Chapter Sixty: Kings Side by Side
Seeing that it was still early, I asked Baozi behind me, "Where are we going now?"
Baozi said, "Let's find a place to eat."
"What about Ke Ziying and the others?"
“Call them,” Baozi said.
I called the landline at home, and it rang for ages before someone answered, but didn't say anything. I knew Liu Bang was definitely not home, and the remaining three hadn't yet learned how to use the phone properly, so I called out loudly, "Who is it? It's Qiangzi."
Upon hearing my name, the other person asked, "Guess who I am?"
I said, "I guess you're Kezi."
Qin Shi Huang knew I was joking with him, and chuckled, saying, "What's going on?"
“I’ll treat you guys to dinner. You should invite Kezi and Brother Yu, and if that kid Liu Bang wants to play mahjong, invite him too. Come on over…” I then realized we hadn’t decided on a restaurant yet. Baozi pinched my waist and said, “Let’s eat hot pot.” He pointed to the “Sichuan Red” hot pot restaurant across the street.
“Yes, the four of you are coming to ‘Sichuan Red’, so you can take a taxi together. Tell the driver where you are, the starting price is 6 yuan, and Kezi will calculate the fare…” I carefully arranged for you.
"Okay, okay, don't say it anymore, I'm not hungry and I'm not hungry."
He even complained that I was long-winded!
The so-called "Sichuan Red" actually follows the Chongqing-style spicy hot pot model. This place has been around since I was a child, back when Chongqing probably hadn't yet become a municipality. Over the years, it has expanded and renovated several times, and has become the city's leading hot pot restaurant. The restaurant has 16 decorative giant wooden beams painted a vibrant red, with strings of large red lanterns hanging from them. The tables and chairs are red, the walls are red, even the waitresses are dressed like little chili peppers—anyone with hemorrhoids would have to leave in pain as soon as they enter.
As soon as I entered, the waitress asked me in her dialect, "How many people are in your party, sir?" I told her there were seven, and then asked her curiously, "Are all the waitresses here really from Chongqing?"
Waitress: "How could that be? Many people only know a word or two."
"Then you must be from Chongqing, right? Your dialect is so authentic."
The waitress then said in a perfect Zhao Lirong accent, "I'm from Tangshan."
Baozi chuckled: "Just how many dialects do you know?"
The waiter replied in Mandarin: "I started working when I was 14. I didn't learn anything else, but I learned all the dialects in the country. I can speak everything from Shandong dialect to Cantonese."
I exclaimed, "A language genius! Can you speak English?"
The waiter blushed: "I just passed Level 4..."
We agreed to order something later, so we brewed three cups of Kung Fu tea and started drinking. Li Shishi sniffed, smelling the rich aroma of hot pot in the restaurant, and I asked her, "Did you have hot pot back then?"
Li Shishi nodded: "The food we ate back then was called 'antique smoked food,' and it's the same principle."
Baozi said, "What are you talking about? Is there anywhere I haven't eaten hot pot before?"
Li Shishi laughed: "Brother Jing and the others probably haven't eaten this before."
Baozi suddenly said to me, "Qiangzi, I feel like Fatty and the others..." He pointed at Li Shishi as he spoke, "Including you, Xiaonan, why do I always feel like there's something strange about you guys? But I can't quite put my finger on what's wrong with you."
Li Shishi glanced at me and said with a smile, "Sister-in-law, now that you and my cousin are engaged, you're family. I don't have much to give you, so keep this as a memento." As she spoke, she casually pulled a gold hairpin from her pocket, with a bead the size of a longan embedded in its eye. She tapped it lightly on the table, and the bead rolled out, leaving a few streaks of misty, lustrous light. Even after it stopped, it remained shimmering, as if blinking. I hadn't seen this thing the day she arrived; she must have put it away early that morning. That's understandable; the bead always seemed loose in the hairpin. She used to move around the palace buildings frequently, so it was fine for her, but now she has to chop fillings and wash dishes, so she can't always wear it.
Baozi grabbed the bead, her hand noticeably heavier, and exclaimed happily, "Wow, it's quite heavy!" She then examined it under the light, saying, "Cousin, did you get tricked? Why isn't this as bright as the glass one?"
Li Shishi laughed and said, "If you take glass beads to where we are, they will definitely be worth more than this."
Hearing her say that, Baozi thought it really was a cheap knock-off. She pulled the cross off her neck, took it off, spit some saliva on the end of the rope, strung it with beads, and hung it on her chest. When the light shone on the beads, the misty vapor dissipated, and although it wasn't dazzling, it was hard to even see what Baozi looked like.
Although I wasn't an expert, having worked in a pawnshop for so many years, I had a good eye. That bead was clearly no ordinary item, and for Li Shishi, the Second Empress, to cherish it so highly, it must have been priceless even in the Song Dynasty. As for Li Shishi's claim that it wasn't as valuable as glass, that was a complete fallacy. Did they even have glass in the Song Dynasty? Baozi thought it was just a cheap token of affection, so he accepted it without a second thought.
Li Shishi glanced at me and said meaningfully, "Cousin, I really think that villa is nice." The implication was clear: she wanted me to sell the bead and buy a house. Forget a small villa, this bead could buy any luxury villa in the world. But the question is, would I dare to do it?
I stammered to Baozi, "It looks bad if you wear it inside; it doesn't look good on the outside."
"Really?" Baozi glanced down and put the beads inside her clothes. With the light greatly reduced, her face became visible again. I thought mischievously: Maybe if we let her wear them during sex, they could act as an aphrodisiac.
Baozi tapped the table with the cross he had taken down and said listlessly, "Why aren't Fatty and Big Guy here yet?"
Just then, a taxi pulled up at the door. The back door opened, and Liu Bang got out first. He pulled out a large flip phone, dialing while peering inside. Jing Ke sat in the front, his door open but not getting out, waiting for the driver's change. I chuckled to myself: these guys are practically identical to modern people.
As soon as my phone rang, I answered it and said, "Turn left after you enter and you'll see it."
Liu Bang said "Oh" and hung up the phone, then beckoned the other three to come toward us. I didn't even know when he bought the phone.
As soon as Liu Bang saw me, he said, "Why are you thinking of eating out again?"
Li Shishi said, "We went to look at furniture today, so let's treat this meal to officially celebrate my cousin and his wife's engagement."
Liu Bang waved his hand and said, "This meal is on me."
I said, "Where did you get the money, kid? Oh, you're carrying a little bag, is there a brick in it?"
Liu Bang chuckled and said, "I made a little money playing cards."
The waiter, who had just passed Level 4, came over with the menu as soon as he saw that all of us had arrived. I ordered a half-and-half hot pot first, and then carried around a huge selection of dishes: lamb, beef, tripe, fish balls, lettuce, chrysanthemum greens, romaine lettuce, sweet potato noodles... I wasn't satisfied with just looking at them, so I said, "What else do you have besides these?"
"Stir-fried dishes are also available, and the specialty is steamed fish head."
"Pick the two biggest ones."
"What kind of drinks would you like, gentlemen?"
Jing Ke: "Henry..."
Wiping my sweat, I said, "Two dozen beers." Taking these five people out to dinner meant always being prepared for public condemnation. You could say they lived life on their own terms, completely oblivious to the embarrassment their behavior caused others.