Zhou SiLang couldn't help but retreat two steps, his body slightly cold, and with trembling fingers, he pointed at the little imp, "You, how can you be so heartless; I am your Fourth Uncle after all!"
"But Daya, Erya, and Sanya are all my nieces. If you gamble again, and our family fails to pay the debt, those people from the gambling den will come and take them away. Once they're gone, it will be my turn, as well as Datou and Second Son's. After selling off nieces and nephews, even Big Brother and the others will have to spend a lifetime paying off your debts. Although you are a relative, you are just one person, and we can't let so many of our loved ones suffer because of you, so..."
Daya and Datou, along with the others, hadn't thought of these things before. Now, hearing what their little aunt said, they all started looking at Zhou SiLang with some hostility.
Even Wulang and Liulang couldn't hold back and stepped forward to intimidate Zhou SiLang.
Zhou SiLang hurriedly waved his hands and said, "Manbao, don't talk nonsense. I've made up my mind to change and will never gamble again."
Manbao just snorted coldly, "Let's see your determination then."
"Yes, let's see the determination!"
So Zhou SiLang had no choice but to pick up a sickle and cut the grass under the watchful eyes of everyone, while the other people surrounded him, occasionally giving directions, "Fourth Uncle, there's a lot of grass here, cut this area!"
"Fourth Brother, the soil is thicker here, hurry and cut this area."
Manbao, under the guidance of Daya and Erya, picked a lot of flowers, and they even made her a wreath to wear on her head.
Daya and Erya sincerely exclaimed, "Little Aunt, you look so pretty!"
Manbao happily replied, "Of course, you are pretty as well."
Zhou SiLang listened and watched, fuming inside, "Why don't you come help? How long will it take just me to clear this land?"
Manbao felt she was quite diligent and immediately led some people forward to help.
Seeing Manbao take action, the others also rolled up their sleeves and pitched in.
Zhou Wu took over the sickle, tasked with cutting grass, Datou took care of transporting it away, while Zhou Wu worked with Zhou SiLang using a hoe to dig up the shrubs in the ground.
Manbao led the rest to collect stones, picking out stones, dead wood, and so on from the grass and placing them around the field as a boundary, while the dead wood was set aside to be carried back home for firewood later.
Clearing the land was genuinely tough, with all sorts of obstacles in the ground, and they had to be careful not to get pricked while cutting the grass. The system saw this and sighed slightly, deciding not to ask the host to look for plants for it anymore, maybe tomorrow.
It just hoped the host would still be willing to come out the next day.
Tired of picking stones, Manbao started a conversation with the system to pass the time, "Keke, are there any unrecorded grasses among these?"
"No."
Manbao disappointedly said, "How did your encyclopedia manage to record so many?"
Keke explained, "These wild grasses are also quite common in the future, and besides, the host might not recognize them anymore. These plants have already been recorded by you, they are just shorter when they're near your house, and taller here, that's all."
Manbao felt a bit embarrassed, "So it was me who recorded them."
Keke said seriously, "Yes, every time you record a new species, you get one reward point."
This one point was indeed meant as encouragement. If it weren't for her young age and the need for motivation, the system wouldn't have been able to secure even this modest encouragement bonus for her.
Even so, it had to allocate some of its own points to buy her candy because her efficiency was simply too low.
It was also because the Zhou Family was too indulgent with her. The other children in the family were left to fend for themselves, from the age of two when they could walk, they were allowed to run around the village under the care of older children, as long as they stayed away from the water's edge.
But not Manbao. She was always accompanied by someone.
While her cousins rolled around in the mud, she would be sitting cleanly dressed on the kang at home, being taught how to speak.
When her cousins had to weed and sow the fields, she would be taken to the school to eat parched rice. You could say that the farthest place she had ever been to was the large banyan tree at the entrance of the village, and this was her first time up the mountain.
The reason she could go to the big banyan tree was that Old Zhou, having nothing to do during the New Year festivities, would take his little girl to sit under the tree and chat with old buddies.
Of course, only Manbao received this kind of treatment in the family, because when she went around, she always managed to collect a penny or two as New Year's money.
The plants in the village were all common, and whenever she saw one, she would pull it out to offer to the system. That year, the system spent all its time just identifying plants for her, even though it had just identified the same plant a second before, and then the next second, she would pull up another one just like it, causing the system to collapse internally.
Thankfully, Manbao now knew to directly ask the system if there were any new plants that needed to be recorded instead of presenting it with handfuls of wild grass to identify one by one and then hearing the system's reluctant explanation that those plants had already been recorded.
Manbao felt moving stones was also tiring. She wiped the sweat from her forehead with her small hand and asked the system, "Keke, you are so strange. Why do you need to record these wild grasses? Look, we have to get rid of them, they are so annoying. How long will it take to clear this land?"
"It's because the technology of the host's world isn't advanced enough. In the future, clearing the land will be easily handled by a machine in just one pass. Not only that, but the number of these wild grasses will have greatly diminished, and some species will even be extinct and no longer exist, which is why I was created."
Manbao, however, was surprised and opened her mouth wide, "So many grasses, trees, stones, all cleared with just one pass by a machine? What's a machine, and can I buy one?"
The system was silent for a moment before responding, "You can't. The level of technology in those machines far exceeds the technology of your world, so they cannot be purchased. Besides, even if they could be bought, you wouldn't have enough points, host."
Manbao blinked her eyes, once again realizing the importance of these points. She had always thought points weren't very useful; weren't they just for exchanging candy? Without points, she could still eat candy, as every time her Second Brother or father went to the market, they would buy her some.