So… the second half of this chapter is quite interesting, in a way that I don’t think I can properly translate into English, although I tried, so into the notes it goes.

The dialogue between Lai Junchen and Zhou Xing is very formal, but unlike his conversation with General Lang in chapter 136, Lai Junchen isn’t acting like he’s talking to an equal but rather acting almost as a subordinate. Technically, Zhou Xing is probably of a slightly higher rank than Lai Junchen (by a grade, maybe two? It’s a little unclear), but also the Censorate doesn’t answer to the Department of State Affairs. The Censorate specifically exists to be outside of the other governmental bodies to oversee them. Just for comparison, Lai Junchen is of a similar rank to Li Bing, while Zhou Xing is of a similar rank or lower to Minister Xu - and this is nothing like how Li Bing talks to Minister Xu (of course, Minister Xu is… a special case, but still). There is a personal connection here, so I felt it possible to have Lai Junchen call Zhou Xing “master” even though in the original text he just used the official title. I feel like that change compensates a little for all that had to be lost in translation, but I honestly second-guessed myself a lot here, haha. A lot of it is interpretation and reading between the lines, so I might have been too hasty.