Fall in Love With the Empress - Ch. 18

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This chapter was so difficult to translate for some reason. Some things just refused to be translated correctly.

Then I ended up going on a 30 minute adventure to search for a poem about how a bird fell in love with a fish and I somehow ended up on webpage ranting about the bible. Probly the weirdest Google search adventure I've had while translating.
 
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I think the point of the Emperor's story came across well in your translation. She is upset because she can't be with the people she wants to be with; the bird and the fish "live in different worlds", just like her and the people she wants to be with.

She gets pissed when the Empress warps the point of the story to be comedic because it feels like she's dismissing her feelings or concerns.

Also, you are right about the use of "'er" as a term of endearment.
 
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She gets pissed when the Empress warps the point of the story to be comedic because it feels like she's dismissing her feelings or concerns.
Pretty sure the bigger reason for the upset is that the second story recontextualizes the first story. The first story is a story of love and desire, the fish wishes to be a part of the bird's world and, if only the bird knew, perhaps it could be.

But the second story gives the bird's perspective to reframe it into a story of predation. The bird is hunting the fish and, if the fish were ever to meet the bird, the bird would simply kill the fish.

A more subtle thing happening is that she seems to be presenting the emperor as the bird in the second story where the emperor felt like the fish in the first story, which is another act of reframing. This recontextualizes the emperor's desires and love and predatory, of an attempt to invade the space of those "he" desires and to hurt them. It makes the emperor out as a sort of villain for even having these desires in the first place.
 
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the bird and fish story being recontextualized by Weiying is because Yingying is the bird but she abandons the fish and seeks out 'shrimps and crabs' i.e. other lovers in the form of all the women she has been flirting with which makes our perpetually jealous Emperor, well, jealous.
 
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the bird and fish story being recontextualized by Weiying is because Yingying is the bird but she abandons the fish and seeks out 'shrimps and crabs' i.e. other lovers in the form of all the women she has been flirting with which makes our perpetually jealous Emperor, well, jealous.
This right here is the reason the Emperor is pissed off. To her mind, it sounds like Yingying has many other women on the side so she doesn't have to pine on someone unattainable.
 
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the bird and fish story being recontextualized by Weiying is because Yingying is the bird but she abandons the fish and seeks out 'shrimps and crabs' i.e. other lovers in the form of all the women she has been flirting with which makes our perpetually jealous Emperor, well, jealous.
THIS! Thankyou! Most people got the wrong message out of it is not simply predatory. While for the empress (emperor in MC’s eyes) she is the fish in love with her master (the bird), knowing it can never trully be, and whom eventually flew away (died most likely). MC is making the bird (the emperor) a self serving asshole only interested in the pleasure the fish can offer (eating the fish) so he is fine with going to eat any other thing. She is insulting the emperor as a womanizer with no real interest for actual love.
PS: Great translation once again, Thanks so much!!!
 
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