Chapter 26 Shine Brightly
The guests present who had never seen Su Wan thought that a clumsy woman would come, but the person who was led over was clearly a fairy-like figure.
Some male guests had already rubbed their eyes, wondering if they had seen it wrong. Isn’t this what the fairy they imagined looked like?
Chu Wen led Su Wan to the banquet hall, turned around and went back without saying a word.
Su Wan stood there, not knowing what was going on, and not knowing why Duan Jingtian wanted her to come over.
What Chu Wen wanted was to make Su Wan helpless and embarrassed.
But Su Wan was only slightly confused for a moment, and then walked towards Duan Jingtian’s place.
Chu Wen said that it was Duan Jingtian who asked her to come over, so it would not be wrong for her to ask Duan Jingtian.
Su Wan walked to the table for male guests, approached Duan Jingtian, and said, ” Young Master Duan, Chu Wen said you called me.”
Duan Jingtian stared blankly at Su Wan in front of him. When Chu Wen brought Su Wan over, Duan Jingtian was stunned.
He should have walked over and talked to Su Wan, but because he was stunned, he just watched Su Wan walking towards him.
Duan Jingtian watched Su Wan’s skin become less dark day by day, but every time he saw Su Wan, she had a headscarf wrapped around her hair and mostly wore a loose apron. Although it looked good, it was not as good-looking as it was today.
Duan Jingtian was stunned, and the two tables of male guests who came today were also stunned. Ever since Su Wan appeared, they had been staring at Su Wan without moving their eyes, watching Su Wan walk towards Duan Jingtian step by step.
Wang Luosheng was very shocked. This person, is this person Su Wan?
As far as he could remember, no matter in his past life or this life, Su Wan always had dark skin and dressed very old-fashionedly. Even though the Wang family became prosperous later on, the clothes Su Wan wore were hard to describe. The jewelry she wore and the hairstyle she combed were all very dull, and could not be compared with the wives of his colleagues, which made him lose face.
Fortunately, Yang Yunyan was pretty and dressed elegantly. She looked very fitting in with other officials’ wives when standing together, which helped him save face.
Wang Luosheng had never seen Su Wan look so beautiful before, and he was a little dazed for a moment.
Duan Jingtian came back to his senses when he heard Su Wan’s question: “Oh, I was thinking that you were tired from cooking, so I asked you to come and sit with us. We are all about the same age, so I thought we could chat.”
Duan Jingtian said this, and stood up and led Su Wan to the table for the female guests.
Su Wan wanted to decline, but she heard a voice from the female guests: “Miss Su, please come and sit down. Don’t go back because you are timid.”
It was Qiao Yueru’s voice. Su Wan’s appearance shocked her greatly. She thought she was just an ordinary girl with a little bit of beauty, but she never expected that Su Wan’s clothes and appearance were so outstanding.
This made Qiao Yueru want to find some faults with Su Wan even stronger.
Yang Yunyan looked at Su Wan and felt a strong sense of crisis in her heart. She had always looked down on Su Wan, but at this moment, her heart was filled with panic.
Qiao Yueru’s ridicule was so obvious, but Su Wan didn’t plan to leave.
Duan Jingtian asked someone to bring a chair and placed it next to Qiao Yueru. Today, Qiao Yueru sat in the guest of honor seat, so Su Wan sat in the seat just next to the guest of honor.
Qiao Yueru was unhappy again. Duan Jingtian was really praising the cook.
Duan Jingtian has always been indifferent and polite to Qiao Yueru, but he has never been so thoughtful.
Normally, when Qiao Yueru attended a banquet and wanted to ridicule a girl from a small family, she would use the excuse that the girl had never eaten the food on the table. She would deliberately ask the girl the name of the dish and make her laugh by making her unable to answer. But obviously, this trick would not work today, because the food on the table was all cooked by Su Wan, and Su Wan knew more about it than Qiao Yueru.
Duan Jingtian stood beside Su Wan and introduced her to the guests: “Everyone, this is Miss Su. Today’s banquet was prepared by Miss Su. Just now everyone wanted to meet Miss Su, so I called Miss Su over to sit with us so that she can get to know everyone.”
After saying this, Duan Jingtian arranged for Su Wan to sit down, and then returned to his seat in front of his desk.
Qiao Yueru thought for a moment and spoke, “Miss Su, you have never been to a banquet like this, right? Let me tell you, you have to enter from the right and leave half of the chair empty when you sit down. You can’t fill the whole seat.”
Qiao Yueru also deliberately embarrassed Su Wan.
The girls at the table all smiled with their hands covering their lips. Meeting guests, attending banquets and eating meals all had their own etiquette. They had all specially learned these things. Su Wan, a little cook, naturally didn’t know how to do them.
Su Wan listened to Qiao Yueru and said slowly, “Miss Qiao is wrong. According to the Rites of the Great Zhou, after you take your seat, two-fifths of the seats should be left empty, not half as you said.”
Qiao Yueru blushed and argued: “I didn’t say anything wrong, you were the one who are wrong.”
Su Wan then recounted the passage in the etiquette book of the Great Zhou Dynasty regarding the etiquette of taking a seat at a banquet and pointed out Qiao Yueru’s mistake.
These days, Su Wan was reading in the Duan family’s study, and she had read The Rites of Zhou carefully. It was thanks to the original owner’s koi ( luck star) physique that Su Wan had the ability to remember everything she saw.
At the end, Su Wan used her own method to fight back: “Miss Qiao, you are the daughter of a famous family. Your family is a well-known family in Qingzhou Prefecture. You must not make any mistakes in the etiquette of attending the banquet, otherwise you will be laughed at.”
The girls present were originally laughing at Qiao Yueru’s use of etiquette to ridicule Su Wan, but now they were laughing at Qiao Yueru’s mistake.
The two tables of male guests around were not sitting at the same table with Su Wan, but at this moment all their attention was on the table of Su Wan and Qiao Yueru.
These male guests originally thought that Su Wan did not know these etiquettes, but Su Wan explained them very clearly, knowing them better than Qiao Yueru, who came from a wealthy family, and they could not help but look up to Su Wan even more.
Qiao Yueru was defeated. She really didn’t expect that she would be taught by a cook. These etiquettes have always been her job to teach others, not others’ job to teach her.
Su Wan was very generous and every time she picked up a dish, she would introduce to the girls around her what ingredients were used in the dish and what benefits it had on the human body.
These young ladies from wealthy and prominent families were initially repulsive to Su Wan, but after listening to Su Wan talk about which foods are best for the skin, which foods are best for the liver, which foods can help lose weight, and which foods should not be eaten when one has acne on the face.
These are the topics that girls are most concerned about. At this age, who doesn’t worry about their appearance and figure? This is related to whether they can find a good husband.
Everyone saw that Su Wan’s face was smooth and tender. It was obvious that Su Wan had such good skin because she knew these things and used these methods.
As Su Wan traveled through time from the 21st century, she naturally knew a lot of basic knowledge about skin care, which was much more scientific than what the ancients knew.
And Su Wan knew that if the girls had no topics to talk about, then it would be a sure thing for them to talk about clothes, jewelry, and skin care.
At the beginning, the girls were all trying to fawn on Qiao Yueru, but at this point they had already left Qiao Yueru aside and were only talking to Su Wan.
Qiao Yueru originally wanted to find some faults in Su Wan to embarrass Su Wan and make her look stupid, but Su Wan blocked her mouth from the beginning, so Qiao Yueru had no chance to make things difficult for her.
Qiao Yueru would not take the initiative to ask Su Wan questions. Like Qiao Yueru, Yang Yunyan would naturally not rush to ask Su Wan questions.
For a moment, at the table of female guests, only Qiao Yueru and Yang Yunyan sat there without saying a word.
Su Wan calmly answered the girls’ questions one by one, listened to their skin strategies and gave them advice on how to maintain their skin and what to eat and what not to eat. Her words and actions were all calm and generous, which made Yang Yunyan and Qiao Yueru seem out of place.
Ever since Su Wan arrived, the male guests’ attention was on the table of female guests. Naturally, the male guests could see how Su Wan spoke and talked confidently during the meal.
Originally, in their subconscious, Su Wan was a cook who cooked delicious meals but was petty. However, after Su Wan appeared, everything from her appearance to her manners and speech overturned their perceptions one by one.
During this time, Qiao Yueru deliberately asked Su Wan if she knew the origin of the bracelet on her hand. Originally, pure pink agate is rare, and ordinary people would think it is a pink crystal. Qiao Yueru wanted Su Wan to answer wrongly and make a fool of herself. Unexpectedly, Su Wan saw at a glance that it was pink agate, which made Qiao Yueru feel suffocated. She originally wanted Su Wan to reveal her pettiness and ignorance, but Su Wan debunked them one by one.
This was the reason why Duan Jingtian had to call Su Wan to join the table. Over the past few days, Duan Jingtian knew that Su Wan was not an ordinary girl from a petty family, so he felt very uncomfortable after hearing what Qiao Yueru said.
Now, Su Wan’s performance successfully made everyone no longer think that she was just an ignorant and unpresentable cook.
Duan Jingtian felt inexplicably proud.
Wang Luosheng really couldn’t believe that the person talking calmly at the table was Su Wan.
In his previous life, whenever there was a banquet, Wang Luosheng would take Yang Yunyan with him. Yang Yunyan was well-educated and well-mannered, so she naturally interacted with the wives of his colleagues. In Wang Luosheng’s mind, if Su Wan went, it would definitely be embarrassing for him.
In the second half of the banquet, the guests moved around freely and chatted with others, and many male guests went over to chat with Su Wan.
This was something that the girls who came to the banquet today had never expected. They thought that Yang Yunyan and Qiao Yueru would steal the limelight, but they didn’t expect that it would be a cook from the Duan family.
Yang Yunyan was even more anxious. She had never taken Su Wan seriously, but today Su Wan was obviously more dazzling than her.
Yang Yunyan looked in the direction of Wang Luosheng, and it happened that Wang Luosheng was looking at Su Wan.
Yang Yunyan felt a little uneasy. She walked over to Su Wan, who was surrounded by several girls and gentlemen, and said, “Sister Su Wan, after the banquet is over, everyone will go to appreciate the chrysanthemums and write chrysanthemum poems. Come with me and I will tell you one, otherwise you will have nothing to say when everyone tells you to recite one poem.”
The purpose of Yang Yunyan’s words was to remind everyone that Su Wan had not read any books and was very different from these young ladies who knew poetry and books.
Su Wan smiled and said to Yang Yunyan, “Sister Yunyan, don’t worry. I can recite at least a dozen chrysanthemum poems. I won’t stop reciting them just because others have told me.”
Yang Yunyan couldn’t believe it and blurted out: “Impossible, how can you write poetry?”
Su Wan answered slowly, “I learned to read when I was young. I have been reading in the study of Duan Mansion these days and memorizing some poems. Sister Yunyan, you don’t have to worry about me.”
Yang Yunyan tugged at the corner of her clothes and said, “Then recite a few of them.”
The ladies and gentlemen around also echoed: “Recite a few poems, Miss Su.”
These male guests didn’t want to embarrass Su Wan, they were just purely curious.
So Su Wan recited four or five poems in total, including Li Qingzhao’s “Ode to White Chrysanthemum”, Zheng Sixiao’s “Cold Chrysanthemum”, Qin Guan’s “Garden Fragrance”, etc., to prove that what she had just said was true.
It wasn’t that Su Wan wanted to be in the spotlight, but Su Wan didn’t want to be ridiculed by Qiao Yueru and Yang Yunyan, so she had to show off het abilities.
Yang Yunyan never expected that Su Wan could recite so many poems about chrysanthemums.
She originally wanted to embarrass Su Wan, but unexpectedly she made Su Wan shine.
Originally in the eyes of these guests, Su Wan was just an excellent cook, but after this incident, in the guests’ hearts, Su Wan had completely become an excellent girl.
Qiao Yueru was even more unhappy. She had planned everything, but she never expected that she would be overshadowed by a cook.
Today, Su Wan, other than for her identity as a cook, is more outstanding than the serious ladies present in all other aspects.
In terms of appearance, Su Wan was wearing an ordinary white dress for cooking, and her hair accessories were also simple and plain, but her whole person gave off the feeling of a pure and beautiful lady, naturally without any embellishment. The way she moved, she was ethereal and outshining all the girls in the room with their gorgeous clothes.
When it comes to etiquette, Qiao Yueru originally wanted to teach Su Wan, but Su Wan pointed out her mistakes. Su Wan even managed to recite the Great Zhou Li by heart.
In terms of poetry, Su Wan recited several chrysanthemum poems in a row. Although they were not written by her, they were enough to dominate the scene. In Qingyun County, being able to recite so many poems is enough to be called a talented woman. In this way, Su Wan will not be inferior to Yang Yunyan, who has always been known as a talented woman.
A male guest found it incredible and came to ask Su Wan why she knew so many poems. Su Wan said that she memorized them when she was reading books.
Everyone was amazed that Su Wan had such a photographic memory.
Wang Luosheng stared at Su Wan in a daze. He had never seen Su Wan like this before. In his impression, Su Wan was always dressed in rags, busy and cautious. He didn’t want to look at Su Wan at all.
But Su Wan today is completely different from the past.
While the people around Su Wan had walked away, Wang Luosheng hurried to Su Wan’s side.
“Su Wan, how have you been these days?” Wang Luosheng spoke, still with a hint of arrogance in his tone.
Su Wanyuan didn’t want to pay attention to Wang Luosheng, but Su Wan understood Wang Luosheng’s character too well: the more she took Wang Luosheng seriously, the less Wang Luosheng took her seriously; the less she took Wang Luosheng seriously, the more Wang Luosheng would rush to get close to her.
Wang Luosheng in the book is like this. He tries hard to please those superiors who don’t treat him well, but doesn’t pay much attention to those superiors who appreciate him.
If Su Wan hadn’t coordinated everything, Wang Luosheng would have fallen flat on his face just as he started his career. But Wang Luosheng still thought that his repeated promotions were due to his own talents.
Su Wan was worried that if she ignored Wang Luosheng for a while, Wang Luosheng would become interested in her, so when Su Wan saw Wang Luosheng approaching her, she put on a smile and said, “Brother Luosheng, you care about me so much, I, I…”
Su Wan pretended to be so nervous that she couldn’t speak.
There were not many people around at this time, so Su Wan performed very smoothly.
“Brother Luo Sheng, I’ve been away for the past few days. Have you been eating well, living well, and studying hard? Have Aunt Wang and Luo Xue taken good care of you?”
Su Wan asked very earnestly, returning to her original state of enthusiasm, concern and care for Wang Luosheng.
Wang Luosheng frowned, a wave of disgust rising in his heart. Originally, he still had some interest in chatting with Su Wan, but seeing that Su Wan was so eager to come forward, Wang Luosheng no longer wanted to talk to Su Wan anymore.
The image of Su Wan, who was in shabby condition and cautious at home before, appeared in front of Wang Luosheng again.
“It’s all good. You take care of yourself too.” Wang Luosheng replied perfunctorily and left Su Wan as soon as possible. At the same time, he became more and more determined to quickly distance himself from Su Wan.
Even if Su Wan excels for a while, she can hardly compare to Yang Yunyan. After all, Yang Yunyan comes from a scholarly family. Both the affairs of his family and his own career depend on Yang Yunyan’s planning and help.
Except for Yang Yunyan and Qiao Yueru, the other girls did not have such great ill will towards Su Wan. Su Wan knew a lot of ways to care for the skin, and these girls were willing to talk to Su Wan more.
After the banquet, the guests dispersed, and on their way back, they all praised Su Wan.
After the chrysanthemum banquet, Qiao Yueru did not go back to Qingzhou Prefecture directly, but went to visit Duan Jingtian’s mother.
The Duan family has always treated Qiao Yueru very well, and everyone can see that the Duan family hopes to form an alliance with the Qiao family and let Duan Jingtian marry Qiao Yueru.
Qiao Yueru brought Mother Duan a top-quality white fox fur coat and a complete set of jade face masks from Yujing Pavilion. This amount was enough for an ordinary family to use for several years. Mother Duan and Qiao Yueru talked in the room for the entire afternoon.
After Qiao Yueru left, Mother Duan called Duan Jingtian into the room.
Mother Duan was always dignified, but she was somewhat gentle to her son: “Jingtian, I heard that you have feelings for the cook who cooks for you.”
Duan Jingtian raised his head and did not deny: “Su Wan is a good girl.”
“No matter how good a girl she is, she is just a servant and cannot contribute anything to the family business. You still have to pay attention to what Yueru thinks.” Mother Duan’s expression became more serious.
Duan Jingtian said: “What does this have to do with whether or not I can help my family?”
Mothet Duan looked at her son’s handsome face and said slowly, “My child, you are still too young to know the pros and cons. Back then, your father was not the richest man in Qingyun County. It was because he married me that your maternal family gave your father a lot of help. Your father was able to leave behind a group of businessmen who were similar to him and develop step by step into the largest businessman in Qingyun County. Su Wan is a servant, how can she give you this help.”
Duan Jingtian was a little unhappy: “Su Wan is not a servant, she is not a slave, she was hired by me, she is the same as us.”
Mother Duan said slowly, “I called you here to talk about this slavery issue. Qiao Yueru came to my place before. Although she didn’t say it explicitly, she had already revealed it between the lines. She was very dissatisfied with the fact that you had a servant who was not a slave.”
If Su Wan was not a slave, Duan Jingtian might have raised her to be more than a concubine in the future. If Su Wan was a slave, she could at most be a concubine of Duan Jingtian. The fate of a concubine was naturally in the hands of the mistress.
Duan Jingtian was angry: “Qiao Yueru is really meddling in so many things. Su Wan is a good girl, why does she have to be associated with slavery?”
Seeing Duan Jingtian’s reaction, Mother Duan knew that Duan Jingtian was in love with Su Wan, so she said, “You are my only son, and I also want to fulfill your wish, but your legal wife must be Qiao Yueru.”
“Qiao Yueru hasn’t married yet, so it’s not appropriate for her to say anything like kicking Su Wan out, lest she be branded as jealous.”
