Chapter 108 The Soup is Poisonous: The Weight of a Bowl of Soup is Equal to the Stars...

Even as the stars were still twinkling in the sky, a queue had already spontaneously formed at the cafeteria entrance, several times longer than when it opened yesterday.

Although it was already summer, the temperature difference between day and night in the border town was still significant. The morning air carried a hint of coolness, and the ragged people wrapped their thin clothes tightly around themselves, stamping their feet and rubbing their hands to dispel the chill caused by hunger. Their faces bore an almost devout, burning desire for warmth and food.

At the very front of the line, a beggar named Old Lame Tom was spitting as he boasted to a group of equally starving fellow sufferers about his glorious exploits from the previous day.

“Let me tell you, you haven’t tasted it,” he said, smacking his lips as he savored the delicious flavor. “That soup, wow, I’ve never tasted anything so fresh in my life. I don’t know how they made it, but the flavor was so delicious it went right to my bones. Yesterday, I gritted my teeth and took out all the coins I’d been begging for over a long time. I ate three big bowls with a roasted potato. After that, I felt much better in my old, damp, cold leg.”

As he vividly described the scene, a chorus of swallowing sounds filled the air.

The people in the procession passed the time in their own ways while waiting. Several old craftsmen squatted in a corner, playing chess by drawing squares on the ground with stones, occasionally glancing up to check the pace of the procession. A group of women sat together, mending tattered clothes while whispering about their family's hardships, occasionally wiping away tears when they spoke of their sorrows.

An old soldier with a missing arm leaned against the wall, clutching his money bag—his last possession—tightly in his arms. Each time the procession moved forward, he would laboriously prop himself up with his single arm, inching forward step by step. Those nearby tried to help him, but he stubbornly shook his head in refusal. Further away, several wandering musicians strummed their worn-out instruments, singing ancient songs in hoarse voices, hoping to earn some money from the waiting crowd.

In the crowd, a young mother holding her child tightened her embrace around the shivering, emaciated child, her eyes gleaming with a faint hope. Beside her, a construction worker, covered in dust and dozing against the wall, clutched a few coins tightly in his hand, clearly also there for the hot soup. Further away, several children chased and played, never straying too far from the group, frequently glancing towards the canteen entrance.

At the end of the line, a well-dressed man with a sinister look frowned, disdainfully observing the scene before him, a veritable gathering of beggars awaiting alms. His unease and contempt intensified as he saw the renewed hope on the faces of the poor and heard their heartfelt praise for the cheap soup.

“A bunch of lowly peasants,” he muttered, spitting under his breath as he turned and disappeared into the shadows of the street corner. “They’re grateful for a bite to eat, forgetting who the real masters of this city are. Just wait, your pitiful hopes will soon turn into deeper despair.”

The cafeteria doors slowly opened.

When the first pot of steaming soup of hope was brought out, the young mother rushed forward and exchanged a copper coin, warm from the sweat of her palms, for a large bowl of piping hot soup. She didn't drink it herself, but carefully blew on it to cool it down before feeding it to her child's chapped lips.

The child's unusually large eyes, swollen from long-term malnutrition, shone with a light of satisfaction and longing. He greedily sucked the soup from the spoon, as if it were the most delicious nectar in the world. Watching this, the mother could no longer hold back her tears, which silently streamed down her face.

This scene was witnessed by many other parents around them. Their eyes filled with warmth and heartfelt gratitude for the cafeteria.

This heartwarming scene was quickly shattered.

At noon, when the cafeteria was at its busiest, a burly man who had just finished his second bowl of soup suddenly clutched his stomach and let out a piercing scream.

He abruptly pushed aside the table in front of him, and the soup bowl crashed to the floor, shattering into pieces. Immediately afterward, his eyes rolled back, he foamed at the mouth, convulsed violently, and collapsed to the ground.

He pointed at the broken soup bowl beside him and roared:

"The soup...the soup...is poisonous."

Panic instantly swept through the entire cafeteria.

"What? The soup is poisoned?"

"My God, I just drank two big bowls."

"Run! Run!"

People in line dropped their bowls and retreated frantically, pushing and shoving each other, trampling each other, and the scene instantly spiraled out of control.

Those with ulterior motives, mingling in the crowd, immediately seized this opportunity to stir up trouble:

"I knew it! How could anything from the Cursed Lands be safe!"

"They want to poison us all with this poisoned soup! And then steal our city!"

"Their food is made from the corpses and filth of the cursed land; eating it will turn you into a mindless living dead!"

“Impossible,” Old Lame Tom was the first to stand up. Although he was also pale with fright, he still retorted loudly, “I drank three bowls yesterday and I was fine. Boss Lin is a good man. He wouldn’t harm us.”

But his voice was quickly drowned out by a huge wave of panic and anger.

The young mother held her child tightly, her face filled with fear and struggle. She looked at the child in her arms, who had just regained some of his spirits after a bowl of hot soup, and then at the burly man on the ground, foaming at the mouth and seemingly dead. For a moment, she didn't know who to believe.

"Don't panic, everyone calm down."

At the height of this chaos, Lin Yue's voice boomed through a metal loudspeaker. Under the protection of the guards, he walked straight to the poisoned person and knelt down to examine them.

He first pried open the other man's eyelids to look at his pupils, then checked his pulse, and finally even leaned in to smell the vomit in his mouth.

"Don't worry, everyone, he's not poisoned." Lin Yue stood up, his voice firm and resolute. "He just had an upset stomach, and the hot weather caused him to suffer from heatstroke."

He turned to Mia: "Mia, go to the kitchen and get a bowl of clean water, and also get some licorice root for inducing vomiting."

Then they ordered the huge wooden door to the cafeteria's kitchen to be completely opened. The already semi-open kitchen was now transformed into a stage open to everyone.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said loudly, pointing to the clean and tidy kitchen where all the ingredients were neatly arranged, "our kitchen has been open to everyone since day one. Every drop of water we use comes from purified water sources, and every vegetable and every bone is displayed here. You are welcome to come in and supervise us at any time. We hope that our business will never, and would never stoop to, using anything unclean or toxic to harm any of our friends who trust us."

The panic that had gripped everyone had subsided somewhat.

An elderly herbalist in the crowd carefully observed the burly man's symptoms—a flushed face, rapid but still strong breathing, and no blood in his vomit—before whispering to the person next to him, "...He doesn't really look like he's been poisoned. I've seen snake venom before, and the person's face turns bluish-purple. This one...does seem more like...he ate something inappropriate and then got overheated, causing an acute illness."

Although his voice was soft, it earned Lin Yue a precious bit of trust.

Then Lin Yue's ultimate move was unleashed.

He had someone bring over a table, on which were solemnly placed two transparent bottles made of precious transparent crystal, and a strangely shaped mysterious instrument composed of multiple lenses and a metal support. It was a simple microscope that Lin Yue had secretly made.

“Gentlemen,” he said, holding up one of the bottles filled with murky sewage, “I know this is the kind of water you all drink. It doesn’t seem to have any problems, does it?”

He used a thin blade of grass to scoop a drop of dirty water from the bottle, placed it on a thin, transparent mica sheet, and put it on the microscope stage.

"Now I'm going to show you a real world that you've never seen before, hidden among us."

He invited the herbalist to be the first to come forward and take a look.

With a mix of trepidation and excitement, the old doctor brought his eyes close to the eyepiece.

The next second he let out a scream as if he had seen a ghost, took several steps back, his face pale, pointed at the microscope, and stammered, "Insects...insects, in the water...there are so many...invisible little insects, and they're still moving."

His reaction immediately aroused everyone's curiosity and unease.

One by one, people stepped forward and, for the first time through tiny eyepieces, witnessed the nauseating and terrifying sight of the microscopic world, filled with countless wriggling microorganisms.

Uncontrollable gasps, screams, and gagging erupted from the crowd from time to time.

“Now,” Lin Yue held up another bottle, which contained water purified using Hope Town’s technology, “take a look at this one.”

When people see the microscopic world again through the microscope, which is almost free of impurities, the stark contrast is deeply imprinted in everyone's mind.

"This is the water we hope the business will use for making soup and cooking. We are selling not just food, but also cleanliness and health."

"As long as everyone trusts and supports us, we will do everything we can to ensure that everyone in Blackrock City can drink this clean water."

Meanwhile, the burly man who had been poisoned, after being given large amounts of water and emetic herbs, vomited profusely and slowly regained consciousness.

The moment he opened his eyes, he met Li Ge's angry gaze.

He trembled with fear and, before Li Ge could even speak, spilled everything out like beans from a bamboo tube.

"It's...it's Steward Buck from the Anchor Merchant Guild. He gave me ten silver coins to come here and act. It has nothing to do with me. I have an eighty-year-old mother and a baby crying for food at home."

The truth has come out.

After a brief period of deathly silence, the square erupted in a furious rage.

"The Iron Anchor Merchant Guild, those damned beasts!"

"It wasn't enough that they were selling us moldy bread and salt with sand in it; now they're trying to cut off our last means of survival."

"We can't just let this go. We need to go find them and demand an explanation."

Old lame Tom and the herbalist raised their arms and called out, and instantly a crowd gathered.

Driven by hunger and anger, the common people spontaneously gathered together, wielding sticks, carrying poles, and even stones, and surged toward the Iron Anchor Merchant Guild's grain store like an angry tide.

Old Tom, the lame man, limped at the front, his voice hoarse but full of strength: "Fellow villagers, if the Anchor Merchant Guild won't let us live, we'll fight them to the death." The young mother, holding her child, followed in the crowd, her eyes no longer filled with fear, but with a resolute rage.

The clever teenagers ran to the front of the procession to scout ahead, occasionally running back to report on the activities of the Iron Anchor Merchant Guild. The entire Blackrock City seemed to awaken at that moment; the long-oppressed people finally stood tall, determined to seek justice in their own way.