Chapter 1184 — Gou Huli, Stunned as a Wooden Chicken, Watches the Entire Xiao Family Come Down with the Runs; Nanny Liu Ma's Face Turns Ashen; Beyond Any Doubt, She Alone Did Not Eat Dinner with the Xiao Family, and She Alone Escaped a Bad Stomach, Which Proved That the Meal She Had Laid Out Had Something Wrong with It

"Liu Ma, what kind of meal did you cook? Are you trying to kill us?" The bout of diarrhea had at last let up. Gou Huli leaned against the sofa, face ashen, while the rest of the Xiao family lay sprawled in disarray across sofas and chairs. The two fighters from the Pi family fared a little better — they were martial artists, after all, with constitutions stronger than ordinary folk.

Even so, both of them wore the sallow complexion of the sick, their foreheads beaded with cold sweat. As the old saying goes, even a hero can't survive three bouts of the runs — and that was exactly the principle at work here.

"First Madam, I... I don't know either. I only used the ingredients that were already there; the groceries were bought by Eldest Young Master and Youngest Master at the supermarket, and all I did was cook them..." The nanny Liu Ma answered very carefully. Though she herself had no idea why this had happened, the Xiao family members had indeed all gotten sick stomachs, so her responsibility could not be avoided.

"Is that so? Wangba, Wangdao — did you buy something that wasn't fresh?" Gou Huli turned her gaze to Xiao Wangba and Xiao Wangdao.

"No, we bought everything at the big supermarket. All of it fresh — we wouldn't buy anything that wasn't." Xiao Wangba spoke with some grievance. "Our Xiao family isn't what it used to be, and with two fine fighters of the Pi family staying here, I couldn't possibly buy cut-rate meat and vegetables. I buy only the best."

"That's strange... Could it be that some things simply must not be eaten together?" Gou Huli clutched her stomach and frowned.

"Wait a moment, brother — do you remember? When we bought meat we didn't buy any pork belly, only tenderloin. So where did this braised pork come from?" Xiao Wangdao slapped his thigh all of a sudden.

"Right! We never bought pork belly!" Xiao Wangba too recalled it in a flash. "Liu Ma, where did this pork belly come from? Did you buy it yourself?"

"I didn't!" Liu Ma grew aggrieved on the spot. "The pork belly was sitting right there with the other ingredients, in the kitchen! I'm still on probation — I haven't even been paid yet. Why on earth would I spend my own money on meat?"

"That's true. So where did this pork belly come from?" Xiao Ben did not think Liu Ma was lying, and neither his own son nor the son of the head of the household could be lying in concert. The only possibility, then, was that something had gone wrong somewhere. Xiao Ben had not felt anything was amiss at first — wasn't it merely a bout of the runs?

But on hearing what Liu Ma and his sons had to say, he suddenly felt something was off.

"Second Master, I don't know either!" Liu Ma said quickly. "Oh — there's still a big slab of pork belly left in the kitchen; I didn't finish cooking it. It's sitting right there this very moment. Why not go and have a look?"

"Naturally we must go and look," Xiao Ben said, his expression grave, rising to his feet first. Xiao Ji, Gou Huli, Xiao Ben's wife, Xiao Wangba and Xiao Wangdao all stood up and followed him into the kitchen.

Sure enough, in the kitchen's cold chest Xiao Ben found a large slab of raw pork belly, wrapped in a plastic bag, with its price sticker still attached.

"The date on this label is today's — it should be a fresh cut..." Xiao Ben picked up the pork, looked it over, and frowned as he spoke.

Behind him, Gou Huli saw the bag in Xiao Ben's hands and went stiff as a wooden chicken. She gazed at it blankly, as if struck by lightning, her eyes wide.

That bag of pork belly — how could she not recognize it? She had bought it herself at the market, and she still clearly remembered the price on the tag.

And now Gou Huli at last understood why she and the whole Xiao family had come down with the runs: because she herself had put laxatives into that pork. At the thought, her face turned the color of earth.

What Gou Huli could not puzzle out was how the meat had ended up in her own kitchen. Hadn't the lion handed it over to Shen Yushu? Could the meat have sprouted wings and flown here on its own?

Gou Huli fumed with anguish, sickened as if she had just swallowed a fly. This was nothing but retribution of her own making.

"This meat was indeed not bought at the supermarket — it came from the produce market, so presumably Wangba and Wangdao did not bring it back with the rest." Xiao Ben examined the price tag, compared it against the labels on the other groceries from the supermarket, and then said: "So this slab of meat is highly suspicious. The problem probably isn't the meat itself, though — it looks perfectly fresh. Someone must have tampered with it afterward."

"Yes, Second Brother, you're right." Xiao Ji nodded too, then said: "Second Brother, look — there's white powder inside the plastic bag. Could that be the laxative?"

Xiao Ji pointed to the underside of the pork bag, and sure enough there was a fine white powdery substance, though unless you looked closely you would never notice it at all.

Liu Ma was terrified at once. "Master, Second Master, I don't know! I didn't tamper with anything — I don't know!"

"Whether it was you or not, take this meat to the market tomorrow and go find the vendor. One question will settle it. This is a big, expensive slab — the vendor will certainly remember it, and we can simply ask who bought it." Xiao Ben, for his part, had an answer ready.

"There's no need to ask... I bought the meat..." Gou Huli said, her face crumpled into a miserable grimace, her expression unspeakably wretched. Cursed as this business was, she still had to own up to it — the whole affair was far too strange, and she wanted Xiao Ben to analyze it for her.

"You bought it? Sister-in-law, you bought this meat..." Xiao Ben was taken aback and regarded Gou Huli with some puzzlement. He rather doubted she would drug the Xiao family's food — besides, she had eaten from it herself, which made her a victim too.

"You wretched woman — are you trying to kill off the Xiao family?" The instant Xiao Ji heard Gou Huli's words he flew into a towering rage and slapped her across the face. The blow sent stars spinning before Gou Huli's eyes and the world wheeling around her; she nearly staggered and dropped to the floor.

"Brother! What are you doing? Sister-in-law surely didn't do it on purpose — didn't she eat it herself too?" Xiao Ben was truly speechless at his elder brother's temper. Wasn't he a little too quick to fly off the handle? Gou Huli had only just confessed and already he was swinging.

"Hmph. Then what in blazes happened?" Xiao Ji snorted coldly and turned to look at Gou Huli.

"It's true I bought the pork belly, but I bought it for the Gu family — not for our own table!" Not daring to hide anything now, Gou Huli launched into the whole story: how she had gone to the Gu family to find the lion, how she had been humiliated to no avail, how she had then hit upon the plan to buy a piece of beef and lure the lion home with it, and how later she had bought the pork and slipped laxatives into it...