bookrebus Chapter 108 The Secret of the Barbecue Restaurant
Chapter 108 The Secret of the Barbecue Restaurant
Seeing that Su Xiaoxiao didn't eat it, he put the skewers down again, and the expression on his face became uncertain.
Xiao Yu asked in confusion: "Sister, why don't you eat?"
"This is not beef or mutton, so don't eat it."
"If it's not beef or mutton, then what is it?"
"It's cat meat."
Su Xiaoxiao originally thought that the reason why so many seasonings were sprinkled on the skewers was to cover up the strong smell of beef and mutton. Now she knows that putting so many seasonings on the skewers is not to cover up the strong smell, but to cover up the lack of strong smell.
"Cat meat?" Xiao Yu looked at the skewers of meat in his hand and suddenly felt that it didn't taste good. Cats are so cute, how could he eat cat meat? He just raised a kitten.
He hurriedly threw the skewer in his hand onto the table.
"Senior Sister, how do you know it's cat meat?"
Of course it was the cat at her feet that told her. The seasoning was so thick that her nose couldn't smell it. Besides, she had never eaten cat meat, so how could she know what it tasted like?
But to Xiao Yu and Li Yan, she could only say that she smelled it herself.
"Don't make any noise, just keep eating. I'll go out and take a look."
Su Xiaoxiao left the private room, walked around, and came to the freezer where the raw meat skewers were placed. She looked around to see if anyone was paying attention, and reached out to open the freezer.
The upper layer of the freezer was filled with real beef and mutton, but the strips of meat frozen underneath were clearly skinned and headless cats.
Su Xiaoxiao felt a chill.
As soon as she returned to the private room, the proprietress had already brought up the grilled fish.
"Madam Boss, there are a lot of cats in your store?" Su Xiaoxiao said calmly.
"Yes, there are many restaurants in our area, and there are a lot of food. The wild cats in the neighborhood like to come here."
"They came into the store, and you didn't chase them away, but just left them alone?" Su Xiaoxiao pointed at the cat at her feet. It was hiding behind Su Xiaoxiao, its eyes full of fear.
"They are quite pitiful. As long as they don't make a fuss, just leave them alone. Many customers like cats anyway and will feed them. We always have cat food in our store, so stray cats can have something to eat when they come. We can't just watch them starve to death."
Su Xiaoxiao was so angry that she laughed. Yes, they won’t starve to death, but they will be killed by you.
You are not giving them food out of kindness. You are clearly using cat food to lure them over so that they can become ingredients for your barbecue.
"Your name is Yuan Xiuli, right?" Su Xiaoxiao asked.
"Yeah, how did you know? No one has called me by my full name for a long time." The proprietress smiled.
When she first walked in, Su Xiaoxiao didn't pay attention to the name of the store. She just walked around and found that it was called Ruili BBQ Restaurant.
There's a "Li" in her name and their ages match. She didn't expect that the barbecue restaurant they randomly entered would be Yuan Xiuli's. What a coincidence.
"We are the police. We called you this morning." Li Yan showed his ID.
The boss lady's face changed. "I've already said that there's nothing to say about what happened back then. Don't ask me about it anymore. My life has been hard since that incident. Now that things are getting better, don't come and make things worse."
"Don't you want to catch the person who hurt you back then?"
"I don't want to. What if I'm caught? I'm living a good life now. Just don't bother me."
Yuan Xiuli doesn't want to talk about what happened back then. Because of this incident, her husband divorced her and the neighbors also talked about her behind her back. She had no choice but to marry to Tong County. No one here knew about her past and she lived a relatively peaceful life.
"Don't you want to know why that person hurt you back then?"
"They said it was because I'm good-looking, but there are so many good-looking people, why did they choose me? Why am I so unlucky?!"
She was indeed good-looking when she was young. She was the most beautiful girl in class and loved dressing up. Even after the accident, her husband blamed her for attracting other men all day long and causing the trouble. She felt very aggrieved.
"Your ex-husband also opened a barbecue restaurant, right? You learned your skills from your ex-husband, right?"
"Well, I did learn my craft from him."
If it weren't for this skill, she and her current husband wouldn't have been able to open a barbecue restaurant. Her husband's skill was taught by her. She is living a good life now. Although she lives in a county town, it doesn't matter where she lives as long as she can make money. Her current husband also relies on her.
"The barbecue restaurant you and your husband opened back then also used cat meat to impersonate beef and mutton, right?" Su Xiaoxiao asked.
"No, we are honest people, how could we do such a thing?" Yuan Xiuli waved her hands repeatedly. This was the secret of their barbecue restaurant and they would never admit it.
"No? What is this?" Su Xiaoxiao picked up the skewer of meat on the table and handed it to her. "Do you want to ask the Industry and Commerce Bureau to come and check it?"
Yuan Xiuli's face showed panic. If the people from the Industrial and Commercial Bureau came, her store would be in trouble.
"What on earth are you doing?!"
"We just want to ask about what happened back then. Just answer truthfully. It was you who came up with the idea of using cat meat to pass it off as beef or mutton, right? Did anyone know that you killed the cat?"
"I paid for it. Beef and mutton are too expensive. My husband worries all the time, but we have no other options. No one should know that I killed the cats. I always used cat food to attract them to the store and did it in the middle of the night. I was also very careful when handling the fur."
“Can anyone tell that it’s not beef or mutton?”
"It seems that a man once found out after eating it. We denied it, of course, and he even had a quarrel with us. We were so scared that we didn't dare to sell cat meat for a while afterwards."
"Do you remember what that man looked like?"
"He was not tall and was quite thin, about twenty years old. I can't remember his exact appearance. Why are you asking this? What does this have to do with what happened back then?" Yuan Xiuli asked puzzled.
"What does it matter? Haven't you ever thought that this is the retribution you get for killing too many cats?" Su Xiaoxiao sneered.
Yuan Xiuli widened her eyes. Could it be that the incident that year was caused by this?
After Su Xiaoxiao finished speaking, she no longer paid attention to Yuan Xiuli who was standing there, and walked out of the barbecue restaurant with Xiao Yu and Li Yan.
Later, none of the three had any appetite for the food they ordered, so they just found a noodle shop on the street and ordered a few bowls of noodles.
"Are we just going to ignore the fact that they use cat meat to impersonate beef and mutton? How many cats will die in the future?" Xiao Yu felt that this matter could not be let go.
"It's okay. I've already called the Industrial and Commercial Bureau to report the incident. They will naturally take care of it."
Xiao Yu was relieved.
Now Su Xiaoxiao can be sure that the person who committed the crime back then was definitely not a randomly chosen target.
This person is an extreme cat lover, has obsessive-compulsive disorder, thinks he has a strong sense of justice, and has his own set of criteria for judgment. He will use his own methods to enforce what he believes is justice.
But so many years have passed, and it is not easy to find him now. How can we find this person?
On the way back, Su Xiaoxiao kept thinking about this problem, and she actually came up with a solution.