Chapter 376 New County Magistrate
"Aunt Zhou Wu's family is relatively poor because Uncle Zhou Wu passed away a long time ago. Brothers Dayong and Eryi were sick and needed a lot of money, so Aunt Zhou Wu sold Uncle Zhou Wu's land and only kept four acres."
Manbao had followed Xiao Qianshi since he was a child, so he knew a lot about this kind of gossip. Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang listened to it with great interest.
"When Brother Dayong ran out of money to get married, Aunt Zhou sold the remaining four mu of land to build a house for the family and get him married. Fortunately, Brother Dayong had received the land at that time," Manbao said. "But when Brother Eryi was about to get married, Aunt Zhou took another four mu of land from Brother Dayong to sell..."
Yang Heshu & Everyone: ...
Manbao chuckled and said happily, "At that time, the village chief even came to our house and scolded Aunt Zhou Wu, saying that they were lazy and only wanted to sell the land. In the future, there would be nothing left for their descendants and they would only become poorer and poorer. After that, Aunt Zhou Wu didn't dare to sell the land, but her life was still difficult."
It was easy to understand Laitou's family. "He was a gambler. His family used to live better than mine. I remember when I was very young, when we had dinner, the aroma of meat would waft from their house. Then I would be very hungry, so my mother would ask my sister-in-law to cook me an egg..."
Manbao said, "He gambles away all his money, forgetting to eat or fight. He gambled away all our wealth in just over a year. Then he sold my niece and broke her leg when someone came to collect the money. Now he goes to the county to gamble whenever he has money. I think the relief food should not be given to him, but to his father and his son."
Yang Heshu frowned. This was not going to be easy.
"Brother Zhou Hu's house," Manbao sighed.
Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang also sighed.
Yang Heshu asked curiously, "What happened to their family?"
"Brother Zhou Hu's family used to be very rich. They were the richest family except for the village chief's."
Yang Heshu knew that Aunt Zhou was not from the village chief's family as early as when Manbao said that the village chief went to scold Aunt Zhou. He didn't expect that she was not from the second best family either?
Yang Heshu asked, "Does he gamble too?"
"Brother Zhou Hu doesn't gamble. It's just that Mrs. Hu had a difficult birth last year and now she has to take medicine. It's drained all our family savings. Sigh~~"
"Alas~"
"Alas~"
Yang Heshu looked at the three children with their heads down and felt that the one named Zhou Hu should be quite popular in the village.
He pondered, "A single illness can bankrupt a moderately wealthy family."
"That's right. That's why my father always says that we can't be sick. If we dare to go to the river to play or get wet in the rain, we will definitely be beaten when we get back."
Yang Heshu asked with a smile, "What's your father's name?"
Manbao cheered up and said happily, "My father's name is Zhou Jin. My family is very poor. You must remember this."
Yang Heshu's smile froze and he asked, "Why do you want me to remember this?"
Manbao and Bai Shanbao looked at each other and said quickly, "It's nothing, it's nothing, just remember it."
Yang Heshu rubbed his forehead and asked, "Have you guessed my identity?"
Manbao's eyes sparkled as he asked, "Who are you?"
What is his identity?
Yang Heshu looked at Manbao for a while and saw that her eyes were bright and she was not guilty. Bai Shanbao beside her was also looking at him expectantly.
Only Bai Erlang looked confused.
He couldn't help but laugh and said, "Nothing much, just the new magistrate of Luojiang County."
He asked Manbao and Bai Shanbao, "Have you seen me?"
It has been twenty days since he took office, and Manbao and the others have accidentally seen him on the street.
Who knew that Manbao shook his head and said, "I haven't seen it."
Yang Heshu looked at her suspiciously and asked, "Did you guess my identity?"
"You must be an official anyway," Bai Shanbao said. "Apart from officials or those about to become officials, who else would understand the people's sentiments?"
“Why must I be an official?”
Now Manbao spoke up, "You look like a scholar, a delicate and tender one at that. Scholars your age usually work as officials or study abroad. If you wanted to study abroad, why not tell us openly? You even made up an excuse about getting lost. You're going from Baimaquan Town to the county seat, and no matter how many shortcuts you take, you can't get to us."
The most important thing is that Yang Heshu's performance is too similar to a book they had read before, "The Secret History of Private Visits". Although it is a vernacular novel, she and Bai Shanbao both think the story is very interesting.
I originally thought that the stories in it were all fabricated. After all, when a noble person appears, how could he not be surrounded by people, such as County Magistrate Fu.
Anyway, when Manbao met him, he was surrounded by many people, either officials or his servants.
But the moment he saw Yang Heshu, Manbao felt that not all officials in the world were the same as County Magistrate Fu, just like people are different.
It turns out that the script in the system is still reliable.
County Magistrate Yang obviously didn't know enough about the local area and didn't know why it was impossible to take a shortcut from Baimaquan Town to the county seat by passing through here.
but……
He looked the three children up and down for a long time. They were all young, so how naughty must they be to be able to figure out the small paths from the nearby villages to Baimaquan Town and the county seat?
He didn't know that Manbao, Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang had once gotten lost. After that, they had thought about how to get to Baimaquan Town. In addition, they had been hanging out with the laborers who were serving at the time for a long time, and they talked about everything from family matters to everyone.
When he heard that they were lost and came looking for him, he counted all the routes he knew. In order to find some plants he had never seen before, Manbao even curiously pulled Zhou Silang to walk through several small paths, but he didn't find any rare plants. He did pick up a lot of firewood.
Even Bai Erlang passively knew about several small paths. Of course, he would not walk on those paths. It would be bad enough if he had to walk on his own two legs, but there was no rest, and there were potholes and grass everywhere, making it not easy to walk at all.
Bai Erlang looked down at their shoes and trousers and said, "You must not be taking the shortcut."
Seeing even the dumbest child say this, Yang Heshu could only smile awkwardly. He didn't continue the topic and asked the three people with a smile, "I see you have hired quite a few people. How big is your land?"
Manbao stood on the wooden bed and even made a gesture with his little hand, saying, "The land you can't see over there is also ours, a total of 120 acres, and the mountain behind us is also ours."
Yang Heshu glanced at the mountain behind them and saw only dense trees and overgrown weeds. He couldn't help but ask, "Did you buy this mountain from the village chief? What's the use of buying it?"
"I didn't buy it. It was my fourth brother's share of the land."
Yang Heshu glared slightly, "Koufentian, why, why is the mountain like this?"
Manbao looked at him curiously and said, "If the land is not mountains, what else can it be? The land in our village is all mountains. See that mountain over there? Most of the land in our village is there. My father, my eldest brother, and my second brother got the best land. It's in or near the village. My third and fourth brothers were the worst off. They were given land so far away. By the time my fifth brother gets it, he'll probably be given land near Dali Village."
(End of this chapter)
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