LWC Chapter 1

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Liu Yuru was awakened by the sound of roosters.

When she opened her eyes, it was already morning. The sun had just come out, and the light fell softly in the room. Her maid Yinhong came back with the rose balsams [1] she just picked from the yard and inserted them into the vase. She looked at Liu Yuru with a smile and said: “Is the lady awake?”

Liu Yuru lightly gasped but did not reply. Her mind was full of those desperate and painful eyes. Yin Hong frowned, walked in front of Liu Yuru, and couldn’t help but ask: “Miss, are you scared?”

Yin Hong’s words made Liu Yuru slowly return to her senses. When she reacted, she patted her forehead and sighed: “It was a nightmare.”

Not only a nightmare, but one with some absurdity.

She not only dreamed of Gu Jiusi, who she had never known, but also of the Duke of Liang plotting a rebellion and the world being thrown in chaos.

Long Wind Crossing Glossary

Will be updated as new characters are added to the story.
May have slight spoilers!

Liu Household

• Liu Xuan: Father of FL
  • Neglectful of FL and her mother
• Su Wan: Mother of FL
  • Neglected as the main wife because she is weak and only gave birth to a daughter
• Zhang Yue’er: Concubine of FL’s father
  • Favored over the main wife and gave birth to two boys, one girl
• Liu Yuru: Female lead
  • Well-behaved girl but pitied because of her home circumstances

Gu Household

• Gu Jiusi: Male lead
  • Described as a playboy who always causes trouble in Yangzhou

Ye Household

• Old Madam Ye: Grandmother of Ye Shi’an
• Lord Ye: Ye Shi’an’s father
• Ye Shi’an: Solid scholar who Yuru wants to marry for a stable life

Liú Household

• Liú Yusi: Good friends with Yuru.

Wang Household

• Wang Rong: supposedly good friend of Gu Jiusi
  • Acts very tyrannical in Yuru’s dream

Government Figures

• Fan Xuan: new military governor of Youzhou
• Duke of Liang: supposedly a loyal subject of the southwest

Y’all I hate myself…

Not me reading a review from a CN I was reading (The Prime Minister’s Wife is the Richest Woman, if you were curious) and seeing someone recommend a “similar” work called Chang Feng Du and then realizing it was going to be adapted to a C-drama (I’m really not in the know for dramas but idk the Dramalist comments are pretty frequently updated) and then realizing the ML is acted by the dude from You Are My Hero and Reset who I really like,,,, urghh.

Anyways, I picked it up.

I think the updates will be slower for this one; even though it’s more exciting of a read than LOFJN I’m still on the fence on the main couple (also the fact that they’re like 15-17 years old??? Halp. Idc if it’s Ancient China. If anything rated R happens I’mma just keep reminding myself they’re “adults.” Also I don’t like the existence of 2ML’s but I think there’s one in this novel.) I’ve heard amazing things so we shall see. I must say, from the prologue I do like the writing style more than LOFJN. And it’s an enemies-to-love type of relationship so I’m expecting some sparks to fly.

Long Wind Crossing Prologue

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In the dark night of the dream, she walked on the road with grasping hands. She carried a lamp and strode in a hurry.

The moonlight fell on the narrow and winding road [1], reflecting her slim shadow and the swaying light. It seemed as if she was a ghostly messenger carrying a lamp at night.

Not far away, the end of the valley highlighted bright lights with many people standing around. There was crying and shouting among discussions, with the roars of men and screams of women intertwining. It was like the world had been sent to hell, making one’s scalps tingle when listening.

She walked out of the alley and mixed into the crowd. With a fast and anxious heartbeat, she could only hear others ask around: “What crime did the Gu family commit?”

“Where’s the crime?” The onlookers said: “It’s just that Lord Wang is short of food and wages, so he’s slaughtering a fat sheep.”

She looked sideways. The person who spoke was a storyteller from the east side of the city who was very well-informed. He sighed and said: “After the rebellion of the Duke of Liang, Fan Xuan led his troops into the eastern capital, saying he was on the side of the Qing emperor. It’s said that he killed all the descendants of the Li family in one night and then seized the empress dowager and hundreds of officials until they recognized him as emperor. He’s just a military governor of Youzhou and dares call himself the Son of Heaven. How could other heroes out there be convinced? So other provincial governors established themselves as monarchs in the name of exterminating rebels. When chaos came long, our Lord Wang just followed the trend.”

LOFJN Chapter 22

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Ye Jiao didn’t know what feng shui was, but she could see that these people were not going to let the Qi family’s wine shop open smoothly.

Although there weren’t many people who came and they didn’t have any murder weapons, their roguish appearance made it clear that they came to stir things up.

At this moment, Steward Song had planned to go in with a sound. Before the auspicious hour, he would look for a chance to please the owner’s young lady. Who knew that there was such a disturbance, nailing him outside so he couldn’t get away.

With a frown, Dong Shi’s eyes flashed with disgust and she whispered: “Jiao Niang, I’m afraid we can’t get rid of these people with money.”

A happy event like the opening of an ordinary shop often attracted some idlers.

Beggars would come over with sticks and sing auspicious songs to ask for money, while local ruffians will come over to find a way to swindle money.

Generally, merchants send them away with money to avoid disasters, but this kind of people that reported their family in the beginning couldn’t be good.

LOFJN Chapter 21

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When Ye Jiao heard this, she was a little puzzled at first. Ye Jiao blankly looked at him when the man held her face: “I wasn’t burned; I wasn’t scalded…”

Qi Yun’s eyes landed on the rouge box in her hand; knowing that he had misunderstood, he lightly coughed. He feared that Ye Jiao would be sad and took the rouge box from Ye Jiao’s hand, putting it aside, saying: “I was just dazzled and didn’t see clearly; it’s my fault.” He wanted to shift the topic: “The pigeons in the small kitchen are simmering first; it tastes the same whether you wait to drink (the soup) or not.”

Ye Jiao really wanted to drink the pigeon-stewed soup. The Little Ginseng wanted to try out everything she hadn’t experienced already. 

But Ye Jiao could see this person behaving strangely and understood after thinking. She finally dressed up, but her husband didn’t like it, which made her a little disappointed: “It doesn’t look good?”

Qi Yun looked around for a while but didn’t say anything.

To tell the truth, it’s naturally… not good-looking.

Qi Second Son never questioned the beauty of his wife, with her red lips and white teeth and lovely facial features. Ye Jiao didn’t like to go out when she was in the Ye family because the more beautiful the daughter of a poor family was, the more dangerous. This kind of appearance was indeed inviting. 

The woman next door needed to put powder on her face to obtain a fair complexion, but Ye Jiao was able to nourish herself. Her skin was fair and rosy [1] – even if she wore a plain face before, she would still look good. 

No update this week

Sad news, but I’m taking a break this week to focus on moving. Chapter 21 is in the middle of being translated (and I thought I could release it last week), but I need to pack and prepare to drive to another state to move this weekend.

Thanks for your patience, and see y’all soon!

(In the meantime, I’ve been reading Sinister Ex-Girlfriend to sleep at night. It’s a Quick Transmigration Cnovel that’s pretty good!)

LOFNJ Chapter 20

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Qi Yun was always cold, but Ye Jiao was different. She was warm all the time.

The moment her lips touched the man’s cheek, it became so hot that Qi Yun felt an unfathomable dryness.

Ye Jiao didn’t come for anything in particular. Before Qi Yun could respond, Ye Jiao ran back as if accomplishing a task, clutching the hand warmer.

Coming fast and leaving fast like a gust of wind.

Although this wasn’t Xiao Su’s first time seeing them so close, this time it was directly in front of her face.

Seeing that Qi Yun didn’t say anything, Xiao Su didn’t poke around and ran away with the broom.

Qi Yun touched the lingering warmth on his face and thought for a while. He realized that this was what he taught her.

The so-called small thing that’s done before a husband and wife separated – Jiao Niang kept his words in her heart, like always.

Qi Yun felt like his thoughts were divided into two: one half was self-disgust after making up words to trick the lady, and the other half was sweet as if drowning in honey.

The corners of his mouth curled up. Qi Yun looked at the flower garden from the courtyard gate; there were indeed a few plants that he liked, especially in the cold days when they still vibrantly bloomed.

The times had now changed though. While he still liked to see life, he was no longer the sickly man who could only look at flowers and plants.

What was so important about colorful and red flowers? For the sake of Jiao Niang, everything was worth it.

A Note from the Translator

Well, we’re 10 chapters in.

Doesn’t seem like a lot, I know (especially for a 200+ chapter webnovel), but it’s around 2,000 words/chapter * 10 chapters, so 20,000 words. According to this random article I found online, the average novel is 90,000 words. So technically I’m almost 1/3 of the way there for a US-published novel. Less than 1/10 there for this particular webnovel. ( ╥ω╥ )

Translating has been interesting, to say the least. I never realized how different Chinese sentence structures are, and how many modifications I have to do to match them with English grammar. For example, a Chinese sentence feels basically like a run-on sentence, with a bunch of independent clauses smashed together, enough to form a paragraph, until the author decides to end their train of thought. Lol. My heart goes out to all the awesome translators out there, because this ain’t easy. Also the struggle of converting phrases: one of my first drafts of chapter 10 had something like “she was trying to win brownie points” and I was so proud of figuring out of a way to convey the Chinese tone. But then my partner, who looked over it, was like “wouldn’t ‘currying favor’ be a more appropriate and less colloquial phrase?” I was like,,, lmao u right. So going forward I had to be conscious of what kinds of phrases I used, and if they matched the historical context and tone of everything. Finally, I’m trying to be better with using variegated diction to spice things up with the story. There’s only so many times I can use “but,” “suddenly,” “it’s just that…”, “however,” etc. The sad part is that those are pretty direct translations from the Chinese characters, but in English you wouldn’t be using “But” to begin every other paragraph (lol). I guess that’s just another nuance of translating between Chinese and English. To be honest when I first picked this up I thought I could go about it like translating Spanish (as I was pretty comfortable doing so when I learned it for ~5 years in school), but my fallacy was not recognizing that Spanish and English are both Euro-based (Spanish being Romantic and English being Germanic with Latin influences). Joke’s on me!

TL;DR Translating has been a learning curve. Lmk if you have any constructive criticisms for the translations.

Anyway, I just wanted to write this note to let everyone know that I’ll be sticking with this story until the end! I skimmed over some of the MTL and omg it’s so precious. (๑˘︶˘๑) Here for the soft romance and village slice of life muahaha.

Btw: added a new page on the blog with personal Recommendations. Check it out if you’re looking for a new read!

Happy reading!

LOFJN Chapter 19

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When it came to managing money, Ye Jiao really didn’t know anything.

In the past, the Little Ginseng relied on eating soil… Well, it was a combination of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, to live. Even if she wanted some treasures of heaven and earth, she mostly had to bargain for things and they didn’t involve gold and silver.

The Ye Jiao in her memory didn’t manage money in the Ye family. If she did, she wouldn’t have been bullied to the extent that she was.

Now that Qi Yun stuffed 10 taels of silver towards her, Ye Jiao had to take the small wooden box. As if it was scalding, she put it aside and reached out to tug on Qi Yun’s sleeve: “What should I do with it?”

Qi Yun was extremely patient. He took her hand to cover the stove together and said: “Although our family says that you don’t need to worry about ordinary things, some stuff requires extra money. For example, if you want to buy a piece of clothing, or a hairpin, you have to use your own money.”

Ye Jiao blinked: “You have to pay for it yourself?”

“Well, before when my mother asked you to buy clothes, the money was given by my mother. It was a favor for you. If you want to do it yourself, you have to pay for it yourself.” Qi Yun was extremely honest when he spoke.