The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 328 - 317: Cognition

Chapter 328: Chapter 317: Cognition

Manbao thought hard about it, looked at Silang, and then glanced at the half-finished notes on human anatomy on the desk. After swaying indecisively, she couldn’t resist the temptation and stood up with her pen down, saying, "Alright, let’s go have a look."

Manbao cast another glance at the books on the desk, and feeling somewhat guilty, she added, "But we have to come back early, I still need to review and preview my lessons."

Zhou SiLang said that was no problem, closed the windows for her with a grin, and led her up the mountain.

"I don’t think we need to go too far. Although the mountains around our village are a bit small and don’t have that many pine trees, there are not a few either. Let’s start looking nearby and if we don’t find any, we can go a bit further away."

When Zhou SiLang said this, he sounded a bit regretful, "Speaking of pine trees, there are the most in the Zhongshan mountains. It’s just too bad they belong to the Jia Family brothers, ah~~~"

Manbao didn’t care much about that. She said, "We have already found so much China root in the Zhongshan mountains, there’s probably not much left. Besides, we can’t dig now; we’ll wait until there are fewer people going out in the winter and then sneak up."

"No, that won’t do. It’s more feasible during the autumn harvest when everybody is too busy harvesting rice and nobody pays attention. By winter, whether we can keep it secret from the villagers or not, the Jia Family brothers will be making charcoal, they’ll basically be logging in the mountains all winter; if we go up then, they’ll definitely discover us."

Manbao gave it some thought and chose not to mention going to the mountains again.

Maybe their area was indeed well-suited for China root to thrive. Plus, with Keke’s shortcut, they found two patches of China root after a single round in the mountains.

Knowing that Manbao was short on time, as soon as they found the first patch, Zhou SiLang assigned the China root digging task to Zhou WuLang and Datou while he continued to search with Manbao and the others.

Eventually, they found another patch about five hundred steps away from the first one.

Zhou SiLang happily set down his hoe and generously waved his hand, "Liulang, you take Manbao back home to do homework. Leave this to us."

Manbao: ...

Zhou Liulang: ...

Manbao turned on her heel and left, deciding to be angry with her brother who treated her like a disposable tool.

Meanwhile, Zhou Liulang followed reluctantly. He, too, wanted to dig for China root in the mountains.

Now, Manbao’s interest in digging China root was mainly for money and points, so she was not that interested in playing around in the mountains anymore.

Thus, after finding two patches, she confidently descended the mountain.

Upon returning home, she dove straight into her room to work on her notes.

Junior Ms.Qian peeked in at her and then, reassured, went back to the kitchen to work.

Ms.He and Ms.Fang both had noticeably pregnant bellies now, so they were sitting on stools, slowly sorting through hemp thread.

Ms.Feng went to the vegetable garden with Zhou Xi to water it and planned to pull out some of the old vegetable roots and plant some new ones.

With Zhou Family’s house quiet for the time being, Manbao immersed herself at the desk, only feeling her neck sore when Daya knocked on the door and came in.

"Miss, it’s time to eat."

Manbao rubbed her sore neck, responded, and then glanced at her notes with satisfaction. She placed her pen on the pen stand, got up, and headed to the courtyard with Daya.

It was unusual for Manbao to read and write at home; she usually did her homework at the Bai Family right after school, staying until dinner before returning.

After dinner, she either went out to play or sat in the yard to teach Datou and others to read or indulged herself in a book.

But in the past few days, Ms.Qian had been checking on her frequently and noticed the young girl was buried in her studies. She barely noticed Ms.Qian standing at the doorway several times.

Only then did Ms.Qian realize that her daughter’s course load was indeed tight, having previously assumed that her visits to the Bai Family were for playtime with the young master of the Bai Family.

So studying was truly hard.

This realization wasn’t unique to Ms.Qian as everyone in the Zhou Family came to recognize this.

Especially Zhou SiLang, who never knew how to be polite, so he impolitely flipped through Manbao’s notes only to discover he could not understand any of it.

Keep in mind, he had completed the Thousand Character Classic. Okay, while he might not compare to Daya and Erya in terms of studies, he was still more knowledgeable than his older brothers.

The Eldest and Third Brother could only fully recognize the names of family members and knew some of the simplest numbers; as for the rest, they would not recognize a character no matter how many times they saw it.

Could it be that his little sister was learning such profound things?

Zhou SiLang’s mouth was never good at keeping secrets, so without even half a day passing, everyone in the Zhou Family knew how difficult the things Manbao was studying were.

Even Old Zhou wandered over to take a peek.

Barely recognizing his and his wife’s names, Old Zhou couldn’t understand the notes Manbao was writing. However, he did notice the amount of paper she was using.

Seeing pile after thick pile of paper caused his heart to twitch, leading him to ask her that day, "Manbao, do you still have money? Do you need your mother to give you some to buy pen, ink, and paper?"

Manbao, sitting in her chair, looked curiously at her father and shook her head, "No need, I’ve bought lots and lots, enough to last."

The pen, ink, and paper that Manbao was using were all purchased from the marketplace. At first, she had only bought paper, but when her teacher’s gifted pen became frayed and her ink ran out, she visited the county city and found them somewhat expensive. So, she searched in the marketplace and, although it was not cheap and the selection was limited, it was still better to use points than copper coins. Besides, the quality was decent, so she consistently purchased her supplies from the marketplace.

Upon hearing this, Old Zhou nodded, looked at the dishes on the table, picked up a piece of egg with his chopsticks for her, and his wrinkled face blossomed into a chrysanthemum with a smile, "Studying taxes the brain; eat more eggs."

Manbao nodded, divided the egg into three parts, gave one part back to her father, and gave another to her mother before starting on her meal.

This year, the chickens at home were raised well, laying more eggs than in previous years. Therefore, Ms.Qian was quite generous with them, cooking a few eggs every day if there was no meat at home.

After all, there were two pregnant women in the household, right?

But today, she specifically instructed Junior Ms.Qian to cook two more eggs just to nourish Manbao.

Although the eggs were abundant, with many mouths to feed, Manbao never monopolized the lion’s share. Moreover, she already had eggs every morning.

Ms.Qian, feeling contented, declined Manbao’s kindness and returned the piece of egg to her plate with a look of sympathy, "No wonder our Manbao doesn’t grow taller despite eating so much. It turns out it’s because she has to learn so much, working her brain too hard; it’s not good if the nutrition can’t keep up."

Old Zhou wholeheartedly agreed, "From now on, let’s also give Manbao an egg every noon."

Manbao: "...I don’t want it! Dad, I don’t like eggs anymore, and eating too many eggs isn’t good either."

"Nonsense, eggs are so good, how can they be bad?" Old Zhou asserted authoritatively, "You don’t have to save for the family; adding an egg a day is something we can afford. You need to nourish yourself well because you study hard. Whose child in other families is as worry-free as you?"