The New Year was approaching, and with just a few days left until the festival, the men discussed slaughtering pigs and sheep.
Before the New Year, they planned to butcher four pigs, each weighing over three hundred pounds. Some of the meat would be kept for their own consumption, some would be gifted to friends, and some would also be sent to the orphanage children so they could have a good New Year with clean, additive-free meat.
This year, they intended to have all the orphanage children come over to the farm to celebrate the New Year and return on the fifth day, as school would start on the sixth.
In the courtyard, they lit a clay stove and heated water. Xue Dong and Shi Lei tied up the pigs and began the butchering process.
With knives in hand, they started to scrape off the hair. They poured hot water over the pigs to ease hair removal—stripping off the majority swiftly as doing it slowly would make it harder once the water cooled.