Entertainment Circle Ancient Female General

The mother-daughter pair sat and talked for a while before Qiao Chunyi had to go to work.

When she was married to her ex-husband Tuoba Xiu, her mother-in-law didn’t like her since she, the daughter-in-law, was born into a poor family. She tried to do everything possible to obstruct the two young lovers. One of the various tyrannical demands was: You can marry her son, but you must be a good wife and mother1TLN: [xiānɡ fū jiào zǐ] assist one’s husband and educate the children 

[xián qī liáng mǔ] as an understanding wife and loving mother, basically, the mother-in-law was asking her to be the ideal type of womanhood.

In other words, Qiao Chunyi was not allowed to continue her studies.

At that time, Qiao Chunyi hadn’t been suppressed by the Tuoba family to the point she had lost her glow. She didn’t want to leave school like that, but she was young and naive. So, when Tuoba Xiu persuaded her, she stayed at home. He promised that this was just a facade to show his mother temporarily. Later, he would find a way to let her finish her studies and develop her own career. Qiao Chunyi foolishly believed his words.

After three months of marriage, Qiao Chunyi had become pregnant. Her mother-in-law started looking at her daughter-in-law more favorably, and Tuoba Xiu was also overjoyed. In October, she gave birth to a daughter. Although Tuoba Xiu’s mother was disappointed, she thought it would be nice to have a daughter first, and did not treat Qiao Chunyi very harshly.

Tuoba Xiu attached great importance to his cute and fat daughter. The first thing he would do everyday after coming back from the company was to go to the nursery to tease his daughter. He would make little Tuoba Yan squeak and scream, and her soft, fat, little hand would playfully slap her father’s face. The whole family was very harmonious.

It was only whenTuoba Yan had turned one that Qiao Chunyi, who had been looking forward to it, did not return to school as she had hoped. The reason Tuoba Xiu gave was that their child was still young and needed her mother’s care and education, so they would have to talk about it in a couple of years. Her mother-in-law also became angry,  she had already agreed to not appear in public again, but now she wanted to go back on her words? Tuoba Yan, no matter how smart she was, she was starting a family of her own. She needed to continue the teaching of her family into the next generation. And her own grandparents had yet to hold their granddaughter.

Qiao Chunyi was tired and already troubled by the mischievous Tuoba Yan. Unexpectedly, her mother-in-law wanted her to have more children, leading to more quarrels with her mother-in-law.

No matter how beautiful a face once seemed, one would inevitably get tired of it after facing it for more than a year. Tuoba Xiu gradually became dissatisfied with his young and vigorous wife and the two soon began to quarrel and fight a cold war. The mother-in-law undoubtedly took her own son’s side, not to mention the fact that her daughter-in-law dared to contradict her, and didn’t even think about her identity!

Qiao Chunyi’s elder brother and sister-in-law counted on the Tuoba family to make a living. After listening to Qiao Chunyi’s cries, and even though they loved her, they could only persuade her to try to get along with her husband and his family, and did not dare to stand up for Qiao Chunyi. Qiao Chunyi was not a fool. Seeing that she was helpless, she felt as if the whole world was against her.There was nothing else she could do except to continue giving Tuoba Xiu children.

Still the husband and wife grew apart. Qiao Chunyi found out that she and her daughter were weak and incompetant, they simply did not have the ability to earn their own food. Qiao Chunyi, who had never faced the dark side of the world, found that her current situation was akin to standing on the edge of a cliff with her eyes closed. Just the slightest push would make her fall into the abyss.

Qiao Chunyi could only continue to be wronged while she put a smile on her face while gently soliciting her husband and serving her mother-in-law.

Even though they did not use contraception, Qiao Chunyi was not able to conceive another child, even when Tuoba Yan grew to three-years-old. Tuoba Xiu began to “work hard” and wouldn’t return home all night. Her mother-in-law had nervously forced her to try various prescriptions all day long, but all means failed.

Tuoba’s mother secretly concluded that Qiao Chunyi seemed to have no luck to continue the bloodline of Tuoba’s family, so she had to find a backup plan.

Thus came the interference of Gu Min.

Qiao Chunyi still couldn’t think about those days. Her elder brother and sister-in-law saw that she wanted to leave and took the most advantageous positions possible in the Tuoba family. Her mother-in-law had brought the pregnant Gu Min into their home and prepared a warm welcome while her husband, with a righteous and justified stance, said that if she couldn’t give him a son, he would have another woman give him one. The wives of other families that she had been friends with before had either just sympathized with her or had taken pleasure in seeing her misfortune and watched her fall. 

[TLN: [tù sǐ hú bēi] The author used the idiom “the fox is sad at the death of the hare” that comes from a story, illustrating one feeling sadness for the death or misfortunes of his companions, and I just put the word sympathized.]

Her marriage almost drove Qiao Chunyi crazy, and in the midst of yet another argument, she blurted out before fainting, “I want a divorce!”

Well, a divorce was a divorce.

Tuoba Yan was four-years-old when she saw her grandmother and father bullying her mother. Later, she insisted on leaving with Qiao Chunyi. Qiao Chunyi held her daughter and cried bitterly, but she finally got divorced from the Tuoba family.

Tuoba Yan, who completely fell out of favour, was also driven out of the house.

Qiao Chunyi was disheartened by her elder brother and sister-in-law’s previous actions and no longer hoped for any help from them. She left her hometown and came to Yuchuan town, relying on the alimony from her divorce to rent a house and gain a foothold. She had dropped out of college a semester before graduation, so she only had a high school degree, making it difficult to find stable and easy civil work. She had to wash dishes at a restaurant’s back kitchen, skewere and deliver food, and promote milk powder and detergent. She was almost dragged into a pyramid scheme2 TLN: en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Pyramid_scheme        

Pyramid schemes—also referred to as franchise fraud or chain referral schemes—are marketing and investment frauds in which an individual is offered a distributorship or franchise to market a particular product. The real profit is earned, not by the sale of the product, but by the sale of new distributorships. and prostitution. It can be said that she worked very hard to bring up her daughter.

Tuoba Yan’s temper was as stubborn and tough as Qiao Chunyi when she was young and the little girl hated everyone from the Tuoba family. When her step sister, Tuoba Jiao, who was three years younger than her, moved into Yucheng No.6 middle school, her hatred soared. When she should have been studying and working on her college entrance examination3TLN: Chinese gaokao (高考) is an examination taken by chinese students in their final year of high school which is also the lone criterion for admission into universities., she devoted all her time to finding ways to make Tuoba Jiao unhappy. Later, she even did the stupid thing of leaving school and entering the entertainment industry, and it wasn’t long before she felt ill and committed suicide. 

After a detailed examination the doctors could no longer detect the symptoms of schizophrenia. This left the doctors astonished. Seeing her daughter become sensible and rational, Qiao Chunyi was very happy. She realized that it was more important to live well.

As soon as Qiao Chunyi left, Tuoba Yan opened her mobile network to search for Yuchuan’s traditional Chinese medicine market. After finding out the public transportation route, she quietly changed clothes. Taking off her hospital clothes, she put on her shorts and a thin coat, then she took out the coins she had managed to save from the closet and put them into her pocket. While Nurse Qiao was away, she quickly slipped out.

Tuoba Yan slipped out of the hospital smoothly. Outside there was a bus stop only a hundreds of meters away from the hospital. It was noon currently, and the sun was blazing hot. Fortunately, the bus she needed to take would arrive in a few minutes. Like a loach, Tuoba Yan got through the crowd nimbly, got on the bus and inserted a coin inside the slot.

Seeing Tuoba Yan’s arm wrapped in gauze the driver asked over the loudspeaker for someone to give their seat to her. A gentle and amiable middle-aged woman immediately stood up and let Tuoba Yan sit, leading the young men and women behind her to step up and give her a seat.

Tuoba Yan switched buses twice, and after about 40 minutes, she arrived at Yuchuan’s Chinese medicine wholesale market.

When Tuoba Yan got off of the bus and smelled the familiar Chinese herbal medicines, she suddenly returned to the military camp where she once worked with the military doctors to concoct herbal remedies for the wounded soldiers. She was struck by the endless modern architecture and couldn’t help but sigh with emotions.

The world had changed.

As Tuoba Yan walked into the market, the roadside stalls were lined with large parasols at the entrance of each stall. The crowd was bustling, people were asking for prices and praising the quality of their medicinal products. She looked around slowly and listened to the bargains. She soon had a good idea of the price and quality of several important medicinal ingredients she wanted to buy.

With a plan in mind, Tuoba Yan began to ask. Although she was a young girl, her speech and manner were so sophisticated and steady that the herbalist knew that she had met an expert who was very discerning and did not dare treat her lightly.

Tuoba Yan didn’t bring any money with her today, so she just asked for prices, playing Taiji* with the herbalist to argue pointlessly. She even bought a bottle of water to drink during that period, and more than two hours later, she had gained a general idea on which herbs were of high quality and poor quality, which ones were fake and genuine, and which ones were good and cheap. Most of the needed herbs were available in the market, and as for the other rare ones, she figured she could come back in the future, or simply ask a reliable store to buy them.

Throwing the empty mineral water bottle into the dustbin, Tuoba Yan clapped her hands and took the bus back to the hospital.

There were few people on the bus when Tuoba Yan got on so she was able to get a good seat near the window. Some of the later passengers who were not so lucky could only stand since the seats were full.

Next to Tuoba Yan stood a short-haired woman dressed in fashionable casual clothes with her sunglasses pushed to the top of her head. Her face was exquisite and clear, and she carried a large bag over her left shoulder. She grabbed the bus hand ring sling with her left hand and held an Apple phone with her right hand. Her face looked a little restless as she continued to type a text on her phone.

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The author has something to say: it’s late today. Sorry, I’ve been working on the copywriting. New copy and cover look good no = 3=

TL: Kin here. Hello. 

So when I said that Qiao Chunyi hadn’t been suppressed by the Tuoba fam to the point she lost her glow, I meant that she had a bubbly kinda personality and that glowing personality of her became dead when the Tuoba fam did those mean things to her so she had yet to lose her glow that time.Chinese gaokao/Chinese college entrance examinations start from June 7 to June 8 or 9 normally. So I’m guessing that the former Tuoba Yan left school after that since it is August right now in the novel.Correct me if I’m wrong, Yechuan City and Yecheng No.6 middle school doesn’t exist.The author wrote, “ 沧海桑田, 物是人非,”  which I translated to “The world has changed.” The first line 沧海桑田 [cāng hǎi sāng tián] means “Seas change into mulberry fields and mulberry fields into seas — time brings great changes to the world”. The second line 物是人非[wù shì rén fēi] means “The things are still there, but men are no more the same ones”.I’m guessing that when Tuoba Yan entered the market where large umbrellas were over the stall on the roadside, it’s like When the author said that Tuoba Yan and the herbalist played “Taiji” aka talked nonsense, it isn’t the martial art kinda one, but the “Supreme Ultimate” philosophical Taiji. I THINK, so they were basically arguing on the herbs.I AM SO ANGRY AT BLACKPINK’S LISA’S FORMER MANAGER FOR SWINDLING 1 FREAKING BILLION WON FROM HER. FOR GOD SAKE, SHE TRUSTED HIM SO MUCH. HOW MUCH HURT MY BABY MUST HAVE SUFFERED! HOW MUCH MORE SHE MUST HAVE SUFFERED BEFORE TOO!! LISA’S FUTURE IS BOUNDLESS AKA SHE WILL SHINE BRIGHTER THAN TODAY, I TELL YOU, SHE SURELY WILL!!! LISA BB, I LOVE YOU!!!!OUR SECOND PRINCE’S PHOTO HAS BEEN RELEASED! HIS ROYAL HIGHNESS WAS SO CUTE!!JUNE 4TH IS OUR QUEEN’S DAY OF BIRTH! YAY!!

Update [Feb 26, 2021]: That was in 2020… was I high on finally finishing the translation of this chapter that time…