Manbao answered happily, and added, "Daya and the others can learn to read very quickly. Now they can write our county, village, and their own names."
Little Qian nodded and said with a smile: "Then you should teach them more. They don't need to learn any poetry or songs. Just recognize some characters. The most important thing is to know numbers. Knowing arithmetic is the most important thing."
Qian has his own wisdom. It would be better if he could recognize words, but if he couldn't, he should at least know how to count, so that at least he wouldn't be cheated when he went out to buy things.
Manbao said she would teach them everything.
Qian patted her head and encouraged her to study hard. "Don't worry about the family affairs. Mom is much better now. You just need to grow up quickly and be healthy."
Manbao didn't quite understand why his mother said that, but he nodded happily anyway.
Qian said, "Well, your fifth brother has bought your chicken. Go and have a look."
Manbao finally understood why her mother said that. She playfully put her arm around her shoulders and said, "Mom, I'm healthy, you have to be healthy ."
Then she jumped over to see her chickens.
There were two chicken coops in the corner outside the chicken coop. Manbao ran over and saw the chickens in the coops at first sight. She was shocked.
There was a chicken in each of the two chicken coops, which were far apart from each other, but they all looked the same, with shaggy fur and a lot of blood on their bodies from being pecked out. When Manbao jumped over, they shrank their necks in fear and trembled, making Manbao look like a bully.
Manbao squatted in front of the chicken coop looking at the chickens. Their appearance was so familiar. She took one look at the two chickens and ran to find her fifth brother .
Zhou Wulang was counting money. Not all the flower baskets were sold today, so the profit was less than that of the previous two days.
He counted them, made a note in his little notebook, and then gave it to Manbao to count.
Manbao didn't care about the money for the time being and asked, "Fifth Brother, did you buy the chicken from the cockfighting guy?"
"Yes," Zhou Wulang said as a matter of course, "Didn't you say that your mother couldn't bear to eat the chicken you bought? I think it's useless to buy a hen that can't lay eggs, because if it doesn't lay eggs now, it will lay eggs after a while. In the end, your mother still can't bear to eat it, so I bought fighting cocks. They are already in that state. They can't survive if they are raised. It's better to kill them and eat them."
Zhou Wulang winked at her and said, "It's cheap. You can buy two chickens for the price of one."
Manbao couldn't help but give him a thumbs up, "Fifth brother, you are so smart."
She swallowed and asked, "Why don't you kill one tonight?"
"Mother said it's too late, dinner is ready, we'll kill it tomorrow." Zhou Wulang sighed, "Mother said that if I help you spend money again, I won't be allowed to go to the county town. Manbao, you should ask someone else to buy chickens in the future."
Manbao snorted, "If you don't help me, I'll buy it in the village."
She rolled her eyes and smiled, "I already have an idea."
Zhou Silang asked curiously, "What method?"
"I won't tell you." Manbao lowered his head and counted the money. He not only calculated their private accounts, but also calculated the public accounts that needed to be paid. Then he distributed the money to everyone and kept accounts.
Zhou Wulang looked at them with envy, "Manbao, what's wrong with your brain? I've been studying for so long, but I still can't figure out how to calculate the money to be handed over to the government."
Man Bao said: "Diligence can make up for lack of talent. When you have nothing to do, just give yourself two numbers to calculate, and you will get it slowly."
Keke said that this is mental arithmetic, which can exercise one's brain and logical thinking. In simple terms, it can make smart people smarter, stupid people less stupid, or even a little smarter.
When Manbao was younger, he didn’t have much to play with, so his favorite thing was to play this with Keke.
She tested every subject, and then every subject tested her.
So she is the best at counting in the family.
Manbao kept track of the accounts and collected the money that everyone entrusted to her for safekeeping. She then gave everyone two problems to solve and asked them to figure them out for themselves .
Addition and subtraction of two-digit numbers made Zhou Silang sweat profusely, so Manbao taught them, "Use your fingers to count first. If your fingers are not enough, use your toes. After you count more, you will be able to do it without using your fingers."
"But what if our fingers and toes combined aren't enough?"
"Then count others'?" Manbao said as a matter of course: "I often borrow Dad's fingers and toes to count. You see, I don't need to borrow his fingers and toes anymore."
The brothers and nephews were all shocked. They didn't expect that their father (grandfather) had borrowed fingers and toes from their youngest sister (aunt).
While eating dinner, Old Zhou felt that the fourth, fifth, sixth, and several grandchildren looked at him strangely. He couldn't help but touch his face and asked, "Is there a grain of rice on my face?"
Everyone who had taken a peek immediately shook their heads and lowered their heads to eat their dinner in a strange manner.
Manbao was unaware of all this and was busy eating rice from her bowl. She had always had a good appetite and ate a lot. Qian would restrain her older grandchildren from eating late, but she was reluctant to let her little girl go hungry, so she always made sure she had enough food.
Manbao knew that food should not be wasted, so he scraped out every last grain of rice in the bowl, put the bowl down, and said obediently, "Mom, I'm full."
Qian took a look outside and saw that there was still light, so she asked her to go and teach Datou and the others to read.
A group of children rushed into the yard, playing and learning words at the same time, until the last ray of setting sun completely disappeared and the sky became dark. Then everyone stopped learning words and started to recite the Thousand Character Classic that Manbao taught them, shaking their heads.
The sound of reading aloud here spread to the village. Someone looked in the direction of Zhou's family and said enviously: "Zhou Jin's family is going to produce a scholar."
"Come on, it's just a kid who has been taught a few sentences. It's not certain whether he can recognize words or not. If it were so easy to become a scholar, wouldn't everyone in the world be a scholar?"
"What do you know? As long as you can read and count, you can be an accountant in the county. Just look at it. If their daughter can study in school for seven or eight years and teach her brothers and nephews what she has learned, their family will be different from ours in less than ten years."
He sighed, "How could such a good girl be born into their family?"
As he spoke, he looked at his wife with a look of disdain. His wife was very unconvinced and pinched her waist and said, "Don't you see who the father is? Is it because I can't give birth? It's because your seed is bad!"
The children looked at their parents curiously. When the couple was about to quarrel, the old man sitting on the upper floor knocked on the table with his pipe and said, "What are you yelling about? That's the root of our Zhou family. There have been only one or two good seedlings in hundreds of years. Isn't it expected that they will have a bright future?"
He couldn't say anything to his daughter-in-law, so he could only scold his son, "Watch your mouth, don't talk nonsense outside, if I hear anything unpleasant..."
His son lowered his head and responded honestly.