Chapter 78: Drool
Manbao hugged her eldest brother's neck and said, "Brother, we made a lot of money today."
Zhou Dalang thought about the money he had just spent on cotton and cloth, and his face turned bitter. "It cost quite a bit."
"We made five hundred coins from selling yams."
Zhou Dalang was stunned and asked quickly, "Who did you sell it to?"
"I sold it to the county magistrate," Zhou Wulang quickly handed over the money he had collected, saying, "Twenty wen a jin, a little over twenty-five jin in total. Manbao gave them the extra money and even gave them an extra yam."
Zhou Dalang frowned and said, "This is a rip-off. It's only 20 cents."
Zhou Wulang lowered his head and whispered, "The county magistrate even charged us a fee to enter the city."
Manbao agreed with this, but she couldn't tell her elder brother this, so she whispered, "Brother, raw yam is a rare commodity, and we're selling it at a low price."
After briefly summarizing what Keke had said, Zhou Dalang was stunned. He had not expected such a huge difference in the prices of medicinal materials. He could not help but ask, "Have you heard carefully? The dried yam bought at the pharmacy is one penny for one penny?"
Manbao nodded, Koko would not lie to her.
Zhou Dalang felt his heart pounding. He murmured, "My goodness, how much is a pound?"
He couldn't figure it out anyway.
Manbao said, "About one hundred and sixty coins."
Zhou Dalang felt a terrible pain in his flesh.
As if he wasn't feeling enough pain, Manbao continued, "The medicine mother prescribed contained Ligustrum lucidum. I've seen the prescription. The medicine mother prescribed in the county town contained eight ingredients, costing twenty coins, and Ligustrum lucidum cost three coins. I heard that the most expensive ingredient in mother's medicine was Angelica sinensis."
Zhou Dalang did the math himself and thought that Ligustrum lucidum should not be cheap, but it only cost him fifty cents per pound.
Zhou Dalang said, "Next time, I'll make the medicine for mother myself."
Manbao had come up with this idea before, and her sister-in-law had criticized her at the time, so this time she also mocked her brother mercilessly, "We only have one medicine at home, and other people's medicines are prepared in pairs, so how can we buy them one by one?"
Zhou Dalang remained silent.
Zhou Erlang felt a little uncomfortable, but he was open-minded and said, "They also make money by their own ability. Didn't Manbao say that transporting these medicinal materials costs a lot of money and involves a lot of risks. Besides, people who run herbal medicine shops must have doctors on duty."
Zhou Erlang was quite envious. "This is the benefit of having skills. My uncle was right before. Everything in this world may belong to someone else. Only the skills you learn will remain yours forever."
Zhou Dalang nodded, then thought something was wrong and glared at him.
Manbao asked curiously, "Second brother, which uncle is the younger uncle? What he said makes so much sense. I will discuss it with him after I return to the village."
Zhou Erlang forced a laugh and said, "You heard wrong. It wasn't my uncle who said that. It was the village head. He's a high-ranking official. You should stay away from him from now on, okay?"
Manbao grumbled in dissatisfaction, "I'm not deaf, he was clearly talking about my uncle."
But Zhou Dalang and Zhou Erlang didn't give her the chance to ask questions again. They just carried her to the cart and pushed it away.
After walking a long way, Manbao finally remembered, "Big brother, second brother, I haven't bought you any sesame cakes yet."
The two brothers laughed and said, "We are not hungry, and the county town is not far from home. We can get there by just walking a little faster."
How could it not be far?
Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang stuffed the remaining dry food in their hands into the mouths of their two brothers. Forget it, at least they could fill their stomachs.
Go back with a light heart.
Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang were also sensible. They took turns helping their two brothers push the cart. Manbao and four nephews and nieces took turns sitting on the cart, which was not particularly heavy.
It just takes a lot of effort to go up the mountain.
So Manbao always found various excuses to slide down the cart and insisted on walking by himself.
Zhou Dalang and his brothers all thought that she was very sensible and knew how to care about them, but they also felt sorry for her because she was young after all.
But no one knew how happy Manbao was. She kept looking for places with grass on the roadside and asked Keke to scan the flowers and plants that had not been included. Don’t mention it, she picked quite a few along the way and stuffed them into Keke’s hands when no one was paying attention.
Everyone has long been accustomed to Manbao's behavior of plucking flowers and pulling weeds. The child has had this bad habit since he was a child. When he walks on the road, he will go over and pluck an ugly flower when he sees it. Sometimes he even insists on pulling the flower out by the roots, and then throws it away after playing with it in his hands for a short while.
On several occasions, he would sneak into other people's vegetable gardens and pull out the vegetables as if they were weeds. Therefore, Manbao's bad habit was not only known to the Zhou family, but was well-known throughout the village.
So everyone was very calm when she happily went into the woods on both sides of the road, pulling a piece of grass and a branch from time to time.
They returned home talking and arguing like this.
Not only the Zhou brothers, but Manbao was also hungry, so as soon as he came back, he rushed into the kitchen and asked Xiao Qian to prepare dinner.
Little Qian glanced at the sun in the sky and couldn't help but say, "How can we have dinner at this time? If you're hungry, can I make you a pancake?"
"And the eldest and second brothers are here too."
Xiao Qian also felt sorry for them, but the family had just sold two bags of grain not long ago, so they had to eat sparingly.
Inside the house, after learning from Dalang how much money they had earned today, Qian Shi said loudly, "Since the children are hungry, let's cook some rice. Cook more rice and save some to make porridge later. Let's eat dinner early."
The children cheered, and even Zhou Wulang was eager to help in the kitchen.
Xiao Qian quickly drove the boys out, saying, "Please don't make trouble."
Let Daya and Erya go into the kitchen to help with lighting the fire and cooking.
Manbao went to get the mutton out and happily gave it to Xiao Qianshi, "Sister-in-law, let's have mutton today, stewed with yam."
"What is yam?"
Zhou Wulang took out the yam and boasted about how powerful it was and how much money it had made for them. It was said that this was a medicine that only rich people could afford.
Mrs. Qian was shocked. "Medicine is always poisonous. Why should I take medicine when I am not sick?"
"This is a medicine that can be used as food," Manbao said, "It's delicious."
Xiao Qian asked her, "Have you eaten it?"
Manbao drooled and shook her head. At this moment, in her mind, Keke was playfully calling up several pictures of meals made with yam from the encyclopedia. They all looked so good, especially the yam stewed chicken, which looked so delicious.
Seeing Manbao's saliva flowing out, Xiao Qian couldn't help laughing. While helping her wipe the saliva, she said happily: "You little thing, you have nothing to eat, why are you so greedy?"
But she agreed to put it in and asked how to make it. When she learned that it only needed to be peeled, cut into pieces and stewed, she patted her chest and said, "This is easy. Sister-in-law will make it for you in a while."
(End of this chapter)
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