Chapter 53 Teaching Tribal Girls to Jump Rope (2)

"Your jump rope technique is basically perfect now! It's just that the transitions between the different movements aren't quite smooth yet. With more practice, you'll be able to jump like a pro!" Xu Que patted Hou's shoulder and said.

"I want to learn too! Are there any other mnemonics? I think you should just recite all the mnemonics you know so everyone can choose! They can learn whichever mnemonic they like!" Hua said to Xu Que a little shyly. Hua, the Black Deer Tribe leader, always felt embarrassed whenever she looked at Xu Que's face; it was her quirk! Who could blame her for being so handsome? It wasn't Hua's fault!

"If Sister Hua wants to learn how to jump rope, she can just come to me! She can't come to Brother Tian Shen! I'm afraid that you two will develop feelings for each other while learning and leave me out!" Hou said his true thoughts in front of Xu Que and Hua.

"Alright! Hou, go teach your Sister Hua then!" Xu Que pinched Hou's cheek and gave her a light glare as he spoke.

"Now I'll recite all the jump rope rhymes I can remember. Everyone can choose whichever one they like to learn!"

"Learn from Li Xiangyang, never surrender. If the enemy comes to capture me, quickly jump over the mountain wall. If the mountain wall is useless, quickly crawl into the tunnel. There are bombs in the tunnel. Blow up the little devils."

"One two three four five six seven, Malan flowers bloom twenty-one, or it can be (Malan flower, Malan flower, Malan flowers bloom twenty-one) two five six, two five seven, two eight two nine thirty-one, three five six, three five seven, three eight three nine forty-one, four five six... nine five six, nine five seven, nine eight nine nine one hundred and one."

"Zhou Bapi, he steals chickens. He gets up in the middle of the night and imitates a rooster. We were playing a game, and he caught Zhou Bapi."

...

"Fine! Then I'll choose Zhou Bapi!"

"Okay! Then I'll teach you!" Before Hua could finish speaking, Hou pulled her aside to have a lesson.

"I want to learn from Zhou Bapi!"

"I'll count myself!"

"Me too!"

...

Hou led a group of women from the Black Deer tribe to the side and demonstrated how to jump rope for them.

First, two members of the tribe helped set up the rubber bands for everyone. Then, two people took turns setting up the rubber bands for everyone who wanted to learn how to jump rope.

Before shouting the rhyme and teaching the moves to them, when I tried to memorize the rhyme for Zhou Bapi's jump rope in my mind, I found that I was stumbling and a little unfamiliar with it.

"Um! I'll go to Xu Que and have him read it again for me. I'll write it down on a thin stone tablet. Reading it from the tablet will be much smoother and easier! I won't forget my lines halfway through!" Thinking this, Hou took out a twig pen and a thin stone tablet from his animal skin food bag and went to Xu Que.

"Recite the Zhou Bapi mantra for me again! I need to write it down!" Hou held a twig pen in one hand and a thin stone in the other, and gently poked Xu Que with his elbow.

"Alright! I just remembered a lot of mnemonics, so I'll memorize a few more while I'm at it!" Xu Que shouted.

"Alright! Then you read it!" Hou grabbed the thin stone tablet and twig pen, ready to take notes.

"Ducks quack, oxen leap and bound. Horses eat cabbages, pandas run fast. Rabbits have round ears, tigers roar. Mice are fatter than pigs, roosters lay eggs. I'll recite Zhou Bapi's last one to you!" Xu Que finished reciting in one breath, then laughed and shouted.

Hou stood there for a long time, holding the twig pen, biting the heel of the pen, and said with difficulty, "How am I supposed to remember this? I drew the stone tablet in my head based on its general shape! This duck quacks, I can draw a duck with its head held high and its mouth open. The ox jumps and leaps, I can draw a jumping ox! The horse eats cabbage, I've seen horses, but what does cabbage look like? I've never seen one! The panda runs fast! I've never seen a panda either! I can draw the rabbit's round ears! The mouse is fatter than the pig, I can draw that too! How do I remember that the rooster lays eggs? It's so hard! Drawing is too hard to remember!" Hou looked at Xu Que with an innocent and pleading look.

Xu Que scratched his head, slightly troubled: "This is really hard for you to remember! I had forgotten that you couldn't write! It seems I'll have to find time to teach you to read and write properly! Trying to record these mnemonic rhymes by drawing pictures will exhaust you!"

"Hmm! That's right! So now you're going to teach me to write?" Hou's eyes suddenly lit up as he looked at Xu Que with great anticipation.

Xu Que exclaimed in surprise, "You think learning to write is easy? How could you possibly learn it in a short time! It takes a long time to practice and become proficient in remembering things! Look at those girls in the tribe who are waiting to learn how to jump rope from you. By the time you've learned all the characters for recording things, their children will probably be able to go to the enclosures of wild animals and collect wild eggs!"

"Huh?! Humph! What should I do? They're waiting for me to teach them!" Hou stomped his feet anxiously on the ground.

Seeing this, Xu Que opened the system's exchange shop and spent 150 exchange coins to exchange for a maintenance-free voice recorder.

He took the recorder out of his pocket, turned on the drill, pressed the record button, and recited the jump rope rhyme from memory: "Rubber rope, wrapped around your feet, jump and jump around your feet. Like a flying goose, like a little bird, jump low first, then jump high. Jump over mountains, jump over seas, jump over the motherland's Taiwan island. See relatives, little compatriots, jump rope and laugh together."

"I went to Nanshan to pick apples, and the grandpa in Nanshan caught me and wouldn't let me go for three days and three nights. He sent me to a nursery, and the nursery auntie smiled and taught me to sing do Re mi..."

"Flower, flower, flower fairy, why is she called flower fairy? Because she has flower braids, so she is called flower fairy, flower fairy."

"Little Red took a grenade and killed 32 million Japanese soldiers. Little Red, Little Red, come to my house. There will be a mother to sleep with you, a sister to play with you, and a brother to row a boat with you."

...

Xu Que recorded all the shouts he could remember from before into the voice recorder.

Hou looked at Xu Que's actions with confusion: "What are you doing? Talking to a black stick? Does it remember what you say?"

Xu Que nodded at Hou and pressed the play button on the recorder: "That's right! Listen!"

Xu Que recited all the jump rope tips he had just read, word for word, and in the same voice!

Hou took the recorder from Xu Que, curiously waved it in the air, and asked blankly, "When did you get inside this? I can't shake it out!"

Xu Que rubbed her head speechlessly: "This is a voice recorder, it can record sound! I didn't crawl into this!"

"Say anything to it now!" Xu Que took the recorder from Hou's hand and pressed the record button.

He pointed his mouth at the microphone of the recorder, spoke a passage in the primitive language of the Black Deer tribe, and then clicked the play button. His adorable, clip-on voice came from the recorder.

"Wow! That's amazing! That's so much fun!" Hou took the recorder from Xu Que and jumped up and down excitedly! He hugged Xu Que's head and kissed his cheeks more than twenty times.