tyklianzi

[tyklianzi]

To @lordseventhby7❤️, @tyklianzi❤️, Chichi❤️

[tyklianzi]

I've been thinking of your translation a lot recently and I wanted to check in and see how you're doing. I hope that you had a good start to your year. Thank you again for all of your hard work 🖤

thank you for stopping by!!! I'm very happy to hear from you! I'm in a tough patch at my job but I hope it will be over soon 🥹 and one day I'll come back...!

[tyklianzi]

Hii love your translation to pieces! How have you been? Have you been reading/watching any other media (aside from TYK) recently that u would rec?

Hello! Thank you so much for your message! I'm kind of in the mud trenches rn but I am very happy to be remembered ❤️❤️❤️

I am going to ramble a lot so sorry about that and thanks for giving me permission to do so.

I would have a hard time putting together "recs for someone who enjoyed TYK", because I think it's an unusual type of story. It's about a protagonist who's so tired of being a main character (or even a secondary character). All he wants is to be a side character who enjoys himself and isn't important enough to get hit by plot shrapnel. I remember @specialability making the astute observation that TYK has a lot in common with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead. What do side characters do, when the main characters aren't on stage? But TYK emanates joy that you don't find in the other existentialist stories I've read (which may say more about my own deficiency than the genre itself). Zhou Zishu is dying, but he finds a lot of happiness in spending every day exactly as he wants to. Taking care of Zhang Chengling, untangling the Glazed Spiral mystery, and messing around with Wen Kexing: this is all meaningful to him because it's how he wants to spend the rest of his life. However short that life may be.

That being said, since you gave me permission, I'm going to talk about what I've read recently!

One Hundred Years of Solitude (Gabriel Garcìa Márquez) left a really strong impression on me. I guess because the characters in the Buendía family (the novel tells this family's story) trap themselves into lives that they don't enjoy at all. Some of them live for a hundred years or more, but they never find the companionship and happiness that they crave. I wish I could say more about this story, but it really made me want to read more magic realism, and learn about Latin American history to understand the context.

I watched AMC's Interview with the Vampire and it ate my brain. One similarity between the Vampire Chronicles and Faraway Wanderers is that their television adaptations tore apart the source material to make something new. And I love what they did with Interview with the Vampire, because they kept what was so interesting from the books: the struggle between a vampire's murderous, predatory nature, and their moral sense as a sapient being. The show also makes explicit the parallel between this struggle and Louis' struggle with his queerness: should he live in hypocrisy, condemning his true nature even though he can't change it? Or should he abandon the moral scruples that (in his mind) connect him with his vestigial humanity? It makes sense to me, and I love the story of the show. There are some elements I miss from the books, but to me, the show surpasses the sum of its parts.

I'm currently reading Tolkien's Silmarillion! I guess one thread that unites the three works I've mentioned today is "unbelievably messy family drama". Which again, is notably missing from TYK...but it is one of my personal favorite ingredients. Elf aristocratic infighting goes off the chain like nothing else. The Silmarillion is a tragedy, you know? When you read the Lord of the Rings, you feel that the most spectacular days of this world have passed already. You see those splendors in the Silmarillion and know that they're doomed. It's a lot more gothic than I expected. I have to space out how much I read at a time. I've just started Beren and Lùthien, which promises to deliver something of a breather.

Sorry again for this massive wall of text. I love to chat. Come back again anytime. Haha!

[tyklianzi]

just wanted to say thank you so much for your amazing tyk translation!! i read it recently and adore it ❤️ super impressed at how you've conveyed the meaning and tone/style of the novel, it's genuinely one of the best webnovel translations ive ever read. thanks for sharing your incredible work!!!

Hey anon, this message means everything to me 🥺 translating tyk has been one of the most fulfilling and fun activities I ever started. I am so happy that you and others enjoyed my work! the only reason I haven't done more is because my day job hasn't left me with any time. I'm hoping that my situation will improve in the next year or so. no matter how long it takes, I plan to come back one day!

[tyklianzi]

Chapter 31: Emerging from the Shell

Now posted!

This chapter is dedicated to Frank @worldoshaking! Thank you very much for donating and participating in the Rally for Palestine event. Some others have generously donated to charity on behalf of this translation, and I will thank them in the next chapter (coming in not too long).

You’re about to die, and you’ve lived your whole life as a spineless turtle hiding in his shell. The thought rang silently in Zhou Zishu’s heart. What’s the worst that could happen, he thought; since it’s already come to this, why keep looking ahead and behind, why keep scheming? If someone never did anything impulsive in his entire life, wouldn’t he suffocate? Wouldn’t that be too tragic?

[tyklianzi]

I have to say that I'm so happy to have found you on here. Thank you for translating a book I love!! I look forward to your future updates. Thank you so much for all of your hard work <33

THANK YOU ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ this made my whole month!!!

[tyklianzi]

thank you so much for your beautiful translation of tyk!! I'm pretty new to danmei and I'm so happy I got in late enough to be able to read your translations :)

hand in marriage????? hand in marriage for anon????????????

[tyklianzi]

I just found this tumblr so wanted to thank you very much for all your hardwork! and for the new chapter :) Love every chapter <3

omg THANK YOU and hehe you caught me!!!! I posted chap 30 but didn't get around to updating tumblr or twitter 🤭 I'm so happy you like my tl!!!!!

[tyklianzi]

thank you for your translation of tyk, I've been slow reading it so that I don't binge the entire thing in one go. However I am so thankful for how wonderful a job you have been doing, I'm understanding more about the characters than I did when I read bits and pieces of translations dotted about online <3

What a lovely message! Thank you so much! I'm sorry I haven't been adding new chapters lately (having some personal issues) but your support means the world to me 🙏🙏🙏

[tyklianzi]

I just wanted to thank you for your translation of TYK! I'm enjoying it immensely! Translation is hard work and you're doing a great job.

You don't know how much this means to me 😭 thank you so much!!!!!!

[tyklianzi]

Audiobook chapters 3-4 posted!!

From now on I will (do my best to) remember to post on Sundays!

[tyklianzi]

We posted audiobook chapter 2!

Check it out on the carrd ❤️❤️❤️

[tyklianzi]

Audiobook announcement!

I'm excited to announce that this translation is getting an audiobook! Check out the carrd for a link to chapter 1 read aloud by the lovely podficcer glittercracker ❤️❤️❤️ be sure to check out her other work as well!

[tyklianzi]

Chapter 29: Yearning Comes Too Late

But he saw Wen Kexing looking at him with an inscrutable expression, so he called out, “Why are you still standing there? Did you get hurt, or…”  

His words died out as Wen Kexing suddenly walked to him, came up close, and cradled his face with an ice-cold hand.

The raindrops slid down Wen Kexing’s face. Everything was silent except for the rain’s pitter-patter. His blank expression, his ashen face surrounded by disheveled hair, his pitch-black eyes made Zhou Zishu remember seeing him for the first time—how he looked down from the restaurant with such an indifferent demeanor.

He heard Wen Kexing say, “When I was little, my mother made me study and my father made me train. All the children in our village played outside, climbing trees and scaling walls; I was the only one who stayed in our yard to read or practice with my sword. I could only go out and play once it got dark. Every time, when I was so happy to rush out and join their games, the parents of the other kids would call them home for dinner.”

Zhou Zishu found this position uncomfortable indeed, and wanted to duck aside, yet he saw something dazed in Wen Kexing’s expression. His lashes were weighed down with raindrops; he blinked rapidly; a raindrop rolled down his cheek and fell from his chin. It gave the illusion of tears.

Posted here.

[tyklianzi]

Chapter 28: Gu Seng

Zhou Zishu’s eyes flew open. He darted a few half-steps to the side, his hand reflexively reaching into his sleeve, murder rising in his heart as it had scarcely ever done—this was the first time an opponent had read him so thoroughly while he knew so little about them. Seeing this, the corners of Ye Baiyi’s mouth turned upwards in a stiff yet mocking smile. He sneered, “If I wanted to do something to you, could you still stand there and speak? That bit of qinggong you showed just now couldn’t have come from any other place. It’s called ‘leave not a trace, soar without bounds’. Siji Manor’s Qin Huaizhang is your shifu, isn’t he? Hmph. Master and disciple both alike. You make a scoundrel out of everyone you meet.”

Zhou Zishu replied coldly, “Master Gu Seng is a martial legend, but my master has long departed this world. Unfilial as I may be, I will not hear him insulted like this.”

Ye Baiyi was shocked. “What,” he cried out, “Qin Huaizhang is dead?”

Zhou Zishu didn’t have a chance to speak before Ye Baiyi’s gaze dimmed and became vacant. Quietly, “Yes, it’s been who knows how many years…how dynasties come and go …seasons never touch the mountain, but a thousand years pass so quickly in the mortal world. Even Qin Huaizhang is gone.”

Posted here.

[tyklianzi]

Chapter 27: Massacre

He turned his head; the one who spoke was Ye Baiyi. Zhou Zishu was astonished to find that this glutton’s expression betrayed a hint of indescribable compassion, lending him the air of a porcelain Guanyin statue.

Reflexively, Zhou Zishu asked, “What?”

Ye Baiyi shot a glance at him and said, his face now devoid of expression, “Are you deaf?”

Zhou Zishu thus turned away, not wanting to provoke further indignities. But Ye Baiyi patted his shoulder and spoke without any sense that something was out of the ordinary: “Come out and go somewhere with me tonight.” His tone had something in it that resembled how Zhou Zishu had spoken to Zhang Chengling the night before.

Zhou Zishu had resolved against paying any heed to this Ye upstart before he learned some manners, but simply couldn’t stop himself from nodding. 

He regretted it to his core the moment he nodded—wanted nothing more than to wring this troublemaking head off his own shoulders. He pondered whether he might feel better if he killed this so-called disciple of Gu Seng where he stood, and silenced him that way.

Posted here.

[tyklianzi]

Chapter 26: Lord Seventh

Next to the little desk was a chaise, and a man was resting on it with his eyes closed. He was dressed in the manner of the Central Plains, with wide sleeves and long robes, and an aged book open on his leg.

A small sable sat at the man’s feet. Since nobody paid attention to it, it found desultory amusement in chasing its own tail.

At this moment, a Nanjiang warrior hurried over with a letter in his hand. Seeing this scene, he quieted his steps without thinking about it, and waited in silence.

The man on the chaise opened his eyes at the sound. He looked to be twenty-five or twenty-six, with a pair of peach-blossom eyes that always carried a bit of a smile; truly his features were exquisite beyond compare. The little sable sprang into his arms, climbed onto his shoulder, and brushed his chin with its tail.