Chapter 230: Rural Absurd Past Events Chapter 230: The Banquet Is Held as Scheduled

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Protagonist:

Li Xiulan

Li Xiulan had dinner ready and placed the dishes on the table.

The dishes she made were simple: a plate of boiled chicken, two vegetable dishes, and a soup.

Both vegetable dishes were stir-fried with chicken fat from the chicken, and they were very fragrant.

Wang Xiaohua looked at them and couldn't help but frown.

"Mom, didn't I tell you to use less oil? These vegetables are so oily they reflect like a mirror!"

Li Xiulan gave an embarrassed laugh:

"This chicken we killed today had a lot of fat, and it seemed a pity to throw it away. I didn't want to waste it, so I used it to fry and stir-fry the vegetables. I only meant to fry out a little oil, but I didn't expect so much oil to come out all at once."

Wang Xiaohua couldn't help but sigh. It turned out his mother hadn't taken his words to heart at all!

To avoid waste, even though she knew there was a patient at home who couldn't eat too greasy food, she still fried the chicken fat and used it to stir-fry the vegetables.

"If he keeps eating such greasy food, there's a good chance his cerebral infarction will recur."

Wang Xiaohua said this in an annoyed tone.

Wang Zhanggen was also carefree, eating heartily, and said with his mouth full:

"It's fine. We don't eat like this all the time. Eating one or two meals like this occasionally won't kill anyone. Most importantly, if stir-fried vegetables aren't oily enough, they're simply impossible to swallow!"

Wang Xiaohua said nothing more.

Because he knew his parents had been poor their whole lives, and changing their mindset was simply harder than bending a steel bar with bare hands.

As long as his father could take his medicine on time these days, that was already good enough.

And as for taking medicine, Wang Zhanggen was also very unwilling in his heart.

He had a strong aversion to the Western medicine the doctor prescribed.

He always felt that the doctor prescribing him so much Western medicine had ill intentions toward him, and that the doctor had increased the dosage just to make money.

So he always wanted to secretly take half and save half.

One day's medicine stretched to last two days.

After Wang Xiaohua learned of this, he could only laugh and cry at the same time.

He really wanted to scold Wang Zhanggen soundly; this was simply nonsense.

But seeing Wang Zhanggen's health improving day by day, he stopped saying anything.

He couldn't be bothered to waste his breath, because even if he shouted himself hoarse, this old man wouldn't listen to him.

Time flew by, and it was the twentieth day of the twelfth lunar month.

Wang Zhanggen's condition had improved quite a bit.

Today was an auspicious day for holding a banquet.

Wang Zhanggen got up very early and called the boss of Hongyun Flowing Water Banquet early on, telling the banquet boss to hurry and bring people to prepare the ingredients, set up the tables and chairs, and welcome the arriving guests.

He also instructed Li Xiulan to kill two roosters, to worship at the ancestral hall, to worship at the ancestral grave, and then to worship the kitchen god, as well as the old family home.

He himself rode a motorcycle to town to buy cigarettes, alcohol, peanuts, candy, fruit, and other things—all of these were essential for entertaining guests!

He had overlooked this point; he should have bought these things several days in advance.

But it couldn't all be blamed on him. He had only recently suffered a cerebral infarction and had always needed rest. Before, he was still unsteady on his feet when walking, let alone riding a motorcycle to town to buy things.

Going to buy them now was understandable.

But this way, some guests who arrived early could only wait idly, with no snacks or fruit to pass the time.

This made Wang Zhanggen feel very embarrassed and ashamed.

He hurried to town, bought things in a frenzy, rushed back, and handed out cigarettes and snacks to the guests. Feeling it wasn't enough, he hurriedly ran to town again.

Fortunately, Shanggou Village wasn't far from Jizhen, and now the highway outside the village had been paved with a cement road surface. Riding a motorcycle there didn't take much time. Under normal circumstances, it took just over twenty minutes, and if ridden fast, maybe ten-odd minutes.

Wang Zhanggen arrived in town and bought things in a frenzy again, buying whatever came to mind, with no specific plan, flustered and frantic.

By the time he returned, many guests had already arrived at home.

Li Xiulan and Wang Xiaohua were receiving them.

Wang Xiaohua had originally not planned to attend, but after his father suddenly suffered a cerebral infarction and collapsed, he compromised so as not to let his father be upset about this matter again.

Facing the many unfamiliar guests in the courtyard, Wang Xiaohua, who was not good at socializing, felt extremely panicked inside.

He could calmly face problems as complex as the final difficult question on a math exam, but now facing these people, he felt extremely flustered, thinking they were both simple and difficult to communicate with.

But they were all quite friendly. When Wang Xiaohua poured them tea water, they would praise him a few times, and the envious looks they cast at Wang Xiaohua were real and strong.

"This kid is really impressive. He got first place in the whole county. I wish my son were that impressive!"

"Being good at studying is one thing, but he's also so sensible and filial. I heard that when Zhanggen was sick, it was him who cleaned up Zhanggen's excrement and urine!"

"Our Shanggou Village is probably going to produce a great person..."

Wang Xiaohua was embarrassed by their praise.

He wanted to explain that he wasn't first in the whole county, just first in the whole school, but he didn't know how to bring it up.

Also, when those guests said he was filial, he felt an inexplicable feeling in his heart.

Because he considered himself not to be a filial good son.

His feelings toward his father were clearly more hate than love, more contempt than respect, more belittlement than admiration.

In his mind, his father was a stubborn and failed, pitiable and hateful person, full of fatal shortcomings from head to toe, with not even a single bit worth learning from.

This time his father fell ill; if it weren't that there was truly no one at home to take care of him, he wouldn't have stayed at the hospital for so long.

Wang Zhanggen had just returned when he saw many customers praising his son. Whether these customers were sincere or false, he was delighted to hear it.

He happily went to get the cigarettes he had just bought and distributed them table by table.

He also said polite words to those customers:

"My apologies for the poor reception! The dishes will be served shortly, and we will eat soon!"

Wang Zhanggen turned around and came before Xiao Hua, asking Xiao Hua to distribute fruit, snacks, and other things, while he went to urge the cook of the Flowing Water Banquet to serve the dishes quickly.

Xiao Hua watched Wang Zhanggen's spirited expression, and suddenly a thought arose in his heart: perhaps this stinky and stubborn old man was not as bad as he had imagined.

At least he was sincerely proud of this son of his.

Although this banquet was for his own reputation, in the end it was still held for his youngest son.

Many of his ways of dealing with the world were indeed wrong; he sometimes acted selfishly for his own reputation and dignity, even using violence against his family, but it cannot be denied that he still had paternal love for his three sons.

Xiao Hua seemed to suddenly feel somewhat relieved, and suddenly did not hate Wang Zhanggen so much anymore.

But just thinking of his father's cerebral infarction problem and his Jiazhuang problem, he felt his father was very pitiful again.

This old man who cared about reputation his whole life, this old man who lived his whole life in inferiority and uselessness—his three sons had only just begun to bring him reputation, and problems had already begun to appear one after another in various parts of his body.

He was afraid he would not live much longer.

He was afraid he would not see his three sons' true glorious moments.

In Xiao Hua's inner heart, a pessimistic emotion inevitably floated up.