[translation] Mysterious Lotus Casebook Letter (post-canon)

[halfcactus]

A letter that comes with MLC merch.

Edit: llonkrebboj has also translated the whole thing, and it lines up with what was in my head (except "生死兩不知" which I never could figure out how to read):
https://llonkrebboj.tumblr.com/post/733674684236906496/time-to-practice-recognizing-my-traditional

Letter text (+ an English translation by umichii):
https://umichii.tumblr.com/post/733464073348481025/wait-youre-right-thats-definitely-li-lianhua-in


Tbh this is just a way of organizing my thoughts because I wanted to
1) add some personal notes
2) have the transcribed text on the same page (because the picture on Tumblr is rotated 90 degrees.......)
3) keep using this space for personal documentation (yay non-rebloggable posts)

And it's just easier to try to retranslate the whole thing myself first rather than jump in with little comments I can't contextualize. (And anyway umichii and I have very different readings of the text lololol.)

!!!! WARNING: MLC ENDING SPOILERS

總有人問我 李蓮花還活著嗎
於是我問他 你會如何想起他
是會想起他紅衣白馬一劍名天下
還是他少年隕落
一別江湖後的十年破碎和掙扎
是會心痛他尋覓一生到頭全是假
還是他心似郎月赤心如昨
卻也身陷淤泥困於這世間渾濁
是他身拖殘軀行將就木
寬宥所有卻不肯自贖
還是他至死不忘年少路
為見眾生 不問歸途
英雄歸山海 泣血見扁舟
生死兩不知 一夢隔春秋
願君埋名身健康
十年再遇蓮花樓
歸來仍是江湖客
一劍驚羨全九州

Disclaimer and notes:

Usual disclaimers - this is more of a reading exercise than an actual translation one + my CN is a work in progress so I often get things wrong ahaha but corrections are OK

This letter kind of rhymes haha?


總有人問我 李蓮花還活著嗎
於是我問他 你會如何想起他
People are always asking me, Is Li Lianhua still alive?
And so I ask them, How will you remember him?

是會想起他紅衣白馬一劍名天下
還是他少年隕落
一別江湖後的十年破碎和掙扎
Will you remember him for his red robes and white horse, for the name he carved for himself with his sword?
Or will you remember a young man gone too soon^[1],
broken and floundering in those ten years after leaving the jianghu?


是會心痛他尋覓一生到頭全是假
還是他心似郎月赤心如昨
卻也身陷淤泥困於這世間渾濁
Will your heart ache because all that he pursued for a lifetime was nothing but a lie?
Or because he whose pure-heartedness remains as unchanged as the bright moon
was nevertheless ensnared in the mud and silt of the troubled world? ^[2]

是他身拖殘軀行將就木
寬宥所有卻不肯自贖
還是他至死不忘年少路
為見眾生 不問歸途
Was it that he dragged the shell of his broken body towards its grave,
forgiving everything but not allowing himself redemption?

Or did he until his dying breath keep the path he walked in his youth in sight,
foregoing the road home in favor of encounters with other lives?


英雄歸山海 泣血見扁舟
生死兩不知 一夢隔春秋
At last, the hero returns to the mountains and seas; the grieving heart ^[3] finds a boat
Life and death are indeterminable, seasons separated by a dream

願君埋名身健康 十年再遇蓮花樓
Wishing you a buried name, a healthy body,
A reunion with Lotus Tower ten years hence

歸來仍是江湖客 一劍驚羨全九州
Ever the wanderer returning to the jianghu^[4],
Ever the swordsman instilling wonder all over the Nine Regions<sup>[5]


1</sup>: As per umichii's note on Tumblr: 隕落 describes the way a meteorite falls, so it’s also used as an euphemism for someone famous dying.<sup>⏎ back

2</sup>: The image of sincerity being trapped in the problems of the mud and silt of the world calls to my mind the titular lotus flower (purity amid suffering + a symbol for Li Lianhua). I read the line to mean him being as pure-hearted/sincere as he was in the past, like the bright moon (which, incidentally, the show explicitly uses as a symbol for Li Xiangyi), which I thought went well with the lines about him never forgetting the path he walked in his youth. <sup>⏎ back

3</sup>: lit. to cry blood—an expression of grief<sup>⏎ back

4</sup>: “When you return, you’re still the jianghu guest/traveler”<sup>⏎ back

5</sup>: An old way of referring to China, before the concept of China existed.^{⏎ back}