Poor but talented scholar

Chapter 11 Fighting Against Fate

The rain felt like a whip lashing at the villagers' hearts.

Lu Chuan's tiger's mouth was already numb from the excessive force. His small body could barely stand in the heavy rain, but his hands gripped the sickle tightly, mechanically repeating the harvesting motion.

"Faster, faster!" Lu Shouye roared in the gale, his body, which had only recently recovered from illness, was working under high pressure.

Just as the Lu family of four were working together to load the last bundle of green wheat onto the cart and preparing to tie it with hemp rope, a chilling sound suddenly came from afar.

That wasn't thunder; it sounded like a thousand bulls stampeding. Immediately afterward, a piercing, urgent gong echoed from the west end of the village, hoarse and strained in the downpour.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"The riverbank has collapsed! The floodwaters are coming down! Throw away heavy objects! Run to the ancestral hall!"

Lu Chuan suddenly looked up and saw a white wave rolling in from the twilight in the distance, uprooting trees along the way like withered grass.

"Dad! The water's here!" Lu Chuan hurriedly pulled Lu Shouye along.

Lu Shouye's face turned deathly pale instantly. He glanced at the two heavy bags of green wheat, which represented the family's hopes for the year.

"Pull the cart! We'll get it even if it kills us!" Lu Shouye forced out. He pulled on the rope, his legs already sinking into the mud. Lu's mother and Xiaoman pushed desperately from behind, while Lu Chuan braced the wooden wheel with his shoulder, his fingernails filled with mud.

The muddy water beneath his feet was getting stronger and stronger, already up to his knees. Lu Chuan felt a tremendous force pulling him.

Just as the floodwaters crashed into the first mud house at the village entrance, they finally made it up the slope leading to the ancestral hall.

The Lu Clan Ancestral Hall is located at the highest point in the center of the village, with blue bricks and black tiles, and is the highest point in the entire village.

When Lu Chuan arrived, the courtyard was already crowded with people. The men were covered in mud, and the women were holding their children tightly in their arms.

Sixth Uncle Lu Dehuang stood on the stone steps, wearing a tattered straw raincoat, his face deathly pale, but he still waved his arms: "Don't panic! Third Uncle Lu, take a few young men to hold the gate shut! Sixth Uncle Lu, pile everyone's grain in the east wing first, don't let it get soaked!"

Inside the ancestral hall, the Lu clan members huddled in small groups in the corners. The scene was extremely chaotic, with the grain, pots, pans, and dishes that each family had salvaged piled up like small mountains.

"That's my wheat! Don't sit on it!"

"Why are you pushing? Can't you see my wife is holding a baby?"

The already impoverished Lu family was now fighting tooth and nail over their meager savings. One man, because his grain sack was torn, was grabbing someone by the collar and threatening to start a fight right under the ancestral tablets.

Lu Chuan wiped the mud off his face and glanced around the crowd.

He saw Lu Ming and Lu Gen. These two classmates, who had been marking characters with him on the sand table just a few days ago, were now huddled under a pillar in the west wing.

Lu Ming's legs, which were usually prone to shaking, were trembling violently. His face was deathly pale, and he was clutching a half-empty cloth bag in his arms, his eyes unfocused. Lu Gen, on the other hand, was squatting on the ground, his hands empty, his eyes staring blankly at the ground.

In fact, these two haven't been to Uncle Qi's place for the past two weeks.

Lu Ming was playful and preferred to carry a hoe rather than write; Lu Gen, on the other hand, was genuinely unable to study. His family was so poor that they couldn't even afford to eat, and his father scolded him, "You're not cut out for studying, don't waste the money you've spent on your education," and that was the end of it.

At that moment, Lu Ming saw Lu Chuan. He pursed his lips, wanting to call out "Chuanzi," but when he saw the several rolls of old straw paper and charcoal pencils in Lu Chuan's arms, he suddenly felt a lump in his throat and lowered his head in dejection.

"Shut up, all of you!" Lu Chuan suddenly shouted.

Although he was small in stature, the prestige he had built up over the past two months as a "little teacher" took effect, and the arguing man paused for a moment.

Lu Chuan strode up the stone steps and stood next to his sixth uncle.

"Sixth Uncle, if we keep arguing like this, we'll have to start fighting before the rain stops."

Lu Chuan pointed to the beams above, blackened by incense smoke, and then to the relatively dry platform in the east wing. "All grain should be piled up in groups according to the house."

I keep accounts here. I write down exactly who brought how much, what kind of grain, and what equipment they brought.

"Once the rain stops, we'll collect our rations according to this piece of paper. Anyone who steals from others at this time will be recorded on this paper, and our ancestors will have eyes; their entire clan will condemn them."

The noise from the crowd abruptly stopped.

Those farmers who could hold grudges for a lifetime over a few copper coins looked at this little boy with his clothes soaked and his back straight.

The charcoal pencil in his hand weighed more heavily than any sword or blade at that moment.

"That's right! Chuan'er is educated and knows how to do accounts, so everyone can trust him!" Old Lu was the first to respond.

Seventh Uncle looked at Lu Chuan from the side, a very complex emotion flashing in his eyes.

In the dark ancestral hall, an oil lamp was lit.

Lu Chuan squatted by the table, his charcoal pencil scratching on the scrap paper.

"Lu Dafa's house, a bag of dried wheat, the sack has a patch on the opening, I've noted that down."

"At Lu Sanhu's house, there was a half-full vat of soybeans, with a chip in it. I'll remember that."

As Lu Chuan carefully wrote down the names and weights, the previously panicked villagers seemed to find reassurance.

Just then, another loud bang came from outside the door, "Boom!"

The vermilion gate of the ancestral hall trembled violently, and murky water flowed out through the cracks. The eldest uncle, Lu Youcai, and his family fled into the ancestral hall in a panic, Lu Youcai carrying only a small cloth bag in his arms.

That was all the belongings he had left after he greedily waited for the wheat to fully ripen, only to have them swept away by the flood.

Lu Youcai's usually calculating eyes were now bloodshot.

He staggered to the east wing and glanced at it. The sacks of wheat in the third room, though bluish, were solidly heavy and stacked securely on the high platform.

Then look at Lu Chuan, covered in mud but sitting upright by the oil lamp, wielding the charcoal pencil with ease, becoming a source of reassurance for the whole village.

In that instant, jealousy, regret, and an indescribable sense of defeat were gnawing at him.

"Chuan'er..." Lu Youcai hurriedly approached, forcing a smile that looked more like a grimace, and shook the shrunken cloth bag in his hand. "You know the terrain of your uncle's land; it's top-quality farmland."

"Make a note for your uncle, write down 'two bushels of refined wheat,' it was just washed away by the flood, I'll go retrieve it once the rain stops..."

The surrounding air seemed to freeze.

Although the villagers were illiterate, none of them were stupid. What could they possibly salvage after the floodwaters washed it away?

Lu Youcai was trying to take advantage of the chaos so that his entire clan would fill his hole when the grain was distributed after the disaster.

Lu Chuan didn't even look up, his pen nib pausing briefly on the rough paper.

"Uncle, the ancestral tablets are enshrined behind us. This piece of paper I wrote down is for 'current grain,' to save everyone's lives, not to settle any family's losses."

"Your bag contains two liters of stale rice, so I'll record it as two liters. If there's even one extra grain, the accounts will be messed up; and if the accounts are messed up, the rules will be messed up too."