Those three butchers were going to slaughter three pigs in total.
Three pigs can collect a lot of pig blood. The people here will first prepare a bucket of water, add salt to it, and stir it constantly when the pig blood is put in... In the end, the pig blood mixed with water and salt will coagulate, and then it will be cooked and cut into pieces of blood tofu.
Normally, the blood tofu made from one pig can make a large pot, which is more than a family can finish. Guan Baiyu's adoptive father only asked for the blood from one pig.
The blood from the remaining two pigs was taken by the neighbors, who shared some to take home and eat.
After the pig was slaughtered, it needed to be shaved and its internal organs processed. The three butchers divided the work and got busy.
Shi Zhen then struck up a conversation with the butcher he had bought things from twice before.
He had very good features, but his clothes were tattered and worn. Paired with a black leather jacket, he looked like a simple and honest rural youth, the kind of person who was easy to like and approach.
The butcher, surnamed Zhu, was in his thirties. He quite liked Shi Zhen and chatted with him casually.
These days, as some people become wealthy, everyone becomes more and more concerned about saving face. Zhu the butcher sells meat in town, and some families who have no money will try to buy some meat on credit. When they really can't afford it and have to buy cheap meat, they like to make excuses. Some people even say that it's for the dogs... The young man in front of him directly said that he had no money. His rare sincerity left a deep impression on him.
"Brother Zhu, do you all slaughter pigs the night before and sell them the next day? Can I learn how to slaughter pigs from you?" Shi Zhen asked.
To be honest, you don't make much money selling vegetables, but selling meat... should be more lucrative.
He remembered that when he was browsing in the market, there were quite a few people buying meat, but not many selling meat, only about ten people in total. That was fine, but some of them had a noticeably bad attitude towards customers.
This is probably a legacy issue – back in the day, when meat was sold in town, it was a state-owned enterprise, and no matter how bad their attitude was towards customers, people would still come to buy from them!
Later, the meat processing plant was dissolved, but these people continued to sell meat, and... their attitude wasn't very good.
The population here will continue to grow, and Shi Zhen believes that selling meat will be a good business for a long time to come, as supermarkets and similar establishments will not be available in this town.
Of course, he won't keep selling meat forever, but he's not just venturing out for himself... In his past life, he found a way to bring many people from the village out, and he'll do the same this time.
Even if he stops selling meat in the future, he can have other villagers sell it.
“Learn to slaughter pigs? You can’t sell meat even if you learn,” Butcher Zhu laughed. “We slaughter pigs secretly. In principle, the pork to be sold must be obtained from the slaughterhouse. Moreover, the number of stalls in the market is limited, and it’s not easy for you to get one. Buying a stall will cost several thousand.”
When Butcher Zhu mentioned the slaughterhouse, the people around started talking about it.
According to regulations, meat sellers in town are not allowed to slaughter pigs themselves to sell, because that would reduce their tax burden—currently, a pig incurs a tax of five yuan and a slaughtering fee of five yuan.
Zhu the butcher and his colleagues come out to slaughter pigs in order to save on taxes and slaughter fees, so they can earn an extra ten yuan per pig.
"Slaughtering pigs is so tiring. If I hadn't been in debt from building a house, I definitely wouldn't be doing this job," Zhu the butcher sighed.
He talked about a lot of random things, such as how pigs at the slaughterhouse are stamped with edible paint, while pigs slaughtered outside are not stamped. So when he takes them to town to sell, he has to be very careful, otherwise he will be fined if he is caught.
When they come out to slaughter pigs, the price they pay to the villagers is the same as the price the slaughterhouse pays to the villagers. The reason why the villagers give their pigs to them instead of sending them to the slaughterhouse is twofold: first, they can collect the pig's blood by letting them slaughter the pigs; second, the villagers have no idea how many kilograms their pigs weigh after slaughter at the slaughterhouse.
“When we buy pigs at the slaughterhouse, they sometimes write down a few pounds less than the actual weight,” Butcher Zhu laughed, “and then they come back to our stall to get the meat from us.”
Nowadays, the slaughterhouse staff are all former meat processing plant workers, and there are quite a few messy things like this.
Shi Zhen remembered the time he bought a pig's tail. Someone came to Butcher Zhu's place, and Butcher Zhu gave the person a piece of meat without saying a word.
Butcher Zhu was probably also feeling frustrated, so he talked about some messy things at the slaughterhouse. For example, the slaughterhouse slaughtered several pigs every day, and the pork was weighed in front of them so they wouldn't be shortchanged. But pigs come in different sizes, and their offal also varies in weight. In the end, whoever had a good relationship with them would get the heavier offal, even if the pig they took from the slaughterhouse was very light.
Pig stomach, liver, heart, and so on, are all expensive. The difference in price between a 200-pound pig and a 100-pound pig's offal can be quite significant! And here, the pigs are sold by weighing the whole pig after slaughter, without the offal, and the offal is given away for free.
As Shi Zhen chatted with Butcher Zhu, they found themselves getting along very well and eventually figured out the price of pork.
Becoming a butcher is probably out of the question, but... Shi Zhen asked, "A pig's head is only five cents a pound?"
Butcher Zhu said, "Tongue and ears removed, five cents a pound."
At the end of the year, pig heads are particularly expensive because locals like to buy them to worship their ancestors. But normally pig heads are very cheap. As for why they are so cheap... there are a lot of bones and little meat in a pig head. You can buy it for 50 cents a pound and not know how many bones you will get.
The pig's head was quite large; most families wouldn't buy a pig's head to take home when they wanted to eat pork.
Shi Zhen went back to sleep after watching the pig being slaughtered, and of course, he didn't forget to ask for some pig's blood.
The villagers now know about his affair with Guan Baiyu. They are curious about him, but they have no ill intentions and don't mind sharing some of his pig's blood with him.
Early the next morning, Shi Zhen went to town to buy a block of tofu, planning to have pig's blood tofu soup for dinner. He also bought some spices and seasonings such as cinnamon and bay leaves.
He planned to save up some money for a few days, buy a pig's head to stew, and then try to sell the pig's head meat in town over the weekend.
When the children get out of school on weekends, the people in town are happy to buy some good food for them.
In addition... there were almost no cooked food vendors in town at that time, so selling pig's head meat should not be a problem.
Most importantly, even if they can't be sold, I won't lose much money, and I can still eat them myself.
As for him going to dig river mud... Guan Baiyu can keep an eye on it and sell it on the weekend.
Of course, we need to discuss this with Guan Baiyu.
Once Shi Zhen had made up his mind, he planned to discuss it with Guan Baiyu and Shi Xinghuo that very evening.
When he got home that evening, he received some bad news—the person who had taken Shi Xinghuo to sell mud had stopped selling mud.
Selling mud to cement plants can make money, but you can't just dig mud anywhere. Even if you're selling mud from your own land, you can't dig big pits into your own land.
In fact, the village does not allow the sale of mud, but most of the time they just turn a blind eye—digging pits is not allowed, but digging up the slopes or something is fine.
Therefore, that person could not possibly sell mud forever.
Since he stopped selling mud, he no longer needed to hire Shi Xinghuo, and Shi Xinghuo was temporarily out of work.
Shi Zhen thought for a moment and then said, "Brother, come with me to my workplace tomorrow, and I'll let you do my work."
He made up his mind; he would start selling pig's head meat tomorrow.
Shi Xinghuo is capable of dredging river mud. If Shi Xinghuo does this job, he can free up his hands to do his small business.
Previously, he could only find odd jobs because selling pig's head meat required at least a pot and money to buy the pig's head, which he didn't have.
Now, he can sell himself to Guan Baiyu.
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