The system searched and said, "Historically, there was a regulation that allowed substitution of labor with silver; as long as you had money, you didn't have to go."
Manbao's eyes lit up, and she shared this great idea with her parents.
Old Zhou and Ms. Qian didn't understand how she learned about this after just one sleep.
However, Old Zhou thought the child was always clever and assumed it was her own idea, so he said, "We don't have that much silver at home. Can a family like ours afford to substitute labor with silver? Even the village head has to perform labor."
Ms. Qian was even more meticulous with Manbao, carefully explaining, "I've heard substituting just one labor service could cost enough money to marry off a daughter. For a family like ours, it would take at least four or five years to save that amount—and that's only if we have many family members to save up the money. In your grandfather's generation, marrying off your father took half a lifetime's savings."
