Chapter 75 Master Liu Offers Advice
Sunday, October 27th, 4 a.m. Earth time.
Liu Yaowu, a former engineer of Huaxia Road and Bridge, went online at the birth point of Exile Town with the ID "Master Liu" in high spirits.
This senior engineer, who is actually only in his fifties in real life and could have been included in the team of strong laborers if he had not had an accident and been lying in the hospital for more than half a year, waited at the online point for a while, and a patient from the sanatorium with the ID "Lao Geng" also came up.
"Just you mumbling, didn't you say there was a newcomer?" Old Geng looked around and said to Master Liu.
"Last night, Xiao Lu said that the newcomer would join us this morning, but I didn't see him when I came up." Master Liu spread his hands, "How about we wait here?"
Lao Geng looked at the "game time" displayed on the character panel and waved his hand, "Forget it, it's already this late, let's get ready to open the door first."
The two old men chatted all the way as they walked north from the starting point in the town center. After walking about 200 meters and seeing the town hall, they turned left and entered an S-shaped back street.
This nameless street is collectively referred to as Life Lane by players. At the intersection is Anthony's tailor shop, and a little further away is the most popular gathering master workshop among players; going deeper inside, almost reaching the Fourth Street block, is the deserted butcher workshop in charge of Manan, and the Chamber of Commerce cafeteria diagonally opposite.
Although it is a back alley, Life Lane is not narrower than the main street at all. Also, because casual players come and go quite frequently, it is usually much busier than Third Street and Fourth Street. It is only not as lively as Second Street where the Traveler's Guild is located and leads to the Spider's Lair.
When the two old men walked into Life Lane, " senior had already gotten up. Some were squatting by the roadside ditch to wash, and some were fetching water with their bare chests.
These unruly former thieves obviously understood who their sudden increase in happiness during this period was for, and when they saw the two undead in the Chamber of Commerce cafeteria, although they did not go to the extent of greeting them warmly, they nodded politely.
"These guys are from poor families too." Waving his hand at the forage master Green who nodded at them, Lao Geng turned to Master Liu and said, "That guy called Green is only about twenty years old, but his hands are almost the same as those of the farmers in the northwest who are several dozen years old."
"That's right. Xiao Ma, who lives across from us, has an old branding mark on his arm. He said he stole pork skin when he was an apprentice in a pork shop and got burned by the boss." Master Liu sighed, "Not only these guys, but also the women that Xiao Ji and his team brought back on missions are also very pitiful. There is a girl named Mia who is only a few years older than my Xiao Yun. If they stand together, they don't look like they are of the same generation."
"The world is not going well," Old Geng shook his head.
The two old men walked to the Chamber of Commerce cafeteria. The "civilian NPC" helpers assigned to them by Lord Yang were already waiting at the door. When they saw the two of them, they immediately bowed stiffly.
"Oh, didn't I say not to do this?" Old Geng hurriedly took a few steps and helped the disabled people who had difficulty standing up straight. "There's no need to bow. Why don't you listen?"
"Forget it, Brother Geng. They won't understand, so it's useless to explain. Once they get used to it, they'll know they don't need to talk to us about this." Master Liu took out the key to open the door, and deftly took out the stacked plastic chairs.
These four disabled people were male family members of the exiles who came with the women. Except for Collins Carter who had a crippled leg, the other three had physical disabilities to varying degrees.
When they first arrived at Exile Town, the four of them couldn't even leave the door and could only eat and sleep in the house (built by zombies).
Fortunately... although they look old, these four men are actually younger than Master Liu. The oldest one, Collins, is only in his forties. After a few days of eating a lot of oil, salt and good food, they can not only get up by themselves, but also do some simple chores. So they were assigned to the cafeteria by Yang Qiu.
The Chamber of Commerce canteen needs to provide three meals a day for more than 140 people. This job seems heavy, but it is not - all dishes including rice, porridge, noodles are plastic-sealed semi-finished food and rice packages, which can be unpacked and processed.
However, the two old men who presided over the canteen were good people with aspirations and strong empathy. Under their strong request, Lu Yiyun had to take the initiative to continue to "give away" fresh vegetables that were more nutritious than semi-finished food rice packs, and then the "target" would transport them to the container stacking area at the end of the living lane in Liufang Town and at the foot of the mountain through unknown means, which added a lot of workload to their own family...
Fortunately, the four disabled workers did not have much work to do, so it would not be difficult for them to do some additional work like peeling garlic and scraping ginger.
Master Liu brought chairs and a few pounds of ginger and garlic to the four workers who did not speak the language and asked them to handle them, then he went into the warehouse with Lao Geng.
For breakfast, according to Chinese custom, soy milk and fried dough sticks are indispensable, however, these two things are quite difficult to obtain in this world... The undead are okay at cooking, but kneading dough is too difficult. Before the two brothers can get a dough mixer, they will not consider this for the time being.
So, the canteen provides frozen dumplings and glutinous rice balls for breakfast - the expert group found local comrades and contacted a small local food factory in Province G. They packed the food directly into boxes with ice packs and transported it to the "target" without sorting it out of the assembly line. Then two old guys pulled them from the container stacking area at the foot of the mountain outside the town and stored them in the canteen warehouse for use as needed.
With "clang and click" sounds, the heavy iron door of the warehouse was opened. When Master Liu opened the door, he saw gusts of white mist coming towards him.
The undead cannot feel the temperature change, but just by looking at the white mist in the warehouse and the ice chips everywhere, anyone with eyesight can tell that the temperature inside is definitely similar to that in a freezer.
"Just making a weird circular picture on the wall can actually generate cold air. This world is truly magical." Old Geng sighed for the Nth time as he looked at the formation diagram on the steel wall that was more than a person tall.
"We are nothing but skeletons, who can we complain to?" Master Liu was used to it. He walked to the boxes of speed food and said, "Xiao Lu and his team of experts analyzed that Lord Yang is a real magician and is likely to have some connection with the 'target' on Earth. Otherwise, no one would be able to find out how the 'target' came out of Province G. There are so many people out there who want to contact Lord Yang but can't. Only we two brothers are lucky enough to see him every day."
Lao Geng came up and helped Master Liu move the frozen dumplings. He smiled and said, "What's the use of seeing it? Can we go up to him and ask, Xiao Yang, are you a real living person, not an NPC?"
"Don't do that. The youngsters who play games have all said that there is no benefit in angering the NPC and you will be killed and logged off the line." Master Liu said happily.
Each box of quick-frozen dumplings in a foam box weighs 30 kilograms. If it were on Earth, Lao Geng and Master Liu would definitely not be able to move it. But in the "game", they picked it up easily, and they could even put another box of frozen cabbage on top of the foam box...
After moving two boxes of frozen dumplings to the kitchen, Master Liu skillfully lit the fire - the pot was a large straight stainless steel pot commonly seen in canteens on Earth. The stove was made of blue bricks and cement, and burned honeycomb coal (...). He threw two packets of soup stock powder into . Even if the dumplings were bland and frozen, the local natives would drink up the soup without any disgust.
This broth powder has always been despised on the earth. There are some sayings that the bone broth boiled from it is not as nutritious as the one boiled from animal bones, and that the preservatives, flavors and other ingredients contained in the broth powder are harmful to health, etc. Any amateur nutritionist who comes out to judge it will have a lot of words to say.
But in the final analysis, this is just a cheap and good quality condiment that has never been proven to be harmful to the human body. The market price is 10 to 15 yuan per pack, and the wholesale price ranges from 5 to 10 yuan. The main ingredients are animal protein and amino acids. After being dissolved in hot water, it has the taste and aroma of traditional broth . In fact, many hot pot restaurants have it.
On the other side, Lao Geng took down the steel knife that players often used from the wall and started chopping the frozen cabbage...
This is the steel knife that appears most frequently and is the most familiar to players... It is actually the steel knife used to cut banana trees that China exports to countries and regions such as Africa and Southeast Asia.
The price is affordable and the quality is excellent. In some chaotic areas, gangs use this thing as their main weapon in fights... ahem.
While the frozen dumplings in the big pot with broth powder floated to the surface and rolled, Lao Geng also chopped a box of frozen cabbage into irregular strips and threw them into the pot to cook together.
Master Liu stepped away from the stove, took the ginger and garlic that the disabled workers had collected, rinsed them with water, and then squeezed them into foam with a garlic squeezer. He then added soy sauce, vinegar, and chili sauce to make a large pot of dipping sauce.
Around 7:30 in-game time, the two old men had almost finished preparing breakfast, and the "senior NPCs" also arrived.
The great feature of things cooked with soup powder is that you can smell the strong aroma if you get close to it. Regardless of whether it was Tuttle Joe, who was born in a good family, or Hal Maxwell, whose family was also rich before his youth, the former thieves sniffed as soon as they entered the door and went straight to the cutlery rack on the right side of the window, pointing to the largest soup bowl and taking it...
Hal finished at least two kilograms of dumplings and shredded cabbage with a dish of dipping sauce specially made by Master Liu. After finishing, he was still not satisfied and used the chopsticks he had mastered to pick up the remaining peanuts in the dipping sauce dish. While chewing, he said to the two people at the same table: "What do you two think about the task assigned by Yang?"
Pansy, who was drinking soup from a bowl, paused and glanced at Hal expressionlessly.
His meaning was very clear, can't you wait until I finish eating?
Compared to the other two, Tuttle was more particular about his food. There was still a small portion of dumplings left in his bowl. Hearing this, he felt upset and even picked up the dumplings more slowly...
"No." Tuttle sighed, "I don't understand that guy's thinking at all. To be honest, when Yang said that the undead were 'not warlike enough'... I was very glad that my father had been strict with me about self-cultivation."
Pansy and Hal both agreed with this statement - if those crazy undead were considered "non-warlike and not aggressive enough", then there would be no other warlike creatures in the world!
"No matter what, we have to find a solution." Hal sighed, "I have finally seen through that guy Yang. He is not a reasonable person at all."
Hal didn't need to say it directly, his two companions knew it very well - Yang was only willing to talk about his own principles, and refused to talk about the tacit principles of the world. In other words, this black magician was a lunatic!
Master Liu put his hands on his hips and walked around the cafeteria with satisfaction, admiring the diners' eating habits. Seeing that Hal's table looked gloomy, he walked over and stood next to Hal, saying without hesitation: "What's wrong? Don't you like your dumplings? Is it because the dipping sauce doesn't taste good today?"
Master Liu is a man who can negotiate with the government and mingle with migrant workers on construction sites. Not to mention that he is the most respected chef, even if he is just an ordinary player, it is only a matter of time for him to mix with this group of high-level NPCs - of course, the most important reason is that he will not treat the former thieves as NPCs like ordinary players do.
Except for Hal, the three present were all smart people. After Pansy and Tuttle keenly discovered that Master Liu's attitude towards them was more respectful, their attitude towards Master Liu, the undead, was also different from that of ordinary players. Anyway, Yang did not ask them to keep it secret, so they readily told Yang's request...
"That is to say - Lord Yang asked you to plan activities, encourage players... the undead to participate in the activities, and find ways to make these undead stronger and more warlike?" Master Liu said in surprise.
"Yes." Tuttle spread his hands helplessly, "You know, Liu, the other undead are different from you and Geng... It's hard for us to understand Yang's thoughts."
Master Liu: “…”
Master Liu is unable to take care of himself in real life and cannot browse the player forums on his own, but his daughter Liu Xiaoyun read him the hot posts on the player forums while she was taking care of him, so he also knew about the "Carnival Night" incident in which players forced these "senior NPCs" to snatch equipment - knowing that the "senior NPCs" are actually real people, Master Liu can indeed understand these people's feelings.
Master Liu laughed awkwardly but politely. With the quick mind of this senior engineer, he realized that this was a good opportunity to test Lord Yang's true purpose and intention. He immediately said enthusiastically, "I have an idea. Would you like to listen to it?"
