What If Jia Baoyu Took Xue Baochai's Medicine?

An odd hypothetical

What If Jia Baoyu Took Xue Baochai’s Medicine?

Yesterday’s translation post featured this sort of bizarre incident:

寶釵想了想，說：「是了，是我早起吃了冷香丸的香氣。」寶玉笑道：「什麼『冷香丸』？這麼好聞！好姐姐，給我一丸嚐嚐呢。」寶釵笑道：「又混鬧了。一個藥也是混吃的？」

Baochai thought for a moment. “I know,” she said, finally. “It must be the scent from the Cold Fragrance Pills I took this morning.”

“What ‘Cold Fragrance Pills?’” asked Baoyu with a laugh. “They smell wonderful! Please let me taste one.”

“You’re being absurd again,” replied Baochai with a laugh. “How can you recklessly eat medicine like that?”

The English verb “recklessly” is supposed to represent the Chinese adverb 混 here. 混 implies doing something thoughtlessly or casually as an adverb; as a verb, however, it means something like “mix” or “blend.”

And, yeah, Chinese can be difficult like this - especially older forms of Chinese. While the prospect of words that can be verbs, adverbs, nouns, or adjectives depending on the context might be intriguing to masochistic linguists, it really makes life difficult for translators.

Anyway - the reason why it’s “reckless” of Jia Baoyu to eat random medicine isn’t because Xue Baochai is delivering an anti-drug message. It’s because this medicine is actually an integral part of Xue Baochai’s character.

So what would happen if Jia Baoyu actually did take her medicine?