Chapter 428: Dividing the Silver
Uncle Qian glanced at him and said to Old Zhou, "Since you have some at home, you can exchange it for some loose change."
Old Zhou finally remembered this and said with a simple smile, "I was so busy that I didn't even think about the silver at home."
Old Zhou looked at Qian, who didn't even budge. She just raised her eyelids and said, "There aren't that many silver bars."
She had heard clearly that the two families still had a total of eleven taels of silver left to pay. The silver bars at home were like small beans, just over three taels, and there was nothing to exchange for them.
"Oh." Old Zhou looked at Manbao, "Come on, let's cut the silver."
Manbao didn't know why her father was so keen on cutting silver, but she still sighed and walked forward. She estimated the proportion of four taels and seven taels, and then drew a line on the silver.
Old Zhou gathered his energy and snipped the silver with one cut. A hole appeared on the silver. His eyes were sharp as he aimed at the hole and snipped again...
Uncle Qian was so excited that he put aside the fact that his financial power had been taken away from him. Well, in fact, the financial power had not been in his hands for many years. He squeezed forward with great interest and said with a playful smile: "Brother-in-law, let me try."
Even Uncle Qian Da and Uncle Qian Er were looking at the scissors and were ready to take action.
Finally, with the concerted efforts of the four old men, the silver ingot was finally cut into two. Old Zhou smiled and took out a scale to weigh one piece, saying happily: "Oh, this is quite accurate, 6 taels and 5 fen, a little more."
Uncle Qian San: ...How can this be called accurate?
Old Zhou waved his hand generously and said, "Alright, I'll change the five cents into copper coins for you. A full treasure of five cents of silver is five hundred coins, right?"
"...it's six hundred wen." Manbao explained, "Dad, you have to calculate it at one thousand two hundred wen to one liang."
Old Zhou felt a little distressed. "Okay, your uncle's is a little off. Is this three and a half ounces or four and a half ounces?"
"That's all right, it's just a little off," Uncle Qian said. "Five points."
Old Zhou couldn't figure out the relationship between the two, so he just waved his hand and asked Manbao to find the money.
Uncle Qian Da didn’t quite understand it, but Uncle Qian San could figure it out.
Qian finally opened the money box because there were not enough copper coins.
Old Zhou's family set up a stall, or a few of their children went out to sell ginger slices in the streets, and most of the money they earned was copper coins.
So the boxes in the house were filled with strings of copper coins.
Compared to silver, Uncle Qian and others felt too familiar with copper coins.
Although they had held silver before, even ten or twenty taels, they always felt that copper coins were more reassuring.
So they had no objection to exchanging silver for copper coins.
In fact, if the Zhou family didn't have so many copper coins, they would have wanted to exchange them all for copper coins and take them home.
One hundred and sixty thousand copper coins, that’s sixteen strings of cash. It’s exciting just thinking about it.
Manbao counted out six strings of money for Uncle Qian, each string was one hundred coins, while he counted out one hundred strings for Uncle Qian, plus fifty coins.
Uncle Qian San reached out to take it, but the two sons behind him took a step forward and took the heavy copper coins from Manbao's hands attentively. Old Zhou then gave the silver in his hand to the two children.
Uncle Qian: ...
Uncle Qian was very happy, all the members of the Qian family were very happy, and the Zhou family was even happier, except for Uncle Qian San.
Uncle Qian said to his two nephews, "When you get home, give your mother some copper coins and go to the market to buy some meat. She's been a bit burned by the busy spring days, and the evil spirits are strong in May, so she needs to eat more."
The two of them happily agreed.
Old Zhou asked Dalang and Erlang to move the remaining money into the room. When he relaxed, he realized that he was very hungry.
Qian said, "Everyone hasn't had lunch yet, let's go make lunch first."
The women rushed into the kitchen and started cooking.
A group of grown men sat under the eaves, enjoying the cool breeze and gossiping. The three uncles didn't let Manbao leave at this time. They pulled her in front of them and looked at her again and again. After a long time, they said with emotion: "Manbao is really getting better and better. I just saw that you are good at calculating. What will you be like when you grow up?"
Manbao smiled sheepishly and said modestly, "The master said that my abacus is still far from perfect and I still need to learn."
"Mr. Zhuang is a good man, so you should show your respect to him," Uncle Qian said, turning to Old Zhou and asking, "We were so distracted just now that we only cared about the money and didn't even thank Mr. Zhuang properly. You should ask Auntie to send more eggs back. By the way,"
Uncle Qian said, "I originally wanted your sister-in-law and her family to come over to see your two grandchildren during the Dragon Boat Festival and bring some eggs. Now that you mentioned this, I will ask your sister-in-law and her family to come over tomorrow and bring some more eggs to Mr. Zhuang."
The day after tomorrow is Dragon Boat Festival.
Old Zhou agreed with a smile.
He has been a little worried recently. His two daughters-in-law eat too much, and he is reluctant to buy meat, so the family has to cook eggs every two days. Even if it is only for the children, the adults can drink the soup, and a lot of eggs are consumed.
After all, there are seven grandchildren in their family who can eat eggs. Add Manbao and the fifth and sixth children, who are not yet adults in his eyes. If each of them eats one egg per meal, that means ten eggs are used up in one meal. Add to that the two daughters-in-law who are particularly good eaters...
Old Zhou wanted to replace his eldest daughter-in-law several times, and thought of letting his second daughter-in-law cook for the two younger daughters-in-law.
But now he doesn't have to worry too much. Whenever he thinks of the silver piled up in the room, Old Zhou feels very happy and generous. He decides to cook all the eggs in the house in the evening.
Well, you can also go to the market and buy a piece of meat.
While they were talking, Manbao took the opportunity to sneak over to Uncle Qian San and comforted him, "Don't be sad, Uncle San. I'll give you some candy later."
As he said that, Manbao took out a piece of candy from his pocket and gave it to him.
Uncle Qian San took it and put it in his mouth, then he sighed deeply, his whole body filled with sadness.
Manbao felt so distressed when she saw this. In her heart, these were her uncles, so she had really deep feelings for her three uncles.
Among her three uncles, she has the best relationship with her eldest uncle and third uncle.
The former was because every time her sister-in-law took her back to her parents' home, she would eat and live at the Qian family, and she had been held in the arms of Uncle Qian since she was a child.
As for Third Uncle Qian, she really liked having him carry her on his neck and play with her everywhere. She also remembered that every time she went to Third Uncle Qian's house when she was a child, Third Uncle would always secretly go to the kitchen to make delicious food for her.
Although the eldest sister-in-law said that it was because the third uncle wanted to eat it, so she gave it to her as an excuse...
But she still likes her third uncle very much.
But my uncle is right, gambling is wrong.
She knew from a young age that gamblers who were addicted to gambling had no rationality at all, just like the beggar next door, who could not even be called a human being when he had a tantrum.
(End of this chapter)
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