Chapter 27 Cockfighting
Zhou Wulang and the other three also thought Manbao was amazing and asked, "Manbao, how did you figure that out?"
Zhou Liulang said embarrassedly, "I've been trying to figure it out for a long time, but I still can't figure it out."
Daya testified for him, "Uncle Liu started counting when we only had four or five flower baskets left, and he still hadn't finished counting by the time we were done."
Manbao counted on his fingers and said to them, "It's very simple. There are twenty-four flower baskets in total. Each one costs five coins, so twenty of them is exactly one hundred coins. Two flower baskets are ten coins, and four is twenty coins. One hundred coins plus twenty coins is one hundred and twenty coins, right?"
Wu Lang and the other three looked at each other with tears in their eyes. They counted on their fingers for a long time but still couldn't understand, "Why are twenty flower baskets one hundred coins?"
Manbao said as a matter of course: "Because ten flower baskets are fifty cents."
Wulang and his three companions became even more confused.
But no matter what, they made a lot of money.
Wulang put all the money into the cloth bag containing candy, touched it, and his face turned red with excitement. He had never touched so much money before.
When Liu Lang saw it, he wanted to touch some too, so the five of them took turns touching a handful of copper coins. Only then did they say with satisfaction, "Our family is rich now."
Wu Lang held the cloth bag in his arms and put it away, then asked Man Bao, "Little sister, what do you want to play? Tell me, and I'll take you to play."
Manbao said, "I'm going to buy a big rooster."
Wu Lang subconsciously covered the bag and asked, "Why did you buy a big rooster?"
"To nourish mother's body," Manbao said with sparkling eyes, "Dad said that mother suffered too much in the past, so she needs to nourish her body to get better. Big rooster will nourish her."
Wu Lang held the cloth bag, feeling reluctant to part with it. "But that big rooster costs sixty-five coins. It's too expensive."
Daya and Erya also thought it was too expensive and nodded.
Manbao was very persistent. She felt that money was easy to make, and what could be more important than her mother's health?
Wu Lang couldn't argue with her, so he could only say, "Let's buy a different one, a smaller one. Mom is the only one eating, and she can't eat so much in one meal. This way it's cheaper, and we can buy a few more."
Manbao thought what he said made sense, "Then where can I buy roosters?"
Of course, it was the street they had just come from, which specialized in selling all kinds of chickens, ducks, vegetables, and so on. However, Zhou Wulang rarely came to the county town and did not want to go back to that street. So, he rolled his eyes and pointed ahead and said, "Let's go ahead and have a look. Maybe we can find some bargains."
Everyone agreed happily.
Zhou Wulang held Manbao's hand and hugged the cloth bag tightly, while Zhou Liulang held one of his nieces in each hand. The two of them carried backpacks and happily took everyone out to play.
It was the first time for Manbao to see so many people and she was extremely excited. She was not afraid of strangers and would go wherever there were many people.
At the beginning, it was Goro who held her hand, but soon she was dragging Goro, and in the end, Goro was chasing her.
Liu Lang also had his own places he wanted to go, so he got too lazy to chase after him after a while. It was just one street anyway, so he would definitely run into him if he kept walking forward.
Daya and Erya didn't want to chase anymore, so they just followed Uncle Liu and played happily in the back.
It’s just a pity for Zhou Wulang, as he has to worry about someone stealing the money in his cloth bag, and also worry about Manbao running away. Most importantly, he also wants to play!
Manbao ran and stopped along with the crowd, not knowing where she was going. When she saw a group of adults gathered together and shouting loudly, she became very curious and squeezed through the crowd to get in.
Zhou Wulang followed behind, sweating profusely, "Manbao, Manbao, don't run around..."
It was difficult for him to get in with the backpack on his back, so he could only jump up to see what was going on inside. When he saw what was going on inside, he was so scared that his face turned pale. He didn't care about anything else, dropped the backpack, hugged the cloth bag tightly and squeezed in.
As soon as Manbao got in, he saw two chickens placed in the middle. Their feathers were stretched straight up and they were clucking and fighting. Manbao was stunned. What was so interesting about two chickens fighting?
The adults watching were very excited. They clenched their fists and yelled, "Peck it, peck it, hard, peck the eyes, peck the eyes... Ouch!"
Manbao looked up at the excitement of the adults on his left, then looked up at the frustration of the adults on his right, completely confused. "Koko, what are they doing? Should I help them and persuade the two chickens to stop fighting?"
The system said: "It is recommended that the host should not go. This should be the legendary cockfighting."
Manbao asked curiously, "What is cockfighting?"
"A form of gambling where two chickens fight each other, and the owner of the defeated chicken loses." The system introduced some famous cockfighting legends in history.
For example, a certain emperor was very fond of cockfighting. Someone spent a lot of money to present him with a chicken, but he was scolded by a famous minister for this.
Manbao looked at it curiously for a while, and Zhou Wulang finally came out from inside, hugged Manbao, covered her eyes and said, "Manbao, who told you to run here? This is gambling, we can't follow Fourth Brother's example."
Manbao pulled his hands away from his eyes. It happened that the two chickens in the field had also decided the winner. One of them had its eyes pecked blind and was now running away with its wings tucked between its legs. The chicken behind it was proudly raising its head and clucking, just like Manbao who had done something great.
The owner of the runaway chicken was so angry that he kicked the chicken to the ground, took out a handful of silver from his pocket and threw it to the other person.
Manbao widened his eyes, looked at the man, then at the chicken, as if thinking about something.
Zhou Wulang was frightened when he saw Yaomei's expression and pulled her away.
Manbao was not happy and said, "I'm not as stupid as Fourth Brother. What's so fun about watching chickens fight? It's not like people fighting."
Zhou Wulang was stunned. "You, you still want to see a fight?"
Manbao asked curiously, "Is there really a way to gamble by watching people fight?"
Zhou Wulang had never seen it either, but he had heard about it from his fourth brother. But did he dare to tell Manbao?
Zhou Wulang shook his head repeatedly, "No!"
Manbao said "Oh", broke free from his hand and said, "I'm going to go talk to that big brother."
After saying that, he went towards the man who had lost money in gambling and had a grim look on his face. Manbao was small in stature, and when he stood in front of the other person, he was only as tall as his thigh.
Although the man's face was grim, he wasn't angry enough to get mad at a child. He frowned and yelled at everyone around him, "Whose child was brought here? Get rid of him immediately."
Zhou Wulang had already caught up and hugged Manbao, ready to drag him away. Manbao pushed Wu Ge away and shouted at him, "Brother, do you still want to buy a rooster? It's a very beautiful rooster."
The man lowered his head to look at Manbao, frowned and said, "Do you have chickens at home?"
Manbao nodded vigorously. "I saw a very, very beautiful rooster. Its feathers were red with black, its eyes were sparkling, and its comb was straight and bright red. It was so beautiful, so beautiful."
(End of this chapter)
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