When you ntion Changleju, most people in Shan City know it.
This place was already a famous old restaurant before the founding of the PRC. After the founding, it went through all kinds of turmoil and eventually beca a state-owned restaurant. Then, following round after round of urban planning...
It ended up becoming a bona fide old-school Shan City restaurant. Bring up Changleju, and basically everyone in Shan City can say a few words about it.
But ever since the renovation and expansion last year and the teahouse was split off, people haven’t been quite so enthusiastic when it cos up anymore.
Nothing else to it, the prices went up. It’s just too damn expensive!
A young girl was doing street interviews with a microphone. Hearing Shan City folks sigh about how pricey Changleju had beco, her eyes lit up:
"So you feel like, the way it’s being run now, it’s gradually been assimilated by capital, and shifted from ’for the common folk’ to high-end? The whole direction has changed, yeah?"
"Tsk!" The middle-aged man speaking gave her a couple of side glances. "That’s you saying it, not ."
"You’re still young. Whatever you do, don’t just think about taking advantage. You get what you pay for, that’s always made sense."
"Back then Changleju’s food was cheap and tasty, I loved going. Now the food is expensive, but even tastier, I still love going! I’m just grumbling a bit because I can’t really afford it these days, how did that turn into ’assimilated by capital’..."
As he talked, he glanced at the phone she was using to stream, then puffed out his chest and squeezed to the front. He lifted his chin a little, looking very pleased with himself:
"Let make a statent here: even though I can’t afford it, as an old regular of Changleju, I still got an invite for this All-Fish Banquet."
After he finished, he turned his head to look at the girl doing the street interview. "My place is right at the end of this alley. If you can wait, give five minutes, I’ll run ho and bring the invitation so you can film it."
Strear: ...
No need for all that.
She just wanted to collect more material about Changleju, do so editing, and put out a little teaser for her stream!
Otherwise, she’d have spent ten thousand yuan buying a spot at the All-Fish Banquet from soone else, and not squeezing every bit of traffic out of it would be a waste.
Wait a second!
The strear suddenly asked, "You need an invitation to attend the All-Fish Banquet?"
The uncle paused. "Yeah. I think the really high-tier mbers don’t need one, and they can bring friends. Everyone else has to hold a physical invitation. They only recognize the invitation, not the person..."
After all, Boss Chang wanted to really spread the na far and wide this ti, so he invited guests through all kinds of channels. That included this uncle in front of her, who only got invited because he was a fairly well-known old foodie among the older generation.
So quotas were also released at special prices, plus giveaways through local public WeChat accounts and so on; those took up a portion too.
Under these circumstances, going just by mbership cards wouldn’t be appropriate. Loosening up a bit on real-na requirents, on the other hand, could attract more people from out of town.
And with invitations being physically delivered, anyone who showed up holding one was, in a subtle way, boosting the event’s classiness. This was sothing he’d thought through quite carefully for a long ti.
The strear’s spot at the All-Fish Banquet had been bought this way.
But at this mont, her brain spun once around, and she suddenly cursed under her breath:
"How co I don’t have an invitation?! Don’t tell I ran into a fake scalper, for fuck’s sake!"
...
anwhile, outside Shan City Airport, taxi drivers were chatting in their group chat, also puzzled:
"How co so many people are going to Changleju today?"
"You take a couple days off and get totally out of the loop, huh? They’re having the All-Fish Banquet there tonight!"
"That’s quite a production. Don’t tell they’re doing one or two thousand tables?"
"Not that many. I heard it’s four hundred tables..."
The drivers were chattering away. A lot of them had no real sense of what 400 tables ant, but many high-end hotels, their entire banquet hall might only fit seventy or eighty tables.
For Changleju, 400 tables was the maximum capacity of the entire building, top to bottom.
"They’re sending invitations everywhere. I heard they even sent them to the fire departnt..."
"Oh ho! What about the police station and that lot? Did they send any there? Would they even dare to go eat?"
Back when Changleju was what it used to be, they might have.
With the current Changleju... at those prices, a whole bunch of uniforms showing up, they’d be trending on social dia the mont they walked in.
"Nope. They made this big show of carrying a whole box of invitations over there, and the station still wouldn’t take them. In the end, the manager said they’d have the kitchen pound out so fish balls for those on duty at the precinct and send them over so they could have soup instead..."
As for those not on duty at the station, do we even need to say? Of course they’d be out on-site helping maintain order!
After they finished, grabbing a late-night bite there to fill their stomachs a bit would be completely normal.
Putting together a banquet this huge—rumor had it they were going to go through five to six thousand fish tonight—the drivers joked and joined in the excitent:
"Hey, how co you’re not going?"
"Don’t even ntion it. My girl was at ho trying to grab one of those 198 special-price spots and still didn’t get one!"
"My boy roped in seven or eight friends to help him grab one and still ca up empty... But if you go at the original price, even the lowest tier is several thousand yuan. How is that sothing folks like us can enjoy!"
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