When you mention Changleju, most people in Shan City know it.

This place was already a famous old restaurant before the founding of the PRC. After the founding, it went through all kinds of turmoil and eventually became a state-owned restaurant. Then, following round after round of urban planning...

It ended up becoming a bona fide old-school Shan City restaurant. Bring up Changleju, and basically everyone in Shan City can say a few words about it.

But ever since the renovation and expansion last year and the teahouse was split off, people haven’t been quite so enthusiastic when it comes up anymore.

Nothing else to it, the prices went up. It’s just too damn expensive!

A young girl was doing street interviews with a microphone. Hearing Shan City folks sigh about how pricey Changleju had become, her eyes lit up:

"So you feel like, the way it’s being run now, it’s gradually been assimilated by capital, and shifted from ’for the common folk’ to high-end? The whole direction has changed, yeah?"

"Tsk!" The middle-aged man speaking gave her a couple of side glances. "That’s you saying it, not me."

"You’re still young. Whatever you do, don’t just think about taking advantage. You get what you pay for, that’s always made sense."

"Back then Changleju’s food was cheap and tasty, I loved going. Now the food is expensive, but even tastier, I still love going! I’m just grumbling a bit because I can’t really afford it these days, how did that turn into ’assimilated by capital’..."

As he talked, he glanced at the phone she was using to stream, then puffed out his chest and squeezed to the front. He lifted his chin a little, looking very pleased with himself:

"Let me make a statement here: even though I can’t afford it, as an old regular of Changleju, I still got an invite for this All-Fish Banquet."

After he finished, he turned his head to look at the girl doing the street interview. "My place is right at the end of this alley. If you can wait, give me five minutes, I’ll run home and bring the invitation so you can film it."

Streamer: ...

No need for all that.

She just wanted to collect more material about Changleju, do some editing, and put out a little teaser for her stream!

Otherwise, she’d have spent ten thousand yuan buying a spot at the All-Fish Banquet from someone else, and not squeezing every bit of traffic out of it would be a waste.

Wait a second!

The streamer suddenly asked, "You need an invitation to attend the All-Fish Banquet?"

The uncle paused. "Yeah. I think the really high-tier members don’t need one, and they can bring friends. Everyone else has to hold a physical invitation. They only recognize the invitation, not the person..."

After all, Boss Chang wanted to really spread the name far and wide this time, so he invited guests through all kinds of channels. That included this uncle in front of her, who only got invited because he was a fairly well-known old foodie among the older generation.

Some quotas were also released at special prices, plus giveaways through local public WeChat accounts and so on; those took up a portion too.

Under these circumstances, going just by membership cards wouldn’t be appropriate. Loosening up a bit on real-name requirements, on the other hand, could attract more people from out of town.

And with invitations being physically delivered, anyone who showed up holding one was, in a subtle way, boosting the event’s classiness. This was something he’d thought through quite carefully for a long time.

The streamer’s spot at the All-Fish Banquet had been bought this way.

But at this moment, her brain spun once around, and she suddenly cursed under her breath:

"How come I don’t have an invitation?! Don’t tell me I ran into a fake scalper, for fuck’s sake!"

...

Meanwhile, outside Shan City Airport, taxi drivers were chatting in their group chat, also puzzled:

"How come so many people are going to Changleju today?"

"You take a couple days off and get totally out of the loop, huh? They’re having the All-Fish Banquet there tonight!"

"That’s quite a production. Don’t tell me they’re doing one or two thousand tables?"

"Not that many. I heard it’s four hundred tables..."

The drivers were chattering away. A lot of them had no real sense of what 400 tables meant, but many high-end hotels, their entire banquet hall might only fit seventy or eighty tables.

For Changleju, 400 tables was the maximum capacity of the entire building, top to bottom. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"They’re sending invitations everywhere. I heard they even sent them to the fire department..."

"Oh ho! What about the police station and that lot? Did they send any there? Would they even dare to go eat?"

Back when Changleju was what it used to be, they might have.

With the current Changleju... at those prices, a whole bunch of uniforms showing up, they’d be trending on social media the moment they walked in.

"Nope. They made this big show of carrying a whole box of invitations over there, and the station still wouldn’t take them. In the end, the manager said they’d have the kitchen pound out some fish balls for those on duty at the precinct and send them over so they could have soup instead..."

As for those not on duty at the station, do we even need to say? Of course they’d be out on-site helping maintain order!

After they finished, grabbing a late-night bite there to fill their stomachs a bit would be completely normal.

Putting together a banquet this huge—rumor had it they were going to go through five to six thousand fish tonight—the drivers joked and joined in the excitement:

"Hey, how come you’re not going?"

"Don’t even mention it. My girl was at home trying to grab one of those 198 special-price spots and still didn’t get one!"

"My boy roped in seven or eight friends to help him grab one and still came up empty... But if you go at the original price, even the lowest tier is several thousand yuan. How is that something folks like us can enjoy!"