The boy was a new face. She had never seen him before, so she nodded and asked, "I'm Zhao Zhitong. Who are you?"
Her eyes were red from crying because of the child sale. At this moment, she suddenly turned around. Her eyes were still filled with tears, and her eyes were red.
When Qiao Muchen saw this, he was at a loss. The valiant and spirited aura he had when he came over was instantly reduced by half. "I-I didn't bully you. Why are you crying?"
Zhao Zhitong cared about her reputation the most. She immediately rubbed her eyes and stood up. She said angrily, "I was blinded by something just now. I didn't cry!"
"Alright then." Qiao Muchen pursed his lips, puffed out his chest again, and valiantly told her the reason for his visit. "My name is Qiao Muchen. I heard from Sir that you're very powerful and have solved the problem that has been troubling Uncle Wei for a long time. I'm here to challenge you!"
This had to start from the first time Zhao Zhitong went to school with Sun Mei.
The sky was clear and the sun was shining brightly.
Sun Mei placed Zhao Zhitong at the kitchen door. After reminding her not to run around, she went into the kitchen to get busy.
How could Zhao Zhitong, this naughty monkey, be obedient? She played at the kitchen door for less than a minute before she was happy.
Coincidentally, she went to the front yard.
The school dormitory was separated by a courtyard wall into the front yard and backyard. The backyard was the kitchen where the students ate, and the front yard was where the students studied.
When she accidentally barged in, Meng Xuejiu was leading the students of the first class in the courtyard to study a black bull that Squire Wei had brought over.
Zhao Zhitong's eyes lit up when she suddenly saw such a big bull. She really wanted to go forward and take a good look.
With this thought in mind, she did it.
When she got closer, she got some information from their conversation.
It turned out that Squire Wei wanted to buy this black bull from a bull peddler. However, this bull was of excellent breed and the bull peddler wanted to keep it for himself so that he could breed it next year. He was unwilling to sell it.
However, he did not dare to offend Squire Wei, so he thought of this idea. He wanted to sell this bull by the catty.
In other words, if Squire Wei wanted to buy this bull, he had to weigh it first. However, where could he find such a huge scale? Even if there was such a huge scale, which could weigh this bull?
Unless they slaughtered the bull and divided it into pieces…
However, not to mention that killing bulls was not allowed by the country, even he could not bear to kill them. The breed of this bull was extremely good. He really liked it.
After thinking about it for a few days, he still could not come up with a solution. Today, he brought the bull to the private school and looked for Meng Xuejiu to think of a solution.
Coincidentally, Meng Xuejiu was teaching the students arithmetic today. He wanted to enlighten the students, so he treated it as a test question and told every student think of a way.
At that moment, the students were all talking about their opinions.
Some students said that as long as they made a huge scale and found a hundred people to carry it, they could weigh it.
There were also students who were whimsical and said that they could first weigh the first half, then the second half, and then add them together.
…
Listening to the students' collective wisdom, although it was all bad ideas, Meng Jiujiu was not angry. Instead, he stroked his beard and smiled kindly.
"We can use a boat."
At this moment, a crisp voice with a milky tone suddenly sounded, breaking through the noise and entering Meng Jiejie's ears.
His eyes immediately lit up. "Who said we'll use a boat?"
The students fell silent and looked at each other, not knowing what to say.
"I said so."
At this moment, a girl's crisp voice sounded again. Only then did everyone realize that there was a little girl hiding behind them.
Seeing that everyone was looking at her, Zhao Zhitong was not afraid at all. Instead, she was very happy and even grinned at everyone.
Meng Jiujiu did not expect the person who spoke to be a little girl. He was also very surprised, but he still waved at her. "Come, come here."
At this moment, Zhao Yue, who was among the students, looked at Zhao Zhitong and widened his eyes. Wasn't this the annoying person who always sneaked into his house and eavesdropped on his reading? He immediately bared his teeth at her.
"Ok~" Zhao Zhitong made a face at him and happily walked toward Meng Xuejiu.
When Zhao Zhitong approached him, Meng Xuejiu stroked his beard and asked, "Come, girl. What do you mean by using a boat?"
"Sir, we'll move the ox onto a ship. After the ship stabilizes in the water, we'll carve a mark at the water level and move the ox off the ship.
"Then, we would load the big ship with stones until the water level reached the mark we carved before. Then, we would stop loading the stones. In the end, we would weigh the stones on the ship and this would be the weight of the bull."
"Hey! That's great!" Squire Wei exclaimed in surprise.
"Not bad, not bad."
Meng Xuejiu also praised her twice in a row. It was obvious that he was quite satisfied with Zhao Zhitong's answer. He nodded and said to the students.
"The girl's method is very good! Legend has it that during the Three Kingdoms period, Cao Chong, the son of Cao Cao and the Emperor Wu of Wei, used this method to weigh an elephant. This has gone down in history as Cao Chong weighing an elephant. Today, we will learn this allusion…"
On the other side, Meng Xuejie had already begun to use this story to teach the students. It was not convenient for the squire to stay any longer.
In any case, he had already obtained a satisfactory solution, so he naturally left happily with the bull.
As for Zhao Zhitong, who had helped him solve his problem, Squire Wei praised her a lot. When he went back and educated the children, he often mentioned this matter and asked them to learn more from Zhao Zhitong.
After that, Zhao Zhitong began to run to the front yard. Sometimes, she would lie by the door and eavesdrop on the teacher's lecture.
Sometimes, under the enlightenment of Grandpa Bai in the space, she would do good deeds such as sweeping the floor, wiping the table, and helping to water the vegetable garden.
Sometimes, she would sit quietly in the courtyard and wait for the teacher to finish class. Then, she would bring food to the teacher and wait for him to tell her a good story.
Therefore, after this interaction, Meng Jiujiu was even more satisfied with Zhao Zhitong.
He realized that this girl would sometimes read something a few times outside the classroom. After class, when he met her and asked casually, she could already memorize it!
As a teacher, he was satisfied and surprised to meet such a smart child.
However, after the extreme joy, it turned into a sigh!
"How could such a smart child be a woman!"
He would subconsciously mention this in class.
As for why Qiao Muchen came to challenge Zhao Zhitong, it was because Qiao Muchen had coincidentally fallen sick during the bull-weighing incident and was not in school.
When he was recuperating at home, he often heard Uncle Wei praise Zhao Zhitong. After he recovered and came to school, the teacher also praised her a lot.
Qiao Muchen, who had always been praised, became interested in finding more about Zhitong when he heard about her. Hence, he came to compete with her.
"Zither, chess, calligraphy, painting, poetry, math, or any other ways of competition will be decided by you."
Qiao Muchen acted like a man and generously let Zhao Zhitong choose her own competition.