In the “restaurant” converted from the Lin family ancestral hall, the lights were dim. The offering table had been turned upside down and covered with a faded red silk cloth, the dowry Grandma had received when she married. Now it served as the tablecloth for the “grilled fish meeting.”
Eleven cultivators and 120 ordinary people crowded into the hall. The cultivators sat cross-legged, while the ordinary people held their children. Babies squirmed in their arms, but no one cried. Everyone had their eyes fixed on the “three-pound spirit-salt grilled fish” in the middle of the table. It was the only main dish that night, and the family’s entire food supply for the next three days.
