The Transmigrated Li Jin's Daily Farming Life (Translated With Mtl)

Chapter 2

(I haven’t edited this yet, sorry o3o)

Li Jin just looked at the first person who spoke, he did not obtain the original owner’s memory and didn’t even know what the person’s name was.

Li Jin asked, “What you said before, anyone who solves this xiangqi move for you, you will give an old hen and ten eggs as a thank you gift, does it count?”

The man’s name was Li Daniu, a good plowman in the village. He doesn’t have any other bad habits, but he likes to play chess with the people in the village after plowing. [tl: Daniu (大牛) means big cow.]

Li Daniu was so strong that he didn’t even need to rent the village chief’s ox cart when plowing the land, he could plow all the land by himself. [tl: Li Daniu’s name is probably a nickname because of this, not his actual birth name.]

This way, he could save a lot of money every year.

Moreover, when he lost in chess, he was willing to gamble and plow the land for others.

Although Li Daniu was willing accept his loss and plowed the land for the person who won the chess game without charging any money, the family would still be very grateful to him and would give his family some chickens and ducks.

In addition, Li Daniu never gambled or drank wine, so his family was well-off, and now he was giving away a chicken. [tl: his family can afford to give a chicken away, basically]

Li Daniu usually despised and looked down on Li Jin. , he felt that Li Jin was an expert in his field.

He felt that Li Jin was a person with ‘eyes high and hands low’. He used to say that he would study for the scholars’ exam, but he hadn’t seen any results after so many years. [tl: “eyes high and hands low” (眼高手低) describes someone who boasts about doing something grand or unrealistic, but has no ability to do it or is too lazy to do it]

In the end, he even followed the example of a ‘romantic and elegant gentleman’, and with a lot of money, and threw away all of his family’s fortune. [tl: I’m not entirely sure what “romantic and elegant gentleman”(风流雅士) means. I think it means he follows the stereotype of a rich and educated young master: squandering money on trivial things, being overly generous, gambling, drinking, etc.]

If it wasn’t for his mother’s decision before her death to buy him a ‘brother’ back as a wife, who knows where this man would have died off too.

But after all, Li Jin had read books, and Li Daniu thought that this person might really know how to solve this chess move!

Li Daniu patted his chest with a dang dang sound.

“The words that come out of my, Li Daniu’s, mouth are naturally a spit and a nail, I would never go back on my word.” [tl: “a spit and a nail”(一个唾沫一个钉) is equivalent to saying “my words are golden”; once spoken, they can never be taken back]

Li Jin saw that the onlookers didn’t rebut Li Daniu, so that meant that this man was usually quite trustworthy.

Without saying a word, he lifted the hem of his robe and squatted down, directly picking up Li Daniu’s ‘advisor’ and eating the opposite ‘pawn’. [tl: “eat” also means “capture”, if you use the western chess term. The “advisor” (士 Shì) is a piece on the black side. The “pawn” (卒Zú) is a piece on the red side. Note that in xiangqi, the pieces have the same basic roles, but are labeled differently.]

It turned out that this move had already reached an impasse, and the ‘pawns’ on the opposite side were about to surround the ‘general’ on Li Daniu’s side.