Top Scholar

Chapter 170 Shooting Down Seven Tiger Kings in Succession!
After finishing his second cup of vegetarian wine, Su Lu was about to take his leave when Old Master Li called him back, saying:
"Young friend Hongzhi, don't be in such a hurry to leave. You shot down my tiger king. The other six families are still fine. How embarrassing would that be for our family?"

"Hahaha!" The heads of each household laughed together. Master Bai laughed and said, "Yes, yes, the old man is right. Why don't we let Prodigy Su shoot down our Tiger King as well?"

"That evens things out." Master Wang also smiled and said, "If this young friend can defeat the Seven Tiger Kings of Shangyuan in Luzhou all by himself, it will be a remarkable story!"

“That’s right, it will be talked about with great interest many years from now!” The other gentlemen were equally enthusiastic.

"But Hongzhi, do you have the ability?" As the old patriarch, Prefect Jia had to hold back a bit, lest the prodigy whom the county was promoting end up showing his backside instead of his face.

"I'll do my best," Su Lu nodded. Life doesn't offer many opportunities for adventure; how could he back down at a time like this?
"Good, good, good!" The people in the pavilion cheered loudly, and the six masters then ordered their servants to bring their own Tiger King.

~~
At the foot of the bell tower, the crowd saw the servants of the six families use long bamboo poles to lift down the tiger kings of each family.

"What's wrong? Don't want people to guess?" someone asked with a smile.

"The masters want to let Su the Prodigy try and see if he can shoot down seven tiger kings all by himself," the servants replied.

"Oh? He agreed?" everyone asked.

"Of course." The servants held up the tiger king in their hands and quickly delivered it to the adjacent drum tower.

"Haha, this is going to be interesting!" Everyone was excited and rushed up to the Drum Tower.

Unfortunately, the soldiers guarding the stairwell only allowed family members of the guests to go up; all other unauthorized personnel were stopped.

Even so, the Drum Tower was still packed with people. If all the soldiers went up, they'd fall like dumplings being dropped into a pot...

As Huang Bingxian's daughter, Huang E could naturally sit in the hall with her friends and enjoy tea and snacks.

The women from other families could at least come in and have a seat, but the sons of other families could only stand obediently outside...

"Hmph, doesn't he know when to stop!" Li Zongsheng said irritably. "I don't believe he can get lucky every time!"

"If you hit the target, that's just pure luck; if a fine horse hits it, that's just normal performance!" Zhu Ziming's sarcastic skills were no less than his brother's, so it seems he had inherited that talent from his family.

"You!" Li Zongsheng was about to retort in anger, but the prefect spoke up, so he had no choice but to shut up.

"Haha, you've attracted so many people! Hongzhi, you'd better make this prefecture proud!" Prefect Jia laughed. "Let's begin!"

A maid then placed six white jade cups on the main table and poured six glasses of wine. The red wine shimmered under the lamplight.

All eyes were focused on Su Lu in the hall.

At this moment, the Han family brought out their own Tiger King Lantern and held it high to show Su Lu and the others.

The riddle was: "A lone boat on five lakes accompanies the owl; the riddle is solved by solving a four-line riddle."

The Han family has served as commanders of the Luzhou Guard for several generations, making them a legitimate high-ranking military family. Many of their sons are well-educated, and their Tiger King is no less formidable.

Everyone held their breath, watching Su Lu 'fight the tiger'!
Su Lu remained calm, his mind racing. He quickly deciphered the riddle – 'A boat on five lakes accompanies the Yi people' – there were three keywords, which were also the bullseye that the answer must correspond to!

There are two figures among them. Chi Yi refers to Fan Li, who called himself "Chi Yi Zi Pi" after he achieved success.

The person who accompanied Chi Yi was naturally Xi Shi, who also retired with him.

Finally, "five lakes and one boat" means sailing on the five lakes, indicating the place where the two went into seclusion.

The second step involves quickly searching through the memory palace of the mind for related sentences from the Four Books, using the keywords "Xi Shi," "Fan Li," and "retirement."

The key is that the "Unraveling the Bell" pattern must contain a character with a circular pronunciation and phonetic shift—each of the three keywords contains a polyphonic character: 施, 蠡, and 隐.

First, we can rule out 蠡, because this character only appears once in the Mencius among the Four Books, and it is a miswriting.

Then we can rule out "yin" (隐), because the pronunciation of "yin" in the Four Books is the same as "gui yin" (归隐). Therefore, the key word must be "shi" (施).

Su Lu quickly searched his memory palace, finding about thirty places where he could bestow the title. He swiftly found the most suitable one—"Bestow the title upon the virtuous man." This comes from Mencius. In this sentence, "施" is pronounced "yī," which is interchangeable with "迤."

It means to quietly follow your husband to where he goes.

After the sound change, it becomes Xi Shi following her husband to where he went. This perfectly matches the riddle!
All of this, though a long story, actually took only a few breaths before Su Lu picked up his pen and wrote on the gold-flecked red paper—

'Follow the path of a good person!'

"Excellent! Excellent!" This immediately won a round of applause! That's how good riddles are—they're so natural and effortless. Before you know the answer, you can't figure it out no matter how hard you try, but once the answer is revealed, anyone with a discerning eye knows it's correct!
"Excellent! Absolutely correct!" Commander Han clapped his hands in approval, raised his wine glass, and laughed loudly, "Prodigy Su truly lives up to his reputation! Come, drink this cup to the brim!"

"Thank you, Commander Han." Su Lu took the wine with both hands and drank it all in one gulp.

"Come, come, take a look at ours." Master Wang beckoned and personally took his family's riddles.

The riddle was: "The young phoenix's voice is clearer than the old phoenix's." It was a "rolled-up curtain" riddle, requiring a four-character phrase. Su Lu was already fully focused, his mind racing, immediately analyzing the riddle—

The riddle comes from Li Shangyin's poem, "The phoenix chicks sing louder than the old phoenixes along the ten-thousand-mile road to Dan Mountain, their voices are more beautiful than the old ones."

Because the riddle uses a rolled-up screen format, the answer should be read backwards, roughly meaning that the old voice is not as good as the young voice.

"Sound is speech." Su Lu quickly searched his memory and located the phrase "The Master did not speak" from the Analects.
Reversed, it becomes "言不如子" (yán bù rú zǐ), perfectly matching the riddle!
Once he was sure it was correct, Su Lu picked up his pen and wrote the four characters "子如不言" on the red paper in the Wang family's house!
Even at times like this, his handwriting remains neat and orderly, without the slightest hint of frivolity...

"What a brilliant 'If one does not speak, one will not speak'!" The crowd cheered again! It was another excellent riddle that no answer needed to be revealed to be correct.

These perfect riddles are so agonizing before you can even solve them. But once you do, it's absolutely exhilarating!

Even if it wasn't me who ejaculated, I still felt incredibly good!
"Excellent, absolutely right. Prodigy Su is indeed remarkable!" Master Wang also happily raised his wine cup and said with a smile, "Come to my residence for a chat sometime, and I'll introduce my children and grandchildren to you."

"That is my wish, but I dare not ask." Su Lu took the wine cup with both hands and drank it all in one gulp.

"Alright, it's our turn!" Following the example of Master Wang, the Bai family patriarch personally held up the riddles and showed them to Su Lu and the others—

'How many romantic escapades lie in my dreams! Let's solve this riddle with a four-character phrase!'

Su Lu pondered for a moment and came up with an answer, but out of politeness, he pretended to think about it for a while longer before picking up his pen and writing: 'No one knows me!'
"Hahaha, good, good, good!" Everyone suddenly realized again and burst into laughter.

The answer to this riddle comes from the Analects, specifically the chapter "Xian Wen," and its original meaning is, "No one understands me!"

The character 夫 (fū) is an interjection at the end of a sentence, initially in a light tone. After a change in pronunciation, it becomes a level tone, referring to the 夫 of an adult male.

The sentence then means—nobody knows me, this man!
This perfectly matches the riddle, "How many romantic affairs are there in dreams!"
"This must be Bai Sanshao's doing again. Only he could come up with such a flamboyant lantern tiger!" Many people laughed so hard they wiped away tears, saying, "It's amazing that Su Shentong could understand him!"

"Hahaha, doesn't this mean that Su Shentong is also a flirtatious person?"

"He doesn't look like it. His face is as calm and composed as a still lake."

"That's introverted slut..."

Su Lu felt utterly helpless. "I'm just a heartless test-taker."

After drinking the Bai family's wine, it was time for the Deng family's riddles—

"May I ask where the tavern is?" (This is a riddle, not a question.)

All the riddles for the Tiger King are four-character riddles. It's not that there aren't riddles that can be based on the Five Classics, but scholars specialize in one classic and are not very knowledgeable about the other four. Each family doesn't create riddles to invite criticism, so they all choose four-character riddles as their Tiger Kings.

Before long, Su Lu had his answer. When the time was right, he picked up his brush and wrote on the gold-flecked red paper: "Seek a good merchant to sell your wares!"
"This..." This answer left many people uncertain. "Is it right?"

"That's right." The Deng family patriarch was a little embarrassed; the fact that he hadn't immediately revealed his punchline meant that his family's riddle wasn't perfect.

"Prodigy Su, why don't you explain this to everyone?" he said to Su Lu with a smile.

“Yes.” Su Lu responded, and said in a deep voice, “The pronunciation of this character is on ‘贾’, which was originally pronounced as ‘gǔ’ in ‘商贾’. In the ‘系铃格’ (a type of Chinese dictionary), it is pronounced as ‘jià’, which is the same as ‘价’ in ‘价钱’ (meaning price).

"After the pronunciation is changed, the answer is interpreted as 'to seek a good price to sell it,' which fits the riddle 'May I ask where the tavern is?'"

"I see!" everyone exclaimed in realization. "So the one asking the question has changed from the person buying the wine to the person selling it."

“Isn’t this another way of tying the bell?” Su Lu said with a smile.

"Haha, that's right, Su the Prodigy is absolutely right!" Seeing that Su Lu had helped him smooth things over, Master Deng was very happy. He not only poured Su Lu a glass of wine, but also personally drank with him.

Next is the Lei family, the riddle is—

'冂. Shoot four pieces in one line, using the incremental/decrease technique.'

The riddle contains only one character, '冂', which many people don't recognize.

The boys who were focused on their studies didn't dare to say a word, but the girls didn't seem to care and asked in hushed tones, "What kind of character is this? Is it 'door'?"

"This character is pronounced jiōng, and it means distant boundary," Su Lu explained. Those who have memorized the *Hongwu Zhengyun* are truly confident.

"What's the answer?" The young ladies looked at Su Lu with sparkling eyes. In this era where scholars were most sought after, poverty wasn't a disadvantage for a scholar. As long as he was talented, handsome, and young, those three qualities were enough to make the young ladies swoon.

"Like an eclipse of the sun and moon!" Su Lu smiled and wrote six characters on the red paper. After saying this, he asked Master Lei, "Was this a good match?"

"Perfect!" Master Lei nodded and toasted, saying, "I knew it couldn't stump Prodigy Su!"

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(End of this chapter)