Chapter 875: Extra 2: Ji Xia Chapter (Two) Chapter 875: Extra 2: Ji Xia Chapter (Two) “Wow, these oranges are so sweet! Mom, why don’t we buy a couple more boxes and eat them later?” Jiang Feng had been eating oranges since before the party started and continued even as everyone else began eating the hotpot.

There were no performance programs at the party, just eating and drawing lots, which were the highlights of Taifeng Building’s annual party. Mrs. Wang Xiulian hated fussing over impractical things. Making employees perform would burden them, and hiring performers would burden her wallet, so she simply chose not to have any programs. Just eat, drink, and be merry.

“Buy oranges? Are you going to carry two boxes of oranges on the plane without getting tired? City Z isn’t without oranges. Look at you; it’s as if I’ve starved you, making it seem like you haven’t eaten oranges in years,” Mrs. Wang Xiulian said with a look of disgust.

Jiang Feng: …

He continued eating his orange quietly.

“Feng,” Wang Hao, holding a bowl of freshly snatched hotpot ingredients, pulled Jiang Feng to a corner with a mysterious look and whispered, “What’s the ultimate prize at this year’s party? Give me a heads-up, can you arrange it directly for me?”

Jiang Feng: ?

“You’re dreaming,” Jiang Feng stuffed the last bit of the orange into his mouth, wiped his hands, and prepared to scoop something edible for himself from the clear soup and tentatively try something from the spicy oil pot.

Jiang Feng’s eyes locked onto the bowl in Wang Hao’s hand.

The bowl brimmed with bright red vegetables, dried chili peppers clearly visible along with Sichuan peppercorn grains. The lingering aroma of the spicy hotpot in the air was frightening yet wildly imaginative, no doubt showing that Wang Hao’s bowl of food came from the spicy oil pot.

Delicious.

Despite the scary-looking red chili and peppercorns, it indeed smelled appetizing. It was so tempting that even a disheartened robot like Jiang Feng wanted to snatch a chopstick full from Wang Hao’s bowl to taste.

And that was exactly what Jiang Feng did.

Wang Hao: ?

Spicy!

Jiang Feng didn’t know whether his tolerance for spice had waned after not eating it for a while or for some other reason; a bite of bok choy tasted exceptionally spicy and tingled his tongue.

But it was delicious.

Exceptionally delicious, irresistibly compelling one to chew more and savor the tasty spiciness.

“Wow, why is this year’s hotpot so spicy?” Jiang Feng downed half a bottle of soy milk with a bite of bok choy, both pained and pleasured.

The victim of the stolen bok choy, Wang Hao: ???

Wang Hao pulled his bowl closer, murmuring, “You’ll have to ask your wife about that. I just heard that today’s hotpot base was made by Wu Minqi.”

“Minqi made it?” Instantly energized, Jiang Feng ignored everything else, grabbed his bowl and chopsticks, and squeezed towards the pot.

He definitely wasn’t busily eating the spicy hotpot just because he found it exceptionally delicious–it was mainly in support of his wife’s endeavor.

Don’t ask, it’s all about loving his wife.

Jiang Feng ate while taking deep breaths, drank soy milk, and calmed himself down, all while continuing to eat. Gradually, he moved away from the crowd toward the corner where the soy milk was stored.

Xiaxia was there.

Holding a small bowl of steaming spicy hotpot ingredients, she hopped with each bite from the spiciness yet kept eating ferociously.

Looking around, the empty soy milk bottles beside Xiaxia were no less in number than those beside Jiang Feng.

Recalling what Zhang Xi had told him earlier, Jiang Feng took deep breaths as he approached Xiaxia.

“Xiaxia,” Jiang Feng took a big gulp of soy milk, not wanting the spiciness in his mouth to affect his speech, “Have you been feeling down recently?”

“Ah?” Xiaxia paused, her eyes dodging. If she had another ten years to improve her acting skills, she might have been better, but her current skills were evidently inadequate in front of the Jiang Family Members. Jiang Feng could tell she was lying, “Not at all.”

Jiang Feng called her out, “Nonsense. If nothing’s wrong, why would you hide here alone to eat instead of joining everyone over there? Look, Ji Yue has started playing poker, and you’re not even watching.”

“But aren’t you eating here too?” Though Xiaxia was bad at lying, she was quick to react.

“I’m here for the convenience of drinking soy milk.”

“Me too, for the convenience of drinking soy milk!” Xiaxia blurted out.

Jiang Feng: …

Jiang Feng remained silent, just staring at Xiaxia until she began to feel guilty. This technique had often been used on him by Mrs. Wang Xiulian before his high school years; if he had done something not deserving of a beating but still worthy of a scolding, she would stare at him until he became so nervous that he would confess everything.

Sure enough, it didn’t take two minutes before Xiaxia confessed.

“It’s just that I don’t want to leave,” Xiaxia said.

“Don’t want to leave?” Jiang Feng didn’t understand.

“It’s time to go home today, and I don’t want to,” Xiaxia quietly said.

Jiang Feng couldn’t help but laugh, having heard of being reluctant to leave on vacations or from parents, but this was the first he’s heard of someone not wanting to leave work for vacation.

“What’s there to be reluctant about?” Jiang Feng said with a smile, “The annual leave is just twenty days. Think of it as a winter break. After it’s over, don’t you have to come back to work? I remember last year you were so excited, constantly talking about your mother-in-law, with not a hint of reluctance.”

“Last year was different,” Xiaxia said with a pout.

“What’s different? Last year, you couldn’t wait to see your mother-in-law, so you were eager to go home. This year you just saw her not too long ago and don’t want to see her, so you don’t want to go home,” Jiang Feng teased.

“No, I do want to see my mother-in-law; I just don’t want to leave,” Xiaxia looked extremely awkward.

Jiang Feng didn’t tease her further, although he still didn’t understand why Xiaxia didn’t want to go home, he could somewhat see that his senior apprentice was indeed being petulant.

“Alright, stop hiding here and eating alone. Let’s go watch Ji Yue play cards, and see if she ends up losing this month’s bonus to Sang Ming today.”

Jiang Feng pulled Xiaxia towards the card-playing crowd. They hadn’t reached them yet when they heard Sang Ming’s loud exclamations.

“I have a bomb!”

“One against two!”

“One king!”

“A three, heh heh, all done!”

Ji Yue’s face was as dark as if the blast had been directed at her.

After the basic hot pot event came the exciting climax of the lottery draw. Last year, Jiang Feng didn’t have the chance to see the draw because he was too drunk to notice before it happened. This year, being able to stay sober after eating the full city hot pot and witnessing the draw, he naturally wanted to see who would win the ultimate prize.

Mrs. Wang Xiulian had given him a heads up–the grand prize was a six-month year-end bonus paid in one lump sum, intended to encourage everyone to work hard, otherwise some slackers would get hardly any money even if they won the grand prize. In terms of prizes, Mrs. Wang Xiulian liked to keep it real, offering either cash, practical home appliances, tablets, gaming consoles, jewelry, or skincare products based on what people needed.

In the lottery format, however, Mrs. Wang Xiulian enjoyed adding some flair–a big red wooden box filled with slips of paper representing everyone’s fortune for the year. One grab, and it was clear who was the lucky guy and who was not.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this year’s business has ended for our store. I don’t want to say too much fluff. Everyone indeed worked very hard this whole year, from overtime at the beginning of the year to the very end, and it wasn’t easy for anybody. I appreciate that a lot. Our turnover has increased significantly compared to last year. I hope next year everyone will continue to strive and create more brilliance. To reward everyone, I’ve added a lot of updates to this year’s prize pool–so let’s get started with the lottery now!”

Accompanied by enthusiastic applause, the first lobby employee, who didn’t deserve a name, rushed onto the stage, reached into the wooden box, pulled out a slip, and excitedly, yet confusedly, handed it to Wang Xiulian.

Wang Xiulian shouted as loudly as a show host, “Consolation prize, a trendy mini-earphone, and a box of tissues.”

The real unlucky guy hung his head, holding a box of tissues, and got off the stage looking like he was too ashamed to show his face.

The second anonymous lobby employee rushed on stage excitedly.

“Consolation prize, a chic phone case and a box of tissues.”

Jiang Feng silently gave a thumbs up from below the stage. As expected, the updated prize pool had a variety of consolation prizes.

Even if it was an N card, the company would give you different N cards.

Perhaps it was because the unlucky duo got off to a good start that Master Wang, a local from Beiping, immediately won the first prize after stepping on stage–Jiang Feng’s final round type multi-functional luxury oven. An excited Master Wang stepped off the stage and called his son to drive over and take the oven home.

Jiang Feng also excitedly went on stage to draw a prize.

It wasn’t anything particularly great–second prize, a beauty face washer, one of those prizes that would end up back in Wang Xiulian’s hands by tonight.

Mrs. Wang Xiulian was thrilled, bragging to Jiankang about how her son always managed to please his mom when drawing lots.

As if she hadn’t paid for these prizes herself.

Mr. Sun, perhaps because he was too rich, had worse luck during the draw, winning the worst consolation prize–a stylish notebook and a box of tissues.

Zhang Guanghang didn’t fare much better, winning a third prize, a hairdryer.

Wu Minqi also won a third prize, but she was luckier than Zhang Guanghang–a bread maker, which she and Jiang Feng could both use, just what their home was missing.

Sun Maochai won a first prize, a new model smartphone, happily stating that he didn’t have to buy a new phone this year and could just switch to the new one.

Zhang Xi, who had been working unpaid at the Taifeng Building for about a month, drew a first prize Nintendo Switch, which roughly counted as receiving an internship salary.

Wang Hao also drew a first prize, a double-door refrigerator, and was very eager to swap with Zhang Xi, but she insisted that she really didn’t need the fridge.

Ji Xia drew a tablet, looking bewildered because she didn’t even have the Wi-Fi password.

Actually, the probability of winning that Wang Xiulian prepared for everyone was not low; there were only ten consolation prizes in total, while first and second prizes were more abundant. Getting a consolation prize only proved one was truly unlucky, as a lottery always needs a few unluckies to highlight the luck of others.

The special grand prize went to Ji Xue.

As the employee who worked the most overtime in the Taifeng Building, she received an extra six months’ salary all at once. Jiang Feng wondered if Mrs. Wang Xiulian would regret setting such a grand prize.

Whatever the fortune, the past year was, in one way or another, concluded on this day.

Although Chinese New Year had not yet arrived, everyone was already on holiday–it might as well have been New Year, right?

Those from out of town had mostly booked tickets to leave that same day–they were eager to get home.

Wu Minqi’s flight was in the afternoon, and it was a tight schedule. As soon as the lottery ended, she hurried home to grab her luggage and rush to the airport. The Jiang family had a flight booked for a little after five and had some time to wait. They could help clean the Taifeng Building first along with Ji Xue and Ji Xia, whose train times were similar to the Jiang family’s.

With their own hands, they took down the lanterns hung up in the morning, cleaned up the counters, and returned the tables and chairs to their original places. Wang Xiulian locked the big door of the Taifeng Building, and thus, last year’s business came to a close.

“Xiaxia, have you packed your luggage?”

“It’s all packed. Sister said we should head home to grab our luggage and then head to the train station right away in case the subway is too packed and we miss our train,” Ji Xia said.

“Yeah, better head out early.”

“Master,” Ji Xia suddenly stretched out her arms, wanting to hug Jiang Feng.

Jiang Feng hesitated for a moment, thinking it was not good for kids to watch too many TV dramas; just going home for New Year’s and it had to be so melodramatic, even requiring a hug as goodbye.

Jiang Feng hugged Ji Xia.

By now, Ji Xia was almost as tall as him, and she could no longer be treated just as a child based on her appearance alone.

“Happy New Year,” Ji Xia whispered.

“Tomorrow is only the Little New Year, Xiaxia. Isn’t it a bit early to wish me Happy New Year now?” Jiang Feng said with a laugh.

“So what if it’s early? I want to be the first one to wish Master a Happy New Year,” Ji Xia murmured.

“Then I’ll expect your first New Year’s call on the morning of the first day of the Lunar New Year.”

“Okay!”

“I’ll definitely be the first to call!”

In that moment, it was as if the old Xiaxia had returned.

Only, it seemed there was something slightly different.