Kumano is really good at math. He can count how many people there are in the tribe and he won’t make mistakes when distributing things.
But from one to ninety-nine...
He had never calculated anything like this before.
But it's something you can practice, you never know when it might come in handy.
Thinking of this, Kumano began to count: "1, 2, 3..."
The priest taught him to count to 100, but it was easy to make mistakes this way, so he counted by tens, and put the ten in a pile. Ten small piles made 100, and putting them together made a big pile, and then he counted to the next 100...
Finally, the results were counted out. Xiong Ye immediately looked at Zhou Ji and wanted to tell him his own results, but found that Zhou Ji had fallen asleep.
He felt a little itchy again, but Zhou Ji was uncomfortable...
Xiongye simply lay on the bed and became self-sufficient. He used to do this, but after he became partners with Zhou Ji, Zhou Ji started to help him.
Zhou Ji, who was actually awake: "..."
When he was halfway through his work, Xiong Ye saw Zhou Ji open his eyes, leaned over and kissed him again, and said, "Zhou Ji, help me touch it!"
Zhou Ji glanced at him and stretched out his hand. Xiong Ye took the opportunity to hug him and hummed softly.
When it was finally over, Xiong Ye felt so comfortable that he didn't want to get up, but Zhou Ji pinched his face and asked, "Did you solve the problem I asked you to solve?"
"I figured it out!" said Kumano.
"How much?"
Xiong Ye climbed up from the bed, looked at his pile of sticks again, and finally said, "It's forty-nine hundreds plus forty-nine!"
"Wrong, it should be forty-nine is one hundred plus fifty." Zhou Ji said. People in the tribe generally don't come into contact with too large numbers, so they can only count to one hundred, and then they say several hundreds.
Modern people probably think this is troublesome, but it is good for people to be able to count to one hundred smoothly. Zhou Ji remembered that to say ninety-nine in French, you have to say four twenty plus ten plus nine...
"Why?" Xiong Ye looked at Zhou Ji in confusion: "Have you counted? I've never seen you count!"
If Zhou Ji had calculated such a difficult question, he would have seen a lot of wooden sticks.
"No need to count, I'll know the answer just by thinking about it." Zhou Ji said.
Can you know the answer just by thinking about it? Xiong Ye looked at Zhou Ji in shock: "Did the Beast God tell you?"
Zhou Ji: "...You think too much."
"Then how did you know that?"
"Didn't you separate the piles before? The first pile was one, and the last pile was ninety-nine. These two piles together are a hundred, right?" Zhou Ji slowly explained the algorithm. His parents attached great importance to education, and he was sent to an Olympiad class at a very young age. This kind of questions were used to introduce Olympiad mathematics to students at that time.
Kumano suddenly realized what was going on and arranged the numbers again, and found that it was indeed forty-nine hundreds plus one fifty.
As for why he had miscalculated before, it was probably because he accidentally lost a piece and didn't count it correctly.
After finishing the question, Xiong Ye once again said sincerely: "Zhou Ji, you are so smart!"
"Do you want me to teach you?" Zhou Ji asked.
Without thinking, Kumano said, "I do! But haven't I already learned it?" Now that he had learned the question, he could give it to the priest!
"You have only learned one algorithm. Let me give you another question... I caught eight dinosaurs. Some of these eight dinosaurs have two legs, and some have four legs, totaling twenty-two legs. How many of them are two-legged dinosaurs and how many are four-legged dinosaurs?" Zhou Ji said. Here comes the classic Olympiad math problem of chickens and rabbits in the same cage.
Xiong Ye didn't know how to solve math problems, so he took out 22 wooden sticks and started to arrange them...
This problem is not difficult if we put it forward directly. After giving each of the eight dinosaurs two legs, we can give the remaining ones four legs and the problem will be solved.
Xiong Ye was somewhat pleased with himself, but...
Zhou Ji said, "What if I caught a total of one hundred dinosaurs, a total of three hundred plus twenty legs?"
Kumano was fiddling with math before and thought it was quite interesting, but he was confused after hearing what Zhou Ji said - is this how you have to calculate? Besides... "You can't catch so many dinosaurs! Even the people in our tribe can't catch them all together."
Zhou Ji smiled and said, "I gave you fish soup. After you drank half a bowl, I filled it up for you. You drank half a bowl and I filled it up again. You drank half a bowl again and I filled it up again. This time you drank all the fish soup. How many bowls of fish soup did you drink in total?"
Xiong Ye didn't understand for a moment: "Why do we need to calculate this?"
"A dinosaur can eat half of the grass in a meadow in a year. How many years will it take for it to eat all the grass?"
"I know that!" Xiong Ye said, "Two years!"
"Wrong!" Zhou Ji said, "The grass grows, it's impossible to eat it all in two years."
That’s true! Xiong Ye looked at Zhou Ji with admiration. Zhou Ji was really amazing and smart.
Zhou Ji, who had been tormenting the primitive man with elementary school math and brain teasers, said, "Come, I'll teach you arithmetic. To become a qualified patriarch, you should learn more."
"Okay! How about letting the priest learn together?" This time, Kumano didn't dare to say that he had already learned it, but he thought of the priest - the priest had always liked to learn these things.
"I'm not feeling well and can't teach too many people." Zhou Ji said.
"Then teach me one!" Kumano said without thinking, and decided to learn it himself and then teach it to the priest.
"Then I will teach you how to write numbers first." Zhou Ji said.
"Write?" Kumano was puzzled.
"Yes, write." Zhou Ji took out a piece of charcoal that he used as a pen and gave it to Xiong Ye: "Use this to write."
Xiongye took the charcoal and began to write numbers under Zhou Ji's guidance.
Zhou Ji actually thought of a way to write each number. That's really amazing. He is even more amazing than the previous priest.
Xiong Ye looked at Zhou Ji with admiration, while he used his big hands to hold the charcoal and slowly write in the hole.
Zhou Ji said: "Your writing of '8' is not pretty... I will hold your hand and write it."
"Okay!" Xiong Ye agreed immediately, and then Zhou Ji held his hand.
His hands were rough, but Zhou Ji's hands... were really tender and smooth!
Xiong Ye was a little distracted, and then he heard Zhou Ji say: "You are not concentrating on writing, I have to punish you a little."
"What punishment?" asked Kumano.
Zhou Ji drew a circle on Xiong Ye's face with charcoal.
Kumano was confused - is this considered a punishment? Not painful or itchy...
Then several circles were drawn on his face, and later on his body...
Xiong Ye didn’t think there was anything wrong with it. Most of the knowledge Zhou Ji taught him was knowledge that only the Beast God knew. In the past, what he learned from the priests was not as good as these. If he did not learn well, he would be beaten. Now, if he does not learn well, he will just be drawn a circle. What is this?
Kumano studied hard for an entire afternoon and finally learned the Arabic numerals from one to nine and could count from one to one hundred fluently.
At this time, Xiong He's voice rang out: "It's time to eat!"
Xiong Ye immediately ran out: "Zhou Ji, I'm going to eat first! I'll come back to learn later!"
Zhou Ji: “…” This guy forgot to wash his face!
Zhou Ji was too lazy to get down, so he just lay down.
Kumano got so excited when he heard the sound of eating that he actually forgot what was on his face until he got outside.
But he didn't take it seriously. If he forgot, he forgot. It was no big deal to draw something on his face. It wouldn't affect his movements!
However, the people in the tribe were surprised to see him like this: "Xiuno, what's that on your face?"
"It's a circle. Zhou Ji drew it for me." said Xiong Ye.
"What a beautiful drawing! Xiong Ye, you look especially beautiful like this!" Xiong Qi praised: "Look at this circle, how round it is, and both sides are equally round!"
When Zhou Ji used charcoal to draw circles for Kumano, he didn't draw them randomly. He paid attention to the symmetry. Now Kumano had circles all over his face, which made him look very mysterious!
The priests came over and asked, "Xiumano, why did Zhou Ji draw a circle for you?" Is this a strange ceremony or sacrifice?
"Zhou Ji drew it for me when he was teaching me arithmetic." Xiong Ye originally wanted to say that he didn't learn it well so Zhou Ji drew it for him, but he didn't want people to know that he was stupid, so he simply didn't say it.
"Does it count?" the priest asked curiously.
"It's just counting." Xiong Ye looked at the priest and said, "Grandpa Priest, do you know what one plus two plus three equals ninety-nine?"
"This is a bit difficult. I have to calculate slowly, and I'm afraid there won't be enough sticks." The priest began to look for sticks.
Xiong Ye said: "Actually it's very simple, just calculate it like this..." He repeated what Zhou Ji said.
The priest was shocked. How could this be possible? So awesome!
Especially... Kumano actually wrote numbers on the ground!
It turns out that numbers can be represented by such symbols? It is indeed much more convenient! He always used wooden sticks. If he wanted to write, he would just draw a few sticks...his hands got sore from writing.
The priest's expression became excited, and he looked at the circle on Kumano's face as if he had seen a pile of treasure.
The priest looked at the circle on Kumano's face with reverence.
Zhou Ji didn't want to get involved with the tribe below, so he made some barley porridge for himself. At the same time, he began to miss elephant bird meat.
After eating too much fish every day, he felt that fish was not tasty anymore and wanted to eat some other meat.
There was nothing to do today, so Zhou Ji did not use his mental power to observe the situation in the valley. It was not until someone climbed to the entrance of his cave that he turned his head and saw the old face of the priest.
The priest grinned at him, revealing his gums with only a few teeth left: "Zhou Ji, draw a few circles for me too, I also want to learn the knowledge of the Beast God Cult!"
Zhou Ji: “…” What on earth did Kumano say below!
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