Wheel Inspection (Part 1)

7:30 a. m., the kitchen of Dongbei flagship store.

Li Wei, wearing a brand-new white apron and clutching a damp cloth, was wiping the gleaming stainless steel countertop for the third time. Fine beads of sweat appeared on his forehead, not from the heat—the central air conditioning was on full blast—but from his anxiety.

Half an hour ago, the regional manager called, his tone like he was on fire. "Li Wei! There might be an inspection today! It could be the market supervision bureau, or maybe the health center, someone's definitely coming! Clean up your place! Check the refrigerator, the ledgers, the health certificates, everything! If there's a problem, you're fired!"

The call was ended abruptly, leaving Li Wei staring blankly at his phone.

An inspection? What kind of inspection? A surprise inspection? How come there wasn't a single word about it?

But he didn't have time to think it through. He had to open the doors to customers at eight o'clock, and he needed to go through all the possible problems before then.

"Xiao Wang! Double-check the freezer temperature! It must be -18 degrees Celsius!"

"Sister Zhang! Get all the employees' health certificates out and put them on my desk in order!"

"Mop the kitchen floor again! There can't be a speck of oil in any corner!"

Li Wei spun around in the kitchen like a top being whipped, his voice hoarse from shouting. The staff were in a frenzy, some carrying boxes, others wiping the stoves. One young apprentice was running so fast that he almost knocked over a stack of freshly washed dishes.

At 7:50, everything was barely in place. Li Wei stood in the center of the kitchen, panting as he surveyed his surroundings: the floor was gleaming, the stovetops were spotless, the ingredients were neatly arranged, and health certificates were stacked on the table. The thermometer in the freezer read: -18.5℃.

"It should be fine now." He wiped his sweat, feeling a little more at ease. "Let's open for business."

At eight o'clock sharp, the roller shutter door slowly rose. The morning sunlight slanted in, illuminating the sign at the entrance that read "Fresh ingredients, cooked to order." Two early shift servers stood at the door, ready to welcome the first wave of customers.

Then they saw the three white cars.

The vehicle was marked with blue and black lettering: Market Supervision Administration.

The cars didn't rush over with sirens blaring; instead, they smoothly and silently glided to the store entrance and lined up in a row. The doors opened, and seven or eight people in dark blue uniforms got out. The leader was a middle-aged man in his forties with a square face, wearing Glasses, and carrying a folder in his hand.

Li Wei's heart sank to the bottom.

He forced a smile that looked more like a grimace and stepped forward, "Sir, welcome to the inspection! We are Dongbei Catering's flagship store, and we have always operated in compliance with regulations..."

"Are you the store manager?" the middle-aged man interrupted him, his voice calm but devoid of warmth.

"Yes, yes, my name is Li Wei."

"We're from the Provincial Food Safety Inspection Division. My surname is Zhao." The man flashed his badge. "Following public complaints and a unified deployment by the bureau, we're conducting a special food safety inspection of your store today. Please cooperate."

Public complaints? Bureau directives? Li Wei's mind was buzzing. He had clearly just had dinner with Old Wang, the district official in charge of this area, yesterday, and he had assured him there would be no problem. How come he hadn't received any information about it?

"I'll cooperate, I'll definitely cooperate!" Li Wei nodded repeatedly, stepping aside. "Director Zhao, please come in, please come in."

Zhao Qiming — Li Wei remembered this name—led his men straight to the kitchen. His subordinates had a clear division of labor: some went to check the ledgers, some checked the freezers, and some looked at the disinfection records, like a pack of well-trained hunting dogs.

Li Wei followed behind, his palms sweaty.

"Open the freezer," Zhao Qiming said.

Xiao Wang quickly opened the heavy warehouse door, and a blast of cold air hit him. Zhao Qiming walked in, holding a handheld thermometer, and took measurements at several points.

"Minus eleven degrees Celsius," he read out the number, then turned to look at Li Wei. "Food safety standards require that frozen foods be stored at a temperature not exceeding minus eighteen degrees Celsius. Yours is quite far off."

Li Wei's legs went weak, and he almost knelt down. "Sir, this... this is probably due to temperature fluctuations caused by the frequent opening and closing of the door this morning. We usually keep it at minus eighteen degrees Celsius, really!"

Zhao Qiming didn't say anything, walked to the shelf, and casually picked up a bag of frozen fish chunks. The label on the bag read: Production date December 3, 2025, shelf life until June 3, 2026.

"It expires in three months." Zhao Qiming put the fish pieces back. "But based on your store's customer traffic, this batch should have been used up within half a month. Why is there still so much left?"

"This... this is because..." Li Wei's mind raced, "... because we've been focusing on new dishes lately, and fewer people are ordering fish pieces..."

"Really?" Zhao Qiming opened the folder in his hand and pulled out a piece of paper. "This is the sales data from last week that we retrieved from your back-end system. Eighty servings of braised fish chunks were sold. Each serving is labeled as 300 grams, which is 24 kilograms of fish. You still have 50 kilograms of the same batch of fish chunks in your freezer. Adding other batches, the total inventory exceeds 100 kilograms. Manager Li, you only sold 24 kilograms a week, but you stockpiled more than 100 kilograms of goods?"

Li Wei's mouth was open, but he couldn't utter a single word. Cold sweat streamed down his back.

Zhao Qiming closed the folder. "Where's the ledger? Let me see it."

Sister Zhang cautiously handed over the ledger. Zhao Qiming quickly flipped through it, his finger pausing on a particular page.

"Yesterday, your purchasing records show that you bought 30 jin of live crucian carp." He looked up, his gaze fixed on Li Wei through his glasses. "But the sales records show that you sold 80 servings of braised fish chunks yesterday, each labeled as using half a jin of fish. That's 40 jin of fish. Manager Li, where did the extra 10 jin of fish come from?"

The kitchen was completely silent, save for the humming of the cold storage compressor.

Li Wei's face turned from white to green, then back to white. He recalled the rhetoric he had been taught during headquarters training—central kitchen for unified distribution, secondary processing at the stores, so there was a reasonable discrepancy between the purchase records and sales records—but looking into Zhao Qiming's calm yet sharp eyes, those words stuck in his throat, and he couldn't utter a single one.

"I... we..." Li Wei's voice trembled.

"No need for explanation." Zhao Qiming took a pre-prepared document from his subordinate, quickly filled in a few lines, and handed it to Li Wei. "Order for Rectification Notice. Your freezer temperature is substandard, and your food purchase and sales records are seriously inconsistent, suspected of using ingredients from unknown sources. Your store is hereby ordered to: 1. Immediately cease using this batch of frozen fish pieces and all other ingredients whose temperature is substandard; 2. Within three days, provide the local market supervision bureau with complete and accurate records of food purchase, storage, and usage, along with an explanation of the situation; 3. Until the problem is clarified, suspend the sale of all fish-related dishes."

Li Wei took the paper, his hands trembling violently. The words on the paper flickered before his eyes, like a swarm of black ants.

"Boss, isn't this punishment too harsh? We'll change it immediately, adjust the temperature right away, and redo the records..."

"Adjust the temperature now," Zhao Qiming pointed to the cold storage. "Set it back to -18 degrees Celsius and keep it stable for 24 hours. We'll check it again. As for the ledgers—Manager Li, in the restaurant business, integrity comes first. Think carefully about how to 're-do' them."

After saying that, he stopped looking at Li Wei and waved to his subordinates. "Seal the area; temporarily seal off the cold storage. Continue inspecting the other areas."

Two staff members took out a seal and a camera, took pictures of the freezer door, and then affixed a white seal. The seal was stamped with a red stamp, which was particularly glaring under the cold storage's harsh white lights.

Looking at the seal, Li Wei felt as if he had been punched in the chest, unable to breathe.

The morning's business was completely ruined. Customers, seeing the market supervision vehicle at the door and the tense atmosphere inside, either turned and left or peeked in to see what was going on. Li Wei forced a smile and explained, "It's a routine inspection, it'll be over soon," but he knew in his heart that today was over.

At 11 o'clock, the people from the Market Supervision Administration finally left, leaving behind an empty cold storage and a rectification notice that seemed light but weighed a ton.

Li Wei slumped into his office chair, feeling like his body was falling apart. He called the regional manager, who listened for a long time before saying, "I understand. Stay calm, headquarters is coordinating."

Coordination? How can we coordinate? The person is gone, the seal is on, and the notice is written very clearly.

Li Wei hung up the phone and covered his face with his hands. Just then, another commotion broke out outside.

"Manager! Manager!" Xiao Wang rushed in, his face pale. "More... more people!"

Li Wei looked up abruptly. "The Market Supervision Bureau is back again?"

"No..." Xiao Wang's voice trembled with tears, "It's the Health Supervision Bureau! Two vehicles! They've arrived!"

Li Wei's mind went blank.

He stumbled into the lobby and, sure enough, saw two cars marked "Health Supervision" parked at the entrance. Seven or eight people in white uniforms were getting out of the cars, led by a woman in her forties with short hair and a serious expression.

"Hello, we are from the district health supervision bureau." The woman showed her badge. "We received a report from the public and are conducting a special public health inspection of your store. Please cooperate."

It was a tip-off from the public. Another tip-off from the public.

Li Wei felt dizzy. He grabbed the door frame to keep from falling.

"Leader... leader..." His voice was as dry as sandpaper, "We just finished an inspection by the Market Supervision Bureau and are currently making rectifications..."

"That's their business," the woman—whose name tag read "Sun Hongmei"—interrupted him. "We're health inspectors; we're checking hygiene. Take us to the kitchen."

In the kitchen, the floor, which had just been wiped clean that morning, was already covered in footprints again, and the stove was greasy again from preparing ingredients. Sun Hongmei put on white gloves, took a cotton swab from her pocket, walked to the exhaust fan, and wiped the blades.

The cotton swab tip immediately turned black.

"There's a buildup of grease." She held up a cotton swab in front of Li Wei's eyes. "How long has it been since you cleaned it?"

"One week..." Li Wei's voice was barely audible.

"The Food Safety Law stipulates that exhaust systems should be cleaned regularly to keep them hygienic. How long do you mean by 'regularly'?"

Li Wei couldn't answer.

Sun Hongmei ignored him and walked to the staff changing area. Health certificates were hanging on the wall. She randomly picked down three and looked at them against the light.

"This one's expired." She pulled out a note. "It expired yesterday. Why is it still on duty?"

"He... he's off today, he didn't come..." Li Wei thought of a solution in a moment of quick thinking.

"Really?" Sun Hongmei glanced at the shift schedule. "He's on the early shift today. Where is he?"

Li Wei was speechless.

The inspection is ongoing. Disinfection records are inadequate—the logbook states a disinfection time of 30 minutes, but the disinfection cabinet is only set to 20 minutes. Rodent control measures are incomplete—the gap in the back door is wider than a finger's width. Even more critically, in a corner of the storage room, Sun Hongmei discovered two unopened cardboard boxes labeled "Dongbei Central Kitchen Exclusive—Braised Pork Seasoning Pack."

"What is this?" Sun Hongmei asked.

"This, this is..." Li Wei's mind went blank.

"Your store's business license covers 'Chinese food preparation and sales,' not 'heating pre-packaged food,'" Sun Hongmei's voice was icy cold. "Explain these prepared food packets."

Li Wei opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

At 1 p. m., the health inspectors left. What they left behind was: a fine of 5,000 yuan, a notice to suspend business for three days, and a kitchen that looked like it had been ravaged by a hurricane.

Li Wei sat amidst the mess, looking at two thin sheets of paper in his hand. One was from the Market Supervision Bureau, and the other from the Health Center.

He thought about the mortgage payment he had to make this month, the children's tutoring fees, and how his wife had mentioned yesterday that she wanted to buy a new air conditioner.

It's all over.

My phone rang again. It was the regional manager.

Li Wei answered the call numbly.

"Li Wei! What the hell did you do?! You even went to the clinic? And they found out about the 'treatment kit'? Headquarters is in an uproar! Let me tell you, if this happens..."

Li Wei hung up the phone before the call was finished.

He slowly stood up and walked to the shop entrance. The afternoon sun was dazzling, the street was bustling with traffic, and there was a long queue in front of the snack shop across the street.

There used to be queues outside his shop.

"Manager..." Xiao Wang cautiously approached, "Are you... still open for business?"

Li Wei shook his head. Open for business? How can we operate? The cold storage is sealed off, we can't sell fish. We have to close for three days for sanitation reasons, we can't even open the shop.

He turned around, intending to go back to his office and at least sort out this mess first.

Then he heard the sound of fire trucks.

It wasn't the kind of blaring sirens, but rather the deep sound of an engine, approaching steadily from afar before coming to a stop in front of the store.

Li Wei stood at the store entrance, looking at the red fire truck and the firefighters in dark blue fire-fighting protective suits who jumped out of it.

The leader was a dark-skinned man; the stars on his epaulets indicated he was a leader. He glanced up at the Dongbei sign, then at the notice of closure of the clinic posted at the entrance, before his gaze settled on Li Wei's face.

"Are you in charge?" the dark-faced man asked.

Li Wei nodded, his movements as stiff as a puppet.

"We're from the Fire Prevention Supervision Section of the Municipal Fire Brigade," the man said, flashing his badge. "Your shop is on the list for the summer fire safety inspection."

Li Wei looked at his serious face, watched the firefighters begin unloading testing equipment from the vehicle, and saw people across the street already taking pictures with their phones.

He suddenly felt like laughing.

Market Supervision Bureau, Health Center, Fire Department.

What else? Tax Bureau? Environmental Protection Bureau? Public Security Bureau?

Come on, everyone.

He turned around, slowly walked back into the shop, went to the kitchen, and sat down in front of the greasy, worn-out chair he had sat on for five years.

Then he took out his phone and sent a WeChat to his wife:

"This month's salaries might not be paid."

Click send.

A firefighter's gruff voice came from outside. "Boss! Come here for a second! What's going on with this fire escape? Why are there so many boxes piled up here?!"

Li Wei didn't move.

He sat there, looking at the blinding sunlight outside the window, watching the dust particles dancing in the sunlight.

It's so bright!

He thought.

It was so bright it was blinding.