Chapter 56: Stingy
Manbao's eyes sparkled as he held the two Ligustrum lucidum fruits he had found without saying a word.
Old Zhou and Qian sat by the bed, and saw the light in their daughter's eyes in the firelight, as bright as the morning star in the sky. The couple were a little dazed and remained silent.
Manbao looked up happily and stretched out his little hands to show Old Zhou and Qian, "Dad, Mom, look what this is?"
Qian came back to her senses and asked with a smile, "What is it?"
"It's Ligustrum lucidum. My fifth brother picked two bunches for me today. So this is what they look like when dried. They can even cure mother's illness."
Qian touched Manbao's head with a smile, looked at her kneeling on the ground, and said to her excitedly that they could buy one less medicine in the future.
Qian listened with a smile, but did not tell her that the medicines were prescribed one by one, not one by one.
Manbao said, "Let the eldest and third brothers go pick all the privet fruits, dry them and give them to mother to eat."
Qian nodded with a smile, "Okay, I'll let your eldest brother go tomorrow."
Manbao was very excited and didn't want to sleep anymore. He put down the Ligustrum lucidum in his hand, climbed onto his parents' bed, rolled to the innermost part and lay there motionless.
Then he opened his blinking eyes and looked at his parents.
Old Zhou couldn't help but pat her fat butt, "You're already this old and still sleeping with your parents, aren't you ashamed?"
"Don't be ashamed, don't be ashamed, all three of them are sleeping with the eldest brother and his wife."
"It's not long since the third grandson finished speaking. He's still young, so of course he has to sleep with his parents." In Old Zhou's mind, although his third grandson is the same age as his daughter, or even two months older, his daughter is actually much older in his heart.
There is no way around it. Children in rural areas mature late. They can work, but they become sensible late.
The children in their family are considered to be sensible at an early age, and that is because they have enough food and drink. In some families, due to lack of food and clothing, the children of seven or eight years old still look like four or five years old and can't even speak fluently.
But no matter how early it is, it is not as early as Manbao.
At least in the entire village, even the eldest son of a white landlord could not walk unsteadily at nine months old or call his parents at ten months old.
Therefore, they all agreed that their child Manbao was the smartest child in the village, or even in the entire township.
Because she was smart, sensible and early, she was given a small bed to sleep in early on.
There was no way. When she was over one year old, she would complain to Qian that her father snored very loudly and she couldn't sleep at night.
God knows she was sleeping like a dead pig as soon as her head tilted to the ground, and even thunder couldn't wake her up.
When she was two years old, she became even more disgusted and complained to her mother that her father didn't wash his feet and his feet were smelly.
So Old Zhou gritted his teeth, stamped his feet, and took his sons to the mountain to cut down a tree. He paid someone to make a small bed for her, and asked his second son to weave a bamboo wall to separate the room. Only then did the disgust stop.
Since then, Manbao rarely asked to sleep with her parents. However, it was a good thing for the child to be close to him, so Old Zhou did not kick his daughter out of bed. He just got out of bed and brought her little quilt to her.
Manbao rolled over on the bed with his little quilt in his arms and told his mother about the interesting things that happened in school.
Qian listened quietly, asking a question or two from time to time to encourage her to say more.
So, Qian knew that Manbao now knew a lot of words. Mr. Zhuang not only taught them literacy and reading, but also taught them arithmetic. Her best friend now was the young master of the Bai family named Shanbao.
Speaking of Bai Shanbao, Manbao talked a lot. He talked about how he was bullied by Bai Erlang, and then took the opportunity to talk about his family building a house.
Manbao was still talking to Old Zhoutou, "Dad, I've already made an agreement with Shanbao. When the time comes, let Big Brother and the others go to help. We'll hire more people and their house will be built in three to five days. That way, he won't be bullied by Bai Er."
Old Zhou's eyes flickered as he asked, "Did the young master say when he would build the house?"
Manbao yawned and said, "It's almost done, almost done. We'll build it once we decide on a location."
Old Zhou remained silent. Manbao urged him softly, "Dad, have you agreed?"
Old Zhou said, "I agree. Go to bed quickly. You have to go to school tomorrow."
Manbao's breathing gradually became longer. Seeing that she fell asleep in the time it took to say this, Old Zhou couldn't help but shake his head and laugh, "This child is just like her father, she falls asleep as soon as she closes her eyes."
Qian gave him a warning look.
Old Zhou quickly skipped the topic and said, "I was originally going to tell Dazhu to take Dalang and Sanlang out to do hard labor. Since the Bai family is going to build a house, there's no need for them to run away. Just stay at home."
Qian nodded slightly. "Rich families build houses differently from us. They have plenty of stone and wood, and each one requires manual labor. The work can last until after winter."
The family needs money. Although the white landlord needs temporary workers to till the land, it is after the autumn harvest and there is limited work. Zhou Dalang and Zhou Sanlang have not had much work to do these two days.
Qian originally wanted her two sons to pack up and go to the county to work as laborers. Even if they couldn't earn money, at least they could make enough for their own food. At least the family could save some food.
It was a blessing from heaven that the Bai family was going to build a house.
The next morning, when Manbao was washing his face with his eyes closed, Qian called her three sons in and said, "Go with Laowu. Let Laowu show you what Ligustrum lucidum is and pick all the ripe fruits."
Manbao, who was washing his face nearby, instantly perked up. He ran back to his own bedside and pretended to take the bunch of Ligustrum lucidum fruits from under the bed, but in fact he took them from Keke's place and gave them to his elder brother. "That's it, elder brother, if you see any rare plants in the mountains, such as those that we don't have around here, be it flowers or fruits, pick them and bring them back to me."
Zhou Dalang and his brothers all knew that Manbao liked to pull flowers and plants since she was a child. In the past, she often went to the family vegetable garden to destroy the immature seedlings. She would pull out everything she saw.
He glanced at his mother, agreed, took the privet fruit and went out.
Qian then said to Manbao, "Hurry up and have breakfast, or you'll be late for school."
Manbao agreed and ran to the main room, but instead of going to the kitchen to eat, he slipped into Zhou Silang and the others' room first.
Brothers Si, Wu, Liu and San lived together. Zhou Silang was about to go out with his hoe on his shoulder, and Zhou Wulang was also ready. Manbao muttered to him, "Fifth brother, be careful on the road. If you see any more Ligustrum lucidum, pick them all. They are mother's medicine."
Zhou Wulang didn't understand how the fruit became his mother's medicine after he slept for a while, but he nodded in agreement and asked, "Manbao, can you talk to your friend and ask them to give us more candies next time? One hundred pieces is a bit too little."
He said, "I'm planning to ask Miss Fu Er to introduce us to a few more customers. I think selling candy is more profitable than selling flower baskets. Don't you sell candies for ten pieces for a penny?"
Manbao was reluctant to spend her points like that. She needed to save them to buy medicine for her mother, so she refused. "One hundred a day is not a small amount. Can't you sell a little less to Miss Fu Er? She's alone, and eating too much can easily cause tooth decay. If she wants to buy more candies when you go to the county this time, tell her that people with cavities are particularly ugly."
Zhou Wulang: ...Saying such things to a girl, does he want to stop living, or does he not want to do the Fu family business anymore?
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(End of this chapter)
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