Chapter 2 The Feast
As the second batch of braised pork began to simmer, Luo Shou and Xiao Hu returned from outside.
Dongzi, sweating profusely, silently inquired.
Luo Shou touched his neck.
Dongzi immediately understood. They had gone out to make themselves throw up, to expel the meat they had just eaten, so they wouldn't be poisoned, right?
“Where is Young Master Xie?”
The kitchen was as hot as a steamer, and Xie Jiang was nowhere to be seen.
Dongzi, busy with his work, replied, “Young Master Xie has gone outside to cool off.”
Xiao Hu stayed to help Er Gou, while Luo Shou went to the shade of a tree in the large courtyard behind the kitchen and quietly asked if it was alright for them to have vomited out the meat.
Xie Jiang was not entirely sure, “It should be fine.”
Luo Shou’s face turned a little green, “Should be?”
Xie Jiang said, “At most, you’ll just sleep for a while. What’s there to be afraid of?”
Luo Shou said in a low voice, “I still have a mission today.”
After the people from the West Village collapsed at the banquet due to poisoning, he would still be responsible for guarding them.
What if Young Master Xie’s poison wore off too quickly, and the battle outside the village gate hadn’t ended yet? Wouldn’t his elder brother be caught between attacks?
Luo Shou felt that he hadn’t helped much in this matter, and at least he had to let his elder brother entrust his back to him with peace of mind!
Xie Jiang gave him a sideways glance, “Do you think I’m just a decoration?”
With Xie Jiang’s assurance, Luo Shou was relieved. He cupped his fists in greeting to Xie Jiang and then ran back to the kitchen to help Dongzi.
Xie Jiang continued to rest with his eyes closed, fanning himself.
Not long after, Xiao Hu came out carrying Er Gou.
Seeing Xie Jiang look over, Xiao Hu said in a low voice, “Er Gou has started to act up…”
Xiao Hu looked around, placed Er Gou under the big tree, and let him lean against it.
Xiao Hu chuckled and whispered, “Young Master Xie’s medicine is truly miraculous. Even if someone comes looking, they’ll only think Er Gou is asleep. Listen to this guy’s loud snoring…”
~
About half an hour later, Dongzi’s voice came from the kitchen, announcing that the braised pork and pig trotters were ready to be served.
Soon after, cheers and sounds of people scrambling for food came from the mess hall.
Luo Shou ran over to Xie Jiang and said, “They’re all eating. Do you want to go take a look, Young Master Xie?”
Xie Jiang felt that his bones had gone stiff from lying down, so he went with them to the mess hall.
The banquet was set up from the mess hall to the open-air area outside. Luo Zhongtong’s birthday banquet was indeed a grand affair, with all the influential men from the East and West Villages present.
Women had no place in such occasions. For women like Aunt Bao, who was cooking in the kitchen, and the women helping out, being able to bring back some leftover food for the elderly and children at home to satisfy their cravings was already a matter of envy.
The people from the West Village had all been given a task today: to get the people from the East Village drunk to their hearts’ content, ensuring that each person from the East Village had at least a mouthful of wine.
This was because the wine had been drugged.
Once they drank the wine, the people from the East Village would be like fish on their chopping block, to be cut wherever they pleased. The women and children of the East Village could be dealt with as they wished.
Therefore, the men of the West Village were exceptionally enthusiastic at today’s banquet. Those who were unaware would have thought that the East and West Villages were one big happy family.
The people from the East Village also had a task today.
Their task was to watch the people from the West Village eat meat. They didn’t need to supervise the act of eating meat itself; they just needed to pretend to be drunk and fumble, unable to grab it.
Xie Jiang leaned by the door connecting the kitchen to the mess hall. Xiao Hu held up the curtain for her, “The one sitting face-to-face with the village chief is Luo Zhongtong.”
Xie Jiang casually glanced over. He was just an ordinary, middle-aged, greasy man, nothing special.
Upon hearing Xie Jiang’s evaluation, Xiao Hu was full of surprise.
Although they disliked Luo Zhongtong very much, they had to admit that Luo Zhongtong actually had a commanding presence. Yet, in Young Master Xie’s words, he was just an unremarkable, middle-aged, greasy man?
However, compared to Young Master Xie and Young Master Xu, he was indeed just an unremarkable, middle-aged, greasy man.
Dongzi looked at the braised pork being swept clean by everyone at the banquet and chuckled, “It seems my braised pork skills have finally been honed.”
Xie Jiang, for once, offered praise, “For mass catering, this is very good. Even if I were personally in charge, I wouldn’t be able to do better than you.”
Dongzi’s face turned a flushed black-red with excitement.
~
Luo Zhongtong, as usual, was very polite to Luo Lu, raising his cup repeatedly to drink with Luo Lu and the clan elders.
Luo Lu spoke little, but he drank no less.
Today was the birthday of the Second Master Luo, and the Second Master Luo was very courteous to the younger generation, Luo Lu. How could Luo Lu refuse?
Gradually, Luo Lu seemed to be unable to hold his liquor. After Luo Zhongtong poured him another cup, he finally slumped onto the table, swaying unsteadily.
Before Luo Lu got drunk, a portion of the men from the East Village had already started to fall.
After Luo Lu slumped down, the men from the East Village seemed to have received a signal, and more and more of them began to fall.
However, no one noticed that all the men from the East Village at the banquet were wearing inconspicuous scarves around their necks today. As they fell one by one, their mouths and noses were buried in the scarves.
Some, who disliked wearing too much clothing due to the heat and feared that just wearing a scarf would be too conspicuous, would fall under the table and then pull out a sweat towel from their crotch to stuff into their mouths and noses.
The scarves themselves were nothing special; some were old bath towels, and some were old headscarves from their mothers.
However, these inconspicuous scarves had all been uniformly fumigated with medicine, giving them the effect of neutralizing the drug in the wine.
Luo Zhongtong’s confident smile became more and more undisguised.
Most of the capable men from the East Village were at the banquet; only a small portion were guarding the village entrance. As long as he could control the people at the banquet, what was there to fear from the rest?
He hadn’t expected that the situation at today’s banquet would go even more smoothly than he had imagined!
Heaven was helping him!
Luo Zhongtong did not notice that although more and more men from the East Village were falling, many men from the West Village were also collapsing one after another. However, with so many people at the banquet, the occasional collapse of a couple of people along with the East Village men was not conspicuous.
When a trusted subordinate sitting below Luo Zhongtong, while gnawing on a pig trotter, suddenly slumped onto the table, Luo Zhongtong still didn’t realize something was wrong.
Because this subordinate snored so loudly that Luo Zhongtong joked with a few others, asking if he had worked too hard last night, that he had fallen asleep even while eating at the banquet.
All his trusted subordinates burst into laughter.
It wasn’t until Lu Baohong also suddenly collapsed before his eyes that Luo Zhongtong’s smug expression turned serious. However, by then, it was already too late.
The sounds of people falling, thud after thud, echoed continuously from inside and outside the mess hall.
Not good!
Luo Zhongtong slammed the table and stood up to look. At this moment, all the people collapsing were from his West Village!
And the remaining part of the East Village people who hadn’t fallen yet were slowly standing up, covering their mouths and noses with cloth scarves, under Luo Zhongtong’s gaze.
The East Village men who had already fallen were now also moving. Some lifted their heads from the table, while others crawled out from under the table.
They had all been faking it!
He had fallen into their trap!
Luo Zhongtong broke out in a cold sweat almost instantly.
The most terrifying thing was that Luo Lu, who had fainted right under his nose, was now also pushing his stool away and standing up before his eyes.
Luo Zhongtong wanted to grab the saber lying under the table, but he found that although he had already reached out towards the table, his hand was moving further and further away from it.