Chapter 61: Food Tasting in the Cafeteria
The overall area of the Exile Town located
Of course, it’s not that small…it’s almost as big as Male, the capital of Maldives.
In such a medium-sized place, there are only dozens of buildings (wooden and brick houses) that can be counted, and the "permanent population" is only three hundred skeletons, a dozen zombies, and twenty "high-level NPCs". It is indeed extremely empty.
In addition, the skeletons that make up the majority of the "population" do not need housing...so both buildings and vacant land are largely idle.
Anthony worked as a tailor in the Kenyan Empire in his youth. After discovering that he had a talent for fighting, he quickly gave up his old profession and became a mercenary. Although he has a rough appearance and a bad temper, he can indeed be delicate if he is forced to do something.
This guy has sold a lot of waist bags and backpacks, and he has never made a mistake on paper. If a player who buys the waist bag back at a low price breaks it, he can use his superb sewing skills to refurbish it and put it back on the shelf for sale.
Among all the former thieves, this guy has the best performance...
The threat of "not being a man" greatly stimulated Anthony's enthusiasm for work. Before nightfall, he had arranged accommodation for the new female workers in the sewing shop and distributed daily necessities. He also established personal health records for these women at night according to Yang Qiu's requirements, interviewed them one by one, and recorded on paper the illnesses that these female workers, who had suffered from malnutrition due to years of textile industry, could talk about...
It was not until late at night that Anthony finished his work. He wiped the sweat off his face, closed the shop door, and dragged his tired steps to find his eldest brother Hal.
The Exile Town at midnight was not much quieter than during the day. The undead, who did not distinguish between day and night, were still roaming the streets. Anthony, who was used to it, completely ignored these undead who he thought had mental problems, and bypassed the two gangs of undead fighting in the streets and came to the Walker's Guild.
As expected, Hal, Pansy, and Tuttle were not asleep either. They all gathered in front of Tuttle's tent, and... the atmosphere between the three of them was a little weirder than usual.
"Here I come, Anthony." Pansy first saw the old brother coming over with a lantern, and moved his butt to make room.
As soon as Anthony sat down, he saw a green-covered notebook on the box to Pansy's right. On the notebook were handwritten words in the common language: Employee Health Record Registration Form.
Anthony: "...You guys also received people here?"
Pansy pouted expressionlessly at the several bungalows that had already been completed on the construction site.
Tuttle gestured and said with a fucked-up look on his face, "Five people. Yang asked those undead to bring five people here and asked us to arrange for their care. He also threatened that if anything happened to these five women, they would turn us all into sisters."
Anthony: “…”
He actually wanted to yell angrily, "Why do I have to take care of twelve people alone?" But when he thought that it was useless, he swallowed his words.
"That damned black magician, is he sure that we dare not cause trouble for him?" Pansy said gloomily, "What happened last time... Did Rex tell on us?"
The faces of the four people present all changed.
A few days ago, after carefully confirming that Yang had indeed left Exile Town and the number of undead had greatly decreased, this group of former thieves did indeed think about causing trouble again.
Simply running away certainly wouldn't be considered causing trouble, but as the saying goes, a thief never leaves empty-handed, and they were unwilling to let these guys just run away with their hands thrown aside, so... they planned to rob the town hall, set fire to the evidence, and then run away.
They were also coveting the containers , but with their manpower they couldn't move much, so they gave up reluctantly.
If Rex, a guy who usually has nothing to do with them, hadn't come out and reminded them, they might have run back to the Sorenson Mountains by now.
Could it be that the black magician Yang, who was hunted down and chased all over the continent by the Church of the Fiery Sun before they were born and is still at large, is not good at tracking and counter-tracking?
Having offended the Nightmare Butcher to death, can they really run away?
Yang, who has forgiven them once, will he forgive them a second time?
Most of the mistakes are made due to lack of judgment. It is not difficult to recognize the mistakes and just pick up the judgment.
"Rex really didn't have to keep the secret for us," Tuttle said coldly, "But since Yang handed over the civilians he brought back to us, it's enough to prove... that he still doesn't care whether we are loyal or not."
Tuttle's truth made Hal and others feel relieved, but also upset... They really had never intended to be loyal to Yang, but it was also humiliating to be looked down upon.
"Guys, don't forget our decision." Pansy said quietly, "Whether Yang needs our loyalty or not is totally unimportant to us. All we have to do is... be patient enough."
Giving up on troublemaking didn't mean that these former thieves had given up their yearning for freedom. They just changed their strategy - the more Yang came into contact with the outside world, the more likely it was that his whereabouts would be discovered by the Blazing Sun Church. They just had to wait patiently until the Blazing Sun Church, which would not give up until it achieved its goal, came knocking on their door, and then sell Yang off without hesitation...
With this mentality of "having to endure humiliation and live in Exile Town for a long time", Hal, who has long been fed up with the players, will no longer let go of the undead who provoke him easily, and will kill the players no matter how long they chase them...
Several people present nodded seriously.
The radicalism of the Inquisition of the Church of the Fiery Sun was world-famous. In the past, they would never want to have any contact with this group of lunatics anywhere; now, they were eager to see this group of radical lunatics as soon as possible, who could drown pagans and blasphemers with a sea of people by shouting "Holy Light Above".
At this moment, a "beep" sound suddenly rang in the ears of the four of them.
The four of them jumped up instantly, drew their weapons, and looked around with caution and fear.
Their agreement with Yang clearly stated that Yang would not conduct any surveillance on them during "off-duty" hours - was this guy going to break the agreement?!
The entire construction site of the Walker's Guild was deserted. The imagined army of undead did not appear, and there was no trace of the black magician.
"Eh...wait a minute, it seems like someone has conveyed a message to us through the imprint matrix." Pansy sensed the imprint matrix, her expression became strange, and she read with effort, "Um - the...what...canteen of the Undead Chamber of Commerce invites...online...colleagues...to taste the food?!"
The other three: “???”
Diagonally opposite the Butchers' Guild, on an open space of about 300 square meters, stands a not-so-new greenhouse-style canteen built with scrapped container steel plates.
Manan, who could see the building, which was as big as an auditorium, as soon as he stepped out of the tent, did not react to this.
On the night of the "Rebellion", Manan was criticized a lot because of his talkativeness, and Hal and others no longer included him as a big mouth when discussing operations.
Although Manan had a big beard and his skin looked quite rough and old, he was actually not very old, only in his twenties. Young people of this age cannot say that they have much ability to withstand pressure. When he found himself being excluded, he quickly became depressed.
He saw with his own eyes that this group of undead used all kinds of tools to build this steel greenhouse in just a few days, and then used tricycles to pull in supplies from the foot of the mountain outside the town, and filled the inter-partitioned warehouse on one side of the greenhouse with supplies... Manan was in no mood to go and share with his brothers.
The Butcher's Guild assigned the task of taking care of four semi-blind to completely blind women. Manan, who had become taciturn, didn't even spare a second glance at the threat from Yang in the Matrix. He arranged for the four women to live in a wooden house not far from the Butcher's Guild. He made several trips to get daily necessities for the women, and then continued to live his own life, not talking to or interacting with anyone.
When it was completely dark, Manan quickly ate half a pound of bread and drank some dried vegetable soup from the seasoning packet, then packed up and prepared to go back to the tent to sleep.
"Hey, old...pony!"
Manan didn't think he was being called at all and continued to clean up the dishes.
"Pony! Brother Pony!"
Manan put the cleaned dishes into a basin and poured water to wash them.
Master Liu, who was standing on the side of the road, looked suspiciously at the player with the ID "Your teacher is always" and said, "Yuchi, why is this NPC ignoring me?"
Teacher Yuchi: "...I think that although this NPC is called Ma Nan, his last name should not be Ma..."
Master Liu waved again: "Manan!"
Manan finally understood that he was being called and looked up in confusion.
Two undead were standing on the roadside not far from his tent. One of them was wearing a loincloth (…) and sleeves. He seemed to be chatting with him warmly: "Our Exile Town's employee cafeteria will open tomorrow. We tried to cook a few dishes tonight. I wonder if they suit your taste. Come and taste them and give us your opinions."
Manan: “???”
The senses of the undead are not complete. They can hear, see, and touch, but they cannot feel cold or heat, their sense of smell is poor, and they have no sense of taste at all.
Master Liu, who loved cooking when he was young and once thought about opening a home-style restaurant after retirement, is still unsure whether the dishes he makes are normal, even with decades of cooking experience...
Rex, who knew that the undead had cooking skills, was even more withdrawn than the depressed Manan, and did not tell anyone about it. Manan, who was still a young man at heart, was silent for a moment, put down the cutlery in his hand, and walked towards the two undead curiously...
Master Liu called Ma Nan and went to the wooden house of the armor shop next to Ma Nan.
When Hal, Tuttle, Pansy and Anthony arrived at Master Liu's cafeteria cautiously as if they were facing a great enemy, they saw only a table full of clean dishes and Manan and others slumped beside the table with a look of astonishment on their faces.
There was also an undead wearing an apron and sleeves standing nearby with a small notebook, pointing at the empty plates and asking the guys who were full one by one: "Which dish is too salty? Is this pork belly to your taste? Is this fried eggplant oily? Can you eat the cilantro in this salad? Are you used to the taste of black bean?"
Hal and the other four: "???"
"Oh, Lao Liu, you didn't cook enough dishes." Seeing the four people who just came in, Lao Geng slapped his thigh and said to Master Liu.
"These guys eat too fast. I can't even taste it." Master Liu was also very dissatisfied. He stuffed the small notebook into his waist pocket and waved his hand to Hal and the others. "Sit down and wait for a while. I'll fry it for you! Yuchi, come and help with the cold salad!"
"Okay!" Teacher Yuchi set off immediately.
A group of women were also assigned to Master Liu's canteen, but these women had traveled for several days before coming, and they had health problems caused by long-term malnutrition and overwork. Of course, these women would not be allowed to work now.
Hal and others: "..."
They silently glanced at Ma Nan and the others who had a look of astonishment on their faces, sniffed hard at the lingering, alluring fragrance in the air, and then obediently found a place to sit down.
Soon, the semi-open kitchen was filled with an extremely stimulating aroma of cooking that was even more tempting than the thick soup in the sauce bag...
The characteristic of Chinese meals is that it takes two hours to prepare the ingredients and five minutes to cook the dishes. In addition, Yang Qiu and Director Lu asked for a lot of processed semi-finished vegetable buns. Even the pork belly was sliced and frozen in the factory, so it was much easier to cook a big pot of food.
The standard meal of one meat dish, one soup, two vegetable dishes and a cold dish was prepared in less than twenty minutes and served on the table.
Anthony only tried the first bite when two very strong thoughts popped into his mind.
The first thought was: Has everything he's eaten all these years been fed to pigs?
The second thought was: Let’s hope the people from the Fiery Sun Church come later!
Anthony didn't think about anything else after that, because he saw Pansy couldn't wait to use her fork, but directly reached out to grab the food on the plate, so he quickly stretched out his dirty hands...
"Hey, eat slowly! Eat more carefully! Are you here to give us suggestions or to grab food?" Master Liu was so anxious that he kept pinching his thigh bone.
