[Translator note : *stares at the title* Yeah, for example a certain man with dead grass as hair won… ehem unrelated stuff. And eff you, stupid novel aggregator site, pleasedontsupportthem T^T.
At this chapter, we will start to encounter all sorts of keywords you might or might not familiar. I will try my best to label ’em properly. If there are anything wrong or need improvement, please tell me. Without further ado, let’s start.]
“In the city capital, although Master Zhu Hou is not any court officials, nor does he have any strong political background, but in the whole Capital the Zhu House is the richest House. That is an existence that everyone will know and take note of. Many of the supplies that the Imperial Court used, not only they are manufactured and produced under the name of Zhu House, but even the daily meals of the Emperor of Ning Dynasty were specially prepared by the chefs from Zhu House.
[Translator note : This is one weird House, I wonder if the food are transported daily to the Imperial Palace or they ship their chef to the Palace]
So, don’t mention the small potatoes citizens, even the officials in the Court must give the barest respect[1] where the people of Zhu House is concerned.” This is what Zhu WuXin managed to get her hands on after she woke up, the information of a part of the background from a maidservant. And Zhu WuXin, with much luck, is a part of this Zhu House. Not as a maidservant, and not as a small concubine, but a proper position as the House Fourth Miss. Although Zhu WuXin just woke up, realizing that she shared the same name of the original body and that she’s from a noble family, she can’t help but get a bit excited inside.
But at the next moment, she lost the will to laugh out. It was because she is a child without parental love. On the outside, she is Zhu House Fourth Miss, on top of her in the sibling branch are two older brother, and an older sister. Below her is another sister. But no one in the whole House had ever treated her as one of the Miss of the House. To be honest, it was because she was Shu-born[2] that even maidservants can bully her. Anyone also can use her to release anger. In the Zhu House, she was not more worthy than a maidservant. As a matter of fact, take a look at the maidservant who was sent to wait on her. She is enjoying herself, basking in the sunlight, while biting sunflower seed.
Zhu WuXin called out at the maidservant for half of the day, but she have the nerve to let WuXin settle[3] herself on her own. Zhu WuXin was so incensed, she jumped out of her bed and ruthlessly served the maid a tight slap, “Look properly, who is the Miss here!”
The maidservant was surprised by Zhu WuXin’s slap, because she never expected WuXin would dare to get angry. Taken half the day to recover from shock, the maid covered her red face and went to call the doctor for WuXin.
The previous Zhu WuXin, was a living punching bag for others to release anger. But the current Zhu WuXin, is not someone easy to be bullied. She is the Miss who would not be summoned.[4] Ever since she was sent back to Zhu House yesterday, if it’s not because Master Zhu came back and found her looking unsightly by the front door, no one will actually take the initiative to carry her back inside. Because of that, she had been lying at Zhu House front door for a whole day, with clothes barely covering her body. After she woke up, she held in a stomach full of anger, as she was unable to vent and her personal maidservant were also killed by the red-haired man yesterday.
Not sure where this current maidservant sent to serve her was transferred from. If she haven’t been called Miss by the maid, she wouldn’t know who is actually the master here.
Zhu WuXin was down with a fever ever since she came back, the wounds on her body either discharging pus or still bleeding but no one cared. As if they can’t wait for her to die. She went back into her room, again lamented the injustice by Buddha. Not one benefit from transmigrating was given to her at all, but the unfortunate ones were served to her completely. And also, she was already an anger-release punching bag, how does she manage to encounter the manic red-haired killer?! Couldn’t be she does not want to live anymore, that she took the initiative to look for him, to let him end her, right?
Oh my Buddha, there’s a lot of strange things happening now, this year especially more than ever.
[1] : 給三分薄面 – Meaning to give face/to give respect regardless how small is it
[2] : 庶 – Shu wife or Concubine. I’m not very sure about the concubine ranking if Shu means anything other than Concubine. But until I encounter another type of rank, I’ll put it as Shu wife for now.
[3] : 自己解決 – I can’t help thinking it was not meant literally because “settle herself” doesn’t make sense as there are nothing to settle. But then another meaning also don’t make much sense because it will look like “relieve herself”. I guessed it most probably mean for her to take care of herself.
[4] : 不受待見 – As in nobody will look for her nor summon her to anywhere
Translator note : There will be no release tomorrow. Gotta bask in that weekend feel, it only comes once every five days XD
Oooh, this just got more interesting!
Thank you for the chapter~
Enjoy your weekend!!!
As far as I know: Ancient China had LOTS of levels of concubines. With different levels of honor. Like from hooker to Empress in the level of respect they receive.
Thanks so much for all your hard work!!! Looking forward to the next encounter with the red-head. Hopefully less killing intent involved. XD XD XD
Hi, thanks for your comment yo! I also learned bits of ranking here and there from reading novels like Mei Gong Wing, Chu Wang Fei … but no one have a list to refer (;w;)/
But welp, I’ll cross the river when I reached it.
I feel like rosyfantasy wrote down a lot of them? mayyyyyybeeeeee XD XD No guarantees
Lol, then I gotta check it out when I have time 😀
The concubine rankings actually change depending on the Dynasty and location as well; many Dynasties established their own modifications to the system and the south, north, east and west all had their own distinct systems at various points in time. Wikipedia has an article on it here; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_Chinese_Harem_system
Rankings beginning with ‘shu’ were almost always the lowest rankings, though sometimes there were multiple ‘shu’ rankings because Emperors needed a way to distinguish their maid origin concubines from their prostitute origin concubines and their random commoner concubines and who knows what else.
Hi, thanks for your comment. I actually went there as my first source of reference, (at least 3 person gave me the same link afterwards) and sadly I don’t need the Imperial version. If only they have a normal household version, anything that doesn’t base the Empress as the head .
Oh god you want -those- rankings, they varied even more than the Imperial rankings. Outside of finding an actual Chinese historian I don’t see any way to get those.
lol, it’s okay.
I’ll see what I can do when I encounter another rank in the future
The key is Roronoa
She’s really lucky, ain’t she? Even if she’s Shu born.. isn’t their treatment of her not normal? or maybe that’s expected because she has no parents that can protect her
Hello, thanks for the translation. Shu in this case is not a rank of concubine. Shu-born means her mom was a concubine. Shu-born children generally have less status and are not treated as well as di-born children (main wife’s kids). It depends on how favored the concubine is/if the main wife is alive. Like in Chu Wang Fei, it’s the opposite. Yun Qian Meng gets treated badly even though she was the di-born daughter because Su Qing had more power.
That means the Shu in this case is an adjective ?
Yeah because back then you were either shu-born(illegitimate/born from concubine) or you were di-born(legitimate/born from main/legal wife). The shu here is 庶 while the imperial consort rank is a different shu 淑.
Thanks for the info. (OwO)/
So just to clarify, if the setting is not in the Palace, anyone with the word shu would be only concubine, without any meaning for ranking , right? :3
Thanks
So outside of the Imperial Harem ‘shu-born’ is just a general purpose term for children born from any rank of concubine or consort that isn’t the ‘primary’ wife, huh. I expected there to be more to it than that.
Hello, thanks for the story! First time here reading this story and I really like it! But chapter 6 and chapter 8 are password protected so I can’t keep reading. Help please!
Hiya, thanks for your comment ya.
Do check here – http://iamabananaweb.wordpress.com/password/
Hello, first time here and thanks for the story! But chapter6/8 are password protected so I can’t keep reading. Help please!
Hi, I just replied – but please see here ya
http://iamabananaweb.wordpress.com/password/
I tried to put it in but it wasn’t working for me, is it that I’m on my phone reading this that it won’t go through?
so far you’re the only one having problem that it won’t pass. Have you tried keying it manually?
Hiya. The Shu wife here is the same as what is described in this article – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dishu_system. Basically, a man had only one legal wife (and it was almost impossible to divorce legally) but he could have secondary wives. The Shu wife would be of lesser status and importance.
Hmmm, based on my Chinese lit readings, marriages were arranged by the families. A rich man like MC’s father would have one legal wife chosen by his parents/grandparents. Secondary wives are the ones the man choses for himself and they are generally of lower birth and breeding. However, it’s not necessarily true that Shu wives and their children would always be neglected, sometimes the man could like his Shu wife/child better than the legal wife.
Regarding the matter of people stealing from you, if you check my site you can see I am in the same boat. I have dealt with this stress by giving permission to everyone under the sun to copy and use my work. This problem is extremely common in the scanlation world, perhaps you know about it? Basically, aggregation sites just grab our work and put it on their website. At this point, it is impossible for me to fight back therefore I decided to not stress myself about it and just let it go. It is definitely annoying though since I obviously would prefer it if people used my site. *sigh* I understand your feelings.