“Your father and I can’t possibly finish that much between the two of us. Give some to Nanxuan to take home. There are four people in his family, and with all the relatives and friends they’ll be seeing during the Lunar New Year, smoked meat makes a respectable gift.”
Here we go again.
The same classic script every year.
Chen Beicheng sat beside me with his head lowered, eating without saying a word.
I put down my chopsticks and wiped my mouth.
“Sure, Mom.”
Liu Xiulan raised her eyebrows, clearly not expecting me to agree so readily.
“Then tomorrow, I’ll help you pack—”
“But, Mom, there’s something I want to ask first.”
“What?”
“How many kilograms of this meat are you planning to have me give Nanxuan?”
Liu Xiulan thought for a moment.
“Twenty kilograms should be enough, right? You two can keep ten kilograms for yourselves.”
“Twenty kilograms.”
I repeated it.
“Yeah.”
“Then I have another question.”
My voice wasn’t loud, but everyone at the table stopped eating.
“Sister-in-law…”
I looked at Zhang Ying.
She was picking food up for her younger child.
When she heard me call her, she looked up.
“Yes? What is it, Sister-in-law?”
“Your online shop, ‘Zhang’s Western Hunan Flavors,’ sells smoked meat for 198 yuan per kilogram, right?”
The entire table fell silent.
Completely silent.
Even the two children stopped making noise.
The chopsticks in Zhang Ying’s hand froze in midair.
The smile on her face stiffened.
“Si… Sister-in-law, what did you say?”
“I said your shop on the e-commerce platform. ‘Zhang’s Western Hunan Flavors · Handmade Smoked Meat Workshop.’ One kilogram is 198 yuan, and you sell more than six hundred orders a month. Your short-video account is called ‘Yingying’s Western Hunan Flavors,’ and it has more than eighty thousand followers.”
My voice was calm.
“The meat you sell is made by me, isn’t it?”
### Chapter 6
The atmosphere around the dining table froze.
Zhang Ying’s face went deathly pale.
Not an exaggeration.
You could actually watch the color drain from her face, little by little.
First her lips.
Then her cheeks.
Finally, even her ears turned a sickly yellow-white.
Her lips trembled twice, but no sound came out.
The chopsticks slipped from her hand and fell against the edge of the bowl with a sharp *clink*, painfully loud in the silence.
Chen Nanxuan finally reacted.
He looked at Zhang Ying, then at me, and finally turned his gaze toward his mother.
Liu Xiulan sat in the host’s seat, holding her wine cup without moving.
But I could see that her knuckles had gone white.
She was gripping it tightly.
“Tangtang, what are you talking about? What online shop?”
Liu Xiulan spoke first.
Her voice still carried a hint of laughter, but the smile had already fallen apart.
I ignored her.
I took out my phone and opened the screenshots I had prepared beforehand.
The first photo:
The homepage of “Zhang’s Western Hunan Flavors · Handmade Smoked Meat Workshop,” registered under Zhang Ying’s name.
The second photo:
The product details page.
“A century-old traditional Western Hunan method, passed down through the mother-in-law’s family.”
The third photo:
Monthly sales data.
637 orders.
198 yuan per kilogram.
The fourth photo:
The homepage of the “Yingying’s Western Hunan Flavors” video account.
82,000 followers.
The fifth photo:
A screenshot from a video of Zhang Ying standing in front of the camera making smoked meat.
The sixth photo:
Customer reviews.
“Your mother-in-law’s craftsmanship is amazing.”
“Authentic farm-style flavor.”
“Third time buying.”
I placed all six photos on the table one after another, displaying them on my phone screen.
The overhead light illuminated them clearly.
“Sister-in-law, you don’t need to rush to answer. Let me go through this one thing at a time.”
I put my phone away and looked at Zhang Ying.
“Last year, I made twelve kilograms of smoked meat. Mom sent the entire batch to your family. At the time, I thought Nanxuan liked eating it, so I let it go.”
“Then your shop opened. What you were selling was the meat I made. 198 yuan per kilogram, several hundred orders a month, with monthly revenue of more than 100,000 yuan.”
“This year, I didn’t make any smoked meat. Your shop posted an announcement saying that the ‘supply was unstable.’ Then Mom called and urged me to make more, saying Nanxuan’s family didn’t have enough to eat.”
“Not enough to eat?”
I laughed.
“Not enough to sell, you mean?”
Zhang Ying finally spoke, her voice quiet and trembling.
“Sister-in-law, please let me explain…”
“Wait. I’m not finished.”
I took out another item.
A kraft paper bag.
The packaging from “Zhang’s Western Hunan Flavors.”
Inside was half a kilogram of smoked meat I had bought online.
I placed it on the table, opened the vacuum-sealed packaging, and pushed it into the middle.
A piece of sliced smoked meat, glistening with fat, its red color translucent.
“This is what I bought from your shop. 198 yuan per kilogram, free shipping. It arrived last month.”
I pointed to the diagonal cut at the end of the piece.
“My grandmother taught me this cutting method. You cut the end of the pork belly at a forty-five-degree angle so it’s easier to tie the string, and the fat drips evenly while smoking. The angle, the depth, the position—I could make this cut with my eyes closed.”
“My mother recognized it after just one bite. She said this was exactly the way I made it.”
No one at the table said a word.
Liu Xiulan’s expression had become extremely ugly.
She slammed her wine cup onto the table.
The bottom of the cup struck the tabletop with a heavy *thud*.
“Su Tang! What exactly are you trying to do today? It’s the Lunar New Year, and you’re making a scene like this…”
“Mom, you understand exactly what I’m trying to do.”
I looked at her.
“You’re the one who urged me to make the smoked meat every year.”
“You’re the one who sent it away.”
“And you’re the one who told Zhang Ying about it.”
No comments for this chapter yet.