The Li Family's sheep slaughtering went on for five days, all of them sunny. By the time it was drawing to a close, the roads were mostly dry.
They slaughtered twenty or thirty sheep every day, and every day people took sheep offal home. Those who did more work, or whose families sent more people, could take a whole set home. Those who helped less took a stomach, a liver, or a lung, enough for a lovely meal.
Uncle Lao Luo cooked meat or offal every day. When students passed Old Ma's Place after school, the bolder ones, or those whose families were helping with the slaughtering, went into the courtyard for half a bowl of offal and a piece of nang. They did not even need dinner when they got home.
During those days, a rich smell of meat hung over the entire Fourth Team. Some students even smelled of mutton when they went to pee in the school toilets. The team's dogs enjoyed better meals too. Some generous owners fed their dogs offal outright.
Even at worst, if they were given no meat, the food cooked for the pigs and dogs was rich with fat and flavor.
On the last day, the helpers finished things up. Besides gathering the sheepskins, they had to wash the sacks that had been laid underneath. Plenty of people still came to help. There was less to eat, but a job had to be finished properly. They could not all turn up for mutton, then stay away when it came to the final work. Shameless people like that were still in the minority.
As they worked, a sudden rumbling came from the south, from the Little Haizi Direction. It was quite loud!
At first, no one knew what was happening. Uncle Lao Luo,