Chapter 62 : Chaos

“What? Hurry up. Go out and close the door for me.”

He Lingling suddenly lost all his strength. He put down the teacup and picked up the materials. “Okay, leader.”

Everything was normal at the state-owned restaurant today. There were still a few customers, lazy waiters swatting flies with swatters, and the delicious smell of food wafting through the air.

Qin Xiaoting pulled Jiang Li and whispered, “Lizi, why does it feel the same as usual?”

But Jiang Li, being sharp-eyed, soon noticed that the waitress who had spoken to Zhuang Guoliang last time was missing.

Did she ask for leave, or did something happen at home?

Jiang Li leaned toward the latter.

“What should we eat?”

“Two bowls of vegetarian noodles.”

It’s not that Jiang Li was stingy, it’s just that, with no follow-up on the issue of the sick pork, she didn’t dare to eat the meat dishes at the state-owned restaurant for the time being.

Qin Xiaoting also caught on. “Let’s go to the grocery store later and see if we can find some discounted meat.”

The two of them sat very close to the food window, eating noodles while observing. They overheard the waiter complaining, “Today’s meat dishes are too few. My daughter wanted braised pork, but there’s none. What’s going on in the kitchen?”

“How should I know? I didn’t buy the vegetables. It’s so unlucky. I finally got a day off, but Sister Fan dragged me to work.”

“Hey, didn’t her son get married today? I heard they’re having a banquet. Just bear with it.”

“She said something nice like, ‘You covered for me this time, I’ll cover for you next time.’ But when has she ever covered for anyone else? It’s so annoying!”

Jiang Li’s heart sank. The waitress, Sister Fan, who didn’t come to work, must not have received the complaint letter.

The diseased pork was likely used for the wedding banquet. With so many people eating together, it would be a disaster if something went wrong.

As the bowl of vegetarian noodles entered her mouth, Qin Xiaoting also slurped it down on the opposite side. After wiping her mouth, the two stood up and approached the waiters.

Jiang Li first handed each of the two waitresses a piece of candy, “Sister, I want to ask you something. Why isn’t Aunt Fan here today?”

The two waitresses exchanged a glance when they saw Jiang Li being polite. “What’s the matter? Are you her relative?”

Jiang Li smiled and said, “Yes, this is my first time in the city. My mother asked me to bring some dried vegetables to Aunt Fan, but she didn’t tell me exactly where she lived. She just said she worked at the state-owned restaurant and that I’d definitely find her here. I didn’t expect to fail. What should I do?”

The waitresses breathed a sigh of relief and looked Jiang Li up and down. It turned out she was Fan Ximei’s poor relative from the countryside. Maybe she’d heard about the wedding and was trying to go to the banquet to eat for free.

“Her house isn’t far from here. Just turn left when you leave the hotel, go to the end, then turn right. Walk to the alley with a well, ask around, and you’ll definitely find it.”

The two soon found Fan Ximei’s house, and sure enough, it was bustling and lively. Inside, an older sister dressed festively was talking cheerfully to relatives. The banquet hadn’t started yet. Jiang Li quickly scanned the scene and confirmed that it was indeed Fan Ximei.

“Lizi, what should we do?”

“Let’s write another letter and throw it into the yard. Whether it succeeds or not depends on God’s will.”

The situation was urgent, and the table was about to be set.

Qin Xiaoting took out a pen and paper from her bag, wrote with her left hand, then wrapped it in a stone and threw it into the yard.

“Oh, who is so wicked!”

Jiang Li and Qin Xiaoting exchanged a glance and said, “Run.”

The stone hit the head of a guest next to Fan Ximei, and the paper wasn’t properly secured, scattering on the ground.

Fan Ximei, with sharp eyes, immediately spotted the words on the paper: “The pork you bought is diseased, don’t eat it, it will kill you!”

Her heart sank, and she quickly picked up the note, holding it tightly in her hand as she looked around. Who on earth was so vicious to ruin her son’s wedding banquet?

Could it have been the neighbor with whom she had argued? Or was it someone from the restaurant?

Fan Ximei couldn’t figure it out no matter how hard she tried. Just then, her son came over and said, “Mom, why haven’t we started the meal yet? We’re all hungry.”

She made up her mind, thinking it was probably some malicious person who couldn’t stand to see her family doing well and had deliberately thrown the note to cause trouble.

For today’s feast, she had bought twenty kilograms of pork from the butcher. She couldn’t let the money go to waste. “Ask the chef to serve the food.”

Then, she rolled her eyes and said, “Son, come into the room with me. I have something to tell you.”

“Daughter-in-law, you eat first.”

The new bride in a red dress responded, feeling very happy. Although her mother-in-law had appeared powerful when the two families first discussed the marriage, she was actually a soft-hearted person with a tough mouth.

Several large bowls of pork slices were served on the table. The guests sitting down to eat quickly grabbed the meat with their chopsticks, the sounds of them falling like raindrops.

While eating, one guest praised, “Working in a restaurant is a good way to get so many meat dishes.”

“Ximei is a very open-minded person. Look at how rich she is. Who else can hold a wedding as grand as hers?”

“Why does this pork smell off? Is it rotten?”

“No, but it’s hot in here, so it’s normal to have a little smell. What’s there to worry about? Just eat it anyway.”

“Is Sister Fan at home?”

Two men in uniform with red armbands stood at the door and shouted, instantly attracting everyone’s attention.

Fan Ximei’s heart skipped a beat. She came out of the house and said, “I’m Fan Ximei, who are you?”

“We are from the Revolutionary Committee. We recently discovered a private slaughterhouse in Xiaoxingling. According to the owner, they recently sold a batch of diseased pork, and a lot of it has flowed into the market. Some of it was bought by you. Come with us!”

The two red armbands grabbed Fan Ximei, and her legs went weak. “Leader, I just bought some pork privately. It has nothing to do with this pig farm.”

“We’ll figure out what happened later. Let’s go!”

“What did they say? Diseased pork? Are we eating diseased pork?”

The guests at the banquet started cursing, realizing something was wrong with the pork on the table.

“I knew this pork tasted off! Eating diseased pork can kill people.”

“How could Fan Ximei be so evil-minded, buying diseased pork?”

“Mom! You can’t take my mom away. She doesn’t know anything about this!”

Fan Ximei’s son tried to handle the people from the Revolutionary Committee, while her daughter-in-law cast a suspicious glance at her mother-in-law.

Did Fan Ximei really not know the pork she bought was diseased? Why did she, who always loved her son, not let him eat quickly but instead called someone into the house? What were they talking about?

“Okay, no wonder your mom let me eat first. It seems like she’s using me as a test! Your family is precious, and your daughter-in-law is an outsider”

Fan Ximei’s daughter-in-law grabbed the man by the hair and started wrestling with him. Her family members who were still eating could no longer sit still. Several of her brothers-in-law also joined in, and the scene quickly became chaotic.