Chapter 45: The Huang Family Son-in-Law is Not the Imperial Consort

Not long after, Huang Shan and Huang Hai returned. Huang Hai was carrying a slightly larger small wild boar on his shoulder, while Huang Shan was carrying two small wild boars by himself. Although the ones he carried were a bit smaller, there were two of them, making the weight considerably heavier than what Huang Hai was lugging.

"Hahaha, my brother and I bagged three small wild boars! Su Yu took down a sow, and our uncle brought down a big boar. That makes five pigs in total—we’ve completely swept the whole family of them in one go!"

"A bumper harvest, an absolute bumper harvest!"

"All right, stop bragging and hurry up and bring over the game Su Yu hunted earlier. We need to get ready to leave." Huang Shan cut off Huang Hai's self-admiration and told him to fetch the rest of the game.

Huang Hai curled his lip and went off on his own to retrieve the game. Su Yu followed closely behind. There was a roe deer over there weighing fifty catties; Huang Hai wouldn't have been able to carry it all by himself anyway.

Before long, the two of them returned. Huang Shan had already gutted the three small wild boars and fed the offal to the dogs.

"With so much game, won't we have trouble carrying it all?"

"What's there to be afraid of? We'll just carry it slowly. Who knows, we might run into people from our village along the way."

No sooner had the words left his mouth than rustling noises came from the bushes. Dabao and the others had spotted them first, though Su Yu had already caught the scent as well. However, he kept quiet about it because the scent was tainted with the smell of tobacco—clearly, an old smoker was approaching.

Since it was just people, there was no need for him to sound any alarm and draw unnecessary attention.

"Oh, it's Uncle Laoshan and the others."

Huang Shan and Huang Jianmin walked over to greet them, while Su Yu and Huang Hai remained sitting on the ground without getting up.

Shortly after, a group of people drew near. This Uncle Laoshan was a clansman of Huang Shan from within the same lineage, definitely a close relative.

Uncle Laoshan, Huang Jianmin, and Huang Hongsheng shared the same grandfather. Of course, their grandfather had long passed away—Huang Hongsheng was already close to sixty years old, after all—but the bond remained, seeing as they were paternal cousins.

"Hello, Uncle Laoshan." Huang Hai quickly stood up to greet him, and Su Yu followed suit, addressing him as Uncle Laoshan.

There was no helping it; given the man's age, even if they were strangers, they ought to show respect and call him uncle, not to mention he was an elder of Huang Shan's clan.

"You must be Su Yu? I heard from my brother Jianmin that your archery skills are extraordinary and that all this game was shot by you?"

Su Yu quickly shook his head in denial. He was only joking—most of it truly was hunted by him, but there was no way he could admit to that.

"Not at all. Uncle Huang is just giving me too much credit. I was merely tagging along to help out; I wouldn't dare take the credit."

"Hahaha, you brat. This isn't the battlefield where you're earning military honors; what are you afraid of? There's no need to be modest about this. I've already heard it from your Uncle Jianmin—you're Su'e's young man?"

"Good, very good! That girl Su'e has a good eye, and combined with the fact that you saved her father's life, this is a wonderful match that brings our families even closer."

Su Yu, Huang Shan, and Huang Hai all wore awkward expressions.

Huang Shan and Huang Hai had only used Su Yu's participation as an excuse, blurting it out in front of all those people when signing up. But while they had said that, everyone knew it was just a pretext—though they couldn't entirely rule out the possibility.

And now, someone was actually taking it seriously. Yet neither Huang Shan nor Huang Hai could explain the truth to Huang Jianmin in public; the rumor definitely originated from Huang Jianmin himself, which led Uncle Laoshan to believe it.

"Ahem... Well, about that—I do have feelings for Sister Su'e, but I haven't brought it up to her yet. Uncle Laoshan, please don't go spreading this around."

There was no helping it. While he could tell the truth, he could also try to muddle through it. If he didn't step up to clarify, the only one left to do so would be Huang Shan. But if Huang Shan stepped in to explain, wouldn't that make Su Yu look utterly spineless, hiding behind others and not even daring to show his face?

Therefore, he had no choice but to step forward and offer an explanation. Yet if he outright said it was just a pretense, wouldn't that be slapping Huang Jianmin in the face? It was better to just muddle through it.

"Ah... Right, right, right! He and my younger sister have only met a few times and haven't confessed their feelings to each other yet. Uncle Laoshan, you mustn't run your mouth and tell everyone."

"You brat, your wings are getting stiff, daring to speak to your old uncle like that? Are you looking for a beating?"

Uncle Laoshan glared fiercely, causing the two-meter-tall Huang Shan to shrink his neck and fall silent. Huang Hai, who was similarly close to two meters tall, didn't dare utter a word either.

Their family had strict discipline, and they still held great respect for the elders of the clan. The crucial thing was that their particular branch of the clan didn't have all those messy internal conflicts, and the elders were truly respectable—unlike Su Yu's clan, where everyone schemed against one another day in and day out.

"This is my son, Huang He, and this is Huang Liu. Put them together and you get Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, and Seas. Your Uncle Jianmin's child was born late and missed the sequence, so they added the character 'Xing' instead. Put them all together, it's Mountains, Rivers, Lakes, Seas, and Prosperity."

So that was how it was! Su Yu had been wondering why the eldest was named Huang Shan and the second was Huang Hai—turns out there was also a clan member named Huang He.

That made complete sense. However, since his biological uncle Huang Jianmin's son was born late, he could only be placed at the very end. There was simply no helping that.

The second generation all had two-character given names, such as Huang Jianmin and Huang Hongsheng, and Uncle Laoshan was surely the same. But the third generation had single-character given names, like Huang Shan, Huang Hai, and so on.

Su Yu went forward to shake hands with them one by one. Good grief, Uncle Laoshan's two sons were equally towering, neither of them shorter than one meter ninety.

Still, Su Yu wasn't too shabby at one meter eighty-five. Though he was the shortest among that particular group of men, he was taller than Huang Jianmin and taller than Uncle Laoshan.

"All right, you guys bagged a lot of game. My father and I will help you carry it down the mountain."

Uncle Laoshan and his two sons only had a pitiful few pheasants and wild hares; apart from that, they had made no other gains.

Su Yu possessed extraordinary strength, hoisting the leopard onto his shoulder all by himself, along with a sow he had hunted. As for the roe deer, that was left to Huang Shan and the others.

Each person carried dozens of catties of weight. If not for the Huang family's good genes and towering statures, just hauling those five pigs down the mountain would have been impossible, let alone the rest of the game. Even so, everyone was panting heavily, forced to set their loads down and rest after walking a short distance.

"Jianmin, Jianguun, you guys hunted so much game? Good grief, did you come to the mountains to run a wholesale business?"

Hearing this, Su Yu finally realized that Uncle Laoshan's actual name was Jianguun. That explained it—if his paternal cousin was named Jianmin, how could Huang Shan dare use "Shan" in his own name? In rural naming traditions, one naturally had to avoid using the characters belonging to elder generations.

"Ahem... It was all hunted by the kids. With our old bones and legs, how could we ever outrun the game?"

There was no help for it; Uncle Laoshan couldn't very well admit they had only managed to bag a single rabbit and a single pheasant, could he?

"Come, come, come, all of you give a hand. What are you just standing there looking for? Show some initiative!"

At the urging of the village elder, a few of the younger generation hurriedly stepped forward to relieve Huang Shan, Huang Hai, Huang He, Huang Liu, and Su Yu of the game they were carrying.

"Whoa, brother, is this a leopard you've got here? This thing is worth a small fortune! You've struck it rich."

His exclamation startled the others, who immediately turned to look. Seeing them lugging wild boars was already enough to induce envy, and now it turned out there was even more plunder.

"Brother, you look unfamiliar. Where are you from?"

Before Su Yu and Huang Shan could reply, Uncle Laoshan was already bragging on their behalf.

"This is my niece's husband, Su'e's young man."

Huang Shan and Huang Hai secretly thought, *This is bad.* It was completely over now. As long as it was a small, low-profile affair that drew no attention, anything could be said. But once the word got out, it would be entirely different. Their sister would definitely skin them alive for using her as an excuse!