Zhangjiakou (a prefecture-level city in Hebei, China)

good advice may be uncomfortable to hear

dead men tell no tales / It is easy to pass the buck to the dead because they can not defend themselves.

an orbicularis oris muscle

falter, mumble

(folklore) a yokai resembling a woman with a mouth that is slit from ear to ear

“a hundred days of sermonizing, one fart” → a metaphor for how something that one has put great effort into can come to nothing after even a slight mistake, much as a hundred days of serious spiritual study can be lost to the winds

Beneath sweet words lurks venom.