Chapter 418: Fright
Old Zhou glared, "Sell? You exchanged it for money, not wheat?"
Manbao smiled and nodded, waiting for Old Zhou to praise him.
Old Zhou asked in a trembling voice, "You, how much did you sell?"
Manbaote said proudly: "All sold!"
Now not only Old Zhou, but also Zhou Dalang and the others who were enjoying the cool in the yard could no longer stay and surrounded them, "Sold everything?"
Old Zhou couldn't sit still and slid right off the threshold onto the ground. He slapped his thigh and couldn't help but cry out, "Ouch, ouch!" He pointed at Manbao but couldn't hit or scold him, so he could only cry, "What a loser! What's the point of you exchanging it for money? Can you eat money? Can you eat it?"
Old Zhou shouted, "There's only a little grain left from last year's summer and autumn harvests. If you sell all the wheat, what will our family eat?"
Manbao was stunned. She was so focused on making money that she didn't think of this.
But she quickly came to her senses and comforted her father, "Dad, it's okay. Mr. Bai said that the silver and goods will be settled tomorrow. We can just go buy food with the money."
Old Zhou couldn't help but point his finger at her forehead and said, "My daughter, have you become stupid from studying? You sold grain and then went to buy grain again. What are you trying to achieve? Do you know how much you're losing?"
"It's not a loss," Manbao said. "Even if I still buy wheat, I can sell a bushel of wheat for 150 coins, and then buy another bushel for 50 coins, so I can still make a lot of money."
Seeing her father crying miserably, Manbao's little head raced as she said, "We don't have to go to the county town to buy it. Shanbao still has a lot of wheat at home. I'll ask him to sell it to us. He needs to sell his grain anyway."
Old Zhou was about to cry, but Zhou Erlang had already shouted, "Dad!"
Old Zhou was startled and was about to lose his temper when Zhou Silang squeezed over and asked with shining eyes, "Manbao, how much did you say you sold it to Mr. Bai for?"
Manbao said proudly: "One hundred and fifty coins a dou!"
Only then did Old Zhou hear the number clearly, his eyes widened and then became stunned!
Qian slapped him in the face, and Old Zhou came to his senses with a start. He didn't blame his wife, but grabbed her hand and asked, "Did I fall asleep and dream without realizing it?"
"What kind of dream are you having? Don't you see the children are all here?" Qian turned around and instructed her second daughter-in-law, "Go light the oil lamp and let your father take a look at the documents that Manbao brought back."
Feng responded happily, mainly because they wanted to see it too.
The oil lamp was lit, and the family gathered together to look at the document. Old Zhou could only barely recognize a few numbers and his own name.
So he didn't try to recognize any of the words, but instead asked Manbao where the amount of money was written, and then stared at that place.
After looking at it for a long time and confirming that it was written as 150 wen, Old Zhou put the document away like a treasure. Then he scolded his sons in disgust and asked Manbao in a soft voice, "Manbao, is our wheat made of gold? Why is it so expensive?"
"It's not expensive at all," Manbao said. "The grain seeds sold in the grain store in the county town are 144 wen a dou. Our wheat seeds are better than theirs, but we only charge 150 wen."
Old Zhou was shocked. "Why are these seeds so expensive? I remember wheat seeds used to be ten or nine coins per pound."
Old Zhou tried to calculate, but couldn't figure it out. He simply asked Zhou Silang, who had come up again, "How much would it be in dou?"
"One hundred and twenty wen?"
Old Zhou was shocked again. "It's so expensive. How come it's so expensive when it's changed to a bucket?"
Everyone: ...Why is it so expensive? One dou is about twelve jin. It would be the same price if you buy twelve jin directly.
Old Zhou felt his heart pounding, feeling a little unreal. After a while, he remembered something, "Then why did you exchange wheat with the villagers? You should have let Mr. Bai buy it with money."
"Dad, it's not Mr. Bai who's exchanging the wheat, it's us." Manbao said, "We'll exchange the wheat and then sell it to Mr. Bai."
"What?!" Old Zhou couldn't help but yell, "Who are you?"
"It's me, Bai Shanbao, and Bai Er," Manbao said. "Shanbao bought some grain on credit from his grandmother in exchange for grain. We then sold the wheat to Master Bai at the same price."
"Ouch," Old Zhou couldn't help but slap his thigh and said, "Why didn't you tell me earlier? If you had told me earlier, I wouldn't have bargained with you and would have just exchanged it for one pound."
Everyone looked at him with contempt.
Old Zhou glared back and said, "What are you looking at? This was the price they charged us last year when they exchanged wheat seeds. Why should they raise the price now that my daughter wants to exchange them back?"
"Dad, Grandma Liu said that we don't want to be profiteers. There will be many people interacting with us in the future. How can we just think about taking advantage of everyone?"
Qian also glanced at him and said, "You are already this old, but your thoughts are not as good as those of a child like Manbao."
"Manbao is a scholar, I can't compare to her anyway," Old Zhou said confidently, but he still looked up at his sons, daughters, and grandchildren and said, "We just need to keep this a secret among our family. You're not allowed to talk about it outside, understand?"
Everyone agreed.
Old Zhou said, "Just know how much money your family has earned. If you tell others about it, you'll be the ones who get into trouble later. Tell the children about it when you get home."
Old Zhou paused and said, "Tomorrow we'll sell the wheat. Fourth Brother, go to the market and buy some meat so we can have a good celebration at home."
Old Zhou was very happy, and everyone in the Zhou family was also very happy.
Old Zhou put his worries aside, but he was so excited at the moment that he couldn't sleep, so he simply waved his hand to let everyone go, and then went out to enjoy the cool air.
Seeing the little girl's round belly, I knew she had just eaten and had not yet digested the food. I simply pulled her to sit on the doorstep and asked my wife to rub her belly.
He asked with a smile, "Manbao, have you calculated how much money we can get if we sell all our wheat?"
"I don't know. I haven't weighed it yet."
"Huh? That's not written on the paperwork?"
"It's empty. I'll write it down tomorrow after I weigh it."
When Old Zhou heard this, he fell into silence.
Seeing that he remained silent, Qian asked, "What are you thinking about?"
Old Zhou said, "I remember that my eldest brother and his family also exchanged wheat seeds from us last year. They used our seeds for their winter wheat, right?"
Qian's heart moved and she nodded.
Old Zhou took out his pipe and slowly filled it with tobacco.
Qian didn't say anything and let him think.
After a while, Old Zhoutou asked Manbao, "Manbao, does Mr. Bai want to collect all the new wheat seeds, or only yours and ours?"
Manbao thought about it and felt that she couldn't make the decision for Mr. Bai, so she said, "I only mentioned our family to him."
(End of this chapter)
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