“Mom, stop wailing.” Zhao Hongmei’s voice wasn’t loud, but amidst the chaotic clamor, it sounded exceptionally calm, even carrying a reassuring steadiness. “Will wailing bring the fish back? Will it fill everyone’s bellies?”
Li Guilan, silenced by her daughter-in-law’s retort, choked back her sobs, tears and snot still on her face as she looked up at Zhao Hongmei. “Then what do you suggest we do? This is all pig intestines! And they haven’t even been cleaned! That Wang Dapang didn’t even leave any wood ash behind. How are we supposed to wash this stuff? How can we eat it? Even dogs would turn their noses up at the stench!”
“The Qin family really intends to trample their own face into the dirt today.”
Second Aunt finally stopped cracking her melon seeds. Holding a handkerchief over half her face, only her inverted triangular eyes were visible as she stared at the large blue bucket beside Qin Gang’s feet, her voice sharp as nails on glass. “The crispy pork earlier was just a stopgap. Now they want to serve this offal at the table? What, do they think we’re beggars here for scraps? Even at the slaughterhouse, this stuff gets thrown out—not even dogs would bother licking it!”
The commotion in the courtyard, which had just been subdued by the crispy pork, was beginning to stir again. The smell from the bucket was overpowering—a raw, foul stench of pig excrement mixed with a fishy odor, rising from the ground. The pig intestines were still soaking in murky water, dull and gray, with slimy bits of fat clinging to them, enough to make anyone’s stomach turn.
Li Guilan sat on a small stool, the hope that had just kindled in her heart at the sight of her daughter-in-law’s knife skills now extinguished by this bucket of offal. Her face twisted in distress as she rubbed her hands on her apron. “Hongmei, this… this stuff really won’t do. Even stir-fried cabbage stems would be better than this. If this smell doesn’t go away, all the guests will run off.”
Zhao Hongmei ignored the judgmental stares around her. She walked over to the large blue bucket and looked down.
Dirty. It was indeed dirty.
This was the lowest grade of offal, not even scraped of its first layer of fat, with remnants of filth still hidden inside. But in Zhao Hongmei’s eyes from her past life, this wasn’t just pig intestines—it was unpolished jade, the foundation for the Lu cuisine dish “Nine-Turn Intestines,” a delicacy so fragrant it could knock someone off their feet.
“Gangzi, don’t just stand there.” Zhao Hongmei rolled up her sleeves, revealing a stretch of pale, slender arm, and instructed without looking back. “Go inside and bring out the sack of flour. Then fetch the vinegar jar and the big salt jar too.”
“What?” Li Guilan reacted as if she’d been stepped on. “Flour? That’s premium flour! We don’t even use it for dumplings during the New Year. You want to use it to wash these shit-filled intestines? This is a sin! Such a waste, truly a waste!”
“Mom, if you want the relatives to point at Brother Jianguo’s nose and curse him, then I won’t use the flour.” Zhao Hongmei’s tone was flat, not even glancing at her mother-in-law as she tested the water temperature in the bucket. “If you want to save face, don’t begrudge these things.”
Li Guilan opened her mouth, then looked at the courtyard full of relatives waiting to see them fail. Finally, she stomped her foot hard, turned away to wipe her tears, and said nothing more.
Qin Gang moved quickly, and soon everything was ready.
Zhao Hongmei didn’t bother with a basin either, directly carrying those strings of large intestines over to the clean basin next to the cutting board. She grabbed the flour sack and, without the slightest hesitation, poured in a small half-basin’s worth with a “whoosh.” The snow-white, fine flour covered the filthy intestines, making the onlookers’ hearts race with anxiety.
Next came salt—large handfuls of coarse sea salt scattered in.
Finally, vinegar—the dark brown aged Chen vinegar poured in with a light “sizzle,” the sourness instantly cutting through the rank, gamey smell.
Zhao Hongmei plunged both hands directly into the basin.
The moment she did, the sensation was like grabbing into a nest of slippery loaches—cold and sticky, that soft, slimy feeling mixed with greasy granules. Anyone more squeamish would have vomited right then. But Zhao Hongmei didn’t even furrow her brow.
She began scrubbing.
Not some gentle, perfunctory wash, but like scrubbing coarse work clothes caked in mud—using real force. Flour was the best treasure for absorbing grime, the gritty coarse salt scraped all the mucus off the intestinal walls, and the aged vinegar sterilized and removed odors.
“This wife… really has some strength in her hands,” someone in the crowd muttered softly.
Watching Zhao Hongmei’s hands fly up and down, the originally snow-white flour soon turned into a grayish-black paste—all the filth from the intestines had been stripped off. She tucked one end of an intestine inside and, following the natural twist of the gut, the entire length “slipped” and flipped inside out.
Once flipped, that was when the real disgust set in. The inner wall of the intestine was hung with clusters of lymph nodes like grapes, along with large chunks of yellowish lard, enough to tighten anyone’s throat.
Auntie Er took two steps back in disgust: “Oh my goodness, can this even be eaten? Might as well feed it directly to the pigs.”
Zhao Hongmei didn’t even lift her eyelids, a small boning knife somehow already in her hand. Without any apparent effort, the tip of the knife traced along the intestinal wall—picking, scraping, tearing. Those foul-smelling lymph nodes and excess fat fell away like withered leaves blown down by the wind, clattering down.
Her movements were too fast, flowing like water, without the slightest hesitation. That pile of nauseating waste was soon cleaned away, leaving only a thin, resilient layer of membrane.
“Gangzi, change the water!”
Qin Gang had long been waiting with two buckets of well water. A basin of dirty water was tossed out, replaced by clear, cool well water.
This was repeated three times.
When the final round of clean water was poured into the basin and the intestines were lifted out, the murmurs in the yard suddenly fell silent.
In the sunlight, what Zhao Hongmei held in her hands was no longer the dull, gray, foul-smelling offal from before.
It was a string of gleaming white “tubes.”
Water droplets slid down the intestinal walls. The cleaned intestines took on an ivory-like milky white, slightly translucent, trembling delicately—looking both firm and clean. That slimy, disgusting sensation was completely gone, replaced instead by a freshness reminiscent of freshly peeled lychee flesh.
“My goodness…” Qin Jianguo watched, eyes wide. “Is this really the same pile of rotten guts from before?”
Zhao Hongmei tossed the cleaned intestines into the large iron wok. This time, it wasn’t for frying—it was for blanching.
The water in the pot came to a boil. She tossed in a handful of ginger slices, a few sections of scallion whites, and poured in half a bowl of baijiu. The intestines rolled in the bubbling water, quickly contracting and tightening, transforming into beautiful circular rings. What rose with the steam was no longer any foul odor, but a faint aroma of meat, scallion, ginger, and liquor.
After blanching, she fished them out and rinsed them in cold water—this step was to make the texture crispier.
Zhao Hongmei placed the intestines on the cutting board and raised her knife.
Thump, thump, thump, thump…
Each cut was exactly an inch long, the neat circular segments arranged on the plate like rings of white jade.
“Sister-in-law, get me a basin for these intestine segments,” Zhao Hongmei wiped the water from her hands. “Now comes the real skill.”