After winter, Hong Kong becomes cold at night even if it is very hot during the day.
If it rains, the temperature will drop by many degrees.
On the afternoon when Fang Yanwang flew away from Hong Kong, Hong Kong became like London, with cloudy and rainy weather and no bright sun.
There are more than a dozen blocks in just one kilometer of Yau Ma Tei. In a small area, there are countless buildings and estates. When you look up, you can only see a small piece of sky cut out by the horizontal and vertical boundaries of the tall buildings. Now it is shrouded in dark clouds and heavy rain, and the already depressing atmosphere is even worse.
People can only bury their heads and hurry on their own way to their destination, without looking up, and without paying attention to whether the space they are in is too narrow.
A regular customer passed by Xian Ji Ice House with great expectations, wanting to try a bowl of hot barbecued pork buns to warm up his stomach on this rainy day. However, Xian Ji was closed for a day to restock and repair, so he had to turn north in disappointment. He walked to Yi Ji. There was no mapo tofu, but he could have a casserole lamb noodle, which was steaming and could also drive away the cold and warm the stomach.
The regular customer chatted with Yi Jiadong very enthusiastically, so he didn't hesitate to talk about Xian Ji.
Boss Yi didn't look down on his peers. Although he felt that Xian Ji's other dishes were not as good as his, he praised Xian Ji's barbecued pork buns.
He had been to Xian Ji to explore the store and peek into the Xian Ji kitchen. The utensils and pots used to make barbecued pork were extraordinary. It was obvious that the boss had put a lot of effort into this.
Regular customers held the same view and even made an appointment with Yi Jiadong to go to Xian Ji to try barbecued pork buns another day.
...
As night fell, the sky, which was already gloomy due to the rain, became completely dark as ink.
Neon lights lit up one by one, casting a layer of colorful light on the dark curtain of the sky, and also projecting inverted colorful light groups in the puddles on the asphalt road. The dazzling lights of the Quguan signboards overlapped layer by layer between heaven and earth, interweaving to create a space as bizarre as a psychedelic world.
But even in such a prosperous Hong Kong, there are places where the light cannot reach.
Xian Ji Ice House, which has a notice of closing for one day, is dark inside. The light from the street can illuminate its front hall, but it cannot illuminate the back kitchen and two bedrooms connected to the shop and the small courtyard.
All the chairs in the hall are placed upside down on the square table, and it is as clean as it would be after closing the shop every day.
The shop owner Da Jiao Qiang and his wife are both diligent and clean people. Whether it is the crowded and messy front hall or the back kitchen that is most likely to be stained with grease, everything in the house is as clean as new. This is all due to the two of them getting up early and working late every day. Getting up early is to prepare for the day's business, and working late is to clean up the grease and dust accumulated during the day. This is how they do it every day for 365 days, which has created this ice house known as the cleanest in Hong Kong.
Apart from the characteristic of being "clean", the most praised thing is of course Xianji's barbecued pork buns.
It is best to use half fat and half lean meat for barbecued pork, so that it will be juicy and delicious after being grilled over an open flame without being too dry or too woody.
Before grilling, it is necessary to marinate it in advance with soy sauce, minced garlic, maltose, fermented bean curd, five-spice powder and wine. When grilling, maltose should be applied to the outside of the pork to seal the gravy and fat, and the sweetness of the roasted meat will be baked into the meat. Finally, it is baked into the top-grade barbecued pork with a crispy skin and juicy and tender inside.
After that, cut the barbecued pork into small pieces, add the most delicious sauce made from oyster sauce and other seasonings, and stir to make the filling.
Using high-quality northern flour, the dough is kneaded and pressed to a moderate hardness with a skilled technique, and then molded into a sparrow cage shape after fermentation.
After steaming, the pleats on the top of the barbecued pork bun will naturally crack, turning it into a snack that looks like a flower-shaped steamed bun filled with stuffing. This is the barbecued pork bun.
The most ingenious thing that the big-footed Qiang couple makes is the barbecued pork buns that are steamed in one steamer after another, ensuring that each one is above standard and satisfies the customers.
These barbecued pork buns are a reflection of the middle-aged couple's hard work, and are also the secret treasure that helps them accumulate wealth and live a good life. Originally, the couple only wanted to pass on their decades of experience in making barbecued pork buns and the secret recipes they wrote to their only daughter, but their daughter's academic performance was too good and she did not want to inherit the ice house in the future, so the couple decided to take in an apprentice. After
careful selection, they finally found a smart and honest young man who was serious about learning, talented, diligent and capable. He was indeed a good candidate.
Although the boss and his wife who worked neatly in the past are no longer in Xianji Ice House today, their good apprentice Huang Xiangjie is busy in the dark.
Even in the dark environment, after all, he has been working here for nearly a year, and he will not bump into the table with his eyes closed.
Huang Xiangjie knelt on the ground, wiping the dark liquid that splashed everywhere. After wiping, he washed the rag and wiped it again, repeating this process until the kitchen was as clean as new, living up to the reputation of "the cleanest ice cream shop".
He stood up and faced the bones and meat on the extra-large and long chopping board in front of him.
Before he came to Xianji as an apprentice, he was an expert in cutting meat. He knew how to divide pork, how to remove pork bones, which piece of meat was hard and which piece of meat was fat.
He professionally arranged the pieces of meat, ribs and offal in front of him, and he knew clearly which part was best for stir-frying and which part was best for making barbecued pork.
He threw away the rag and reached out to wipe the pieces of meat and strips.
The dark kitchen suddenly emitted a suppressed howling sound, which sounded sad and strange in the quiet room at that moment.
Huang Xiangjie turned around as if he suddenly remembered something, touched a bone-cutting knife on the chopping board, turned around and walked slowly to the vegetable washing table in the corner.
The blurred light that was still faintly leaking down, which was blocked by the high-rise buildings, could not illuminate the scene in the room, but outlined the man's hazy figure like a black mist.
He stood facing the wall, holding a heavy knife in his right hand hanging at his side, and lowered his head as if looking at something.
He remained motionless for a long time, and the black mist-like figure seemed like a lost ghost, blocked by a wall, facing the wall meaninglessly.
Maybe he would walk through the wall in the next moment...but he didn't.
The sobbing sound just now stopped when he approached the sink. After a few minutes, it seemed that he could no longer bear it. Fear and emotional collapse burst out like a mountain torrent, and the vague but strenuous sobbing became more and more intense.
Huang Xiangjie suddenly squatted down and faced the source of the sobbing sound.
The young woman leaning against the sink had her hands and feet tied, her mouth stuffed with a dirty rag, her long hair was messy, and tears were streaming down her face. She looked very horrible.
Seeing Huang Xiangjie squatting in front of her, she turned her head and closed her eyes in fear, and her head hit the cabinet door under the sink with a bang.
The noise seemed to anger the man. He shook the kitchen knife in his right hand, but finally held back and punched her in the face with his left fist. He then grabbed her hair and slammed the back of her head against the counter until the woman's nose was bleeding, her mouth and eyes were covered with wounds, and she was in a fuzzy state.
He stood up and stared at her in the dark for a long time before returning to the chopping table with the chopping knife. He
scooped a handful of meat from the acid draining pool, lifted a thigh, separated the joints with a sharp meat cleaver, and used the chopping knife to quickly separate the bones and flesh. After separating the thigh meat, he moved on to the calf meat.
The dim light flickered, and the calf below was not a pig's hoof, but a human foot.
The slightly fatter lean meat was used to make barbecued pork, while the other meat could be chopped up to make dumplings...
"Dong! Dong! Dong..."
Every time the kitchen knife made a "dong" sound on the chopping board, the woman lying on the ground beside the sink would shudder.
After a long time, liquid oozed from the woman's body, and the bloody and greasy smell in the kitchen was mixed with a smell of rancidity...
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