Hello! First of all, I'd like to thank you for all your thorough explanations and translations of the Chinese in CQL! As a history, literary, and linguistics/language nerd, what you do is something I really appreciate! So I feel like you can answer something that I've been curious about for a while, the exact word/meaning of what LWJ often said to WWX during their time at Cloud Recesses: 无聊. I've seen it translated as "boring" and "pathetic," and see that it can also be defined as (1/2)
okay, okay, I started writing an answer to this ask, then scrapped it because it hit 1000 words and kept going with no end in sight, so I’m starting over with what will hopefully become a readable answer and maybe some version of that ask will make its way into a sleep-deprived post in the nebulous future
the way I’ve understood Lan Wangji’s catchphrase has honestly been less a matter of language and more a matter of character. Knowing literary/classical Chinese doesn’t really give you a leg up, here; 无聊 wuliao certainly has different meanings (completely different meanings oh my god) in classical contexts, but none of them are really applicable in any of the dialogue in CQL.
Colloquially, in modern Mandarin? 无聊 wuliao definitely means boring. I use it to mean boring. My friends use it to mean boring. Lan Wangji certainly uses it to mean boring. 无 wu means to lack, or lacking. 聊 liao, in this case, is (probably? maybe? I know so little about anything that happens after 200 CE?) being read in its modern vernacular usage of 聊天 liaotian, to chat, gossip, shoot the shit, etc. Literally, 无聊 wuliao would translate as “nothing to talk about,” which is a quick and easy trip and fall into “boring.”
But if you take that literal meaning and stretch it to fit different situations (as Lan Wangji absolutely does), it can be a declaration of judgment – “not worth talking about.” So for Wei Wuxian, who’s constantly trying to get a rise out of Lan Wangji, calling his increasingly more ridiculous actions 无聊 wuliao / not worth talking about/commenting on/responding to is really just egging him on.
tl;dr 无聊 wuliao is a binome that primarily means ‘boring’ but can become an all-purpose dismissal of someone’s actions and words, so it can easily take on the valences of ‘senseless’ or ‘silly’ or ‘dumb.’
It’s my personal understanding of Lan Wangji’s character that he was raised with more books for company than kids his own age, so the way he speaks is highly inflected with a literary register (seriously, it’s like he grew up learning how to talk from a book rather than a normal human). Someone like Wei Wuxian is so unprecedented in his life that he doesn’t really know how else to respond to Wei Wuxian, so even when it doesn’t make sense – for example, when Wei Wuxian offers to carry him on the Xuanwu hunt and Lan Wangji just rejects him with a terse 无聊 wuliao, I don’t think Lan Wangji actually means what he says, literally or figuratively; he just doesn’t know what else to say, and falls back on his script (which is also why Wei Wuxian sees right through him and doubles down on the concern).
Oh but one of my favorite exchanges in the entire show ends with 无聊 wuliao as the punchline! In episode 8, when Wei Wuxian catches up to Lan Wangji and basically handcuffs them together with one of his talismans, we get this:
Wei Wuxian: 这是我自创的符咒， 能让人无法离你两丈之远。怎么样？好不好玩儿？/ This is a talisman I invented myself – it makes it so that no one can move more than four meters away from you. How is it? Isn’t it interesting?
Lan Wangji: [turns away with the most exasperated deadpan oh my god]
Wei Wuxian: 要我给它取个什么名字好呢？是同袍？还是无衣好啊？… 我看都不好。要不然叫它… / If I were to name it, what kind of name would be good? Should it be ‘comrades-in-arms?’ Or… ‘penniless and shirtless?’ … I see, none of those are good. How about I call it…
Lan Wangji: 无聊。/ Boring. [yanks on the string and bodily drags Wei Wuxian after him]
There’s actually a great deal of punnery happening here: Wei Wuxian suggests both 同袍 tongpao and 无衣 wuyi as names; the former, literally means “the same robes” and the latter, literally means “unclothed.” You get from these literal meanings to their translated meanings by:
同袍 tongpao –> lit. ‘the same robes’ –> derives from battlefield anecdotes of soldiers who became so close on the front lines that they would share their clothes with each other in the winter/in hard times, insert heteronormative discourse about male camaraderie here –> ‘comrades-in-arms’
无衣 wuyi –> lit. ‘unclothed’ –> becomes a shorthand for someone who is so poor that they literally have no clothes
Wei Wuxian both of these have to do with a lack of clothing where is your head at you salacious truant
The wordplay, here, happens between 无衣 wuyi and 无聊 wuliao since they both share their first character. In a sense, Lan Wangji is beating Wei Wuxian at his own game of punnery, since the name he suggests both adheres to the (unofficial) rules of a pithy, two-character name for Wei Wuxian’s new talisman, and also roasts the everloving heck out of Wei Wuxian.
(I’m going to end this ask here, but you mentioned Lan Wangji’s ‘poetically concise’ speech, which I have MANY thoughts and feelings on, I’m not ignoring that part, stay tuned!)
