NOVPUBThis year’s Chinese New Year came earlier than usual, January 15th for the small celebration and January 19th for the late stages of the festival.
Due to last year’s virus, this year’s festive atmosphere was especially rich.
A few days before the New Year, many temporary canopies had been set up in the square for selling New Year goods, red couplets, and shouting bargains on unsold shoes and clothes, a plethora of low-priced goods dazzling to the eyes.
There were deep-fried twisted dough snacks, sesame balls, sold in pieces of winter melon candy, coconut candy, and a variety of generic candies and chocolates, which attracted an endless stream of customers.
"Brother Qing Fan, try this!" Lin Wanning handed him a freshly fried dough twist next to his mouth because the streets were so noisy that the little girl’s voice was exceptionally loud.
"Delicious." He was eating one filled with peanut, Xu Qingfan commented as he chewed.
Xia Xiaoxiao pursed her lips, silently grabbed a few pieces of ’cat’s ears’ from her bag, and held them up to Xu Qingfan’s mouth.
"Not bad, pretty crunchy." Xu Qingfan leaned forward, bit it, and used his tongue to roll the ’cat’s ears’ into his mouth.
"Brother Fan, you try mine too!" Xiao Ruawen, seeing this, did the same, happily breaking her sugar ring in half to share with Xu Qingfan.
"Oh no, it’s too hard, I don’t like it." He shook his head and waved his hand in refusal.
The sugar ring is a traditional snack from the Liangguang Region, made of glutinous rice flour kneaded with brown sugar water, shaped into rings by hand or mold before being fried, eating sugar rings during the New Year symbolizes the wish for adding more family members and becoming wealthy.
However, because these are very durable for storage, they usually don’t finish by the end of the New Year, by which time the sugar rings have turned as hard as rocks.
When Xu Qingfan was in elementary school in his previous life, he often ate these for breakfast, those sugar rings harder than watching ten movies could possibly make, certainly left him with a psychological shadow.
"The freshly fried ones aren’t hard, Xiao Xiao, do you want to eat?" Xiao Ruawen turned her head and offered her half of the sugar ring to Xia Xiaoxiao.
"Hmm." Xia Xiaoxiao took it.
"It’s really lively over there by Brother Qing Fan, let’s go take a look!" Lin Wanning pointed to a stage not far away and said to the group.
Xia Xiaoxiao and Xiao Ruawen also looked at Xu Qingfan.
"Let’s go take a look then, everyone hold hands, don’t get lost." Xu Qingfan said.
"Brother Qing Fan’s side seems to be handing out toys, let’s hurry!" Lin Wanning, from afar, saw the host on stage handing out dolls to the crowd below and excitedly grabbed his hand to run.
Xu Qingfan also promptly grabbed Xia Xiaoxiao’s hand, and the four of them ran side by side in the square.
"A ’Wisdom Star’ learning device, originally 2888, we’re giving away for free today, everyone say good idea or not!"
"Good!" The audience below responded enthusiastically.
Xu Qingfan realized in a flash that it was one of those scams disguised as giving away learning devices for free, but actually aimed at extracting money from parents.
"Gentlemen, please move to the back, leave the front positions for the mothers with children, staff please help maintain order!" The audience continuously pushed forward as the host spoke again.
[They are selecting their target group now.] Xu Qingfan thought to himself.
"Let’s go in too, Brother Qing Fan!" As soon as Lin Wanning heard that children could stand in the front row, she excitedly pulled Xu Qingfan inside.
"Let’s just watch from outside, it’s too crowded inside and could easily cause a stampede." He gently tapped Lin Wanning on the head.
"You hit Ning Ning again~" Lin Wanning pouted, holding her head.
"A learning device valued at 2888, capable of teaching children English, Japanese, French, and many other world languages..." Once the order was restored, the host on stage kept blathering on.
"Are you really giving them away or not!"
"Yeah, if you’re going to give them, just do it quickly, I need to get home to clean!"
The audience below became impatient, complaining.
"I’ll count three-two-one, parents who want the learning device please raise your hand, I’ll see who’s fastest and give it to them, everyone say good idea or not!"
"Good!"
"Brother Fan, why didn’t you raise your hand just now?" After the first learning device was given away, Xiao Ruawen asked curiously.
As Xu Qingfan led the three away from the crowd, he finally said, "That guy is just a fraudster. His learning device probably costs only twenty to thirty yuan to make, and soon he will definitely say that the parents who got the prize need to pay 288 for some activation card, and then he’ll scam money."
"How do you know!" Xia Xiaoxiao, thinking back to how enthusiastically she had participated, suddenly felt embarrassed.
"This is an old scam; don’t you believe me? Let’s go back and watch, the ones who just got the free prizes are definitely shills, used to promote how good their products are." Xu Qingfan chuckled as he pinched Xia Xiaoxiao’s face, which was probably the hardest part of her.
"Ning believes you, Brother Qing Fan, last time you recognized the scammer on the phone before even answering!" Lin Wanning hopped excitedly on the spot, cheering for Xu Qingfan.
"Brother Fan, should we call the police then? We can’t let the scammer get away!" Xiao Ruawen, because of her family background, had a strong sense of justice and couldn’t stand by and watch the scammer escape right before their eyes.
"It’s no use calling the police; they probably won’t handle it." Xu Qingfan said, casually cleaning his ears.
"Why not, aren’t they fraudsters?" Xiao Ruawen stared incredulously.
"Such behavior likely constitutes consumer fraud, which should fall under the jurisdiction of the trade bureau; the police wouldn’t handle this." Xu Qingfan said as he patted the little girl’s head.
"But, but based on what you just said, Brother Fan, those people are definitely fraudsters; how could the police possibly not arrest them!"
Xu Qingfan could understand Xiao Ruawen’s thinking; after all, from childhood, we are taught in school to turn to the police for help, and the people’s police stand as a safe and reliable touchstone in the mind of anyone who has been through nine years of compulsory education. 𝙣𝙤𝙫𝒑𝙪𝒃.𝒄𝒐𝙢
