Ch65 – Punishment
Xiong Ye’s arithmetic wasn’t bad. He could correctly count how many people were in the tribe and wouldn’t get it wrong when he split things up amongst others.
But when it came to adding all the numbers one to ninety-nine…
He had never calculated anything like this before.
However, this really needed to be practiced. It might come in handy someday?
With that in mind, Xiong Ye began to count: “1, 2, 3…”
Grandpa Priest had taught him how to count up to one hundred, but it was easy to lose count that way, so he had divided it up into ten groups of ten. He made little piles of ten, and when he had ten piles, he would push them together to make a pile of one hundred before going on to count out the next hundred…
After finally achieving the answer, Xiong Ye immediately went to look for Zhou Ji and share his results, but he discovered that Zhou Ji had already fallen asleep.
He felt an itch in his heart, but Zhou Ji wasn’t feeling well after all…
Xiong Ye simply lay down in bed and helped himself. He had done this for himself before, and it had only changed to having Zhou Ji help him after he had become mates with Zhou Ji.
Zhou Ji, who hadn’t actually gone to sleep, “……”
He had gotten halfway there when Xiong Ye saw Zhou Ji open his eyes. He leaned over to give him a kiss and said, “Zhou Ji, help me!”
Zhou Ji glanced over and reached out a hand. Xiong Ye embraced him and moaned softly.
After it was finally over, Xiong Ye felt so comfortable that he didn’t want to get up, but Zhou Ji pinched his face, “Did you finish calculating the number I asked you for?”
“I figured it out!” Xiong Ye replied.
“How much is it?”
Xiong Ye got out of bed to look at his pile of wooden bits. He finally said, “It’s forty nine one hundreds plus forty nine!”
“Wrong. It should be forty nine one hundreds plus fifty.” Zhou Ji replied. The people of the tribe generally didn’t come into contact with numbers much, so they could only count up to one hundred and would count how many hundreds there were from there on out.
Modern people might find this a bit troublesome and annoying, but it was already pretty good for these people to be able to count to one hundred smoothly. Zhou Ji seemed to remember that ninety-nine in French roughly translated to four twenties plus ten plus nine…
“Why?” Xiong Ye looked at Zhou Ji in confusion, “You’ve counted it before? I haven’t seen you count anything before!”
This was such a difficult question. If Zhou Ji had calculated it, he definitely should’ve seen a lot of sticks around.
“I don’t need to count, I just have to think about it in my head to know the answer.” Zhou Ji replied.
Think about it and know the answer? Xiong Ye was shocked as he looked at Zhou Ji. “Did the Beast G.o.d tell you?”
Xiong Ye suddenly understood. He rearranged his pile and realized that it really was forty nine one hundreds plus fifty.
As for why he had been wrong before, it was probably because he had miscounted one of the pieces.
After answering the question, Xiong Ye was very sincere as he said, “Zhou Ji, you’re really too smart!”
“Do you want me to teach you?” Zhou Ji asked.
Xiong Ye didn’t think twice before saying, “Yes! But haven’t I learnt it already?” He had already learned this topic and could go and explain it to the priest!
“You’ve only learned one method. I’ll give you another question… I caught eight dinosaurs, and amongst these dinosaurs, some have two legs while others have four legs. There are a total of twenty two legs. How many of those dinosaurs have two legs, and how many of them have four?” Zhou Ji asked. This was another cla.s.sic Olympiad mathematics training cla.s.s question.
Xiong Ye didn’t know about Olympiad mathematics. He took out twenty two sticks and began to place them around…
Answering this question wasn’t difficult when sticks were being used so straightforwardly. After giving each of the eight dinosaurs two legs and matching up the remaining sticks to make four legged dinosaur piles, it was easy to calculate.
Xiong Ye felt a little proud, yet as a result…
Zhou Ji asked, “If I caught a total of one hundred dinosaurs, and there are a total of three hundred and twenty legs?”
Xiong Ye had been fiddling with the sticks to calculate everything and felt that it was quite interesting, but now that Zhou Ji asked the question like this, he felt very confused––how could he count that? Also… “You can’t catch that many dinosaurs! Our entire tribe couldn’t catch that many dinosaurs.”
Zhou Ji laughed, “If I give you fish soup to drink, and after you finish half, I fill it up for you, then fill it up again after you’ve finished half again, and then fill it up again when you’ve finished half of that, and this time you finish it all, how many bowls of soup did you drink in total?”
Xiong Ye couldn’t figure it out at all. “Why does this need to be calculated?”
“A dinosaur can eat half of the gra.s.s on the ground every year. How many years will it take for it to finish eating all the gra.s.s?”
“I know this one!” Xiong Ye said, “Two years!”
“Wrong!” Zhou Ji said, “Gra.s.s will regrow, so it’s impossible for it to be finished in two years.”
That was true! Xiong Ye looked at Zhou Ji in admiration. Zhou Ji was really too impressive, too smart.
Seeing this situation, Zhou Ji, who had used his Olympiad mathematics training cla.s.s and acuity to toy with a person from the primitive era, was satisfied and said, “Come, I’ll teach you arithmetic. If you want to become a qualified tribal chief, you’ll need to learn more things.”
“Good! Should the priest learn this as well?” Xiong Ye no longer dared to say that he had already learned these things this time, but he thought of the priest––the priest had always loved learning these kinds of things.
“I’m not feeling that good and can’t teach too many people.” Zhou Ji said.
“Then, it’s enough to teach just me!” Xiong Ye didn’t think twice before saying this. He decided to first learn it himself, and then go and teach it to the priest.
“In that case, I’ll teach you how to write numbers.” Zhou Ji said.
“Write?” Xiong Ye asked.
“Yes, write.” Zhou Ji took out the piece of charcoal that he himself used as a pen and handed it to Xiong Ye, “Use this to write.”
Xiong Ye accepted that piece of charcoal, and Zhou Ji began to teach him how to write.
Zhou Ji had even come up with a way to write down every number. It was too impressive! He was even more amazing than the previous priest.
Xiong Ye stared at Zhou Ji in admiration as he held the piece of charcoal in his own large hand and slowly began to write in the cave.
Zhou Ji: “Your ‘8’ is written badly… I’ll hold your hand and guide you.”
“Alright!” Xiong Ye agreed right away. Zhou Ji then reached out to hold his hand.
His hands were rough and coa.r.s.e, but Zhou Ji’s hands… They were especially tender and smooth!
Xiong Ye became rather restless, and he then heard Zhou Ji said, “You’re not concentrating on your writing. I’ll give you a small punishment.”
“What punishment?” Xiong Ye asked.
Zhou Ji used the charcoal to draw a circle on Xiong Ye’s face.
Xiong Ye didn’t understand––why did this count as punishment? It didn’t hurt, and it didn’t itch…
And then, he ended up with a good many circles on his face, and there were even some on his body…
Xiong Ye didn’t feel that anything was wrong. What Zhou Ji was teaching him now had most likely come from knowledge the Beast G.o.d had imparted. The things he had learnt from the priest hadn’t been like this, but he would have been beaten if he hadn’t learnt it properly. Now, if he didn’t learn well, he simply ended up getting a circle drawn on him. Wasn’t that pretty insignificant?
Xiong Ye muttered and puffed and spent an entire afternoon learning how to write the Arabic numerals for one to nine. He also practiced counting to one hundred smoothly.
At this time, Xiong He’s voice rang out through the valley, “It’s time to eat!”
Xiong He immediately ran outside, “Zhou Ji, I’m going to eat first! I’ll come back and learn more later!”
Zhou Ji: “……” This fellow had forgotten to wash his face!
Zhou Ji was too lazy to go down with him and directly went to lay down.
Xiong Ye was so excited when he heard that it was time for food that he had completely forgotten that he had circles on his face until he arrived outside.
However, he didn’t take it seriously. It wasn’t a big deal that he’d forgotten; wasn’t it just some drawings on his face? It didn’t affect his ability to do anything at all!
But the people of the tribe were surprised when they saw his appearance, “Xiong Ye, what is that on your face?”
“They’re circles. Zhou Ji drew them for me.” Xiong Ye replied.
“They’re drawn so nicely! Xiong Ye, you look particularly good like this!” Xiong Qi began to praise him, “Look at this circle, it’s so round, and it’s just as round on both sides!”
Zhou Ji hadn’t been scribbling casually when he drew circles on Xiong Ye with the charcoal. He had paid attention to symmetry, causing the circles on Xiong Ye’s face to appear very mysterious!
The priest came over, “Xiong Ye, why did Zhou Ji draw circles on you?” Could this be some strange ceremony or sacrificial ritual?
“Zhou Ji drew it for me when he was teaching me how to count.” Xiong Ye originally wanted to say that Zhou Ji drew it whenever he hadn’t learned something properly, but he didn’t want others to know that he was stupid, so he simply didn’t mention it.
“Counting?” The priest was curious.
“Arithmetic.” Xiong Ye looked at the priest, “Grandpa Priest, do you know how much it is if you add one plus two plus three all the way up until ninety-nine?”
“That’s a little hard. I need to calculate it slowly, and there might not be enough sticks.” The priest started looking for sticks.
Xiong Ye explained, “In fact, it’s very simple, it’s like this…” He repeated everything that Zhou Ji had said.
The priest was instantly shocked. It could be done that way? How amazing!
Especially since… Xiong Ye actually wrote numbers on the ground!
Could numbers be represented by symbols like these? It was so much more convenient! He had always used wooden sticks and placed them on the ground to count. If it had to be written, he could draw out lines instead of placing sticks everywhere… It made his hand particularly tired whenever he did so.
The priest had an excited expression on his face, and he gazed at the circles drawn on Xiong Ye’s face as though he had just seen a pile of treasure.
The priest’s eyes were full of reverence as he stared at the circles on Xiong Ye’s face.
Zhou Ji didn’t want to go down into the valley below, so he made some barley porridge. He rather missed eating elephant bird meat.
They had eaten fish every day, and he was starting to get tired of it. He wanted to eat some other types of meat.
There wasn’t much to do today, so Zhou Ji didn’t use his spiritual powers to observe the situation in the valley. It wasn’t until someone climbed up to the entrance to the cave that he turned his head and saw the priest’s gnarled face.
The priest grinned at him, revealing gums with only a few teeth left, “Zhou Ji, can you draw a few circles for me too? I also want to learn more knowledge from the Beast G.o.d!”
Zhou Ji: “……” What exactly did Xiong Ye say down there!