Ch. 36 - The Reception Banquet

During the night at Ding Xiang Restaurant, in the spacious setup hall, there were about ten tables, but only a few assistants directly under the General Judge of Criminals, and the constables under Zhao Wuwei occupied four tables in the corner.

At the round table, Sun Shaozong was the only one sitting alone at the seat of the host. His majestic figure swayed in the candlelight, and it gave off a sense of rustle in the air when looked at.

It would be weird if the atmosphere of the banquet could get fun and noisy!

"Boss!"

A short and strong constable put his head over Zhao Wuwei's ear and said nervously, "Look at this scene today, Sun Shaozong may not be able to establish himself in the Yamen, we..."

"What kind of nonsense is this? Shut your mouth!"

Zhao Wuwei gave a sharp reprimand, but his heart actually clanged like fifteen buckets in a single well. He thought that the worst thing was that the high-ranking officials wouldn’t give him face. Unexpectedly, even the petty officials in each division and department had disappeared too.

Even if the former Prefectural Judge and Governor Liu were “incompatible like fire and water” from the beginning, he didn't see the following officials siding with a party and forming an alliance.

Maybe… Did he really stand on the wrong side?!

Zhao Wuwei has some regrets, but he recalled Sun Shaozong's words during the day. How dare he be half-hearted?

Besides, he was already here, wouldn't leaving halfway put him on bad terms on both sides?

The rest of them also thought so.

One by one, they looked at the platter in front of them hungrily, but they just wanted to swallow a few kilograms of regret pills.

At this moment, a young servant hurried to the main table, leaned himself forward toward Sun Shaozong's ear, and whispered a few words. Sun Shaozong immediately stood up and said with a smile, "Ladies and Gentlemen, a distinguished guest came uninvited, and how about going out with me to meet him?"

When they heard this, they all thought that he had asked for ”external assistance.”

Although the reception banquet was usually an internal gathering, they were not supposed to invite outsiders to the party, but it would be nice if such an embarrassing scene could be solved. Who would care if it was an outsider or an insider?!

So all the constables and assistants hurriedly followed Sun Shaozong with smiles on their faces to welcome the ”uninvited” distinguished guest.

Originally, they thought they were either generals or descendants of nobility and ministers with close connections with the Emperor, who had an old relationship with the Sun family. Unexpectedly, outside the gate, they saw a middle-aged civil servant with a red robe, a jade belt, and four beams and golden crowns sitting on the four-lift official sedan chair!

The people were amazed when they saw the middle-aged civil official get off the sedan chair, laughing and bowing, "My dear brother, I didn't expect you and I would work together in the Yamen in the future. Although I haven't taken over the post yet, I can't wait for you to drink a few cups of welcome wine with you!"

Work together in the same Yamen?

Some wise people had already heard some clues from these words, and immediately his face was full of ecstasy.

Some stupid people haven't cleared the situation yet, but it didn’t matter because Sun Shaozong immediately solved the doubts.

He also laughed and greeted him with a deep bow at the end, "Junior Sun Shaozong, greetings to the Prefecture Magistrate!"

It turned out that this middle-aged civil servant was no one else but Jia Yucun, the soon-to-be-appointed Prefecture Magistrate of the Central Judicial Office. No wonder those who guessed his identity would be ecstatic!

They should know that the Prefecture Magistrate in the Central Judicial Office was the only one who was qualified to stand up to the Governor of a Prefecture. He was also in charge of the evaluation, reward, and punishment of all officials. With this relationship, even if all the people in the Yamen opposed Sun Shaozong, he could be as “stable as Mount Tai!”

Zhao Wuwei's snot bubbles all came out. He secretly said that he had a unique vision. This bet was hitting the jackpot!

So he hurriedly led the crowd to greet him.

"Ah!"

Jia Yucun pretended to be dissatisfied by twitching one side of his eyebrow up, raising his hand to pull Sun Shaozong up, and scolding him, "I haven't taken over the post yet; what's wrong with this formality? I'm here to eat your reception banquet, not to play official prestige!"

Just listening to this, if he didn’t want to play official prestige, why did he wear his official suit?

They talked and laughed all the way back to the Parlor. Seeing that the Parlor was empty, Jia Yucun unconsciously made an “eh” sound and said strangely, "Why didn't I see a colleague? Did I come too early?"

This was called real professional acting!

With this expression and tone of voice, who could tell that the two had been discussing secretly for more than half an hour in the afternoon?

Sun Shaozong secretly praised him and laughed, saying, "The Governor of the Department, Liu, may be ill. As for the other colleagues, perhaps they had remembered the wrong time for the reception banquet."

It was also in the afternoon that Governor Liu was separated from others. Sun Shaozong and Jia Yucun had already discussed the response.

Firstly, he took the opportunity to overturn the chess game by Liu Chongshan to fight against the generals. Secondly, Liu Chongshan was also one of the three ”Magistrates and Superior officials.” It would not be easy to sing this play if he came to the scene and competed with Jia Yucun.

"In that case..."

Jia Yucun turned back and smiled genially at the constables and assistants. "Would you please inform them again? Just say that I am waiting here. It’s just right for me to take advantage of Brother Sun's reception banquet to get to know my colleagues first."

With the word ”waiting” in his presence, who else dared to be absent?!

Zhao Wuwei and others took his instructions and left in high spirits. Only three or five people were left to serve them. The rest were divided into birds and pigeons and went to their officials' homes to deliver the news.

About half an hour later, some people arrived at the Flower Parlor one after another. The petty officials, who were not high enough in status, naturally sat down quietly on the lower floor of the banquet. Those who had higher official positions could not hide. They had to go to greet the Prefectural Magistrate and the Assistant Prefectural Magistrate.

Jia Yucun just laughed and chatted with Sun Shaozong and didn't pay much attention to others. Anyone who came was just replied to with a light “sit down” by him, and there was no more following. It was this attitude of acting as if there was no one else present that made the people more nervous.

Seeing the hustle and bustle in the hall, even Authority Chen Zhichuang, who was in charge of the Local Authorities Division, sat down with a smile on his face.

Sun Shaozong smiled and said, "Brother Yucun, all the people are almost here. Shall we start the dinner banquet now?"

"Wait a minute."

Jia Yucun waved his hand, looked around at these green-colored attired officials on the table, and suddenly asked in a loud voice, "Who prepared this reception banquet today?"

With this sound, the Flower Parlor was so quiet that the needles could be heard falling!

After a while, a man stood up in a cold sweat on the side seat and said in a trembling voice, "It’s... It's me... the Evaluation Inspector Zhou Da of the Criminal Department had prepared it."

The inspector was just a junior official. Let alone the Prefectural Magistrate, even Sun Shaozong could easily crush him!

Had it not been for the unity of the civil servants, he would never have dared to get involved in such a thing. But who would have thought that a Prefectural Magistrate would jump out of the way to support Sun Shaozong?!

Zhou Da really regretted that his intestines had turned green at this time.

"Since you are responsible for preparing the reception banquet, let’s not talk about you not waiting here early. How could you even make a mistake about the time?!" The more Jia Yucun said, the more gloomy his face became. At last, he hit the table and shouted, "Are you going to be this careless when you deal with human life cases?"

Putong!

Zhou Da knelt to the ground straightly and opened his mouth, crying out, "Your Excellency, I'm really..."

"Zhou Da!"

County Magistrate Lin Delu got up and cut off Zhou Da's words. "How do you do things?! You made all your colleagues in the Yamen almost miss Lord Sun's reception banquet!"

The key point of his words was the word ”Yamen's colleagues,” which meant to remind Zhou Da that if he told the truth, he would offend all his colleagues, higher and lower in rank!

If Zhou Da had an official rank of seventh or eighth grade, he might not have been afraid of this, but it was too bad that he was just an unworthy low-ranking official.

After weighing it up, he could only respond, "Please forgive me, Prefectural Magistrate. I was confused for a while, so I made such careless mistakes."

"Hmph!"

Jia Yucun gave a cold snort, and Zhou Da shuddered. Just as he thought that a great disaster was coming, Sun Shaozong laughed and said, "Brother Yucun, after all, this is a private banquet, and it's not an important business. I think we can spare him this time. How about just punishing him for three cups of alcohol?"

When Zhou Da heard the speech, he was only moved to thank him repeatedly.

However, when the three cups of wine were placed in front of him, there were actually three bronze statues full of wine that weighed a kilo and a half. It was not the usual low-alcohol rice wine, but the authentic liquor, Baijiu!

Zhou Da's face suddenly changed color, but under the gaze of Jia Yucun and Sun Shaozong, how would he dare to refuse?

He had to hold his nose and pour down the three liquors one by one.

After drinking this one kilo and a half of alcohol, he staggered his steps and still wanted to greet them. Unexpectedly, he stooped down and went directly under the table. His mouth was all muddy, and he murmured a few times, but there was no more movement after that.

"Serve the dishes and lay out the wines!"

In complete silence, Sun Shaozong shouted.

The wine and dishes were put on the table like flowing water. Everyone seemed ”happy” when they toasted their glasses like they had a good relationship, but no one dared to look at Zhou Da even slightly.

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