At that moment, Cong Bo was eating.
For most people, breakfast was nothing more than a bowl of soy milk, a steamer of buns, or perhaps some lamb soup with flatbread.
But Cong Bo was different. His morning meal had to be a feast.
In his own words, the morning sets the tone for the day. If he didn't eat well for breakfast, he'd have no energy for the rest of the day.
That was why preparations for his breakfast sometimes had to begin in the middle of the night.
Today was no exception. He was having roast suckling pig.
A specially raised piglet had been slaughtered the previous night, then de-haired, cleaned, and cut in half down the middle before being left to marinate in a sauce for half the night.
While it marinated, the pit for roasting the pig was prepared.
There was an art to this pit. It had to be built with red bricks and filled with burning charcoal, which was kept blazing hot. Around midnight, once the bricks were glowing red-hot, they would stop adding firewood.
