Ma Dongmei didn't speak, but squinted and looked the leading man up and down.
The Allied soldiers standing nearby silently held their breath for the man.
The last person to talk to Sister Dongmei like that is probably already half a meter tall with grass on their grave.
"So many of us risked our lives to fight zombies, and the supplies we received in return were too few. It's not fair." The man felt uneasy under her gaze and looked away somewhat averted his eyes.
Seeing someone speak up, the people behind them chimed in, "Yeah, half a pound of rice and two ounces of meat is too little. Is this all you're going to give a beggar?"
These people have been living in China for a long time, and they speak Mandarin quite well, except for their pronunciation.
When they get anxious, their tone is just like those crazy old men and women in Korean dramas, their faces red and necks thick.
"What's wrong, Sister Dongmei?" Zhao Mujia rushed over upon hearing the voice.
He hadn't had time to eat breakfast, so he bought a bowl of hot dry noodles with chili oil from a vending machine. He had just stirred it when he heard the commotion and rushed over. While slurping his noodles, he stood behind Ma Dongmei to help her keep things in order.
The rich aroma of sesame paste, mixed with the spicy and stimulating red oil, along with the unique scent of alkaline noodles, carries the fragrant aroma for several meters on the wind.
Two long lines stared intently at the oily, sticky hot dry noodles in Zhao Mujia's hand, and dozens or even hundreds of people swallowed hard in unison.
The tongue and mouth involuntarily secrete large amounts of saliva, which is enough to whet the appetite with just one look.
A cacophony of foreign languages erupted from the group, and their eyes nearly popped into Zhao Mujia's bowl.
"Holy crap." Zhao Mujia felt uneasy being stared at by so many people, and the noodles in her mouth suddenly felt scalding hot.
Having endured hardship throughout the apocalypse, he was reluctant to waste food, so he quickly gulped down a bowl of hot dry noodles, mumbling to the group, "Finished eating? Stop staring."
For the first time in his life, he was being watched by hundreds of people while eating noodles, and he felt a little shy.
A group of little devils and white-skinned kids watched him devour a large bowl of noodles, their minds going blank with envy, their thoughts filled with the rich aroma of sesame.
"At least one zombie will cost five pounds of grain or three pounds of meat." The leader of the Xiba men swallowed hard, his face stern as he negotiated with Ma Dongmei. "Or twenty bowls of hot dry noodles! Other food from the vending machine will do too!"
They hid on the outskirts of the safe zone and often saw Allied security forces eating breakfast on the border.
Sometimes it's steaming hot xiaolongbao (soup dumplings), sometimes it's spicy instant noodles, and what's even more outrageous is that last time a bespectacled silly guy brought a roast chicken with steamed buns.
The enticing aroma of meat wafted through the wind into the cracks in the wall, tempting them so much that they devoured a whole hard worm meat cake.
"Bargaining?" Ma Dongmei stood up, swung her foot on the edge of the table to the right, and kicked the dry, withered zombie on the table to the ground.
"Take your things and get out."
The man froze on the spot. "What do you mean?"
“It’s meaningless, I won’t accept it.” After Ma Dongmei finished speaking, she turned around, raised her voice, and said to the person behind her, “Remember this round face, don’t accept anything from him in the future.”
"Why won't you accept it? Why won't you accept it? You yourselves issued a notice that there would be no limit on the purchase, but now you're going back on your word!" Big-faced Xiba panicked.
He risked his life to kill those zombies, just to exchange them for rice to cook.
“Everyone else accepts normally, but I won’t accept yours.” Ma Dongmei pinched the cigarette butt, squinted her eyes, and blew a round smoke ring at the man.
"Anyone who tries to bargain should just do the same thing as him: take your things and get out of here. It's a buyer's market now; whoever has the supplies is the boss."
After Ma Dongmei finished speaking, she sat down in a chair with her arms crossed, saying, "If you accept the price, sell; if you don't, get out. Don't take up space and talk nonsense."
The level of involution among the locals is even more exaggerated than that of the Chinese; they'll start fighting amongst themselves with just a little pressure.
Sure enough, when the man and the zombie were kicked out of the line, the people at the back of the line immediately became anxious.
No one stepped forward to bargain anymore; everyone crowded around the table, afraid of arriving too late and missing out on supplies.
The round-faced Xiba man originally wanted to be tough for a while, but seeing everyone else happily leaving with their food, he immediately broke down and ran to Ma Dongmei, bowing and scraping, begging for forgiveness.
In just one day, Ma Dongmei and her team received more than a hundred dried-up zombies.
Lu Sheng used a machine to grind these dried goods into powder and carried them to Xu Yi's laboratory, basket by basket.
Although the ingredients of mushroom powder are uncertain, with Han Rui, a plant expert, they have plenty of methods and ways to keep trying.
After half a month of research, Xu Yi actually found a suitable ratio.
"This family will fall apart without Teacher Xu." Zhang Xiaojuan rushed to the scene immediately and showered him with compliments.
Xu Yi handed the prepared plant growth promoter to Lu Sheng, saying, "Based on experimental estimates, it should take about three months from seedling emergence to maturity."
Upon hearing this exciting news, everyone present was immediately moved to tears.
Three months! Just three more months until we can say goodbye to this awful weather!
Everything was ready except for the final push. Lu Sheng increased manpower and collected zombies at a high intensity every day, and the powder-making machines were so busy that they were sparking.
Early that morning, Lu Sheng was stopped by Ma Dongmei next to the vending machine. "A group of old, weak, sick and disabled people came over, saying that they couldn't fight the zombies and wanted to come to our city to work in exchange for food."
"work to earn a living?"
"Yes, say you're a researcher and can do odd jobs in the lab."
Lu Sheng thought for a few seconds and then followed Ma Dongmei to the small opening on the side of the safe zone.
There were about a dozen or so foreigners nearby, dressed in rags and looking emaciated. Their ages ranged from twenty to sixty. The only thing they had in common was that they were all living poor lives and were skin and bones.
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