Top Scholar

Chapter 12 Gathering Mountain Goods

After the winnowing, the busiest time of the autumn harvest was over. Urged by the elders of the clan, Su Youcai announced the resumption of classes at the clan school.

However, he didn't let Su Lu go back to school because the clan school had classes for all ages, and he would have to teach them in shifts. That would be too inefficient for Su Lu's learning.

Moreover, Su Lu's learning speed is too exaggerated. Putting him in the clan school might destroy the children's confidence in studying and making progress...

So Su Youcai still gave Su Lu extra tutoring every night, and then let him study on his own during the day. With the boy's crazy enthusiasm for studying, there was absolutely no need to worry about him slacking off.

Su Lu really didn't need anyone to worry about him. His days were packed with activities, including memorizing three or four books. For example, on August 20th, he was reviewing the "Hundred Family Surnames" and the "Thousand Character Classic" for the fifth time, as well as the "Classification of Ancient and Modern Texts" for the fourth time. He also had to learn the "Elementary Guide to Names and Things" that day, making his studies increasingly demanding.

Fortunately, *Mingwu Mengqiu* is a comprehensive yet concise, easy-to-understand four-character rhyming book with a total of 2,720 characters, making it relatively easy to memorize. The other three books in the mini-four books, *Shixue Tiyao*, *Xingli Zixun*, and *Lidai Mengqiu*, are also largely the same, clearly designed to facilitate memorization for young children.

In contrast, his calligraphy practice was much smoother. Su Lu followed the routine day by day, practicing thick and thin lines, proposing strokes, nib techniques, pressure points, curves, changing stroke surfaces, and dry brush techniques…

All of this is to train his pen control ability, to familiarize him with the characteristics of the brush, and to allow him to wield the brush at will.

So, although Su Youcai had never formally taught him calligraphy, Su Lu noticed that his handwriting had become much smoother these past few days while copying books. Not only was his brushstrokes becoming faster, but his characters were also becoming more and more pleasing to the eye.

Of course, it's just something he finds pleasing to the eye; in reality, it's still completely haphazard...

After practicing pen control, Su Youcai taught him pen techniques, such as swinging, horizontal movement, turning the pen, and folding the pen. Although he still didn't teach him how to write, Su Lu's handwriting improved visibly and gradually began to resemble the style of an "old cadre".

But just then, a serious problem arose: they ran out of paper...

~~
"Qiu-ge'er, you're wasting too much paper." That night, Su Youcai rummaged through his belongings and finally found the last few sheets of coarse paper at the bottom of a box. He handed them to Su Lu and said, "You've used up all of my savings."

"I have indeed used it a bit too much," Su Lu said apologetically. Practicing calligraphy is fine, but copying books and memorizing passages is a huge waste of paper...

“What do you mean by ‘a bit too much’? The combined number of children in the clan school (twenty or thirty) doesn’t even equal the number you use.” Su Youcai said speechlessly, “I can’t afford to support you like this.”

Even so, he still managed to scrape together eight coins and handed them to Su Lu, saying, "Go to your Uncle Hu's house tomorrow to buy some paper money. He'll definitely ask for ten coins, but if you're sweet-talking and plead with him, you should be able to get eight coins back."

"..." Su Lu nodded silently, only then realizing that handmade paper was so expensive. No wonder everyone said that studying was the most expensive undertaking.

~~
The next morning, Su Lu was about to go to Grandpa Hu's house to buy paper when his second brother stopped him: "Don't waste your time, wait until after noon to buy it."

After saying that, Su Tai picked up his fishing rod and went out. The autumn harvest was over, and there were still a few days before the distillery reopened; he had a rare bit of free time…

Around noon, Su Tai returned with his fishing rod. He had been incredibly lucky that day, catching two grass carp weighing around a pound each and four smaller fish weighing three to five ounces each in the morning. He strung them on willow branches and carried them in his hand, receiving countless compliments along the way.

"Xia-ge'er went fishing?" The old lady's eyes lit up when she saw the fish in his hand.

"Yes, Grandma, let Auntie make it for you to nourish your body," Su Tai nodded and smiled.

"Alright, you all eat too." The old lady's ears perked up as if she had heard a divine voice, and her face beamed with a smile like a chrysanthemum. "Qiu-ge'er is studying all day long, so we can't let him eat fish roe."

"Grandma, fish only spawn in the spring," Su Lu said with a smile as she walked out of the house.

“Yes, eating fish roe makes you illiterate. Grandma isn’t worried, Grandma is illiterate anyway,” the old lady said again, her hearing failing.

“I can’t read either! But I can eat too!” Jin Bao’er raised her little hand confidently.

“We can’t eat that much in one meal.” Auntie tapped Jinbao on the head and said to Sutai, “Find a basin and raise the two biggest ones, so we can eat them together when Chun-ge comes back.”

“I’ll go fishing again when my brother comes back; these two fish will be useful.” Su Tai, however, unusually ignored his aunt’s advice.

~~
In the afternoon, Su Tai took the two grass-covered fish out. When he returned, the fish were gone, but he had a roll of yellow paper in his hand.

He handed the paper to Su Lu, with the eight coins his father had given him still pressed on it. "Keep it for next time."

"Did you trade these two fish for this?" Su Lu took the ream of paper, realizing for the first time how valuable paper could be.

"Yes." Su Tai chuckled, "Uncle Hu didn't catch any fish today, so he took those two home to appease Aunt Hu."

"Then why didn't you give it to him this morning?" Su Lu asked, puzzled.

“At that time, he thought he could catch something in the afternoon and refused to trade with me,” Su Tai said slowly. “If he had agreed to trade then, I would have given him the eight coins along with the money.”

"Second Brother, you're amazing!" Su Lu was filled with admiration. Who said Second Brother was stupid? There was no one smarter than him.

"Sigh, it's a pity that these kinds of good things have to be done by chance; who knows when the next one will be?" Su Tai sighed.

"Yes." Su Lu nodded, looking at the stack of paper in his hand—a total of one hundred sheets. At his own pace, it would only last five or six days… still a drop in the ocean.

If he only used it for practicing calligraphy, it could last him another 10 or 20 days. But he memorized things entirely by copying and reciting from memory. Dry memorization is not only inefficient, but it also makes it difficult to identify his mistakes and correct them in a targeted manner.

We still need to find a way to solve the paper shortage problem; otherwise, it's wishful thinking to cram all the material before the exam.

Weren't there poor scholars in ancient times? How did they solve the problem of paper shortage? Su Lu pondered for a moment, and suddenly a sentence from the "Four Books" popped into his mind. His eyes lit up and he asked, "Brother, when are you going into the mountains?"

“I’ll go tomorrow. My aunt has been urging me to go and collect mountain produce for a while now, and we’re running low on pine resin, so I need to get more,” Su Tai replied.

Actually, the torches at home could have been used until the New Year, but Su Lu (a type of paper) isn't just waste paper...

“I’ll go with you tomorrow,” Su Lu said.

"Okay! But you're not going to study anymore?" Su Tai asked.

"A balance of work and rest is the way of both literature and martial arts. After studying for ten days or half a month, you have to clear your mind, otherwise your brain will become mush," Su Lu said with a smile.

"Okay, I'll take you into the mountains tomorrow!" Su Tai said happily.

~~
The two brothers got up before dawn the next day, each carrying a bamboo basket filled with sorghum cakes, straw hats, water bottles, and other essential tools for going up the mountain, such as a machete and hemp rope.

After saying goodbye to their father, the two brothers went out.

I ran into my uncle when I went downstairs. He's been resting these past few days, but he's been leaving early and coming home late, I wonder what he's been busy with all day.

"Good morning, Uncle." The two brothers quickly greeted him.

"Hmm." Uncle nodded; the swelling in his face had subsided, and he had regained his handsome appearance. To be fair, apart from his eldest uncle and Su Tai, the entire Su family were all good-looking.

However, at this moment, the uncle felt a strong sense of unease. Seeing them following him, he asked warily, "What are you doing here?"

"Let's go gather mountain produce," Su Tai said憨憨地. "Where's Uncle?"

“Same here.” The uncle’s eyes darted around as he said, “Let’s go up the mountain and see if we can dig up some gastrodia elata.”

"Then why didn't you bring any tools?" Su Lu asked. "To dig up Gastrodia elata with your bare hands?"

“You’re like a county magistrate going to the countryside—meddling in other people’s business,” the uncle said sternly. “Can’t I just scout things out first?”

"Okay, okay." Su Lu quickly nodded.

After saying this, the three uncles and nephews stopped talking and silently walked to the foot of the densely wooded Centipede Ridge.

At the fork in the road, the uncle stopped and said to the two of them, "I'll go east, you go west."

"Wouldn't it be better to go together?" Su Lu asked deliberately.

"Of course not. When looking for mountain produce, we have to spread out and crowd together to find a shovel." The uncle said, then ordered, "Go quickly."

"Alright." The two brothers then headed west along the fork in the road.

My uncle waited for a while and then headed east.

"Second Brother, should we go see what Uncle's up to?" Su Lu suggested in a low voice. Don't let his act as a top student fool you; he's actually quite gossipy at heart.

"No, let's not," Su Tai shook his head and said, "We have to listen to our uncle and hurry up and gather some mountain produce."

"Oh, oh." Su Lu still listened to his second brother, so he obediently followed him, stepping across the path covered with thick fallen leaves, and passing through the arrow bamboo forest at the foot of the mountain.

The morning mist had just dissipated, and the tall camphor trees spread their umbrella-like canopies, with clusters of dark green fruits hanging from their branches and leaves. The seeds of the yew trees, like tiny red agates, were hidden among the clusters of scale-like leaves.

The branches of the long-leaved rhododendron are taller than a person, with old leaves curled with brown edges, while the newly sprouted tender branches are a glossy green; the shorter shrub rhododendrons stretch out their branches very long, reaching up to the chestnut oak next to them.

The gnarled branches of the chestnut tree are covered with spiky, hedgehog-like fruit shells. When a foraging squirrel touches one, the chestnuts fall with a crackling sound.

"The environment is so nice." Su Lu took a deep breath of the fresh, slightly bitter scent of the forest plants, and the fatigue that had accumulated over the past few days vanished, along with the faint throbbing in his temples.

In Su Tai's eyes, the mountains and forests at this time of year are a treasure trove where everything is abundant. He told Su Lu to pick up the chestnuts that had fallen to the ground, saying, "Grind them into powder and add them to the sorghum flour. They won't be so rough on your throat when you eat them, and they'll have a sweet taste."

"Then we can gather more!" Su Lu immediately perked up. One of his motivations for studying hard was that in the future, when he ate sorghum flour, he could at least mix in some refined grains. As for pure refined grains, he didn't even dare to think about it right now...

I'm afraid it will bring back memories of rice and steamed buns.

"Don't just pick chestnuts," Su Tai said, pointing to a few yellow mushrooms peeking out from among the decaying leaves under the tree. "And these too, they smell amazing!"

"I dare not pick this up," Su Lu said cautiously. "I can't tell if it's poisonous or not."

Su Tai was silent for a moment after hearing this, then said in a low voice, "Then you should pick some ground lichen." As he spoke, he parted a clump of ferns, and underneath was a cluster of 'black fungus'.

He was very familiar with this mountain forest, and no kind of edible or medicinal mountain product could escape his eyes.

He even knew which old tree hollow had a wild beehive, and without fear of bee stings, he carefully took out a knife and cut off a small piece.

"We have to leave half of the bees for the winter, otherwise we won't have any honey to eat next year." He handed the cut honeycomb to Su Lu.

Su Lu reached out and scraped, and amber-colored honey flowed from the honeycomb, trickling down his fingers. He quickly withdrew his hand and sucked on his finger, instantly squinting his eyes from the sweetness. This was the first time he had tasted sweetness since his rebirth, and the long-lost feeling of pleasure and satisfaction made him want to cry.

Indeed, people can only appreciate the sweetness of happiness by recalling the bitterness of the past, not the other way around...

Sutai scraped the honey off the edges and put it in his mouth, mumbling, "Get out of here quickly. Bees are slow to react in the morning; they'll sting you once they realize what's happening."

"Mmm." Su Lu hurriedly followed his second brother and fled in panic.

~~
Then the sun came out, and sunlight filtered through the trees, dappling the forest. It didn't look intense, but the temperature rose quickly.

Su Lu didn't forget the important matter. He took out a wood-chopping knife from the bamboo basket and said, "It's time to chop pine resin."

This is no easy task. Only a few pine trees that have suffered natural disasters or human damage will secrete resin to repair their wounds. After being exposed to wind and sun, the resin seeps into the pine wood, forming pine resin.

Fortunately, pine resin has a pine scent, so you can find it by its smell. Su Tai is experienced and knows that the pine scent intensifies after sunrise, so he only starts working at that time.

With his exceptional sense of smell, he and Su Lu managed to cut down more than two pounds of bright red, glossy pine resin in less than an hour.

"That should be enough for a while." Su Tai, too, knew when to stop collecting. He then asked Su Lu, "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"We found it a long time ago." Su Lu gestured to the side, where a wild banana tree stood by the mountain stream, its broad leaves glistening with water droplets.

(End of this chapter)