The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 264 - 253: Very Pleased

Chapter 264: Chapter 253: Very Pleased

Wei Zhi looked at the two children in surprise, then glanced at Mr. Zhuang and asked with a smile, "How old are you this year?"

Bai Shanbao proudly said, "I’m eight years old!"

Manbao added, "That’s in nominal age!"

Bai Shanbao: "...you’re only six years old!"

Manbao snorted and said, "I’ll soon be older than you, girls grow faster than boys."

Wei Zhi burst into laughter and asked, "Who told you that?"

Manbao boasted, "My friend!"

Of course, the friend was Keke.

Perhaps the land and water of Qili Village suited Bai Shanbao well. Since last year, he had grown rapidly. Initially, he was only half a head taller than Manbao, but now he was nearly a head taller.

During their last quarrel, Manbao had hit him in anger, and when they fought, she found it much harder to take him down, almost biting him in the end.

At that time, Keke had comforted her, saying in two years she would grow faster than Bai Shanbao because girls generally develop earlier than boys.

Manbao had been waiting for that time to come.

Wei Zhi thought it was just something said to comfort a child and didn’t take it seriously, so he moved on to discuss their studies, "Yesterday, I reviewed Bai Shan’s work, and although he’s only eight, he did quite well. I wonder how you’re getting on?"

Manbao was very confident, "I won’t be worse than him, test me."

Wei Zhi looked towards Mr. Zhuang.

Mr. Zhuang was also happy to show off his young disciple and gestured for him to go ahead with the test.

Wei Zhi then questioned her. Having asked Bai Shanbao yesterday, he knew Bai Shanbao had finished the Classic of Poetry and was currently reading The Great Learning. However, he started Manbao’s examination with the Thousand Character Classic, and instead of the challenging Great Learning, he preferred asking Manbao about The Analects.

Manbao was quite familiar with this book, even more so than Bai Shanbao.

Since she could write legibly, she had copied two copies of The Analects for her teacher. The first set of textbooks she used were all copied by Mr. Zhuang for her.

After Manbao finished reading and understanding them, she would copy an additional two copies for him so that in the future, he could give them to other students. It was much cheaper than buying books from the county town.

Mr. Zhuang accepted all the copies brought by his young disciples, and by copying these books, Manbao had revised the content. Now that she was teaching brothers and nephews and nieces to read The Analects, she was naturally more familiar with it than Bai Shanbao.

Confucius once said something quite true: "Review the old and learn the new." Although she didn’t gain new insights every time she read The Analects, she did gain something from reading it multiple times.

So her understanding of the textbook was deeper than Bai Shanbao’s.

Wei Zhi listened more attentively as Manbao spoke more happily. Unable to contain herself, she ended up raising some questions that neither Keke nor Mr. Zhuang could answer, throwing them at Wei Zhi.

Wei Zhi: ...Children always have a unique perspective on things, and their questions tend to be rather peculiar, making them difficult to answer.

But this official had made it to the position of Secretary Supervisor, so his capabilities spoke for themself.

So although he was taken aback at first, he seriously answered Manbao’s questions.

Don’t think that The Analects is just a basic book; it’s one that people can read their entire lives. Not just Manbao and Bai Shanbao, but even Mr. Zhuang listened with great interest, learning a lot from Wei Zhi’s explanations.

Hence, Mr. Zhuang couldn’t help but join in, taking out some of his own longstanding questions to ask Wei Zhi.

As a result, the four of them became more and more excited in their discussion. If it were not for Lu Feng running over to remind Mr. Zhuang that it was time for the afternoon class, they would not have realized it.

Mr. Zhuang rose reluctantly and apologetically said to Wei Zhi, "A conversation with Mr. Wei is better than ten years of study. It’s a pity that today there isn’t much time. I cannot continue our discussion with Mr. Wei. May I ask if Mr. Wei would mind coming over later for a good drink at my modest home?"

Wei Zhi gladly accepted.

Mr. Zhuang happily saw Wei Zhi out the door before leading the two children back to class.

Only when she sat down at the desk did Manbao belatedly realize, "We forgot to take a noon nap."

Bai Shanbao said in pain, "Did you just realize that? I started feeling sleepy a while ago."

But sleeping during class was impossible, especially since they were seated in the first row.

Wei Zhi, having been out for most of the day, strode leisurely back to the Bai Family home, hands clasped behind his back, with Ms. Liu watching his movements.

Daji stood off to the side and asked, "Old Madam, can he be trusted?"

Ms. Liu was silent for a while before replying, "Let’s wait and see; after all, this official isn’t in a hurry to leave, right?"

"What about Miss Manbao..."

Since learning that Manbao’s parents were Zhou Yin, and Zhou Yin was that couple from years ago, Daji had changed how he referred to Manbao.

Ms. Liu fell silent for an even longer time, "Let’s just go with the flow. If Shanbao brings Manbao back today, let them play more in the garden, and not just stay indoors reading all the time."

Initially, she hadn’t decided whether to reveal everything to Wei Zhi, and therefore did not want him to meet Manbao, which was for the Zhou Family’s benefit and Manbao’s own good too.

She didn’t want to involve the Zhou Family in uncertainties.

But now Wei Zhi had already met Manbao, so it was obviously a better choice to give him a better impression of her.

The carefree Manbao and Bai Shanbao were oblivious to all this and after school, Bai Shanbao invited Manbao to his house to do homework.

Because they had been so lax in class, Mr. Zhuang gave them a particularly large amount of homework.

He felt that even if they started on their homework as soon as they got home, they probably wouldn’t be able to finish it before dinner.

This made him somewhat gloomy, and he partly blamed Manbao, "It’s all your fault. If you hadn’t mumbled, the teacher wouldn’t have asked me such deep questions."

Manbao was indignant, "It’s clearly because you didn’t prepare enough and couldn’t answer the teacher’s questions, and now you’re blaming me."

Bai Shanbao didn’t want to argue with her, as he still had to do homework with her later; so he said, "Alright, we have new text to learn tomorrow. After we finish the homework and review, we’ll have to prepare the new lesson too. Just eat dinner at my house, and after that, we can continue to prepare together."

"I’ll eat at my house and come back after I’m full."

"Why not eat at my house?"

"Because today my eldest sister-in-law is cooking, and my Second Brother and they definitely bought meat from the county town today. Wait until tomorrow when my Second Sister-in-law is cooking, then invite me over for dinner."

Bai Shanbao: "... Alright then."

But as soon as he returned home, his grandmother actually told them to go play in the garden and not to rush their homework, which worried Bai Shanbao even more, "Grandmother, how about we play in the garden after we finish our homework?"

Not knowing that their homework had increased today and thinking they wanted to sneak read miscellaneous books in the study, Ms. Liu sternly said, "No."

Then Manbao tugged at Bai Shanbao, and he had no choice but to agree.

As they left, Manbao said to him, "You’re really dumb. Why did you make Grandma Liu mad? Couldn’t we just take our homework and do it in the garden?"

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