Ten luxury cars worth over a million each set off majestically from Shenzhen, hit the highway, and had lunch in the second-largest city of the western Jiang province.
The city is called Ganzhou, under its wing are eighteen counties. In recent years, thanks to the central governnt’s emphasis on old areas, support has been increased, infrastructure construction, railway, airport, and highway have been built, and it’s next to Yue province, taking in the factories and enterprises spilling out from there, making rapid economic progress, which can be described as earth-shattering changes.
Yi Anguo and the others chose a place called the Silk Hotel to eat.
The reason for choosing to eat here is purely symbolic because seeing the word "silk" reminded Yi Anguo of a beautiful mory.
When the dishes were served, Hu Qian asked, "Brother-in-law, this hotel looks pretty ordinary! Not even up to a star rating, why did you choose to eat here?"
"Why do you have to eat at a star-rated hotel? So street stalls serve food that’s just as delicious," Yi Anguo retorted.
"Don’t we often eat at street stalls in Shenzhen? Chuan Yu Restaurant isn’t a star-rated hotel, and you didn’t seem to eat any less there!"
"She’s just curious! There are so many restaurants here, both high-grade and low-grade, why did you specifically choose this one?" said Hu Qian with a cheeky smile, sticking out her tongue playfully.
"If I have to give a reason, there actually is one. It was 1997, right? That year I was just twenty, working in a small county under Ganzhou at an antique furniture factory, and ate every day at a small eatery run by veteran employees from a nearby silk factory," Yi Anguo explained.
"That little restaurant had a grand na, calling itself the Silk Hotel, but it was only a small eatery of forty to fifty square ters, serving nothing but breakfast and late-night snacks, along with so simple ho-style dishes."
"Hahaha...! It’s hilarious, such a tiny eatery having the nerve to call itself the Silk Hotel!" Hu Qian couldn’t help but burst into laughter.
"This small shop was run by a couple; they had a little daughter about three or four years old. The regular custors were basically the hundreds of silk factory employees, mainly stopping by for breakfast and late-night snacks, selling so soup noodle dishes. The business was quite average, barely scraping by."
"At that ti, the silk factory was on the brink of closing, and even though a bowl of soup noodles cost only 1.2 yuan, many couldn’t bear to spend the money."
"Though our furniture factory didn’t have many people, our wages were high, so we ate at their place every day."
"Back then, I had three apprentices under , making four of us in total, so we could really be considered their major custors."
"Our daily als adhered to a two-al-per-day standard, and our four probably spent over a thousand yuan a month. Including breakfast and late-night snacks, I often ordered extra dishes, and a bottle of beer, totaling nearly 2000 yuan a month at their eatery."
"Eventually, we gradually beca friends, and the owner’s wife even introduced to a potential match, but I wasn’t interested."
"Wow! At only 20 years old, soone introduced you to a potential match, brother-in-law, are you sure it wasn’t that they weren’t interested in you?" Hu Qian asked, clearly skeptical.
"I’m not bragging, but that girl was really interested in , she even ca to the factory to chase , I was so frightened I hid," Yi Anguo said proudly.
This ti everyone couldn’t help but laugh.
"Why? Weren’t your family conditions not so good back then? Soone proposed, soone wanted to marry you, isn’t that good? Why were you being so picky?" Li Sisi couldn’t help but gossip.
She even felt that when she pursued Yi Anguo, it wasn’t so tough, right?
And when she pursued Yi Anguo, he was already considered wealthy, with 1,000 houses in his na!
Even before buying the houses, he had at least several hundred thousand yuan.
"Even if my family conditions weren’t good, I wouldn’t just marry anyone," Yi Anguo countered.
"That girl’s family conditions were actually quite good, both her parents were governnt officials in the county, they were leaders, she had no brothers, only two sisters, they didn’t ask for any betrothal gifts, and her parents even offered a house as a dowry."
"But back then, a house in their county center was only worth about fifty thousand yuan."
"I didn’t like her mainly because she was three years older than , quite tall, a bit plump, very buxom, plus she spoke boisterously, like a tomboy."
"She wasn’t my type at all."
By this ti, the dishes were already being served one after another.
One of the young girls, after setting down the dishes, kept glancing at Yi Anguo, and as she left, couldn’t help but turn her head back to take another look.
"Brother-in-law! That young waitress seed to recognize you, don’t you know her?" Li Shanshan asked, a bit puzzled.
"That girl looks about fifteen or sixteen, how could I know her? Besides, this is Ganzhou, quite a ways from that county!"
Little did they know, the young girl had run to an upstairs office and said to a woman, "Mom! Guess who I just saw?"
"Who did you see? Why are you so surprised?" The woman, who was checking accounts, looked up and asked.
"I think I saw my godfather, just now a group of diners ca in, and one of them looked just like the photo of my godfather, but he didn’t recognize , and I didn’t dare to call him," the young girl said.
"Is that so! Are you sure you didn’t see it wrong?" The woman said, surprised and happy, but also a bit hesitant.
"How would I know? Anyway, I just saw it looked really similar," the young girl said, not daring to be too certain.
"The last ti I saw my godfather, how many years old was I? How could I rember clearly?"
"It’s been over ten years now, if my godfather saw , he definitely wouldn’t recognize either."
"Besides, after more than ten years, my godfather’s appearance has changed a bit too, he can’t possibly still be as young as he used to be!"
"This person looks like a big shot, very wealthy, I’m even more afraid to acknowledge him."
"Didn’t you see there are a whole ten luxury cars parked at our hotel entrance? Each one is worth over a million, and they all ca with him for the al."
"All those luxury cars have Shenzhen license plates. Didn’t you say my godfather was working in Dongguan?"
There are many people in the world who look alike, and her childhood mories were already a bit blurry. How could she still rember what her godfather looked like? It was just that she often saw photos of him and felt the guest who just arrived looked a lot like the godfather in the photos, so she ca to tell her mom.
Although he looked very much like her godfather, if he truly was her godfather, his status would be a bit exaggerated, either wealthy or noble!
The woman wasn’t sure either, but since her daughter said he looked very similar, she definitely had to go take a look just in case. If she didn’t, wouldn’t she miss out?
Yi Anguo had no idea that his casual action had led him to dine at the hotel of his sworn brother.
As he was eating, a woman knocked and ca in, holding a good bottle of wine in her hand.
Then, their eyes t, and for a mont, they both felt a very familiar feeling.
Despite more than ten years having passed and both having changed sowhat, these once very familiar individuals still recognized each other easily when they t again.
"Brother Anguo, is it really you?" Gong Hongi said excitedly.
"Hongi sis! Is this hotel really yours?" Yi Anguo couldn’t help but laugh.
"It’s not just mine, my husband and I opened it together! Didn’t you co here because of the Big Silk Road Hotel’s sign?" Gong Hongi said with a smile.
"I really did co because of the Big Silk Road Hotel’s sign, but I didn’t expect that it was really opened by you!" Yi Anguo grinned.
"This is the person I was just telling you about, Gong Hongi, Sister Hongi! Everyone, quickly greet her!" Yi Anguo said, addressing his several won.
"Xin Yi! Yun Long, Yu Feng, Fei Long, i Feng, call her Auntie Hongi," Yi Anguo said to his children.
"Brother Anguo! Are they all your children?" Gong Hongi said, a bit surprised.
"Yes! I have quite a few kids, does it scare you?" Yi Anguo said, smiling apologetically.
"Are those ladies all your...?" Gong Hongi could hardly believe it.
Yi Anguo nodded slightly, walked up to Gong Hongi and said, "Where’s Brother Li Yao? Isn’t he in the store?"
"He went out to collect a debt, I’ll call him back right now," Gong Hongi said quickly.
"You’ve already opened a big hotel, surely you wouldn’t still allow others to run up a tab?" Yi Anguo asked.
"What can I do? They’re all public accounts, after eating they just give you an IOU, they’ve already eaten, you can’t exactly stop them from leaving, can you?" Gong Hongi said helplessly.
"Once there’s a first ti, there’s a second, a third, countless tis, each ti they say they’ll settle up at the end of the month, won’t shortchange you, but at the end of the month, you can only get a little, every ti they say money’s tight, no money, they’ll owe it for now, absolutely won’t be less."
"At the end of the month it’s next month, then the month after, keeps getting pushed to the end of the year, still only paying a small part, leaving the bulk unpaid."
"Like this, owing and owing, don’t even ntion profits, we can’t even recoup the costs."
"Now there’s a new local head, and they outright refuse to acknowledge the debt, telling us to find the previous head, saying it’s the previous leadership that owes, and to let the previous head pay it, anyway it wasn’t during his term."
"The forr local head changed posts, didn’t deny the debt, but says it’s the debt of that office, they can’t pay from their current post, so we still have to go back to the forr office for the debt?"
"Can they really be so unreasonable? Just take them to court, Brother Li Yao keeps collecting the debt, but they don’t acknowledge it, don’t pay, what can you do?" Yi Anguo said, a bit worried.
"What else can be done? We can only try to collect what little we can. You’re running a hotel on their turf, can you really afford to offend them?" Gong Hongi said with a sense of resignation.
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