Welcome to my second translation project: I Am This Type of Woman! This was a request from a good friend of mine who actually persuaded me to get into translation cnovels in the first place. I personally haven"t read this novel (unlike What If My Brother Is Too Good?) but I trust my friend"s taste so I"m reading as a translate.
The updates for I Am This Type of Woman will be much slower as cnovels with an ancient theme occasionally use language that I have difficulty translating. I"m also playing around with what to leave in pinyin and what to convert to English, please leave a comment if you have any suggestions ?
Chinese t.i.tles/terms will be italicised.
Chapter 1.1: The Engagement Was Broken Off Again The ninth month in Autumn was originally a good time for harvesting but Jingting Hou hid in the study, smashing several porcelain whilst swearing non-stop, looking more like a hoodlum than a Houye.
"If anyone in the Capital dares to offend I, Ban Huai, I will kill them!"
"Father, don"t be angry, I will go and find people to beat him up."
"You go and find people to beat him, I"ll go and get the Emperor to take care of him!"
"Are you done making a disturbance?" Yin Shi kicked open the door to the study, saw the father and son duo who looked eager for a fight and sternly berated them, "it seems like you don"t think the rumours that are spreading outside are ugly enough?"
Jingting Hou and his son quieted down. Jingting Hou removed the leg that was stepping on the chair and his heir, Ban Heng rolled down the sleeves he had rolled up earlier.
On a day in the ninth month, Yin Shi needed to fan herself with a fan in order to stay calm. She didn"t look at the broken pieces of porcelain on the floor and directly walked to the chair before sitting down. Please read this at cnoveltranslations dot com. The servants who followed her in through the door began tidying up the mess.
The sound of porcelain hitting each other stirred up her anger again and she ferociously glared at both father and son and slapped her hand on the table, causing the tea set to jump a little from the force.
"He"s just a thing from a small place in the countryside but now that he has pa.s.sed the imperial examination he wants to break the engagement. He"s also adopted an att.i.tude that suggested it was my Houfu that forced him into the engagement, what kind of act is this?"
"Mo-mother," Ban Heng moved to the front of Yin Shi, putting on a smile before saying, "Don"t be angry. In this world, it"s hard to find toads with three legs but men with two legs are everywhere. Teaching him a lesson is only a matter of moving our mouths. Don"t let your anger affect your body."
"I don"t want to get angry but look at what this situation has become?"
What kind of mother would feel carefree if her darling daughter had her engagement broken three times?
She only had a daughter and a son. Although Houye was absurd and careless, he wasn"t lecherous and didn"t have any concubines but that was his only merit.
Back when her daughter was born, she and a good friend arranged the marriage of their children, but who would know that that child would pa.s.s away at three years of age after contracting smallpox.
When her daughter was thirteen, she was betrothed to the legitimate second son of Zhongping Bofu but right before they were to be married, Xie Qilin suddenly found his "true love" and eloped with her. His action caused rumours that said her daughter was an idiot and couldn"t even compare to a servant girl. Otherwise, why would a n.o.ble son from the grand and stately Boye Fu elope with a woman who couldn"t even be presented to the public rather than marry her daughter?
Afterwards, even though Xie Qilin was found and brought back, the wedding between the two families fell through. From then on, the two families no longer had any dealings with each other and almost became enemies.
The matter this time was even more ridiculous. This Shen Yu was from a branch of Dongzhou"s Shen clan that could barely be considered to be a prominent family and fell in love at first sight with their daughter after arriving in the capital. Please read this at cnoveltranslations dot com. He begged and cried to propose marriage to their family seven or eight times but right after they agreed, he turned back on his words.
On the surface, when the engagement was being broken off, it seemed as if he was saying that he wasn"t good enough for their daughter but on the inside, he disliked their daughter because she had beauty but not brains, was extravagant and lazy and wasn"t a good match for him.
How come you didn"t mention this when you hadn"t come in the top three in the imperial examinations? Now that you have, you suddenly don"t like how our family"s daughter is extravagant. Our Jingting Houfu has money and are happy to let our family"s daughter be a little extravagant, what"s wrong with that?!
On one side of the house, the three family members were hopping mad whilst the main character who just had her engagement broken off was sleeping well.
Characters
Ban Heng: FLYin Shi: FL"s motherBan Huai/Jingting Hou: FL"s fatherBan Heng: FL"s younger brotherXie Qilin: FL"s 2nd fiancé (second son of Zhongping Bo)Shen Yu: FL"s 3rd fiancéTerms
I"ll do my best to explain these Chinese terms below, if you have any other suggestions for how I could do/present this or any alternative explanations then please leave me a comment!
Hou: this is a rank, equivalent to a marquisate which refers to the rank of a marquess of marquisJingting is the name conferred onto the Marquis by the Emperor or one that he inherited.Example: Marquess of Winchester, in this case, Marquess would be equivalent to Hou and Winchester would be equivalent to Jingting.Houye: this would refer to the current Marquis himself (could also mean ‘lord")Houfu: this would either refer to the Marquis rank or official residence of a HouyeShi: maiden name.Yin Shi would mean Yin née. Yin is her maiden name.Bofu: equivalent to an earl/count.Example: Zhongping bofuBoye Fu: another way of referring to the earl/count or the earl/count"s official residence – Chapter 1.2