Shi Hou held the Stone Knife. Just as his fingers were about to move, he caught something out of the corner of his eye.
Somehow, Furball had produced that banana leaf again and wrapped it around the chest, tying two corners into a bow behind the neck and tucking the edges beneath the belly. Quite the proper little bib.
The stone trough reserved for Kang had been polished until it gleamed. Shi Hao held a fork in his left hand and a knife in his right, chin lifted, eyes straight ahead.
The three gluttons lined up in a row.
Quietly.
Waiting for food.
Shi Hou drew a slow breath.
Being appreciated by his diners really did feel amazing.
The first cut fell.
A Jimi Hendrix guitar riff exploded inside his skull, and Shi Hou's body spun out of control along with it.
Knife in his right hand, he slipped the blade into the opening cut into the Red-Maned Flame Rhinoceros. No brute force, only his wrist. The blade followed the fat layer, avoided the fascia, and glided along the grain of the muscle. An entire slab of marbled rib meat peeled away from the bones, perfectly even in thickness.
His left hand flipped the slab, his index and middle fingers spreading to pin the base of the ribs precisely. The Stone Knife in his right hand made a series of short cuts, each landing squarely on the beat.
"Thok-thok-thok-thok!"
The rapid chopping synchronized perfectly with the electric guitar solo.
From a spectator's perspective-
Shi Hou was having a full-body fit.
His head snapped left, and the flash of his blade cleaved right. His torso leaned backward at an impossible angle, but his feet stayed nailed in place. His core muscles forcibly bounced his upper body back, and the knife in