CH 3

Chapter 3 – System

Mrs Zhou stroked Man Bao’s hair and said, “Do you think it’s so easy to clear the wasteland? The grain planted might not be even enough to pay the taxes. Your nephews are still young, and the land at home is sufficient.”

“Then, what can we do? Fourth brother made such a big mistake, and we can’t beat him to death. What if he has leisure time and go gambling again?”

Qian thought about it. The fourth son committed a big mistake. If he wasn’t punished, the other sons and daughters-in-law would definitely feel resentful. She wasn’t so concerned about him being beaten up, but rather that they would need money to treat Si Lang’s injuries. That was the real heartache.

She assented, “Let’s do it. Let your fourth brother go and clear the wasteland tomorrow.”

Man Bao was delighted, “I will supervise fourth brother.”

“I think you just want to go out and play. There are many snakes and insects in the field so, don’t join the fun. Just let your older nephews follow your fourth brother.”

Man Bao, “No, I want to go too.”

She used to think her family’s situation was pretty good. There was no shortage of food and clothing. Every market day, she had sweets to eat although she didn’t like sweets very much.

So, all she wanted to do was to learn Chinese characters. She felt learning the characters and studying made her very happy. However, her system, Keke* didn’t have any books for her, and could only give her candy.

She had tasted them. Although those sweets were sweeter than the ones second brother bought from the market, she didn’t like them very much.

However, she came to the realization that her family was very poor. She had to make money! She was still young and can’t work in the fields or go out to work. The only way to make money was to sell sweets.

However, because she had always been lazy, she hasn’t been digging vegetations for Keke, and Keke hadn’t given her candy for a long time.

By the way, Keke suddenly appeared in her mind. Last spring, she finally completed memorising the Thousand Character Classic. Mr Zhuang was so moved that he gave his own handwritten stack of the book to her.

She ran home happily with the manuscript. Just as she reached home, Keke appeared. He** said he was a branch of the Encyclopaedia. Keke oversaw the biology department, and had somehow lost his way, and ended up with Man Bao.

Keke needed to collect many biological species to exchange for energy before he could leave.

At first, Man Bao didn’t understand, so she treated Keke like a normal friend. She was very happy to have a new friend and told her mother.

However, Mrs Zhou thought Man Bao had an imaginary friend, and humoured her.  

Man Bao was very intelligent, and gradually realized others couldn’t see or hear Keke. So, she didn’t bring him up anymore, and treated this friend as someone whom only she can see and hear.

Keke kept asking her to collect more plants, but Man Bao had already dug up all the vegetables in the vegetable garden for him. Even all the grass outside the house had been dug. She didn’t want to go to any far-off places as that would be too tiring.

For the sake of the friendship, she forced herself to look for a new type of little grass for Keke. Her family members were ill at ease if she was outdoor. So, although her nephews and nieces were allowed to play around the village, she had to be cared for by Xiao Qian.

At the very most, Man Bao can only play around the village. She must never leave the village. Needless to say, she wouldn’t be allowed to go to the fields.

Man Bao pestered her mother, and almost rolled around on the floor. Today, Mrs Zhou was physically and mentally exhausted. When she saw her daughter acting this way, and reasoned that Man Bao was growing up, and at the age where she would enjoy playtime the most, she couldn’t bear to restrained her anymore.

She forced herself to agree, “Alright, alright, alright. You can go but you must listen to fifth and six brother. You are not allowed to run all over the place, and not allowed to be in the sun for too long. Do you understand?”

Man Bao happily agreed.

For dinner, she ate a bowl full of rice, and vied with her fifth and six brother, nephews and nieces for the vegetables which they completely polished off.

Apart from these children who didn’t quite realised what happened today, the adults had poor appetites. The family had gone through blood, sweat and tears to finally save a small sum of money. Overnight, they returned to abject poverty. Everyone was in a bad mood.

Old man Zhou took a mouthful of rice with his chopsticks. For the first time ever, he felt he was choked by the food. He just couldn’t eat.

When he thought of the 15 taels of silver, his heart ached so badly that his eyes turned red. Finally, he couldn’t help but fling the bowl away and beat his fourth son again.

After their father hit Si Lang, Da Lang and the others felt they couldn’t follow suit. With unhappy expressions, they continued eating their dinner.

Mrs Zhou and her daughters-in-law had porridge. Now that the autumn harvest was over, only the men in the family and Man Bao could eat rice. Everyone else ate thick porridge and would feel quite satiated after that.

However, Mrs Zhou put her chopsticks down and said, “We don’t have a single wen left. It’s harrowing to live this way. From tomorrow onwards, we will not be cooking rice, only porridge. Eldest daughter-in-law, use less rice when cooking. It will soon be winter. After winter, we still need to live through spring and summer.”

Xiao Qian lowered her head and assented.

She glanced at Man Bao and asked, “How about the youngest sister-in-law? Her body is weak. Will she eat porridge as well?”

Mrs Zhou raised her eyebrow and said, “Tomorrow, take six catties of grain to school. Let the eldest son beseech Mr Zhuang. From now onwards, Man Bao will have her lunch in school. Every family is responsible to buy their own vegetables. Every day, just bring an additional two bunch of vegetables to school.”

Xiao Qian nodded. After the meal, she and her sisters-in-law quickly cleared the table.

Man Bao felt the favoured treatment was biased, and asked, “Mother, what about my nephews and nieces?”

Mrs Zhou stretched out her hand and stroked her hair. With a smile, she explained, “Da Ya (the eldest niece) and the rest of them are in good health. They don’t need to eat rice. You are in poor health. You need to eat more. Otherwise, if you fall sick, we’ll have to fork out money to buy medicine.”

Since young, the nieces and nephews had been instilled with this mindset. Their grandparents and parents told them Man Bao was in poor health. They weren’t allowed to push or bully her. They should give her more food. If she was chubby, she wouldn’t fall sick.

Otherwise, if Man Ban fell ill, the family would have to spend money on medicine, and would have no money to buy sweets for them.

So, although Man Bao, their grandfather and father ate rice, while they (the nieces and nephews) ate porridge, they were happy with the arrangement.

After all, Man Bao was very kind to them. Although she was younger than them, she always gave them sweets. They liked her very much.

When grandmother glanced at them, they repeated nodded, and urged their little aunt to eat more. “We can fine with eating porridge at home.”

“There are still grains in the fields. Later, we’ll look for them and bake them to eat.”

“No. Tomorrow, we are going to help fourth brother clear the wasteland.” Man Bao added, “But, we can look for wild fruits to eat.”

Old man Zhou looked at Man Bao, “Clear the wasteland?”

Mrs Zhou said, “I forgot to tell you. Tomorrow, I will let the fourth child work on the wasteland. He owes the family money, and he needs to make a living and make money.”

Old man Zhou didn’t believe one could make money by clearing the wasteland. However, it was a good idea, lest Si Lang was idle and went gambling. It was best to find work for him.

So, he instructed, “Fifth, sixth, you will go with your brother tomorrow. If he is lazy, just beat him.”

Man Bao volunteered for the job, “Father, I’ll do it! The fifth and sixth older brothers will not be able to beat up fourth brother.”

Old man Zhou smiled, stroked her hair and said, “You can do it. If your fourth brother dares to be disobedient, you can use the pole to beat him.”

Man Bao was as happy as having received an imperial edict. She went to bed early that night and promised Keke she would help him find plants that she hadn’t found before. She said, “You must prepare more sweets for me. I want to sell them.”

The system was so sad. The plants Man Bao submitted were very common. It had been more than a year and he hadn’t even seen any benefits yet. Instead, he had to exchange his own remaining points to trade for candy.

I was forced to trade. Man Bao was a little doll. If he didn’t dangle sweets as a carrot in front of her, she wouldn’t participate in the game.

Man Bao had always regarded the sweets for plants exchange as a game. She had never thought of using Keke to reach the pinnacle of her life and achieve extraordinary life goals.

Keke had accompanied Man Ban for slightly more than a year ago and was slowly losing his ambitions. Fortunately, he had bounded with her. Even if there was no energy to enable him to leave the current space and return to his original plane of existence, he could keep going.

The days would be better once the host was older.

This was how Keke comforted himself.

If worst comes to worst, he would choose a more ambitious host once his current host passed away!

The system quietly retrieved his remaining points and calculated the number of sweets which can be exchanged for the little girl.

Man Bao considered the agreement made with Keke, a done deal. So, she pulled her blanket over herself, closed her eyes, and happily went to sleep.

The next day, soon after the rooster crowed, there were noises in the yard. Man Bao turned over, burrowed her little bum into the quilt and continued to sleep.

Farmers were early risers. Even if the autumn harvest was over, the land had to rest and reorganised.

Furthermore, the three older sons were going to work for Master Bai, the landlord. They were about to leave the house.

When sounds of screaming and beatings came from the yard, Man Bao finally got up, and rubbed her eyes. With her flushed complexion, she pushed open the window and saw her father dragging Si Lang out of the house, kicked him in the butt and forced him out of the house to work. Immediately, she recalled her promises to Keke last night.

She didn’t care about returning to bed. Man Bao immediately jumped out of bed, put on her clothes, and ran out, “Fourth brother, wait for me. I’ll go with you.”

Mrs Zhou grabbed her and said, “Don’t worry, wash your face first.”

Breakfast wasn’t served so early. They had to wait until the sun was high in the sky to have breakfast. Xiao Qian helped Man Bao to wash her face and poured her a bowl of boiled water. Then, she took an egg, broke it and mix it up in the water for Man Bao to drink.

Man Bao drank the eggy drink with a look of disgust, turned around and chased after her fourth brother.

Fifth brother and everyone else were waiting at the door. The eggy drink was Man Bao’s daily breakfast special. Even Old man Zhou and Mrs Zhou didn’t enjoy this privilege.

Allegedly, Man Bao almost died of illness. She survived due to the eggy drink.

Consequently, this daily special was an arrangement cast in stone. No matter how difficult things might be or how everyone else might have to go without, Man Bao would be given her eggy drink.

The family had no expectations of Si Lang’s land clearing efforts. As such, they also sent a group of children to help him.

For example, Wu Lang, Liu Lang, Da Lang’s eldest son (Da Tou/ big head) and daughter (Da Ya/ big girl), as well as Er Lang’s daughter (Er Ya/ second girl) and son (Er Tou/ second boy).

This year, fifth brother turned 14 years old, while sixth brother, 12. They were great young men. In the words of the villagers, they could prepare to get married and would be able to give birth to a fat baby in two years.

Man Bao’s nephews were Da Tou (nine years old) and Er Tou (six years old). Her nieces were Da Ya and Er Ya. The former was eight, and the latter, seven years old.

There were younger children at home. For example, San Tou who was Da Lang’s son. He was the same age with Man Bao. He wanted to join them but his mother prevented him. She took him and Si Ya/ fourth girl to weed the vegetable garden.

San Ya/ Third girl was second brother’s daughter while Si Tou/ Fourth head was third brother’s son. They were both young at just four years old. It was quite difficult to get to the wasteland and as such, they can only do weeding at home.

The mountain road was rugged, and it was difficult for Man Bao to walk. So, Wu Lang and Liu Lang took turns carrying her on their back up the mountain. Don’t even think of Si Lang helping. He was injured. He would be considered competent if he managed to make it to the wasteland on his own.

– End of this chapter –

Additional information:

* Keke means a branch of academic or vocational study. Man Bao’s system, Keke, collects plants and animals.

** I am personifying Keke as the system is intelligent, funny, responsive and a wonderful teacher/ mentor.

*** Man Bao has many nieces and nephews which can get confusing at times. Please refer to the family tree listed in the synopsis of the book. Look for Synopsis & Family Tree under the main header, Projects.