Food: Selling Boxed Meals at a Construction Site

The back kitchen of Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant.

Old Zhou, the cook, had been feeling uneasy for the past few days, but he couldn’t figure out why. All he could do was speculate wildly in his mind.

At three in the afternoon, customers were sparse. The work in the back kitchen came to a lull, providing a bit of time to slack off.

Old Zhou took off his apron and hung it on the wall. The hook on the wall was a little loose, so he pressed it hard to stick it firmly back in place.

He took a pack of cigarettes out of his bag, stuffed it into his pants pocket, and walked out into the alley behind the restaurant.

The walls on both sides of this alley were draped with all sorts of electrical wires, and bags of trash waiting for disposal were piled up by many of the doors.

Aside from restaurant employees like Old Zhou, no strangers ever came back here.

This made it the perfect spot for the cooks like Old Zhou to smoke and shoot the breeze.

When Old Zhou reached the large rock at the end of the alley, he found Old Qian, the chef from the Good and Come Again Fast Food Restaurant, already puffing away.

Old Zhou lit a cigarette as well and sat down next to Old Qian, the two of them happily puffing away together.

After they both finished their cigarettes, they finally started to chat.

"Old Qian," Old Zhou began, "have you noticed anything strange lately? I keep feeling like something’s not right."

Old Qian took out another cigarette and lit it. He took a deep drag, then slowly exhaled the smoke before saying unhurriedly, "Speaking of strange, I have noticed something a little off."

"Oh? What is it? Tell me, quick," Old Zhou urged upon hearing this.

"About half a year ago, I started feeling like the quality of the meat we were buying had dropped. And it was all unpackaged, no wrappers, so I didn’t know the origin or the date," Old Qian said, taking another drag from his cigarette before continuing.

"But the meat looked fine, so I didn’t think much of it. Lately, though, I’ve found a piece or two of plastic wrap left in the meat. It’s obviously from pre-packaged food that’s been unwrapped before being delivered, but there’s no information on the plastic, so I can’t tell anything from it."

Hmm?

Old Zhou fell into deep thought.

’For the past week or so, the meat the restaurant bought has been unpackaged, too,’ he thought.

’But unpackaged is cheaper. It makes sense for saving costs, so there shouldn’t be a problem.’

Although he couldn’t pinpoint anything unusual, Old Zhou kept the matter in the back of his mind. He spent the whole afternoon mulling it over.

At eight in the evening, only one customer was left in the restaurant. Old Zhou took off his apron and started packing up, ready to leave.

But the hook on the wall was loose again. Just as he hung up the apron, the hook came off, taking the apron with it. It even fell into the trash bags behind the door.

Old Zhou reached down to pick up his apron but found the hook had snagged on something. It was stuck and wouldn’t come out.

He was afraid that if he pulled too hard, he’d rip the bag, and then he’d have to clean up all the trash that spilled out.

Resigned, he had no choice but to reach into the trash bag and pull out the hooked object along with the hook itself. He saw that it was a packaging wrapper.

Just as Old Zhou was about to take a closer look, he heard footsteps and a voice from outside the door. "Old Zhou, what’s wrong?"

For some reason, Old Zhou subconsciously stuffed the wrapper into his pants pocket, then raised his voice and replied, "It’s nothing, the hook on the wall just fell off."

It was Gao. He didn’t seem convinced, so he poked his head in to check. Only after confirming that the hook had indeed fallen did he leave.

Old Zhou breathed a sigh of relief, grabbed his cloth bag, and left the restaurant.

Back in his rented room, he took the wrapper out of his pocket.

’Premium Pork Belly, Weight: 5KG,

Production Date: February 7, 2009,

Shelf Life: 12 months.’

Old Zhou instantly trembled all over. His scalp went numb, and a chill shot up from the soles of his feet to the crown of his head.

’This meat... it’s two years expired?’

’I’ve been cooking with meat that’s two years out of date and selling it to people!’

Old Zhou recalled an incident from when he had just started working.

The shop next door had a case where someone got sick, and they were found to be using expired ingredients. The entire staff, from the owner down to the waiters, ended up in jail.

By the time Old Zhou quit that job, the owner and the cooks were still locked up.

’This is a crime!’

’If they investigate and find out, I’ll be implicated even if I didn’t know anything!’

’What do I do? What do I do?!’

Old Zhou panicked, the hand holding the wrapper shaking uncontrollably.

’No, I can’t keep this job. I absolutely can’t do this anymore!’

’Run. Yes, run. I have to run!’

’I’ll run tomorrow.’

’No, I have to run tonight. Tonight!’

’We never signed a contract or anything; it was all a verbal agreement. Since I’m running, there’s no need to give notice or anything. I can just leave. As for the few days’ wages I’ve earned this month... compared to doing jail time, it’s not worth it.’

’Otherwise, if I end up in prison, no amount of money will do me any good.’

And so, just like that, Old Zhou fled overnight to a small inn in the next town over. Only after he had checked into a room did the heart that had been anxious for days finally calm down.

The next morning at six, Gao arrived to open the restaurant. He waited for a long time, but there was no sign of Old Zhou. He made several calls that went unanswered, and eventually, the calls were just disconnected.

’Did he quit or something?’

’The boss is still lying in a hospital bed. What the hell is Old Zhou doing?!’

He waited and waited, but Old Zhou never showed. ’We can’t just not open for business today, can we? When the boss gets back and finds out, she’ll have my hide!’

Gao, ever the quick thinker, instinctively thought of a fellow townsman who had just asked him a few days ago if he knew of any openings for a cook.

’Why not have him come and fill in?’

Gao mentioned it to his townsman, and the two hit it off immediately. The man instantly agreed.

While cooking, the townsman noticed that some of the meat seemed off. But thinking of the hush money Gao had promised him, he acted as if nothing was wrong. He treated it like normal ingredients, just adding a lot of extra seasoning during cooking to prevent anyone from tasting that something was amiss.

The workers getting off for their lunch break came to eat as usual, but as they ate, they felt that the food tasted much stronger than normal.

Not long after lunch, one of them found a shady spot on the construction site to rest. Suddenly, he felt a cramping pain in his abdomen. Despite the hot summer day, his body felt cold, and large beads of cold sweat broke out on his forehead. He also felt nauseous and wanted to vomit.

Even the most oblivious person would know something was wrong. He weakly reached out and patted the coworker next to him, only to find that his coworker was also covered in a cold sweat, his face contorted in pain.

It wasn’t just the two of them; seven or eight other people were showing the same symptoms at the same time.

With nearly ten workers falling ill simultaneously, an immediate investigation was necessary, regardless of whether the construction site’s own cafeteria was to blame.

Everything inside the cafeteria, including the trash, was to be left untouched, awaiting inspection by the company’s inspection team.

Sister Wang was also a bit flustered by the incident. She wanted to ask Wang Qiang about the purchasing situation to calm her nerves.

But she couldn’t find him anywhere. He had slipped away at some point.

"That bastard! How can he still be out fooling around at a time like this!"

From across the street, the staff at Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant only saw workers being carried into an ambulance. They assumed there had been some kind of construction accident and didn’t think much of it, continuing with business as usual.

It had to be said, Wang Qiang had covered his tracks well. When the inspection team arrived, they found nothing out of the ordinary.

After some questioning at the hospital, it was learned that all the sick workers had eaten lunch at Jiajia Fast Food Restaurant that day.

Since this involved an establishment outside the construction site, it was beyond the jurisdiction of the company’s inspection team. The market supervision department had to be contacted to handle it.

The market supervision department arrived with incredible speed. One moment, the few people in the restaurant were idly chatting about what might have happened at the construction site opposite them; the next, they were startled by an inspection team bursting through the door.

A group of people in uniform and hats swept their sharp gazes over everyone present. The middle-aged man in the lead asked coldly, "Who’s in charge of this restaurant?"

Gao’s heart pounded as all eyes in the room fell on him, but he forced himself to remain calm and stepped forward. "The owner is in the hospital due to illness. I’m temporarily in charge."

The middle-aged man nodded and gestured to his subordinates. The two people behind him walked straight into the kitchen.

Gao, having a guilty conscience, grew anxious and quickly shouted, "What’s wrong? Why are you going into the kitchen?"

"Just a routine inspection. Don’t panic," the middle-aged man replied, giving Gao a meaningful smile.

’He’s already panicking. Looks like there really is something going on here.’

The two inspectors entered the kitchen and first examined the leftovers in the pots, followed by the raw ingredients that hadn’t yet been cooked.

When they got to the meat, one of them quickly noticed something was wrong. He picked up a few pieces and held them to his nose, sniffing.

’This meat... it all has a rotten smell!’