Surrounding Qingliang Lake, weeping willows sway gently, their dense foliage providing ample shade. A secluded sightseeing path meanders along the lakeshore, its winding paths offering a tranquil and refreshing experience. However, beyond a few lakeside buildings, there is a larger loop along Qingliang Lake.
The large loop road is lined with shops and bustling with people. It is a famous commercial center in Xia County. There are countless shops related to local tourism, such as food streets, fishing equipment centers, and boat rentals. Business is booming every winter.
Feeling troubled, Wang Yao recalled Qinghe's instructions before he left. He decided to have a meal on the food street and think things through. If he still couldn't come up with a good solution, he would have to abandon Bissef and head to the porcelain capital.
This was an ordinary-looking storefront on the food street. Wang Yao was attracted by the sign on the store: "Authentic Qingliang Lake Tribute Fish Balls, Tenfold Compensation for Fakes".
Tribute fish is a specialty of Xia County. It is said that it is only produced in Qingliang Lake in the human world. The reason it is called this is because in the past, this fish was offered as tribute to the royal family.
Gongyu (a type of fish) has an extremely delicious flavor, but it is quite difficult to prepare.
Because this fish has a lot of bones, it is too troublesome to eat. Therefore, when making tribute fish, it is usually used to make soup. The tribute fish is wrapped in layers of gauze and stewed for a long time. Finally, the stewed fish meat, along with the bones, is discarded, and only the fish soup is used to cook other dishes.
This method is undoubtedly extremely wasteful, even bordering on squandering resources. After all, the yield of Qingliang Lake tribute fish is extremely low, and the deliciousness of the fish meat even surpasses that of crabs. It would be a real pity to discard it simply because it has many bones.
Another method involves making fish balls from the tribute fish. Skilled chefs first debone the tribute fish, then finely crush the raw fish meat while separating all the small bones in the process. The fish meat is then mixed and kneaded into balls, cooked in tribute fish soup, and then served with rice noodles, dried noodles, etc.
This is a delicacy that greatly preserves the fresh and delicious flavor of the Gongyu fish. Wang Yao had heard of Gongyu before, and since he saw this Gongyu fish ball shop with the promise of "tenfold compensation for fakes" and Qinghe's recent advice to him, he decided to give it a try.
Wang Yao ordered a bowl of fish ball rice noodles. As he sat in the shop and savored the taste, he couldn't help but feel a little disappointed. The saying "a great reputation is hard to live up to" probably describes this situation perfectly. The fish balls were indeed good, and they were fresh and bouncy, but he felt that they were still lacking compared to the famous Gongyu fish.
Wang Yao didn't know if it was because he had opened a restaurant and his taste had improved, or if his expectations for the tribute fish were too high, or if it was because people now pay attention to environmental protection and the tribute fish is probably artificially raised and not wild from Qingliang Lake, which is why the taste has changed.
In short, the fish ball rice noodles did not impress Wang Yao.
Because he had something on his mind, Wang Yao ate a few bites and then thought that the so-called tribute fish balls were nothing special. He just mechanically swallowed them while looking thoughtfully at the street scene outside the shop.
Diagonally opposite the shop is a building that is not very tall, but has a fairly nice exterior. On the roof stands a large billboard, which is rather crudely made and doesn't quite match the building's nice exterior. It's like a guy in a suit wearing a tattered straw hat.
"Blazing Sun Pride, refined from a century-old pearl at the bottom of Cool Lake, a treasure for men."
"The Blazing Sun Prodigy, if he's doing well, I'm doing well too!"
"Blazing Sun Heavenly Beauty, a treasure of the human world, a gift from nature."
The billboard displayed a sparkling pill and three somewhat nonsensical advertising slogans. A bus pulled up and stopped in the parking lot downstairs. A large group of tourists got off the bus and disappeared into the building shortly afterward.
A short while later, another large group of tourists came out of the building and boarded another bus parked in the parking lot. The bus then drove away at a leisurely pace.
While eating his rice noodles, Wang Yao watched everything indifferently. But as he watched, he unconsciously frowned slightly. He noticed that the parking lot gatekeeper was an old man in his fifties with gray hair and beard, but he was surprisingly agile.
Although the parking lot barriers were automatic, the old man had sneaked in and out of the guardhouse several times during his shift. Once, he secretly went to a shady spot to smoke; another time, he went to pick up trash left by tourists; and yet another time…
It's not unusual for a conscientious and responsible gatekeeper to take on odd jobs, but... isn't Xia County supposed to be a widow's county? How come this old man is still alive and kicking? This gatekeeper must be from Xia County. Even if he wasn't from Xia County before, he should have been living there for a long time now.
Could it be... that the old man's wife isn't from Xia County? But... Wang Yao suddenly noticed an extremely obvious fact that he had been ignoring all along!
In Xia County, you can't just tell at a glance that the male-to-female ratio is severely imbalanced. The streets and alleys of Xia County are full of men and women. There is no sign of a "widow county". So what's going on?
It's actually quite normal that Wang Yao hadn't noticed this before. After all, considering the destructive power of "widower" Ni Zhenlu back then, the impact would only be limited to a small neighborhood at most. No matter how he thought about it, he couldn't possibly believe that Bisif's destructive power could threaten the entire Xia County.
However, Xia County's reputation as a "widow county" was certainly not unfounded. It is a fact that the male mortality rate here is relatively high. So, there are only two possibilities: one is that, in addition to Bissef, there is some other serious threat to the survival of married men in Xia County.
Another possibility is that, after all, Xia County has been known as the "Widow County" for many years. Could it be that over the years a force has emerged to balance the destructive power of Bisif's "widows," ensuring that most men in Xia County can live peacefully?
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