Sick Boy[s] Paddle Club↓

Pig Brain

Kicking Over My Small Table 一脚踢翻小饭桌

Translated by: Siyu Chen

He never ate pig brains.

More than that, pig brains filled him with an almost physiological revulsion. That lump of grey-white tissue lying on a plate struck him as both nauseating and uncanny. Its furrowed textures resembled some unknown terrain, the surface laced with a thin web of blood vessels, their traces so distinct it felt like a malicious metaphor. The first time he saw pig brains was at a family dinner. A relative brought out a plate of braised brains, smothered in a thick layer of chili oil, the steam rising off it carrying a bloody sweetness that nearly suffocated him. He stared at the dish, his stomach churning, and in his head a newborn baby’s head surfaced — soft, moist, the unfused sutures of the skull still faintly pulsing.

He practically fled the table, ran to the bathroom, and doubled over the toilet to vomit. In that moment he swore he would never eat pig brains. Even hearing the words was enough to send a rush of that fleshy and rank smell surging up his throat and make every breath a struggle.

Until that day.

It was an ordinary evening. He and a few colleagues went to a small restaurant on the street corner after working late. He flipped idly through the menu and frowned. “Brains and tofu? What kind of combination is that?” Someone laughed and explained: “The brains here are incredibly tender. Stewed with tofu, they melt the moment they hit your tongue. Absolutely no gamey taste. Try it, you’ll see.” He shook his head and insisted on ordering a bowl of normal beef noodles. But when the dish of brains and tofu arrived at the table, his gaze was drawn to it against his will. Through the curling steam, the grey-white brains seemed to float within a thin veil of mist, delicate and smooth, like some untouchable work of art. The tofu gleamed translucent; the surface of the brains shimmered as though they were carefully polished into jade. He frowned and looked away, then bent his head over his beef noodles.

“Try some?” The colleague picked up a piece of brain with chopsticks and held it out to him. He wanted to refuse instinctively, but in that instant a voice that did not belong to him surfaced in his mind: “It’s not so disgusting anymore.”

He took that piece of brain.

“Just one bite,” he told himself. “One small bite.”

The moment the brains touched the tip of his tongue, his body went rigid. The brain’s silken texture burst open across his palate like some mysterious liquid, carrying a subtle warmth, dissolving instantly into a soft paste. The instant he bit through that thin membrane, a rich fragrance from deep within the pig brains surged forth, bearing a warm wave of umami that shot through his nerves like an electric current. It was a satisfaction he had never experienced — profound, tender, yet wrapped in a faint sense of transgression.

He swallowed that mouthful of brains and froze. His stomach no longer resisted; instead, a warmth he had never known spread through him. A voice sounded inside his head: “One more bite.”

He began frequenting restaurants for their pig brain dishes. At first, he still resisted his own transformation, ordering a serving of brains and tofu only now and then. He reassured himself it was nothing more than a passing curiosity, the novelty of trying something new. But soon that curiosity hardened into craving. He began actively seeking out every preparation: braised brains, pickled-pepper brains, steamed brains with garlic… Each method of cooking seemed to unlock some desire buried deep inside him.

Gradually, brains at restaurants were no longer enough. He began making them at home.

The first time he bought pig brains, he stood at the pork stall in the market, watching the butcher split open a pig’s head. A faint smell of blood drifted over, but he felt no disgust. The brains lay quietly on the chopping block, traces of blood vessels clearly visible, possessing a strange, symmetrical beauty. He stared at them, his throat bobbing involuntarily, then bought two portions and placed them carefully in a plastic bag, afraid of crushing them.

Once he got back home, he could barely contain himself as he took the brains out and set them gently on the cutting board. His movements were unnervingly slow, as though he were handling some fragile living thing. He rinsed the brains in cold water, peeled away the blood vessels, every step meticulous, as though attending to a priceless work of art. He stared at the lump of brains, his gaze unfocused, and a vision surfaced unbidden in his mind — a living human brain, its pulsing blood vessels spreading outward like a neural network.

He drew a deep breath, placed the brains into a clay pot, poured in the seasonings, and lit the stove. As the steam rose, the brains in the pot began to roll, and the sound they made was like a kind of whispering, clinging to his eardrums. He stared at the brains in the pot and suddenly felt they had become pairs of eyes, gazing at him in silence. His breathing grew ragged. Something inside his chest felt as though it were about to rupture.

“Just a hallucination.” He muttered under his breath, quickly lifted the lid and lifted the brains onto a plate.

When he raised his chopsticks and picked up a piece, his heart hammered like a drum. The piece of brain was so soft it nearly slipped free. His hand trembled slightly, as though he were holding something forbidden. The second he placed it in his mouth, the pig brain burst open. Its thick juices flooding out, searing and savoury, conquering his taste buds entirely.

He closed his eyes and slowed his chewing, as though he wished to stretch this moment into eternity. His tongue traced every ridge of the brains, and that slick, yielding sensation was like a gentle and dangerous entanglement. He began to perceive the fineness of the marrow with the tip of his tongue, to savour the pleasure of each thread of fat dissolving between his teeth. In that instant he felt he was no longer himself but a predator, crushing its prey's bones, devouring its life whole.

He became addicted to the feeling.

Each time he cooked pig brains, it was as though he were performing some sacred ritual. He would handle them with care, feeling their soft, fine-grained texture in his hands. Rinsing, marinating, steaming — every step carried a strange, unnameable feeling. He watched the brains tumble in the pot, listened to the bubbling, and felt his heartbeat quicken bit by bit, sweat sliding down his forehead.

He touched a cooked piece of brain lightly with his fingertip, and the warmth of it made him hold his breath. He felt that brains were not merely food. They were something of a higher order — a braiding of desire and life itself. He could not stop craving them, just as a predator cannot stop chasing its prey.

At some point he could not tell, his body began to change.

At first, he noticed that his scalp had grown abnormally soft, as though it had lost a layer of protection. He ran his hand over it and felt something strangely slick beneath the skin. He went to the hospital for tests; the doctor said everything was normal. But he knew something was wrong. Fine cracks began to appear across his forehead, cracks that resembled the vascular traces on pig brains, spreading in dense webs across his skin.

His dreams changed, too. He dreamed he was standing in a boundless ocean of crimson red. Countless brains surfaced on the ocean, drifting slowly toward him. His mouth began to open of its own accord, and one flew in, slick, exquisite, and he could not help swallowing them one after another. When he woke, the aroma still seemed to linger on his tongue.

One morning, he looked at himself in the mirror and saw faint lines on his forehead that had not been there before, lines that appeared faint and eerie under the light. They seemed to crawl across his skin like roaming shadows, and when he tilted his head they even appeared to carry a strange rhythm. He reached up to touch them. The sensation was soft and slick, and in the instant his fingers passed over them, a chill rose from the bottom of his stomach — the chill of something happening that he could not yet see clearly.

He looked at himself in the mirror again. The lines had vanished.

He disappeared.

A few days later, someone at a restaurant in the city ordered a dish of oil-splashed pig brains. When the server brought the steaming pot to the table, the diners were instantly captivated by the rich aroma. The broth inside roiled; white brains with a tinge of red floated within it, each one flawless. They were soft, delicate, like painstakingly sculpted works of art.

“These brains are absolutely top shelf. Where do you even find stuff this good?” one of the diners marveled.

“I’m told the owner sources them through special channels. They’re nothing like ordinary brains,” the server replied, a note of pride in her voice. “Every piece is so tender it practically dissolves on your tongue. I guarantee you, once you've had them, you’ll never forget.”

The diners picked up the brains one by one and placed them in their mouths. Someone chewed, brow smoothing, face awash with bliss. “Melts on the tongue, so impossibly tender! This is a heaven-sent delicacy!”

No one noticed that there was an extra brain in the pot — its texture was more intricate than the rest, as though it possessed a life of its own. As the broth churned, that brain bobbed up and sank, revealing faint traces of an unusual red — like the seepage of blood, or like some presence that defied explanation. On its surface ran a crack so fine it was almost invisible, resembling a smile, or a portent on the verge of shattering.

In the kitchen, the chef wiped the bloodstains from the counter at a leisurely pace. A few scraps and a lingering reek of raw flesh remained on the chopping block; he wiped them away with a cloth, as though completing some sacred act of cleansing. Beside the block, in the rubbish bin, lay a transparent plastic bag, its mouth loose, its interior empty. The air was suffused with the faint savor of meat, mingled with a whisper of unease too subtle to place.

“Today’s brains are especially fresh. The customers are going to love them.” He murmured to himself, a thin smile surfacing at the corner of his mouth.

In the corner of the kitchen hung a small mirror. He glanced up at it without thinking and stopped dead. In the glass, his eyes had met a pair of blurred pupils — not his own, but a stranger’s, brimming with terror. His smile froze.

Those eyes stared at him from inside the mirror, trembling faintly. The surface of the glass blurred, as though veiled by a layer of hot steam. A second later the eyes were gone, and only his own reflection remained.

He stood there for a moment, then shook his head: “Hallucination.”

In the alley behind the restaurant, an enormous dumpster sat in silence. A night breeze swept through and nudged the lid ajar, revealing traces of red liquid inside and a few indistinct scraps of flesh. The air carried a faint odour of decay, forming an eerie contrast with the fragrant aromas drifting out of the restaurant.

A homeless person emerged from the depths of the alley and pried open the dumpster, rummaging for food. His hand touched something slick, and the feel of it made him snatch his hand back. In the dim yellow glow of the streetlamp, he looked down — it was a small fragment covered in fine, dense lines, grey-white on the surface with traces of red.

He frowned, tossed the thing back into the dumpster, and muttered: “Gross as fuck.”

Just as he turned to leave, a faint splat came from inside the dumpster.

He looked back. The dumpster had returned to silence, as though nothing had happened.

After finishing the brains, the diners leaned back in their chairs, sated, and began debating the “heavenly delicacy.” One of them raised his glass and said, half joking: “These brains are devilishly good — they might be some kind of fairy food.”

“Nonsense!” another one laughed. “For brains this good, I could eat ten more plates!”

Laughter echoed around the table. The broth in the pot slowly cooled. That intricately textured brain sank to the bottom and did not rise again. It lay there in silence, as though waiting, or sleeping.

Outside the restaurant, the night was deep. Moonlight spilled across the street, illuminating a sign by the door: “Signature brains — limited quantity today.” The kitchen light went out. The chef stepped through the door with his apron slung over one shoulder. His eyes held a trace of fatigue, but beneath it lurked an inscrutable flicker of amusement. He locked the door, glanced back at the restaurant sign, and said softly: “The next one should be arriving soon.”

At the corner, a streetlamp flickered. In the shifting light, a familiar silhouette emerged from the darkness and stood perfectly still. Atop its head, faintly visible, ran a web of splitting lines, pulsing gently, as though still alive.

Splat. Splat.

Kicking Over My Small Table

Fantasy-addicted aging otaku, an observer who never quite comes into focus. Life is a one-act play, and I stand here until the curtain falls.