Chapter 50: Dropped Jaws

Chapter 50: Chapter 50: Dropped Jaws

Feng Si explained logically, "Besides, I’ll be busy with the things I’ve arranged with the City Lord, so I won’t have time to come down and run the stall anymore. If you don’t take it, the stall will just sit empty, and I won’t earn a single coin. But if I hand the stall over to you to manage, with me taking eight-tenths of the profit as we agreed, I can still make some coins."

Seeing that Feng Si was genuinely trying to help her, Mao Qiu was swayed. "But wouldn’t I be taking too much advantage of you?"

’Fifty portions of each of the four types of food, a daily revenue of 76,300 coins... After deducting costs, if I take two-tenths, I could make over fourteen thousand a day!’

Nearby, Mao Hua’s heart was racing. Mao Lian, who didn’t understand any of it, kept her head down in the patch of wild grass, searching for wild mustard greens to harvest, her big, round eyes filled with innocent confusion.

The three sub-females all had such innocent expressions; they clearly weren’t afraid of or resentful toward her because of the earlier incident in the dungeon.

"I’ll give you one hundred portions of sliced boiled meat and roasted meat to sell each day. We won’t be selling the pickled cabbage and Green Potato. That’s the plan." Turning back to search for wild vegetables in the weeds, Feng Si made her final decision.

After returning from the gathering area, Mao Qiu and her two friends were in a hurry to get home and share the incredible news with their parents. Feng Si, on the other hand, planned to stop by the first-floor hall to find Bai Qingqing. Thinking of the egg-hatchling she would soon have, paying the fee to request a leave of absence was a must.

As soon as she walked through the main entrance, Feng Si saw a middle-aged Beastman with two tall Beastmen standing guard not far from the entrance to the first-floor hall of Thirteen Seats.

They carried themselves with an air different from that of ordinary Beastmen. Their sharp eyes constantly scanned the crowd moving in and out, as if they were looking for someone, causing everyone to give them a wide berth.

A surprised gasp rippled through the group of gatherers walking alongside her, who seemed to have been startled by the three Beastmen at the entrance.

They instinctively slowed their pace, surreptitiously sizing up the three men at the entrance. After a moment, a low cry, equal parts surprised and excited, arose from the crowd:

"Whoa! If I’m not mistaken, the lead Beastman by the door... I think that’s the Chief Steward from the City Lord Mansion!"

Hearing this, Feng Si, who was wearing a wide-brimmed black hat to shield herself from the sun, turned with the rest of the crowd to look at the source of the voice.

It was a young, mouse-eared sub-female. As everyone watched, her eyes gleamed with a self-important light, as if recognizing the Chief Steward made her someone special.

She spoke with conviction, "I’m absolutely certain. I saw him from a distance once when I went with the Mountain Chief to pay the monthly tax for Thirteen Seats!"

Hearing this, some in the crowd grew hesitant to pass. "Why would he be here?" one of them murmured nervously. "And he has Beastmen from the City Guard Team with him. He’s not here to arrest another sub-female, is he...?"

"Don’t say that," someone else replied. "Come to think of it, I haven’t seen that sub-female who was buying vegetables and running the stall on the second floor lately."

The mouse-eared sub-female clicked her tongue and shook her head, lamenting, "It just goes to show, not all sub-females share the same fate. Some are invited by the City Lord as honored guests, while others are arrested by the City Guard Team. Ai..."

Feng Si: "..."

Feng Si said nothing and stopped walking, deliberately lagging behind the group. Her plan was to wait for them to leave first, then discreetly call the Chief Steward away without drawing any attention.

Truth be told, what happened to Mao Qiu that day was a minor, everyday incident. Apart from the group of Beastmen who were fixated on the delicious food, hardly anyone else had paid it much mind.

Thirteen Seats was a building of over one hundred floors, housing tens of thousands of people. The City Guard Team arresting a single sub-female hadn’t caused much of a stir. After all, it was a common sight.

With so many residents, gathering schedules were staggered. For the sub-females, who generally operated in fixed teams, anyone outside their own small group was just an unfamiliar face.

As it happened, the sub-females in this particular gathering group had only heard about Mao Qiu’s terrible plight. They all understood that the City Guard Team’s headquarters was a place you entered but never left, so it never even occurred to them that she might have been released.

’As for the sub-female running the stall, she must have been arrested as well.’

Everyone simply assumed that an outsider sub-female like Feng Si, who had no connections, was destined for such a tragic end. It never crossed their minds to connect her with the legendary sub-female who had been a guest at the City Lord Mansion.

Besides, Feng Si always kept herself completely covered up whenever she went gathering, so no one could possibly recognize her as the stall owner who made that delicious food.

Just as she’d hoped, Feng Si had remained invisible within Thirteen Seats during this little commotion. Shuffling forward, she watched the other sub-females from her group enter the five-meter-high, wide gateway, and she breathed an inward sigh of relief.

She suddenly quickened her pace and approached, looking up at the three towering Beastmen at the entrance. Her slender fingers tightened on the strap of the basket slung over her shoulder as she asked briskly, "Are you the ones the City Lord sent to find me?"

The lead Beastman looked down, his eyes scrutinizing the sub-female, who was cloaked in black with only her eyes showing. After a few seconds, his serious expression melted into a slightly fawning smile. "My name is Yang Wen. By order of the City Lord, I am at your disposal."

The gathering sub-females, who had intentionally lingered just inside the gate to watch, were utterly shocked.

"..."

After a moment of stunned silence, everyone looked from the Chief Steward back to the strange, inconspicuous sub-female who had been in their group moments ago. They were dumbfounded.

"What?"

"The Chief Steward was standing there looking so fierce and menacing, and *this* is who he was looking for?"

"Maybe we all breathed in some poison pollen in the gathering area without realizing it and we’re hallucinating. Otherwise, how could we be seeing something as fantastical as the great Chief Steward acting so deferential? He’s the Chief Steward of Nantong City!"

"So... she’s the sub-female invited by the City Lord? The one even the Little City Lord listens to? I’m starting to feel faint."

"My eyes are playing tricks on me!"

Not wanting to attract any more attention under the watchful eyes of the crowd, Feng Si said nothing. She simply raised a hand and beckoned for Yang Wen to follow.

「Five minutes later.」

Feng Si led the three men into a small private room at a first-floor restaurant.

Wary of them, she had neither followed Yang Wen to a place of his choosing nor was she about to bring unfamiliar Beastmen to her home. So, she had picked this spot nearby.

She ordered three glasses of cool water to quench their thirst. After the proprietor respectfully withdrew, only she and the three Beastmen were left in the private room.

Feeling hot and stuffy, Feng Si untied the black veil that had been covering her face and draped it over her basket. "Alright," she said. "The City Lord sent you to find me, so from now on, you’ll do exactly as I say."

She had already thought it through. For mass-produced food, only two types were currently suitable: Green Potato and pickled cabbage.

Since this venture would also make her money, Feng Si didn’t mince words. She simply laid out Yang Wen’s tasks: "First, you will find me four locations: a wide, open plot of land that gets plenty of sunlight; a room large enough to hold a thousand people; a space to arrange at least two hundred stoves; and a cool, damp building."

Yang Wen understood. "These are the sites for food production?"