Chapter 10 I figured it out. I need to be nice to my sister.
Although Jiang Meilan has a simple and silly personality, she still has a certain understanding of the pros and cons of money and material life.

She was deceived because she was naive and had no scheming. She believed that the boys who asked her out would feed her and take her around.

But it is obvious that Huang Liangping does not have such financial strength.

"The house is almost emptied by creditors. It's strange that they can afford to eat meat. There's no way the Huang family can eat dumplings today! If his family can afford to eat dumplings, the creditors will not give up and will take away even the pot." Jiang Daguo said deliberately.

Realizing that she was almost fooled, Jiang Meilan ran up angrily, pointed at Huang Liangping and said, "Your family is so poor that you have to pay debts with your belongings. You can't possibly afford dumplings, right?"

When Huang Liangping saw her coming, he realized that his family's ugly deeds had been exposed, and he was so ashamed that he wanted to hide in a hole in the ground.

How dare I trick Jiang Meilan into coming and play?

With a gloomy face, he ran into his bedroom and closed the door.

"Huang Liangping, you're a liar, huh!" Jiang Meilan stomped her feet, spat at the Huang family's door, turned around and left.

Jiang Daguo was relieved to see that she had figured it out and could turn around and leave on her own. He grabbed her arm and walked home, "Meilan wants to eat meat. Big brother, go to the town and buy half a pound of meat tomorrow."

Jiang Meilan opened her eyes wide with surprise, "Really? Big brother?"

"Of course." Jiang Daguo patted the back of her head and said lovingly, "Your sister-in-law had a miscarriage and needs some nourishment. It just so happens that tomorrow the team leader and I will go to the town's agricultural machinery station to buy seeds and bring back some meat."

Jiang Daguo felt very guilty towards this little sister who was 21 years younger than him.

Over the years, Xihua has been taking medicine to replenish her body, which has drained the family's money. Her little sister has rarely eaten meat since she was a child. When outsiders lied to her that she had meat to eat, wouldn't she follow them?

He now understood that tightening his belt and living a tight life had caused his sister to learn bad habits. It would be better for his family to treat his sister better. It was just one meal of meat, and they didn't have to eat it every day.

"Great! Big Brother!" Jiang Meilan jumped up with joy, "By the way, I want to eat dumplings!"

"Sure. How about leek stuffing?"

"Yeah, I like the ones stuffed with leeks the best." Jiang Meilan sucked her saliva.

"However, you must do your homework well when you go home. I don't want to hear Teacher Huang and Teacher Liu complaining to me when they see me." Jiang Daguo said with a sullen face.

His parents are old, and if he, as the eldest brother, doesn't take care of his younger sister, his younger sister will be completely ruined.

Fortunately, the daughter he picked up was a lucky doll, and she reminded him to take care of his younger sister, otherwise his younger sister would be led astray by the boys, and it would be too late to regret then.

When Jiang Meilan heard about doing homework, her joy disappeared. She hung her head and said, "I know, big brother."

The brother and sister returned home.

Seeing the two of them come back in peace, the Jiang family felt relieved.

Dinner was not ready yet, and Jiang Meilan was urged by Jiang Daguo to finish her homework quickly.

Jiang Meilan sat in the yard, looking at the sky, scratching her head until it almost hurt, but she still couldn't think of how to solve the math problem.

Hearing her sigh, Jiang Xiaoxiao in the room also sighed, "If you don't know how to do math problems, why don't you ask Teacher Huang?"

Thinking of Jiang Meilan's fear of the teacher, Jiang Xiaoxiao sighed again and said, "Aunt, ask Dad to take you to ask Teacher Huang for advice. It's not that Teacher Huang doesn't like stupid students, she just doesn't like lazy students."

Jiang Meilan blinked and said, yes, why don’t she just take her elder brother with her?

If Teacher Huang wanted to scold her, she would push her eldest brother out to block the knife.

Thinking of this, she felt happy again and ran to tell Jiang Daguo. Jiang Daguo was of course happy to take his sister to see Teacher Huang, "Okay, no problem, as long as you study hard, you can go to the county town to ask for advice, and I am willing to go too."

After dinner, Jiang Daguo took Jiang Meilan to see Mr. Huang, the math teacher.

The naughty students in the class were very afraid of her strict discipline.

When Jiang Meilan saw her, she subconsciously shrank her neck.

This is a female teacher who is over fifty years old. She teaches very diligently and responsibly. Anyone in the village under the age of forty who has been to school is her student.

Although Jiang Daguo never attended a formal school, Teacher Huang would volunteer to teach in the village literacy class on weekend evenings.

Jiang Daguo also learned simple mathematics from Teacher Huang.

Jiang Daguo respectfully called Teacher Huang and explained his purpose.

Teacher Huang was very happy and waved at Jiang Meilan with a smile, "Well done, a good student is one who asks questions when he doesn't understand. Where is your homework book? Which questions do you not understand? Let me take a look."

Jiang Meilan blushed, "I don't know how to do that."

I thought I would be severely criticized by Teacher Huang, but unexpectedly, Teacher Huang still taught me patiently. When Jiang Meilan really didn't know how to solve a problem, Teacher Huang gave her some simple questions to do.

"Go home and memorize these formulas first. Once you memorize them, you will naturally understand the math problems you hear." Teacher Huang said, "Go home and memorize them. I will check them in class tomorrow morning."

Jiang Meilan responded honestly, "I understand, Teacher Huang."

After returning home, Jiang Meilan did not dare to be lazy and began to recite seriously.

In the past, Jiang Meilan not only did not memorize her lessons, but also ran out to play with her male classmates or secretly went to the river to catch fish.

Jiang's father and mother are too old to take care of her, but Jiang Daguo and Liu Xihua are worried that she doesn't come home at night. Today, listening to her reciting, the family slept especially soundly.

Jiang Xiaoxiao yawned, hoping that Jiang Meilan would study hard like this every day.
-
The next day, the Jiang family members went about their business.

Jiang Daguo and the team leader went to the town to buy rice seeds for the team. When they came back, they brought home half a pound of meat and a pound of leeks.

When Aunt Jiang saw the meat, she couldn't help but say to Jiang Daguo, "It's not a festival this year, why did you buy meat?"

Jiang Daguo wanted to tell the truth. He wanted to buy it for Liu Xihua to nourish her body and for Jiang Meilan to satisfy her craving for dumplings, so that Jiang Meilan would not be tricked by the boy into eating dumplings. In fact, he wanted to take advantage of him.

But at this time, Jiang Xiaoxiao was anxiously worried about Jiang Daguo, [Dad, you can't say that it's for my aunt and mom. Grandma will have a lot of ideas and will scold mom and my aunt. Just say that you haven't eaten meat for a long time and you want to satisfy grandma's craving. Alas, Dad is an honest man, I don't know if he will say that.]

Jiang Daguo slapped his forehead. Oops, he almost told the truth.

Right, you can’t tell the truth.

To avoid further quarrels at home.

"Mom, the captain's family also bought meat today. The butcher is an acquaintance of his. The meat was cut with a good mix of fat and lean, without any skin. I thought the meat was good, so I also bought half a pound. Besides, mom and dad haven't eaten meat for a long time, right?" Jiang Daguo said with a silly smile.

Aunt Jiang has been coaxed by Uncle Jiang all her life and has listened to his nice words all her life.

The wives that her sons and daughters married were either taciturn or naive like her little daughter. They either spoke directly or in a sarcastic way, which often made her very angry.

Today, her son's words were as pleasant as Grandpa Jiang's. As expected, Aunt Jiang said nothing more. She smiled and said, "It's a good thing that you just remembered today that we haven't eaten meat at home for a long time. Okay, give me the meat and I'll make dumplings."

(End of this chapter)