A little over half an hour later, a small, railed truck came CHUGGING up to the village entrance.
Two burly men in blue work clothes got out. They deftly set up a ramp with a thick wooden plank. It took all their might, but between pushing and pulling, they finally managed to get the reluctant big yellow ox, Da Huang, onto the truck.
Li Xu and Song Sisi also got into the cab of the small truck, which then rumbled and bumped its way toward the slaughterhouse in town.
The Sanshui Beef and Sheep Slaughterhouse was located on the edge of town. A large iron gate opened into a spacious concrete courtyard.
The air was thick with a heavy, nauseating stench—a mixture of blood and livestock manure.
Song Sisi instinctively wrinkled her nose.
Deeper in the courtyard stood a row of tall factory buildings, from which came the WHIRRING of machinery and the CLANGING of metal.
Although it claimed to use mechanized equipment, it was actually more like a semi-manual workshop.
