Travel to ancient times and become rich women with your bestie

Chapter 144 Arab Grandma

Once this issue is resolved, it is time to start pre-job training for metrology personnel.

The two men called Old Lady Chen, Li Shuhua, Chen Changan and all the children into the main room.

"What are you doing? There are so many people working outside, and we have to go and watch them." Old Mrs. Chen stretched her head to look outside anxiously.

"Mom, it won't delay much." Zheng Yuan pulled the old lady over and sat down.

"What's the matter?"

Zheng Yuan looked at the old lady with amusement, as if there were nails on her butt, and didn't keep her in suspense any longer.

"We have to count the qualified numbers for the workers before we get off work every day. I thought that except for Changan who went to school for a few years, no one else had learned how to count. I believe you have no problem counting, but it may be difficult to write it down on paper. So, Amin and I learned a new counting method, which is very simple and can be learned in a short time. I will teach you now."

"I'm old now, what's the point of learning? I can't learn anything even if I do. There's nothing an old lady like me can do with these little things. I won't learn anymore. I'll just go outside and watch them work."

When the old lady heard that she wanted to learn something, she immediately stood up and walked out.

Thinking that the old lady was old and it would be difficult for her to learn something new, the two of them did not force her. If she didn't want to, they just let her go.

Zheng Yuan picked up a charcoal stick that he had just pulled out of the stove hole and wrote the Arabic numerals from one to ten on the ground.

Looking at these crooked lines, several people were confused.

"Mom, what are you writing? Why are they so weird?" Erhe studied it for a long time but couldn't see any pattern.

"Don't worry, we will explain them to you one by one."

After writing the numbers, Zheng Yuan picked up a long bamboo stick and pointed at the numbers on the ground: "This is called Arabic numerals. Amin and I met an old lady on the street before. She taught us. Now, we will teach you..."

"Mom, why are they called Arabic numerals?"

Zheng Yuan was about to continue speaking when he was interrupted by Sizhu.

"Because the old lady who taught us was called Arabic, we named it Arabic numerals to thank her."

The two did not want to explain what an Arab country was, so they just made it up.

"Is there anyone with the surname A?" Sizhu exclaimed.

"There are many strange things in the world. There's nothing strange about having a last name like A. Okay, stop talking nonsense and listen carefully. I'm going to start the lecture."

The two were also afraid of the four pillars' ten thousand whys, so they hurried to go through the process.

"We will read while you remember. This is one. It looks like a stick. It's simple and you can remember it quickly. This is two. Does it look like the little ducks at home? This is three. Does it look like our ears?"

The two of them explained the ten numbers to the group with gestures and gesticulations, digging out all the knowledge they had learned in preschool.

After they finished explaining it once, seeing the confused looks on everyone's faces, the two knew that it wasn't going to work.

So he explained it again in detail.

"Have you remembered a few of them?" After they finished speaking, they looked at the others.

"I can almost remember it, but I'm not very sure." Erhe scratched his head and wanted to say that he remembered it all, but he was afraid that if his mother really asked him, he would not be able to answer.

The others remained silent.

"It's okay. It's not that easy to learn something new. Let's do this. Some of you go find the ingots, and some of you come find me. We'll write them down and you can recognize them one by one. If you don't know any of them, just focus on studying them."

When they heard this, they immediately felt as if they were facing a great enemy, and were so nervous that they didn't dare to come forward.

Especially Li Shuhua, she is just an elder, and if she can't beat these children, it would be embarrassing.

Zheng Yuan and Duan Minmin want to say that we understand how you feel. Isn’t this the same feeling as when you learned something new in class and the teacher checked your learning results one by one?

I found it difficult back then, but now the role has been changed and it’s quite good.

Regardless of how nervous they were, the two wiped the numbers on the ground and started calling out names, pulling them over for spot checks.

Looking at the erased numbers, several people wailed inwardly. They were still thinking that they could follow the sequence to deduce, but it was also ruthlessly wiped out.

The first ones to be drawn were Erhe and Dashu.

"What is this?" Zheng Yuan wrote a 4.

"Four!" Erhe answered confidently.

"What is this?" Duan Minmin pointed at the big tree and asked.

"Seven!" Dashu answered decisively.

The two asked questions from one to ten in a row, and the two boys answered them all.

Erhe and the other two knew it, being smart, but they were surprised that Dashu could remember everything in such a short time.

"Good, next one."

The two of them then drew pictures of all the remaining people. They all mastered the skills well. Occasionally they made one or two mistakes, but they would remember them after they were corrected.

Only Sizhu is a blockhead. He says five is nine and seven is four, and he can't correct himself. It's like you say you are chasing a dog and he says he is chasing a chicken. Zheng Yuan is very angry.

He also said that the children had strong learning abilities, so he thought he should be the fastest learner, but he didn't expect that he was the slowest.

His old mother, who had originally been looking forward to his coming back from studying and passing the imperial examinations, now deeply doubted her previous thoughts.

But he was still young, so they could just teach him slowly. The two of them didn't force him too much, and then started teaching him numbers other than ten.

After remembering the numbers within ten, the patterns beyond ten are actually very easy to find. The two of them taught very smoothly, and after a while everyone else had mastered everything except the four pillars.

The two of them simply gave up on Sizhu, who was a drag.

After learning, the next step was to test the results. Two people brought a pile of bamboo poles and randomly divided them into several piles. They started to let several people come up to count them, and after counting, they recorded the data.

There were no problems with most of them, except for Chen Changan, the others had never used a pen so the writing on the paper was crooked.

Several people felt embarrassed when looking at their crooked handwriting, but Zheng Yuan and Duan Minmin didn't care much because their handwriting was not very good either.

"As long as it's clear, it doesn't matter whether it's well written or not." The two comforted each other.

"But mom, we don't know how to write their names, how are we going to write them later?" Erhe asked.

That's true. The two of them hadn't thought about this problem just now, and they couldn't reveal the fact that they could read.

Just when they were in trouble, they caught a glimpse of Chen Changan standing nearby, and they both found a solution instantly.

"Hey~ Changan, didn't you go to school for a few years when you were a child? Then you should be able to write quite a lot, right?"

"Ah? I...those were all things that happened when I was a kid, and I didn't learn much before I came back. I haven't read a book or touched a pen for many years. I'm afraid I can't do it." Chen Changan refused.

"Write as much as you can, as long as you can distinguish those people outside. Come, write the words you know first, and we'll take a look."

Duan Minmin stuffed the charcoal stick into Chen Changan's hand.

Chen Changan had no choice but to take it. He stretched his head to look at the people working outside and started writing on the paper.

At the beginning, I wrote whatever I could write, and my speed was quite fast. But after writing about seven or eight words, my speed slowed down, and it took me a while to recall before I could write down a few words.

"Second Aunt, Aunt Duan, this is all I know."

Chen Changan handed over the paper, feeling a little embarrassed.

The two took it and looked at it. Most of it was written, which was better than they expected.

"Changan, can you write any of the remaining words, or can you write one or two?"

"I can write one or two, but I can't remember some of the words." Chen Changan answered honestly.

"Then write down everything you know, and for the ones you don't know, let's just leave it like this. If it's a fish, draw a fish, if it's a tree, draw a tree. As long as you can tell who is who, that's fine."

Chen Changan's eyes lit up. How could he not have thought of this? He quickly started writing on the paper.

Thus, a list combining calligraphy and painting was presented in front of the two of them in a fancy way.