Chapter 84: Extra Story 5

Chapter 84: Extra 5

Peng'er's full-month banquet was a lively affair. Besides the students' parents from the private school, Daoxiang Village's headman also brought Aunt Li, Chen Furlang, He Dong, and a dozen or so other villagers.

Zhao Gengnian had been to the city a few times and could barely tell east from west, but the others couldn't even recognize the roads at all. It was Yan Wangchun who went to the city gate to meet them.

Along the way, Chen Furlang kept stretching his neck to look around. When he stepped through the doors of Zuixian Tower, his eyes went wide—from the entrance hall to the stairway, the entire restaurant gleamed with gold, and even the tablecloths were made of finer fabric than the clothes they were wearing.

He Dong clutched Shunzi's hand tightly and whispered, "This floor must be made of gold bricks."

Shunzi nodded. Indeed—he'd even put on the new shoes he'd been saving and was reluctant to wear. He looked down and saw that after the long journey, the soles were covered in dust, and now he didn't know where to put his feet.

Yan Fengan and Wen Xi, who were welcoming guests at the entrance, noticed their hesitation. Yan Fengan smiled and said, "It's fine, everyone, just walk on in."

A long table had been set up in the private room on the third floor, where Fang Mutian sat behind it keeping the gift ledger. A red-covered ledger lay open on the table. As guests arrived, they first went to him to present their gifts and cash gifts. After their names were recorded, Aqiu would hand each guest two red eggs and a red paper envelope containing copper coins, saying, "Master Yan and his husband are blessed with a son and want everyone to share in their joy."

After taking a seat at a corner table, Chen Furlang waited until no one was watching, then secretly opened the red envelope and counted the copper coins inside. Well, I'll be—twelve copper coins in total! Add one more coin and he could buy a whole catty of meat.

He thought to himself, just like a Juren master to be so generous.

Once everyone had arrived, the restaurant began serving the dishes. Chen Furlang and the others couldn't recognize a single dish, nor did they know what was in them.

There were lotus-shaped radishes, melons and fruits sliced into petals, pastries with multiple fillings, and even meat slices rolled with flowers inside. Every dish was so exquisite that no one had the heart to touch them with their chopsticks.

Aunt Li was the first to give in and reach out. Once she took the lead, the others followed suit.

Zhao Gengnian couldn't help but cough twice and lowered his voice: "Everyone, mind your manners. Don't act like you've never eaten in your life. With so many masters and fine ladies present, if you embarrass yourselves, so be it—but don't embarrass Juren Yan."

Hearing this, Shunzi and He Dong slowed their chopsticks.

Halfway through the feast, Yan Fengan and Wen Xi went around toasting each table. Wen Xi wore a pale green silk robe so fine and smooth—the kind of fabric He Dong had seen at Shen Liang's shop before, where even a small scrap cost more than other fabrics, and a whole bolt would cost several taels of silver.

After the couple moved on to other tables, He Dong watched their retreating figures with indescribable envy.

He would soon be betrothed too, and he wondered what kind of man he'd marry.

He didn't ask for much—if only his future husband could love him even half as much as Juren Yan loved his own furlang, he would be content.

After the feast ended, Wen Xi first brought everyone back to his home to rest for a bit, then arranged for Aqiu to accompany the two older brothers to the pastry shop outside, to buy two boxes of pastries for each person. Afu, meanwhile, went to the mule-cart stand and hired three carts to take everyone back to the village later.

The families who had come to the city had all brought vegetables and eggs, plus a hundred copper coins in gift money. For village folk, that was already a considerable sum. Chen Furlang had felt a twinge of regret at first, but now he felt nothing at all.

Thank goodness he'd fought to come this time—where else would he have seen so much and eaten so well? Not to mention those two boxes of pastries alone were probably worth more than a hundred wen.

And Xi Geer had even taken the few people who helped him with embroidery work to his workshop and given them a bunch of leftover fabric scraps.

Those scraps weren't worth much to Wen Xi, but they made the embroiderers overjoyed. From now on, if they needed to patch a garment or embroider a small item, they wouldn't have to spend money buying from Shen Liang.

Chen Furlang had a sharp tongue but was straightforward—everything showed on his face. Having received such gifts, he was completely content and beaming with joy.

When he returned to the village, without anyone even asking, he spilled everything he'd seen and heard in the city like beans tumbling out of a sack.

"Aiyo, this Juren Yan and his husband are something else now—one runs a private school, the other runs an embroidery shop. Silver flows into their hands like water!"

Someone asked, "What did you eat in the city? How does it compare to the open-air feast when Yan Sanlang passed the imperial examination?"

Chen Furlang waved his hand dismissively: "No matter how good an open-air feast is, could it possibly compare to a city restaurant? Have you ever heard of Zuixian Tower?"

The people nearby shook their heads. Chen Furlang said smugly, "That just shows you people have never seen the world—you don't even know the best restaurant in the city. Today Juren Yan treated us there. Let me tell you, I asked around, and a single table costs ten taels of silver!"

Chen Furlang was fond of exaggeration, and hearing this, the people around him let out a scoff: "Ten taels? Why not say a hundred?"

This man loved to brag and not a word he said could be trusted. The crowd turned instead to the more honest He Dong and Shunzi, asking what they'd eaten at the feast, who had gone, and whether Wen Xi now had servants attending him like the husbands of the wealthy city families.

Shunzi tried hard to recall but couldn't name any of the dishes. He stammered for a long while before finally saying, "Anyway, it was a huge table of dishes—all things we'd never seen before. One meal like that is enough to savor for a whole year."

Hearing this, many people regretted not having gone along despite the trouble, just to broaden their horizons.

He Dong added from the side, "Yes, he has servants. Xi Geer not only hired someone specifically to watch the child, but also hired people to cook and clean. Even during meals, someone would pour his tea and fetch things for him. All he had to do was give an order to his people—he didn't even need to lift a finger himself."

At these words, the people around exchanged glances. They had lived to such an age and never seen anyone with such good fortune.

These women and young men—when they were pregnant or confined after childbirth, they'd be lucky if their in-laws were kind enough not to make them work, let alone have servants attend to them.

They'd originally thought He Jin and Li Wan marrying into the Yan family was fortunate enough, but who could have imagined Wen Xi would end up living like the husbands of city gentry?

The gap was too wide. Beyond envy, the others couldn't even manage a word of sour jealousy.

Someone murmured in low tones, "Now he's the husband of Master Juren—it's only right that he has however many servants he wants."

"Juren Yan is impressive, sure, but Xi Geer has also made something of himself. With the silver he earns in a year, hiring someone is nothing."

He Dong genuinely admired Wen Xi. Everyone knew what Wen Xi had been like before, and the life he had today was earned step by step through his own efforts.

He Dong hoped that one day he too could support himself with his own skills, just like Wen Xi.

These words gradually spread through the village, with everyone saying that Wen Xi's suffering had finally turned to sweetness. As for where that suffering had come from—well, they'd have to ask the Wen family about that.

Now that Wen Shishan and Li Qiaozhen were both dead, the only one left in the Wen family was Wen Liu. The Zhao family felt he had no natal family to back him up, so they could torment him however they pleased.

Zhao Shoutian still treated him well as before, but the man's character was rotten through and through—he'd go gamble in town at the drop of a hat, and not long ago he'd sold off all the jewelry he'd bought for Wen Liu, which made Wen Liu so angry he lay in bed for several days.

It wasn't just trouble with the Zhao family—even the villagers inexplicably treated him coldly.

They were all the type to fawn on the powerful and trample the weak. Now that Wen Xi's fortunes had improved, they deliberately came to spite Wen Liu. When Wen Xi had been suffering before, where were these people then, rushing to help?

Wen Liu felt he wouldn't be able to stay in this village much longer.

Wen Xi knew nothing of all this. His warmth and hospitality toward the villagers weren't meant to make them go back and sing his praises. He had come from the village himself and understood these people's ways best.

Either don't invite people to the city at all, or if you do, you'd better take good care of them.

Otherwise, once they returned to the village, they'd have plenty to gossip about.

Peng'er had drunk his milk and was already asleep in the cradle. Wen Xi and Yan Fengan went through the gift ledger together, tallying up the cash gifts and presents.

These were their social obligations—if anyone else held an event in the future, they'd need to return gifts according to what was recorded in the ledger.

Take the Lu and Lin families, for instance. Lin Zhaozhao and Lu Xiuyuan were already betrothed, with the wedding set for late October this year. When the time came, they'd need to send separate gifts to each family.

The country gentry in the city gave generously—five or ten taels at a time. All told, it came to nearly a hundred taels of silver.

But they'd given out plenty themselves too. Around the end of last year, what with one family's elder celebrating a birthday and another hosting a wedding banquet, they'd spent twenty or thirty taels in total.

This full-month banquet had also cost a fair amount. After deducting the celebratory red envelopes and the feast expenses, they were left with about fifty or sixty taels.

Yan Fengan was planning to discuss moving into the city with his parents, and Wen Xi figured that money wouldn't stay in his hands for long anyway.

But then again, they hadn't held the full-month banquet to make money, so naturally they didn't care about such things.

The eldest brother and his wife gave Peng'er a longevity lock, and the second brother and his family gave a silver neck ring. As for Shen Yun and Shen Liang, they gave Peng'er a "hundred-family garment" (a patchwork coat made from donated cloth), symbolizing the gathered blessings of a hundred families to protect the child's health and longevity.

The garment was sewn by Shen Yun himself. His needlework wasn't very good, and he put in a great deal of effort to finish it.

In addition to this, they also gave Peng'er a complete "head-to-toe" gift set, which includes items covering everything from hats, clothes, pants, socks, and shoes to accessories.

This head-to-toe gift was supposed to be given by Wen Xi's natal family. Since Wen Xi had no family on her mother's side, Chen Lanfang had originally planned to prepare a set for her grandson herself, but Shen Yun took the initiative to say he would prepare it.

Wen Xi and Yan Fengan had been friends even before they got married, so couldn't Shen Yun count as Wen Xi's natal family? It was perfectly fitting for him to give the head-to-toe gift.

Wen Xi was deeply moved. Ever since he learned about Shen Yun and Shen Liang's relationship, Wen Xi had been thinking about it from time to time.

He felt that if the two truly decided to be together, they should make it official and aboveboard. Not necessarily with a grand celebration, but at least set a date and have friends and family witness the ceremony.

Shen Liang had also considered this. They didn't have many friends, and they thought it would be best if Yan Fengan and Wen Xi could attend their wedding. They had discussed waiting until after Wen Xi had given birth before making any plans.

Since Wen Xi brought it up, they could all discuss and settle on a date together.

Shen Yun and Shen Liang's relationship was too special, and Wen Xi didn't want him to be looked down upon. For such an important occasion as a wedding, he naturally wanted to be there to support Shen Yun.

They flipped through the almanac several times, consulted the opinions of the two elders, Chen Lanfang and Yan Shichang, and finally set the wedding date for Shen Yun and Shen Liang on the sixteenth day of the sixth lunar month.