a nod of her head, directing him to lead her to wherever it was she may go.

They walked for a moment in silence, their steps echoing off the stone walls as they went, before Yi Chen said something. “I should have known you were the Lady Li. Many say Lady Li shows great kindness to those she meets. That she is very beautiful and has unique features that will rival that of the Empress. I have been blessed by the heavens this day to experience such. I will pray that His Majesty finds you favourable in the selection process.” A slight colour rose to Xifeng’s cheeks as they continued the walk pass different smaller palaces or areas within the large palace towards the Imperial Garden at the center. In truth, Xifeng was fearful of what may happen over the course of the week she was there for the selection. Words about her were simply words, it was the actions that spoke of a person really and she had never been one for the social circles.

Upon arriving at the Welcoming Banquet for the beauties, Xifeng’s instantly took in the large pavilion that housed it. The pavilion allowed for a beautiful view of all the flowers that had recently come into bloom for the Spring season, creating a lovely, pleasant scent with the incense they had burning. The total beauties for the selection from what Xifeng could see, including herself, was totaling around thirty-five. As well as the beauties in attendance, the Empress and Noble Consort were making the rounds to greet those who had entered the palace to possibly serve His Majesty.

It seemed that the rest of the Harem had not been privileged to attend the banquet. Inquiring with Yi Chen who they were, aside from the Empress and Noble Consort Zhou there was Consort Xie, Consort Fei and Imperial Concubine Chu as the top ranked within His Majesty’s Harem. These ladies were the only ones that had been allotted a palace of there own and were addressed more formally than others. Then there were the remaining Noble Ladies who resided in the various palaces alongside them - Lady Yin, Lady Su, Lady Cao and Lady Dong. Of the nine women, only Imperial Concubine Chu was with child currently, while the rest had been unable to maintain a pregnancy or have a child live past infancy.

Nodding her head, Xifeng understood the seriousness of the situation within the Harem. His Majesty needed an Heir, and he felt that the women who were here already were not serving him as needed. Shaking her head, she found a place to sit within the pavilion, biding farewell to Yi Chen in the process, to enjoy a refreshing cup of tea and a cake, letting the beautiful spring setting surround her. Many of the women had already broken into hushed groups and were chatting among themselves. Xifeng had not been apart of the social circles before, so knew very few women of the capital outside her sisters-in-law, her mother, her grandmother, and her handmaid. She was fine with the peace and quiet to enjoy the scenery and slowly learn those around her, their behaviours and mannerisms in a group setting.

While she was sitting, the Empress and Noble Consort approached her, bringing a look of shock to her features for a moment. Qian assisted her to stand, pushing the surprise away, as she gave a deep bow to the two before her. “Greetings Your Majesty, Your Highness.” A few moments passed before the Empress gestured for Xifeng to rise, the attention of the rest of the pavilion slowly being drawn to her in a hushed silence. “So, you are the Lady Li, the daughter of Minister Li.” Stepping forward, the Empress placed a finger lightly beneath Xifeng’s chin to raise it, looking deep into her eyes with scrutiny. “Peculiar eyes if I have ever seen. I wonder what a Taoist has said for you before about your fate. Well… we will just have to see how you do this week and what His Majesty decides won’t we.”

Without another word, the Empress and Noble Consort depart from before her, leaving her in a state of shock and fright. Swallowing the lump that had formed in her throat and letting out the breath she had been holding, Xifeng turned to Qian for reassurance. Before she could utter a word though, others for the selection were beginning to surround her. Questioning her about what the Empress wished to know, who she was, who had made her dress, the colour of her eyes. They began to pick apart every part of her just as the Empress had and she could feel her entire essence being swallowed whole in that instance.

Qian squeezed through the crowd to grab Xifeng’s hand and pull her out, taking her from the pavilion to a nearby river within the imperial garden. It flowed from one end to the other, giving a peaceful serene feeling to the area she had now found herself in. Qian had stepped away to make sure no one had followed and to give her Mistress the time she needed to collect herself. Fanning herself with a hand, she tried to take slow deep breaths in to calm her nerves that had become a jumbled mess. Each breath brought a new wave a calmness to her being, letting her settle, that she had simply tuned out the world about. The gentle breeze through the flowers and trees, the soft churning of the river by her feet, and the focusing on her breathing was simple meditation that she needed in the overwhelming moment of strangers berating her space. Becoming so lost in the sounds around her and her breathing, Xifeng barely heard the approach of the footsteps behind her until a rich, deep voice filled her ear. “Should you not be in the pavilion with the other beauties? Socializing and enjoying cakes before beginning the selection process tomorrow?”

A soft yelp escaped her lips as she turned on her slipper feet, trying to see who was behind her. In the process, Xifeng lost her footing and caught herself on the hem of her dress, nearly toppling into the water behind. Before she knew it, strong arms were wrapping about her, pulling her away from the water and into a warm and comforting embrace. Glancing up at the tall man who now held her in his arms, she stared into the depths of his amber eyes completely bewitched. Though he held her up, she felt weak at the knees and did not know if she could stand on her own if he let go. Time had frozen in that moment, and she was lost in it, unwilling to come out, wanting to be lost in his embrace and his eyes for eternity. “My… my Lord, it is improper for a woman and man to be this close to one another. Though I thank you for saving me from a fall, I ask that you release me. Please.” Swallowing the lump in her throat, Xifeng looked away as she asked to be let go, trying to distract herself from the moment and the gnawing regret of asking to be freed from his touch.

The man slowly let his arms slip from his embrace around her, setting her carefully on the ground away from the riverbank. Her chest felt like it was about to explode from the way her heart was racing as he remained close, though his embrace was no longer about her. Suddenly, his lips were upon her cheek, placing a soft kiss, before he was murmuring in her ear. “The Emperor would be a foolish man to not make you a Consort by the end of the week. If he does not, I give you permission to hit him. You should return inside soon; you will likely receive your sleeping arrangements shortly.” A playful smirk played on the man’s lips as he backed away to where a plump, older looking eunuch stood, leaving Xifeng flustered, and her cheeks flushed to a deep shade of red. The man and eunuch strolled off, leaving her standing there flustered and unsure what to do, unsure of what to feel.

Qian came back to her side quickly to escort her into the pavilion once again, where things had mostly settled down. No one noticed her return, making it easier to slip in and grab a cup of tea at that moment. Shortly after her return though the many beauties were separated into groups to be taken to different blocks within the lodging area, as well as an explanation on how the selection would transpire. They would all learn the proper etiquette for being in the palace during the first day there at the lodgings, as well as demonstrate their ability to brew tea, embroidery, do flower arrangements, and set incense, before meeting Her Majesty once again for morning tea, and then a final appraisal by His Majesty. All notes from the Matrons at the lodging hall would be passed to Their Majesties and would aid in the final selections. The number of girls selected was undetermined, all girls could be selected, or none could it was ultimately up to His Majesty in the end.

Xifeng and Qian were assigned to a group of six other beauties that also had their own hand maids, something they all likely took for granted in some way. Qian was her best friend in so many ways but in the end, she was still her hand maid who aided her with her clothes, dressing, makeup and fetching her food. The two of them discussed many things from the occurrences in the Ministers Manor, the actions between her father and his concubine, to simply things like what silk brocade she should embroider on next, what flowers to plant, the care of her horse, and the colours of rouge that looked good on her pale skin. Xifeng was indeed glad to have Qian by her side for this ordeal – it was one person she could trust and know was by her side no matter what occurred.

Upon arrival to the area of the palace where the beauties would be residing for the duration of the selection, they were taken into where they would rest. Everyone was assigned a room with a small table to eat and have tea at, their bed and a dressing table. They were to meet in the courtyard of the housing block to meet with the Matron to begin instruction on etiquette within the palace, review of their talents, and then instructions on the final parts of the selection process, should they make it to that point without dismissal by the Matron the next morning.

The accommodations were simple in set up, each room identical to the next to give no favouritism to one beauty or the next. Against the far wall on the left from the door they entered was a simple bed, a beaded curtain dividing the room between bedroom and common room. The drape on the bed for overnight was a pale grey in colour, the pillow and bedding a matching soft pink with yellow trim. Beside the bed sat a small table with a mirror and space for hair pins and makeup. Her luggage had been brought and was placed to the foot of the bed, awaiting to be unpacked. In the space they had entered, there was a wooden table with four cushioned seats, a side table with a beautifully planted orchid flower, and a set of cups with a teapot.

Xifeng sat down at the table, exhausted from the day already and from the overwhelming feeling of it all. Qian had moved off to begin unpacking her pins, brush, and makeup, as well as her gown to sleep in. Pouring herself a cup of water, she began to reflect on the day. The Empress had approached her and spoken to her – making her not only uneasy, but likely a target to the other participants now. And then a strange man, likely a prince within the palace, approached her. He had said she should be a consort to His Majesty. Why? Why did he believe with such things with just a look at her? Did he see something in her that she did not see?

She had enough with these thoughts of the day and just wished to strip it all away. From the moment she had entered the palace she had walked on eggshells to the whims of others – within the confines of this small room, at least she could simply be herself and be nothing more than a simple daughter to a minister. Moving to the bed, she could see that Qian already had a basin of warm water and a cloth prepared for her to wash her face, as well as a brush out to comb through the long strands of her hair. Pulling each pin from her hair and letting the strands down felt like a slow release of the day, a slow decompression of the body. Compared to many girls, her hair went well pass her waist and beyond to nearly touch the back of her thighs. It took many minutes to brush, and many more to style. Once her face was washed of her makeup, she began to brush through the long strands of hair, pulling through the jade comb slowly in a methodical, calming way.

Qian helped her into her sleeping gown for the evening, before she set a pot of water and a cup beside the bed. Slipping into bed felt like peace could come any moment. What would the next few days hold? Would she be selected, or would she be returning home to one of the many suitors her father had spoken with? Pulling the blanket up to her chest as the shades of the bed closed, darkness slowly covered her eyes as the candles went out. It was time to let all thoughts end as best they could. Tomorrow would be here sooner then she expected.

[newstfionline]

Monday, October 4, 2021

Governing by crisis (AP) Washington’s tempestuous week of walking, chewing gum, juggling balls and spinning plates at the same time is giving rise to apocalyptic rhetoric about the state and future of the country. Four big things are happening at once, all attended by hyperventilation. The White House talks of a “cataclysmic economic threat” if Republicans don’t start cooperating. Republicans assail Democrats for unleashing a “big-government socialist nation.” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer says: “Insanity and disaster are now the Republican Party line.” It’s a contest to see which side can bash back better. This is what governing by crisis looks like. The government has essential housekeeping to do this time of year. Yet no deal comes until it absolutely must. Why act at the 11th hour when you’ve got 59 minutes left? There are a couple of must-do’s. The government needed a law to keep itself open in the budget year that began Friday morning. That happened, with a few hours to spare. It also needs to raise or suspend its borrowing ceiling to cover current expenses and avoid a default on its debt payments over the next two weeks. Then there are the want-to-do’s. President Joe Biden, many Democrats and a sizable number of Republicans want to build or restore roads, bridges, broadband and more in an ambitious public works package. Biden and many Democrats, but no Republicans, also want to supercharge social and climate spending, potentially costing upward of three times more than the infrastructure one. All the plates are still spinning.

Military Bases Turn Into Small Cities as Afghans Wait Months for Homes in U.S. (NYT) In late August, evacuees from Afghanistan began arriving by the busload to the Fort McCoy Army base in the Midwest, carrying little more than cellphones and harrowing tales of their narrow escapes from a country they may never see again. They were greeted by soldiers, assigned rooms in white barracks and advised not to stray into the surrounding forest, lest they get lost. More than a month later, the remote base some 170 miles from Milwaukee is home to 12,600 Afghan evacuees, almost half of them children, now bigger than any city in western Wisconsin’s Monroe County. The story is much the same on seven other military installations from Texas to New Jersey. Overall, roughly 53,000 Afghans have been living at these bases since the chaotic evacuation from Kabul this summer that marked the end of 20 years of war. While many Americans have turned their attention away from the largest evacuation of war refugees since Vietnam, the operation is very much a work in progress here, overseen by a host of federal agencies and thousands of U.S. troops. While an initial group of about 2,600 people—largely former military translators and others who helped allied forces during the war—moved quickly into American communities, a vast majority remain stranded on these sprawling military way stations, uncertain of when they will be able to start the new American lives they were expecting. An additional 14,000 people are still on bases abroad, waiting for transfer to the United States.

Dwindling Alaska salmon leave Yukon River tribes in crisis (AP) In a normal year, the smokehouses and drying racks that Alaska Natives use to prepare salmon to tide them through the winter would be heavy with fish meat, the fruits of a summer spent fishing on the Yukon River like generations before them. This year, there are no fish. For the first time in memory, both king and chum salmon have dwindled to almost nothing and the state has banned salmon fishing on the Yukon, even the subsistence harvests that Alaska Natives rely on to fill their freezers and pantries for winter. The remote communities that dot the river and live off its bounty—far from road systems and easy, affordable shopping—are desperate and doubling down on moose and caribou hunts in the waning days of fall. “Nobody has fish in their freezer right now. Nobody,” said Giovanna Stevens, 38, a member of the Stevens Village tribe who grew up harvesting salmon at her family’s fish camp. “We have to fill that void quickly before winter gets here.” Opinions on what led to the catastrophe vary, but those studying it generally agree climate change is playing a role as the river and the Bering Sea warm, altering the food chain in ways that aren’t yet fully understood. Many believe commercial trawling operations that scoop up wild salmon along with their intended catch, as well as competition from hatchery-raised salmon in the ocean, have compounded global warming’s effects on one of North America’s longest rivers.

Crossing the Darien Gap (NYT) Migrants are surging at the Mexican border. Tens of thousands are passing through a deadly South American jungle to get there. The Darién Gap, a roadless, lawless land bridge connecting Colombia and Panama, was considered so dangerous that only a few thousand people a year tried to cross it. But the economic devastation wrought by the pandemic in South America has been such that 95,000 migrants, most of them Haitian, attempted the crossing in the first nine months of the year. “We very well could be on the precipice of a historic displacement of people in the Americas toward the United States,” a former national security adviser said. “When one of the most impenetrable stretches of jungle in the world is no longer stopping people, it underscores that political borders, however enforced, won’t either.”

Puerto Ricans fume as outages threaten health, work, school (AP) Not a single hurricane has hit Puerto Rico this year, but hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. territory feel like they’re living in the aftermath of a major storm: Students do homework by the light of dying cellphones, people who depend on insulin or respiratory therapies struggle to find power sources and the elderly are fleeing sweltering homes amid record high temperatures. Power outages across the island have surged in recent weeks, with some lasting several days. Officials have blamed everything from seaweed to mechanical failures as the government calls the situation a “crass failure” that urgently needs to be fixed. The daily outages are snarling traffic, frying costly appliances, forcing doctors to cancel appointments, causing restaurants, shopping malls and schools to temporarily close and even prompting one university to suspend classes and another to declare a moratorium on exams. Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, which is responsible for the generation of electricity, and Luma, a private company that handles transmission and distribution of power, have blamed mechanical failures at various plants involving components such as boilers and condensers. In one recent incident, seaweed clogged filters and a narrow pipe.

Thousands in Brazil protest Bolsonaro, seek his impeachment (AP) With Brazil’s presidential election one year away, tens of thousands of demonstrators marched Saturday in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and dozens of other cities around the country to protest President Jair Bolsonaro and call for his impeachment. Saturday’s protest targeted the president for his mishandling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Bolsonaro, who is not vaccinated and doesn’t usually wear a mask, has underestimated the severity of the virus and promoted crowds during the pandemic. Some 597,000 have died of COVID-19 in Brazil, a country of 212 million people. Demonstrators also protested surging inflation in mainstays like food and electricity. Over 130 impeachment requests have been filed since the start of Bolsonaro’s administration, but the lower house’s speaker, Arthur Lira, and his predecessor have declined to open proceedings. Division among the opposition is the key reason analysts consider it unlikely there will be enough pressure on Lira to open impeachment process.

Ecuador to pardon thousands of inmates after deadly prison riot (CNN) Ecuador plans to pardon and commute thousands of sentences in order to free up space in the country’s prisons following a deadly riot at a penitentiary in the coastal city of Guayaquil this week. The Director of Ecuador’s prison agency SNAI, Bolivar Garzon, said on Friday that up to 2,000 inmates, including elderly people, women and those with disabilities and terminal illnesses, would be prioritized on the pardon list for release and foreign nationals will be deported. Investigations are still ongoing at the Litoral penitentiary in Guayaquil, after violent clashes between rival gangs at the high-security facility left 118 inmates dead and dozens wounded on Tuesday. Those killed suffered from injuries resulting from bullets and grenades, according to regional police commander Fausto Buenaño. Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso said in a televised address on Wednesday that the prison was not yet entirely secured, and urged inmates’ relatives and families to stay away from the area.

After a century of waiting, Russians witness a royal wedding once more (NPR) Descendants of the czarist Romanov dynasty were married in the country’s first royal wedding in over a century—kicking off a weekend of lavish events that sparked public curiosity, awe and derision in seemingly equal measure. Under the dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral in Russia’s former imperial capital city, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich Romanov, 40, married his Italian bride, Victoria Romanovna Bettarini, 39, in an Orthodox ceremony on Friday before priests and several hundred guests. Czarist trappings included an engagement ring “traditionally exchanged in the House of Romanov,” according to a press release. The Russian Orthodox Church’s top official in St. Petersburg, Metropolitan Varsonofy, blessed the ceremony. “It’s a kind of imperial wedding. A remembrance of eternal Russia—of sacred czars and patriarchs and (the) church,” philosopher Alexander Dugin said in an interview with NPR.

China tightens political control of internet giants (AP) The ruling Communist Party is tightening political control over China’s internet giants and tapping their wealth to pay for its ambitions to reduce reliance on U.S. and European technology. Anti-monopoly and data security crackdowns starting in late 2020 have shaken the industry, which flourished for two decades with little regulation. Investor jitters have knocked more than $1.3 trillion off the total market value of e-commerce platform Alibaba, games and social media operator Tencent and other tech giants. The party says anti-monopoly enforcement will be a priority through 2025. It says competition will help create jobs and raise living standards. President Xi Jinping’s government seems likely to stay the course even if economic growth suffers, say businesspeople, lawyers and economists. “These companies are world leaders in their sectors in innovation, and yet the leadership is willing to squash them all,” said Mark Williams, chief Asia economist for Capital Economics. Chinese leaders don’t want to reimpose direct control of the economy but want private sector companies to align with ruling party plans, said Lester Ross, head of the Beijing office of law firm WilmerHale. “What they are worried about is companies getting too big and too independent of the party,” said Ross.

China sends 77 warplanes into Taiwan defense zone over two days, Taipei says (CNN) Taiwan has reported a record number of incursions by Chinese warplanes into its air defense identification zone (ADIZ) for the second day in a row, Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense said on Saturday night. The self-governing island said a total of 39 Chinese military aircraft entered the ADIZ on Saturday, one more than the 38 planes it spotted on Friday. The 38 and 39 planes respectively are the highest number of incursions Taiwan has reported in a day since it began publicly reporting such activities last year. The incursions on Friday came as Beijing celebrated 72 years since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949. Taiwan and mainland China have been governed separately since the end of a civil war more than seven decades ago, in which the defeated Nationalists fled to Taipei. However, Beijing views Taiwan as an inseparable part of its territory—even though the Chinese Communist Party has never governed the democratic island of about 24 million people.

Leaked records open a ‘Pandora’ box of financial secrets (AP) Hundreds of world leaders, powerful politicians, billionaires, celebrities, religious leaders and drug dealers have been hiding their investments in mansions, exclusive beachfront property, yachts and other assets for the past quarter-century, according to a review of nearly 12 million files obtained from 14 firms located around the world. The report released Sunday by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists involved 600 journalists from 150 media outlets in 117 countries. It’s being dubbed the “Pandora Papers” because the findings shed light on the previously hidden dealings of the elite and the corrupt, and how they have used offshore accounts to shield assets collectively worth trillions of dollars. The more than 330 current and former politicians identified as beneficiaries of the secret accounts include Jordan’s King Abdullah II, former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair, Czech Republic Prime Minister Andrej Babis, Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta, Ecuador’s President Guillermo Lasso, and associates of both Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan and Russian President Vladimir Putin. “The new data leak must be a wake-up call,” said Sven Giegold, a Green party lawmaker in the European Parliament. “Global tax evasion fuels global inequality. We need to expand and sharpen the countermeasures now.”

Cities rethinking transit (NYT) Trams, cable cars, ferries: Cities are rethinking transit. Berlin is reviving electric tram lines that were ripped out when the Berlin Wall went up. Bogotá, Colombia, is building cable cars to serve working-class communities. Bergen, Norway, is running battery-powered ferries and buses. Where cities are succeeding in these and similar efforts, they’re also finding benefits in cleaner air.

[hyperionswrath--archived]

@onepartbrave​ :

Usually, a walk of shame consisted of something else entirely, yet here Squall was, taking an impressive one. After nearly losing his cool when first running into Seifer and the man had done nothing to aggravate him (really), he’d not even thanked him properly for saving his imbecilic hide after getting shot. And he’d taken a bullet for Squall, too. Frustration ran deep in Squall’s veins as the thought steamed through his head on a constant loop. Stomping along the deserted sidewalk, he took his anger out on a random can, booting it as far as he could. Which wasn’t an impressive feat, the tin landing with a few irksome clanks in the middle of the road. Feeling no better, he berated his own incompetence and childishness as he jogged out into the lane to retrieve the can. He wasn’t one to litter…

Depositing the tin in the next trash receptacle he found, Squall contemplated abandoning his post altogether and palming the mission off on someone else. Then, another schmuck could deal with Seifer run ins that wouldn’t leave them reeling all night. Sighing heavily, he tucked his hands away inside pockets to stave off the biting cold and hurried his pace along. It seemed just his luck lately, spontaneous misfortune and completely whacked out events occurring. Out of all the people he could’ve met, all the people in this damned city, it was him.

The worst part was, he wasn’t even sore at Seifer. There was no underlying resentment, no grudge to be found, no vendetta. Hell, he was privately pleased the man was doing so well for himself. So where his displeasure sourced from, he was yet to discover. He had a feeling it was all self-inflicted, though.

After taking a long walk to try and clear his head, Squall eventually returned to the hotel he was booked into to rest. A fitful night of tossing and turning left him grumpy come morning when his alarm clock blared to life, and he felt no revitalised after his morning coffee and energising breakfast. The coffee alone normally succeeded.

Thusly, he pegged the day down to be another blow out from the start. His morning, midday, afternoon and a fine stretch of the evening consisted of making amends with the local authorities (aka, the Glaives in this case) and promising he’d caught no more trouble for the duration of his stay, As a result of his poor decision making and atrocious actions the night prior, he was removed from being the lead in the case he’d been working. Normally, taking the back seat wasn’t an issue for him, but the target he’d been chasing for three fucking weeks had made it personal, so… you know, he wasn’t at all pleased. Some rookie was being flown in the next morning to “watch over” Squall and his apparent disruptive tendencies.

Whatever. One mistake and all he worked towards in the litigation was thrown out the window.

It was ticking past latish when he eventually dragged himself out of the Glaive’s office. Some character that had the gall to imply SeeD were incompetent (or maybe Squall was bitter enough that everything else seemed as such) and the encounter left a sour taste persisting on Squall’s tongue. Meandering aimlessly through the headquarters now he was officially on vacation and not a task, he considered going for a real drink somewhere. Just to take the edge off the stinging blow he’d been dealt and then tomorrow, he’d retire to his hotel room and catch up on any missed paperwork until he was allowed back on Garden premises.

Accordingly, whenever he had a plan, fate desired him on another path. When he turned the next corner which was on-route to the exit… he ran into the one and only (current) Bane of his Existence. Officially known as Seifer. Concurrent with the realisation of who and what, Squall’s face fell into an incredulous pout, astounding at his terrible luck… or stroke of fortune? Since yesterday, he’d been plagued with feelings of remorse over how he reacted to the blond’s otherwise pleasant behaviour. Really, Seifer hadn’t stepped out of line once and he’d sprinted clean over it numerous times. As backwards as it seemed, he couldn’t part with such heavy qualms weighing his shoulders down.

“Seifer,” he called out to him, insistent on getting the man’s attention whether the blond wanted it or not. Approaching without caution, he blocked any direction the other might want to take and planted himself firmly. Though stubborn defiance danced in his gaze, a vague sense of imploration resided alongside it. “…I still owe you those drinks. Show me where another bar is?”

Pleasant sting in his throat as the whiskey ran down, the tall blond released a sigh not half as content as it usually would have been, given the loot he'd acquired. What a shit day. And since his entertainment plan, namely a certain brunet, was nowhere to be seen anymore, all he could do was spit out another curse and wash it down with some more alcohol. He'd lie if he said this hadn't been just his kind of fun, but... Shit, why did Squall always have to be so hyne-bedamned dramatic?! Give him a SeeD mission for his final field exam and leave it to the guy to get chased and nearly squashed by some huge Imperial contraption on the shore when all they had to do was retreat. Rolling his eyes at the memory, he slowly fell into step, not bothering to deal with any of his comrades (and knowing full well Kerr would hand him his ass for that come tomorrow), turning back the way he had been walking when he ran into Squall.

He'd take the long way home, maybe stop by the harbor to sit there and get shitfaced in peace. There were some most discomforting thoughts rolling in his mind that needed sorting out, and for the first time in a decade, they all consisted of a brunet little shit.

One entire bottle of Galahdian Whiskey and approximately ten wrong turns to find the house his apartment was in later, all he could thank the Six for was that he'd been able to find his way at all instead of blacking out on some bench in the parks. Fumbling with his keys for the better part of twenty minutes (this damn lock kept moving around and somehow the fucking keys wouldn't fit either!), he dragged himself to his bed, crashing there without even bothering to undress, ignoring the nagging thought that he'd have to change the sheets tomorrow because he was now ruining them with blood, dirt, grime, and soot.

Needless to say, his morning didn't turn out to be much better than his night had been. Once his hand found and smashed the obtrusively noisy alarm clock, he groaned, already feeling the incessant pounding of a severe hangover drum behind his eyes. Neither shower nor breakfast was able to rid him of it and he was also shit out of luck since he had used his last remedy a couple of days ago to remove his last hangover which had been, in hindsight, not that severe.   Spending the better part of the early morning not moving about too much, cleaning his uniform to the best of his abilities, he arrived at the Kingsglaive's Headquarters just on time. As he had expected, Kerr made a point of berating him for just rushing off like that, trading some answers about what had happened (Seifer realized at this point he didn't know that much either) for a remedy that finally rid the tall blond of his thundering headache.

The next one already lurked around the corner though as during his afternoon training session none other than the captain bellowed his name all over the place, reaching him even on the high pillar he was just perching on. Seifer knew he was in deep shit, but he hadn't expected it to be that bad. Nearly two hours of shouting, arguing, the captain repeatedly slamming his fist on the table and Seifer nearly decking him later, the tall blond finally got out of the man's office, his entire body tense from suppressed anger, fists clenched and trembling as he made a point of closing the door extraordinarily gently. Nostrils flaring, eyes a dark shade of emerald, and shoulders firmly set he marched down the hallway, steering his steps to a corridor he knew to be not frequented too much so he would have his peace and quiet. Still fuming over the blatant unfairness of the whole situation, his fingers deftly opened the clasps of his uniform jacket while he walked, shrugging it off his shoulders and flinging it on the nearest bench once he arrived at his destination.

Suspension. An entire week of suspension. He was positively livid about the fact that him helping to secure the bar and probably safe a bunch of lives had that result. It was Garden all over again. Gritting his teeth, he flicked his hand and procured needle and thread from his amiger, uncaring if anyone saw him do that. Another thing he didn't care too much about - the 'don't abuse your granted powers of the king to your convenience and only ever use the amiger to store weapons and items' -blablabla. Accompanied by a heavy sigh he removed his gloves and set them aside, now fingering over the material of his coat to find the hole still remaining there. Getting shot at seemed to be of not much interest to the captain but a tarnished uniform did. Said a lot about his worth here, huh? He slowly sank down, pulling the coat into his lap and had only gotten a few stitches in, when he could hear steps approaching if his ears did not betray him.

Brow furrowed, he made a point to look as threatening as possible while not acknowledging whoever it was' presence, so when he heard Squall call out to him his head shot up so quickly he was sure he could hear a joint pop. Hyne below and the Six above, how could he run into his former rival twice in one week? On two successive days at that? Brows lifted not entirely as annoyed as he would like them to be, he cocked his head inquisitively as the brunet made a point of stepping close enough to effectively block him from moving away. That in and on itself was curious enough to blow some of his frustration to the wind as a teasing smirk pulled at the corner of his lips. Just a bit closer and Squall could just as well sit on his lap. And well, would you look at that, the SeeD really wanted to keep his word after all. He had not expected that. "Lemme just finish this," he replied instead, first nudging his chin towards the hole in his coat he was in the middle of fixing, then nodding towards the free space on the bench. He eyed the man towering over him for a moment, emerald gaze flicking to where he was wounded the night before. "How's your shoulder?"

Part of him wanted to straight-up follow old behavioral patterns and annoy the living shit out of Squall, but quite frankly the mere fact the very same had approached him on his own will, even asking him to follow up on the offer to get a drink, was enough to pique his interest and he was willing to see where this was going. At least for the time being. Deftly working the hole shut with needle and thread, he was almost done when a ripping sound came and a sharp curse followed as he successfully stabbed his finger, making him flinch back. "Fucking shit!!", he growled shaking his hand out and feeling the frustration creep back into his mind. Seifer stared at the mischievous needle reproachfully for a moment before finishing up his work, biting the thread off unceremoniously and letting both the yarn and needle disappear into the amiger again. "What are you doing here anyways?"

[no-passaran]

I’m looking at languages memes and I’m beginning to get tired of seeing people mock monolingual speakers . I know that a lot of them are assholes towards bilingual / polyglot people but I can’t forget all the people who don’t have the money or time or opportunity to learn another language , especially people who had their family’s native language stripped from them and were raised with their country’s dominant language ( which brings us to coloniasm and imperialism )

Most people from non-anglo countries don't have the resources either (schools are horrible here at teaching English) and most families have to make efforts so children can go to private academies, which often are run by native English speakers who don't have actual preparation to teach but since they're from England/the USA/Canada/Australia then they are so above every person from here or anywhere else who actually has a degree in English philology. And those are super expensive, both academies and official exams like Cambridge know that the whole population is desperate to speak English so they make everything very expensive knowing we will have to pay anyway.

Also how many memes are there "mocking monolinguals"? Like 1 for every 9000000 memes that mock people with accents or who speak other languages like Spanish, Chinese, Italian, etc? How many times have you been mocked in your everyday life for being monolingual? My guess in none. I (like many other people from my linguistic community) are mocked almost every time we speak in the State language (which is also our native language, but of course we have an accent from our home native language).

Also nobody is making fun of people whose languages were exterminated and grouping them with people from the dominant community that doesn't need nor want to learn more?? Those two situations are so absolutely different, it would require a lot of explaining and mental gymnastics to put them together in a meme.

Nobody is forcing you to look at those memes. Just let people joke about the things we are constantly being pressured into becoming all our lives, and if it's not for you then just don't follow those pages.

I've already been told this too many times in my life, because I'm from a minoritized language community (Catalan) and people from the occupant country (Spain) always say this, that we only speak a different language because we want to seem special and make fun of them. When we just want to speak! I've been told this so many times already and I don't want to hear it more. Also I don't know what this ask has to do with me (I don't even post those memes lmao)

[m2mtl]

(ENG translation) Fake Cinderella - Chapter 8

Chapter 8 raw (click for link)

Previous chapters (1-7) link

t/n: Hiya, I decided to pick up the Fake Cinderella novel. This is just MTL so feel free to point out corrections and I'm not sure about some parts and just inferred based on context (MTL sometimes give out really weird translations lol). I'll try to do at least 2-4 chapters every month, but I'm not promising anything. So yeah, here goes~

(7/28/19) t/n: Edited some parts, for better understanding as well as some points that I realized weren’t translated that accurately. 

TOC - Next Chapter

----------

8. Report

The culprit - I was told that he was the cook of the soup at the kitchen.  

(I do not know if it's true)

As if it's a detective drama, it was "no charges due to the death of the suspect."

Really. That guy, he was dead.

He was there during the uproar about Ellelucia, but soon he was out of sight, and when he was found he was no longer breathing. 

They say it was the same poison as with Ellelucia.  

(The dead cannot speak...)

There was no definite evidence that he was the criminal, but according to this report which was handed to me, the Elsevelt justice officer had determined that it was suicide. And while the investigation will continue, there is a strong suspicion that he was the perpetrator.

We cannot prove his innocence, and it is easy to judge him as the criminal. Even if there is no solid evidence, the circumstantial evidence is sufficient.

With one word of the judiciary, he is considered as if he were the criminal already.

Like a lamb in a sacrifice.  

The dead cannot argue.  

After that, the people around him just piled up stories showing that he was suspicious.

Several testimonies from the people around him were included in the report.

It was poorly written.

He liked gambling.

He was in debt and needed money.

He always said that he wanted money.

He talked about having a profit... each and everyone of these stories are insufficient as evidence.  

These are often heard everywhere, and it's not particularly suspicious.

But when each of these stories comes together, it feels as if he were a criminal.

It is even more so because the judiciary has proclaimed it.

(The assumption is strong.)

Even if it was not the truth, it is considered the truth to those who believed it.

The weight of the real truth is automatically added there.

Whether the judicial officer really thinks he's the culprit or is trying to make himself think so, there's too little information to judge.

Another report was submitted by my escort.

As this is in Elsevert territory, this report is not an official document but only an informal one.

The name of the reporter is Count Najec = Rajé = Vera = Stasen (t/n: I just kept the name similar to the romanization).

He is the head of my escort and is a qualified judicial officer.

A judicial officer is a professional qualification who is given the authority of a judge and a police officer, and is called by the title "Vera", but "Judicial officer" does not strictly equal to "Vera".

"Vera" means a person who graduated from university, in a sense it's basically a "scholar."

Since all the people who graduated from university can become judicial officers, the judicial officers eventually became called "Vera."

Wherever you go in this continent, you can get a high-ranking official position if you have acquired the title "Vera." Really. Even if it is a former slave.

I hear that the prime minister of the Royal Roland Empire in the North is a "Vera" that was a former slave.

I was wondering why one could become an expert in law just after graduating from college, so I was determined to know how the mentioned university here works. Universities in this world are highly advanced and specialized academic institutions, it is difficult to enter and even more difficult to graduate.

Admission qualifications require that only those who have passed the entrance exam for under 30 years old, but the scope of entrance exams is quite diverse. The test subjects are three essential subjects: law, history, and language, but they must have knowledge in all fields because the history exam may ask about the zinc purification method of the unified empire era, and the language exam may ask about the economy of the second empire period.

Depending on the year, successful applicants may only total to a single digit.

Laws naturally vary from country to country. The basic law is the old Unified Imperial Law called the "Continental Law."  University students learn all the laws of the five major powers, including Dardinia. If you do not pass in the three essential subjects of law, history, and language, you can not advance to the specialized course nor graduate.

The Royal Academy exists as a senior educational institution, but in every country, it is regarded as belonging only to nobles. There are some famous private schools, but they are only recognized within their own countries.

An ivory tower with absolute authority, without swaying in status, position or power. That is the university here.

They are meritocratic, no matter how high your status, no matter how much money you accumulate, you will not be allowed to take a step in unless you pass the entrance examination on your own.

Incidentally, Prince Nadir has this "Vera."

At present, there is no other prince in the continent who has "Vera."  It is said that when he ascends to the throne, he would become the first king to have the title "Vera."

Let's get back to the report.

As a matter of course, the report of Count Stasen naturally differs in perspective from the Elsevert's judicial officer.  

So, even if the same fact is written, the impression is completely different.

The poor are all farmers in the villages, and it is common practice for the village men to play darts at the bar of the village, do dice betting and poker, and to lose at these games. Even if they lost three days in a row, it was possible to pay with the next month salary.  

People who want money, they're not uncommon for them, and the word profit can make you a little curious, but for instance, if you sell a new kind of sweet potatoes directly in the town rather than in the village market... it's a big profit for the farmers.

(There are two sides to things...)

Even if it is not the opposite of the two sides, just as the view changes depending on how the light is applied, the facts that come up from different perspectives are different.

(Even though there is one truth, what you see is different from person to person)

There is no more excuses from him.

There is no one to refute for him.

Now there is no evidence, but the suspicion of circumstantial evidence, and in time there may be a considerable sum of money, or some poison which he is said to have used, that will be discovered from his luggage.

Such a thing, I don't know if I can let it go afterwards.

(... or perhaps he was really involved)

Maybe I'm being too suspicious. It may be better to honestly believe in the circumstantial evidence.

If there is a lot of doubtful evidence, it's hard to say, because it was his turn to make the soup.  

That clam soup was a bit bad for acclaim. But I think it was technically okay.

The clam itself was deliciously processed. The thick, large clam was simmered without being too boiled. It didn't feel too firm and I didn't taste the rawness ... it was well cooked.

There is no gas. Nor do they have ranges or timers. I don't think he could have done anything but make soup on the open fire.

He should not have had the time of doing something unnecessary with the soup.  

(The soup is next to the oven, and the stove of the stir-fried dishes is beyond the bread-kiln...)

The report also describes the location of the kitchen seasoning shelves. The information attached to either report is quite detailed, but the information submitted by Elsevert's official is even more so - it includes the description of what is in the shelf. The name of the person who wrote it is blurred. (t/n: not sure about this, it was literally translated as “The character of the person I wrote is blurred.”)

If you were in the kitchen, you might think there are many chances to put poison in, but the corner where you made soup is far from the one where you made stir-fried dishes. Moreover, there is a bread kiln between them, and there are, of course, people in charge for that too.

There is no evidence that he approached the oven where the stir-fried dishes were being made.

It is almost impossible to put it after it is served. It is said that when he was done he soon served the soup, and there is no evidence of him approaching there.

There were more than ten people in the kitchen at that time. The chef, who oversaw all the work, testified that no one had done anything funny.

His skill may be inadequate, but his attitude to protect his men against a judicial officer who regarded him as the criminal is worthy of praise.

(I think I'm going to be confused...)

I had a lot to think about.

I don't think I've lived without thinking about anything, but I feel like I've been thinking a lot since I came here.

The position of the Duke of Elsevert is not very good, as the judicial officer considered him as partly the culprit... Rather, they are secretly regarded as the true masterminds.

(His family, for generations, was it a peasant of the Duke...)

The relationship between tenant farmers and feudal lords is similar to slaves and masters who follow voluntarily. Although peasants were not in the position of slaves, they could not oppose the order of their lords.

It is quite natural to regard it as having been done by the order of the duke.

The duke seems to have tried to come and explain many times, but my escort commander said that the excuse was useless, and it seems that even Lilia refused the offer.

(Well, he is naturally, suspected... in a sense, of course)

On the contrary, I doubt his involvement this time.

I don't think he'll use such an easy-to-understand method.

In the castle of Elsevert, poison is found in the dish made by the cook of Elsevert... The culprit deduced from this... it's too easy to understand.

(I don't think they'll use such a simple trick)

The Duke of Elsevert would come up with a situation in which he could prove that he was never the culprit, and a means in which he would never be doubted.  

That duke is paranoid and a perfectionist. That type should be very particular about details.

Of course, there are exceptions, but the duke is absolutely fine. Because, the list of seasoning shelves was probably written directly by the duke.

It was found in both reports that, as soon as Ellelucia fell, my bodyguards began to seize the kitchen of the castle to examine all the rest of the material which had remained for my breakfast.

The materials itself seemed to be perfectly normal. Seasonings too.

The poison was found only in the dish of 'fried green vegetables and soybean dishes' that was carried to my room.

The frying pan had been washed, so it was unclear if it was mixed during cooking or if it was mixed while being transported to my room after cooking.

It was Ellelucia who carried "green vegetables and stir-fried dishes" from the kitchen to my room. It seems that the lady has poisoned herself with what she carried.

(What is the form of the poison? ... Powder or ... Liquid? ...)

Is it possible to be mixed in the corridors or not?

The poison is still under investigation, but it is written that it is probably a poison of Rigis.

Rigis is is a medicinal herb that has analgesic effects in its flowers and a sedative effect in the leaves. It is widely used, and every home is planted with Rigis, and it is so common for girls to bring the potted plant as a bride's tool.

However, according to a book left by the famous alchemist, Trigias, about two centuries ago, it is possible to refine the root by a special refining method and produce a terrible poison. It is said that it can kill a dozen of adults with just one drop of liquid or with the powder amounting to only a tip of the finger.

The terrifying part of this poison is that it is not immediate. There is nothing for a while after taking it, and it is too late when you realize it. You can't vomit it anymore.

It dissolves in the internal organs and you die before long. It is said that the skin of the body is decayed and that purple spots appear over time.

(Well, all poisons that can not be identified are said to be Rigis poison.)

Indeed, this Rigis poison is a mystery poison. The 'special refinements' and the other information have not been recorded anywhere, only the efficacy of the poison and the observation that Trigius had conducted on death row prisoners.

The roots of the Rigus are edible when boiled. It tastes like a lily root, and I ate it a few days ago. By the way, it seems to be a medicine for bruises if you grind it.

It's a mystery how it becomes poisonous. Well, it's not that strange because medicine and poison are two sides of the same coin.

(...... Is there anything that Ellelucia aims at?)

Was there a reason for being targeted by Ellelucia? Now that I think of it.

She was a bright and pretty girl. It is said her swordsmanship skills were quite good. She was told to be my shield at an emergency.

However, it seemed to me that it had nothing to do with the fact that Ellelucia was my maid after all.

----------

TOC - Next Chapter

[solaarts]

More Seeking Petrichor info: Padokea! 

Read beneath the cut - long post!

Loosely based on ancient China, but with a more modern, steampunk-esque flair. Post-apocalyptic society *does* know all the old futuristic science, after all - it’s just that nobody can use it

The Padokean language is actually just Mandarin. (Killua is fluent in most languages)

Ritualistic, rigid social hierarchy (as follows)

Emperor/Empress

Emperor/Empress-Abdict (for retired rulers)

Imperial Highness (crown prince/princess)

Highness (prince/princess)

Emperor’s Hand – personal retinue of generals/assassins/advisors/noble allies/mages. Belonging to this group supersedes other statuses

Nobility (hereditary/granted titles)

Dukes (gong yi)

Marquis (hou si)

Vizcount (zi san)

Baron (nan er) 

Government Officials (appointed, civil service exam & combat exam, commoners welcome)

Nine grades (pin3), each divided into an upper (zheng4) and a lower (cong2)

Grades 4-9 are further divided into upper (shang4) and lower (xia4) as well (highest rank - 1a, lowest rank – 9b2)

Military (based off US rank system, commoners welcome)

Merchants/tradesmen/craftsmen

Working class/farmers

Serfs – those who farm a noble’s land. 

Sons are required to enlist in the military upon turning 18 (Padokean age of majority) and serve until they are 22. 

Women may choose to serve in the military or in the nobles’ home

Upon completion of their time they are required to return home (unless they received a promotion) and serve in the nobles’ militia while farming.

Nobles who abuse their powers over serfs may be stripped of their titles

Royals require no consultation to strip titles

Higher-ranked nobility who wish to strip titles must be at least two ranks higher and must have the consent of the Emperor’s Hand

Criminals

More ranks = higher social standing

Nobles, Government Officials, and Military officials can all possess simultaneous ranks in all three categories

To determine which person is socially higher, the highest nobility, then government position, then military rank is looked at in, that order. 

If a noble is outranked in BOTH government position and military rank, however, then they are of socially lower standing.

Exception to the social hierarchy!

Zhijiao – essentially platonic soulmate-marriage. People in romantic relationships are also occasionally each other’s Zhijiao, but it’s not a requirement.

You can only have one Zhijiao in your entire life - and it’s pretty rare

Both Zhijiao share the higher social status

Zhijiao are permitted to speak on each others’ behalf, spend each others’ money, and establish political relationships/goals in each others’ stead.

If one member of a Zhijiao pair commits a felony, both Zhijiao are charged for that felony. (lesser charges do not affect both individuals)

Forcefully separating a Zhijiao pair for any reason is illegal in Padokea, and is punishable by a minimum of ten years imprisonment

If someone murders your Zhijiao you’re legally allowed to exact revenge.

It’s caused blood feuds before because of chain-reactions of Zhijiao killing each other

The breaking of a Zhijiao bond is unheard of, and has only happened in cases of deep personal betrayal. 

Breaking a Zhijiao bond is cause for social ostracism for both parties, unless the fault very clearly lies with one of the pair

A Zhijiao bond between two people whose families oppose their marriage is commonly considered a marriage cheat, given that afterward it is illegal to separate them for any reason. 

(YOU ALL KNOW THIS FIC IS KILLUGON ALREADY)

The only formality required to cement a Zhijiao bond is for both people to either tattoo or brand the other person with their personal or family sigil

[imperceptibility]

清和 (Qinghe) -- by 来自远方 (Lai Zi Yuan Fang) -- ch. 1

~

Author → here

JJWXC → here

Disclaimer & summary → here

Translated by me

Index of characters → here

~

Ming Dynasty, year thirty-one of Hongwu, Beiping-fu

The third month of the year[1] should have been a time when the lakes and rivers were warming up and the flowers began blossoming, but instead, Beiping saw several snowstorms. The frigid wind swept along a skyful of snow. Like a knife scraping the bone, gust by gust, it blew against one’s cheeks until they stung sharply.

Dressed in hemp with his hands stowed in his sleeves, Meng Qinghe was squatting by the door, staring blankly at the patterns on the door bolt.

Half-chi-long icicles hung from the eaves. The northerly wind swirled. The window frames made noises, as if it were knocking upon a person’s heart.

The old cat lying by corner stood up with a meow, stretching and then licking its paw. With a couple of jumps, it reached the surface of the simple and crude table upon which rested some brushes and paper, ink and an inkwell. Leaving behind a few paw prints on the yellowing paper, it shook its whiskers in joyful satisfaction.

In the past, Meng Qinghe would have definitely stepped over to chase it away, but in that moment, he was not in the mood.

“The Ming Dynasty, during the reign of Hongwu, Beiping-fu...good heavens, you’ve got to be kidding me...”

When a person got unlucky, even the water they drank would get stuck in their teeth[2].

He had just been walking down the street, nothing out of the ordinary. Even so he ended up traveling through time — and six hundred years at that!

Just how in the world did he time travel? Was there a problem with the way he walked?

“How great would it be if this were a dream,” Qinghe gave his head a hard scratch, dejected and also helpless.

If he had known, he would rather have sold his body to entertain the masses by grabbing a pole and dancing the hula at his company’s annual dinner than sneaking out early.

What a shame that wishes were wonderful but reality was so often incomparably cruel. Cruel, just as the northerly wind blowing on him through the door crack.

Sigh...

His loose long hair flew. The hemp sack of a robe he was wearing might as well have not even been there.

It was so cold his teeth chattered. Rubbing his arms, Qinghe gritted his teeth. He was already here and his chances of returning to his time were slim to none. Even if he regretted things to the moon and back, it was futile. What he should be thinking about was how to keep living.

He did not require much much: three meals a day, a standalone house, no worries over food or clothing — that’d be enough.

Lacking in ambition? A good man not striving to accomplish things and win all the ladies?

He’d ask such a doubter to open their goddamn eyes. This was the reign of Hongwu. Beiping-fu was the Prince of Yan’s territory. Wanting to overflow with boldness in the presence of the likes of Taizu and Chengzu of Ming? Were they tired of how long their life was lasting?

As for winning all the ladies...sorry, he preferred men.

Undertaking heroic ventures and snatching up a beautiful woman might be a story to capture the imagination, but snatching up a man...well, better to forget about it.

Qinghe wiggled his fingers and pushed at the glasses that no longer rested on the bridge of his nose. As dictated by his profession, no matter what it was that he was going to do, he liked to lay out plans beforehand.

Right then, being a civil servant was a high risk job. The higher the position, the higher the likelihood of one’s head and neck taking their leave. The Hongwu Emperor’s bureaucratic reforms abolished the post of Grand Chancellor as well as the Six Ministries. On top of that, he set the record of ordering the execution of ten zu[3]. Jianwen Emperor, his grandson, was relatively good-natured, only intending to target his uncles. However, as it turned out, Jianwen’s military prowess was lacking and he would be usurped by one such uncle. Very few of the ministers who were adamantly loyal to him met a good end.

Thus, it was abundantly clear that taking the imperial exam to become a government official was not a viable path.

Becoming a merchant was also not a good way forward. For specifics, one could refer to the tycoon Shen Wansan, who loved to help others but who was sent away to Yunnan[4] by the Hongwu Emperor to experience life in the army.

Being a good, poor farmer was undoubtedly relatively safe, the prerequisite being that one did not encounter a year of calamities or run into a local tyrant or nasty member of the gentry with too formidable of a personal background.

Other than that, there was another path: enlisting in the military.

However, taking into account his actual situation, this matter was one that he needed to consider at greater length.

A noise sounded again from behind him. Qinghe turned his head to look at the old cat on his table, his lips cracking apart as he bared his teeth at the animal.

With his hair disheveled and a predatory glint in his eye, his thin face was exceptionally malevolent.

Meow!

The old cat bristled, leaping instantaneously from the table onto the roof beam.

Qinghe gave his hair a sassy flip. A perfect victory.

The satisfaction of a victory lasted all but two seconds before sorrow took its place. Gazing at the old cat that was chasing a mouse up on the roof beam, he was infinitely sad that even a cat was happier than him.

At least the cat could eat meat; he could not.

“Shi’erlang[5].” As he was drowning in the clutches of his sorrow, a quiet, hoarse call came from outside the door.

Qinghe did not respond. After a while, another quiet call came, peppered with coughing. No matter how hard his heart of stone was, he could not go on pretending that he had not heard.

Standing up, he shook out his limbs, an action of necessity due to the fact that he was frozen stiff.

Unbolting the door, he saw three haggard women dressed in hemp[6] standing outside. The one in the middle being supported was his mother. The other two supporting her were his older brothers’ wives.

“Mother, saozi[7].”

Going by the memories in his head, Qinghe bowed in greeting, letting the three of them into the room. When he had first arrived in this time period, the boy who was also named Meng Qinghe had already been gravely ill and soon breathed his last. The odd thing was, the memories of this body’s previous owner had remained in Qinghe’s mind.

“Shi’erlang, your datangbo[8] genuinely does not want us to live!”

His mother Meng-Wang-shi[9] coughed twice for each sentence she spoke. As for his sisters-in-law, Meng-Xu-shi and Meng-Zhang-shi, one stroked his mother’s back to ease her breathing while the other was busy consoling her. Their faces were pale and angry and helpless.

Their father-in-law was gone. Their men were also gone. Their xiaoshu[10] Meng Qinghe was only fourteen. What could he really do?

After listening to his mother’s lament, Qinghe’s brows also knotted together.

“What sweet words! ‘Lending a hand’, he says! He’s just scheming to get his hands on our measly family property!” Meng-Wang-shi took Qinghe’s hand in her own, her voice hoarse. “In order to pay for your father and your two brother’s funerals, we barely have anything left anyways! And now, he’s set his sights on even this...”

As she spoke, tears streamed down her face. “When your father and your brothers were alive, whenever something came up in the clan, we never denied them anything. To think their graves are not even cold yet and already your datangbo has turned hostile and is pushing us to the point of death! The fields that we sold, whose hands are they in now? And who took our ox that we used to plow the fields? And why did the teacher drive you out of school and back home? We all have Meng as our family name. How can he go so far? Does he not fear divine retribution?”

The more she spoke, the more stirred up her emotions became. Her wan face bloomed with pink and her coughing grew worse.

Before she finished her words, a cough sounded abruptly from outside the door. Qinghe looked over to find a short and stout man dressed in a dust-gray round-collared cotton padded jacket. The man’s face appeared simple and honest but his eyes carried a shred of shrewdness. It was his datangbo, Meng Guangxiao.

“Datangbo.”

Before Meng Guangxiao could open his mouth, Qinghe made his salutations and invited the man inside. After greeting him, Meng-Wang-shi sat to the side without a word. Qinghe’s two sisters-in-law stood behind Meng-Wang-shi with their heads slightly lowered, also keeping silent.

Meng Guangxiao indicated to Qinghe that there was no need to be so courteous. His tone was kind, as if he were genuinely a good-natured elder.

“Your father and brothers are gone. Your mother and sisters-in-law are women. You are still young. Whatever you need help with, I will not say no.” 

Qinghe raised his clasped hands[11] and bowed deeply. “Thank you, datangbo.”

Gestures dictated by the etiquette of the ancients were still awkward when he performed them. Good thing most verbal communication consisted of vernacular language and not filled with archaic expressions. Otherwise, it was bound to induce a headache, no matter who was on the receiving end.

“However,” what Meng Guangxiao was saying took a turn, “Good nephew, you’ve seen the weather at the start of this year. After all these snowstorms, the springtime field-plowing will probably be delayed.”

Qinghe did not pick up the thread of conversation, not that Meng Guangxiao minded. He carried right on speaking. His words were not harsh but the meaning was clear: the weather at the start of the year was poor and everybody was having a hard time. Your family might be facing difficulties but nobody else was well off either. So should you not be repaying the money and food you had borrowed earlier?

“Putting others aside for now, your ertangbo’s family just added an extra member. He has a hard time saying the words so I have to play the part of the bad person,” Meng Guangxiao paused. “You know I have no other options.”

“Indeed,” Qinghe agreed readily, seemingly completely unaware of what Meng Guangxiao was up to. After a moment, a bit of an ashamed blush crept up onto Qinghe’s face, as if he had just recalled that there was no food at home. “Right now, we are truly in quite a predicament. Could I ask for a few more days?”

“Oh?”

“In a few days, I will definitely come up with some way to scrape together the money and the food. I will not make things difficult for you, datangbo.”

Meng Guangxiao eyed the boy suspiciously. He knew how things stood with this family. Ever since he was little, Meng Qinghe had had his nose buried so deep in his studies that he ended up growing into an otherwise clueless fool. After Meng Guangzhi and his two sons died, there was nobody else who could take charge of the household. Three funerals had exhausted pretty much all of their wealth, leaving behind a family of widows and orphans, guarding a big house and several mu of farmland. If it were not for the fact that he had his eyes on those three mu of top quality farmland and this house, Meng Guangxiao would not drop by so often, risking having all this bad luck stick to him for no reason.

It had yet to be twenty-seven days since the funerals. Ordinarily, Meng Guangxiao should have been in the mourning garment xiaogong[12] for his cousin. At worst, he should have been in dressed in sima. No matter how nice his words were, him paying a visit in his gray, cotton padded jacket showed that he placed no importance upon this family of widows and children.

So the saying went: one would be better off looking down on an old man with white hair than a youth in poverty.

One could look with disdain upon the enemy but should not view an opponent lightly.

Meng Guangxiao had committed both errors. To put it bluntly, it was going to serve him right to fall flat on his face at Qinghe’s hands.

“Datangbo, there are still a few mu of farmland and a house in my family’s possession. Once I find an intermediary to evaluate the price and manage to sell them, I should be able to repay some of the debt.”

Qinghe had carefully deliberated the words that made him want to wince and he barely avoided biting his tongue in the process of delivering them. Given that he wanted to dig a hole for Meng Guangxiao to jump into, his “act” had to be convincing. He was an expert at this sort of thing.

Meng Guangxiao barely kept down the rising corners of his mouth, but he was unable to disguise the contempt in his eyes. His oldest son’s earlier concerns were unnecessary after all, concerns about how shi’erlang was extremely intelligent to the point of not appearing so on the surface[13] and to not coerce him, lest it ruin the amicability between both families. As it were, this boy was but a fool.

But it was a good thing that he was a fool!

After sending Meng Guangxiao off, Meng-Wang-shi, who had kept her silence, tugged on Qinghe’s garment, her voice trembling: “Oh son, what has happened to you? How come you...”

What she wanted to say was: ‘Oh son, how come you have lost it? Why fall for the trap in a one-track minded fashion when you clearly know he covets our property? Besides, that bit of paper money that Meng Guangxiao, Meng Guangshun, and the others had lent us has already been taken back by them many fold through the sale of our fields. Moreover, they pocketed a significant amount during the planning of the funerals. Now, they dare to use this as an excuse to coerce us!’

Meng-Xu-shi and Meng-Zhang-shi’s expressions also showed confusion and reproach. If the remaining land and house were sold off, what were they, as a family, going to eat? Where were they going to live?

“Mother, do not worry.” Qinghe, on the other hand, was the image of ease. Helping Meng-Wang-shi rise to her feet, he spoke in a resolute tone: “Rest assured that I have a plan.”

They wanted his family’s land? He would give it.

They also wanted his family’s house? He would give that as well.

Them laughing at him for being a fool? Then let him be one.

Being a fool was a good thing. If a fool took things a little too far and acted outside the realm of normal logic, nobody would be able to really take issue with that, right?

Qinghe smiled. Meng-Wang-shi did not notice but Meng-Xu-shi and Meng-Zhang-shi exchanged a look, each with an expression showing the same befuddlement. Did xiaoshu just smile? And an eerie smile at that...

~

Chapter 2  ▶

~

T/N:

[1] This refers to the third month of the Chinese lunar calendar, which is the month following the spring equinox.

[2] This is a common saying about misfortune.

[3] Warning for violence in this note!!! In ancient times, family members often paid for the crimes of their (sufficiently close) relatives. The harshest punishment before executing ten zu was executing nine zu, considered as the eradication of an offender’s lineage. According to Baidu Baike, these nine included four on the father’s side (one’s family, those of one’s married paternal aunts, those of one’s married sisters, and those of one’s married daughters), three on the mother’s side (that of one’s maternal grandfather, that of one’s maternal grandmother, those of one’s married maternal aunts), and two one the wife’s side (that of one’s father-in-law, that of one’s mother-in-law). The tenth zu was one’s students.

Absolutely gruesome, yes, but that was what it was, the harshest capital punishment meted out. Just explaining this to drive home the point of what Qinghe, as a modern day person, knew of the Hongwu Emperor.

[4] Yunnan province, back then, was considered quite remote for the Han Chinese. And also, as it remains today, Yunnan was home to many ethnic minorities. Read: conflicts.

[5] Shi’erlang is literally “twelfth young man”. Sons were referred to as *insert number* young man, with the number corresponding to their age ranking within the family. In this case, no, Qinghe’s mom did not have twelve boys. It refers to him being the twelfth oldest of his generation within his clan.

[6] This is the second occurrence of the word hemp so I guess I should belatedly explain: white clothes made of hemp were worn in mourning.

[7] Saozi is how one calls one’s older brother’s wife. To note, though it is so in Qinghe’s case, it does not have to be one’s older brother by blood. Nowadays, it doesn’t even have to be legally such a brother’s wife.

[8] Bo is a paternal uncle who is older than one’s father. Tangbo is such an uncle who is a paternal cousin of one’s father. Da indicates this uncle is the oldest of such a generation in the family. Er (2), san (3), si (4), etc would label the subsequent such uncles.

[9] Taking Meng-Wang-shi as an example, this was how married woman were referred to back then, in the format of X-Y-shi, wherein X = the surname of her husband and Y = the surname of her father. They were rarely addressed by first names, as that was considered intimate.

[10] Xiaoshu is how one calls one’s husband’s younger brother.

[11] This was a gesture of respect.

[12] Of the traditional wufu or five mourning garments, whether one wears the zhancui, qicui, dagong/dahong, xiaogong/xiaohong, or sima (in order of coarseness of the fabric) depended upon the closeness of one’s relation to the deceased. Sima had the finest weave and were worn by the most distant of relatives that needed to wear mourning garments.

[13] This is an idiom, one of several of opposites originating from the works of Lao-Tzu. It means that the truly intelligent are so different from the average person that their actions fail to be understood, thus appearing stupid.

[blackdamed-blog]

Zhonghua Facts

How is Zhonghua different from the real Ancient China?

Zhonghua differs from Ancient China in the way that it mixes various dynasties into one, with a focus on the Ming dynasty.

What exact time does Peony live in?

1492 AD, which would be during the Ming dynasty.

Notable practices

Footbinding for Zhonghuans began in 960 AD and was practiced by most families until 1394 AD (contrasting the 1930s for China). Currently, it is no longer considered healthy or safe. Many of the women in Peony’s family, up until her grandmother, had their feet bound.

It is considered scandalous for an unmarried woman to be alone with a man, they must be accompanied by handmaidens or someone else.

A noblewomen is usually not seen without her handmaidens.

It is not a rule for unmarried noblewomen to stay out of the public eye, but it is encouraged.

Girls start sewing shoes and clothes for their future families at young ages, to be given in their dowry.

Noblewomen wear pale foundation, blacken their eyebrows, redden their lips and cheeks, and paint small flowers on their foreheads when going out in public. Peony does not do this when she sneaks out, because she is masquerading as a commoner. If commoners were to wear such elaborate makeup they would be imprisoned for impersonating noblewomen.

There are several ‘palaces’ within the Imperial Kingdom, although it is collectively called a palace in itself. The Emperor has a palace, as does the Empress, the princes, and even the princess. Women of the court live in one palace of their own.

If the Emperor dies before a son is born to him, his Empress must step down from power. The next ruler might allow them to live in the palace for the rest of their days, but they are looked on in more favor for joining a monastery in honor of the previous Emperor.

Fashion & Makeup

Zhonghua fashion and makeup trends take after the Ming and late-Tang dynasties. Tang dynasty fashion, however, is usually worn in the spring and summer.

Blue is a color commoners usually can’t afford to wear.

Commoners usually cannot afford silk, being an expensive fabric.

Noblewomen can afford nail tint, made out of egg-whites, beeswax, balsamic dye and Arabic gum. The colors are shades of red and black.

Only royalty and court ladies may tint their nails, a member of the lower class caught doing it would be imprisoned.

Scented pouches can be worn around the waist.

Women’s role in society

Women are subordinate to men. They abide by their fathers and brothers, then their husbands.

A mother and father may opt for their daughters to learn to read and write in the common characters, but it is not required. For sons, it is. Most mothers will teach their daughters nüshu, a writing that only women know.

There are female doctors, though few and many did not take official examinations to become doctors. Female doctors are expected to specialize in ‘women’s problems’, like menstruation and pregnancy, and usually only get female patients. In the Empress Peony verse, her handmaiden, Bing Bing, becomes the second woman in the Imperial City to take the exams, but the first to become a doctor for the royal family.

In Zhonghua, court ladies are women living in the palace. They are usually wives and daughters of senior civil officials, daughters of high ranking servants, or are bought into the palace to attend to the royal family ( not to be confused with servants ). To keep from taking up too much space, a civil official’s child must leave the palace at age 16 and they cannot have more than two children while living in the palace. Many sons of civil officials are groomed to take their fathers’ places or take another sort of employment within the palace, while daughters are sent away to be married. This is why many of their daughters are pushed to gain the attention of men in the palace, especially the princes.

The mother of the Emperor is known as Empress Dowager or Grand Empress Dowager ( ex: Peony’s grandmother, Grand Empress Dowager Lan ).

The Grand Empress is the woman with the most power in the household, handling finances and their grandchild’s education. They can also be heavily involved in politics.

Names

There is an old belief that fake names ward away spirits, which I include in Zhonghua. Babies are given milk names before they are born. For example, Heavenly Peony, Beautiful Moon, and Dawn Star. Boys are given the same, but they’re usually not mentioned again after they are born. A teacher or mentor will usually give boys a style name, while girls keep their milk names to be used among friends and family.

A style name is a ‘coming of age’ name for men, to be used in addition to their own. It is given in adulthood. Like mentioned above, it can be given by a teacher or even the man’s parents. Those closest to him may use it.

Love & Marriage

In Zhonghua, the relationship between siblings is considered beautiful and encouraged — second only to sworn brothers/sisters and lāotongs. They grew up together and know each other best of all. Because of this, it is not truly the father but the eldest brother has the most say in who his sister marries.

Matchmakers are used, but not often by nobles. Nobles and the royal family prefer arranged marriages, rather than leaving it up to the matchmaker. Those of the upper class, primarily women, rarely choose their own partners.

At weddings, the bride wears red and does not take her husband’s surname. Only by marrying into the royal family does the bride take her husband’s surname.

At the age of 14, girls prepare themselves for marriage. These are called ‘Hair Pinning Days’. At 15, there is a hair pining ceremony; in which her hair is put into a bun and an elaborate pin is inserted -- to keep the bun from falling. The wealthier the girl is, the more elaborate and beautifully decorated the bun is. They are usually married at 16 or 17. Unlike the real Chinese custom, a girl does not need to be engaged for this.

If her husband dies, a woman is expected to not remarry and live as a grieving widow. Many suicides result from this.

Princesses are usually married off to powerful nobles, high ranking men within the army, or foreign lords/royalty, therefore leaving the palace. If she marries prominent man who lives within the place, they are both allowed to stay.

Terms

Milk years: Days as a child.

Hair pinning days: Coming of age, when a girl is about to be married.

Rice and salt days: The time when a woman is a mother and taking care of her family.

Sworn brother/sister: Two are more people who enter close friendship and honor each other similarly to that of true siblings. Most are made out of true friendship, while others are for political gain. An unofficial kinship.

Laotong: Meaning ‘old sames’. This is a relationship that only women can have, because it symbolizes emotional support that many Zhonghuans recognize that only women can give each other. Laotongs are often decided before birth, but can also be given through a matchmaker in adolescence. Laotongs pledge themselves to each other for life, recognized by the families and the matchmaker.

Little daughters-in-law: Girls sold by their poor families to wealthier families/relatives. They are usually married to the youngest son of the family.

Yiji: Talented courtesans, who do not engage in sexual acts. They sing, dance, and act as companions to wealthy patrons. Like prostitutes, however, they have a debt to pay off in order to be free. Sometimes, their wealthy patrons will buy their freedom in order to take the Yiji as a concubine or wife.

Religion

The dominant religion in Zhonghua is Taoism, while other regions may be Buddhist or believe that their ancestors watch over them. The Hui people ( after the actual Hui ethnicity ), who live on the outskirts closer to Qhemet, are Muslim.

Concubines

The use of concubines is practiced in Zhonghua, but have become fewer and fewer under the rule of Peony’s father. Emperor Qiao declined taking concubines to honor his wife. Such was controversial, but none could force him to take another wife. Most of his forefathers, however, did take concubines.

A cairen’s ( royal concubine ) children are usually taken away from her to be fostered by either a mentor, the Empress, or another royal. However, they may visit their child now and then.

Once a cairen reaches the age of 30 and has not given birth to a son, she is either sent back to their family or to become a maid.

Cairens were usually given as tribute to the Emperor from various parts of Zhonghua, even from other noble families. 

Cairens live in a palace of their own, collectively.

If they have given birth to a son, they retain their status and have a greater chance of becoming a consort.

Empress > Imperial Noble Consort > Noble Consort > Consort > Cairen

A consort is allowed to raise the children they give birth to.

Former concubines can only remarry with foreigners, not other Zhonghuans.

Other ethnic groups

There are different ethnic groups in Zhonghua, as in China, though I do not want to go into much detail about them. I just stuck to actual ethnic group names (for example, the majority of Zhonghuans are of the Han people).

Zhonghua began with several clans, the first Emperor being of the Han.

[dangermousie]

Heelo mousie! Love your blog! Do you mind recommending some of your favourite Chinese BL novels or shows?

I've seen the untamed and read it. I'm currently reading heaven's official blessing and I saw the donghua. Anything other than these two?

Awww, thank you!

Novels: I am gonna be lazy and literally copy/paste the entire danmei section of my top 10 web novels post (except MXTX’s stuff since you are already reading it.) Let me know if you need help finding any of these.

Lord Seventh - I am only partway through this so far, but it’s already on the list because it’s smart and somehow intense AND laid-back (not sure how this works, but it does) and is honestly just a really really solid and smart period novel, with the OTP a cherry on top of a narrative sundae. Plus, I love the concept of MC deciding he is not going for his supposedly fated love - he’s tried for six lifetimes, always with disaster, and he’s just plain done and tired. When he opens his life in his seventh reincarnation and sees the person he would have given up the world for, he genuinely feels nothing at all. (Spoiler - his OTP is actually a barbarian shaman this time around, thank you Lord!)

Golden Stage - my perfect comfort novel. Probably the least angsty of any danmei novel on this list (which still means plenty angsty :P) It also has a dedicated, smart OTP that is an OTP for the bulk of the book - I think you will notice that in most of the novels in this list, I go for “OTP against the world” trope - I can’t stand love triangles and the same. Anyway, Fu Shen, is a famous general whose fame is making the emperor   antsy. When he gets injured and can’t walk any more, the emperor gladly recalls him and marries him off to his most faithful court lackey, the head of sort of secret police, Yan Xiaohan. The emperor intends it both  as a check on the general and a general spite move since the two men   always clash in court whenever they meet. But not all is at is seems. They used to be  friends a long time ago, had a falling out, and one of the loveliest  parts of the novel is them finding their way to each other, but there is  also finding the middle path between their two very different  philosophies and ways of being, not to mention solving a conspiracy or  dozen, and putting a new dynasty on the throne, among other things. It always makes me think, a little, of “if Mei Changsu x Jingyan were canon.”

Sha Po Lang - if you like a lot of fantasy politics and world-building and steampunk with your novels, this one is for you. This one is VERY plot-heavy with smart, dedicated characters and a deconstruction of many traditional virtues - our protagonist Chang Geng, a long-lost son of the Emperor, is someone who wants to modernize the country but also take down the current emperor his brother for progress’ sake and the person he’s in love with is the general who saved him when he was a kid who is nominally his foster father. Anyway, the romance is mainly a garnish in this one, not even a big side dish, but the relationship between two smart, dedicated, deadly individuals with very different concepts of duty is fascinating long before it turns romantic. And if you like angst, while overall it’s not as angsty as e.g., Meatbun stuff, Chang Geng’s childhood is the stuff of nightmares and probably freaks me out more than anything else in any novel on this list, 2ha included.

To Rule In a Turbulent World (LSWW) - gay Minglan. No seriously. This is how I think of it. it’s a slice of life period novel with fascinating characters and  setting that happens to have a gay OTP, not a romance in a period  setting per se and I always prefer stories where the romance is not the only thing that is going on. It’s meticulously written and smart and deals with  character development and somehow makes daily minutia fascinating. Our   protagonist, You Miao, is the son of a fabulously wealthy merchant,   sent to the capital to make connections and study. As the story starts, he sees his friend’s  servants beating someone to death, feels bad, and buys him because, as  we discover gradually and organically, You Miao may be wealthy and  occasionally immature but he is a genuinely good person. The person he buys is a barbarian from beyond the wall, named   Li Zhifeng. It’s touch and go if the man will survive but eventually he does and You Miao, who by then has to return home, gives him his papers  and lets him go. However, LZF decides to stick with You Miao instead, both  out of sense of debt for YM saving his life and because he genuinely  likes him (and yet, there is no instalove on either of their parts, their bodies have fun a lot quicker than their souls.) Anyway, the two  take up farming, get involved in  the imperial exams and it’s the life of prosperity and peace, until an invasion happens and things go rapidly to hell. This is so nuanced, so smart (smart people in this actually ARE!) and has secondary characters who are just as complex as the mains (for example, I ended up adoring YM’s friend, the one who starts the plot by almost beating LZF to death for no reason) because the novel never forgets that few people are all villain. There is a lovely character arc or two - watching YM grow up and LZF thaw - there is the fact that You Miao is a unicorn in web novels being laid back and calm. This whole thing is a masterpiece.

Stains of Filth (Yuwu) - want the emotional hit of 2ha but want to read something half its length? Well, the author of 2ha is here to eviscerate you in a shorter amount of time. This has the beautiful world-building, plot twists that all make sense and, at the center of it all, an intense and all-consuming and gloriously painful relationship between two generals - one aristocratic loner Mo Xi, and the other gregarious former slave general Gu Mang. Once they were best friends and lovers, but when the novel starts, Gu Mang has long turned traitor and went to serve the enemy kingdom and has now been returned and Mo Xi, who now commands the remnants of his slave army, has to cope with the fact that he has never been able to get over the man who stabbed him through the heart. Literally. This novel has a gorgeously looping structure, with flashbacks interwoven into present storyline. There is so much love and longing and sacrifice in this that I am tearing up a bit just thinking of it. If you don’t love Mo Xi and Gu Mang, separately and together, by the end of it, you have no soul.

The Dumb Husky and His White Cat Shizun (2ha/erha) - if you’ve been following my tumblr for more than a hot second, you know my obsession with this novel. Honestly, even if I were to make a list of my top 10 novels of any kind, not just webnovels, this would be on the list. It has everything I want - a complicated, intricate plot with an insane amount of plot twists, all of which are both unexpected and make total sense, a rich and large cast of characters, a truly epic OTP that makes me bawl, emotional intensity that sometimes maxes even me out and so much character nuance and growth. Also, Moran is my favorite web novel character ever, hands down.

Anyway, the plot (or at least the way it first appears) is that the evil emperor of the cultivation world, Taxian Jun, kills himself at 32 and wakes up in the body of his 16 year old self, birth name Moran. Excited to get a redo, Moran wants to save his supposed true love Shimei, whose death the last go-around pushed him towards evil. He also wants to avoid entanglement with Chu Wanning, his shizun and sworn enemy in past life. And that’s all you are best off knowing, trust me. The only hint I am going to give is oooh boy the mother of all unreliable narrators has arrived!

The novel starts light and funny on boil the frog principle - if someone told me I would be full bawling multiple times with this novel, I’d have thought they were insane, but i swear my eyes hurt by the end of it. I started out being amused and/or disliking the mains and by the end I would die for either of them.

The Wife is First - OK, this one did not make my top 10 web novels but it’s a sweet, fun gay cottagecore fest. Our ML, a royal prince, and his spouse, a smart if delicate aristocrat, keep house, eat noodles, play with their pet tiger, make out and spoil each other rotten, while occasionally fighting battles and outwitting their court enemies. It’s so very mellow. That couple redefines low drama - they are both nice and functional and use their brains. It’s as if a nice jock and a nice nerd got together and then proceeded to be wholesome all over the place.

I mean, the set up could be dramatic - our ML the prince, lost his fight for the throne and is about to be killed. The only person who stayed loyal to him is his arranged husband the aristocrat guy who ML never treated nicely since he resented marrying him (marrying a man in that world is done to remove someone from the ability to inherit the throne.) And yet the husband stood by him not out of love but beliefs in loyalty blah blah. Anyway, he transmigrates back into the past right after their wedding night and is all “I got a second chance OMG! I don’t want the throne what is even the point? I want to live a good long life and treat the only person who stood by me really well!” And he proceeds to do so to the shock of the aristocrat who had a very unpleasant wedding night and generally can tell the man he just married would rather eat nails than be married to him. But soon enough (no seriously, it’s not many chapters at all) he believes the prince is sincere blah blah and then  they get together and they pretty much become cottagecore goals.

In terms of dramas, I only do period dramas (or novels) so I am not the person to be able to recommend any modern BLs. There is a flood of upcoming (hopefully) period BL dramas but it’s relatively thin on the ground now. The two I will recommend is Word of Honor (which is AMAZING) and Winter Begonia (which I just started watching but which owns me already.) I have a tag for both - the one for the former is huge and I cannot recommend either strongly enough. I’ve heard good things about The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, but I am not big on mysteries so haven’t watched it for myself.

In terms of the upcoming BLs, the ones I am most looking forward to are Immortality and Winner Is King, but The Society of the Four Leaves also looks promising.