Chapter 88 Questionnaire (for the reward from book friend: Jinyiwei: Rongrong)
Zhou Sanlang had just straightened up and was about to look around when a whip suddenly struck the ground next to him. The officer shouted, "What are you looking at? Get back to work! If we don't finish this section today, no one will be allowed to leave!"
Zhou Sanlang nodded immediately.
Manbao roared, and when Third Brother didn't respond, he climbed onto Zhou Wulang's neck, sat on it, and roared at the crowd again, "Third Brother——"
The overseer finally spotted the children and pointed with his whip, "Hey, kids, what are you doing?"
There were also some laborers who quietly raised their heads to look. They looked dusty and Manbao could not recognize them, but the villagers of Qili Village could easily recognize them.
The fifth and sixth sons of the Zhou family, especially the one sitting on his neck, aren’t they the Zhou family’s treasures?
Someone immediately called out, "Zhou Sanlang, your brother and sister are here to see you!"
Although the officers supervised the workers, they were not so strict as to forbid them from talking. They just did not allow them to be lazy or slack off.
Zhou Sanlang heard it clearly this time. He didn't care about the whip and raised his head. When he turned around, he saw Manbao sitting on Lao Wu's neck. He widened his eyes and shouted, "Manbao, why are you here?"
The officer glanced at the child over there and waved his hand at Zhou Sanlang in disdain: "Go quickly, go quickly. I'll give you a quarter of an hour. Come back to work quickly."
Zhou Sanlang bowed his head repeatedly to express his gratitude, dropped his hoe and ran over there.
Manbao finally recognized her third brother among the crowd of gray-faced people because she saw her third brother running towards her.
Manbao hugged Zhou Wulang's neck and was about to slide down skillfully, but Zhou Liulang quickly picked her up.
Bai Shanbao looked at this with envy and decided that when he returned home he would ask Manbao's brother to let him sit on his neck as well, as he had never sat on an adult's neck before.
Zhou Sanlang rushed over, and at first he was happy to hug Manbao, but when he thought about how he was covered in dust, he retracted his hand and looked at Zhou Wulang, "Lao Wu, is there something wrong at home?"
"No," Zhou Wulang said stubbornly, "Manbao said she missed you, so she came to see you. Third brother, I, we missed you too. It must be hard to serve in the army."
I've only been here for a few days, but not only have I become a lot darker, I've also lost a lot of weight. All the weight I had worked so hard to gain has been lost.
Zhou Sanlang narrowed his eyes and shook his head, saying, "It's not hard. Really, it's so cold, Manbao is ignorant, and you are also ignorant, walking such a long way..."
Zhou Sanlang kept chattering and subconsciously reached for money, asking Manbao to go home and buy some candy.
Manbao had already taken out a candy from her pocket, peeled off the oil paper and stuffed it into his mouth. She tiptoed to touch his face with a distressed look on her face, "Third brother, you have lost weight."
Zhou Sanlang bent over, feeling very relieved. However, he was not very good at speaking, so he just kept shaking his head and said, "It's not hard, it's not hard."
Manbao watched them digging the dirt on the roadside with curiosity, "Third brother, what are you doing?"
"Build the road," Zhou Sanlang was very happy, but he didn't know how to express it. He kept talking to Manbao about their military service and pointed to two ditches on the side of the road. "There's a lot of water here. See? The official road is full of potholes now because the rainwater can't drain away, so the road is damaged. Let's dig two small ditches now and use the mud to fill the potholes. In the future, the water on the road will drain into the ditches, and the road won't deteriorate so quickly."
He pointed to a row of thatched huts in the distance and said, "That's where we live. They're all temporary structures. We're responsible for the Bali official road and the nearby water conservancy projects, so we eat and sleep here..."
Manbao listened very carefully and asked several questions. Zhou Sanlang then explained in more detail, such as what water conservancy includes.
"It's actually very simple. Just dig a ditch, four feet wide and five feet deep, around these farmlands, from one end to the other..." Zhou Sanlang said with envy, "I wonder when the county magistrate will order water conservancy projects for our village. If we had a ditch like this, it would be much more convenient."
"So building water conservancy projects is a good thing?" Manbao asked.
Zhou Sanlang smiled and said, "Of course it's a good thing."
Manbao and Bai Shanbao exchanged a glance, scratched their heads, and whispered, "But didn't you say in the village that you didn't want to serve and build water conservancy projects?"
Zhou Sanlang immediately looked around and found that the official was not paying attention. Then he whispered, "It's not our village's water conservancy project. Of course we are not happy to ask us to repair it..."
And serving in the military is really hard.
But as soon as the thought came to his mind, Zhou Sanlang smiled again.
Manbao then roughly understood that good things are still good things, but the good things will not benefit the people who build water conservancy projects.
Manbao wanted to ask more, but the official on the other side urged him, "Zhou Sanlang, hurry back to work!"
Zhou Sanlang responded and asked Zhou Wulang to take Manbao back immediately, and then hurried over to work.
After finally getting here, even if Manbao wanted to go back, Bai Shanbao didn't want to.
So the two of them took out a small notebook from their small bag, took a pen, ground the ink on the spot, and went to ask people questions.
Zhou Wulang and Zhou Liulang looked on in awe. Their youngest sister was truly amazing. She could write at such a young age. Then they followed to watch out of curiosity.
With the help of Keke, Manbao and Bai Shanbao developed a very concise and clear questionnaire, and wrote down these questions in a small notebook.
The two children squatted in front of Lao Ding and asked how many people were in their family, how many able-bodied men there were, how the labor was distributed at home, what their family had prepared for them when they went out this time, and under what circumstances would they rush to build water conservancy projects and official roads even if the court did not issue a labor order?
The laborers didn't want to answer. They were already exhausted from work, so who had time to take care of two babies?
But these two babies, one holding a notebook and a brush, and the other holding an inkstone, look very noble and you can tell at a glance that they are scholars.
Although everyone has no chance to read and write, they respect people who know how to read.
So everyone started taking the time to answer their various strange questions. An officer noticed what was happening here and came over with a whip. Seeing Bai Shanbao squatting and taking notes, the officer took a look and didn't interrupt, but still frowned. When he raised his head, he said, "Young master, young lady, this is not the place for you to play. Go somewhere else quickly."
Bai Shanbao said, "This is the homework assigned by our teacher, we must complete it."
The officers thought that their teacher was being ridiculous. Letting such a young child run here, who would be held responsible if something happened?
He said, "Ask me any questions you have, I can answer them all."
(End of this chapter)
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