The Fourth Senior Brother Breaks Down

"I... I'll go ask Little Junior Brother and see if I can get it for you!"

"All right! Hurry! Hurry!" Ever since they had tasted that delicacy last night, the others had been thinking of it day and night, wanting to eat it again.

And so, first thing in the morning, they had blocked the door!

Before long, Xiaofan came out holding a booklet.

"This is?! What is this?" Sixth Brother looked at the title of the book rather oddly and muttered. The black ink marks on it were truly beyond words.

"Senior Brother! Here's the booklet! I have to go make breakfast!" Zhang Xiaofan nodded.

"Ah! Go on, get busy!" Sixth Brother waved his hand and started studying it together with Third Brother and Fifth Brother.

Tian Buyi flipped through the so-called recipe book Sixth Brother handed him and felt rather speechless.

These words! They looked so familiar!

So familiar he wanted to beat someone up!

But after hearing Sixth Brother say some of what he had asked Zhang Xiaofan about how yesterday's dish was made, he finally learned that this little disciple of his, for the sake of food, really could do anything. He had actually spent spiritual power to make delicacies! This could be considered unprecedented since ancient times.

"You little bastard!" Tian Buyi rubbed his somewhat aching temples in frustration at iron not becoming steel.

In the days that followed, Big Bamboo Peak's daily routine became somewhat strange. Almost everyone was fiddling with food, and it made Tian Buyi's belly a little rounder again. The three meals each day were all different foods, though what they had in common was that every single one was delicious.

When He Dazhi saw that Zhang Xiaofan could recognize the words in that recipe book, he was shocked as if seeing a celestial being! He took him along and barely managed to translate a few dishes. Some of the characters, even with Zhang Xiaofan guessing and groping in the dark, still could not be recognized.

Only then did everyone learn the name of that recipe book. It was written as Things I Want to Eat!

Tian Buyi fiercely blamed He Dazhi, who had taught the two little ones to read and write, saying outright that he had misled the disciples!

He Dazhi said he felt very wronged, his heart full of bitter water. He lowered his head and let Tian Buyi scold him. Thinking of his little junior brother's brush calligraphy, he had no face to meet anyone.

Ever since being scolded by Tian Buyi, He Dazhi became even more attentive to the two little ones' lessons.

Every day, he would set aside an extra two hours, forcibly requiring the two of them to read and practice writing.

He Dazhi looked at Zhang Xiaofan and Luo Yunji behind the two small desks opposite him and sighed, his heart filled with helplessness and a lack of confidence.

"Do I really have no talent for teaching people!" A somewhat self-denying mood was slowly devouring He Dazhi bit by bit.

Zhang Xiaofan practiced his characters earnestly, stroke by stroke. Beside him, however, the fatty Luo Yunji was snoring nonstop, his cheek pillowed on the paper and pressed into a lump of flesh.

Drool fell from his mouth to the paper in an unbroken thread, already soaking a large patch of the sheet. The brush in his right hand was stabbed straight into the paper, bleeding out a huge blot of ink. The ink on the tip had long since been sucked dry by the paper.

He Dazhi walked over, crooked his fingers, and knocked a few times on Luo Yunji's desk.

After the little fatty heard it, he lifted his head. Before He Dazhi could speak to scold him, he simply changed direction, rested the other side of his face on the paper, and continued sleeping while drooling.

It seemed his cheek was uncomfortable from the saliva on the paper, so he changed sides again, smacked his lips a few times, and kept sleeping.

Yet the brush held in his hand remained perfectly upright, not moving in the slightest! As if declaring that even if he was asleep, he was still practicing writing!

He Dazhi lowered his head and looked at his little junior brother in silence for a long time, then walked to the door and raised his head to look at the clear sky. Who knew how much time passed.

"Alas!" With a sigh full of helplessness, He Dazhi lifted his foot and stepped out the door. After He Dazhi, whose face showed nothing, left, the door suddenly exploded with a bang!

Inside the room, Zhang Xiaofan, the only one still awake, was startled by the explosion, and the character he had been writing was suddenly cut apart by a streak of ink.

Zhang Xiaofan looked curiously toward the now-empty doorway, and at the door that had vanished, then turned his head to look at his little junior brother sleeping sweetly. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly, and he started anew elsewhere, continuing to practice writing.

Tian Buyi looked at He Dazhi, who stood before him with his head lowered, raised his hand, stretched out a finger, and scratched his temple, his face full of helplessness.

"Is he really that hard to teach?"

"Master!" He Dazhi raised his head and looked at Tian Buyi above him with a dejected face. "Little Junior Brother is still sleeping right now!"

Tian Buyi was so provoked by his fourth disciple's expression that the skin all over his body tightened. In all these many years, this was the first time he had ever seen this jinshi disciple of his reveal such an expression.

He felt somewhat unhappy, and somewhat sympathetic too. It was not as if he had never experienced how unmanageable his little disciple was.

"Come! Let's go take a look!" Tian Buyi truly could not stand that expression of He Dazhi's. He got up and walked outside.

He Dazhi hurriedly followed behind him, heading toward the place where Luo Yunji studied.

Sure enough, Luo Yunji did not disappoint Tian Buyi. Through the window, he saw his seventh disciple properly and honestly practicing writing, while that little fatty's snores could be heard even from outside the window.

The flesh on Tian Buyi's face trembled nonstop with anger.

He raised his right hand, and Scarlet Flame appeared with it. He thrust it straight toward Luo Yunji's upturned fat butt.

"Uwah!" The little fatty cried out in pain, clutched his butt, and jumped up.

When Zhang Xiaofan beside him heard it, he hurriedly threw down the brush in his hand and circled around him, carefully sizing him up and checking him over.

"Practice your characters!" Tian Buyi lifted his leg and stepped through the door, waved a hand at Zhang Xiaofan, and with a stern face, looked utterly furious.

Zhang Xiaofan dawdled back behind his own desk, looking somewhat uneasily at his little junior brother.

"This is how you study!" Tian Buyi raised his voice and roared at Luo Yunji, who still had not figured out what was going on.

Luo Yunji rubbed his butt where it hurt from being stabbed, opened his bleary eyes, and blinked twice at Tian Buyi.

Tian Buyi was made even more unable to vent his anger by the expression on his little disciple's face. Could he really launch into a long lecture at a disciple who did not even know where he had gone wrong?

If he really did that, by the time he finished speaking, the other party still would not have figured out the cause of the matter, and he would have wasted his saliva for nothing.

"Go call your mistress over!" Tian Buyi found a chair and sat down, saying this to He Dazhi, who stood to the side.

He Dazhi hurriedly accepted the order and left.

While Tian Buyi waited for his wife, Su Ru, to arrive, he picked up an introductory book from the side and began checking the two little ones' lessons.

After Su Ru entered, what she saw was a warm, harmonious scene of family joy.

Tian Buyi held a book in his hand, reading it carefully, while the two little ones below answered every question put to them. Seeing Tian Buyi nod from time to time proved that both of their answers were correct.

Somewhat doubtful, Su Ru turned to look at the fourth disciple behind her.

He Dazhi had also seen the scene inside the room by now. Not knowing how to explain it, he could only lower his head.

Tian Buyi saw that his wife had come, with a whole string of people following behind her. Well, now! All his disciples had come along!

After Su Ru drew near, Tian Buyi told her about Luo Yunji's performance. Su Ru also looked somewhat troubled as she gazed at the young disciple she had brought up with her own hands. On her face was both the expression of hating iron for not becoming steel, and the indulgent smile of "whatever my child is like, he's still good."

"Dazhi! You continue teaching! Your mistress and I will watch from the side. If this brat dares to sleep in class again, I'll stab him with Scarlet Flame!" Tian Buyi got up and sat down on the chair by the window, took the tea Old Six handed him, and had a sip.

Su Ru also sat down beside Tian Buyi. Tian Linger giggled as she leaned against Su Ru, watching Luo Yunji with a face full of delight at his misfortune as he pouted, looking thoroughly miserable.