Top Scholar

Chapter 13 Going into the Woods
"Banana leaf?" Su Tai walked over and touched the lush green banana leaf; each leaf was taller and wider than him. "Can you write on this thing?"

“I can’t say for sure either, but there’s a story in the book called ‘Huaisu’s Banana Leaf Calligraphy.’” Su Lu pulled a sickle from his basket and said, “It’s about the Tang Dynasty monk Huaisu, who loved calligraphy but was too poor to afford paper, so he practiced calligraphy on banana leaves and eventually became a master of cursive script.”

"What is meant by 'the Sage of Grass'?" Su Tai asked, puzzled.

“It’s someone whose cursive script is so masterful that it’s almost divine,” Su Lu replied.

"Is it called cursive script because he writes on banana leaves?" Su Tai asked again.

“Uh…” Su Lu couldn’t help but smile wryly: “Although banana leaves are indeed grass, cursive script is a style of writing, not words written on grass.”

"I see, Qiu-ge'er is learning more and more." Su Tai finally understood. He took the sickle from Su Lu's hand again, not letting him use it: "Your hands are for writing, let me do it."

After saying that, he quickly cut off a few banana leaves, then held the thick leaf stalk with one hand and pressed the connection between the leaf and the stalk with the other. He twisted it twice and then pulled, separating the entire leaf stalk.

"Second brother, is there anything you can't do?" Su Lu stared in disbelief.

Su Tai deftly ripped off all the leaf stalks, then rolled up the leaves, stuffed them into his basket, and grinned sheepishly, saying, "I can't read."

"So what? You can become the top martial arts scholar in the future, and that will be just as prestigious!" Su Lu hurriedly said.

"Hehe, taking the martial arts exam costs even more money." Su Tai smiled bitterly, weighed the heavy basket on his back, and said, "It's full, I can't put any more in. Let's go home."

"Okay." Su Lu nodded. He was exhausted after wandering around in the mountains for a long time.

~~
Going down the mountain was much easier than going up. The two brothers chatted and laughed for a short while before returning to the arrow bamboo forest.

After passing through the bamboo forest, we arrived at the fork in the road we had come from before.

"I wonder if my uncle has gone back yet?" Su Lu couldn't suppress his curiosity.

"Shh." Su Tai put his finger to his lips, signaling him to listen carefully.

Su Lu perked up his ears and, sure enough, heard faint sobbing coming from the grove. He whispered, "Is Uncle crying?"

“It looks like a woman.” Sutai shook his head.

"Let's go take a look." Now even the Heavenly King himself couldn't stop Su Lu.

Sutai quickly followed.

The two walked a few steps eastward, and the crying became clearer and clearer, indeed coming from the dove tree grove ahead.

The two brothers crouched low and tiptoed closer to the scene. Finally, they saw their uncle's back behind a large dove tree.

"Is it really my uncle crying?" Su Tai was taken aback.

"Let's try a different angle." Su Lu, however, was experienced and moved with Su Tai to another tree, where they could see their uncle's profile.

You can also see a petite figure, her head buried in his chest, her shoulders shaking with sobs; clearly, this is the one who was crying.

“It’s that woman crying,” Su Tai said seriously. “But she’s wearing men’s clothes, so she could also be effeminate.”

"..." Su Lu was speechless for a moment. It turned out that his second brother was even more gossipy than he was.

Unfortunately, to avoid being discovered, the two brothers hid far away and couldn't hear what their uncle and the other person were saying.

At this moment, the person looked up, and the gossip guy could finally confirm that it was a beautiful woman, but her eyes were red and swollen, obviously she had been crying for a long time.

~~
"It's her?" Su Tai was stunned when he saw the woman's face.

"Who?" Su Lu asked hurriedly.

"The only daughter of the Cheng family's eldest son, everyone says she's the most beautiful girl in Erlangtan!" Su Tai continued in shock, "How did she end up in my uncle's hair?"

"So our uncle is just a piece of cow dung?" Su Lu pulled a handful of pine nuts from his basket, which he had gathered while chopping pine needles. He gave half to Su Tai and said, "Second brother, you're really underestimating yourself. Does our uncle not deserve the Cheng family's daughter?"

“It’s not a matter of whether we’re a good match or not, it’s that our two families have a history of feuds.” Su Tai sighed as he peeled pine nuts. “This marriage can’t go through, we can’t get past Grandpa’s approval.”

"The Cheng family won't agree either." Su Lu finally understood why his uncle had been beaten up that day. The Cheng family had already made their stance clear through their actions.

As the two were talking, they suddenly heard a series of hurried footsteps and someone shouting outside the woods:

"This time, we can't let that bastard off so easily!"

"It's probably the Cheng family who's here!" Su Lu whispered.

Su Tai nodded; he thought so too.

The uncle over there naturally heard that someone was coming and tried to run away with the Cheng family girl. But in their panic, they bumped into each other.

Su Lu and Su Tai both covered their foreheads in disbelief. Love really does make people stupid...

It was Uncle Cheng who arrived, followed by his six sons and two grandsons. Each of them glared at their uncle with fierce expressions, as if they wanted to devour him.

"Father," the Cheng family girl said timidly.

"Shut up! You've completely disgraced the Cheng family!" The eldest patriarch of the Cheng family glared angrily at the two men's tightly clasped hands. "Let go!!"

The young lady of the Cheng family tried to pull her hand away, but her uncle gripped it even tighter, facing the wrath of the eldest son of the Cheng family and saying, "If you have a problem, come at me, don't yell at Cuicui!"

"I yelled at my daughter, what's it to you?!" The eldest son of the Cheng family was furious, pointing at his uncle and saying, "I warned you, if you dare to bother Cuicui again, I'll break your legs."

He then yelled at his sons, "What are you all standing there for? Go ahead and do it!"

"Really?" his eldest son asked in a low voice. Su Youma was certainly not as good as the man on the roadside, but behind him was the Su family's group of poor and arrogant military households!
"Beat him!" Old Master Cheng roared furiously, "If we don't let him give up on this idea, Cui Cui is finished! She's my only daughter!" "Sigh..." The eldest son of the Cheng family could only wave his hand, and his brothers rolled up their sleeves and stepped forward, ready to teach Uncle Su Lu another lesson.

"Father, don't hit him! Hit me instead!" Cui Cui stretched out her arms, blocking her uncle's path, and said with tears streaming down her face, "I was the one who invited him out. I don't want to marry into the He family!"

"I'll deal with you when we get home! Pull her away from me!" Old Master Cheng gritted his teeth.

~~
The two gossipy brothers were hiding behind a big tree.

Seeing this, Su Tai was about to roll up his sleeves and appear to save the person, but Su Lu grabbed him and whispered, "Brother, don't be impulsive. Let me go out and have a verbal battle with them first. Then you can show up if they start hitting me."

"Do you think they'll listen to you?" Sutai asked, looking at his thirteen-year-old brother.

"I'll give it a try, just in case..." Su Lu smiled at Su Tai, then emerged from behind the tree and shouted, "Stop!"

Everyone in the Cheng family who was breaking up the miserable mandarin ducks over there were all startled. When he saw that it was a child, he couldn't help but became angry and said, "Get out of here, or I'll beat you up too!"

"My second brother has already gone back to fetch people." Su Lu said to the eldest son of the Cheng family, "If you dare to lay a finger on my uncle today, the news of my uncle's affair with your daughter will spread throughout Erlangtan tomorrow. Let's see how you explain that to the He family!"

"You, you shameless brat!" Old Master Cheng recognized him this time—wasn't this the brat who threw the snake at him last time? He trembled with rage and said, "Your family's shameful deeds, and you still have the nerve to spread them around? Bah, despicable!"

"It doesn't matter, we're not the ones who suffer losses anyway." Su Lu chuckled and pouted, "Besides, you're a scholarly family, you have to save face. We're not."

His shameless attitude infuriated the young men of the Cheng family, who all rolled up their sleeves, ready to beat him up.

"I'll beat you up, you son of a bitch!"

"Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai are a perfect match! My uncle and Miss Cheng are a couple!" Su Lu exclaimed, making a move to escape.

"Stop it!" At this moment, the old man of the Cheng family shouted to his sons, and then yelled angrily at Su Lu, who was screaming, "You shut up too!"

He knew things had come to this point; killing the kid wouldn't make a difference. Besides, he couldn't really kill someone...

“That’s more like it.” Su Lu said with a smile, “Let’s talk things out. Fighting all the time is bad for the image of your scholarly family.”

"Your uncle has ruined my family's reputation!" Old Master Cheng was so frustrated he felt like vomiting blood. Last time he caught the two of them having a tryst in the sorghum field, he was almost furious.

Actually, he didn't really want to extort the Su family's land; he wanted to use it to force Su Lu's uncle to separate from his daughter. It was just that this brat ruined everything.

He pondered for a moment with a gloomy expression before saying in a low voice, "I can let your uncle go, but you have to make him swear to cut all ties with my daughter!"

"It can't be stopped, it can't be stopped!" Uncle suddenly roared, startling the birds in the forest into flight.

"We have to break it off, even if we can't!" Old Master Cheng's tone was even louder than his.

“Ugh…” Suddenly, Cui Cui’s face turned ashen, and she bent over and began to dry heave.

Her uncle quickly patted her back...

"Oh ho." Su Lu shrugged, thinking to himself that he shouldn't have gone to so much trouble.

"Did Auntie eat mushrooms?" The grandson of the Cheng family's grandfather was still young and didn't understand what was happening.

But Grandpa Cheng and his sons were all dumbfounded.

After his daughter calmed down, the old man from the Cheng family asked, still dizzy, "You..."

"Yes." Uncle nodded, his tone filled with pride, "Cui Cui came to tell me about this."

"This is too much to bear..." The old man of the Cheng family couldn't take the blow any longer and fainted. Although the southwestern border region was inhabited by both Han and Yi peoples, and the customs were free-spirited, adultery was not uncommon. But pregnancy was a different story, especially since the other party was the damned Su family. How was he going to handle this...?

"Old man. Old man..." His sons quickly helped him up, pinching his philtrum and slapping him, before finally bringing the old man back to his senses.

"Ouch, ouch..." But Grandpa Cheng still couldn't accept reality and kept groaning.

"Why don't we all go home today and discuss this further?" Su Lu suggested.

"Let's go home first..." Old Master Cheng agreed, giving the order listlessly. He then said to his daughter, "You brat, go home too."

"Cui Cui..." The uncle looked at his beloved with concern, unwilling to let go.

"Don't worry, that's my old man..." The Cheng family girl gave him a reassuring look and slowly withdrew her hand. She whispered, "It'll be easier to handle things if we're clear about it. I'll go back and talk to my old man, and you go back and talk to yours..."

"Sigh." The uncle reluctantly let go of her hand, watching Cui Cui and the Cheng family leave.

Once the Cheng family had gone far away, Su Tai picked up Su Lu's bamboo basket and came out of his hiding place.

"Second Brother, why are you only coming out now? I thought you were asleep." Su Lu took his bamboo basket.

"Didn't you say I was going back to get help? I have to cover for you," Su Tai explained slowly.

"Sigh, thank you both." The uncle gave his two nephews a wry smile and said, "Keep this a secret for me when you get back."

“My future aunt-in-law, didn’t I tell you to go home and pester your old man?” Su Lu suggested, “It’s better to end it now than to suffer for a long time. Why don’t you go back and be honest today?”

"Sigh, it's not that easy," the uncle sighed. "Don't you know the Su and Cheng families are sworn enemies?"

"I don't remember very clearly." Su Lu suggested, "Why don't we start from the beginning so that the younger generation can understand the history of our Su family?"

"Sigh, alright." The younger uncle also wanted to vent, so he started talking:
"That all started when Emperor Hongwu pacified Yunnan..."

"That's quite far," Su Lu exclaimed.

(End of this chapter)