Chapter 21: The College Entrance Banquet
What Bronze Ware Village was holding for Su Xiaoxiao this time was a college entrance banquet, also commonly called a teacher-appreciation banquet. This custom had existed since ancient times.
Judging by the level of the school Su Xiaoxiao had been specially admitted to, if this had been ancient times, Su Xiaoxiao would unquestionably have been the top scholar in the civil examinations, so this college entrance and teacher-appreciation banquet had to be a grand affair.
However, Bronze Ware Village was located in a remote area, and the teachers from Luochuan City had no way of coming, so the old village chief invited all of Su Xiaoxiao's elementary and middle school teachers instead, making the occasion extremely grand.
When rural people hold a banquet, what matters is putting on a good show.
Su Family Village was also a famously wealthy village within a ten-li radius, so regardless of whether it was showing off, the old village chief had sent invitations to the surrounding villages as well. As a result, many people came, and before noon, a large number of guests had already gathered in Bronze Ware Village.
“Xiaofan, are rural banquets this lively?” Zheng Dagang wiped the sweat from his forehead. He had been busy for almost the entire morning.
Most of Su Xiaoxiao's teachers had also taught Su Xiaofan, and whenever they saw Su Xiaofan, they had to chat with him for a few words, expressing deep regret that he had dropped out of school.
On top of that, Su Xiaofan was Su Xiaoxiao's older brother, so naturally he had to come out to receive the guests. He was so busy that his feet barely touched the ground, and even Zheng Dagang had been pressed into service, following behind Su Xiaofan to hand out cigarettes and water.
Su Xiaoxiao, the female top scholar, was instead having a very comfortable day, sitting in the main hall with several teachers while holding a plate of watermelon.
“Mm, everyone within ten li or so is related somehow. Once you greet them, they'll all come.”
Looking at the people still continuously streaming into the village, Su Xiaofan couldn't help showing a bitter smile. He had originally thought that having two or three hundred people come today would already be pretty good, and that one or two hundred of those would include the people from Bronze Ware Village itself.
But what Su Xiaofan hadn't expected was that the old village chief had apparently taken Su Xiaoxiao's admission to Yanjing University as a promotional opportunity for Bronze Ware Village. When registering the gift money just now, Su Xiaofan had even discovered that quite a few customers of Bronze Ware Village had come as well.
At this point, there were already four or five hundred people who had arrived in the village, most of them bringing their entire families, and people were still continuously entering the village.
Seeing that so many people had come, before noon arrived, the old village chief first expressed Bronze Ware Village's gratitude to the guests on behalf of the village, while also announcing that Su Xiaoxiao's first year's tuition would be paid by the village.
After a brief speech, the ten-thousand-shot Dadi Red firecrackers that had long since been set up outside the courtyard began crackling loudly. A group of children ran and jumped around the firecrackers, and the atmosphere was almost the same as celebrating the New Year.
When rural people hold banquets, besides putting on a good show, they also emphasize practicality. The old village chief arranged for several courtyards to serve meals simultaneously, with twenty tables at a time and ten people per table.
Those who got a table first ate first, and once they finished, the tables were cleared. After the tables were cleaned up, the second batch of guests took their seats. Basically, a new batch of people would come in every half hour or so. Although there were only twenty tables at a time, a thousand or eight hundred people could easily be served over the course of one noon.
This was the rural banquet system, whose serving capacity was far beyond what restaurants in cities could match.
As Su Xiaoxiao's family representative, Su Xiaofan couldn't sit down to eat for the time being. He still had to receive guests at the village entrance where the gift money was being collected. Zheng Dagang, however, had managed to catch the first table and eat his fill, then returned to the village entrance to help Su Xiaofan.
Glancing from time to time at the King of Han Cauldron at the village entrance, Su Xiaofan was extremely tempted. He didn't care whether it was a high-grade or low-grade magical artifact, but those three words, “can be absorbed,” made Su Xiaofan's eyes sparkle.
Not knowing what the consequences of absorbing it would be, Su Xiaofan ultimately restrained himself. He didn't dare use Bronze Ware Village's treasured guardian artifact as an experiment. If something went wrong, the ancestors of Bronze Ware Village certainly wouldn't let him off.
……
“Put down a hundred yuan as a gift.” Suddenly, a voice sounded beside Su Xiaofan. Hearing the words “a hundred yuan,” Su Xiaofan, who had still been staring at the King of Han Cauldron, turned his head.
At rural banquets, especially this kind of flowing banquet, most people would give ten or twenty yuan as a gift and then bring their entire family to eat. Those who gave fifty were considered particular about etiquette, while anyone giving a hundred yuan was definitely on very close terms with the host family.
“Hm? You guys?”
Su Xiaofan had already found the voice somewhat familiar, and when he turned around, he saw Wu Chuanbao standing in front of the table. Although Wu Chuanbao was wearing a hat, Su Xiaofan recognized him at a glance. Standing beside Wu Chuanbao was also a young man he had seen before.
“Oh, you've come all the way here to cause trouble?”
Zheng Dagang, standing beside Su Xiaofan, also recognized Wu Chuanbao. He immediately stepped forward and said irritably, “What, you don't dare go to the market to pick a fight, so you've come to the village instead? Don't you know the rules?”
Su Xiaofan's electric shock that day had been inseparably connected to Wu Chuanbao, but Su Xiaofan hadn't told Zheng Dagang about it. Zheng Dagang only thought the other party had come to ask Su Xiaofan to take back the goods. If he knew about that incident, Zheng Dagang might have already thrown a punch by now.
“You... you're not dead? Are you human or a ghost?”
Looking at Su Xiaofan sitting behind the table, even though it was the middle of a scorching summer day, Wu Chuanbao still felt a chill shoot straight to his forehead.
After being struck by high-voltage electricity and then hit by a thunderbolt, although he hadn't dared to look closely at Su Xiaofan's condition at the time, Wu Chuanbao simply couldn't imagine how Su Xiaofan could possibly have survived under those circumstances.
“You're asking for a beating, aren't you? Cursing my brother to die, are you?”
Hearing Wu Chuanbao's words, Zheng Dagang was displeased. He stepped forward and grabbed Wu Chuanbao by the collar.
“Brother Gang, don't hit him……”
Su Xiaofan's expression was also somewhat gloomy. It was only a matter of eight thousand yuan, yet the other party was still refusing to let it go. If today hadn't been his sister's college entrance banquet and he couldn't cause trouble, Su Xiaofan would have wanted to beat him himself.
“Brother Gang, help me receive the guests. You two, let's talk somewhere else.” Su Xiaofan stood up, pulled Wu Chuanbao along, and walked toward a tree at the village entrance.
“You... you're really human?”
Only after touching Su Xiaofan's warm skin did Wu Chuanbao finally relax. People in their line of work deeply believed in tales of ghosts and gods.
But for some reason, Wu Chuanbao still felt a little chilled inside. For the past few days, he had constantly felt uncomfortable, and perhaps seeing Su Xiaofan just now had frightened him. At this moment, Wu Chuanbao only felt a chill in his chest.
“Of course. If I'm not human, am I a ghost?”
Su Xiaofan released Wu Chuanbao and looked at Wu Chuanpeng, who was standing with him, his expression gloomy as he said, “I haven't settled with you yet over the fact that you chased me and caused me to get electrocuted last time, and you still dare come to Bronze Ware Village. I'll return those eight thousand yuan to you, and I'll give you another two thousand. I'll even send you to the hospital to stay for a few days.”
Su Xiaofan had grown up running wild in the village. There was only an old man at home who couldn't control him, and he had gotten into plenty of fights with people while he was in school.
He had held back against Wu Chuanbao before because he had been somewhat in the wrong, but after the electrocution incident, Su Xiaofan had every reason to be confident. He had nearly lost his life, after all. Beating them up a little couldn't be considered excessive, right.
“Cough... cough cough, I... I didn't come to ask you for money.”
Wu Chuanbao coughed twice and explained with a bitter smile, “I never intended to ask you to return the money. I just wanted to ask about the origin of that bronze artifact of yours. Do you know where the genuine one is?”
Wu Chuanbao also felt that things were rather unlucky. He really hadn't come looking for Su Xiaofan, because in his mind, Su Xiaofan had long since died.
Wu Chuanbao had already been in the countryside for a week this time, and his purpose was still that “Daisheng” bronze artifact. Because the Hong Kong side had added another two hundred thousand, as long as he could obtain the genuine bronze artifact, the Hong Kong side could pay as much as one million to purchase it.
For tomb raiders like Wu Chuanbao, a single tomb expedition usually earned only tens of thousands of yuan, and if things went well, perhaps over a hundred thousand, which still had to be divided among seven or eight people. So this one-million-yuan deal was simply too tempting for them to resist.
Therefore, during this period, Wu Chuanbao and the others had dispersed among the various villages at the foot of Mountain Mang. Officially, they claimed to be collecting old goods, but in reality they were still trying to find a genuine “Daisheng.” However, after wandering around for more than ten days, they had found nothing.
People in their line of work naturally knew Bronze Ware Village very well, and under normal circumstances, Wu Chuanbao would have stayed far away.
But that genuine “Daisheng” was very likely in Bronze Ware Village. Taking advantage of the banquet being held in Bronze Ware Village today, Wu Chuanbao wanted to sneak in and have a look. He knew that when you encountered this kind of flowing banquet in the countryside, as long as you had given gift money, you could go in and eat.
He had indeed given a hundred yuan as a gift, but what Wu Chuanbao hadn't expected was that before he had even entered the village, he would encounter a “dead man” whom he had thought was dead. Even though Wu Chuanbao made his living dealing with the dead, he had still been badly frightened just now.
“Didn't I tell you, I haven't seen the genuine one……”
Hearing that the other party had still come for that bronze artifact, Su Xiaofan couldn't help frowning. He had just been about to speak when he saw the old village chief walk out of the village. “Leave me your phone number. We'll talk about this after I'm done here.”
Although the bronze artifact Su Xiaofan had sold hadn't violated the village's rules, having someone come looking for him was ultimately not a good look. Besides, today was his sister's college entrance banquet, so Su Xiaofan wanted to get Wu Chuanbao out of the way for now.
“Oh, okay, then... then I'll wait for your call.”
Wu Chuanbao was also somewhat apprehensive about Bronze Ware Village. Hearing Su Xiaofan say this, he immediately agreed. He didn't even bother asking for the hundred yuan gift money back, and left Bronze Ware Village with Wu Chuanpeng.
“Why does he seem a little different from when I saw him before.”
Watching the Wu Chuanbao brothers leave, Su Xiaofan slightly furrowed his brows. Previously, Wu Chuanbao had carried a strong earthy smell, so Su Xiaofan had guessed that he worked in the tomb-raiding trade.
But this time, when he saw Wu Chuanbao, especially when he had just touched Wu Chuanbao with his hand, Su Xiaofan had only felt a trace of cold, sinister energy coming from him. It disappeared in an instant, however, and Su Xiaofan didn't know whether it had been his own illusion.
“What is it? Xiaofan, those two people look unfamiliar. What do they do?”
The old village chief looked at Su Xiaofan walking toward him and asked.
“They look a bit like tomb raiders. I didn't let them into the village.”
Su Xiaofan told the truth. He was only suspicious of Wu Chuanbao's identity and didn't dare say he was a hundred percent certain.
(End of Chapter)
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