“What do you mean, you don’t need me to? How could you say something like that to her…”
“Chen Beicheng.”
I looked up at him.
“You called her, so what can you do? Will she change? After she insults me, you say a few words to her, and she’ll change? What difference does it make if she just finds another way to keep poking at my wounds next time?”
He stood there, his mouth opening and closing, unable to say anything.
The cup in his hand was still tilted, and water had already spilled into a small puddle on the floor.
“Clean up the floor.”
I got up, went into the bedroom, and closed the door.
I wasn’t throwing a tantrum.
I truly didn’t want to say anything anymore.
Some things could be summed up in just two words.
Useless.
Could he really shut his own mother up?
He couldn’t even stop her from taking the twelve kilograms of meat.
That night, I couldn’t sleep.
I tossed and turned, but what occupied my mind wasn’t Liu Xiulan’s words.
It was a very practical question.
Was what she said about Chen Nanxuan’s family being “in a difficult situation” actually true?
I didn’t know much about Chen Nanxuan and his wife.
All I knew was that Nanxuan lived in the provincial capital and, supposedly, ran some kind of business.
Zhang Ying seemed to be a full-time homemaker who stayed home to take care of the children.
In Liu Xiulan’s eyes, they were always struggling financially.
But I remembered last Lunar New Year, when Zhang Ying walked into the house carrying that bag.
And the lipstick she was wearing.
The color was beautiful.
It didn’t look cheap at all.
Could a struggling full-time mother really afford a bag like that?
At two in the morning, I picked up my phone, opened WeChat, and went to Zhang Ying’s profile.
We hardly ever contacted each other.
Occasionally, around the Lunar New Year, we would send each other a red envelope as a greeting.
That was all.
Her profile was set to show only the most recent three days.
There was nothing to see.
I put my phone down.
Then picked it up again.
I opened a shopping platform and a short-video app.
I searched for the keyword “handmade smoked meat.”
It wasn’t because I wanted to buy any.
I just suddenly wanted to see how much handmade smoked meat was being sold for elsewhere.
A long list of results appeared.
I casually scrolled through a few.
Then I stopped.
Right in the middle of the screen was a product image from a shop.
The smoked meat was reddish-orange, with glistening fat along the cut surface.
It was arranged in a small bamboo basket, with red chilies and peppercorns placed beside it.
I recognized that cut.
I had a habit when making smoked meat.
After seasoning the pork belly, I would make a diagonal cut at the end of each piece so it would be easier to thread a string through.
That was how Grandma had taught me.
She said that when the meat was smoked, the fat would drip down more evenly that way.
The piece of meat in the photo had the same diagonal cut at the end.
The angle, the depth, the position.
It was exactly the way I cut mine.
My heart began pounding.
I tapped on the shop.
Shop name:
“Zhang’s Western Hunan Flavors · Handmade Smoked Meat Workshop.”
“Zhang’s.”
Zhang Ying’s surname was Zhang.
I scrolled down.
The product description read:
“A century-old traditional Western Hunan method, passed down through the mother-in-law’s family. Selected locally raised pork belly, hand-seasoned and slowly smoked over firewood. Every piece carries the flavor of a mother.”
A family secret passed down by the mother-in-law.
The flavor of a mother.
I stared at those words, my temples throbbing.
I continued scrolling down.
Price: 198 yuan per kilogram.
Free shipping.
Monthly sales: 637 orders.
The reviews:
“Third time buying. It’s seriously fragrant and tastes even better than what my own family makes!”
“The shop owner’s mother-in-law is incredibly skilled. The smoky flavor is absolutely authentic!”
“One bite and I was immediately reminded of the taste of Lunar New Year when I was a child. I’ve already recommended it to all my coworkers.”
I held the phone up in front of my face, lowered it, then raised it again.
I checked it three times.
198 yuan per kilogram.
637 orders a month.
I took the calculator from my bedside table.
198 × 637.
126,126 yuan.
More than one hundred and twenty-six thousand.
A month.
The smoked meat I made could bring in more than 126,000 yuan a month.
And what I received…
Was a 200-yuan red envelope from my mother-in-law and the words:
“Your womb just isn’t trying hard enough.”
### Chapter 3
I didn’t sleep that night.
From two in the morning until dawn, I sat alone on the bed, going through Zhang Ying’s shop from beginning to end three times.
The shop had been registered in March of last year.
In other words…
Less than two months after Liu Xiulan sent the twelve kilograms of smoked meat I had made in my third year of marriage over there, this shop had opened.
I scrolled back through the reviews.
The earliest review appeared in April of last year.
The customer wrote:
“The flavor is such a pleasant surprise. I’ve been waiting forever for it to finally be listed.”
Waiting forever.
How long had they been waiting?
I suddenly remembered the Lunar New Year meal last year.
After the twelve kilograms of smoked meat I had made were sent away, Zhang Ying had said to me:
“Sister-in-law, could you teach me how to make smoked meat?”
At the time, I thought she was just being polite.
Now that I thought about it, what she wanted was never the method.
She wanted a source of supply.
My finger scrolled to the shop’s “About Us” page.
It read:
“I’m Yingying, a full-time mother. Because I love the flavors of my hometown, I decided to carry on my mother-in-law’s craft. Every piece of smoked meat is seasoned and smoked by my mother-in-law and me with our own hands. No additives, no preservatives, just the most authentic flavor.”
Seasoned by hand.
Smoked by hand.
Very well.
By hand.
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