1986: My Happy Life in Provence

Chapter 236: The Story of Provence Kings
On the other side of the restaurant, Ronan was asking two Vaucluse officials about the 'government attitude'.

Astrid said that if she wanted to push the Lourmarin government to get involved with rosé wine, she needed to let Blanco see the government's attitude towards rosé wine.

This so-called "government" should preferably be the Tourism Bureau, but there is no one from the Tourism Bureau in the association.

But Ronan clearly remembered that on the day when they had hot pot at his house, Corentin once said that he was familiar with officials from many departments and could introduce some of them to Ronan.

And in the spring, when Eliot brought Quincey to persuade Ines to encourage as many wine-making cooperatives in the Vaucluse as possible to make rosé wine, this official was the friendliest person present towards Quincey from the Tourism Bureau.

"Corentin, do you know anyone in the Tourism Bureau?" Ronan asked casually.

Corentin shrugged.

"Of course, who doesn't have a few 'rich friends'?"

Juliet, who was standing by, smiled knowingly:
“The Tourism Bureau cooperates frequently with various departments, and we are happy to have this opportunity to cooperate.”

Ronan understood what they meant.

Wherever there is a tourism bureau, there will be money.

It must be the most popular group of people in this province famous for tourism.

Ronan raised his glass and asked in a more casual tone:

“Do they like rosé too?”

This was a gathering of the Vaucluse Pink Wine Lovers Association, and everyone's topic was about pink wine, so it wouldn't be surprising for Ronan to ask this question.

Corentin thought for a long time, frowned and said:
"We didn't talk about rosé."

Juliet also recalled and replied to Ronan:

“I’ve had drinks with them a few times, but they were drinking something else.”

Ronan smiled and pointed around, saying in a joking tone:

“That must be because they have never been to my restaurant. In such a great rosé wine atmosphere, they will definitely discover the true charm of rosé wine!”

Juliet raised her glass to Ronan:

"The rosé atmosphere here is the best I've seen in Provence. No wonder Astrid likes it. If I have the chance, I will definitely bring my friends here often."

All the members of the association were carefully selected by Ines. Although their love for rosé wine was not as high as Ronan and Astrid's, they could be described as "fanatic" compared to normal people.

Who doesn’t want to drink in a rich rosé atmosphere?

Corentin wasn't sure if Ronan was really joking or "expressing" something, but he raised his glass and replied in a joking tone:

"Next time I meet up with the guys from the Tourism Bureau, I'll definitely recommend them to come here and ask them in person if they like rosé."

Corentin and Juliette had been trying to please Astrid, covertly or overtly, for two or three years.

But this lady always looks like she doesn't care. Every time we meet, she just drinks and drinks. She doesn't accept anyone's invitation and keeps a distant relationship with everyone.

Now we finally have a breakthrough.

No matter what the relationship between Ronan and Astrid is, it is definitely different from their relationship!
If you can't lick Astrid, then lick Ronan. What if that works?
Ronan said happily:
“I’m really looking forward to that scene!”

Isabelle took the opportunity to change the plates to whisper in Ronan's ear that Blanco wanted to talk to him in the evening.

Ronan followed Isabel's gaze and found that Blanco was staring at him with a frown, as if he had a lot to say.

He immediately guessed Blanco's purpose in looking for him - he must have recognized the officials at the table and wanted to ask about the situation.

Ronan thought for a second or two, then knocked on the table with a wicked smile, and then asked Isabel to reply to Blanco:
"Tell Blanco I'll be right there."

After that, Ronan said to Corentin and Juliet:

"Sorry, I have to leave for a while. A 'leader' has arrived and needs my company."

"Leader?" Corentin chuckled and looked around.

I'm not exaggerating, Ronan, the biggest "leaders" in the restaurant are definitely Juliette and I.

Who are you going to leave us for?
Juliet hadn't talked enough with Ronan yet, so she started searching with Corentin and soon found the target.

She smiled and gave Ronan a 'reassuring' look:

"You're an acquaintance. I'll go with you to say hello."

Corentin rose with them:

"What a coincidence, he's also an acquaintance of mine, so I'll go say hello too.

Blanco didn't expect Ronan to bring Corentin and Juliet with him.

The meaning of his words was very clear, he wanted to talk to him privately.

Why did you bring outsiders here?

But Blanco soon discovered that the real 'outsider' seemed to be him.

After a brief greeting, Corentin, who often makes things difficult for others at work, patted Ronan on the shoulder and said to Blanco:
"You are so lucky. Ronan chose to settle in Lourmarin and opened such a great restaurant here. If I were you, I would wake up with laughter. You must help Ronan to run the restaurant well."

Juliette, who had nearly punished Lourmarin, shook her wine glass and said:

"My good brother Ronan is in Provence for the first year, so there must be many things he doesn't understand. Blanco, I hope you will take good care of me in the future. This is my toast to you."

Ronan kept smiling to cover up his current mental activity.

Corentin knew that he had to let Blanco 'help' him run the restaurant successfully, so why didn't he know this himself?

It's been a month since the business opened, and this is the first time he came to 'help out'.

Also, he had known Juliet for half a year, but this was the first time he knew that he was her "good brother".

Why did good sister Juliet have almost no contact with him in the previous six months?

Blanco stood up flattered:
"I will take good care of Ronan even without you telling me."

He wanted to raise his glass in return, but found that the wine had not been served yet and the glass was empty.

Ronan patted Blanco's back gently, poured pink wine into his glass, and explained to the two Vaucluse officials with a smile:
“Blanco likes to drink rosé, too.”

Blanco drank the wine with a smile, but in fact he had more doubts in his heart.

Why did Ronan use 'also'?
Corentin and Juliet came to "support" Ronan. After chatting for a few words, they took Ronan away.

"Where were we talking about just now?" Corentin asked Ronan.

Ronan answered word by word:

"We talked about how you wanted to bring people from the Tourism Bureau to my restaurant for a meal if you had the chance, so that they could see the pink wine atmosphere here."

"Ah, yes, yes!" said Corentin, laughing. "You young people have good memories!"

Behind them, Blanco's pupils dilated.

Does Ronan have such a good relationship with the Vaucluse government?
Blanco didn't wait for Ronan to finish receiving the people from the 'Vaucluse Pink Wine Association'. He and his wife finished their meal and left.

But Ronan knew that their 'conversation' was over.

After seeing off the association members, he stood in the night, looking towards the center of Lourmarin with a complicated expression.

It wasn't as if Lady Astrid hadn't 'taught' him anything during their latest meeting.

She demonstrated it to Ronan in person - some things don't need to be said directly, nor do they need to be done personally, just create a little bit of room for imagination.

But this principle can only be used by 'high-ranking people'.

I don’t know if what happened today will have any effect on Blanco.

After Halloween, Feng Zhen, Luo Tianhai and Luo Nan sat together to review the accounts again.

Driven by a small peak in customer traffic on Halloween, the restaurant's profit in the first month reached more than 9 francs.

However, this should be the best result this year. Even if one or two festival events can still be planned in November, the turnover will hardly exceed the October figure, because winter in Provence is about to begin and the outdoor areas will soon be closed.

One reason for this is the reduction in reception areas, as well as the fact that Provencal people are less active when the temperature drops; this is the month when they spend their time making babies at home.

However, the Paris family still has full confidence in the restaurant.

Even if the outdoor area is closed, the restaurant will not be short of customers every day and will definitely be able to continue operating.

After leaving enough money for the restaurant's operating costs and living expenses, Feng Zhen helped Ronan save 7 francs, which was the first sum of money for buying a house.

In order to find out the market price of buying a house at this time and how much money to save in the future, Ronan took the time to visit the Lourmarin Government Building.

This time, no junior staff dared to receive Ronan, so they directly invited Ronan to Sylvie. But this most important government official in Lourmarin could not answer any of Ronan's questions:
"Blanco said in a meeting a few days ago that all your problems must be handled by him personally, but he has been on a business trip to Avignon these days. Can you come back in a few days?"

Although he didn't get what he wanted, Ronan was in a good mood when he left the government building, with a smile on his face all the time.

The 'new thing' Astrid taught him seemed to be working again!

It's been a while since the wild boar incident that troubled a family in Paris.

Ronan had already let down his guard, put his two guns in a safe place, walked the dog as usual in the morning and evening, and resumed his night walks with Zoe.

Feng Zhen no longer stared out the window nervously every day, and seemed to have forgotten the "poor little guy" that she once talked about every day.

Among the family, only Luo Tianhai is still thinking about the once dangerous area.

Every morning he would pay attention to the movement in the direction of the dense forest:

"There are even more cars today, 8 in total."

No one knows whether there are wild boars there. But the dense forest has become a popular hunting "attraction" in Luberon, and people go there every day.

"Two more cars than yesterday?" Feng Zhen walked to the window to watch the fun while drinking coffee.

The old couple are becoming more and more like the people of Provence.

Ronan swallowed the last bite of breakfast:
"Normal. Places without danger are more suitable for picnics and playing cards. What if we really encounter wild boars somewhere else?"

He washed his hands, squatted down to put white handkerchiefs on Xiao Hei and Ma Sai, and went out to walk the dogs.

Feng Zhen came to the door with a coffee cup:
"Why don't you just forget about it? From what you said, it seems to be of no use."

Ronan opened the door and the two dogs rushed out quickly:

"We can't take it lightly. Perhaps the danger is around us."

Some hunters would go into the woods for a picnic.

Some people simply got out of their cars and started spreading out picnic mats.

As more and more people come to this dense forest to hunt, more and more picnic mats are planted between the dense forest and the vineyards.

Whenever Ronan showed up at the vineyard with his two dogs, it was like a side dish for the picnicking group.

While drinking red wine and eating cheese, they would tell stories of ups and downs such as "I have seen a dog that was even shabbier than that dog", "I saw two male dogs fighting with my own eyes, and one of them bit off the other's ear", "I also had a Doberman, but he was so loyal that he stayed in the valley of Luberon forever to protect me".

No matter where Ronan hid, he could feel countless eyes staring at him and the sound of brains working rapidly to make up stories.

So recently he has been taking his two dogs to play at the edge of the dense woods, instead of staying in the empty, sweeping vineyards.

It is no exaggeration to say that the jungle is much safer than the outside world now. You just need to be wary of those unreliable hunters.

However, hunters in Provence like to move in groups and have no organizational discipline. They will also "kindly" loudly remind animals within a few hundred meters - we are coming, run away.

Ronan could easily detect their presence from hundreds of meters away, so he just had to stay away from them.

However, what was unexpected was that when he was out walking the dog today, he actually found a lone person.

When Ronan found him, the man was standing under an oak tree in a strange posture.

He was wearing a pair of over-the-knee rubber waterproof shoes for fishing, holding a wooden pole in one hand and a red plastic bag in the other. He had a beekeeper's hat on his head, covering his head and most of his upper body.

Thanks to the red plastic bag, Marseille was able to spot this man from a long distance, giving Ronan plenty of time to observe him.

If Ronan saw this strange guy when he was closer, his first reaction would definitely be that some kind of monster had appeared in the jungle - because that person's behavior was too strange, and it didn't seem like a human being at all.

He was so glad that he didn't change the habit of putting white handkerchiefs on Xiao Hei and Ma Sai. If he really ran into a "strange" thing, maybe he could let it go for the sake of both parties' spirituality.

Why do you say he is strange?

Because after observing the moss and soil under the oak tree, the man would stand up, reach far forward with his rubber-shod feet, and slide left and right. The wooden pole was used to support his body so that he could move like a compass.

Ronan didn't know what the man was exploring with his feet, but he just took a step forward while drawing a circle, and took a step forward while drawing a circle. He was moving slowly like a compass.

The man seemed to be on guard against something, with all his attention focused on his feet. He didn't notice that there were a man and two dogs behind him who had been watching him with great interest for a minute or two.

Marseille couldn't help but walked up to him and sniffed his pants. Unexpectedly, this small action allowed Ronan to see a wonderful acrobatic performance.

The strange man found something under his feet and jumped into the air as if he was struck by lightning, but he might have forgotten that he was a "compass". At the same time as his feet left the ground, one of his "hands" was in contact with the earth. Then he stabbed the ground four times within one second, like a swordsman who could use sword energy to rise into the air.

With a tragic cry of "Oh my God", he landed heavily on the ground and finally found Ronan and his two dogs.

"Sorry, are you not hurt?" Ronan asked worriedly, resisting the urge to applaud his wonderful moves.

The man patted his chest several times with the hand holding the red plastic bag:
"I was so scared, I thought something was biting me."

Ronan half-knelt down and tried hard to imitate the action of drawing a circle with his feet:
"Are you on guard against something?"

The man immediately stood on one foot, "standing on one leg" and stared at the ground with a horrified look:
"Snakes, of course they are snakes. If they bite me, I will die."

Ronan said kindly:

"There shouldn't be any snakes around here, at least not near the edge. I don't know if we'll get deeper into the area."

Ronan often comes to this dense forest during the non-hunting season. Both dogs are excellent hunting dogs. He would know it if he had met them.

The man was embarrassed by Ronan's words and kept rubbing his chin.

Perhaps to save face, he lifted up his beehive hat and started chatting with Ronan:
"'It's better to be safe than sorry', especially for excellent truffle hunters like us. Even the heavens would be jealous of us."

"Truffle hunter?" Ronan put away his smile and looked at his colleague seriously.

The man laughed dryly twice and raised his eyebrows proudly:
"Yes, I am a professional truffle hunter!"

"What a coincidence, me too." Ronan said with a smile.

The man looked at Ronan's two dogs with sudden realization:
“Are you looking for truffles too?”

Ronan shook his head:

"Oh, no no no, I'm walking the dog."

The man distanced himself cautiously:

"Man, I was here first."

Seeing his obvious territorial marking, Ronan said with a smile:

"Hey man, there are no truffles around here, so just relax, okay?"

He has been coming to this forest every day recently, but has never smelled the scent of truffles.

Unexpectedly, the man suddenly opened his red plastic bag and showed it to Ronan:
"That's because you haven't found the trick. Look, these are all my harvest this morning, 8 big truffles!"

The man only showed Ronan about 1 second.

However, Ronan still saw most of it clearly. The dark blue, brown, bright, and orange mushrooms were colorful, but the only thing missing was the black truffle he was familiar with.

After closing the bag, the 'colleague' put it to Ronan's nose and shook it twice:

"Do you smell it? The smell of truffles!"

Thanks to his generosity, Ronan was able to confirm by smell that there were indeed no truffles inside.

"Leave here quickly, don't forget that this piece of land belongs to me." The man waved a wooden pole to warn, then stretched out a leg and drew a circle forward.

When Ronan left the jungle and went home, he would definitely pass by people having a picnic.

It was just a quick glance, and those people were unwilling to let go of them and their two dogs.

"I have a very good friend in Gordes who has two great truffle hunting dogs. With their noses, my friend can earn more than 30 francs a winter. Man, that's more than 30 francs. That's more than what those white-collar workers in Paris make!"

Others followed with exclamations of envy or surprise, and then moved on to the next story.

Ronan shook his head helplessly.

Provence is really full of "story kings" who can make up stories about anything they see.

But your vision is still too narrow.

30 francs a winter. Is that a lot?
When he got home, Ronan did not go to the restaurant with his parents.

"You guys go ahead, I'll look for some clothes."

"What clothes are you looking for?" Feng Zhen asked Ronan who was coming upstairs.

Ronan's voice came from the second floor:
"Clothes for going into the mountains in winter. Those that Zoe bought for me."

(End of this chapter)