Really, Really Miss You Chapter 34

Thanks to everyone for the well wishes.  My back is on a slow but steady road to recovery. 🙂  Luckily, I had this chapter translated already and just needed to do edits and the song translation, so I still managed to make this post. 🙂

Now that Sheng Sheng is officially Toupai’s girlfriend, how have things changed?  Or have things changed?

Chapter 34 – Floured Beef Steamed in a Cup (4)

Amidst the waves of comments pouring onto the screen, the background music finally switched over to “Overturn the World.”

When he opened his mouth, the first word he sang was already the chorus of the song:

[1:07] “This picture of a blood-stained landscape, how can it even compare to the vermilion mark between your brows?
I have overturned the world, but so what? In the end, it is no more than a fleeting moment of opulence ––“

Blood has stained the land, yet in the end, it cannot even compare to a single backwards glance cast by the beautiful maiden.

The world. The beautiful maiden.

The beautiful maiden. The world.

His high notes coupled with the accompaniment easily brought out the feeling of an emperor’s aura, one of indifference to the entire world as he looked down upon the country’s thousands of miles.

Gu Sheng did not even dare breathe as she listened to him. All of her senses were captivated and led by his voice, and she instantly fell into this sorrowful story. Soon, his one voice joined together with the other three.

Qiang Qing Ci’s tenor voice combined with Jian Jian’s clear voice, plus the other two singer’s harmonies…

Truly too perfect!

These four people. These four gorgeous voices. That was truly what it meant to overturn the world.

The song was nearing its end. At the last part of the song, all of the music and voices unexpectedly ceased.

Gu Sheng was taken aback for two seconds.

And then suddenly, the background music started again.

The sudden silence and then sudden emotionally charged accompaniment captured everyone’s heart.

His voice finally appeared again to give this song, “Overturn the World” its perfect conclusion:

[4:02] “In my dreams, standing upstairs, under the moonlight, is you, your face still the same as before.
Brushing the snow off our garments, we stand side by side and look upon the vast world –– ”

Stand side by side and look upon… the vast world.

She suddenly remembered that day in the recording studio when he had stood beside her. Those eyes, black like they had been dabbed with ink, and so beautiful they took your breath away…

“I can’t take it anymore.” Die Die turned on her microphone again, her voice charged with excitement. “Dou Bing, let’s trade. My association’s Wu Meng for your Toupai? Wait, no, let’s throw in Wwwwk too. Exchange, two for one, how about that?”

“That’s a little too unfair to you,” Dou Dou Dou Bing burst out in a giggle. “Die Die, why don’t you just quit your association and come join Wanmei?”

Alright…

Even she was used to it by now.

Toupai was always the subject of all the jesting and teasing.

All throughout this exchange, Qiang Qing Ci had not made a sound, and even his microphone indicator was off. Gu Sheng noticed this and found it rather odd… She sent a private message over to him: Busy?

Qiang Qing Ci: Mm. Have to get offline soon. Something’s come up.

Sheng Sheng Man: Hurry off then ^^

Qiang Qing Ci: Go have fun yourself for a while. When I’m done, I’ll give you a phone call.

Phone call…

(⊙v⊙) Um, phone call, right… K, she had only been his girlfriend for a few hours, so she still needed to work on her ability to react. Gu Sheng quickly typed a smiley face.

Then she saw Toupai leave a message in the public comment screen: I have something to do and have to leave first. Everyone, I’ll say my goodbye now.

The people on the microphones were at the peak of their euphoria with their teasing when the subject of their jokes ran off.

“That Toupai really goes and overturns the world with his one song… then doesn’t take responsibility for what he did and just takes off,” Fu Sheng Wu Meng immediately laughed.

Luckily, with so many “beauties” present tonight, they had no problems taking care of the rest of the late night event.

Seeing that he had already left, Gu Sheng also exited the room.

She had nothing to do, and before she knew it, she had logged onto Weibo. Since that time she had expressed that she was “so happy” and had been virtually surrounded by a mass of onlookers, she had been psychologically traumatized and had not posted anything else on Weibo…

She recalled that when she had first started getting more familiar with Toupai, she had also worried about being badmouthed or having her details dug up. But, afterwards, she had thought it through. She did not often show up in the 2-D world, and on the rare occasion she did, it was only to forward the songs she had composed or sung, so there should not be much for people to bash… And anyways, the ancient-style music circle had started up relatively late and was rather small, so even if there was gossip, it usually focused on the well-known celebrities. She was just an insignificant composer and singer and should not even have a turn in the limelight.

She should be… safe for now, right? T.T……

That night, she slept all the way through until past six o’clock, when she groggily seemed to hear the alert of her mobile phone indicating a WeChat message, but yet, it also seemed like it was just a dream. When she finally saw the message later in the morning, she discovered it was from Mo Qingcheng: Finished up, but it’s too late now so I won’t call you. Sweet dreams, or maybe I should say, good morning.

Her eyes were still only half-open as she read the text message.

She stared at it for a while, then wordlessly rubbed her cheek against her pillow while grinning foolishly.

Right at that very minute, Geng Xiaoxing, who was rubbing her wet hair with a towel, happened to be walking by down below her bed and saw her. Geng Xiaoxing eyes glimmered as she gazed at her and immediately exposed her actions. “Oh my god. Are you yearning for love?… Oh wait, no, you’re yearning for Toupai…”

A pillow was very successfully tossed down from above.

She hugged another pillow and climbed out of her bed, unable to contain her good mood.

She could not say why, but anyways, she just wanted to smile… The sun today was so round and so beautiful, ah…

Since she and Geng Xiaoxing were heading straight into post-graduate studies without doing an internship this term, this semester, the teachers in their faculty of course took advantage of this to exploit their time. They started the task of organizing the library for the faculty. The dean of the faculty had personally brought in sponsorship for this library, and the plans were for it to officially open next semester. As a result, this semester, the work mainly involved organizing and cataloging, and the people present were all from within the faculty.

So everyday, the two of them would be on the top floor of their faculty’s building with four other male students who were also heading directly into post-graduate studies. Breaking off into groups of two, they would each hold an iPad and verify the books on each row of the bookshelves.

A lifestyle of working when the sun rose and then resting when the sun set.

Mo Qingcheng was already out in the working world, and she was still in school. It seemed there had been no real change resulting from the change in their relationship.

But… it had only been three days. What could change yet?…

Oh no. Gu Sheng, your mind wandered again.

T.T……

She stole a glance at Geng Xiaoxing, wanting to ask where she had counted to just now. Apparently, though, that person was not focusing on the task either, for she was holding a book in her hands and browsing through it with great interest. “Our faculty is so open. There’s even a young adult fiction section…” Geng Xiaoxing pursed her lips as she stood on the stepladder, her eyes fixed on the book. “I read the online version of this, but this published one here has a newly added epilogue. Wait for me. I’m just going to read it and then we can go have lunch when I’m done.”

She was so hungry she could faint but that person on the ladder still wanted to read a romance novel’s new epilogue…

She almost wanted to cry, but no tears would come out. Exiting out of the inventory document, she used the iPad and logged into her QQ account, wanting to check her email and calculate how many song compositions and recordings she still owed. To her surprise, however, the first thing she saw was Zou Diao’er’s chat message: Little Golden Master, are you still okay?

What a strange way to ask…

“Pretty good. Why? Did you want to change shifts with me on YY?”

“╮(╯▽╰)╭ I noticed you haven’t been posting on Weibo, so I thought you saw those posts and were affected by them.”

“Huh?”

“╮(╯▽╰)╭ You know, only the tall tree attracts the wind. As Toupai’s little golden master, it wouldn’t be normal if you weren’t thrown into the wok and fried a few times. So… hang in there, Sheng Sheng Man.”

“Huh?”  She had a bad feeling about this.

Sure enough, Zou Diao’er quickly copied and pasted a critique from somewhere and sent it over.

It was completely directed at some songs she had arranged when she first entered the entertainment circle. The choice of words was vicious, and she was criticized to the point where there was nothing good to say… It was very professional, so professional it made her blush with shame. But the mocking and ridicule that could be read into the words were also very obvious. Sure enough… she did feel affected by this, didn’t she?

Gu Shen leaned against the side of a bookshelf and watched as Zou Diao’er kept pasting critique after critique for her.

This particular entertainment circle was small, and songs that became famous usually involved a strong line-up of people, from the song arranger to the singer. Therefore, songs she had composed or arranged in the past had, at most, been forwarded two or three hundred times only, and that was already considered a great accomplishment. So if a song was not become popular, naturally, no one would have analyzed and dissected it so professionally like this…

To have her own children thrown into the frying pan like this. It was impossible to not feel upset.

She had been reading in silence and had not noticed when Geng Xiaoxing had come down off the stepladder.

“What’s wrong? Not feeling well?” Geng Xiaoxing noticed that her complexion suddenly did not look very good.

“Huh?” Gu Sheng shutdown her QQ and exhaled lightly. “Nothing. Just hungry.”

Let’s eat, let’s eat.

A full stomach can solve all worries!

She looked over at Geng Xiaoxing. “Lunch is on you. So hungry. I want to eat a pot of ground pork vermicelli and soup!”

“Huh?” Geng Xiaoxing completely could not keep up with the pace of her thinking. She made what she believed to be the most reasonable guess for what was wrong. “Did you and Unrivalled Allure Toupai DaRen have an argument?”

“……” Gu Sheng wanted to say, they had not even seen each other, what could they possibly argue about? But right then, the mobile phone in her pocket started ringing.

It was Toupai…

She made a shushing noise, then took her phone, ran to the window, and answered the call.

‘I’m home now.” Mo Qingcheng’s voice was not very clear. In fact, it sounded very raspy. “I might need to sleep a little longer. Probably two hours or so and then I’ll call you again.”

“You’re… sick?” Listening to this voice of his inexplicably made her heart twinge.

“Mm.” His voice was fading in and out, like his phone was being moved around. “Sore throat. Might have a bit of a fever.”

“Fever? Have you checked your temperature?”

“Mm.”

And then… quiet.

Those two “mm” were filled with exhaustion, and hearing them in her ears caused a slight sense of worry as well as a slight ache in her heart… And also a slight bit of restlessness and anxiety. She did not dare continue questioning him for fear his throat would hurt, but she also did not know how high of a fever was “a bit of a fever”… Seriously, shouldn’t doctors take even better care of themselves? T.T……

“I’ll sleep for a couple of hours and then call you.” Mo Qingcheng’s voice was honestly very hoarse, raspily scraping her heart away, yet he still did not forget to tell her again when he would contact her.

She felt like… her heart was going to be ground away into tiny little pieces soon…

They hung up their call.

Geng Xiaoxing walked over to her and saw that her face had changed from the forlorn and dejected expression a moment ago to one that now looked… like anxiousness? They really got in an argument? She did not even get a chance to open her mouth to ask, though, before Gu Sheng had already stuffed the iPad to her. “I’m not coming back this afternoon. If the teacher asks, just say I have a stomachache…”

“Huh?”

Gu Sheng had already dashed off to the elevator with her mobile phone in hand.

“Didn’t you say… you wanted to eat… ground pork vermicelli in soup?……”

Geng Xiaoxing’s mind could not move at the same rate as hers at all and could only watch as she disappeared out of sight…

Additional Comments:

If you didn’t make it to the end of my looooong post last time, here is the explanation I wrote of why everyone knew 倾尽天下 Qing Jin Tian Xia [Overturn the World] was the next song.

This particular album was very popular, and ancient-style music fans should be quite familiar with it and the backstory within it.  Qing Jin Tian Xia is the second last song and the climax of the album.  It is about Bai Yan, the man who overthrew the previous dynasty and “overturned the world,” and now, after the world has changed hands and he is emperor, what are his thoughts, what is his story?  This is the logical concluding song to the medley.  Also, the 倾 ‘qing’ in the title is the same as in 倾国倾城 “beauty/ability that causes the downfall of a country/city” (and what I have simplified as “unrivalled allure”), so what could be more suitable for Toupai to sing?

There are actually some good fan made MVs out there for this song that tell the sad love story of Bai Yan.  I just couldn’t find one that didn’t have some sort of fan-inserted dialogue to post in the main part of the translation.  I particularly like one, with Hu Ge and Liu Yi Fei or one, with Huang Xiao Ming and Liu Yi Fei.

This lyrics of the song are very poetic.  It uses short, poetic phrases that seem to just state a fact, and you need to interpret what happened.  There is very little use of pronouns like you, I, she, etc. so one must interpret who is speaking, who is doing a certain action, etc.  I suspect this was deliberate.  This song is about Bai Yan, the person who “overturned the world” and became the new emperor.  If you read the last line of the background synopsis, though, most of his personal life was a mystery.  Like the unclear view of the painting through the sheer curtains of the pagoda, we only get an unclear view of his personal life, motivations, love… but much of it still remains a mystery.  I tried at first to translate similarly, but unconsciously, I’ve thrown in some personal interpretation in there.  😉

And lastly, a note about the title 倾尽天下.  This can be translated as “the world has been completely overturned,” but it can also mean, to “throw in/risk the entire world” for something/someone.  Let’s see how you interpret the title after you read the lyrics. 😉

周帝白炎死在称帝十载后的一个雪夜。

倘有历过前朝的宫女在，定会认出，那画上颜色无双的女子，正是前朝敬帝所封的最后一位贵妃。
原来在倾国的十年之后，白炎终究追随那人而去。他身后并未留下只言片语。于是所有关于周朝开国皇帝的谜团，都与那悬于九重宝塔之上、隐在七重纱幕背后的画像，一并被掩埋进厚重的史书里

Background:

The emperor of Zhou, Bai Yan died on a snowy night, ten years after declaring his reign as emperor.

Maidservants who had also served in the palace in the previous dynasty all would be able to recognize that the woman of unrivalled beauty in the painting was the last woman to be bestowed the title of Imperial Consort by the previous dynasty’s Emperor Jing.
As it turns out, ten years after the country changed hands, Bai Yan finally follows that person into eternity. He did not leave behind any words. And so, all the mysteries regarding the founding emperor of the Zhou Dynasty were buried, along with that portrait, hanging behind the sheer curtains on the top level of the Nine Dragon Pagoda, within the thick history books.

[0:39] 刀戟声共丝竹沙哑

谁带你看城外厮杀

七重纱衣 血溅了白纱

兵临城下六军不发

谁知再见已是 生死无话
Who knew that the next meeting would be one of a separation by life and death, and no words could be said?

[0:54] 当时缠过红线千匝

一念之差为人作嫁(但河图唱的是“作为人嫁”)

那道伤疤 谁的旧伤疤

还能不动声色饮茶

踏碎这一场 盛世烟花
Trampling over this fluorishing era of prosperity

[1:07] 血染江山的画

怎敌你眉间 一点朱砂

覆了天下也罢

始终不过 一场繁华

碧血染就桃花

只想再见你泪如雨下

听刀剑喑哑

高楼奄奄一息 倾塌
The tall pavilions are on the verge of collapse

[1:38] 是说一生命犯桃花

谁为你算的那一卦

最是无瑕风流不假

画楼西畔 反弹琵琶

暖风处处 谁心猿意马
The gentle warm breeze was everywhere. The heart felt fanciful and restless

[1:52] 色授魂与颠倒容华

兀自不肯相对照蜡

说爱折花 不爱青梅竹马

到头来算的那一卦

终是为你 覆了天下
For you, I overturned the world

[2:05] 明月照亮天涯

最后谁又得到了蒹葭

江山嘶鸣战马

怀抱中那寂静的喧哗

风过天地肃杀

容华谢后 君临天下

登上九重宝塔

看一夜流星飒沓
To stare up for a night at a sky filled with meteors

[3:04] 回到那一刹那

岁月无声也让人害怕

枯藤长出枝桠

原来时光已翩然轻擦
It turns out, time has lightly brushed past us and flown quickly by

[3:19] 梦中楼上月下

站着眉目依旧的你啊

拂去衣上雪花

并肩看 天地浩大
We stand side by side and look upon the vast world.

[3:33] 回到那一刹那

岁月无声也让人害怕

枯藤长出枝桠

原来时光已翩然轻擦
It turns out, time has lightly brushed past us and flown quickly by

[3:48] 梦中楼上月下

站着眉目依旧的你啊

拂去衣上雪花

并肩看 天地浩大
We stand side by side and look upon the vast world.

[4:02] 梦中楼上月下

站着眉目依旧的你啊

拂去衣上雪花

并肩看 天地浩大
We stand side by side and look upon the vast world.

青梅竹马. A Chinese idiom in which the green plums and hobbyhorse represent a boy and girl who have known each other since the innocent times of childhood. Often used to describe childhood sweethearts. This entire line has multiple interpretations on the Chinese forums. One interpretation is, after staring lovingly at each other, they shyly are unwilling to look at each other in the mirror and then, she tells him, she’d rather “pick flowers” (she believe in love at first sight, i.e. she fell in love with him) than have “green plums and hobbyhorse” (the stereotypical childhood sweetheart type of love). Another possible interpretation is, they once stared lovingly at each other, but something happened through the passage of time, and they could no longer even look at each through the mirror. She declares to him, she is going to “pick flowers” (she has fallen in love with someone else) rather than have her “green plums and hobbyhorse” (i.e. him).

Chapter end