YA Ch31: Bluffing

Hua Wenyuan didn’t believe him, spinning the short knife around the zither body and directly pressing it against Lu Yu’s neck, sneering: “All my uncles have died in battle; where did this second uncle come from?”

“Hey, it’s a long story.” Being easily subdued by Hua Wenyuan with a single-handed knife play, Lu Yu remained calm, raising his hand to introduce, “This is your second aunt, Ming Yan, courtesy name Motai, a scholar.”

Hua Wenyuan was stunned for a moment: “Second aunt?” If he wasn’t mistaken, this second aunt was a man.

Ming Yan smiled slightly, nodded to Hua Wenyuan, and pinched Lu Yu’s back hard.

Lu Yu grimaced, sighing in a serious manner: “Sigh, back then I fell in love with a man, but your father strongly disapproved, threatening to break three of my legs. I had no choice but to run away with your second aunt, and the Hua family announced my death in battle. Oh, your father was so ruthless.”

“Three legs? Where did the third leg come from?” Hua Wenyuan was puzzled, then immediately understood, his handsome face turning red.

“Ah, still a child.” Lu Yu tilted his head, teasing him and winking at Ming Yan.

Poor Hua Wenyuan, having fought for his country for many years, had never experienced any romantic affairs, whether with men or women.

Hua Wenyuan’s fingertips turned red as he sheathed the short knife: “You say you’re my second uncle; then what is my third uncle’s name?”

Lu Yu held the seven-string zither horizontally, typing while saying without blinking: “Hua Shengren.”

Hua Wenyuan asked without pausing: “What about the fourth uncle?”

Lu Yu confidently replied: “Hua Shengyou.”

“And the fifth uncle?”

“Hua Shengya.”

“And the sixth uncle?”

Lu Yu didn’t answer, smiling as he placed his hands flat on the zither strings: “You don’t have a sixth uncle. There are five of us brothers, with similar names and deep bonds.”

This brat was trying to be tricky, but luckily he remembered clearly. The book never mentioned the names of Hua Wenyuan’s deceased uncles. Ordinary people in ancient times wouldn’t mention their elders’ names, so naturally, Hua Wenyuan wouldn’t know. Making things up like this was seamless.

Hua Wenyuan was silent for a moment: “But my father’s name is Hua Zhaoting.”

Lu Yu: “…”

Ming Yan lowered his head, hiding behind Lu Yu, trying hard to suppress his laughter.

Lu Yu smacked his lips and slapped his thigh: “Ha, that’s why I don’t like your father. Why is his name different from ours, as if the four of us were adopted?”

Hua Wenyuan fell into silence once again.

Ming Yan looked at him worriedly, afraid that Lu Yu’s nonsense might cause the kid to crash.

Suddenly, Hua Wenyuan reached out and grabbed Lu Yu.

Ming Yan’s hand, hidden behind his back, instantly turned into Ma Liang’s magic brush. But before he could make a move, Hua Wenyuan politely nodded at him: “Second Aunt, please wait.”

After saying that, he jumped back over the Hua family courtyard wall with Lu Yu, making a few swift leaps to leave the garden and head somewhere.

“Aaaahh, kid, what’s going on?” Lu Yu was being carried and bounced around, feeling a very realistic sense of weightlessness, which was quite thrilling.

Hua Wenyuan brought Lu Yu to the ancestral hall. He found this situation odd; he realized he had no memory of his uncles’ names. He had kneeled in the ancestral hall countless times since childhood, but he had never carefully looked at his uncles’ names.

The Hua family’s ancestral tablets were all enshrined here, with the most prominent position belonging to the Hua family ancestor, who fought alongside the founding emperor of the Great Zhou. The lowest position belonged to Hua Wenyuan’s prematurely deceased two older brothers, and the row just above was for the uncles.

In the flickering candlelight, Hua Wenyuan saw the neatly arranged tablets of his four uncles:

Hua Shengmi, Hua Shengren, Hua Shengyou, and Hua Shengya.

Lu Yu lit three sticks of incense, casually bowing before placing them in the incense burner: “See? Kid, you’re really suspicious.”

Having scripted these events, the names on the tablets would automatically change. However, since it wasn’t done by the art department, they appeared in the system’s default Song typeface. Fortunately, it was in traditional characters, so as long as Hua Wenyuan didn’t find it strange, it would be fine.

Since the transformation had just begun, Hua Wenyuan’s self-awareness was not strong yet, and he didn’t have much autonomy. Since it was set this way, he believed it.

Seeing his second uncle’s casual demeanor in the ancestral hall, Hua Wenyuan softened his tone: “Since Second Uncle has left the family, why have you suddenly appeared here?”

“I heard you were getting married, so I came to take a look. Given that your father isn’t completely blind yet, I didn’t dare come in,” Lu Yu said, looking around, “We should leave quickly. Otherwise, if your father catches me, he’ll break three of my legs, and you’ll have to share one of them.”

Hua Wenyuan didn’t know what to say, grabbing him and running back to the garden, jumping out of the wall again.

“Hehe, Yan-ge, look, a salted fish is jumping out of the wall!” Lu Yu waved his hands and feet excitedly as he flew over the wall, greeting Ming Yan as if he were on a roller coaster waving at a boyfriend who didn’t want to ride with him.

Ming Yan was amused, shaking his head helplessly, and explained to Hua Wenyuan: “He’s always like this; you’ll get used to it.”

Hua Wenyuan felt a bit awkward in front of this male “second aunt,” but found him much more amiable than his stepmother, so he shyly smiled and nodded in response.

It was midsummer, and the weather was hot, so the three of them sat under the shade of a large willow tree.

Lu Yu asked the troubled Hua Wenyuan: “Are you planning to break off the engagement with the Cheng family?”

Hua Wenyuan was surprised: “How did Second Uncle know?”

Lu Yu smiled mysteriously: “I know a lot. That Cheng family girl has a lover and plans to elope. The Hua family intervened, forcing her to marry you. Later, she’ll cheat on you.”

Hua Wenyuan’s face turned sour; what his second uncle said was true.

In his previous life, that Cheng family girl cried incessantly on their wedding night, refusing to let him enter the bridal chamber or lift her veil. Initially indifferent to the marriage, Hua Wenyuan slept in the study that night, thinking the bride might just be shy and that things would improve over time.

However, she grew even more defiant, refusing to let him into her room and accusing the Hua family of ruining her life. “You’re about to go to war, leaving a young widow behind. What heirs? You’ll leave the Hua family with offspring, but what about us?”

She cursed him for death even before he went to the battlefield. Angered, Hua Wenyuan never stepped into her room again and eventually wrote a divorce letter, allowing her to remarry. Yet, she didn’t leave, clinging to her title as Hua Wenyuan’s wife.

Soon after, he left for the battlefield and never returned. But a year later, his “wife” was pregnant.

As the only male descendant of his generation in the Hua family, his father wanted to accept the child despite the shame, but his stepmother spread the scandal widely. Everyone knew that General Hua had been cuckolded. The scholarly Cheng family, feeling disgraced, wanted to drown the girl. His resourceful wife eloped with her lover.

Recalling his past life felt like a lifetime ago. Hua Wenyuan sighed. Compared to the state and the nation, these were minor issues that needed to be resolved quickly.

He glanced suspiciously at Lu Yu. The Cheng family girl’s secret love affair was done very discreetly. As a reborn person, Hua Wenyuan knew the future events, but how did this suddenly appearing “second uncle” know?

In his previous life, he had never met this second uncle or aunt. Could this person also be reborn?

“Does Second Uncle have a plan?” Hua Wenyuan asked tentatively.

“What plan could I have? It’s not like I’m the one being cuckolded…” Lu Yu started to say, but Ming Yan elbowed him, causing him to cough, “Cough, cough. It depends on what you want. Do you want a puppet wife to keep at home, or do you want to call off the engagement entirely?”

Hua Wenyuan pressed his lips together: “I definitely won’t go through with this marriage, but I was thinking of causing a scene to have my father disown me.”

“Huh?” Lu Yu was stunned. This kid was learning quickly. In the original plot, the reborn Hua Wenyuan would warn the Cheng family, prompting them to break off the engagement voluntarily. Hua Wenyuan, alone, would go to war, gain military power, and eventually rebel.

Inspired by Lu Yu, Hua Wenyuan might be thinking of severing ties with the Hua family to avoid implicating them when he raises an army. But this would deviate from the original plot.

“You’re too weak right now. Think it over,” Ming Yan intervened, preventing Lu Yu from taking things too far.

Hua Wenyuan lowered his eyes. These two indeed knew what he was planning: “I’ll break off the engagement first and consider other things later.”

“Let’s go,” Lu Yu pulled Ming Yan up, and then Hua Wenyuan: “Your second uncle and aunt will go with you. We won’t let you be a living cuckold.”