Cold. The world has frozen over with the constant snowfall in the last few days. Between the heavens and the earth, everything has turned white.
Chenghuang Temple, abandoned for many years, lied forgotten by the world on the western outskirts of the Capital. The sky stayed gloomy even after the snow on this night, with no moon or stars in sight. A little snowdrift has formed below the steps of the temple's main hall. Packed solid, the snow has completely covered the person who'd been discarded there this morning.
The cry of several jackdaws broke the silence in the dead of night.
A gust of wind whistled past and snowfall that had ceased momentarily started anew.
A lone spirit stood silently next to the snowdrift, beneath which rested his former shell. His last breath ended when the wind started a little while ago, and all the pain he experienced seemed to vanish in a moment.
The demons of legend(1) who would escort him to the underworld never came. The spirit couldn't leave his body, not even by a half step. Some unknown force was confining him to this place.
The snow kept stuttering and falling, and it seemed that this winter has already gone on too long.
Seven days later.
The raucous sound of hooves approached from afar. The lost soul shifted from the noise and saw a group of Yulin Royal Guards(2) at the source.
"Search the area!" A young general dressed in all black dismounted and motioned to the rest of the group with his hand, his face a mask of cold elegance.
The guards dispersed, searching around the area. Finally, easily overlooked and hidden at the base of the steps, they discovered the corpse.
"Dig." The general issues a single command.
And thus the lost soul, having watched over his body for the last seven days, finally came face to face with the sight of his own remains.
Despite the fact that all the guards were decorated soldiers, and all have seen their fair share of death and carnage, they still couldn't help but retch at the look of this one.
But the lost soul didn't care about the way he looked. He hadn't cared when he was alive and minded even less now that he's dead.
The carcass in the snow didn't smell of rot, thanks to the snowstorms in the last few days. It was blue and purple all over. Naked, just skin and bones, with big and small scars layered on top of one another scattered all over. It seemed impossible to find a single piece of unmarred skin on the body. Of the two eyes, one was just an empty socket while the other was wide open, staring blindly ahead. Its nipples were gone, replaced with a dark scar as if someone had seared it with a hot iron brand repeated, while the other was just a bloody hole, cut off by a blade. A piece of intestine dangled out of its lower half, in itself a mess of rotting meat and stuck through by a length of wood stained brown with blood. The two thighs had rotted away, leaving only stark white bones that, on a closer look, were broken all over.
The spirit felt a little proud of himself all of a sudden. Even in this state, he was able to brave the snow from sunrise to sunset before uttering his last breath.
One of the men approached the body, wrapped in a black fox fur cape.
"My lord!" The young general stepped forward too, a bit of warmth finally coming through in his otherwise indifferent voice, revealing a shred of anxiety.
The man in the cape stood tall with a handsome face. Aloof, he held a natural sense of extravagant majesty that couldn't conceal his exhaustion. His eyes lingered on the corpse, unrelenting.
"My lord," The young general reached out and pulled at him, "You've seen what you came to see, let's just go." The sound of a plea.
The man didn't move, instead, he stooped down and moves to touch the gnarled hand of the corpse. The bones were all broken, and the only thing holding the wrist together was a thin layer of skin. On it, there were scars of a manacle that had been affixed for many years. The fingernails were all gone. An iron stud had been pushed through the left thumb, all the way through to the palm. The man shifted his gaze to the corpse's feet. They'd been hobbled years ago, the bones fractured. Only four toes remained out of the ten, deformed and strange, with the nails pulled out as well.
The spirit didn't understand the reason for the concern that the man showed to this rotting carcass. He didn't understand how this man could touch it with such a careful hand, almost cautious, as if for fear of hurting it somehow.
"Luo Wei," The man murmured quietly.
The spirit burst into a peal of laughter, pity that no living being could hear the laughter of the dead. This was his name while he was still alive, one that no one had used for him for many years. They only called him whore, slave, pig, bitch, for so long that he'd almost forgotten that he was a person and that he had a name.
"Long Xuan..." The spirit felt this was some kind of God-given joke, "it's a wonder you still remember this name!" He laughed to the point of tears, but spirits no longer had any tears to shed.
"My lord!" The general crouched down too. He still hasn't spared the corpse a single glance. His worried eyes were only trained on the man in front of him.
"Luo Wei," The man called out softly as he put his hand over the corpse's open right eye, wanting to somehow help it close and bring his soul to rest. But no matter how hard he tried, the eye remained open, staring ahead.
A blast of wind swirled over the fallen snow and swept over the group. The storm started once more.
The spirit felt himself drifting with the wind. The power that had kept him bound to the body dissipated, and he seemed to finally be free. He resolved to let the wind carry him to wherever it may blow. He was a sinner, a criminal, there's no place of eternal rest for him, and thus he must wander as a lost soul.
"Your Imperial Majesty!" The blizzard squalled, dimming everyone's vision with a haze of snow. The general grew more troubled, "If Your Imperial Majesty pities him, I'll send an order for him to be buried."
"Zi Zhou(3), he's dead." Said Emperor Long Xuan, the head of the Empire of Zhou(3)(4), to his most valued Grand General, Ning Fei.
"Your Majesty!" The general was determined to pull the emperor back up.
Just then, a young man in white rushed through the guards without paying them any mind. He barreled through the retinue on his horse, stopping right in front of the remains.
"Grand Prince Yu(5)," The young general moved to hold the interloper back but found himself pushed aside.
"How could you have done this to him?!" After a single look at the corpse, Grand Prince Yu, Long Xiang couldn't hold back anymore. He screamed at his older brother, "How could you?! Are you satisfied?!"
"I don't know(6)," The emperor answered, "I don't know."
FOOTNOTES:
1. Demons of Legend - Original text says "Ox-Head and Horse-Face", which are the first two demons you meet after dying. They act as guides (or sometimes captors) for spirits to the under world.
2. Yulin Royal Guards - Yu Lin literally means a forest of feathers. They're a specific group of Royal Guards, of which there are many in the Imperial Palace. This note is to distinguish them from other Royal Guards in the future.
3. Zhou - The Zhou in Zi Zhou's name and the Empire/Kingdom of Zhou are two different words.
3.a Zi Zhou - Historically, Chinese names have several parts. "Ming" refers to the name that a person is given right after birth; "Zi" refers to the name that a person is given after coming of age. In an official context and when addressed by elders, one would use Ming, and in a personal context between people of similar standing (especially to be polite and to show deference), one would use Zi. In this case, Ning is the young general's Surname, Fei is his Ming, and Zi Zhou is his Zi.
4. The emperor's full title as translated is: Ping Zhang Emperor of Grand Zhou. Ping Zhang is the emperor's regnal title, roughly translated to "Declarer of Peace". His name is Long Xuan.
5. Grand Prince Yu - Yu is a title style, meaning affluence or wealth. His title is Grand Prince, named Long Xiang.
6. I - The pronoun the emperor uses is "Zhen", which is a royal pronoun, much like the royal "we" in English.
TRANSLATOR'S NOTES:
This novel is at the same time easier and harder to translate than the other one. The sentences are a lot shorter and repetitive in English, but easier to read in Chinese. There's a lot of titles and royal ranks, etc, etc. Grand Prince is not a real title that is used in China, the actual title is just Prince, or King (not ruling), but I'm trying to use this title to distinguish him from the actual sons of the emperor... of which there are many.
I will try to put as many footnotes in as possible, where possible, some shortcuts have been taken in translating people's names in order to make it easier to read. I can translate the actual name meanings if people are interested, let me know in the comments.
Luo Wei had a fucked up life before, and there's a few fucked up parts of this novel we're going to have to get through, but there's a lot more BL based than the other one, which is why I wanted to get start on it. Please heed the trigger warnings. Chinese Historical BL also has a penchant for young characters. I wonder if this is because the authors are often not much older than highschool or college students or if this is just a staple in historical fiction.
Again, as with the other novel, I'm new to translation and have parts where I'm not sure. I'm trying to get the language to sound natural in English as much as I can, and may take a little liberty here or there in order to get the feeling across.
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