Chapter 79 Unreliable
When the system saw her picking up a knife to peel the fruit, it felt like something was wrong, but it couldn't tell what it was.
The system performed a self-check internally and found no problems, so it waited quietly.
Manbao had never eaten yam and had never seen it before, so she was very curious about it. So, for the first time ever, she did not go into the house to settle accounts with her mother and brothers, but squatted at the kitchen door to watch her sister-in-law peel the yam.
Xiao Qian gently cut the yam, revealing the white flesh. Manbao curiously stretched out his finger to touch it and found it was sticky.
Xiao Qian slapped her dirty little hands away and continued peeling.
As she was whittling, Xiao Qian felt something was wrong. "Why do my hands feel a little itchy?"
Manbao, who picked up yam peels to observe out of curiosity, also felt that his hands were a little itchy, and the itchiness was getting worse.
She couldn't help but grab it, and once she did, she couldn't hold it anymore, so her hands started grabbing each other.
When Xiao Qian saw her, her hands turned red with fear. She quickly dropped her knife and the peeled yam and grabbed her hands, saying in panic, "What's going on? Is this medicine poisonous?"
When Qian heard the noise, she couldn't help but run out of the house. Seeing Manbao's hands were covered with red scratches, she immediately said, "Hurry up and get some water to wash them."
Zhou Wulang quickly got them some water. The two sisters-in-law washed themselves but still felt itchy. Xiao Qianshi was fine as she could bear it, but Manbao couldn't help it. She scratched and scratched again, but found that it was still very itchy. She couldn't help crying out, scratching and shouting, "Mom, mom, it's itchy..."
Qian grabbed her little hand, preventing her from doing so. Seeing her crying in pain, she felt a little uncomfortable as well. She turned around and asked Zhou Dalang, "Didn't they say it was a good thing? How could it be poisonous?"
Zhou Dalang and the others didn't understand either. He said with sweat on his forehead, "This, this is all what Manbao said. The owner of the medicine shop also said it's a good thing and can be eaten."
Qian asked Manbao with a stern face, "Don't cry, Manbao, isn't it clearly written in the book you read?"
Manbao was crying and calling "Koko" in his mind. The system had already checked the information when Manbao felt itchy, but found that there was not enough information inside, so he could only go to the encyclopedia to check.
There is no confirmed information about this, but there are some records in novels and strange stories.
It is said that when peeling yam, the soap nuts in the skin will stick to your hands and cause itching and allergies.
But there will be no such species of yam in the future, and relevant botanists have not found the exact genes left behind, so they certainly cannot be sure of this.
It is impossible to include uncertain factors in the entry information to avoid misunderstandings by future generations. Science must be 100% accurate.
However, Keke reacted quickly, guessing that saponin might actually exist. And destroying this plant alkaloid wasn't difficult. The system didn't even need to search for information. It simply said, "Just soak your hands in vinegar. It neutralizes the acid and alkali."
It briefly explained to Manbao what alkaloids are and what acid-base neutralization is.
Manbao tearfully said to her mother, "I want vinegar to soak my hands."
Qian felt distressed when she heard this, but she still gritted her teeth and asked He to go to the kitchen to get vinegar.
He did take it out, but said, "Mom, there's only a little vinegar left. It's not enough."
Qian grabbed the vinegar jar and poured out the remaining vinegar for Manbao to wipe his hands, saying, "Go borrow some from other families, and then go to the market to buy some and return it to me."
Manbao smelled the fragrant vinegar and felt a little hungry. She couldn't help but lick her hand. Qian Shi almost slapped her in the face. She panicked and quickly gave her water to rinse her mouth. She scolded her, "You knew it was poisonous, but you still ate it? Don't you have any sense?"
Manbao felt wronged, "It smells so good, so good."
The system had come back to its senses. The host's howling almost made it forget the poverty of this era. It said, "Host, besides using vinegar, you can also use fire. Warming your hands with fire can destroy the saponin, and the itching will stop."
Manbao quickly told his sister-in-law and even used his little hands to grab her hands, so that the vinegar on her hands would stick to her hands.
Qian was a bit partial. Since she didn't have much vinegar, she gave it all to her daughter.
When Mrs. He heard this, she quickly lit a fire to warm the two men's hands.
As their hands gradually warmed up, Manbao and Xiao Qianshi felt less itchy and began to explore the yam peel with some interest.
Little Qian said to Manbao, "Why don't you memorize the whole book when you read it, but only paragraph by paragraph?"
Manbao sniffed and made up her mind to wait for the entry about yam to come out. She would read it carefully, and would also read the other entries carefully in the future.
The aunt and sister-in-law slowly turned their hands over. After a while, they became warm and the itchiness gradually subsided. However, Xiao Qian was still frightened. She looked at the peeled yam and said, "It's poisonous. Should we still eat it?"
Manbao had already been educated by Keke, and he quickly said, "It's not poisonous. It's just that there is saponin in the yam peel, so it itches. Next time you peel it, just wrap your hands with something."
He added, "Yams are delicious, really delicious. And even if they're poisonous, we don't have to worry about them. Look, we can just warm our hands. Even if the yams are poisonous, wouldn't it be better to boil them in water?"
Although no one knew what saponin was, everyone thought what Manbao said made sense, and everyone was still very interested in this kind of food that wealthy people spent a lot of money to buy.
Yes, in their opinion, the price of yam is very high, even higher than meat.
Chicken is only twelve cents per pound, not to mention that Manbao said it can be used as medicine.
In their impression, all medicines are bitter. How can some of them taste good?
Xiao Qianshi felt her hands itching to chop the mutton, and then she simmered the mutton until it was almost cooked, then put in the yam and stewed it for a while. Because she was afraid that the yam was not cooked, she picked it up with chopsticks and found that the chopsticks could split the yam in half, so she served it out.
The whole family was waiting. After Manbao smelled the aroma of meat, he squatted in the kitchen and refused to leave.
Ertou and Santou, who were about the same age as her, and Sanya and Sitou, who could only walk, were all squatting in the kitchen without moving. Zhou Wulang called them several times but they didn't respond.
He tried to reach out and drag her away, but Xiao Qianshi hit him, "Go play by yourself, why do you always bother Manbao?"
Zhou Wulang pouted. He wanted Manbao to go with him to settle the accounts. They had a share of the money from the yam, and they were the ones who pulled out all the Centella asiatica. But in the end, his eldest brother gave all the money to his mother.
If Manbao doesn't go, even if they have the guts to ask for money, they won't have the ability to settle the bill.
Seeing that Manbao's eyes were full of food and he couldn't think of money at all, Zhou Wulang went back to the house angrily. He decided that he must learn arithmetic well. His second brother was right, and his uncle was right. In this world, brothers will give your money to mother, mother will take your money, and sisters will be unreliable. Only the skills you learn by yourself will always be yours, and no one can take them away from you.
Zhou Wulang squatted on the ground angrily and wrote down numbers.
(End of this chapter)
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