"Manager Wu, are all the dishes for today here?"
It was still dark, but a street market on the south side of the inner city was already bustling with people. Among the pedestrians carrying baskets, several men dressed in uniform and doing odd jobs were particularly eye-catching. They walked through the crowded crowd and came to the door of a store.
When Shopkeeper Wu, who was doing business, saw the visitors, he immediately put on a somewhat flattering smile and said, "Young men, you are all here, still packing the bags. I will ask the guys to help you load them onto the car later, shall I?"
"Okay, remember to tell them to be gentler. Last time the dishes were smashed to pieces and we had to eat a big meal." The leading man complained.
Shopkeeper Wu said quickly, "I have already taught them a lesson for what happened last time. They will not dare to be so careless again. By the way, have you eaten yet? There is a noodle shop in front. You guys can go there and have something to eat. When you are done, tell the shop owner and put it on my bill."
The few of them were satisfied, and after giving a few more instructions, they walked towards the noodle shop.
"Brother Niu, who are those people? Why is the shopkeeper so polite to them?" A new waiter was very curious when he saw the usually fierce shopkeeper being so humble, so he asked in a low voice.
The man he was questioning was tidying up the vegetables on the ground. When he heard him talking, he explained, "These people are regular customers of our shop. They come out to buy from the government canteen. They come every day, and the quantity is not small. We have to provide them with some."
They help with purchasing and sorting in the shop, and can make a lot of money just by doing some work, which is much more convenient than selling individually.
"Official ones?" The waiter was surprised. "But why are these dishes so different?"
The vegetables and meat in Brother Niu's hands were very fresh, tender and juicy. It was obvious that they had spent a lot of money to buy top-quality vegetables. But what about the ones in their hands? The meat didn't look fresh, and you could tell from the smell that it hadn't been sold overnight. The vegetables were also wilted and yellow, and some were rotten on top. People who were a little picky would not buy such vegetables, let alone the government
"You are still young!" Brother Niu smiled proudly, "The good food is for the officials above, and the bad food is for the servants below. In this way, can't we save a lot of money?"
"Ah?" The waiter was extremely surprised. "What if someone gets sick from eating?"
"The only thing about these dishes is that they don't look good. They won't get anyone sick after eating them. At most, you'll just have diarrhea." Brother Niu didn't take it seriously. They were worried at first, but later they felt relieved when no one came to cause trouble. Anyway, with the price offered by the other side, they could only buy things like this.
The young man wanted to say something, but he heard Manager Wu yelling at them, asking them to be quicker. He was so scared that he immediately fell silent and randomly pushed the vegetables piled on the ground into the sack, not caring whether they were good or bad.
After a while, they finished packing and each of them carried a bag and walked towards the carriage parked on the street, carefully piling the bags on top.
The group of people eating noodles also came over now, and after they ordered the quantity, they drove the carriage and disappeared into the street. The carriage shuttled back and forth in the streets and alleys, and after half an hour, it finally arrived at the foot of a mountain.
They carried the sacks up the mountain and did not notice that someone was following them all the way.
"Oh, my stomach. I don't know what's wrong with me today. It has hurt several times today." A scholar said while holding his stomach with a pale face.
The scholar sitting next to him was in a similar state. The two of them had no choice but to go to the toilet again.
The pale faces of the two men attracted the teacher's attention, and he asked them with concern whether they had eaten anything bad and whether they had seen Doctor Yang.
The two of them recalled with bitter faces and realized that apart from eating in the cafeteria, they had not eaten anything else.
As soon as this was said, someone refuted it, saying that they ate in the cafeteria every day, so why didn't they feel uncomfortable? Other students who ate in the cafeteria also testified that they also ate but didn't feel any discomfort.
The two scholars felt very strange when they heard this, but they really didn't eat anything else, so it couldn't be that they were drugged, right
With such speculation, the two were terrified. They quickly asked for leave from their teacher and supported each other to go to the Imperial College's clinic to ask Doctor Yang to help them see what was wrong.
After careful pulse diagnosis and medical examination, Dr. Yang determined that they had diarrhea because they had eaten something unclean, rather than being drugged.
"But, besides us, there are other classmates who ate those things, but they didn't have any symptoms." The two of them put forward their doubts.
Doctor Yang stroked his beard and observed the two men carefully. He found that both their dress and appearance were more like those of children from wealthy families.
The students of the Imperial College have always been divided into different groups. Students from wealthy families rarely go to the canteen. Students from poor families rarely go to Jingcui Garden to eat. These two people don't look like they would eat in the canteen, so it's normal to feel uncomfortable eating there once in a while.
The two scholars were relieved of their doubts after hearing what he said. They went to the canteen to eat because they lost a bet. Everyone knew that the food in the canteen was free and had no other benefits. They picked and chose for a long time before finally eating a little. Unexpectedly, something went wrong.
They returned to their residence listlessly, carrying the medicine prescribed by Doctor Yang, and called the logistics staff to help them boil the medicine.
"Actually, it's not Brother Ye's fault. Who knew that eating the food in the cafeteria would make people so uncomfortable? In my opinion, it's the chef in the cafeteria who should be blamed." Ye Qi's friend said.
"But other people didn't suffer. Doctor Yang said it might be because we are not used to eating it." said one of the students who had diarrhea.
Ye Qi's friend asked, "Will it be a pain if you're not used to eating? If so, why would you still go to those restaurants outside? We only eat there once or twice, so why don't we get diarrhea after eating them?"
After hearing this, the two began to doubt the food in the cafeteria. However, they could not produce any evidence, so they had to give up and consider themselves unlucky.
The next day, they avoided the big canteen and went back to Jingcui Garden to eat. Although the food in Jingcui Garden cost money, it was better than the big canteen.
After eating and drinking, the two walked out of the door. When they passed by a rockery, they suddenly heard someone talking inside. Based on the principle of not listening to anything inappropriate, the two wanted to leave, but the conversation they heard next made them stop.
“… That guy surnamed Hu is such a bastard! He actually gave spoiled food to the students. I heard that someone got sick from eating it yesterday. Isn’t this harming people?” The person who spoke seemed very angry.
Another voice said, "What can we do about it? Those poor students are used to eating this anyway. We can just make the food taste worse so that the students from the wealthy families won't eat it."
"Alas, in this way, he can keep the extra money for himself, and can also slander those children of noble families as being unable to endure hardship. What a piece of shit!"
"Stop talking, be careful not to be heard by others. Everyone knows that the man surnamed Hu is a relative of the chief priest? Don't you want to work here anymore?" The man's voice became much softer.
"But the Lord Jijiu has always been a man who never bends the law for personal gain. If someone files a complaint, he should not be biased, right..."
"Unless the person who makes the complaint can produce evidence, how can the Lord Jijiu believe it..."
The two people's voices gradually faded away, leaving only two students standing there with angry faces. It turned out that the suffering they suffered yesterday and the humiliation in front of their classmates and teachers were not coincidences, but someone did it on purpose!
The food in the dining hall is not only unpalatable, but also uses bad ingredients, which is why they have diarrhea because they are not used to it. But what if they are used to it? In order to recruit talents, the court promised to exempt students from poor families from meal expenses, but it became a tool for these people to make money. In a small sense, this is greed for petty profits, and in a big sense, it is an act of murdering talented people.
They must expose the true identity of the man surnamed Hu so that the Lord Jijiu will no longer be deceived!
The next day, before the servants who were carrying the vegetables entered the mountain gate, they were stopped by a group of people who asked them to put down the sacks in their hands so that they could check them. These people were panicked and naturally disagreed.
However, there was a large group of people on the opposite side. After a stalemate for a while, the bag was finally snatched away.
When the first few bags were opened, everyone's faces looked fine, but when the last few bags were opened, their faces were already covered with dark clouds, so heavy that it seemed as if ink could drip out.
There were some rotten fish and shrimps piled up on the ground, as well as vegetables with their leaves cut off, and fruits and vegetables with worm holes on them, which were completely different from the juicy vegetables before.
Many of the students who came today were eating in the cafeteria. They came with a half-believing attitude. If the two people hadn't said that it was related to them and they had to be witnesses, and that any problems would be the responsibility of the two people, they would not have come.
But now, the bloody truth was before their eyes. Thinking of what they had eaten before, some people couldn't help but vomit.
The matter was brought directly to the head of the chief priest. Faced with the ironclad evidence, Chef Hu even argued that the rotten vegetables were picked up to feed the pigs. However, the subsequent appearance of an account book from Shopkeeper Wu and the testimonies with their signatures forced Chef Hu to admit it.
Since he took charge of the canteen, he has been embezzling public property for personal use, not only withholding students' food, but also passing off inferior food as good food. If this continues, it will definitely lead to disaster. With such a serious crime, even the chief priest could not save him, so he could only have him detained in a nearby government office and attach all the confessions he made in the Imperial College.
All those who were closely related to him and were involved in the corruption were sent to the government office. Others who were forced to work hard escaped, but they were no longer allowed to work in the canteen. After all, they knew about it but did not report it. Fortunately, no major disaster occurred. If many students in the Imperial College had stomach problems from eating the food in the canteen, it would definitely cause a lot of discussion in the court. At that time, everyone from the chief priest to the teachers would be scolded for not being strict with their subordinates.
The news spread quickly, and the aunts went to Jiang Miao to tell him about it. Jiang Miao was naturally very happy. The cook who dared to tamper with the ingredients should have been arrested long ago.
During lunch, he told Pei Che about this. Pei Che just smiled meaningfully and said nothing else. Jiang Miao thought about it and suddenly asked, "You planned this, didn't you?"
Pei Che nodded and shook his head: "I only sent people to follow them to collect evidence, and after hearing about the incident, I sent someone to spread the word, but it was not me who arranged for them to get sick from eating. I can only say that God has eyes and wants to use them to expose the man surnamed Hu."
He was originally planning to gather evidence and then expose the man surnamed Hu. If he framed others just to make things worse, what difference would he make from those despicable people
(End of this chapter)