Chapter 1184 — Gou Huli, Stunned as a Wooden Chicken, Watches the Entire Xiao Family Come Down with the Runs; Nanny Liu Ma's Face Turns Ashen; Beyond Any Doubt, She Alone Did Not Eat Dinner with the Xiao Family, and She Alone Escaped a Bad Stomach, Which Proved That the Meal She Had Laid Out Had Something Wrong with It
The Blossom Guardian · Page 2 of 2
What Gou Huli could not puzzle out was how the meat had ended up in her own kitchen. Hadn't the lion handed it over to Shen Yushu? Could the meat have sprouted wings and flown here on its own?
Gou Huli fumed with anguish, sickened as if she had just swallowed a fly. This was nothing but retribution of her own making.
"This meat was indeed not bought at the supermarket — it came from the produce market, so presumably Wangba and Wangdao did not bring it back with the rest." Xiao Ben examined the price tag, compared it against the labels on the other groceries from the supermarket, and then said: "So this slab of meat is highly suspicious. The problem probably isn't the meat itself, though — it looks perfectly fresh. Someone must have tampered with it afterward."
"Yes, Second Brother, you're right." Xiao Ji nodded too, then said: "Second Brother, look — there's white powder inside the plastic bag. Could that be the laxative?"
Xiao Ji pointed to the underside of the pork bag, and sure enough there was a fine white powdery substance, though unless you looked closely you would never notice it at all.
Liu Ma was terrified at once. "Master, Second Master, I don't know! I didn't tamper with anything — I don't know!"
"Whether it was you or not, take this meat to the market tomorrow and go find the vendor. One question will settle it. This is a big, expensive slab — the vendor will certainly remember it, and we can simply ask who bought it." Xiao Ben, for his part, had an answer ready.
"There's no need to ask... I bought the meat..." Gou Huli said, her face crumpled into a miserable grimace, her expression unspeakably wretched. Cursed as this business was, she still had to own up to it — the whole affair was far too strange, and she wanted Xiao Ben to analyze it for her.
"You bought it? Sister-in-law, you bought this meat..." Xiao Ben was taken aback and regarded Gou Huli with some puzzlement. He rather doubted she would drug the Xiao family's food — besides, she had eaten from it herself, which made her a victim too.
"You wretched woman — are you trying to kill off the Xiao family?" The instant Xiao Ji heard Gou Huli's words he flew into a towering rage and slapped her across the face. The blow sent stars spinning before Gou Huli's eyes and the world wheeling around her; she nearly staggered and dropped to the floor.
"Brother! What are you doing? Sister-in-law surely didn't do it on purpose — didn't she eat it herself too?" Xiao Ben was truly speechless at his elder brother's temper. Wasn't he a little too quick to fly off the handle? Gou Huli had only just confessed and already he was swinging.
"Hmph. Then what in blazes happened?" Xiao Ji snorted coldly and turned to look at Gou Huli.
"It's true I bought the pork belly, but I bought it for the Gu family — not for our own table!" Not daring to hide anything now, Gou Huli launched into the whole story: how she had gone to the Gu family to find the lion, how she had been humiliated to no avail, how she had then hit upon the plan to buy a piece of beef and lure the lion home with it, and how later she had bought the pork and slipped laxatives into it...