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rustycolFirst of all, the caveat is that my translation is based on a Vietnamese translation of the story (source), so usual problems with such translation occur. I don't intend for my translation to replace the translation from the original Chinese works; I do this because I'm impatient and want to have someone to talk about this story with me. You can find the already translated chapters from Chinese here.
The intro/summary to Liu Yao: "Cheng Qian, the second son of his family, has a cold and harsh personality due to his parents' negligence. He is prepared to settle with the fate of being an unremarkable second child to pass the days. However, his parents, whose eyes are blinded by money, sell him to a cloud-riding cultivator. He is forced to join the fraudulent path of cultivation from then on. From ancient times, there likely have been many cultivators who ascended to immortality, but his sect has declined with an unreliable master and questionable disciples, with his most senior brother being a genius in making troubles. It can be said that his cultivation path has an uncertain future"
Secondly, a few background details that may be of interest to you (I will confess I mostly scribble from the notes of the Vietnamese translator. I only recognise a few of these).
About the title, Liu Yao (六爻) is a divination method. The procedure is as follows: you cast three coins at the same time, and do it six times. Each time of casting is a yao, and a full outcome of six castings is a gua (卦) - which will tell you about the future of what you want to consult about (personal health, family, even the fate of a nation) by showing how yin-yang acts and transforms via the heads or tails of the coins.
The underlying philosophy is that gua refers to the I-Ching's hexagrams (and each line of such a hexagram is called a yao), and roughly speaking, a gua of the I-Ching describes a state of being for the subject you want to study/predict (in mdzs, "Huan" in Lan Huan is the name of the 59th gua ䷺, which represents dispersion/separation and generally not a result you'd want to see). By casting the coins, you generate a line in the hexagram - repeating six times and you have the hexagram that tells you the movements of the future.
As the title indicates, the coins and fortune telling play a pretty important role in the plot of the story.
In chapter 8, you'll encounter the five forms/sets of the Fuyao Sect's sword style. The names of these forms are also the names of the five books of the story, and together, they describe the ups and downs of a person's life according to the Taoist perspective. They are (I use the name of the translation from Chinese):
鹏程万里 - The roc/eagle crosses ten thousand miles (the eagle/hawk is sometimes used as metaphor for a youth's ambition)
上下求索 - Seek and pursue (Vietnamese translation: Search everywhere)
事与愿违 - Backfire (Vietnamese translation: Not according to wish)
盛极而衰 - Decline from prosperity (Vietnamese translation: The peak is the start of the decline)
返璞归真 - Return to trueness
Azure Dragon is one of the four Sacred Beasts that correspond to the four cardinal directions: Azure Dragon of the East, Vermilion Bird of the South, White Tiger of the West, and Black Tortoise of the North (some version has Golden Dragon for the Centre). The colours in the names of the Beasts represent the corresponding directions, and are also the colours of the five elements: azure for wood, vermilion for fire, white for metal, and black for water (and gold for earth), so the Beasts are associated with the elements as such too.
Thirdly, the chapters translated by me:
Book II: Seek and pursue
Chapter 35 ** Chapter 36 ** Chapter 37 ** Chapter 38 ** Chapter 39 ** Chapter 40 ** Chapter 41 ** Chapter 42 ** Chapter 43 ** Chapter 44 ** Chapter 45 ** Chapter 46 ** Chapter 47 ** Chapter 48
Book III: Not according to wish
Chapter 49 ** Chapter 50 ** Chapter 51 ** Chapter 52 ** Chapter 53 ** Chapter 54 ** Chapter 55 ** Chapter 56 ** Chapter 57 ** Chapter 58 ** Chapter 59 ** Chapter 60 ** Chapter 61 ** Chapter 62 ** Chapter 63 ** Chapter 64 ** Chapter 65 ** Chapter 66 ** Chapter 67 ** Chapter 68 ** Chapter 69 ** Chapter 70 ** Chapter 71 ** Chapter 72
Book IV: Decline from the peak
Chapter 73 ** Chapter 74 ** Chapter 75 ** Chapter 76 ** Chapter 77 ** Chapter 78 ** Chapter 79 ** Chapter 80 ** Chapter 81 ** Chapter 82 ** Chapter 83 ** Chapter 84 ** Chapter 85 ** Chapter 86 ** Chapter 87 ** Chapter 88 ** Chapter 89 ** Chapter 90 ** Chapter 91 ** Chapter 92
Book V: Return to trueness
Chapter 93 ** Chapter 94 ** Chapter 95 ** Chapter 96 ** Chapter 97 ** Chapter 98 ** Chapter 99 ** Chapter 100 ** Chapter 101 ** Chapter 102 ** Chapter 103 ** Chapter 104 ** Chapter 105 ** Chapter 106 ** Chapter 107 ** Chapter 108
Finale
Chapter 109
The intro/summary to Liu Yao: "Cheng Qian, the second son of his family, has a cold and harsh personality due to his parents' negligence. He is prepared to settle with the fate of being an unremarkable second child to pass the days. However, his parents, whose eyes are blinded by money, sell him to a cloud-riding cultivator. He is forced to join the fraudulent path of cultivation from then on. From ancient times, there likely have been many cultivators who ascended to immortality, but his sect has declined with an unreliable master and questionable disciples, with his most senior brother being a genius in making troubles. It can be said that his cultivation path has an uncertain future"
Secondly, a few background details that may be of interest to you (I will confess I mostly scribble from the notes of the Vietnamese translator. I only recognise a few of these).
About the title, Liu Yao (六爻) is a divination method. The procedure is as follows: you cast three coins at the same time, and do it six times. Each time of casting is a yao, and a full outcome of six castings is a gua (卦) - which will tell you about the future of what you want to consult about (personal health, family, even the fate of a nation) by showing how yin-yang acts and transforms via the heads or tails of the coins.
The underlying philosophy is that gua refers to the I-Ching's hexagrams (and each line of such a hexagram is called a yao), and roughly speaking, a gua of the I-Ching describes a state of being for the subject you want to study/predict (in mdzs, "Huan" in Lan Huan is the name of the 59th gua ䷺, which represents dispersion/separation and generally not a result you'd want to see). By casting the coins, you generate a line in the hexagram - repeating six times and you have the hexagram that tells you the movements of the future.
As the title indicates, the coins and fortune telling play a pretty important role in the plot of the story.
In chapter 8, you'll encounter the five forms/sets of the Fuyao Sect's sword style. The names of these forms are also the names of the five books of the story, and together, they describe the ups and downs of a person's life according to the Taoist perspective. They are (I use the name of the translation from Chinese):
鹏程万里 - The roc/eagle crosses ten thousand miles (the eagle/hawk is sometimes used as metaphor for a youth's ambition)
上下求索 - Seek and pursue (Vietnamese translation: Search everywhere)
事与愿违 - Backfire (Vietnamese translation: Not according to wish)
盛极而衰 - Decline from prosperity (Vietnamese translation: The peak is the start of the decline)
返璞归真 - Return to trueness
Azure Dragon is one of the four Sacred Beasts that correspond to the four cardinal directions: Azure Dragon of the East, Vermilion Bird of the South, White Tiger of the West, and Black Tortoise of the North (some version has Golden Dragon for the Centre). The colours in the names of the Beasts represent the corresponding directions, and are also the colours of the five elements: azure for wood, vermilion for fire, white for metal, and black for water (and gold for earth), so the Beasts are associated with the elements as such too.
Thirdly, the chapters translated by me:
Book II: Seek and pursue
Chapter 35 ** Chapter 36 ** Chapter 37 ** Chapter 38 ** Chapter 39 ** Chapter 40 ** Chapter 41 ** Chapter 42 ** Chapter 43 ** Chapter 44 ** Chapter 45 ** Chapter 46 ** Chapter 47 ** Chapter 48
Book III: Not according to wish
Chapter 49 ** Chapter 50 ** Chapter 51 ** Chapter 52 ** Chapter 53 ** Chapter 54 ** Chapter 55 ** Chapter 56 ** Chapter 57 ** Chapter 58 ** Chapter 59 ** Chapter 60 ** Chapter 61 ** Chapter 62 ** Chapter 63 ** Chapter 64 ** Chapter 65 ** Chapter 66 ** Chapter 67 ** Chapter 68 ** Chapter 69 ** Chapter 70 ** Chapter 71 ** Chapter 72
Book IV: Decline from the peak
Chapter 73 ** Chapter 74 ** Chapter 75 ** Chapter 76 ** Chapter 77 ** Chapter 78 ** Chapter 79 ** Chapter 80 ** Chapter 81 ** Chapter 82 ** Chapter 83 ** Chapter 84 ** Chapter 85 ** Chapter 86 ** Chapter 87 ** Chapter 88 ** Chapter 89 ** Chapter 90 ** Chapter 91 ** Chapter 92
Book V: Return to trueness
Chapter 93 ** Chapter 94 ** Chapter 95 ** Chapter 96 ** Chapter 97 ** Chapter 98 ** Chapter 99 ** Chapter 100 ** Chapter 101 ** Chapter 102 ** Chapter 103 ** Chapter 104 ** Chapter 105 ** Chapter 106 ** Chapter 107 ** Chapter 108
Finale
Chapter 109
