Chapter 168: Silence is deafening
"Are you deaf? Didn't you hear that I have food here?" one of the men in a white shirt shouted.
The people behind hesitated to move forward.
A man came forward with two large bags of centipedes and said, "I have over 200 kilograms of centipedes here. I'll trade with you!"
The man in the white shirt rolled his eyes. "Two hundred kilograms for twenty kilograms of food. Do you think I'm stupid?"
"No, I'd like to exchange it for two kilograms of food, but I only have two hundred kilograms of centipedes." The man's face flushed. "Look, I have the most here. Do you want some?"
The two looked at the bag in his hand and said unhappily, "Switch it. Weigh two kilograms of food yourself."
The man picked up the grain bag from Leng Yi's feet, walked to the side and opened it. He wished that all the white rice was his.
However, seeing the ferocious looks of the two men, he didn't dare to ask for more. He wanted to take out two kilograms but didn't have a scale. He looked at Leng Yi and said embarrassedly, "Can you lend me your scale?"
"No loan." Leng Yi said coldly.
The man in the white shirt suddenly got angry and reached out to grab Leng Yi's clothes. "Are you still excited? What's wrong with borrowing your scale?"
Leng Yi grabbed his wrist and squeezed it hard, and the man screamed in pain.
"I'm here to recycle centipedes. If you don't move somewhere else, don't interfere with our work!" Leng Yi snorted coldly.
"You, quickly, quickly let go!" the man in the white shirt yelled, "My hand hurts. Do you know who I am? If you dare to offend me, I will make you pay for it!"
"Really? I'll wait!" Leng Yi pushed the man back hard, and the man immediately sat on the ground, covered in dust.
Leng Yi looked at the others and said, "If you don't want to exchange food here, just leave. Don't even think about coming back to exchange food in the future. We won't accompany you."
When the man heard this, he quickly returned the bag of food to the man in the white shirt and said, "I won't change it."
He will exchange it this time. If he doesn’t get a change here next time he catches a centipede, who can he turn to?
The man in black next to the man in white shirt picked up the food and glared at Leng Yi hatefully, "We'll see!"
Leng Yi sneered, "Am I afraid of you?"
He said to those outside, "Those who want to change can continue, and those who don't want to change can leave. It's voluntary, and we won't force it."
"I want to change, I want to change!" the person outside said hurriedly.
Yunshan only has this one exchange point, where else can I exchange money? If I offend them, it will be difficult to exchange money again in the future.
The two men picked up the food and left angrily.
"Mr. Chen, what should we do now?" asked the man in black.
Chen Shuai thought for a moment and said, "If they can trade food for centipedes, so can we. Zhu Ze, go get a scale and we can trade right at our doorstep."
"Okay." Zhu Ze nodded.
On the other side, Hao Zhiguo attended a meeting in the official camp, and the participants were all the heads of various disaster relief bases.
Everyone is reporting on the resettlement situation in their own area.
"Leader, I would like to apply for another 10,000 kilograms of reserve grain." Hao Zhiguo said.
City Secretary Lin Zhenhua frowned. "Ten thousand catties? What do you need so much food for? Haven't the relief grains been distributed?"
"Old Hao, you are not kind. Our district has resettled the same number of people as yours. You want to apply for an extra 10,000 kilograms of food. What will we eat?" said Wei Ming, another district leader.
Hao Zhiguo glanced at Wei Ming. This man had been at odds with him before the end of the world. He always disagreed with him on political views. The two were old political enemies.
Hao Zhiguo didn't want to pay attention to him and looked at Lin Zhenhua, "Leader, I want 10,000 kilograms of food for a reason. As long as you give me 10,000 kilograms of food, I will return you 1 million kilograms of food."
"Ha, why do I see a cow flying in the sky?" Wei Ming sneered.
The others chuckled, wanting to laugh but not daring to, so they had to try hard to hold it in.
Lin Zhenhua looked at Hao Zhiguo. He knew this man. He was a relatively upright person who got things done.
He must be serious when he said this, so he asked, "Do you have any method?"
"What can he do? He's a magician!" Wei Ming scoffed. "The temperature is so high right now, the ground is dry and cracked everywhere. Even if you cultivate heat-resistant sweet potatoes, it's useless. Can you grow them?"
Previously, Lin Zhenhua's team cultivated heat-resistant sweet potatoes and won the favor of the leaders, which made Wei Ming extremely jealous.
Who knew that the temperature would keep rising, there would be a shortage of water everywhere, and even the heat-resistant sweet potatoes could not be grown, only then did he feel relieved.
Otherwise, he would be completely suppressed by Hao Zhiguo, and he might even become his superior in the future.
Hao Zhiguo was speechless. Couldn't he just listen to him finish what he was saying?
"Boss, actually, someone on our team discovered that centipedes are edible. Grinding them into powder and making them into centipede cakes will have almost no loss. Now we've decided to exchange one kilogram of grain for one hundred kilograms of centipedes. Doesn't that mean ten thousand kilograms of grain can be exchanged for one million kilograms of centipedes?"
"When the centipede cakes are made, they will be our new food reserve."
"Can centipedes be eaten?" Everyone was shocked and started talking about it.
They knew that snakes were edible. Snakes are non-venomous and have meat. Snake gall can be used as medicine, and snake skin can also be used. So they exchanged five pounds of snakes for one pound of food to make canned snake food.
But centipedes are nothing to eat, they are poisonous, and they smell so bad, how can we eat them?
"Have you really studied it? Do you have an analysis report?" Lin Zhenhua looked at Hao Zhiguo.
"The analysis report will be out this afternoon. But we have already done experiments on animals and they didn't die," said Hao Zhiguo.
"Tsk, just because the animal isn't dead doesn't mean it's okay for people to eat it. Will you be responsible if someone dies after eating it?" Wei Ming sneered.
Hao Zhiguo suppressed his temper and said, "Okay, I'll take responsibility if anything goes wrong!"
"Can you afford it?" Wei Ming sneered. "Those are human beings, not animals. It doesn't matter if a few guinea pigs die, we can raise more. But if a human guinea pig dies, are you going to die as an apology?"
Lin Zhenhua didn't say anything. It was true that humans were different from animals. Just because animals could eat humans didn't mean it would be okay.
"Old Hao, we still have to let the data speak for itself. It will be difficult for me to do anything without evidence," said Lin Zhenhua.
Hao Zhiguo felt a little aggrieved, but he also knew that his leader was right. "Leader, when our analysis report comes out and it turns out that centipedes are indeed edible, can you give us priority in stockpiling food?"
Lin Zhenhua nodded. "If it's really edible, it would be a hundredfold harvest. Not to mention ten thousand kilograms of food, I can even give you a hundred thousand kilograms."
"Really?" Hao Zhiguo was overjoyed. This was exactly what he wanted to hear from his leader.
"Leader, just listen to his bragging. He just wants to cheat the food over first. By then, no one in the area he is in charge of will starve to death, and he will have achieved good results. What should we do then?" Wei Ming was anxious.
Hao Zhiguo could no longer suppress his anger and stood up. "Wei Ming, it's already this late, and you're still thinking about performance? What am I doing this for? It's so that everyone can have food to eat, so that no one will starve to death!"
"It's the end of the world now, and you're still scheming and deceiving each other. Have you ever thought about those people who are starving outside? If it weren't for them, why would I bother?"
"We get 40 kilograms of food and wages a month. My wife and I both have jobs, so we have enough to eat. Is it necessary for me to work so hard?"
"Isn't it because there are people in our area who have nothing to eat? We can't just take care of ourselves and ignore others."
"In this world, are you still thinking about performance? There are so many disasters waiting for us in the end times. We don't know when we will die. What's the point of having performance?"
The whole audience fell silent.
The silence is deafening.
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