Chapter 1799 - 1801: What What
The previous group was so outstanding that Miss Wang was incredibly nervous at this moment. She wasn’t someone with scholarly knowledge; she could recognize some characters, but that was all. At this time, she was afraid of embarrassing Mr. Zhao. She glanced at Mr. Zhao, who seemed to encourage her with his eyes, and with that, she gathered her courage and opened the slip of paper.
Seeing the characters on the paper, she smiled. Luckily, it wasn’t like the previous couplet, which she couldn’t handle; it was just a riddle, and she thought she could manage that.
So she confidently said, "This is a riddle: ’Fallen leaves in autumn, bloom in February. Waves of a thousand feet cross the river, entering bamboo, slanting ten thousand rods.’ Guess a character; I guess it’s the character for ’wind’."
As soon as she spoke, the crowd erupted into thunderous applause. Although it was just solving a riddle, compared to the previous round, it was relatively more difficult, and being able to answer it was quite an achievement.
Seeing this, Mr. Zhao smiled slightly, confidently wrote down the character for ’wind,’ and then showed the paper to everyone.
The crowd once again erupted in admiration, even the elderly gentlemen nodded repeatedly.
Miss Wang happily walked over to Mr. Zhao’s side, having passed the challenge.
Finally, it was Yang Dong’s turn.
The crowd quieted down again, waiting for Yang Dong to answer.
Yang Dong unfolded the paper with the question. Seeing the densely packed characters, he frowned. He felt a bit dizzy; he recognized the characters, but they did not recognize him. He could roughly understand the land deed he saw before, but this literary stuff he truly couldn’t comprehend.
The host, seeing him hesitate, said, "Please read out the question and give an answer, Mr. Yang."
But Yang Dong still did not speak. Li Chuntao, noticing this, had a guess and said, "It’s okay, just read the characters you recognize."
Upon hearing Li Chuntao’s reassurance, only then did Yang Dong begin to speak. Whether it was the alcohol or the embarrassment of not recognizing the characters, his face flushed red as he haltingly read the words on the paper, using ’something’ to replace the unknown characters.
"The road something something is not far, the stone something something but no mountain, the thunder something something but no rain, the snow something something but not cold, guess an object."
This caused the crowd to murmur.
"What what what is he actually saying?"
"Hahaha, I’m dying of laughter; he doesn’t recognize the characters and uses ’something’ as a substitute."
"Ha? Hahaha, that’s really embarrassing."
"This is bad; he lost as soon as he opened his mouth."
"Indeed, didn’t I say earlier, he doesn’t look like a learned person, and now it seems true. I don’t even know how someone who can’t recognize characters is with Miss Li."
"..."
"..."
Among the crowd, the Yang Family felt so embarrassed by Yang Dong’s performance that they wished they could find a hole to hide in. If you don’t recognize them, just skip them and say ’road and not far, stone but no mountain,’ skipping the unknown characters. There’s no need to use ’something’ showing he doesn’t recognize the characters.
How straightforward does his mind have to be!
The continuous laughter among the crowd even made the respectable old gentlemen shake their heads repeatedly.
Yang Dong knew that he had messed up and felt somewhat embarrassed.
At this moment, the host asked, "So then, reveal the answer. It’s a guessing game of an object; what is the object?"
He thought maybe he could guess despite missing some characters, so he asked again, only to hear Yang Dong say, "I don’t know."