Seeing that they were getting a little tipsy, Old Man Lu quickly pulled himself out of the crowd, ran to Lu Baichuan, and pulled him aside to ask him questions.
"What's going on? These people seem more drunk than if they'd been drinking alcohol, even though they've only had tea."
As Old Man Lu spoke, he turned to look at the group of people who were grinning foolishly with rapt attention, and he felt that something was amiss.
"That stuff has been tampered with; it's poisonous. Father, you mustn't drink it."
"Poisonous? Poisonous, and you still dare to drink it! Aren't these all officials? Aren't you afraid of dying?!"
Old Lu's eyes widened; it was truly the first time he had ever heard of someone so brave as to drink poisoned tea so readily.
“They have no idea. They really think this tea can make people forget their troubles. I’ve been investigating this case all this time. Dad, you can just pretend you don’t know anything.”
"Okay, okay, then I can't sit with them, lest I accidentally eat something. I'll sit at the children's table!"
As he spoke, he ran over to Lei Zi and his group's table.
Lu Baichuan wanted to observe the officials' reactions after drinking the tea up close, so he stayed there.
"Excellent tea, truly excellent tea!"
"It's quite a coincidence that both of our prefect's wives' families were in the tea business. However, the tea from the previous wife's family was not as good as the tea from the current wife's family. From now on, we will buy Qingyin tea and never buy tea from the Xia family again!"
"That's right. The prefect has chosen a new person, so why should we cling to the old ways? If we want a smooth career path, then we should naturally follow the prefect's choice!"
...
During the banquet, the guests made no attempt to hide their feelings and compared the two wives of the prefect. In their view, if they spoke highly of the new wife today, the prefect would surely be pleased and would naturally promote them first when the opportunity arose.
Little did they know that their words had completely enraged Qian Chenhao, the young master who was hiding in the corner. He tried to hold back, but couldn't, and broke free from the servant and rushed out.
He ran up to the table and, without saying a word, overturned the food in front of everyone.
"You're talking nonsense! My grandfather's tea is the best! This vixen's tea must have been drugged, that's why she's bewitched you!"
The atmosphere was quite pleasant, filled with laughter and joy, but it was disrupted by the sudden appearance of the young master.
Everyone was dumbfounded as they looked at the young master causing trouble.
Well, everyone's here for the banquet, so his behavior is bound to displease the guests.
"Young Master, please stop fooling around. Let's go back, or the Master will definitely be angry when he finds out!"
The servant rushed out to try and drag him away, but he shook off the servant's hand and then said to the crowd, "That vixen doesn't even have her own home. The brother and sister have been living in my house, yet they always claim to be young ladies from a wealthy family. Bah! Shameless ugly things! They're clearly after my family's wealth, which is why they conspired to deceive my father!"
Everyone present was extremely embarrassed; this young master was far too blunt!
Although everyone knew that the bride today did not leave her parents' home for the wedding, but instead held the ceremony directly at the Qian family's house, this was, after all, the prefect's private matter and not something they could discuss. So they wisely pretended not to know and continued eating and drinking as usual.
But now that this young master has caused such a commotion, they really don't know what to do.
"Rebellious son!"
After the servants reported the incident, the prefect rushed over and saw his youngest son going crazy in the hall. His blood pressure instantly spiked, and he wanted to teach the man a lesson.
"Get back inside and stop embarrassing yourself!"
Qian Xing was furious. If it weren't for his joyous occasion, he would have already used the family rules to teach this unfilial son a lesson.
"I'm not going back! You're the one who'll embarrass yourself! Go ahead and kick me out of the house if you dare! I don't care about you as my father! I'm going to find my mother!"
Just then, a beautiful young woman rushed in, ran over and shielded the young boy behind her, and said to Qian Xing, "Brother is right! Father is about to marry a new woman and has long forgotten about Mother and us siblings! Soon, Father will have other children, so why would he care about you and me? Why don't we have Father kick the three of us out of the house in front of everyone today, and from now on we will have nothing to do with this prefect's mansion!"
The prefect's eldest son was serving as an official in another province and was unwilling to return to attend such an occasion. However, he always doted on his younger brother and sister, and the siblings felt that if their eldest brother were there, he would definitely make the same decision as them. So, they took it upon themselves to include their eldest brother in the event.
The crowd gasped and began to whisper amongst themselves.
Qian Xing felt extremely embarrassed and ordered his men to arrest the siblings. However, the siblings were not so easy to deal with and caused chaos at the banquet.
Everyone had to stop what they were doing and watch how this family farce would end.
Only the members of the Lu family were diligently eating at the banquet, whether it was the children's table or He Jiuniang's table, they all ate to their hearts' content.
"Ms. Sun, try this. It's a specialty of Jingzhou, and you rarely get to eat it. I must say, Master Qian is quite generous. If we don't eat more, we'll be disrespecting him!"
While eating melon, He Jiuniang put food into Sun's bowl.
While eating, Mrs. Sun asked her in a low voice, "What's going on here? These two siblings are really bold!"
"Yes, I like people with courage. I was originally thinking about how to help them break off their relationship with Qian Xing, but now it seems that I was overthinking it."
The two huddled together, their voices audible only to each other.
The others at the table, though they spoke words of flattery, secretly felt a sense of disdain.
No wonder he's a country bumpkin. He acts like he hasn't eaten in centuries. Even after such a big thing happened, he still has the appetite to eat. Is he a reincarnated starving ghost?
The two had no idea how these people looked down on them. Madam Sun continued, "Do you know them? Trying to meddle again?"
Feeling a little embarrassed, He Jiuniang forced herself to say, "Oh! How can you say it's meddling? When my sister-in-law opened her business, her mother even went to support her. Now I have some connection with her mother, so naturally I don't want to see them being held back by Master Qian."
"He's a prefect, how could he be delaying the child's education?"
“Ms. Sun, you don’t know this! Master Qian is a dying man. If something happens to him, these children in the family will be implicated. Although he is not a good person, the children are innocent and so smart. I really can’t bear to see them get involved.”
A dying person?
Sun's eyes flickered. Could it be that her third son's wife had deliberately left to do something like this?
Today's banquet is much more complicated than she imagined!
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