#rice bucket zhang

[winter-wise]

In historical China, women did not take their husband's names on marriage, yet we never learn Madame Zhang's name. Only the names she was known as, as the wife of Rice Bucket Zhang, and later as the Empress.

She based all her power around attaching herself to men, and as a result of that, we only know her name in relation to the men she'd attached herself to - Madame Zhang for Rice Bucket Zhang and General Zhang, and the Empress when Baoxiang is Emperor.

[thestoriesthatweweave]

I don't think it's so much about public support than it is about self determination. Madam Zhang doesn't have the mandate because she doesn't think she can have it, because women can't rule. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Rice Bucket gets it after he kills his brother because he finally steps out of his brother's shadow and truly seizes the power for himself. He didn't have it before because he was essentially willing to be his brother's puppet.

Zhu is only able to fully access it when she finally, truly believes that she herself is enough to fulfill her desire, Baoxiang gets it when he believes himself capable of destroying the empire, and so on and so forth.

Likely the reason why Zhu succeeds (presumably) whereas the others with the Mandate fail is that the others are becoming what the world thought them to be and consider it fate/destiny, whilst Zhu is becoming what she wants to be and considers it fate/destiny

[minmotl]

Chapter 27: Sui Zhou & Tang Fan Living Happily with Each Other (Among Other Things)

Context: After arresting Li Man (Tang Fan’s ex-landlord) for the murder of his wife, Tang Fan and Sui Zhou are trying to find the man’s missing concubine who is a suspected member of the White Lotus Sect. Li Lin is Li Man’s son, who now owns Ah Dong and the house that Tang Fan was staying in previously. More importantly, Tang Fan moves in with Sui Zhou and begins a life of being pampered by Sui Zhou and Ah Dong.

Introduction Post | Masterpost

—

Highlights under the cut

Sui Zhou lives in a house with three sections and courtyards, if a large family lives here, it would be a tight squeeze for everyone, but if Sui Zhou is the only occupant, then the house is ridiculously spacious. Adding Tang Fan to the house is only too easy; there are three main bedrooms, and three side chambers. Aside from the room Sui Zhou is staying in and the single side chamber he uses for storage, the other two main rooms and smaller chambers are offered to Tang Fan for his choosing.

Note: No rent needed.

Tang Fan never thought of staying for free, but Sui Zhou does not lack his bit of rental money, and even if Tang Fan didn’t move in, Sui Zhou would still be the only occupant in this huge house.

Since Sui-baihu said that he will not take any money from Tang Fan with a cold look, Tang-daren does not insist, but whenever he is free, he will buy some rice and noodles and bring it home, together with some other groceries as well. This is equivalent to taking on the food expenses, and this, Sui Zhou does not refuse.

Tang Fan picked a smaller chamber for his own room, not because he’s being courteous and doesn’t dare to stay in a main room, but because the chamber he’s in faces East, and when he opens his door, he can immediately see the courtyard. The view there is pretty good, and when he’s free, he can even grow various plants and flowers under the pillars of the yard.

On a rest day, Tang Fan moves his thing over.

Li Lin didn’t expect that before he could deal with Tang Fan, the man managed to find new accommodations so soon.

Ah Dong’s situation was solved similarly quick, and while Tang Fan could not  handle this matter directly, Sui Zhou does not share the same concerns as he.

He didn’t even have to turn up to solve this in person. All the guards from the Northern Administrative Court had to do was station themselves at the Li family’s house, saying that Li Man’s case has not yet been solved and that they intend to take some of the people in the house back for questioning. So the guards grabbed Ah Chun, Ah Qiu, Ah Dong and the other servants, then returned them, and then took them back to the court again, then brought them back, and then to the courts again. Just a few trips like that and the Li family was unable to tolerate it anymore. Steward Li spoke to the guards and begged them to show mercy, even shoving two silvers at them, but the guards refused. In the end, the Li family could only give up the slave contracts — not only Ah Dong’s, but even Ah Chun’s.

Lady Zhang is no longer here and Ah Chun is not willing to stay in the Li family. Her greatest wish is to regain her freedom and find someone to marry. Previously, Li Lin wanted her to become his concubine, but she was unwilling, so Tang Fan decided to play Good Samaritan thoroughly. Since he agreed to save Ah Dong, he would bring Ah Chun out as well. Ah Qiu is willing to stay in the Li family, so Tang Fan left her to it.

Within three days, everything is settled and Tang Fan cannot help but sigh in awe of the Northern Administrative Court’s efficiency. Moreover, they can do what others cannot, so it is no wonder everyone’s faces change when they hear of the words ‘Embroidered Uniform Guards’.

Ah Dong was sold to the Li family when she was young, and she has nowhere to go after leaving the Li family. The only thing she can do is come and look for Tang Fan.

However, Tang Fan does not hold onto Ah Dong’s slave contract. He instead burns it in front of her, telling her that he will take her in as his adopted sister. Tang Fan adopts her before she is 15 years old, and after that, if she would like to marry, he will not keep her. When that time comes, he will naturally put together a dowry for her and find her a good family.

Of course, Ah Dong is more than willing and immediately begins to call him da-ge. And for Ah Dong who never had a surname, from now onwards, there is a surname in front of her name - Tang Dong.

The house originally had two adult men who left early and returned late, and the housework was usually done by temporary workers. Even if Sui Zhou knows how to cook, it’s impossible for him to have time to cook everyday. After Ah Dong arrived, they do not even need to hire temporary workers. She cooks the food, took the initiative to take on all the housework, and even though she’s young and a little greedy for food and playful, she’s meticulous when she works. It takes no more than two days for the interior and exterior of the house to look entirely new, and she even planted plenty of different plants and flowers. Sui Zhou and Tang Fan are very satisfied with this.

From here on, Tang-daren begins a happy life, absent of the worries of household cleaning chores and cooking.

***

Tang-daren’s life cohabiting with Sui Zhou is entirely too comfortable.

He managed to get several types of seeds to plant in the courtyard and Ah Dong is responsible for taking care of them. Some of the flowers they bought are already blooming well and shortly, the originally empty space is filled with a myriad colours, blooming with vibrance, and the courtyard is suddenly looking more alive.

Tang-daren doesn’t have much skills when it comes to cooking, but he searched for quite a lot of external recipes and says that he’s teaching Ah Dong how to improve the standards of her cooking.

During one of his rest days, as Ah Dong is cooking, a Tang-daren with nothing on his hands starts to recite recipes at Ah Dong, “Wash the plum flowers clean, cook the porridge with snow-melted water, and when it’s cooked, put the plum flowers in and cook them together…”

It’s so noisy that Ah Dong covers her ears and whines, “Da-ge, I’m illiterate, whatever you’re reciting right now, I don’t understand it at all!”

Tang-daren looks so innocent when he says, “It’s not that difficult to understand, is it? Come here, I’ll teach you how to identify characters first. What ‘washing the plum flowers clean’ means, is picking up the fallen petals of plum flowers in the winter, collecting them, washing them clean and then adding it to porridge cooked with melted snow water…”

“But it’s not winter now, where do the plum flowers come from?”

“It can be substituted with plenty of other alternatives. Not just plum flowers, but black locust flowers or pear blossoms, these can be mixed with the porridge, and there are also different effects using different flowers.”

Ah Dong blinks, “But what does plum flower porridge taste like, isn’t it a mouthful of flower petals?”

“… you’re such a spoilsport. Fine, then let’s switch to something else. Erm… here it is! This dish is called Huai Ye Tao. We have to specially pick leaves from the top of the locust tree, pound it and mix it into thin noodle strips. After it’s cooked, we put it into cold water for a soak, and it becomes cold noodles. Then we slice up some garlic, add some vinegar and drizzle it together over the noodles with oil. Oh right, isn’t there a locust tree behind the house? It’s summer too, how about we try this one?”

Ah Dong is drooling too, “This sounds like it’ll be really delicious, and the locust tree isn’t very tall, why not I try tomorrow?”

Tang Fan protests, “No way, you’re still young, what if you fall? You can count on your da-ge in times like this, I’ll go pick the leaves.”

“Huh? Da-ge, you can climb trees?”

“Of course, when I was younger I too was energetic, climbing trees and getting into rivers, why, you don’t believe me?”

Ah Dong looks him up and down properly, and shakes her head.

Tang Fan rolls up his sleeves gleefully and says, “If you don’t believe me, I’ll climb one now to show you. It’s still early anyway, once I pick the leaves, let’s have this for dinner!”

“But I’m already cooking the rice, and it’s better if you don’t go. What if you fall and end up getting scolded by Sui da-ge?

Tang Fan responds, “It’s alright. He’s still reading in the study and won’t have any time to care about what we’re doing for a while.”

As soon as he says this, he turns around and sees the person standing right behind him.

Tang Fan laughs awkwardly, “Guang Chuan-xiong, you’re done so soon?”

Sui Zhou nods, “I heard that Tang-daren is going to climb a tree, so I’m here specially to observe.”

Tang Fan sweats, “What’s there to see when a person is climbing a tree? I’m doing this so everyone can eat more delicious food, don’t you want to try it too?”

“Who’s the one said he wanted to try some Ba Xia Gong the last time, insisted that I bring a rabbit home and then treat the meat with some ancient recipe? In the end it was both sour and bitter, we couldn’t eat even a bit of it,” Sui Zhou says with a stoic expression.

Tang Fan carefully wipes at his sweat, “That was an accident. I forgot that we had to marinate it with alcohol first.”

“Then who was the one who courageously declared that he would make us bamboo shoot soup, and ended up ruining the entire pot?”

“…”

Ah Dong pops her head from the back and betrays Tang Fan without hesitation, “It was da-ge!”

Tang-daren is lectured extensively, unable to lift his head. After Sui Zhou points out his abysmal record, he takes Tang Fan out of the kitchen with him and says, “So you should just be responsible for eating. Going into the kitchen is not suitable for you.”

With this, Tang-daren’s reputation as a rice bucket is cemented.

An expressionless Sui Zhou continues to chide him as they walk away, “Next time when Ah Dong is cooking, don’t go in and disturb her anymore.”

Well aware that he’s at fault, Tang Fan accepts the scolding, “Yes yes yes!”

“Just eat whatever Ah Dong makes, don’t keep coming up with strange recipes for Ah Dong to try, and if you want something fancy, we can go to a restaurant outside.”

Tang-daren nods profusely, “Yes yes yes!”

“Also, you have to eat lesser in the evenings. It’s okay to indulge once in a while with snacks, but this cannot be done every day. Ah Dong told me once that when she was helping you to clean your room, she found some leftover pastry crumbs under your table, and in the beginning she thought we had rats in the house.”

“Yes yes yes!”

Tang-daren feels entirely helpless, and thinks, when I was living alone this was how I lived, so why is it now that after I adopted a sister, made another friend, it seems that I’ve suddenly found two nagging mothers for myself?

After some time staying under the same roof with Sui Zhou, Tang Fan realizes that the man’s life is so simple that it’s bordering on dry and boring.

Usually when it comes to leaving for work, Sui Zhou and Tang Fan will leave the house at about the same time, and even though they come home at different times, they still manage to enjoy dinner together often.

After dinner, they would chat for a while before going back to their own study rooms to read, and they sometimes will have a game of chess or something similar, but Sui Zhou’s game skills are only average and he basically loses every round, suffering defeat at the hands of Tang Fan.

It is common for the Northern Administrative Court to have endless amounts of things to handle, endless numbers of records to read, criminals to catch and secrets that they have to investigate. Compared to Tang Fan, it is several times busier at the court as they have to deal with matters inside the palace, and also outside of it.

When one is at Sui Zhou’s position, it is often that he has to pull several all-nighters without returning home, but Sui Zhou is serious and sombre in nature, unlike other men who occasionally go out to eat, drink, gamble and visit brothels. His life is even simpler than Tang Fan’s.

Tang-daren feels that as a friend, he has a duty to change the lack of fun in Sui Zhou’s life, so when he’s free he thinks of various ideas, hoping to spice up Sui Zhou’s free time.

Just like what he’s doing now.

“Here, xiong-di, these are novels I’ve kept for many years. If you’ve got some time, don’t always bury your head in work, you’ll get old easily like this. I know that your duties are important, but we have to live well too, am I right?”

Tang Fan puts a stack of books on the table, and smiles at Sui Zhou.

Spending so much time with Tang-daren has taught Sui Zhou that under the man’s gentle and elegant appearance, Tang Fan can be rather eccentric and unorthodox, and so hearing what Tang Fan said, he puts down his brush and helplessly leafs through the books.

He says, “I’ve read all of these.”

“You’ve read them all?” Tang Fan asks, stunned. Indeed, a book cannot be judged by its cover, he really could not tell!

Sui Zhou replies, “Some time back the disciples from White Lotus Sect used books to spread rumours and confuse the public, so the Northern Administrative Court needed to check all the books in the market, in case malicious actors used the books as an excuse to commit treason.”

He gets to the last book and takes it out, “What is this about?”

Tang-daren goes ‘oh’, and sheepishly, he says, “I wrote that.”

“…”

===

Notes:

*百户 bai hu

There are four ranks within the Embroidered Uniform Guards - 千户 (qian hu)、百户 (bai hu)、总旗 (zong qi)、小旗 (xiao qi) arranged highest to smallest rank, aside from the Commander 统领官 (zong ling guan).

*三进 san jin

Houses during this era are all measured by how many 进 (jin) it has. A proper house would have several courtyards, sections and chambers, and every enclosed courtyard is consider one jin. From a visual perspective, each rectangle section formed in the house regardless of the size is considered one jin. It’s pretty interesting and you can take a look at a diagram of how the house is sectioned here.

*主房, 厢房 zhu fang, xiang fang

A courtyard is usually surrounded by four room sections, and the two longer ones are considered bigger main rooms/houses, while the smaller ones are considered chambers. You can take a look at the diagrams here.

*春夏秋冬 chun xia qiu dong

The four seasons - spring 春 (chun), summer 夏 (xia) autumn 秋 (qiu) winter 冬 (dong). The Li family had four servants, Ah Dong being one of them, and it’s common to name girls after the seasons, so the servants were named Ah Chun, Ah Xia, Ah Qiu and Ah Dong.

*大哥 da ge

Older brother. You can call any male slightly older than you da ge.

*槐叶冷淘 huai ye leng tao

The novel names it huai ye tao, this is a historic cold noodle dish.

*拨霞供 ba xia gong

A rabbit meat dish.

*饭桶 fan tong 

Literally translated means rice bucket (fan tong). Rice bucket can be understood to refer to a person with a bottomless pit for food, but is also used as a metaphor for a useless person. First referenced in Chapter 8.

*兄弟 xiong di

Meaning brother. This can be meant for like bros - brothers or actual biological brothers. You can also use both characters separately, with xiong used for a male your age or older, and di for someone younger. Tang Fan calls Sui Zhou Guang Chuan-xiong quite frequently.

*人不可貌相 ren bu ke mao xiang

An idiom that is equivalent to ‘don’t judge by a book by its cover’. It means simply not to judge a person from their looks, but the idiom works well in this case.

*《拾珍记》、《一枝花话》、《莺莺传》、《取经诗话》、《武王伐纣平话》、《金玉良缘》、《多情记》、《梨花缘记》

In the novel they do name all the books that Tang Fan tries to get Sui Zhou to read towards the end of the chapter, but it’s really hard to translate, so I didn’t attempt, but the books that Tang Fan chose are mostly fiction (erotica or not) and the one Tang Fan wrote himself is the last one in the list above called Li Hua Yuan Ji which translates roughly to The Story of the Pear Blossoms.

[winter-wise]

Radiant Emperor Characters on the Barbie-Oppenheimer Scale

Zhu: Oppenheimer

Ma: Watched Oppenheimer with Zhu, then went to watch Barbie on her own

Xu Da: Barbie

Yuchun: Barbie

Ouyang: Oppenheimer

Esen: Oppenheimer. Brushed hands with Ouyang by accident in the darkened theatre. Thought nothing of it. Ouyang thought about it for the rest of the movie.

Baoxiang: Gathered his entire household for a public viewing of Barbie, watched Oppenheimer alone in private, then gathered everyone to watch Barbie again just to really drive the point home.

General Zhang: Watched Oppenheimer and then Barbie with Madame Zhang.

Madame Zhang: Watched Oppenheimer and Barbie with General Zhang. Then felt insecure and watched Oppenheimer again, alone.

Rice Bucket Zhang: Oppenheimer

Chen Youliang: Oppenheimer

Lady Ki: Barbie

Third Prince: Wanted to watch Barbie, but watched Oppenheimer with his friends instead.