i love emotionally damaged characters who get within a hairs breadth of personal growth just to make the worst decision possible, gotta be one of my favorite genders
The scene with testing heaven's will confused me at first. It's obvious, that Bai Choufei tried to cheat fate, but even after i rewatched it, i still couldn't understand, where and how exactly he did it.
"I'll point to a character randomly. If it's an even number, I'll kill him. If it's an odd number, I'll spare his life, considering he was once my brother."
Let's take a closer look at this character:
Bai Choufei: "Meng? It seems our fate is intertwined."
Bai Choufei points at 夢 (dream, in traditional style), which is the first character in Su Mengzhen's name.
Lei Chun: "There are 13 strokes in this character. You've gone through a painstaking effort to take his life, but it seems heaven thinks otherwise."
If you know how to count strokes, you can check it, there are really 13 strokes. And if you don't there is an explanatory pic at the end.
Bai Choufei after thinking for a while: "I don't believe in heaven's will. I believe only in myself."
And he is writing top radical 艹 in a different way than in the book: with 4 strokes instead of 3
"Fourteen. That's heaven's will. In the past people must go through me to get to him. But now, only I can take his life."
I just like how precisely he puts the final point:
The thing is that both ways of writing are acceptable. For example in yellow bridge you can find Bai Choufei's with 14 strokes. There are even more of them but I'm certainly not ready to dive into this hole. But Bai Choufei points at 夢 in the book with 13 strokes.
And explanatory pictures: the left one is Lei Chun's, and the right one is Bai Choufei's
So they are both right, but Bai Choufei still has cheated. And personally I think it was a clever way of cheating 😌 but thankfully heaven did not appreciate it anyway 😁
在他过去看上一看的时候,也有一个念头在心里闪过:会不会正好有个江湖卖武的美丽女子,正在比武招亲,这一瞥就定了情,就像戏台上演的一般?
When he went over to take a look at what he could, a thought flashed through his mind: could there just happen to be a beautiful woman of the jianghu who knew martial arts, who just happened to be seeking a husband through a martial arts competition? With one glimpse, their love would be true - just like the stories told in stage plays.
...
王小石却在一瞥中呆住了。
Yet Wang Xiaoshi, within the moment of this one glimpse, was stunned.
他从来没有见过这么美的男子。
He had never seen a man as beautiful as this before.
那薄刀似的柳眉一起一伏间,有说不尽的俊俏,阳光透过遮阳帽的葵叶缝隙照在脸上,一明一暗,白似美玉,黯影柔倩。就这么一刹那,那人已皱了皱眉,不耐烦地按下席帽,绕了过去,看起来,正似在找什么人。
Between the rise and fall of those thin, knife-like brows that were arched as if long and slender willow branches - lay an indescribable and endless elegance. Sunlight bled through the crevices of the sun hat's mallow leaves to shine upon his face, at once both illuminated and obscured: as bright and pale as fine jade, whilst also gentled and made handsome by dark shadow. Such a split second passed, and that man creased his brow thereafter, impatiently pressing his woven hat down before making his way around. He seemed, currently, to be looking for someone.
【一、不像人的人】 Chapter 1: The People Who Did Not Seem Like People