Chapter 245 245. Is it delicious to have a husband?
Lei Li's 40th birthday party was held in Sanlihe Village, in the large square used for village celebrations.
No invitation.
"Let's have a buffet for three days. Anyone can come and eat without an invitation."
Lei Li said nonchalantly, "There's no such thing as too much or too little etiquette when it comes to a banquet. Even if you bring two eggs, you can have a meal with your whole family. You can come for several days."
The Lei family is not short of money.
Many ordinary people like to eat and drink for free and take advantage of others. This is a small bad habit they have. As long as they are not deliberately causing trouble, Lei Li is too lazy to care.
Zhou Yi ordered the steward of the Lei family to turn a blind eye, and if anyone caused trouble or took food and didn't let others eat, he should beat them out without any further ado.
"I know you don't like dealing with people, so we'll just show up at the village banquet on the first day, cut the ribbon, and only have lunch."
Zhou Yi asked him, "How about coming back to our home in the county tonight and having a birthday party with Daqiang, A Miao, Zhu Zhuer and the others? Invite Meng Luo and Mei Yuqing as well."
As for Meng Yao and Yu Ge'er, they are no longer capable.
Meng Yao was promoted last winter and went to the foreign grassland - now it is the Qingyuan Prefecture of the Dayou Dynasty. Yuger and his daughter Xueniang followed him to Qingyuan. It was time-consuming to go back and forth, and it was not convenient for Meng Yao to leave his post for too long within the court system.
"good."
Lei Li nodded naturally and added, "For dinner tonight, I want to eat the braised pork and squirrel fish you made. Add more tomatoes to the fish, it will be sour and delicious."
"Then I'll pick a few big fish."
Zhou Yiying said, thinking that there should be four tables for his family, his grandfather's family and Zhu Zhuer's family, and they would need four big fish. There were still two jars of tomato sauce made last year that had not been opened, and opening one jar should be enough.
The family dinner at night is prepared by the whole family, while the buffet is prepared by famous village chefs from all over the area.
The village chefs included uncles and aunts, as well as an elderly but still strong man with excellent cooking skills. This man was also the most prestigious, with several village chefs being his disciples, so naturally he was the head chef for this birthday banquet.
The village chefs focus on large quantities rather than fine details when cooking. They are willing to use oil, salt, sauce and vinegar, and their dishes are full of flavor. They are more suitable for the general public's taste than the chefs in restaurants.
They also have more experience in preparing banquets. They know roughly how many people will come, how much ingredients to buy, how much of each ingredient to buy, and how many helpers to hire to handle the work... They know everything clearly, so Zhou Yi doesn't have to worry about it.
Zhou Yi didn't need to hire anyone to do shopping or washing vegetables.
Knowing that Lei Li's birthday was going to be a big celebration, the villagers enthusiastically signed up to help.
They were busy making arrangements and wanted to lend their tables, chairs, bowls and chopsticks to the Lei family for the banquet. The husbands and wives also asked their men and children to stop working on the 16th and go to the big square to help out with washing and cutting vegetables.
The old village chief also said cheerfully, "We are all familiar with the matter of preparing banquets. Whenever there is a wedding or a major event that needs to be held, the villagers always lend a hand to do it."
Zhou Yi said he would pay the wages.
Although it's just a banquet where everyone gets together to eat and drink, there's actually a lot of work to do.
The first thing to do is to purchase all kinds of vegetables, meat, seasonings and firewood, and transport them back to the village, which is a big project.
Next comes the preparation work before cooking. Peeling garlic alone takes a lot of effort, and there are different knife techniques for cutting vegetables, such as shredding, slicing, rolling, and chopping.
I couldn't stop eating even during meals.
Distribute soy sauce and seasonings, distribute drinks, and serve dishes. After the meal, the table must be cleared away in time and new dishes served so as not to delay the next table of guests from eating and drinking.
After eating, you have to clean the table, sweep the floor, take away the garbage, and wash the dishes, pots and pans.
After a break of about an hour, I have to start preparing dinner, which is another busy day. When I finish the work in the evening, it is dark. I go home and fall asleep in bed because I am exhausted.
The three-day buffet is a busy three days.
They should be paid.
"If you don't need to pay me, what do you want?"
The old village chief got anxious when he heard this and waved his hands repeatedly, saying, "It's just washing vegetables and serving dishes. After I'm done, I can have a feast. My mother, my wife, and my children can all eat."
"Nine dishes and one soup, with vegetables, meat, and fish, a table of food would cost hundreds of coins. How could we have such a good meal in the past?"
"There's really no need to pay them. If you do, it'll only hurt the neighbors in the village."
"That works."
Zhou Yi did not refuse. When there were any leftover vegetables and meat from the banquet, he would let the people who came to help take them back and use them as their wages.
"That's a deal!"
The old village chief grinned.
After the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the sixteenth day of the first lunar month comes.
At daybreak, the people of Sanlihe and Silihe villages started moving, with smoke rising from every household.
Soon, the men in the village gathered in the big square, each holding a weapon. Everyone brought different things. Some carried ropes, some carried several backpacks, some carried large baskets, and some drove them out with ox carts.
Many women and couples who were good at bargaining also came. Sitting on ox carts, a large group of people headed towards the town market. The vegetables and meat they ordered were transported to the town by vendors.
There are more than a dozen pigs.
There are even more chickens and ducks.
"These chickens and ducks don't look good. They're so skinny, and they're not as good as the ones we raise in our village."
"It would be great if Li Ge'er's birthday was in July or August. The rice paddy ducks in our village are just coming out of the market, and there are also plenty of loaches and fish in the fields. They would be much better to eat than these."
"Even choy sum won't do. It takes a month, around February, for the greens to sprout and become sweet."
"Just make do with it... Later I'll pick out some tender Chinese cabbage hearts and stir-fry them separately, and serve them to Brother Li's table. The birthday boy can't afford to eat something worse than us."
"Hey, if Brother Li had said earlier that he wanted to have a big birthday this year, I would have asked my mother's family to save the preserved eggs. My father makes them really well."
The people from the two villages were picking at the vegetables from the vegetable and meat vendor and sighing in unison.
It is now the middle of the first lunar month.
The radishes that are planted earlier cannot catch up with the sweetness of the winter frost, and the vegetables that are planted later cannot catch up with the crispness of the double vegetables. At this time, even the fish are not as fat as in the twelfth lunar month. Only bacon and dried vegetables are the best.
The villagers who come to buy food can only try to buy more dishes to make the banquet look better.
In the big square, other villagers had already set up their stoves and moved in tables and chairs, totaling seventy or eighty sets of tables and chairs.
The head chef also arrived with other village chefs.
As soon as the shoppers came back, the whole village began to work enthusiastically, unloading goods, washing vegetables, and cutting vegetables in an orderly and busy manner.
The Lei family manager, who was originally sent by Zhou Yi to arrange things and take charge of the overall situation, was completely useless, so he finally rolled up his sleeves and joined in.
At this time, Zhou Yi had just finished breakfast and Lei Li had not yet gotten up.
Zhou Yi went to the big square and took a look. Seeing that it was in perfect order, he said hello to the old village chief and went home, completely handing over the power to the villagers.
After Zhou Yi returned home, he went back to the room to check on Lei Li. Seeing that he was waking up, he went out to get some warm water for washing and called him,
"Leili, Leili?"
“…”
No one answered.
Zhou Yi lifted the blackout curtain and called him softly twice, but still no one answered. Thinking that he probably didn't want to get up yet, he tucked in the quilt for him.
As soon as I stood up, my wrist was grabbed.
The warm body pressed against his lower back, rubbed against it, and then the head rested on his legs, with two white arms hugging his waist.
Her fair and soft face was still rubbing against his legs.
“…”
Zhou Yi's ears suddenly felt hot.
He tried to move Lei Li's face away to prevent him from starting a fire there, but Lei Li snorted and moved his face back. As soon as he moved away, Lei Li moved back again.
"do what……"
Lei Li snorted.
There was a hint of breath in his voice, mixed with his nasal sound, which made Zhou Yi's heart itch.
"Still sleeping?"
Zhou Yi asked him, "Should I put you on the bed? Or do you want to get up? I've prepared some warm water."
"I don't want to think about it."
Lei Li hummed and moaned, closed her eyes, hugged Zhou Yi's waist tightly with her arms, and insisted on sleeping on Zhou Yi's legs like this.
But his face was too close, and the hot air he exhaled hit the sensitive area, making Zhou Yi feel a little uncomfortable.
“……?”
Lei Li seemed to realize something and chuckled softly through his nose, which made Zhou Yi react even more. He took the opportunity to open his mouth and bite -
No bite.
Zhou Yi stopped him in time.
"Get up now."
Zhou Yi diverted his attention, "It's almost noon now. The Grand Plaza is preparing a buffet for lunch. Do you want to go and take a look?"
"I think they have a pretty rich menu. Six of the nine dishes are pure meat, three are vegetarian with meat mixed in, and one is seaweed egg drop soup."
"That chef can also make squirrel fish. You can try it at noon to see if it's delicious. I think some dishes made in a big pot are much better than those in a small pot."
“The big pot dishes are really delicious.”
Lei Li chuckled softly and said, his words were ambiguous and made people feel that there was something ambiguous in his words.
"So you want to get up now?"
Zhou Yi pretended not to understand, "I asked the village chief, if things go well, the first batch of dishes will be served soon. The villagers reserved the best two tables for our family, and the choy sum is the most tender."
"Don't you like fried choy sum with oil residue? I told them to add more oil and some oil residue. The chef should make it delicious."
"Is it delicious with my husband?"
Lei Li asked him with a low laugh.
The eyes that had been closed all this time raised their eyelashes slightly and glanced at Zhou Yi frivolously and mischievously. The sunlight coming in from the window suddenly jumped into his eyes, and those peach blossom eyes were bright and shining.
Zhou Yi blushed and his heart beat fast, hesitating, "How can this be compared... No, you should restrain yourself a little. You did it twice last night."
"Only twice..."
Lei Li snorted nasally, showing a bit of dissatisfaction. He traced Zhou Yi's touch with his fingertips and said, "And didn't you say that we shouldn't waste food? It's not good to not eat the food after it's already been prepared, right?"
“…”
Zhou Yi stood up straight at once.
Lei Li, caught off guard, fell onto the bed, glaring at him resentfully.
His collar had also slipped down most of the way, revealing his deep collarbone, round shoulders and fair chest, which were dotted with red kiss marks and tooth marks. The resentment made him even more seductive.
"Let's wash up first."
Zhou Yi didn't dare to look at Lei Li like this, for fear that he couldn't help himself.
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