Why translating The Captivating Crown Prince is a pain in the butt

Well, time for some whining… Although I highly enjoy the story, it’s a real pain to translate.

Reason 1: Just look at this:

两人一人冷酷是个战神一人温柔是个贵公子，不论是身份还是容貌都是万里挑一的人，再加上两人的身份和能力这京城里觊觎两人的女子不知道有多少，但两人却从来不多看一眼，到后来竟然有传言将军府的冷将军和丞相府的幻公子竟然是断袖，两人当时听到后大怒，但后来想着若是这样能够让那些女子离的远些也好，所以就没有澄清任由流言流传，而且他们心里也觉得他们不会如同平常人一样爱上一个女子所以从没有考虑过婚姻大事，导致了现在两人只要在一起就会收到众多女子痛苦的眼神。

That is all one bloody sentence. Holy run-on!! Have mercy! This is not just one or two cases. It’s pretty much the norm with this novel. Just the part I put in bold alone could make a sentence with three clauses. Seeing so many characters clumped together is panic inducing for me. Sigh…

Compare it with a typical paragraph from Chongfei Manual:

原來他都知道，他在知道的情況還跟她生活了那麼久，他心里一直是怎麼想她的？柳氏只覺得臉上火辣辣的，又羞又憤。難怪這麼多年他一直對她不冷不熱，他們只有魏一個孩子，每當她提出想再要一個時，他總興致缺缺。不是他對房事不感興趣，而是他對她不感興趣。

Isn’t it so neat and tidy? Small chunks, smaller sentences. Bliss…

Reason 2: When it gets poetically descriptive. I really need to cut some things out due to them not fitting in a normal English sentence structure, or because they’re so lame, I just can’t… And because some words just don’t work in English. Don’t worry though, I’m a stickler for preserving meaning, so the cutting is minimal…

Example, describing someone’s face as a deity having carved it with a knife and shaped (or whatever verb) with a cleaver. Can you see why I would simply say a chiseled face as if carved by a deity? I hope people won’t mind me doing this, because my brain would really die otherwise. Or another example: twinkling eyes like stars, embedded (the way one would embed jewels) on an outstanding/jade (treasure-like) face. Sigh… I admit, I really half-ass it through half of these descriptions because I would rather not spend 20 minutes scratching my head over them.

The only reason I get motivated for this novel is my f*ing libido. All those cute guys~ Phew, got this rant off my chest.