Afternoon.
Dong Xuebin drove back from Li's Restaurant to the Guangming Street Office just across the alley. The moment he got out of the car, he saw many staff members looking at him with alarm and apprehension.
"Did you hear? Our new director got into trouble again."
"Again? What happened?"
"At the wedding banquet at the Peace Street director's home at noon, District Governor Yuehua and the district party secretary's wife were both there."
"I know that. I heard firecrackers a while ago. Then what?"
"Then our director ordered a dish for them called Woman Forty."
"What kind of dish is that? Never heard of it."
"Ahem, it was actually tofu dregs."
"Fuck! Woman Forty? Tofu dregs? Who came up with that name? Wouldn't Director Dong offend them to death? Wasn't that setting our director up?"
"Exactly. I heard Madam Yan's expression changed on the spot."
"Of course it did. Wasn't that basically insulting them?"
"It was such an absurd disaster. Who could have guessed it was a plate of tofu dregs?"
Although Dong Xuebin could not hear their discussion, he could tell from their expressions that word of what had happened at the wedding banquet had gotten out. His face darkened further. After returning to his office, he lit a cigarette and took a few drags, mulling over what had happened at the lunch. The more he thought about it, the more something felt wrong, and the deeper his frown became. Since Li Lu, the owner of the restaurant, knew Madam Yan and District Governor Geng were present, personally supervised the kitchen, and took the banquet so seriously, how could he not have known that Woman Forty could not be served on such an occasion?
Couldn't he see it when the dish was brought out? And Chu Qinghua had