Chapter 5: Fighting for Food
Woolf called the police but the line was constantly busy, making the uneasiness in Bai Yi’s heart increase by another level. Due to the incident of dogs attacking people, Woolf brought a few people to seal up holes and cracks that animals could squeeze through. Bai Yi on the other hand secretly went out to scout the situation in the food market.
It was already close to midnight, however the atmosphere in the food market did not seem to be calming down. The number of people buying food seemed to have increased several folds from the evening. Moreover, even the shop owners gradually felt that something was wrong and some of them decided to stop selling.
On one side, there were the shop owners who had food but refused to sell. On the other, there were people who were hungry to the point of going crazy…the situation now is just like a ticking time bomb.
This isn’t good!
Bai Yi looked at situation become more and more chaotic in the food market and sometimes even looting occurred. Only because of the moral values and social norms that have been taught to them since young restricting them that the situation did not escalate further. However, Bai Yi knew how unbearable that extreme hunger could be. Probably not long after, this fragile stability will be broken.
Sure enough, as Bai Yi was thinking in his heart a shop in front had a commotion.
“You have food but won’t sell them, what is the meaning of this? It’s not like I’m not paying you, even though the price of food now is dozens of times greater than normal I’ve been tolerating it, what more do you want!” A plump and strong 2-metre-tall man starting scolding, spitting his saliva everywhere. Intense hunger gnawed away at the guy’s mind, he felt like there was a devil inside his body, eating away at his body after consuming all the nutrients that’s available.
Autophagy – When the nutrients inside an organism is insufficient, the activated cells will automatically start breaking down the body’s muscles, fats, etc to absorb the nutrients inside.
“Scram! Your father wants to eat!” (TN: Your father is a gangster-ish way of referring to yourself) This big sized man couldn’t stand his hunger anymore, he grabbed the employee in front of him and pushed violently.
With a loud bang, the employee smashed onto the door and slowly slid down limply.
Even the big sized man got a shock at this scene, he didn’t remember being this strong?
What the man didn’t know was that when the activated cells were consuming nutrients, at the same time they are also producing large amounts of special energy. This kind of special energy is much higher grade than the biological energy of normal living things, thus bringing him great strength. He was completely in the dark about the changes in his body and used his strength just as he was used to, resulting in this scenario in front.
Fuck it, I’m not going to care so much!
Since it already came to this, the man didn’t bother controlling himself anymore and grabbed something to smash open the front door of the shop. He then ran inside the shop and started grabbing whatever food he could find. Since there was already a precedent, the people around him of course did not bother controlling themselves either and joined in the looting. The situation did not seem like it would stop at one shop but continue to spread.
Bai Yi left the crowd and returned to Woolf’s shop. At this time, Woolf and the employees were cooking while the corpse was still at the same spot as they did not want to thoughtlessly move the body.
“Bai Yi, you went outside, what happened?” Woolf asked.
“Woolf, the trouble is huge, it is getting really chaotic outside. A lot of people have already started stealing and fighting over the food. It seems like the chaos is going to spread to this place soon.”
“Stealing? Aren’t they afraid of breaking the law?” Santos questioned.
“Although it is breaking the law, but do you think they will be sentenced to prison over a piece of meat?” Bai Yi said mockingly. With those words, Woolf and the other also understood. It was just food, though it was breaking the law but it was unlikely that they would be sentenced to jail because of it.
“Now they are still constrained by social norms and common sense, however I believe that very quickly somebody would reach the same conclusion. Even if they were sentenced to jail, it would be better than starving to death like this.” Bai Yi explained.
“Then what do we do?”
“The shop should have a basement, right? As much as possible, bring all the food to the basement and hide it well. Santos, you stand watch outside. Once you see the crowd heading over here inform us immediately. When they come to steal food later, we must resist but do not try too hard. Let them take what they want as long as nobody gets injured.” Bai Yi methodically gave out instructions to the rest. Woolf and the others were all couth people, their heads weren’t bright so they just listened to Bai Yi. Anyway, Bai Yi was still somebody from Waikato University, though he was just a chef.
Ever since implementing Bai Yi’s idea in the evening, nobody had come to bother them. However, very quickly the chaos spread over the entire food market and even Woolf’s shop was not spared from this.
A huge group of people smashed open the door and then rushed in, looking for the food store.
Though people normally seem to be rational, but once they get agitated their brains would become very simple. These people were not just stealing from the food store, some of them even ran to the room behind. It was no different from robbing a person’s home. However, when this group of people rushed into the room they found an Asian male standing in the centre. Beside this Asian male was a dead body on the floor lying in a pool of blood.
Bai Yi held a chopper in each hand and had his head tilted slightly downwards, shrouding his face in shadows. Beside Bai Yi was Sharpei who had its body tensed and Momo hid in the room behind, watching the situation outside.
“I won’t say anything about stealing food, I can empathize since I’m hungry as well. However, if any of you aren’t thinking straight and decide to barge into my home, I will do what is necessary to protect myself. Let me warn you though, you may not be able to handle the consequences.” Bai Yi’s voice wasn’t loud, but the two bloody choppers slowly raised up and the people in front were almost frightened to death.
Fuck, was the guy lying on the floor killed by him?
Fortunately, this group of people have not completely lost their minds. After Bai Yi warned them, they immediately started to retreat backwards, fearing getting hacked by his two choppers. In a short while, the people running into the room all disappeared. The few people who ran in here afterwards also got frightened and ran away upon seeing the corpse and Bai Yi.
After a chaotic period of looting and resistance, the entire food store became empty. After the crowd stole everything from the store, the store looked like a desolate mess. Santos walked over holding his bruised chin, intending to clean up the mess but Bai Yi stopped him. Doing the opposite of what Santos wanted to do, Bai Yi took a chair and started smashing a perfectly fine glass window.
“Bai, Bai Yi, what are you doing?” Woolf was stunned.
“Mess up this place even more, make it look even more desolate. When people come here, they will immediately be able to recognise what had happened to this place and think that it has already been cleaned out. Only like this, would they not bother coming in here and we can survive from the rations in the basement for a few days.” Bai Yi explained to Woolf. At this moment, the window shakily fell down and broke over the floor.
Looking at the shop again, it looked like a young woman who was raped multiple times.
Woolf and the other two employees felt cold sweat dripping down, so this was Bai Yi’s plans? In truth, even if it was them, if they saw the shop looking as it did now they would only think that this place has been robbed clean. After this series of events, everybody found that they were hungry again even though they just ate not long ago.
When the group returned behind, they found Momo standing quietly beside the door waiting for Bai Yi and Sharpei was sitting beside her like a loyal bodyguard.
“Daddy!” When Momo saw Bai Yi she immediately jumped over and hugged Bai Yi’s leg.
“It’s ok, everything’s fine!” Bai Yi consoled Momo.
Although the food inside the store was all stolen, there was still quite a lot of food in the basement and the innermost room. There wasn’t much food in his house so Bai Yi didn’t bother going back, deciding to temporarily stay here with Momo. Although it was just a simple shop, this place wasn’t too small.
Since Bai Yi is here, the task of cooking naturally went to him. Initially, Bai Yi was still cooking like how he used to cook normally, making the food as tasty as possible with great aroma. However, very quickly Woolf barged into the room.
“Bai, Bai Yi!”
“What’s wrong, Woolf?”
“Don’t make the food so aromatic, the best would be if it has no smell, hurry!”
“Just what is going on?”
“The smell is too good, I could smell it from outside! Other people definitely can smell it too and by then we would not be able to hide here.” Woolf explained worriedly.
Bai Yi was stunned for a moment after listening to Woolf and then started laughing. He was afraid that the smell was too strong and would attract other people here? Could this fellow have a meticulous side within that rough exterior? However, since Bai Yi started cooking he has always been learning how to make food as aromatic and delicious as possible. If suddenly you wanted him to make food that had no smell it would be quite difficult.
“I’ll try my best.” Bai Yi answered.
“Ok good!” Woolf replied. Looking at the pot of food that Bai Yi was cooking, he could not help but to swallow his saliva. The food that Bai Yi usually made was already quite good, and now the intense hunger made it even more mouth-watering. Sharpei was also sticking out his tongue at the side with saliva all over the floor.