CH 33

Chapter 33 – Happy event

Man Bao stopped chatting with her fourth brother the moment the aroma of the chicken soup wafted from the kitchen. She stuck closely to Xiao Qian and went into the kitchen to watch the excitement.

Si Lang also cheered up. He didn’t have any money, but he can have some chicken!

Although the rooster looked miserable when the kids brought it home, it was a very strong and handsome rooster before the cockfight, and it was well fed.

Therefore, it had a lot of meat. Xiao Qian set aside half to make soup for Mrs Zhou tomorrow.

So, she only cooked half a chicken for dinner.

Naturally, Man Bao wasn’t aware as she was given all the best things in the family.

Firstly, Xiao Qian served a bowl of soup to her mother-in-law, then picked a few pieces of chicken for her. Following which, she gave a drumstick to Man Bao. The other children shared a few pieces of chicken. Nothing much was left.

But when the adults started to eat, they didn’t take any of the meat. Although they only ate the radishes cooked with the chicken, the root vegetable tasted like manna.

Naturally, the children polished off everything. When they happily helped to clear the table after dinner, they reminisced over the taste.

Man Bao also rarely gets to eat chicken. When she had it tonight, she thought it was quite delicious, so she said to Mrs Zhou, “Mother, when Man Bao is rich, I’ll buy you a chicken every day.”

The delighted Mrs Zhou stroked her hair and said, “Wonderful. I’ll wait for Man Bao’s chickens.”

The little girl went to bed very early that evening. She sneaked into the system’s space to remove the sweets’ wrappers as she had promised to handover 100 pieces of sweets to Fu Wen Yun the next day.

Since she had to remove so many wrappers, she become tired and complained to Keke, “Why are your sweets wrapped?”

The system replied, “There are unwrapped ones.”

Man Bao immediately asked, “What does it look like? Why didn’t you buy those?”

“Interstellar review, that type of sweets are not as delicious as these ones. I thought the host would like this better.” (Interstellar review!! Awesome! )

“It doesn’t matter. I’m not the one eating them, anyway.” Man Bao asked Keke to buy a bag of the unwrapped sweets so that she could check them out.

The system took a look at her points and quickly bought a large bag of sweets. Man Bao opened it and found round shaped white coloured candies. She picked one up, tasted it and nodded, “It’s delicious.”

Keke, “There’re other colours, do you want to try them?”

Man Bao, “Do they taste the same?”

“Different.”

“Then let’s buy and check them all out.”

The system was selective and didn’t buy any brightly coloured sweets. He chose those that were comparable to the craftsmanship in Man Bao’s world, but he picked better looking and uniform colours.

He knew Man Bao rarely eats sweets and most of them were sold.

The host was young and wasn’t aware of safety issues, but Keke must take all these into consideration.

Man Bao was blissfully ignorant. When she saw the three bags of sweets, she opened them up and tasted one sweet from each bag.

Then, she arranged the bags in order of her preference. She selected 100 sweets which she deemed most unpalatable and planned to get fifth brother to sell them in town the next day.

Once her plans were settled, she hugged her quilt and went off to dreamland.

However, things were rather chaotic in other parts of the house!

Every parent was trying to coax their kids out of their money. Even Wu Lang and Liu Lang were forced by Old man Zhou to handover more than half of their earnings.

The two teenagers originally had 20 wen each but were left with only five.

And this was only possible because the brothers mentioned their father’s personal savings. Only then did Old man Zhou relented. Otherwise, they wouldn’t be able to keep a single wen.

Old man Zhou handed the 30 wen which he plundered from his sons to his wife. He whispered, “The kids have grown up, we need to give them some leeway. Let them keep some money.”

Once Mrs Zhou had safely kept the money away, she said, “Tomorrow, take the money and repay the debt we owe to the village chief’s family.”

After he agreed, she continued, “I heard Master Bai will be making repairs to his residence. Tomorrow, let the three oldest boys go and check that out. There’ll be some income if they’re selected as workers. Once it’s winter, we’ll need to spend quite a lot of money.

“In the past two years, Man Bao wore clothes made from my old clothes, which are not very warm. She is going to school and studying with her teacher. There’s no charcoal fire in school during winter, it’ll be cold, so I need to get her a new set of clothes. At the very least, she must be warm.”

Once the couple finished their discussions on things to be done the next day, Old man Zhou went and took a look at Man Bao who was sleeping in a partitioned-off area. He was relieved to see that she didn’t kick off her quilt and went to bed.

Since Man Bao woke up early for three days in a row, she developed the habit of getting up early.

She woke up as soon as there were movements outside her window. She rolled around on her bed for a while, got off her bed, and clambered on the window to check out the noise.

Once Xiao Qian who was in the garden saw her, she yelled, rushed forward, and stuffed her back into the room and closed the window.

She scolded the little girl through the window, “Little sister-in-law, it’s cold in the morning. You decide to check out what’s happening when you’re not even dressed? What will happen if you catch a cold?”

Mrs Zhou who was already up and about, shouted, “Cover yourself with the quilt, and mother will help you put on clothes in a bit.”

Man Bao stuck out her tongue, got into bed and covered herself with her quilt.

Once she had washed up and was dressed, Man Bao quietly found Wu Lang, and gave him a package comprising candies wrapped in a large piece of greased paper. She whispered, “Can’t tell parents about this.”

Otherwise, she can’t explain how she obtained the sweets.

Wu Lang agreed. If not, his father would plunder all the money he earned.

Wu Lang and Liu Lang left the house without having breakfast. The adults assumed the teenagers joined Si Lang to clear the wasteland. They had no inkling the boys went to town!

On the other hand, Si Lang had long been accustomed to his younger brothers who often pull disappearing acts as they went in search of new and fun things. He reminisced how he used to behaved exactly like them, unless his father and older brothers watched over him.

So, he carried his hoe to the wasteland by himself.

Da Tou, Da Ya and the rest of the sensible kids went to help.

They helped to cut the grass, pick up the rocks, and then, take the grass and rocks out of the wasteland and piled them up neatly.

Man Bao also helped. Just when she was energetically picking up the stones, she heard a ringing sound in the system.

Keke said, “Host, the two types of flowers collected yesterday have been researched and the reward points have been credited. You can check the points now.”

Man Bao went to check her points and found that she had been amply rewarded!

Keke was slightly excited and explained, “They are two kinds of flowers, one is called Wisteria, and the other, Azalea. They’re both primitive species. They became extinct during the Earth Era, but their genome is in the gene map left behind, so the Encyclopaedia’s scientists were able to quickly ascertain their names.

“The inclusion of these two plants is of great significance, so the Encyclopaedia gave the host a one-time reward of 1,000 points. In addition, the reward points for the wisteria are 350 and the azalea, 380. Please check.”

Man Bao, “Why are there so many points? I dug so many flowers and plants for you previously, but those only received one or two points.”

The most points received previously was for the Chinese box thorn, but that was only 50 points.

Keke, “The points are a comprehensive assessment made by the Encyclopaedia based on the value, scarcity, and influence of the plants. The host is lucky.

“These two plants became extinct during the Earth Era, and the Encyclopaedia’s scientists had tried to revive them based on the genetic maps but failed. As such, the plants collected are of great significance.

“Host, you’ve fulfilled the conditions to open the mall. Do you want to open it?”