The Lucky Farmgirl
Chapter 443 - 432: Discovering Problems

Chapter 443: Chapter 432: Discovering Problems

Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang clearly hadn’t distributed Longzhou’s funds yet, so there were exactly one thousand nine hundred and ten taels of silver in the room, with even a handful of copper coins scattered around the pile of silver, evidently having taken out the one hundred and nineteen coins to play with.

Manbao happily counted the silver ingots twice, which wasn’t actually a lot, just one hundred and ninety-one ten-tael ingots in total.

Manbao was happy counting, but even with counting twice, that was enough.

She had just woken up and wasn’t inclined to sleep again, so she looked around and saw the account book lying to one side, crawled over on hands and knees, and picked it up to read.

Manbao vaguely grasped a truth, that if the grain was merely sold as food, it wasn’t very profitable, but if sold as seed, it could fetch four times more, or even more than selling it as just grain.

She felt that in the future, their small farm, and even their family, could select some particularly robust plants with especially long and full ears to be used as seeds.

Even if they couldn’t sell the grain as seeds in large batches like this in the future, they could still make quite a lot of money, certainly more than just selling the grain outright.

Manbao flipped through the account book and thought joyfully to herself.

As she flipped through, she started to feel something was wrong.

Manbao turned to the front to check the total amount of money for the measured grain, then to the end to see the total for the weighed grain.

Manbao was stunned, and simply flipped back to the first page to count how many bushels of wheat had been measured, then counted the number of bags weighed.

She then discovered that there was one more bag of measured wheat than weighed wheat.

Only then did Manbao belatedly realize that it seemed they had been swindled by Old Master Bai.

Manbao calculated the difference in money and was shocked, then her heart ached beyond repair.

Not to mention that there was one more bag of measured grain than weighed, even if identical, the contents of each bag varied slightly, but that shouldn’t make such a huge difference.

The discrepancy amounted to 9,205 coins!

Manbao, clutching the account book, rushed next door to find Bai Shanbao.

Bai Shanbao had just woken up and was drinking water when he saw Manbao pouting, "Why are you just coming now? You said you’d come later, and we waited so long for you without you showing up."

Manbao directly thrust the account book in front of him, her eyes wide, "Look!"

"What’s wrong?" Bai Shanbao took the account book.

Bai Erlang quickly abandoned his toy and ran over, excitedly asking, "Is there a mistake in the accounts?"

"It’s not possible that there is any mistake," Bai Shanbao immediately said, "I and Manbao counted separately, and since our numbers matched, there can be no mistake. Besides, the teacher didn’t find any error, and I have also compared it with your family’s accounting; ours is the same."

Bai Erlang then calmed down, "So what are you showing us?"

Manbao shared her discovery with the two, her face filled with astonishment, "How could it differ by so much?"

Yet Bai Shanbao recalled what the tutor had said when uncle made the demand for half measured, half weighed, and he mused, "The teacher said, this is our first assignment."

Bai Shanbao looked up to meet eyes with Manbao and then, with considerable effort, managed to retrieve a measuring bucket from Ms. Zheng.

Ms. Zheng was nearly worried to death.

Without the mistress at home, she simply couldn’t keep her son under control.

Just yesterday, a batch of wheat was suddenly brought into the house, startling her, and before she had recovered today, these three children had already exchanged the wheat for money.

And now they were causing a commotion about finding a measuring bucket, where was she supposed to find one for them?

In the end, it was the steward of the house who somehow found one for them.

Bai Shanbao, holding the bucket, seriously asked the steward, "Is it official standard?"

"Young master, rest assured, it’s made by the craftsmen designated by the County Governmental Office, according to the standards set by the imperial court."

The three children then ran back to the front courtyard.

In one of the rooms in the front courtyard, there was still some wheat left, the wheat that remained after trading with the villagers, not much, just nine bags remaining.

With Daji’s help, they opened a bag, and Bai Shanbao dipped the measuring bucket in to scoop the wheat, but being small, he only managed to fill it halfway at first.

Daji didn’t offer to help, stepping to the side and watching with crossed arms.

Bai Erlang helped Bai Shanbao move the bucket filled with wheat to the ground, Manbao, finding a blue-and-white plate from somewhere, directly used it to scoop up the wheat and pour it into the bucket.

Seeing the blue-and-white plate, Daji couldn’t help but flinch, but in the end, he didn’t say anything, just turned his head away, out of sight, out of mind.

All three worked together, using the plate to fill the measuring bucket with wheat from the bag until it was level full, and just as Bai Erlang was about to grab a bag they brought to fill it, Bai Shanbao thought for a moment and stopped him, then took the plate, filled it with wheat, and added more until it formed a small peak before stopping.

Manbao, however, seemed thoughtful and shook the measuring bucket. Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang only managed an "Ah" in protest, wanting to stop her from spilling the wheat, only to see the peak of wheat that had been visible quickly collapse inwards, and in no time at all, it leveled with the bucket, or by visual estimate, sank down slightly.

Bai Shanbao and Bai Erlang were flabbergasted, both instinctively checking the bottom of the measuring bucket for leaks.

Meanwhile, Manbao finally found a similar scene in her memory and exclaimed, "It’s not a leak, it’s..."

After thinking hard, Manbao said, "It must be because it wasn’t packed tightly. Every year when we harvest wheat and millet, my brothers shake it vigorously, then lift and drop it down hard, which makes the bags that seemed full suddenly become much emptier, then we can continue to fill them with more wheat and millet."

The two boys were stunned; this clearly went beyond their understanding.

However, Bai Shanbao quickly regained his wits, filled the bucket with wheat using the plate again, while Bai Erlang and Manbao were responsible for shaking it. After a while, the peaked measuring bucket no longer collapsed, and only then did they pour the wheat from the bucket into a bag and started to weigh it.

Twelve catties and possibly even more, something a child obviously couldn’t lift with one hand alone, so Manbao found a stick for her and Bai Erlang to lift the sack along with the scale beam, while Bai Shanbao was in charge of moving the scale weights.

The three kids had learned how to weigh when they had harvested wheat before, and they gathered around to look and count. Within a short while, they had the number.

Bai Erlang was tongue-tied, uncertain, "Is it twelve catties and eight taels?"

Bai Shanbao nodded gravely.

Bai Erlang was dumbfounded, "Isn’t it supposed to be that one dou equals twelve catties? Even with some deviation, this is too much, isn’t it?"

Manbao sighed, "It’s also because our document didn’t make it clear. If we insisted on weighing and disallowed using the measuring bucket, it would have been better."

Bai Erlang was bewildered, "So, my father profited at my expense?"

Bai Shanbao said, "This is the assignment our teacher set for us. Should we rewrite the contract to prevent uncle from taking advantage of us?"