Chapter 131: Unequal Suffering
Manbao didn't understand these things, and she was very envious of her fourth brother who could live outside, so she was squatting in front of Zhou Silang's straw hut at this time, not very willing to go home.
Zhou Xi and his three younger brothers cleared the weeds and turned to take Manbao home. Manbao ran into the straw shed, squatted on the ground, and looked up and said, "Sister, can my fourth brother and I stay here tonight?"
Zhou Xi: ...
Zhou Silang immediately said, "Okay, you can sleep next to me, so you can help me share some of the mosquitoes."
Zhou Xi went up to her and dragged her home, saying, "Don't even think about spending the night here. You'll start crying when it gets dark. There are so many mosquitoes outside."
They had already eaten dinner and were taking advantage of the cooler weather after sunset to weed. So Zhou Silang didn't have to go home. He stood in the straw shed and waved to Manbao, "Little sister, don't go back. Stay and feed the mosquitoes with your fourth brother."
Manbao also reached out to Zhou Silang, trying hard to break free from Zhou Xi's hand, "Sister, sister, please let me go, I want to stay here with my fourth brother..."
Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang laughed heartily. They came forward, grabbed one of her arms, and carried her home, saying to her as they carried her, "Are you stupid? Wait until it gets dark, don't go to bed yet, go squat in the yard. If you can stand the mosquitoes, you can come live with Fourth Brother."
"You have tender flesh, mosquitoes love you the most. If you stay, Fourth Brother will wake up laughing at night."
Manbao finally stopped struggling and asked, "Si Ge, why does you live here if there are so many mosquitoes?"
"We need to keep an eye on the ginger. No one steals our yams, but our ginger has been dug up several times. A large piece weighs at least 200-300 grams. These people are so evil."
This was the first time Manbao heard of someone stealing ginger. He thought they were a bit stupid. "If they wanted ginger, they could just buy it from us. Why would they steal it?"
Zhou Wulang laughed at her, "Why spend money to buy it when you can do it secretly?"
Manbao's eyes widened as he said, "Isn't buying things natural? I've never heard of stealing being natural."
Now it was Zhou Wulang's turn to choke, but since this matter was hard to explain, he decided not to say anything.
But Manbao was obviously very interested in this topic and even went to ask Mr. Zhuang about it.
Bai Shanbao happened to be there, so Mr. Zhuang asked him, "Why do you think the villagers stole the ginger?"
"Because they want to grow ginger, too," Bai Shanbao said. "I've never grown ginger before, and I never knew it was so easy to grow. My grandmother said I don't have to sell the ginger in my flower garden to anyone else. She bought it all, forty cents a pound."
Mr. Zhuang stroked his beard and smiled, "Indeed, no one in the village grew ginger before. Everyone was the same, buying it from the grocery store during festivals. There was nothing different. But now some people are growing it, and they're growing a lot. This is why we worry about inequality, not scarcity. Think about it: if you were the government officials and the people you governed were like this, what would you do?"
Bai Shanbao and Manbao looked at each other and said, "Stealing is against the law, right? He should be punished."
Mr. Zhuang smiled and nodded, encouraging them to continue.
The two children let go and started chattering. Of course, they were speaking in the context of the current environment. They were all from the same village, and it would definitely not be good to arrest someone suddenly, so it would be best to do some preaching before arresting them, such as telling everyone that stealing is wrong, which is not only against morality but also against the law.
Finally, Manbao said, "Since they also want to grow ginger, why not give them a piece to plant? I can also tell them how to plant it. If they steal it and keep watering it like Shanbao, they will kill it."
Bai Shanbao tilted his head and glared at her, saying, "My ginger is growing better than yours now."
Manbao said: "Because I am here to help you."
Mr. Zhuang coughed lightly to attract the two children's attention, and then asked Manbao, "Will you share things with others whenever there is inequality in the future?"
"Of course not," Manbao said, "If I want to split, I split. If I don't want to split, I don't."
Mr. Zhuang: ...It was a very childish answer, but he understood it. Mr. Zhuang was relieved and said that his disciple didn’t look so stupid.
Mr. Zhuang waved his hand and said, "Then you can go and give it a try. Give the ginger to someone else to grow and see how it goes."
He also wanted to see what the two disciples would do.
Manbao and Bai Shanbao looked at each other and walked out of the master's yard together. One of them said, "The ginger is not ripe yet."
"Everyone has to harvest beans now. We don't have time. Let's talk about it after we finish harvesting the beans." Manbao still felt sorry for her own ginger and was not willing to give it away for nothing. She just said it in front of her husband, but it is not a good thing to go back on one's word. She didn't know if her husband would forget it after some time.
Bai Shanbao also disliked Manbao's quick mouth and was the first to declare, "I sold all my ginger to my grandmother. I have nothing left to give away."
Manbao snorted, "How stingy."
Bai Shanbao thought about it and felt that this was not a good idea, so he said, "Have you sold all your ginger? Otherwise, I can ask my grandmother to buy some for you."
Manbao asked, "Can your family eat so much?"
Bai Shanbao: "We can eat it, right? My grandmother and her family use ginger to make tea every day. If we can't finish it, we can give it away."
Manbao thought for a moment and said, "If your family needs it, I'll sell it to you. If not, you don't have to buy it specifically. I've already made an agreement with Shopkeeper Zheng of Jishiditang. When winter comes and the ginger gets old, I can sell it to him. I can also sell it to grocery stores or retail it in the county. Anyway, the ginger can be stored, so we can sell it slowly."
These gingers may look like a lot, but they are actually not that much, especially since they can be stored. At most, they can be stored until the New Year or other festivals, when many people will buy them.
Manbao is not in a hurry to sell. As Keke said, this is a seller's market. She may need to consider selling it when more people grow ginger in the future.
Thinking about it this way, it seems that giving ginger seeds to the villagers will do more harm than good, but Manbao doesn't think so.
People in the village will recommend good seeds to each other, and give away some not-too-expensive seeds. As for expensive seeds, as long as they have extra ones, they can exchange them for something else. Manbao feels that their family should not break this balance.
As for why, she couldn't figure it out with her little brain, she just felt that it couldn't be broken.
Fortunately, it is the busy farming season now, and everyone obviously has no time to pay attention to the Zhou family's ginger.
Because no matter how expensive ginger is, in everyone's eyes, it is just a condiment and dispensable, but the crops in the fields are not.
That is their livelihood for the year.
The sun was very bright these days, so the already yellow beans matured quickly. So everyone looked at the date and some people started harvesting the beans.
Old Zhou thought it would be sunny for the next few days, so he took his family to the fields to harvest beans.
(End of this chapter)
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