"Nirvana in Fire"/"Lang Ya Bang" Group Read: Discussion Post for Chapters 162 - 165

[x_los]

Week 40 of the "Lang Ya Bang" book club, chapters 162 - 165 (inclusive). This discussion will draw to a close, and the next session will open, on February 6th.

I'll be doing a weekly post with thoughts on this community. Feel free to join in/discuss. If you'd like to join the Discord, contact superborb for an invite.

Chinese text: https://sj.uukanshu.com/book.aspx?id=17338
English translation: https://merelhyn.tumblr.com/post/641747965727358976/the-langya-list-epubpdf

SPOILER POLICY: I personally don't give a fuck or even like to give unearned credence to the concept, so since I'm writing the post, anything's fair game.

(If anyone is interested in dankodes running further poetry content during or after NiF, please let me know what you'd be keen to discuss. I'm happy to work with you on that. I'll probably ask this again once NiF draws to a close.)

Comments

Chapter 162

[x_los]

This is an interesting portrait of a guy who’s the court politics equivalent of extremely online, who unthinkingly swims in those waters but didn’t necessarily choose to and doesn’t necessarily want to.

They just seeded upper-crust, educated and connected Hua women with good reason to be bitter in like every high ranking household? What a bunch of idiots. They absolutely deserved the consequences, jfc.

Now I'm kind of interested in what was up with Xia Jiang’s wife and the princess.

Re: Chapter 162

[superborb]

I think they're at the very lowest class of servant/slave -- see the princess doing work so strenuous that Xia Jiang's wife, who as a Xuanjing officer presumably is quite inured to seeing people in terrible circumstances, feels the need to rescue her out of. (Though I suppose she would also have been manipulated to feel that way.)

Re: Chapter 162

[x_los]

We see all these concubines as well, though--I think maybe this Princess got it harder on account of being the leader?

Re: Chapter 162

[superborb]

I don't think that level of concubine had much higher status than servants though, like only one step up? Though of course that probably did make material difference

Chapter 163

[x_los]

I am personally begging translators not to write out laughter noises, it’s so weird in English.

This exchange between Jingyan and Changsu is effective.

Honestly it's weird as hell to train and use Fei Liu to kill a bunch of people if he truly has no concept of death? If that is developmentally where he's at?

Re: Chapter 163

[superborb]

I thought we'd hear of Fei Liu's terrible background in the book (where presumably he killed a lot of people, given that the on-page events all involve minimal death), since I vaguely remember descriptions of it, but maybe that was in the cut section??

Chapter 164

[x_los]

One day translators will collectively come to understand that ‘grass’ is not synonymous with ‘herb’ in English, and that ‘herb’ is mostly what they want because 'grass' just makes people think of suburban lawns.

'Eternal ice grass' is one of the most wuxia conceits in this whole book. (Is it still even wuxia, or are we verging on xianxia with this?)

Chapter 165

[x_los]

The translator kind of implies in the notes that 'heart’s blood' isn’t a phrase in English as well, but it is.

Everyone found Lin Chen’s drag very uplifting.

Re: Chapter 165

[superborb]

I assume Lin Chen does it on purpose. But maybe he just thought it'd be funny and didn't care that the mood needed lifting.

Re: Chapter 165

[x_los]

There's a bit in Hornblower where he has a big shower on deck 'to cheer the men'. ...