The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 203 - 192: A Light or Heavy Gift

Chapter 203: Chapter 192: A Light or Heavy Gift

Not only did Old Master Bai give them New Year’s money, Mrs. Bai Senior and Mrs. Bai also gave them some, and ’one’s hand is soft from taking’, even though Manbao and Bai Shanbao were young, they understood this principle already.

Therefore, the two recipients, with one on each side, took Bai Erlang by the hand and pulled him to play with them.

Bai Erlang reluctantly ran outside with them, and once outside, he asked, "What are you playing?"

"We’re going to look for mushrooms growing on decayed leaves and dung, and transplant them to the manure heaps at my home, to make them produce more and help decompose the fertilizer."

Bai Erlang was stunned, "What’s fun about that?"

Bai Shanbao said, "It’s fun. Even if you dig out the soil they’re growing in to transplant them, they might not survive. Manbao and I are competing to see who can find more and whose transplants have a higher survival rate."

Manbao nodded, "It’s just that it drizzled a couple of days ago, so there are more of these mushrooms on the mountain, otherwise they’re quite hard to find usually."

Bai Erlang then shook off their hands, saying, "I don’t want to play with you, I’m going to play hide and seek with my friends."

Bai Shanbao looked down upon this, "What’s so fun about hide and seek? I’m accurate every time I seek and you always hide in the haystack."

Bai Erlang glared, "How do you know that?"

Manbao laughed, "Out of ten times playing hide and seek, you hide there nine times and the one time you don’t, you’re not hidden well, we all know it."

"Nonsense, they don’t know, they often can’t find me, and there are several haystacks too."

"That’s because they’re not clever," Manbao said, "Just look at where the stray straw is scattered around the haystack and you’ll know where you’re hiding, hmph, every time you hide there, it’s no fun at all."

Unable to agree, they parted ways at the entrance of the village, Bai Shanbao even warned him, "It’s not that we didn’t want to include you in our play, it’s you who didn’t want to play with us, you better not tattle to uncle."

"I won’t tattle, whoever does is a puppy."

Thus, having reached an agreement, they parted ways to play individually.

Bai Shanbao and Manbao ran hand in hand towards the hills at the entrance to the village.

Of course, it wasn’t a big mountain, but rather a hill, uncultivated and featuring various pretty flowers and wild fruits, it’s a favorite playground for the village children, who often enjoyed themselves there.

And as many households had vegetable gardens not far from the foot of the hill, the adults never stopped the children from playing up there.

This year, the Manbao family had started three manure heaps, two of which were right at the base of that hill, near the three pieces of land they had cleared.

In the name of competition, she and Bai Shanbao each took charge of a heap, actively collecting those mushrooms from everywhere before transplanting them onto the manure heaps.

For the decomposition-types poisonous mushrooms Manbao found, she referred to her entries to maximize their survival and cultivate more mycelium and spores; for those not yet recorded, she joyfully set aside a sample for Keke to document, waiting for points and the entry to come.

Bai Shanbao found this game very rewarding, much like planting ginger, every found mushroom brought him a burst of joy, and if a transplanted mushroom survived, he got another burst of joy.

Should he wake up to find a mushroom with several smaller ones sprouted beside it, his joy would be even greater.

As such, Bai Shanbao was recently very keen on squatting beside the manure heaps to observe how they grew and multiplied, not feeling the slightest aversion to the stinky heaps anymore.

If Bai Shanbao derived such pleasure from this, Manbao’s joy was even greater.

This left the Zhou Family up and down rather baffled, wondering what exactly was so interesting about that manure heap, and why were these two kids so eager to transplant these inedible mushroom umbrellas?

Even though they didn’t understand, they knew that the children valued these things, so when they prepared the fertilizer, Zhou Dalang and others would consciously avoid damaging the transplanted mushrooms.

Ms. Liu was also very curious and specifically called her grandson and Manbao to inquire, and upon learning that the children did it because "mushrooms can break down difficult materials like decayed leaves, speeding up the fermentation," she was silent for a moment. She didn’t quite understand the first part, but she got the second part, and clearly, their goal was this latter half.

Ms. Liu initially thought it was merely a game, but to her surprise, there was such a purpose behind it.

Unable to suppress her curiosity, she asked, "Who told you this?"

Bai Shanbao scratched his head, looking towards Manbao.

Manbao also scratched her head, saying, "No one told us, isn’t it obvious to the eyes?"

Bai Shanbao thought about it and nodded, "Yes, it’s obvious to the eyes."

Ms. Liu didn’t know what else to ask; she never stopped her grandson from being mischievous, especially because this type of mischief was different from that traditionally associated with children.

So she could only smile and let the children continue to play.

This year, Mr. Zhuang gave them a long holiday for the New Year, from the day of Xiao Nian all the way until after the Lantern Festival.

Having been held back to study earlier, the two children had no time to play, and perhaps because they were confined so much, once on holiday they became like unbridled wild horses.

Manbao had always managed her own things, and from a young age, Ms. Qian stopped asking for her New Year’s money, so Ms. Qian initially did not know that Manbao had received a "generous gift" from the Bai Family, until one day in January, when Manbao, fond of the look of a golddawdler, wanted to make a hollow knot out of various colored threads to encase it and hang it above her bed, that was when Ms. Qian found out.

By then it was already the fifth day of the first month.

Ms. Qian was startled, that was gold!

Although the golddawdler wasn’t big, only weighing a few parts, for a family like theirs, it was still extremely valuable.

Especially considering the craftsmanship that went into its making.

After looking it over, Ms. Qian opened her mouth, but in the end, said nothing and instead spoke to Manbao, "We must give a return gift to Young Master Bai and Second Young Master. Manbao, can you give this golddawdler to your mother?"

Manbao asked, "Mother, do you want to give it back to them?"

Ms. Qian sighed, "It’s too valuable."

Manbao then scratched her head, feeling it wasn’t right, but not quite able to articulate why.

She held on to the beautiful golddawdler, unwilling to give it up.

Old Zhou had also seen the gold, his eyes gleaming. Seeing his wife glance at him, he coughed lightly and solemnly said, "It is indeed valuable, but that’s for us. To the Bai Family, they wouldn’t care about this bit of money."

Ms. Qian frowned.

Old Zhou quickly added, "We also gave their two young masters New Year’s money, though not as much as they gave Manbao, but it’s the thought that counts."

He still fancied those golddawdlers and planned to have a talk with Manbao later.

Manbao nodded, "Yes, it’s the thought that counts."

Seeing her daughter, like her father, clutching the golddawdler and not letting go, Ms. Qian knew she wouldn’t get it.

So Ms. Qian sighed worryingly, thinking that they still needed to prepare some gifts to return to the Bai Family, otherwise the disparity was just too big.

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