Chapter 84: Former Good Brothers
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Early the next day, Wu Hao prepared to decorate lanterns and couplets with his family, which were traditional decorations for the Lunar New Year. However, he mostly did these tasks alone, while his parents and younger sister supervised from the side.

Although Wu Hao could easily use his mind power to instantly finish these decorations, he chose not to reveal his abilities to his family.

Moreover, personally participating in the decoration with his family gave a more festive atmosphere. After all, this year's Spring Festival was the liveliest in Wu Hao's family.

In this way, Wu Hao spent almost the entire day busy adding various items and preparing for the reunion dinner the next day.

His parents had already prepared to invite relatives and villagers from the village to celebrate the Lunar New Year together at their home, marking the celebration of their new house.

Although Wu Hao's family didn't have any immediate relatives in the village, his grandparents from his father's side had passed away when he was young. At present, his father's generation only had one elder sister, Wu Hao's aunt.

However, since Wu Hao could remember, he had only met his aunt once in person. That's because she got married and moved to Xiangnan Province.

Moreover, due to the poor conditions in their family in the past and the nearly one thousand kilometers of distance, Wu Hao's aunt and her family hadn't returned since his grandparents' generation passed away.

The last time they met was several years ago when Wu Hao's cousin got married, and Wu Hongguo (Wu Hao's father) visited his aunt's house. At that time, both Wu Hao and Wu Xiaoxiao were in school, and considering the expensive travel costs, they didn't go.

This time, Wu Hao's parents also invited his aunt's family to return to their hometown for a gathering. However, the short notice had caused all the train and plane tickets to be sold out, and the purchased tickets were scheduled after the 30th day of the lunar calendar.

And because Wu Hao's family was going to host relatives and friends from the village tomorrow, the preparations for the feast had to start this afternoon.

Fortunately, there were plenty of people in the village to help, so Wu Hao didn't need to personally take care of the feast preparations. He called over a dozen villagers who usually helped with such preparations.

To add some game meat to the feast, in the afternoon, Wu Hao specifically asked a few fellows from the village to go into the mountains together and catch a large wild boar.

Of course, it wasn't a random encounter for Wu Hao and his group to come across the wild boar. Wu Hao had secretly gone to a more remote area beforehand, where the boars were known to appear, and then he led the others to bring it back home without much difficulty.

In the evening, after a whole day of busyness, Wu Hao finally had some time to open his phone and log into his QQ account. He discovered that Hong Lei, whom he added as a friend last night, had already accepted his request and left him a message.

There was also a message from Liu Ben, informing him about the time and location of their class reunion tomorrow.

"The reunion is in the evening? That works out well. After taking care of the noon feast, I can go to the city," Wu Hao thought.

After reading the messages, Wu Hao quickly replied to Liu Ben's message and then sent a text to Hong Lei, asking for his phone number.

In a short while, Hong Lei, who was online, sent him his phone number.

"His number is registered in Dongguan City?" Wu Hao realized when he dialed Hong Lei's number and saw that it was registered in Dongguan City. He had a rough idea about Hong Lei's situation in recent years.

Because people like them, who left their rural hometowns with rural household registrations and went to major cities like Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou, mostly went there to work. And in recent years, Dongguan City in Guangdong Province had gained notoriety nationwide due to a comprehensive "cleanup" campaign.

This situation led to the immediate association that whenever they heard about a girl returning to her hometown from Dongguan City, the first thought that came to mind was that she must be one of the victims of this recent "cleanup."

"Old Hong?" After connecting the call, Wu Hao directly used the nickname from their high school days to address Hong Lei.

"Is this Haozi?" On the other end of the phone, Hong Lei's tone sounded somewhat tentative.

"Come on, Lao Hong, I told you years ago not to call me 'Haozi' anymore." Wu Hao heard this nickname and felt as if he had returned to their high school days, with a hint of helplessness and amusement.

"Haha! It's really you, little brat! I was planning to visit your hometown and find you this year! What have you been up to all these years? Why haven't we been in contact?"

Wu Hao briefly mentioned the incident of losing his QQ account and then asked in return, "By the way, what have you been busy with all these years?"

"Well, what else could I do? After dropping out of school and dealing with family matters, I went to Guangdong Province to work. This is the first time I'm coming back home this year!" Hong Lei said with a hint of self-deprecation and a sense of worldly weariness.

After all, spending more than four years working in another place before even graduating from high school, Wu Hao somewhat understood the ups and downs Hong Lei had experienced during that time.

Wu Hao didn't delve into that aspect further and changed the subject, saying, "So, what are your plans after coming back home this time?"

"Well, I have some ideas, but I'm not sure exactly what to do. By the way, speaking of me, you must have graduated from university by now, right? I saw some information in the group chat, and it seems like you're doing pretty well!" Hong Lei chuckled and said.

"Hehe! It's nothing much. I made some money trading stocks after graduation!" Wu Hao didn't hide it and came up with a good excuse for the source of his money.

Because making money from stocks was something everyone knew about. However, while there were people who made profits, there were more people overall who ended up losing. After all, everyone had a sense of the stock market's ups and downs in recent years.

"Trading stocks? Looks like you've made a fortune, huh? No way, you have to treat us!" Hong Lei, hearing Wu Hao's enthusiastic response, knew that this matter was definitely true. Although he was curious about how Wu Hao made money through stock trading, he had no knowledge of the stock market, so he didn't ask further or have any thoughts about it.

Due to his experience of working outside for these past few years, he had long realized what he should be doing. High-level activities like stock trading were definitely not something he could touch.

"Treating us is definitely not a problem!" Wu Hao smiled casually and then continued to ask, "By the way, you know about the class reunion tomorrow, right?"

"I know about it! Actually, I wasn't planning to attend initially, but since you're back, I won't be absent either." In fact, although Hong Lei had been in the class group chat for these past few years, he was mostly a lurker.

Because he dropped out of high school without graduating, and he didn't have much to contribute to the usual topics of conversation in the group. He didn't have the energy to engage in discussions or share stories, so he was more like a familiar stranger in the group.

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