This talk aims to debunk the simplified linear thinking that perceives translation as an untroubled process from the source text to the target text. It will focus on the English translation of Yan Geling’s Thirteen Hairpins of Jinling (2005) (translated as The Flowers of War), a case where the source text is not published and has thus remained unknown. The original short novella has undergone a chain of translations—a film adaptation (2011), a Chinese novel (2011), a longer English novella (2012) and a TV series (2014). In this talk, I will use sociological approaches and identify a commercial translation network enacted by the film adaptation operating on the English translation. Moreover, I will analyze how the female experience of the original story is conveyed in the translation through the mediation of the film adaptation. I will argue that the agency of the commercial network tends to perpetuate a gender discourse which downplays female voices in translation.