Abyss Summoner

Chapter 561 - 548: Dark Cuisine

A large pile of spoils lay on the ground, including highly lethal firearms, sharp weapons, and exquisite, sturdy armor. Yan Xiu sent a few trusted aides to keep counting these spoils.

Just the food alone filled ten warehouses, including not only rice and white flour but also countless seasonings and cooked foods. By this time, the apocalypse had been raging for over a year. Some of this food was close to expiring, but even so, Li Hongyi did not distribute it to the ordinary people. Instead, he let them kill and die in hunger.

"Huh? So much food and weapons?"

After looking over the bills, Chen Feng handed them to Yan Xiu and casually picked up a bag of packaged sausages.

The food in these ten whole warehouses was merely part of the wealth obtained after cleansing Li Hongyi. If we added the wealth of several other high-ranking members, the quantity would increase even more.

Think about the scene when entering the port. Those survivors without power, to fill their stomachs, didn’t mind picking up fish bones and garbage. But what about people like Li Hongyi? They could comfortably lie in rooms, savor foods and drinks that were unimaginable to the common people.

After taking control of this area, Li Hongyi and a group of high-ranking members divided most of the resources here. The resources allocated to hundreds of thousands of survivors were even less than 5%.

"I’m very curious, what do these people eat every day?" Chen Feng looked at the vast warehouse, pondering aloud.

Yan Xiu shrugged his head. He was also one of the exploiters. Though he had been supported to power, all of this seemed dreamlike, making it hard for him to believe. Just like Chen Feng in front of him, except for his age, he knew nothing about him. But after witnessing Chen Feng’s killing methods, Yan Xiu’s courage had long been shattered, so he dared not conceal anything.

"The land is destroyed, monsters roam everywhere, and agriculture cannot meet the needs of hundreds of thousands of people. Therefore, we found a more convenient and quick source of food, replacing the original food with a type of insect. This insect can even withstand radiation, and even if all other life forms were to die, these little creatures could continue to survive stubbornly."

"You’re talking about... cockroaches, aren’t you?" Chen Feng suddenly interrupted Yan Xiu.

Yan Xiu hesitated for a moment, then nodded and said, "Compared to other creatures, cockroaches reproduce undoubtedly faster. Moreover, after mutation, they have grown much larger, reaching over a meter long. Three kilometers away, there is a factory where thousands of mutated cockroaches are bred. The staff will grind the cockroaches into a meat slurry and then add some roots to make insect meat jelly, distributing one piece per person each day to the survivors."

It’s disgusting.

In peaceful times, cockroaches are undoubtedly detested by everyone, regardless of gender or age. People would rather kill them quickly than describe such creatures as repulsive.

This is a kind of insect living in moist environments, feeding on decaying matter, with an astonishing reproductive ability. A single step could help it spread offspring, for this creature can perform asexual reproduction after a single mating.

Cockroaches also have a gregarious nature. At a single habitat point, you can often find a few to dozens or even hundreds gathered together, primarily due to the effects of pheromones.

Cockroaches are cold-blooded animals, meaning they need much less food than humans. That is to say, they can sustain themselves for weeks after one meal. As long as they don’t encounter predators, and their wounds are not infected by bacteria or viruses, they can survive.

And this might be the ultimate reason they can maintain a robust lifecycle.

In peaceful times, the attitude towards cockroaches is extermination! Extermination! Still extermination! But now, it isn’t grain feeding these hundreds of thousands of people, but these nauseating insects.

Imagine the terrifying scene when countless cockroaches are ground together!

According to Yan Xiu, the factory will first grind the cockroaches into a meat slurry, followed by adding some dried food, primarily roots or other stale ingredients, then cooling it into rectangular shapes, which are distributed to the people. As for the taste, it’s a mixture of a fishy odor with a bit of bitterness.

No one would complain about how awful the food is because it’s their only energy source sustaining their lives. What’s even more horrifying is, apart from a small number of people knowing, the majority of people still have no idea that the raw material of the food they swallow daily comes from the body of cockroaches.

Chen Feng fell into contemplation.

But for Yan Xiu, this was a time of torment. With short interaction time, he had no idea about Chen Feng’s temperament. Given the situation, he couldn’t gauge Chen’s attitude and thus lowered his tone, saying, ’Sir... should we open the warehouse and give some food to the survivors?’

"What?" Chen Feng frowned and asked.

Yan Xiu thought his voice was too low and raised it, saying, "I said, should we open the warehouse..."

"No need, leave the food in these warehouses as they are, and continue using the factory." To Yan Xiu’s surprise, Chen Feng refused before he even finished his sentence.

Hundreds of thousands of people mean hundreds of thousands of mouths.

Even if there’s a large amount of food in the warehouses, once distributed among the people, it would be a mere drop in the bucket, unable to have any real effect.

What’s more frightening is, a small gift breeds gratitude, a large gift breeds resentment.

If you offer someone minor help in distress, they will thank you. But if you help too much, causing dependency, once you stop, it will cause resentment.

Like now, those survivors might be thankful for being alive while eating insect meat jelly daily. Still, once they taste delicious food again after you’ve distributed the supplies, their thoughts might slightly change when returning to those foul-smelling jellies.

It’s easy to go from simple to luxurious, but hard to go from luxurious to simple. Yan Xiu’s seemingly flattering thought is unknowingly a massive hidden danger.

As for cold-bloodedness?

Chen Feng doesn’t care how others view him.

He has long witnessed the darkness that ordinary people can’t withstand. Sometimes, the truly terrifying thing isn’t the insects but the human heart.

Dissatisfaction is a negative emotion everyone possesses. Even if change is genuinely desired here, it isn’t the time yet. The root system of the Xiangmen has rotted; given Li Hongyi’s subordinates, the other forces are probably not much different. If Chen Feng truly wants to change the situation here, he must first take control here, plant food, and only then plan slowly.

Before that, those people can only be wronged to continue relying on such food...

Is it cruel?

In the grassland, male lions organize female lions to hunt, but after getting the prey, the male lion will often eat first. After only a carcass is left, the female lions will pounce on it and eat madly.

Although there isn’t much meat, those female lions still savor every bite and even fight against peers for a mouthful of food.

From ancient times to the present, whether human or beast, the weak side must endure such humiliation and torment. Without the protection of those in power, even the hope of life will seem exceptionally distant...