Miss Su, newly returned from Nanjing, was hosting a banquet!
This news swept across every inch of Beiping like a tornado. Those privileged enough to be in the know scrambled to prepare, and it became an unavoidable topic of conversation at every social gathering.
It truly made one sigh with emotion—
It just had to be Miss Su. Whether she had been keeping a low profile or traveling out of town,
as long as there was even a sliver of news about her,
she remained the absolute center of attention!
A few acquaintances ran into each other at a salon. Chatting over a game of bridge, the conversation naturally drifted toward this very topic.
"Hey, are you going?"
"What kind of question is that? Of course I'm going. Don't tell me you haven't heard about the bumper harvest out in the suburbs the other day... Or could it be that Miss Su didn't invite you?"
The first speaker immediately grew anxious.
"Who are you looking down on? Of course I was invited. I'll have you know, Assistant Lin delivered the invitation to my door personally!" He finished with a cold snort.
Unexpectedly, this drew a chorus of boos.
"Stop acting so smug. It's obvious Miss Su is taking this banquet very seriously. The invitations were either delivered by Assistant Lin, Assistant Shang, or that Charles fellow who handles the foreigners... You all probably know him."
The group exchanged glances.
And smiled in tacit understanding.
Seeing a former rival reduced to running errands for her—who wouldn't be intimidated by that? Miss Su was clearly making an example out of him to warn the others!
"What do you guys think Miss Su is really up to? Even the fertilizer plant has stopped shipping, leaving everyone running around in a panic. My family followed the trend and harvested a field yesterday. Good heavens, the yield increased by almost half!"
"Same with my family."
"Mine too."
They were all local elites of Beiping, enjoying the advantage of being close to the source. They were the first batch to use the fertilizer. Even before the harvest, they could tell the yield would be higher, but they never expected it to be this high!
Everyone wanted to know exactly how much of a bumper harvest they had.
They swarmed to harvest their crops.
When their own tenant farmers and servants couldn't handle the workload, they hired odd-job laborers, which made those peasants bold enough to demand higher wages on the spot.
Bah.
If Miss Su hadn't already swept up all the refugees off the streets, there would have been plenty of people fighting for the work.
As the group chatted, a game of bridge was nearly finished.
Most felt the banquet had to do with the fertilizer. Some said it was to announce a price hike, others optimistically thought it was a celebration, and some speculated that Su Ning intended to use the fertilizer to control everyone. Just then, someone suddenly spoke up:
"If you ask me, those are just surface reasons. Miss Su is finally about to take a fall, and she's rushing to use the fertilizer to stabilize the situation before the dust settles."
The players at the card table fell silent for a moment.
Soon, someone whispered:
"You're talking about that oil exploration fuss down in Nanjing, right?"
"You heard about it too?"
"Yeah."
Only one person was completely lost. He was stunned to find everyone lowering their voices, speaking in unspoken agreements, while he knew nothing. After asking for clarification, expressions of surprise, doubt, and schadenfreude flashed across his face.
"Such a huge matter, and it hasn't been reported in Beiping?"
"Are you stupid? After being purged several times, what newspaper would have the guts to report news about Miss Su, let alone bad news!"
"True..."
They had all received the news privately and didn't dare discuss it openly.
That lady was known to hold a serious grudge.
"Do you guys think this oil thing is reliable? The massive amount of money Miss Su spent isn't fake, and none of that exploration equipment is cheap."
Someone was tempted, wanting to invest.
"Outsiders might not know, but don't we? When has Miss Su ever done things on a small scale? No matter how expensive it is, it's just a drop in the bucket for her."
Therefore, the spending wasn't enough to judge the situation.
"We better stay out of this. With our net worth, we can't afford to play this game."
"Right. The risk is too great; it's better to play it safe."
Seeing the lingering reluctance on his face,
the person sitting at the head of the table shook his head and dropped a bombshell. "It really won't work. I have connections with the foreigners, and I heard this matter has even reached overseas. Several foreign newspapers have published articles mocking Miss Su for perpetrating a fraud. If it were anything else, I wouldn't say a word, knowing Miss Su's capabilities."
Pausing for a moment, he slapped his thigh and gritted his teeth,
"But this is oil! China has never struck oil before. They have the experience, and if we can't compare, we just have to admit it!"
The crowd fell silent.
"If only Miss Su could actually strike oil,"
a voice suddenly chimed in.
Yes.
If only she could strike oil.
It would slap those foreign devils right in the face.
…………
"Are these words mocking me?"
Su Ning tilted her head, looking in confusion at the freshly delivered foreign-language newspaper in her hands. It was meant for foreigners living in China, so it was printed in the morning and reached her hands by the afternoon.
"Mhm, pretty much. It's a slang phrase. The literal meaning differs from the intended meaning..."
A few lines of plain text appeared.
They detailed the origin and evolution of the slang, even providing corresponding example sentences.
The system was being very considerate and thorough this time.
"No wonder I felt something was off."
Su Ning flipped the page without batting an eye. What a joke. With this pitiful level of attack, who could they possibly hurt? Back in her day, she had dominated major internet battlegrounds; just dropping her handle would instantly summon thousands of floors of hate comments!
She quickly finished reading the newspaper.
"Trash will always be trash. They can't even stir up public opinion properly; it's completely painless,"
Su Ning said, disappointed.
She had thought the race traitors collaborating with the actual foreign devils would manage to create some massive uproar. They were worse at fanning the flames and provoking emotions than the people in Beiping who used to curse her.
What a waste of anticipation.
Just then, her vision suddenly brightened. Su Ning looked up. Through a hand-wide gap in the layered velvet and silk curtains, the brilliant, radiant lights outside still managed to illuminate the room as if it were broad daylight.
"Is it time already?"
She stood up.
And lowered her eyes.
The late summer sunset was magnificent and colorful, yet it couldn't steal the spotlight from the luxurious beauty of the mansion below—no, it was more like a complex of mansions. It flawlessly blended the architectural aesthetics of the East and the West, built inch by inch entirely out of piled-up wealth.
The guests arriving from all directions
seemed to have their breath taken away by it as well.
Upon reaching the main gates, they all invariably slowed down. From Su Ning's vantage point, she could even see people poking their heads out to observe and marvel.
She watched in appreciation for a moment.
"It truly is fascinating."
"?"
"A grand piece of architecture that is so breathtakingly thrilling, elevating the very limits of human aesthetics. Those who see it have their breath snatched away, offering wholehearted praise and even worship, but in the next second, they plunge into sorrow over their own insignificance."
Just as the system was preparing to share its thoughts from the perspective of a non-human entity,
"Good thing I'm the master of this place."
Su Ning smiled brightly.
"..."
"Alright, time to get to work."
It is easy to go from frugality to extravagance, but hard to go from extravagance to frugality. If she didn't earn a bit more money to fill her coffers, it wouldn't do for her standard of living to drop once she returned to the modern era.
It was just a pity that a mansion like this couldn't be copied and brought back with her.
Even with money, it couldn't be built there.
Unlike the banquet in Nanjing, where her appearance also commanded the attention of the entire room, the attitude of the people here was much more attentive, and the smiles on their faces were far more eager.
Su Ning casually swept her gaze across the hall.
Those who caught her eye smiled even deeper, raising their glasses in greeting.
Even if, in the very next second,
her gaze had already moved past them.
There were many people here, familiar and unfamiliar, from within the country and from abroad. Su Ning's gaze merely skimmed past them, only pausing for a split second when she caught sight of the few members of the Su family.
Each of them was surrounded by their own small circle.
Half-Immortal Su.
Needless to say, the vast majority of his crowd were either here to get their fortunes told or had sought him out for a reading in the past.
Su Chen was surrounded by a younger crowd, all of whom carried varying degrees of a fierce, hostile aura... This kid had still gone down the old path dictated by the plot.
The only exception was Su Zhenzhu.
The men and women around her were dressed decently enough, but at a single glance, they looked completely out of place in this setting, exuding a visible, greenhorn naivety.
From time to time, people would cast curious glances in their direction... How did these people even get in?
Su Ning also took a few extra looks.
And then—
"Cousin."
