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[ENG] The exam questions explained

By yifeisong4

For those who are confused about the various exam questions in game, I am here to explain some of them in depths.

Award

Created by

yifeisong4
Online

Category: Gameplay Basics, Secrets, Story or Lore

Languages: English

Posted

Updated

3 Dec, 2023 @ 11:13pm

5 Dec, 2023 @ 7:46am

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Guide Index

Overview

Why do I create this guide

Word riddles

Tutorial - Nameless Village girl

The muted old lady in Daliang City

Chinese Couplets

Cai Youzhi - The young master of the Confucius Temple sect (Unfinished)

Daliang School Headmaster

WIP

Comments

Why do I create this guide

I have played many fun RPG games, like P5R, KOEI games and even HOI4 (Yes! HOI4 is RPG and Gal-game SHHHHH), however, I have seen many translations that vaguely conveys what the original thing was, or straight-up lose the original meanings.

When it comes to Chinese Wuxia genre, it pains me so much, as Mandarin and English speaker, to see that some of the trivia and quizzes become frustrating and just undoable for English-only players. If you are the ones that are actually interested in why the answers are like so, well, I will try my best to explain everything to you.

PLEASE go to the existing guide for all answers if you do not wish to see the explanations!!

Word riddles

First up, the word riddles. Make absolutely no sense in English? Here is your quick lecture 'Chinese word riddles 101':

The answer to a word riddle is always a word (how surprising), and in Mandarin, that is 1 Chinese character. The reasoning as to how to derive at the character may vary:

it might be the literal meaning, e.g. (this is horrible) lizard respires --> dragon-breath,

or it can be addition or subtraction of characters, e.g. (please don't make me do this any more) a plot of earth --> island (is land),

and it can be something just intuitive, e.g. ABCDEFGHJKLMN --> Iran

To sum it up, if you start to get a hang of it, then honestly I feel like these riddles are easier to understand than a shiddy pun.

The question can differ a lot. E.g. the little girl in the starting Nameless Village gives out the most generic word riddles, nothing special at all, whereas the muted old lady in Daliang always gives riddles that consist of 4 Chinese characters. You might think this is very cliches, well, some might think this gives the extra VIBEs just like all the language techniques in Shakespearean Sonnets.

Tutorial - Nameless Village girl

First example: Subtraction then Addition

Second example: Subtraction

Last example: Subtraction

The muted old lady in Daliang City

The characters highlighted in red are the ones crucial in solving the riddle.

Conclusion:
Hopefully by now, you start to understand why a question like 'January 7th' has an answer of 'Fat', which is simply absurd. And it would make me happy if you begin to understand and appreciate the beauty of word riddles after my explanation. Time to move on!

Chinese Couplets

The basic idea of a Chinese couplet is simple - the synonyms and the antonyms. Quick examples, sun to moon, river to lakes, sky to ground, bird singing to flower blooming, stealthing dragon to crouching tigers, then you work all the way up to the epitome of Jinyong Wuxia couplets, like

琴瑟琵琶，八大王一般头面
to
鸡鸭鹅鸽，四小鸟都蛮好吃
魑魅魍魉，四小鬼各自肚肠

Note that in each character of 琴瑟琵琶, there are 2 of the characters 王, which totals to 八大王 (8 high kings), and 琴，瑟，琵琶 are all traditional Chinese instruments, this corresponds to:
魑魅魍魉, there is 1 of 鬼, that sums up to 四小鬼 (4 little devils) whereas all characters in fact represents a different devil in Chinese Mythology.

八大王vs四小鬼, they all begin with a number, 8 to 4, then it's big to small and king to devil. The easy and boring way to look at this is if you have an adjective in the first half of the couplet, then there must be an adjective that is either the synonym or antonym to the first adjective to make up a good couplet.

Finally, 一般头面vs各自肚肠, first two characters mean 'all the same' to 'have their own', but the last two characters mean 'looks (on the outside)' to 'minds (plots for something)'

The best of the best about this couplet is the context: In She Diao (The legend of the Condor Heroes), the female main protagonist Huang Rong replied with the second half of the couplet to four followers of the Southern Emperor, which is being satirical and calling them the 四小鬼, 4 little devils, and stating that 各自肚肠, they are all plotting something on their own.

Cai Youzhi - The young master of the Confucius Temple sect (Unfinished)

ALL the questions that this dude asks you originate from some ancient Chinese poetry (Shi) or 'sonnets' (Ci). Before I get into the poetry section, here is a quick glance at some of the differences between these two:

Poems are rigid - they always have a fixed style. One clause in a poem is mostly 5/7 syllabus (Chinese characters) long, and a typical poem has 4/6/8 clauses. For consistency, a 5-syllabus poem should only have clauses that are 5 syllabus long, vice versa. The structure is generally AA,BB for a 4-clause poem, then CC and DD if the poem is 6/8 clauses long. Selecting any two clauses in a set (A1,A2 or B1,B2, etc) makes a couplet!

'Sonnets' are more free - even for most Chinese people, there are just way too many structures to remember. The sonnets are written in clauses of varying length ranging from 3-9 syllabus, and a sonnet can have a lot of clauses in a stanza. Thus, a couplet in a Sonnet can be very difficult even to native Chinese and the best bet for English-only players is to guess from the emotions, atmosphere or context of the text. (But often due to poor translation, the text makes no sense at all...) Additionally, just like the Shakespearean sonnets, the Chinese sonnets are written to be sung or performed during an opera, so maybe some music sense can save you in these type of questions :)

Lucky for you, Cai Youzhi only has couplets from poems, which is easier by far...
Part 1:

Daliang School Headmaster

A special shout-out to Der Baron who collected all the in-game questions and answers in English of this section for me! Much appreciated!

Now back to the couplets, what makes the headmaster in Daliang different from Cai from the earlier section, is that many of his couplets are not necessarily from poetry. The patterns of Chinese couplets I mentioned earlier are more apparent in his questions. Let's see if you can grasp this, perhaps with my translation and comments:

WIP

More contents incoming, hopefully soon...

16 Comments

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slowtowin 15 Nov, 2024 @ 3:04pm

Quite some questions from Cai YouZhi are from modern novelists like 梁羽生.

Dillon 9 Apr, 2024 @ 7:09pm

A tiger drinks a cup and gets drunk in the mountains
~No money for three years of sobriety~

Honorable and yet different
The petty man agrees but does not harmonize

he who knows others is wise, he who knows himself is enlightened
the one who overcomes others is strong...

persist and give up, rotten wood will not break
With daily accumulation even an iron rod can be ground into a needle

If the year is not cold you won't know the strength of pine and cypress
If you don't sweep your own house...

Having ten good horses is not as good as having one bole
Gaining ten good sowrds is not as good as gaining a blacksmith

Under the fragrant bait, there must be a hanging fish
In the beauty's scheme there are often hidden plots

Dillon 9 Apr, 2024 @ 7:08pm

Man follows the earth, earth follows the heaven
The way of heaven is the way of nature

One flower, one buddha, one world
Three times of meditation, three times of ...

Among men a fine horse can gallop a thousand miles
~brave mans heart never ages~
~I can go anywhere in the world~

a tree as big as a man's embrace grows from a tiny shoot
a thousand mile journey begins with a single step

a big belly can tolerate things that the world cannot tolerate
laugh at those who are laughable in the world with a word

actions without shame under heaven and earth
praise and criticism have their own seasons

Ask the green ox
~whatever with question?~
~the waters come from heaven~
~for there is a source of living water~

Dillon 9 Apr, 2024 @ 7:08pm

Here are the ones I collected, theses ~ones~ are the wrong answers

Ideal not to enjoy the sweet wine
~the future~

The sea is wide for fish to leap
The sky is high for birds to fly

Blue mountain does not in a thousand autumn paintings
~the morning glow~

East South West North
Spring summer autumn winter

Peace is originally set by the general
~thousand bones~

All mountains are paintings
Without water there is no literature

Three religions nine schools of thought all return to the great path
~words earnest and sincere~

Good books are not tired of reading and re-reading
~savor the wine and food~
~squandered fortunes~

Ask the green ox who rode away
~where does immortal wander~

Sound of wind rain and reading enters the ears
~relative lovers~

Clouds mindlessly emerge from the mountains
~mountains are flat~

Destined to meet from a thousand miles
People who are destined to meet will not meet