Special note: Don't be scared, dear readers! These supposedly difficult characters actually appear only occasionally in the book; even if you don't know them, they won't affect your reading at all! Just treat this as a bit of fun-I dare put my hand on the Tao Te Ching and swear to that :)
◆ Difficult characters at a glance (being updated...):
Character names-Qiong Rong (Rong: róng), Xiao Mang (Mang: máng).
Onomatopoeia—huò: in Immortal Road, these are all used to describe surging, rushing waters and waves crashing against one another.
Rare characters and expressions-wind (xùn): one of the Eight Trigrams, representing wind; bamboo mat (diàn): a bamboo mat; to slay (jí): to slay; hot (yù): hot; late (yín) night: late at night; to exempt (juan) from obligations: to exempt; to overstep (jian) one's station: to overstep one's station; spirit writing (ji): a form of divination; prophetic (chèn) utterance: an unwitting utterance foretelling a future (bad) event; to lower (fu) one's head: to lower one's head; cross-legged (fu) sitting: to sit with one's legs crossed; free (xiao) and unrestrained: free and unrestrained; to fly slowly and leisurely (fenpo): to fly slowly and leisurely; to pace back and forth (chìchù): to pace back and forth; to hesitate (zhízhú): to hesitate without moving forward; to wander back and forth (dié, xiè): to wander back and forth; deep and distant (yao): deep and distant; to droop (duo): to droop; narrow-eyed (mie) sidelong glance: to glance sideways through narrowed eyes.
Pictographic characters—na gi: calm winds and still waves (a Japanese kanji); weng: a clear, cloudless sky; jí: the same as jí, “to gather.” Note: in Immortal Road, only the visual forms of the characters in this entry are used for certain descriptions.
◆ Traditional and modern time equivalents:
[Earthly branch] [Month] [Time]
Zi 11th month 23:00-01:00
Chou 12th month 01:00-03:00
Yin 1st month 03:00-05:00
Mao 2nd month 05:00-07:00
Chen 3rd month 07:00-09:00
Si 4th month 09:00-11:00
Wu 5th month 11:00-13:00
Wei 6th month 13:00-15:00
Shen 7th month 15:00-17:00
You 8th month 17:00-19:00
Xu 9th month 19:00-21:00
Hai 10th month 21:00-23:00
◆ Currency conversions:
The commonly used historical calculation is adopted:
One tael of gold = 16 taels of silver
One tael of silver = 1,000 copper coins
Silver was also called "white gold."
◆ Length conversions:
1 zhang ≈ 3.3 meters.
Definitions varied across dynasties:
Han dynasty: 1 zhang ≈ 2.492 meters; Song dynasty: 1 zhang ≈ 3.161 meters; Ming dynasty: 1 zhang ≈ 2.9 meters.
◆ Miscellaneous:
More to be added...
Note: this section is intended solely to make reading easier and help readers better understand the book's contents, so it includes only information actually relevant to the text. Readers are welcome to ask in the book reviews about background details or rare characters they would like to understand while reading Immortal Road. I will do my best to update this section with answers.
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