As soon as the shredded cucumber salad was served, the atmosphere in the courtyard instantly grew lively.
The tangy, refreshing flavor teased everyone’s appetite, and even Second Uncle, who had been putting on airs earlier, could no longer maintain his dignified elder demeanor—his chopsticks never stopped moving.
“Ah, that’s more like it! Cold dishes whet the appetite. Once the appetite is open, we’ll be ready for the hearty dishes to fill us up!”
According to the old village tradition for banquets, cold dishes were the vanguard, while hot dishes were the main force. Now, it was time to serve the whole fish. In these times, whether for weddings or funerals, a table without a whole fish meant the host lacked propriety. The fish was the centerpiece, the symbol of “surplus year after year.” If this dish failed, no matter how well the rest of the banquet was prepared, the host would be harshly criticized.
“Gangzi, don’t just stand there watching everyone eat. Go fetch that big blue bucket in the corner—it’s time to prepare the fish.” Zhao Hongmei scraped the minced garlic into a bowl, wiped her hands on her apron without looking up, and gave the order.
Qin Gang had been staring at the empty plate, swallowing his saliva. Hearing his wife’s call, he quickly stuffed the last piece of hardwood into the hearth cavity, patted the grass ash off his hands, and replied, “Got it!” before running toward the shaded area at the base of the wall.
The big blue bucket had been personally fetched by Qin Jianguo from the reservoir yesterday afternoon. Inside were five large red-tailed carp, each weighing three to four pounds, still lively and thrashing. To prevent wild cats from stealing them, the bucket had been covered with a thick wooden lid, weighed down by a red brick used for building pigpens.
Qin Gang walked to the wall, grunted as he moved the brick aside, and without much thought, lifted the lid. He was thinking to himself that these fish were strong and that he’d need to grip them by the gills to avoid getting splashed when catching them.
He thrust his hand in abruptly.
What he expected was the slippery, hard texture of fish scales or the powerful slap of a fish tail. But the moment he grabbed, the sensation was completely wrong.
Soft.
Not the softness of a fish belly, but a mushy, boneless softness, like mud. And the moment his hand went in, the smell that had been trapped under the lid surged up in a rush.
Qin Gang’s heart sank. He jerked his hand back as if scalded, but his fingers had hooked onto something long. Instinctively, he yanked it upward with both hands.
Splash—
A murky sound of water.
Under the sunlight, what Qin Gang held in his hands was no red-tailed carp. It was a long, pale, dripping string of pig intestines!
The intestines looked like they had just been dug out of the slaughterhouse’s waste pile, barely cleaned at all. Bits of miscellaneous lymphatic fat clung to the intestinal walls, and even some unexpelled dark brown filth remained. As he lifted them, the pungent stench of raw pig manure, blood, and the sour smell of the murky water instantly spread, even stronger than the aroma of the fried crispy pork earlier.
In the murky water at the bottom of the bucket, a few pieces of purplish-red, limp pig lungs floated lifelessly. Their color looked like inflamed, rotten flesh, enough to make anyone’s stomach churn at a glance.
“What… what is this?”
Qin Gang was utterly dumbfounded. The six-foot-tall man stood frozen in place, holding the dripping string of intestines as if it were a venomous dead snake—unable to throw it away, yet unable to keep holding it.
Li Guilan happened to be carrying the empty plate that had held the crispy pork, intending to hurry along the next dish. Before she even reached them, her nose twitched first, and her brows immediately furrowed. “Gangzi, what are you rummaging around for? Why does it smell like a latrine?”
As soon as she finished speaking, her eyes swept over Qin Gang’s hands.
Crash!
The porcelain plate in her hands fell straight onto the hard, earthen ground, shattering into pieces. The crisp sound startled everyone in the courtyard.
“The fish?! Where are my five big carp? I spent over ten yuan on those, and I watched them get freshly caught!”
Li Guilan lunged over frantically, even ignoring the pungent smell, leaning over the edge of the bucket to peer inside. In the filthy water, aside from that pile of offal, there wasn’t even a single fish scale.
The old woman instantly felt the world spinning, her vision went dark, and she plopped down on the ground, slapping her thighs loudly with both hands as she wailed tearfully, “That damned beast Wang Dapang! He’s trying to drive us orphans and widows to our deaths! The fish are gone—what am I supposed to feed the relatives? This whole table of elders and youngsters—are they supposed to eat this shit-filled stuff?”
Her cry doused the lively atmosphere in the courtyard like a bucket of cold water, extinguishing even the last spark.
The relatives who had been waiting to eat the fish heard the commotion and craned their necks, some even standing up.
“What’s going on? Did I hear someone say the fish are gone?”
“Oh my goodness, this smell… it’s too strong! Did someone move a pigsty to the dinner table?”
As the wind blew, that foul, fishy stench drifted right into the banquet area. Second Auntie, who had just been eating with relish, her face instantly changed. Pinching her nose, her expression of disgust was as if she had stepped in dog poop. She shrank back, vigorously fanning her handkerchief in front of her nose.
“I say, sister-in-law, I was just praising Gangzi’s wife for her cooking skills, but it turns out you were setting us up here?” Second Auntie shrilled, afraid no one would hear. “If your family really can’t afford to buy fish, just say so. Even a bowl of tofu would do! Using pig offal as a substitute—are you treating us relatives here as human? Is this stuff even fit for people to eat?”
“That’s right, this is just too insulting.”
“Was that crispy pork earlier just a trick too? With the main dish gone, what’s the point of eating?”
Some began slamming their chopsticks, others started jeering. Two women with children had already stood up, pulling their kids along, muttering, “Let’s go, let’s go home and eat pickles. This place is unbearable—don’t let the kids get sick from the smell.”
Listening to these gossipy remarks, Li Guilan felt even more ashamed to live. Sitting on the ground, she could only cry and curse, utterly clueless. Qin Jianguo, beside her, was pacing anxiously, sweat pouring down his face more than when he had been tending the fire earlier. He wanted to explain but didn’t know where to start.
Qin Gang looked at his wife, at a loss. The large intestine in his hands fell back into the bucket with a splat, splashing a puddle of filthy water.
Wang Dapang’s move was cunning, utterly ruthless.
He had calculated that the Qin family would definitely have no time to go to town to buy more fish now, and even if they did, there wouldn’t be time to cook it. By stealing the fish and replacing them with this bucket of filthy, unmanageable offal, he wanted to watch the Qin family turn this full-month celebration into a joke, humiliating them completely.