Got some new books today, all from my favorite wuxia author, Yun Zhongyue 雲中岳. The one with the pink cover pictured below is a collection of three novellas. It’s the fourth in a series of six novella collections from Yun Zhongyue. I’ve got them all now except the last one. It was published in 1981, though I suspect the individual novellas probably first appeared in wuxia magazines before being collected here (though I’m not sure).

The other two are really two parts of one novel. The one with the blue title is Sea of Swords, Waves of Emotion《劍海情濤》, and the one with the red title is its continuation, Bloody Sword, Thoroughwort Heart《血劍蘭心》. The latter is not a sequel but simply the second part of the novel repackaged to look like a sequel. It was all originally published as one book, under the former’s name, Sea of Swords. It was originally published April 1963 and is Yun Zhongyue’s debut novel. These pictured here are reprints from the 90s.

Fun fact about thoroughwort, which is what I translated for 蘭/兰, lan. Usually this is translated as orchid, which is what it does usually refer to nowadays. However, 蘭 didn’t begin to be used for orchid until the Song dynasty. Before that it referred to 蘭草, aka thoroughwort, aka Eupatorium fortunei or Eupatorium japonicum. It has fragrant flowers, and classic idioms and phrases using this word, such as 金蘭之交 (lit. intermingling of gold and thoroughwort, i.e sworn brotherhood/intimate friendship), are referencing thoroughwort, not orchid.

In the title Bloody Sword, Thoroughwort Heart, “thoroughwort heart” means a woman’s refined character. Thorougwort, according to A Student’s Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese, is “often symbolic of purity of character, redolent integrity.” So there you go. If you ever find yourself translating, say, a Tang dynasty poem, and you run across 蘭, it’s not orchid.

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