Chapter Eighty-Six: Cheng the Scholar's Grief and Shame

As the sun sank in the west, Su Lu and the other four walked the road they took home from school every day.

But for Cheng Wantang, this would be his last time. From now on, though he would walk this road countless more times, it would no longer be as a student going to and from school.

Everyone was in low spirits, and the silence along the way was more profound than ever before.

It was Cheng Wantang who finally spoke to Su Lu. “Brother, thank you for your guidance this past month. I feel like I have improved more than I did in the whole year before.”

“Yes, Brother,” Cheng Wanfan echoed. “All of our levels have gone up a great deal.”

“It’s just a pity the time was too short...” Cheng Wanzhou’s eyes were swollen like peaches.

Su Lu sighed. “I’m ashamed I still couldn’t keep Wantang here...”

“Don’t say that, Brother. I truly am deeply grateful. Without your guidance, with an exam this hard, I would never have gotten even that half point.” Cheng Wantang shook his head.

“Now all I can hate is how foolish I was back then, determined to make an enemy of you. If I had started out like Su Dan and the others, and received your guidance, how would I have come to this? At the very least, I certainly would not be in danger of dropping out now.”

He lifted his face to the sky and gave a long, mournful sigh. “Ah... I’ve brought this on myself.”

“Don’t blame yourself. Not studying won’t bring the sky down. My second brother never studied either, and he still became the deputy manager of the wine workshop.” Su Lu patted his shoulder and offered a few words of comfort. “We’re all in Erlang Beach. We’ll still be able to see each other often in the future, still be brothers.”

“You don’t dislike me?” Cheng Wantang asked softly.

“What kind of words are those?” Su Lu said, tightening his arm around the boy’s shoulders. “To have a brother who values loyalty, works hard, and loves learning as much as you do, I could treasure you no more if I tried. Since you call me Brother, then we’re brothers for life.”

“Ah, Brother.” Cheng Wantang nodded hard, but his eyes were already red. He called out to him again and again.

“Ah!” Su Lu answered just as firmly, over and over.

Su Dan, Cheng Wanfan, and Cheng Wanzhou were deeply moved as well. They crowded in, linked their shoulders together, and sang in unison that timeless paean to brotherhood:

When the blossoms of the rose family bloom, their petals shine bright and fair.
Among all men of this age, none compare to brothers.
In the terror of death and mourning, brothers bear one another in their hearts.
When the plains and marshes lie in ruin, it is brothers who seek one another out.
The wagtail is on the open ground; in danger and distress, brothers are swift to aid.
When there are good friends, how much more can one lament in endless sorrow...
Though brothers may quarrel within the walls, together they stand against outside trouble.
Though there are good friends, no help is greater than this...

As they neared Erlang Beach, some powerful force of habit made the five of them unconsciously draw apart.

“Ah... the conflict between our two clans...” Cheng Wantang sighed. If the clansmen saw them walking arm in arm like that, they would be furious.

“All this clan strife and rivalry, let our generation be the one to resolve it!” Su Lu declared proudly. “The Great Ming has hundreds of millions of people. How many of them were born in Erlang Beach? Once we leave these mountains and reach Luzhou, we will be each other’s truest fellow townsmen. And once we are beyond Sichuan, we’ll be ironclad countrymen, banded together to break into the world!”

“Brother is right.” Su Dan’s views had long since been turned around by Su Lu. He nodded hard and said, “We must work together to charge out of these mountains, join forces to venture into the wider world, and not waste our lives in a petty brawl inside some mountain hollow!”

“That’s beautifully said! That’s exactly what I think!” Cheng Wanzhou exclaimed, stamping his feet in excitement. “Why should people from the same village and same town spend all day fighting and killing each other? Wouldn’t it be far better for everyone to live in peace and harmony?”

“Exactly. Internal strife means nothing at all,” Cheng Wanfan agreed sincerely. “It will only deepen the feud between our two clans and make life harder for everyone.”

“Indeed.” Cheng Wantang also nodded. “Brother is right. The world is so vast. Rather than fighting each other in a little mountain nest, it’s better for all of us to go out and make our way in the world together!”

After all, they had spent time in the academy, broadened their horizons, and learned the sages’ teachings. Naturally, they were no longer as narrow-minded as before.

This is the meaning of reading, after all.

“Once our generation holds the power to speak, we’ll put these grudges behind us,” Su Lu said in a low voice.

“Good. We’ll listen to Brother!” The three of them, along with Su Dan, nodded solemnly.

Su Lu then said to Cheng Wantang, “Go home and see how your family has arranged things. If it doesn’t sit right with you, say so. We’ll think of another way together.”

“Understood, Brother.” Cheng Wantang nodded, a bitter smile flickering across his face.

It certainly would not sit right with him, because odds were he would be sent to work in the Cheng family’s lees workshop. He truly did not want to spend his whole life dealing with wine dregs...

Just as Cheng Wantang was about to voice his thoughts, Cheng Wanzhou suddenly elbowed him. Looking up, he saw his grandfather, Cheng the Scholar, standing beneath the coral tree at the village entrance.

By now the sun had already set, red clouds filled the sky, and the coral tree blossoms were blazing crimson. Yet all of it paled beside Cheng the Scholar’s face, which had gone just as red with fury...

At the sight of him, it seemed he already knew the outcome.

Su Lu thought to himself that scholars really were different; the academy had even sent word in advance.

In truth, he was overthinking it. This had nothing to do with privilege for scholars. It was just that Mr. Zhang’s words had moved the academy’s headmaster.

So Zhu Liu instructed the academy’s teachers to visit those children’s homes in person. First, they were to refund the tuition. Second, they were to make it clear that the children had not been expelled for misconduct. It was simply that the academy had adopted new rules and begun separating out students unsuited to study ahead of time, so the children could adapt to society sooner and ease the burden on their families.

Though it was still cruel, at least it shifted the parents’ anger onto the academy, sparing the children from undeserved suffering.

So that afternoon, a teacher had already come to Erlang Beach and informed Cheng the Scholar...

But the arrangement had the opposite effect on him. Just thinking that his eldest grandson, whom he had personally taught, had been sentenced to academic death in just four months made his insides burn and left him restless. In the end, he came to the village entrance and waited for Cheng Wantang to return.

He wanted to ask him at once: just how had this happened?!

Yet just as he was about to speak, he saw those two Su boys mixed in with Wantang and the others. He had no choice but to swallow his words back down and refuse to let outsiders see the joke of it.

“Grandfather.” Cheng Wantang approached Cheng the Scholar uneasily.

“Teacher.” Cheng Wanfan and Cheng Wanzhou also bowed properly and exchanged greetings.

Su Lu and Su Dan naturally slipped away home in a flash.

With outsiders gone, Cheng the Scholar snorted. “Why are you mixed up with the Su family again? Isn’t this over yet?”

“Teacher, why did you say again?” Cheng Wanfan blinked.

“Ahem, that’s not the point.” Cheng the Scholar knew he had misspoken and said irritably, “Remember to keep your distance from them from now on! If I catch you with them again, I won’t let it slide!”

“Teacher, they’re our classmates. Going to and from school together is only natural, and we can look out for one another,” Cheng Wanzhou said, taking on the duty of voicing opposition, as he had once been Cheng the Scholar’s favorite pupil.

“What did you say? You dare talk back?” Cheng the Scholar’s face darkened, and Cheng Wanzhou was so frightened he nearly burst into tears.

“Please calm your anger, Teacher. That Su student is really a very good person. Recently he has been guiding us in essay writing, and we have all benefited tremendously!” Cheng Wanfan hurriedly stepped in.

That only made things worse. His words struck Cheng the Scholar’s sorest nerve, and he angrily thrust his cane into the ground as though he might burrow straight through it at any moment. “Can I not guide you myself? You have to ask him?!”

“Your teaching is certainly excellent, Teacher, but Su student’s advice always hits the heart of the matter and gives us sudden clarity,” Cheng Wanzhou replied. He was the sort who hid needles in cotton; if you pinched him until he cried, he would be sure to prick you back until you hurt.

“The students he has guided all made progress, while we only fell behind. So we had no choice but to seek his instruction as well,” Cheng Wanfan added. “And sure enough, this time all of our rankings went up.”

“If I had started learning from him earlier, I never would have ended up like this!” Cheng Wantang complained directly at his grandfather.

“Nonsense! I have spent my whole life immersed in the eight-part essay style. How could I possibly be worse than a child?!” Cheng the Scholar cried in outrage.

“Grandfather, your methods are outdated!” Cheng Wantang snapped back, carried away in the heat of the moment and speaking without restraint.

“You!” Cheng the Scholar nearly fainted from anger. The world spun before his eyes, and he could not even stand steadily. Cheng Wanzhou and Cheng Wanfan rushed to support him.

“Please calm down, Teacher.”

“Forget it, say a few less words.”

One of them tried to soothe Cheng the Scholar, while the other urged Cheng Wantang, “Don’t make him ill again. That would be trouble.”

“Ah...” Cheng Wantang turned his head away and dared not make another sound.

His grandfather had studied with such ferocity when he was young that he developed vertigo, which was why he had to travel by sedan chair whenever he went out. Over the years, with proper care, the attacks had grown rare. Who would have thought that after a temple fair during the New Year, the condition would flare up again on the way home?

For half a year it had come and gone, and it had even delayed many lessons at the communal school.

Cheng Wantang hastily summoned a sedan chair and had Cheng the Scholar, who had been provoked into illness, carried home.

His father, Cheng Chengcheng, also fetched the clan’s doctor, who gave his grandfather more than a hundred needles, until he looked like a porcupine.

After a full hour of this torment, Cheng the Scholar finally stopped dizzying and leaned back against a cushion with long, weary sighs.

“Father, at least have some porridge?” Cheng Chengcheng urged from the side. “What the teacher said wasn’t wrong. Since Wantang isn’t cut out for study, it’s the proper thing to let him come down and start working early.”

Cheng the Scholar paid him no mind and only said to Cheng Wantang, who was kneeling on the floor, “Bring me your exercise books.”

“I’m not studying anymore, so why look at my homework...” Cheng Wantang muttered under his breath.

“Go get them when I tell you to. Why all the nonsense?” Cheng Chengcheng kicked him, sending him stumbling.

He had gone to school for four months only to return home and nearly anger his own father to death, so Cheng Chengcheng had a bellyful of rage. If Cheng Wantang still dared to talk back, of course he would get kicked...

In truth, Cheng Wantang also had a bellyful of anger. From the way they had treated his aunt back then to being expelled this time, he had long been dissatisfied with Cheng the Scholar; otherwise, he would not always have been arguing with his grandfather.

Still, one kick was enough to make him obedient. He quietly brought all of his exercise books over.

Cheng the Scholar took them, put on his spectacles, and began paging through his grandson’s compositions one by one.

At first, the handwriting and phrasing were of a piece with his own style. Later, he gradually came under the academy’s influence and improved day by day, though very slowly...

Cheng the Scholar had not realized this problem before. Only when he reviewed it now did he understand that his grandson had been too heavily shaped by his influence, always unconsciously falling back into the old ruts. That was why he advanced three steps and retreated two, always lagging behind the others...

He could not help but sigh in frustration. If he had known, he should never have given the boy so many private lessons in advance.

Unlike Cheng Wanfan and Cheng Wanzhou, who had always attended full classes and had not received many special lessons, they would not have carried such a heavy burden of habit.

Cheng the Scholar began to understand why his grandson had been so resentful, and he sighed again. “Get up. No need to kneel anymore.”

He continued reading. When he reached the middle of the third book, his eyes suddenly lit up. His grandson’s essay had changed at once. Its structure was clear throughout, and with each layer of argument it explained the principles of propriety with remarkable depth and clarity.

Looking at the date beside it, Cheng the Scholar asked, “Did you take some kind of miracle medicine on the eighteenth day of the fourth month?”

“No, it was because Su student started guiding me that day,” Cheng Wantang said, the memory still vivid in his mind.