Before they knew it, it was already Tuesday.
Today was Wang Anguo’s father’s 60th birthday, and as an invited guest, Li Yi had to pay a visit to the Wang family at noon.
So early in the morning, Li Yi set off with his two older sisters, heading straight for the county seat.
Li Yi drove the black horse-drawn cart in front, while his second and third sisters followed behind in a bright red mule-drawn cart.
Originally, Li Yi had planned to bring Tang Xue along for such an important occasion.
However, Tang Xue wasn’t feeling well, and since she wasn’t married yet, she didn’t want to attend such an event with Li Yi, so she didn’t come.
Li Yi didn’t press the matter; after all, the Reform and Opening-Up had only just begun, and social norms were still quite conservative.
It was indeed easy for people to gossip about a young woman traveling around with a man before she was married.
Although Li Yi himself didn’t care, he had to consider Tang Xue’s feelings.
Since she didn’t want to go, Li Yi decided to go alone.
As for Second Sister, she simply wanted to see how Third Sister was running her stall; she wasn’t going with Li Yi to attend the birthday banquet.
Upon arriving in the county seat, Li Yi followed his usual routine: first, he delivered the mountain produce to the state-run restaurant, and then he accompanied his third sister to the sugar factory.
Li Yi had two things to take care of at the sugar factory: first, to deliver the rice noodles and flatbreads, and second, to settle the payments for the goods from the past few days.
The other was to speak with Factory Director Liang about getting his eldest sister and brother-in-law hired. After all, his brother-in-law had already agreed to split from his parents, so Li Yi felt he should help secure jobs for them as soon as possible.
However, once he arrived at the sugar factory, Li Yi realized that the second matter didn’t really warrant a separate trip.
After all, Factory Director Liang was Wang Anguo’s senior classmate, and the two families were on very good terms.
Today was Old Man Wang’s birthday—as his apprentice, he simply had to be there!
So, it wouldn’t hurt to wait until they met at lunchtime to discuss this; there was no need to make a separate trip to see Director Liang!
So, after delivering the 800 portions of liangpi and over 1,600 white-skinned pancakes to the sugar factory’s kitchen, Li Yi grabbed the receipt signed by the head of the logistics department and headed straight for the factory’s finance office.
The contract for this order was only for seven days, and now that it had ended, it was time to settle the payment.
Since Director Liang had already given the finance department a heads-up about this payment, they were very quick to pay up—they handed over the money immediately upon seeing the receipt.
After successfully receiving the 1,960 yuan payment, Li Yi left the sugar factory with his two older sisters.
His second and third sisters headed over to the textile factory to set up their stall, while Li Yi went to the supply and marketing cooperative.
After all, Old Man Wang was celebrating his birthday—he couldn’t very well show up empty-handed!
Even if he and Wang Anguo were just casual acquaintances, and he’d invited him, he probably wouldn’t have cared much about the gift itself.
But at an occasion like this, with so many of the Wang family’s relatives and friends attending the birthday banquet, he certainly couldn’t risk embarrassing himself.
Once he arrived at the supply and marketing cooperative, Li Yi suddenly found himself at a loss. He’d never attended a birthday banquet like this before and really didn’t know what to buy.
After much deliberation, Li Yi had the sales clerk pack up a case of Moutai!
Giving alcohol as a birthday gift was actually a pretty good choice. After all, in this day and age, even if he wanted to get the old man some jade or calligraphy, he wouldn’t know where to buy them.
Besides, Wang Anguo was, after all, the captain of the criminal investigation squad. If he gave his father something too expensive, it might easily lead to misunderstandings.
This Moutai was just right—a whole case cost only a few dozen yuan. It would convey his heartfelt wishes without being excessive!
After buying the gift, Li Yi didn’t go to the county police bureau to find Wang Anguo.
For one thing, it was too early—there were still more than two hours until noon, and going over that early would leave him with nothing to do!
Second, he was about to get married, and there were simply too many things to take care of.
His parents and his second brother-in-law were already helping to get the wedding home ready, so his immediate priority was to secure a chef as soon as possible.
Although there were chefs in the village who prepared banquets, Li Yi felt their skills were mediocre—just enough to fool the villagers.
He’d never even seen some of the high-quality ingredients himself—how could he possibly prepare them properly?
So, for his wedding banquet, Li Yi decided to hire a chef from the city!
Since Li Yi had never handled this himself, he planned to ask around.
And for something like this, there was no one better to turn to than Liu San’er.
When Li Yi pulled up in his black horse-drawn cart in front of Liu San’er, the young man was chatting with a middle-aged man.
Seeing Li Yi approach, Liu San immediately brushed the middle-aged man aside and came over to greet him.
“Bro, you’re here!”
“Yeah, if you’re busy, go ahead and take care of it. I’m in no rush,” Li Yi said.
“Nothing much. This guy just wants to ask about the price of gold; he’s not actually looking to buy or sell anything!” Liu San’er said.
Hearing this, Li Yi instinctively glanced at the middle-aged man.
These days, everyone was dirt poor; a family with a few hundred yuan was considered wealthy—how could anyone possibly have gold?
So, generally speaking, only two types of people had gold at home:
One type consists of landlords whose ancestors had hidden fortunes—they secretly stashed their treasures during the collective farming era. Now that the situation has stabilized, or perhaps their families have suffered misfortune, they want to cash in on these hidden assets.
The other were those who had struck it rich by chance—either by raiding an ancient tomb or by getting their hands on hidden wealth stashed by other local tycoons.
However, the man was quite alert; upon seeing Li Yi, he didn’t linger but immediately turned and walked into a nearby alley.
Li Yi didn’t think much of it; people these days were still traumatized by the turmoil of the past few years. Even buying something on the black market felt as risky as running an underground intelligence operation.
Let alone trying to peddle gold—one had to be extra careful.
“Listen,” Li Yi said to Liu San, “I’ve got a question for you. Do you know anyone in town who can cater banquets?”
Liu San replied immediately, “Bro, you’ve come to the right guy. My second uncle does exactly that—his cooking is famous all over the county!”
“Oh, so do you know how much he charges?” Li Yi asked again.
“The client provides the ingredients, and my second uncle’s team just handles the cooking. Twelve dishes per table, and the charge is one yuan!”
Liu San continued, “If the client doesn’t provide anything, then we charge per dish. The exact price depends on what dishes the client wants to serve!”
Li Yi nodded and said, “I’ll take care of the food myself, but what about tables and chairs?”
“You can rent them. My second uncle and his crew have connections for that—it won’t cost much!”
“Alright then, take me to meet your second uncle. I’m getting married in a couple of days and plan to hire him to cater the banquet!” Li Yi said.
“Sure, I’ll take you right now!”
“Let’s go!”
……..