Thinking about the night before, Ji Tan couldn’t help leaning closer to Xie Zhi’s wind goggles, hoping to see whether his eyes were still red. Unfortunately, the lenses had a dazzling iridescent coating. From the outside, he couldn’t see a thing.
The sudden closeness startled Xie Zhi. Suppressing his instinctive combat reflex to dodge, he stood nailed to the spot. “What’s wrong?”
Ji Tan fixed his gaze on the little mole half-hidden beneath the frame. He reached up and lifted the goggles a little, then whispered, “Off you go, Mr. Gooseherd.”
This time, Xie Zhi went as stiff as a wooden post.
Ji Tan drew back slightly and said with perfect composure, “If you can’t tell your secret, you can tell it to the iron stove.”
That was what the king said in The Goose Girl to the princess who couldn’t reveal her true situation.
Xie Zhi slowly drew a breath. “When the time is right…”
Before Boss Xie could finish, Ji Tan patted his shoulder again. “Uncle King, I promise I won’t eavesdrop.”
Were they never going to let this uncle business die?!
“Hey, you brat!” The smile that had just begun to curve Xie Zhi’s lips disappeared. He reached out, intending to imitate Ji Sinan and pinch a handful of Ji Tan’s cheek.
Ji Tan wasn’t about to fall for that. He dashed straight back to the fish-cleaning counter.
The phone in Xie Zhi’s pocket was vibrating. Whatever was happening on the other end couldn’t wait. Xie Zhi could only sigh. Watching Ji Tan wave goodbye from a distance, he murmured, “Hurry up and become an iron stove that doesn’t fear fire, King Tan-Tan.”
Ji Tan was very satisfied with his new job. It required no thinking, only relentless slaughter.
It was his first day, and their shifts hadn’t been arranged yet, so he and Lu Ren were both stationed at the fish tanks.
The eager new hire wanted to try butchering every kind of fish they sold as soon as possible. He would make a note of the species he wasn’t good at and look them up when he got home. So he became even more enthusiastic about taking customers’ orders.
Afraid that the delay between his hands and his facial expressions might frighten customers, he forced himself to keep his face under control, doing his best to look like a cold-faced killer. Yet more and more customers began specifically asking him to butcher their fish.
This killer might be cold, but he was handsome and sweet-tongued.
At first, Lu Ren was quite happy to take it easy, chatting with Brother Yan off to one side. As time went by, however, he grew increasingly disgruntled.
Those customers were blind! Instead of choosing an experienced master like him, they went after a pretty boy who did nothing but call them “Sister” and “Big Brother.” Fine, let them choose him. But did they have to put Old Lu down while praising the newcomer? “Such impressive knife skills,” “What a pleasure to watch,” and the like. So what, Old Lu’s knife skills were unimpressive? The sight of him butchering a fish hurt their eyes?
Brother Yan frowned as he listened to Old Lu’s thoughtless grumbling. “That’s enough. Someone lets you rest and you’re still not happy? Then get back to work.”
Just then, Manager Zhang hurried over in a panic. “Brother Yan! We’ve got a prime catch.”
Brother Yan straightened, pulled on his yellowed apron, and drew a gleaming, pointed knife from a box. He gave the blade a puff of breath. “Open the cold box.”
The so-called cold box was behind the same door Brother Yan had emerged from earlier. According to Manager Zhang, this chamber was reserved for special ingredients. The supermarket’s actual large cold-storage warehouse was at the other end of the building.
Ji Tan stopped working and watched. Uncle Yan’s arm muscles bulged as he pulled open the heavy outer door, revealing a second iron door inside that resembled the side of a shipping container. Manager Zhang accepted a key from a man in a black suit, supposedly the manager of the VIP room, and turned it in the inner door’s lock with a click.
Uncle Yan pushed Manager Zhang aside and sharply ordered him to stand back.
An eerie cloud of white vapor billowed through the crack in the door, making the difference in temperature inside and out painfully obvious.
The instant the door opened, Ji Tan heard a strange, guttural roar. Uncle Yan darted inside and slammed it shut with a bang. Manager Zhang rushed forward and slid the iron bolt into place from the outside.
Bang, bang, bang! A succession of impacts came from inside the metal container. With every blow, Manager Zhang’s neck shrank a little farther into his shoulders. Old Lu retreated to one side and even tried to shut the outer door. But he still found time to sneer at Ji Tan. “Don’t get any ideas. You’re nowhere near qualified for this kind of work.”
What a lunatic. Ji Tan rolled his eyes, ignored him, and listened closely to the sounds coming from within.
After a while, the impacts stopped. Ji Tan thought he could faintly hear a fish’s tail being chopped off. Several minutes later came three evenly spaced knocks on the door. Manager Zhang hurried forward to withdraw the bolt.
Uncle Yan came out with frost covering his hair and eyebrows, his face pale. It was impossible to tell whether he was exhausted or simply freezing. He closed the inner door again, leaned against the outer one, and spent a long while catching his breath.
“Uncle Yan, are you all right?” Ji Tan went forward to support him. The door had shut so quickly, and the white mist had been so thick, that he hadn’t caught sight of anything inside.
Uncle Yan waved him off, stood up on his own, and removed his apron. “Little Ji, fetch your uncle a cup of hot tea.”
With that, he took out a pack of cigarettes and went through the door.
Ji Tan poured the tea, picked up a clean, dry towel, and followed him into the alley behind the supermarket. Uncle Yan was smoking beside a rusted shipping container. Curling smoke obscured his rugged, stubbled face until it was difficult to make out his features.
The alley was really just a passage left between heaps of abandoned shipping containers. Perhaps it had originally been an open lot. So many containers had been piled there that only a narrow lane remained.
Ji Tan worked out how it all fitted together. Containers carrying these prime catches were brought in through the gate at the side. Uncle Yan opened them from the other end and went inside to butcher the fish. The meat then traveled through a separate side passage directly to the VIP-room customers. Ordinary shoppers and supermarket employees never saw so much as a fish scale.
“You’re a thoughtful kid.” Uncle Yan accepted the towel and wiped away the drops left by the frost melting on his brows. “I’ll leave the job of portioning the meat for the customers to you in a little while.”
“Me?” Ji Tan was astonished. It was his first day, and he didn’t even know where the VIP room was.
“Of course! With a face as handsome as yours, you’ll have an easier time serving those picky customers.” Uncle Yan smiled and gave him a light pat with the back of his hand. Then he confided quietly, “The customers used to complain whenever Lu Ren served their portions. That’s why the supermarket wanted someone young.”
This was also why Lu Ren’s recommendation of his own nephew had been rejected by management, and Ji Tan had been parachuted in as a hire with connections.
Ji Tan didn’t know how to respond. He scratched the back of his head, gave a sheepish chuckle, and played dumb.
Before taking him to the VIP room, Uncle Yan led him to the changing room and handed him a brand-new suit. The hand extending the clothes was still trembling slightly. Uncle Yan joked, “That one was a fierce beast today. Not easy to kill.”
Ji Tan finally understood why someone else had to be brought in to slice the meat. What kind of seafood had to be wrestled into submission before it could be butchered?
They called it a suit, but it was really a server’s outfit: a white shirt and black vest, just made of finer material. Ji Tan tied on the bow tie and pulled on white gloves. Looking in the mirror, he thought he resembled Tom the cartoon cat, dressed in tails and about to sit down at a piano recital.
He marched proudly down a corridor covered in red carpet and gently pushed open the VIP room’s doors, which were carved with glittering golden patterns.
Inside, there was none of the noise and bustle of the fish market. All the customers sat in upholstered chairs, their eyes fixed with burning intensity on the fish meat arranged across a long crystal table.
The sunken tabletop was heaped with crushed white ice, on which lay the freshly prepared fish. Its texture looked remarkably like salmon, its color vivid, except that now and then it gave off an eerie blue glow.
Ji Tan blinked, making sure it wasn’t his imagination. The little jeweled book against his chest grew faintly warm. Startled, he discreetly looked around. Fortunately, no one seemed to have noticed anything unusual about him. The seal in the Central District really did seem quite dependable.
There was favor-power in this fish meat!
At the center of the icy table lay a magnificent fish tail. Its blue skin was coated with an iridescent film that refracted rainbow colors under the lights. The enormous tail spread out like a peony in full bloom, dazzlingly beautiful.
Ji Tan had never seen a fish tail like it. It looked almost like the tail of a legendary mermaid.
Uncle Yan raised an eyebrow and smiled mysteriously. “I’ll show you the whole fish some other day.” With that, he handed Ji Tan a delicate slicing knife.
Uncle Yan had already prepared the meat, removing all the bones and skin. All Ji Tan had to do was cut it into evenly sized portions according to the customers’ requests, then weigh them. Almost everyone wanted pieces weighing one kilogram apiece, and each kilogram of this meat was worth 100,000 City A currency units.
With an ingredient that expensive, he absolutely couldn’t make a bad cut. Uncle Yan gave him a rough idea of the right size, but it would be difficult to hit the exact weight just by following his example. A little too much or too little was almost inevitable.
“Ah Yan, can this young fellow manage it? I won’t accept a portion that isn’t one whole piece.” An elderly gentleman wearing glasses delivered that pressure-inducing remark with a mild smile.
“Goodness, what’s there to worry about? If he cuts one wrong, the supermarket can eat it itself!” The other customers also made clear that they wouldn’t accept scraps.
Ji Tan wasn’t worried in the slightest. He put an entire piece of fish meat on the electronic scale and weighed it, then took a measuring tape to check its dimensions. He rapidly worked out the volume in his head and brought the knife down with precision.
He placed the cut piece on the electronic scale. The display read: 【1.00kg】.
“Well now, excellent technique.” The old gentleman chuckled approvingly.
What technique? This was mathematics!
Ji Tan maintained his impassive expression and went on cutting.
The favor-power-rich fish meat varied strangely beneath the blade. Sometimes it was as light and silky-smooth as steamed egg custard; at other times it was coarse and sticky, like beef cooked all the way through. Ji Tan suspected it had something to do with the movement of favor-power. If he could find the pattern, perhaps he could make every cut glide through the “egg custard” texture. But he had limited time today and couldn’t stop to investigate.
The customers were all delighted with the new fish slicer’s looks and ability. A woman with long, wavy hair slipped Ji Tan a tip of two thousand and teased, “Stop butchering fish and come be a chef at your big sister’s place.”
Ji Tan handed over ten beautifully packaged portions of fish. “Sister, a fish butcher sells fish, not himself.”
“Ha ha ha ha!” The woman with the big curls doubled over laughing and pressed another two thousand into his hand.
Once the customers had left, Ji Tan offered Uncle Yan half the tip money.
Uncle Yan refused, waving it away. It wasn’t easy for a young fellow to earn money.
“This is the first tip I’ve ever received. It’s good luck, so let me share the joy. I won’t split it like this next time.” Ji Tan stuffed two thousand into Uncle Yan’s pocket.
Uncle Yan shook his head helplessly, then accepted the money with a smile. “All right, but don’t do it again.” Who wouldn’t like a youngster who was clever, hardworking, and knew how to treat people properly?
Ji Tan smiled shyly, leaned closer, and asked, “Uncle Yan, were all those customers Orderbearers?”
“How could you tell?” Uncle Yan didn’t deny it. Looking down, he removed his gloves and bow tie, took off his jacket, and revealed the sleeveless undershirt beneath. In an instant, the gentleman had turned back into a fish butcher.
“Orderbearers have a different air about them from ordinary people. There’s a kind of certainty in their eyes, a sense that they understand the true nature of this world. That sort of certainty.” Ji Tan carefully improvised this profound-sounding nonsense. He couldn’t exactly admit that he had a special advantage that let him sense favor-power.
His explanation sounded so deep that Uncle Yan nodded without quite understanding. Then he warned Ji Tan solemnly, “Whatever you do, don’t steal a taste of that fish meat. It’s extremely dangerous for ordinary people. There’s a greater-than-even chance that eating it will make their bodies explode and kill them.”
Ji Tan: “!!!”
What a dangerous world this was!
“Did you get any tips?” As soon as Ji Tan came out, Lu Ren’s triangular eyes darted toward his pockets. “We have a rule here. Tips must be divided equally.”
“Nope.” Ji Tan spread his hands. Ignoring Old Lu’s barbed remarks, he happily returned to the front counter to butcher more fish. He planned to use his remaining two thousand to take his brother out for a lavish dinner that evening. He’d been in City A for ages now, and he still hadn’t eaten a single decent meal.
This was one of the wonderful things about Ji Sinan. Whenever his little brother said he wanted to spend money, Ji Sinan would support him with both hands raised. He was never the kind of guardian who spoiled everyone’s fun.
The two of them cheerfully went to the most popular hotpot restaurant on Green Arc-Light Street and had a wonderful meal. During dinner, Ji Tan received a call from the bank. His loan had been approved, and the funds would probably arrive the next day. Life in City A was finally beginning to look promising.
Ji Tan was delighted. Once the money arrived, he could take his brother for his injection. He wondered whether, after his sanity level recovered, his brother might gradually remember his life on Earth.
Ji Sinan was transferring a piece of cooked meat into his younger brother’s bowl. Seeing Ji Tan smiling so foolishly, he urged him, “Hurry up and eat. It’s getting cold.”
Ji Tan put the meat in his mouth, his eyes crinkling with happiness.
The following day, Uncle Yan didn’t come to work. Wrestling with that fish the day before had taken too much out of him.
Ji Tan had already become accustomed to the job and stood alone at the fish-cleaning counter serving customers. Near the end of his shift, Manager Zhang came running over, drenched in sweat. “Little Ji, can you get hold of Uncle Yan? Another prime catch has arrived, but I can’t reach him by phone.”
Ji Tan shook his head.
The VIP-room manager shoved a new key into Manager Zhang’s hand and said coldly, “The customer will be here any minute. Hurry up. If you can’t manage it, call one of the killers from Killed Yet? to fill in.”
Elio’s Note ¹: “Killed Yet?” (杀了么) plays on the Chinese food-delivery app name “Hungry Yet?” (饿了么). Here, it refers to a service that supplies professional killers, with the joke tailored to the fish-butchering business.
Manager Zhang said, “Killed Yet? charges an awfully high rate.”
The VIP manager glared at him. “Then pay it! If we offend that customer, both of us will lose our jobs.”
Manager Zhang hesitantly agreed, but took no action. He was still trying to call Brother Yan. Lu Ren had arrived to take over the shift. Seeing what was happening, he drew Manager Zhang aside and whispered, “Isn’t that new fellow an advanced fish butcher too? Brother Yan took him inside yesterday. He should be able to handle the kill.”
His wording was deliberately vague. Manager Zhang hadn’t been there for what happened afterward the previous day, and he assumed that Brother Yan had taken Ji Tan into the cold box after he’d left. His eyes instantly lit up as he turned toward Ji Tan.
“Killed Yet? charges a hundred thousand for one fish. Brother Yan gets fifty thousand for killing one. Give the kid twenty thousand and you and I can split the remaining thirty thousand.” Lu Ren was still whispering like a devil at his shoulder.
Manager Zhang finally succumbed. Clearing his throat, he called out, “Little Ji, you’re going to butcher this prime catch.”