Chapter 28

Chapter 28

"Do you know how toxic lily of the valley is? Just one or two flowers can poison an adult, and if a child accidentally eats them..." Jiang Chao hadn't expected the vendor to still hold onto wishful thinking even after he explained the severity of the situation—he was so furious he couldn't even finish his sentence.

"How many cakes with lily of the valley decorations did you sell? Can you get in touch with them?" Jiang Chao asked rapidly.

"I..." The vendor was panicking. How could she have contact information for her customers? What if someone actually died?

When a person is pushed to the absolute limit of panic, they sometimes have a moment of clarity. The vendor suddenly remembered something, grabbing onto it like a lifeline: "These, these lily of the valley tiramisus haven't been sold yet! They haven't been sold!"

"Are you sure? Don't lie to me!" Jiang Chao stared at her sternly, afraid she might deliberately lie to avoid responsibility.

"The flowers were a gift from someone pursuing me. There was only a small amount, so I only used them to decorate these tiramisus. Everything else is decorated with roses," the vendor explained quickly.

"He knew I would use the flowers he sent to decorate cakes. He must have done this on purpose to hurt me. I didn't know lily of the valley was toxic. If I had known, I never would have done this," the vendor suddenly thought of something and quickly added.

Before Jiang Chao could react, the vendor's livestream exploded.

"I gave you flowers and I'm the one in the wrong? You said you liked flowers, so I specially picked out such expensive lily of the valley to send you. You don't even recognize quality, and now you're blaming me?"

The speaker was the number two top spender in the vendor's livestream room.

"Everyone else in the livestream might not know, but you do. The roses you sent me before—didn't I use them all to decorate cakes? You even praised me for being thrifty. So when you sent me lily of the valley, didn't you know I would use them for decoration?" The vendor noticed the commotion in the livestream and, seeing the number two top spender trying to shift the blame onto her, didn't hold back and fired right back.

"You knew she would use the flowers you sent to decorate cakes, and you still sent toxic lily of the valley?" Jiang Chao also noticed the camera and asked directly.

"How was I supposed to know lily of the valley was toxic? I just had someone pick out a more expensive flower. Who knew it would be this dangerous?"

"Besides, if she's going to decorate cakes with flowers, shouldn't she do her research? This has nothing to do with me."

The number two top spender, terrified of being suspected of deliberate poisoning, hurriedly explained himself. It was obvious to anyone that the last part was what he really meant.

Seeing the vendor and the number two top spender arguing, Jiang Chao shut down the vendor's arguing, saying he was confiscating everything at her stall for testing, she would have to pay a fine, and she would need to refund everyone who had bought cakes.

That was if no one got sick from eating them. If anyone fell ill afterward, on top of those penalties, she'd also have to pay for medical bills, lost wages, and other damages.

Hearing all these penalties, the vendor's face fell.

She'd barely made any money selling these things. Getting her stuff confiscated was bad enough, but fines on top of that, and then refunds too?

You could clearly see on the livestream that the vendor wasn't happy about it, but Jiang Chao's attitude was firm, so she had no choice but to pay the fine and refund the customers who had bought cakes.

While the vendor was processing refunds, Jiang Chao noticed a crowd gathering to watch the commotion and took the chance to explain how strict tiramisu's storage requirements were and why it spoiled so easily.

"Everyone should try to buy from legit cake shops. When buying on the street, the risk of cake spoilage is extremely high. With a mobile stall like this, if you get food poisoning, you can't even track down the seller afterward," Jiang Chao concluded.

The vendor was processing refunds, and many of the customers who came to buy tiramisu were fans from her livestream.

Some people at the night market hadn't watched the livestream and had just rushed over because they heard something interesting was going on. They only realized the drama was about them when they got there.

People who'd bought but hadn't eaten yet were relieved at first, but that relief lasted only a few seconds before they heard Jiang Chao explain things and remembered that the vendor had been selling the same way before. There's no way only today's tiramisu went bad—the ones stored the same way before must have spoiled too.

And the more they thought about it, the more they thought the cake had tasted weird back then. They'd even had diarrhea a few times, but at the time they'd just assumed it was from eating too much mixed food at the night market and upsetting their stomachs. It never crossed their minds that the food had gone bad.

The fans watching the livestream were absolutely fuming. They'd bought the tiramisu because the streamer made it look so good and used fresh ingredients. Even though it cost more than other places, they'd gone out of their way to buy it multiple times.

Now, thinking about it, the more they had supported the streamer, the more they'd been ripped off.

These fans quickly rushed toward the vendor's stall. They all knew that with law enforcement officers present, they'd have a better shot at getting compensated. Once the officers left, the vendor would definitely stall and argue with them.

But as they hurried along, the angrier they got, and they couldn't help but start fighting in the livestream chat.

The vendor was giving refunds while watching the livestream turn into a mess. She wanted to do something, but she was swamped.

As for turning off the livestream, the vendor didn't dare. She was afraid that if she shut it down, someone would say she hadn't issued refunds offline, and that stain on her reputation would stick forever and she'd never be able to come back from it.

Where's the moderator?

The vendor kept checking her phone, wanting the moderator to come out and take control, but the moderator never appeared.

At that moment, the moderator was in the bathroom, puking and having diarrhea at the same time. His stomach was killing him, and he didn't have the energy to check the livestream.

What the hell did he eat to get this sick?

The moderator couldn't figure it out, but he realized the situation was critical. He was just about to head to the hospital when his stomach churned again. He had to rush back to the bathroom, then called the emergency hotline.

As he was loaded into the ambulance, knowing he was about to go to the hospital, the moderator finally remembered his job. His strong sense of responsibility made him open the livestream, wanting to tell the vendor he was going to the hospital and she should find someone else to moderate.

Seeing a patient this sick still grabbing his phone, the doctor couldn't help but shake his head. Now that's dedication to the job.

But just as he was marveling at that, the doctor noticed the patient seemed to be watching a livestream. He had mixed feelings—puking this bad and still staring at his phone? This guy's phone addiction was serious.

The moderator had no idea what the doctor thought of him. He stared at the livestream, frowning. What was going on? He'd only been gone from the livestream for a bit—why was everyone going at each other so hard?

Trying not to throw up, the moderator opened some accounts' chat history to see what was happening.

Skimming through super fast, the moderator froze. What did they mean, tiramisu could go bad in an hour in this heat? What did they mean, lily of the valley was toxic?

The moderator remembered the tiramisu he'd just eaten earlier. The vendor had given it to him, saying it was a thank-you for all his work on the livestream.

The flower on the cake wasn't the usual rose—it was a small white flower he didn't recognize. He'd thought it looked pretty, figured anything on a cake had to be safe to eat, and eaten it directly. He'd wolfed it down so fast he didn't even taste it.

So, the vomiting and diarrhea—was he poisoned?

There might also be the factor of spoiled food. Remembering the sour taste in the cake, the moderator totally lost it.

"What the f*ck, Fan Feifei, are you even human? I've been your moderator, managing this livestream diligently. The moment any hater shows up, I ban them immediately. I've been nothing but nice to you. You give me spoiled cake, and on top of that, you put toxic lily of the valley on it for me to eat—are you afraid I won't die fast enough?"

"I'm in an ambulance right now. You wait. Once I'm better and out of here, I know where you live."

After dropping those threats, the moderator immediately told the doctor how he'd gotten sick, terrified of delaying his treatment.

"How many flowers did you eat?" The doctor also knew the toxicity of lily of the valley and grew tense.

"Four or five, I don't remember. Doctor, is it serious?" the moderator asked, but he figured such a small amount couldn't be that bad. A stomach pump should do the trick, right?

"We'll have to see once we get to the hospital. Just lie down for now," the doctor told him, then immediately instructed the driver to speed up. This person needed to get to the hospital for emergency treatment right away.

"Wait, doctor, what do you mean? Am I in danger?" The moderator was genuinely panicking now.

"We'll see when we get to the hospital," the doctor reassured him, but that did nothing to calm him down.

The moderator wanted to lose his mind, but in the ambulance, he couldn't exactly yell at the doctor or nurses. And he definitely didn't dare yell at the driver—he was afraid that if he cursed, the driver would get angry and drive slower, delaying his treatment.

So where was the soft target?

The moderator thought it over and went completely unhinged in the livestream, exposing everything the vendor had done before.

He was the moderator, close to the vendor. Some things, he'd even helped her do.

For instance, when chatting with big spenders in the chat, if the stall owner was busy, he'd take over, and if the conversation went well, he could even get them to send gifts.

Previously, nothing had managed to draw out the top donor, but as soon as he said this, the top donor popped up, questioning whether the manager was making things up.

In response, the manager directly posted a few intimate exchanges that only the two of them knew about, and the top donor went quiet for a long time before bailing from the stream.

The manager kept at it, saying that besides helping with chats, he had also acted as muscle for the stall owner. There was another streamer with a similar style who also sold cakes, and he'd sent people to cause trouble in that streamer's livestream, claiming they got food poisoning from the cakes, harassing the streamer until they quit streaming. That was also something the stall owner had asked him to do.

By then, the manager was already feeling pretty rough, but the worse he felt, the more he wanted to spill the tea.

What if, just what if, he got poisoned to death by the stall owner's toxic lily of the valley? If he ended up with no good outcome, he wasn't going to let her get off easy either.

Shen Dongqing was completely stunned at this point, never expecting a simple report to blow up like this.

The stall owner scamming customers was still within his expectations, but using toxic lily of the valley as decoration was the first thing that really caught him off guard.

When he saw the stall owner giving refunds, Shen Dongqing thought it would end there, but he hadn't expected her to screw over not just customers and fans, but even her own manager.

Shen Dongqing remembered this manager well—he'd gotten banned after just one comment, and the guy was lightning fast.

Even though the guy was shady, he was definitely a huge asset to the stall owner, and yet she repaid him with a cake that was both toxic and rotten.

"Officer, if I die, it's all Fan Feifei's fault. She must want to be with someone else, thinks I'm in the way, and wants me gone. You've got to get justice for me."

At that moment, Fan Feifei's livestream was packed with viewers, but they were all there for the tea.

"The manager and the streamer are going at it—what a story!"

"Such a small stream, yet so much drama. Small place, big storms."

"Don't just watch here—head over to Brother Yu's stream for the full picture. Watch it alongside this one, and you can see others reacting to the gossip live. Even better."

Shen Dongqing opened Zhang Feiyu's stream on his computer, and sure enough, he was live, eating up the gossip.

Because the manager had mentioned eating a cake with lily of the valley in it, Jiang Chao was a bit skeptical of Fan Feifei's claims, telling her to think hard about whether she'd sold any cakes with lily of the valley. Meanwhile, fans kept coming at her, demanding refunds and cursing her out, so Fan Feifei figured the manager's exposé was over and didn't have the energy to watch the stream closely.

The people around her did see the manager's revelations, but no one said a word—if they spoke up and Fan Feifei shut down the stream, they'd lose their source of drama.

But no matter how much they tried to soak up the drama, Fan Feifei caught the manager's last message before the next wave of customers arrived, and she screamed.

"Who harmed you? You're just greedy—you even ate the decorative flower. That's on you." Fan Feifei was shaking with fury, especially when she saw the manager expose their relationship to everyone. Realizing that keeping the stream going would ruin her, she shut it down.

With the stream shut down, some people went to share the gossip with others, while another group flocked to Zhang Feiyu's stream, and the surge in viewers had him grinning ear to ear.

He felt like he was getting a taste of the same joy Shen Dongqing had.

Unfortunately, this would all be over soon enough.

The alarm went off, and Shen Dongqing put down his phone and headed to the kitchen to turn off the stove.

"Xiao Ze, can you give your friend another call?" Coming out of the kitchen, Shen Dongqing made up his mind—since they were still on the night market street, he might as well clean up the other stalls as well.

He hadn't planned to do this before because he figured some stall owners wouldn't go too far, but Fan Feifei's incident showed him he'd underestimated human greed. Cutting costs and making more money wasn't inherently wrong, but some people had gone too far.

"Are there other stalls on that night market street with issues?" Xiao Ze realized and asked.

Shen Dongqing nodded: "The situation probably isn't as bad as this stall, but there are plenty of problems."

Xiao Ze didn't ask how Shen Dongqing knew; he just called Jiang Chao directly and explained the situation once the call connected.

"Other stalls have issues too?" Jiang Chao frowned.

"Passing off inferior goods, spoiled ingredients, using duck meat to pass off as beef..." Shen Dongqing listed.

"That many problems? How do you know?" Jiang Chao asked instinctively.

Shen Dongqing hesitated, unsure how to answer. If his sense of smell and ingredient knowledge were consistently this sharp, he could tell the truth, but his Super Chef Card was a one-day trial, and making himself sound too impressive was risky.

Facial recognition skills could be improved with practice, but his sense of smell couldn't just improve out of nowhere.

Seeing Shen Dongqing stay silent, Jiang Chao misunderstood and assumed he had some inside information.

Jiang Chao thought it over—they were already at the night market street, and handling one case was the same as handling several.

Moreover, given today's two incidents, even though he hadn't checked online, the role of the Market Supervision Administration wasn't exactly stellar.

Although they had backed up the consumers after the fact, they hadn't dealt with it proactively. The performance of these two stalls made Jiang Chao worry about food safety in Ningchuan.

As the saying goes, if you see one cockroach, there might be a whole nest hiding in the dark.

"Which stalls have problems? Tell me." Jiang Chao said, wanting to prepare himself mentally.

But when Shen Dongqing listed the issues, Jiang Chao swallowed hard: "Forget it, don't tell me all at once. I can't remember everything you say. How about this—you tell me one stall, and I'll go check it."

If he could, Jiang Chao would prefer to inspect independently, but Shen Dongqing had listed too many issues, and some weren't easy to spot immediately, so Shen Dongqing's presence was crucial.

"Sure, no problem." Shen Dongqing agreed readily, then thought of something and asked, "I have a friend who's broadcasting live on-site. Can he follow along and stream?"

"Live streaming?" Jiang Chao instinctively wanted to refuse.

"There were two food safety incidents today, which will have a negative impact on Ningchuan's image. If we find problems at other stalls later, it can deter unscrupulous merchants and show netizens that Ningchuan takes food safety seriously, helping to wash away some of the stain." Shen Dongqing explained.

Under normal circumstances, Jiang Chao might not have been swayed, but this hit home for him. After a moment's hesitation, he agreed.

"But he can't get too close—we're just not stopping him from streaming, not cooperating officially." Jiang Chao still had some pride and said in advance.

Shen Dongqing naturally knew that the streamer officially cooperating with the authorities wasn't something Jiang Chao could decide, so achieving this goal was good enough.

After hanging up, Shen Dongqing immediately went to tell Zhang Feiyu about this.

Zhang Feiyu was stunned when he heard it—what did it mean that the Market Supervision Administration would later check some stalls and he could follow along to stream?

"You... you have inside information?" Zhang Feiyu asked cautiously.

"This... you can stream this!" Zhang Feiyu was tempted, but he also knew how big this wave of traffic was. Shen Dongqing could easily keep it all for himself, so why let him have it?

"I'm not there, and besides, I've already streamed today. The meal at home is ready—I can't just go hungry and rush over for the sake of streaming." Shen Dongqing replied.

"You're really not coming?" Zhang Feiyu asked once more.

"No, you go ahead and stream. Oh, and don't get too close, or the enforcement officers might have issues." Shen Dongqing reminded him.

"Don't worry, I know what I'm doing." Zhang Feiyu assured him.

Jiang Chao called over a replacement enforcement officer, then led a few colleagues toward the side.

The fried chicken leg stall owner was delighted because with so many people watching the commotion, standing around bored meant they'd grab a bite to eat, and his fried chicken legs were selling well.

When the stall owner saw the law enforcement officer heading his way, his gut clenched with guilt for a second, but then he figured the officer probably wasn't there for him, so he straightened back up.

But as the officer got closer, it really did look like he was coming for him, and the stall owner's legs suddenly felt like jelly.

From a distance, watching the officers handle Fan Feifei's case had been fun to watch, but now that one was walking over to his stall, his heart couldn't help racing.

"How long have you been using this oil? It's already black, and look at all that foam. You really think this is okay to use?" Jiang Chao pointed at the oil and asked.

"Where did you buy the oil from? Do you have a receipt?"

The stall owner swallowed hard and stammered out that he changed it every day and had only been using it a few days.

"Is that so?" Jiang Chao let out a cold laugh, pulling out a testing device he'd brought from the car and sticking it into the fryer. The results came back quickly—the oil was nearly double the limit for what counts as waste oil.

"Six bucks for a chicken leg, and you're feeding customers oil like this? Would you even eat this yourself?" Jiang Chao thought he'd seen it all after two crazy food safety incidents today, but the data from this oil still made his blood boil.

He'd just been dealing with Fan Feifei's case over there, and this stall was so close he could see it clearly—was this guy not scared at all?

Back in school, if a classmate got scolded for not doing homework, he'd secretly scribble something down, scared to death of getting caught.

Did the Market Supervision Administration really have that little authority?

Or were all these people just that brazen?

Jiang Chao scanned the night market stalls. Before this, he'd been thinking about letting small stuff slide, but now he only wanted to come down hard and show these people what happens when you break food safety laws.

"Make him refund the customers, and you keep an eye on him here." Jiang Chao first made him give the money back. As for the rest, they'd probably have to handle it all at once.

Wait, he might not have enough guys.

Jiang Chao glanced at the colleagues beside him and suddenly realized he didn't have enough people. With this many stalls in the night market, just watching the refunds would take a ton of people.

Jiang Chao took a deep breath, called a colleague still at the office, and asked for backup.

Then, he worked his way through the stalls one by one.

"Duck meat passed off as beef? You're a real con artist, huh? Refund."

"What's going on with this fruit? It tastes off—it's gone bad from sitting out too long. Refund."

"This meat smells rancid, but throw in some additives and it's fragrant again. Your stall's got some serious tricks. Refund."

...

Jiang Chao walked from stall to stall. At first, the vendors were just enjoying watching their neighbors get caught, but as they kept watching, something started to feel wrong.

These Market Supervision Administration people were way too on the ball. They'd found problems the vendors already knew about, and even ones they hadn't noticed.

Were they going to get caught too?

Some guilty stall owners started thinking about making a run for it, but getting caught meant fines and refunds, and with this many customers watching, they'd be out of business.

But as long as they stayed put, they were fine. The moment they moved, they became targets—Jiang Chao walked right past the stalls in front and went straight for them, successfully exposing several major violations.

Because of what had happened earlier, the night market was already packed with people watching. After Jiang Chao's sweep, plenty of people started filming—this was something you don't see every day.

Zhang Feiyu was following along. Earlier, when he hadn't been filming Fan Feifei's situation, some fans had complained, saying they hadn't had enough drama and urging him to go back.

But now, they'd completely forgotten about Fan Feifei and were getting into the other stalls' scandals.

"Wow, wow, do these night market stalls even care about food safety?"

"How many is that now? These vendors really don't give a damn."

"Probably figured that since it's a stall, people can't find them if they get sick, so they just don't care."

"There's a night market like this near my place too. I've gotten bad food before. Is it this bad on my street too?"

"Surely not this brazen. The streamer's in Ningchuan dealing with all this—is there nothing good in this place?"

When Shen Dongqing saw that comment, he told Jiang Chao, as they were discussing the next stall, to also test some good stalls. Otherwise, even if the night market's food safety issues got resolved, the honest vendors would be out of business.

He'd overlooked that point. If he hadn't seen that comment in Zhang Feiyu's livestream, he would've never thought of it.

Jiang Chao shook off his anger, looked at the crowd around him and the phones in their hands, exchanged a few words with Shen Dongqing, and switched to a different stall.

It was a pig blood stall run by an elderly woman. Compared to the other fancier stalls, hers had just a bucket of pig blood, a few small buckets of seasonings, and a stack of plastic bowls.

Jiang Chao looked closely and found, just as Shen Dongqing had said, the pig blood was fresh with no bad smell.

The old woman was serving a young woman. When the customer saw him approach, she spoke up loudly: "This grandma's pig blood is definitely no problem. I've been eating it since I was a kid—it's always tasted the same, always fresh."

Jiang Chao pulled out some money and asked the old woman for a bowl of pig blood too. He took a careful bite and was a bit stunned.

Jiang Chao wasn't a big fan of pig blood—he always thought it had a weird taste—but this bowl was genuinely good. The texture was firm yet tender, and despite the simple seasonings, they went perfectly with the blood.

He'd only meant to have a couple of bites, but before he knew it, he'd finished the whole bowl.

Jiang Chao wanted to praise the pig blood properly, but after thinking for a moment, he couldn't find the words. Luckily, Shen Dongqing had given him a review earlier, so Jiang Chao quickly used it and added a few of his own impressions.

"Grandma, your stall is the real deal." Jiang Chao gave a thumbs up. "I'll definitely be back."

"Is it really that good? Dude, you're not just saying that to make us trust the stalls again, are you?" Despite Jiang Chao's enthusiasm, someone still raised doubts.

"Grandma, give me another bowl too." Jiang Chao said, then turned around. "I'm telling you, this pig blood is genuinely good. If you don't believe me, try it yourself."

Once the old woman had filled another bowl, Jiang Chao took it straight into the crowd and let them try it with toothpicks.

Free food was free food—plenty of people gave it a try.

The food was so good there was nothing to argue about. After one taste, the skeptics were speechless, and more people rushed over to the pig blood stall, asking for a bowl of their own.

This was exactly why Shen Dongqing had suggested Jiang Chao test the pig blood stall—the ingredients were simple, it was easy to tell if it was good, and it was hard to question.

Seeing the crowd change, Jiang Chao breathed a sigh of relief and continued his inspections.

From then on, he tested both good and bad stalls, turning into a guide for night market eaters on what to skip and what to try.