Around noon, the important county figures who always paid Mr. Shi a New Year's visit at the scrap collection station on the first day of the Lunar New Year started arriving, one right after the other.
Schemes. It was all just schemes. The old, the young—every single one was a handful. And how unfair it was! After getting a glare from the local official, Shen Weimin had no choice but to take the fall for Mr. Shi right then and there.
'It wasn't that I was withholding information! The old man had explicitly ordered me not to tell anyone—and that included Uncle Huang—that he would be spending the New Year here.'
Hah!
'And I'm so honest!'
'Good thing I was thinking ahead. I wrote up a menu a couple of days ago and had Ninth Aunt prepare today's banquet. Otherwise, if the spread had been too lavish, I'm afraid even that official would have gotten suspicious.'
