Famine 78: Human Nature

Silently, Li Shize drew Zhong Manwen aside, taking a few steps back.

It was lunchtime, and the restaurant was far from empty. With nearly a hundred rooms, there were at least two or three hundred people present. Some carried trays, others ate or chatted… but now, everyone had paused, attention fixed on the center of the conflict: the food service window.

[Yin-Yang Hotpot] was a dual-flavor hotpot. When picked from the tree, it had to have both types of broth to make up a complete pot.

The white broth was a plain soup, reserved for the dead; the red broth—tomato or spicy—belonged to the living.
To avoid any mistakes, Si Zhiyan simply forbade serving the plain soup. Instead, tomato and beef tallow spicy bases were mixed into a tomato pot and sent to the Forest Hot Spring Inn.

The kitchen would pour out the tomato soup after arrival, saving the spicy broth base to use for cooking and sales.

At the window, the red-haired mercenary jabbed a finger at a yin-yang pot that had yet to be emptied in the kitchen, repeating, “I want this one. I want this, right now.”
“Don’t waste my time—my guys are waiting.”

Clearly someone had alerted the staff—Yun Zhong hurried over.

Stepping in front of the mercenary, he subtly shielded Li Xuan and spoke politely, “Let’s not do this, sir.”
“We can sell it to you, but if you have tomato hotpot, you’ll need to follow the rules—no entry to the milk bath afterwards. No fighting or causing trouble in the milk bath area, especially for anyone who’s had tomato hotpot.”

A burst of laughter followed from the side.

Zhong Manwen turned; the laughter came from inside a bamboo private dining room. Just as the curtain was lifted, a wave of alcohol hit the air.

Inside was a large round table with several bottles of liquor. Ten or so burly men sat about, all red-faced.

The main shops didn’t sell food, but they did offer alcohol for disinfection. Some people had taken to experimenting with those supplies—distilling and purifying, heavily diluting, adding all sorts of odds and ends, mixing up crude spirits that, while certainly unhealthy, wouldn’t kill them.

Among those living on borrowed time, with no guarantee of tomorrow, this foul brew was wildly popular.

Was it just that today was so enjoyable they’d gotten drunk already? Tang Qinghuai frowned. They hadn’t even been at lunch that long…

Among the group, a few had unbuttoned shirts, baring chests and bellies, laughing uproariously.

“A tomato hotpot, and you’re losing your temper? There explosives in there or what?”

“Who knows! Everything on the farm has some special property. That tomato broth and the milk bath together must be for excitement, eh?”

“Hey! Allen, what’s your problem? Getting worked up over a kid who’s barely bright enough to count as a service player?”

The red-haired mercenary—Allen—feeling he’d lost face in front of his friends, grew enraged: “I don’t care about any effect your tomato pot has. You think I can’t control myself?”

Allen was massive, nearly a full head taller than the still-growing Yun Zhong and already waving his hands furiously: “What’s it to you what I do? Maybe I’ll just stand here and shout!”

Sensing a fight, Tang Qinghuai’s brow furrowed as he rose—only for a firm hand to press him down.

He turned in surprise. His mother, Zhong Manwen, regarded him calmly and shook her head.
With a glance, she mouthed a reminder—Look around.

Tang Qinghuai surveyed the room and realized many familiar faces were present.

In the next private room, people had also lifted the curtain to watch. The man at the head, even in a bathrobe, couldn’t hide his imposing aura—it was unmistakably Commander Nie Du. Sha Tong and the Bone Ferry’s guard captains sat beside him. Another nearby table seated a woman and a teenager—Tang Qinghuai recognized the female player as Zhong Yanqing, a Chosen One from Team Xu Bei…

All of them sat coolly, observing the commotion, their eyes filled with…
Scrutiny?

“You’re free to do as you wish. Tomato hotpot is on our menu and may be sold,” Yun Zhong replied evenly. “But the rules of the hot spring must be enforced. After eating, please do not visit the milk bath area. We caution against temper flare-ups and causing a disturbance.”

“Li Xuan, bring up the tomato hotpot.”

Allen stared him down for a moment, then gave a cold snort and let his hand fall.

[Ding! You have received 200 points.]

“Hmph. So much nonsense.”
With a dismissive wave, he took the tomato yin-yang pot and, reeking of alcohol, headed back to his room.

The curtain fell, the noise-dampening array reactivated, and the initial tumult was silenced—everything returned to normal.

Yun Zhong made a few light comments and the restaurant’s chatter picked up anew.

Tang Qinghuai said in bewilderment, “Why… why did no one interfere?”
“Especially Commander Nie—that’s unlike him.”

Zhong Manwen shook her head, leaning back into her chair.

“There are thousands of people on the farm now—a mixed crowd, all sorts.”

“In the famine game, there’s no law. Robbery and murder for treasure are hardly rare. With so much food and loot, who isn’t tempted?”
“If they can’t seize it from the Farm Master, then…”

Tang Qinghuai added, “But the rules have been updated, with new temporary regulations published just a few days ago.”
“The temporary rules prohibit violence, theft, and all forms of private fighting within the farm…”

“Rules without the means to enforce them are just paper,” Zhong Manwen said, smiling as she scooped up another spoonful of tofu pudding.

“When players first joined the farm, they were awed, treating the place as a special instance, respecting the Farm Master’s authority and not daring to act out. But after a while, seeing how open-minded the Farm Master was, seemingly indifferent to every little matter, and with every place so safe and so many service players getting rich and flaunting their points, ambitious hearts grew restless.”

“They wondered—what happens if you break the rules?”

Tang Qinghuai wasn’t slow on the uptake and quickly caught on. “So that’s it, I get it!”

“This was a test!”

“Murder, robbery, or sabotage would be too much—they wouldn’t dare break the serious rules at once, for fear of harsh consequences and paying too high a price.”
“So, instead, they challenge the seemingly trivial ones…”

For example: Don’t eat tomato hotpot if you want to use the milk bath.

Li Shize said, “It’s like bullying.”
“At first it’s just getting someone to run errands—a harmless test. But each time they’re tolerated, next time they’ll push a little further, crossing the line little by little.”

Zhong Manwen sighed, “You and I are farm favorites. Commander Nie and Zhong Yanqing are Chosen Ones… If any one of us came forward, the other party would likely back down. But that’s not a solution. We could stop it for now, not forever. This is a hurdle the farm must cross on its own.”

“And as for us…”

In the private room, Sha Tong let the curtain fall, restoring the noise-blocking array, then returned to the table.

Nie Du’s eyes darkened; he sipped his tea.

“We must also watch the farm’s response.”
“Sha Tong. This afternoon, send someone to watch the milk bath area.”

Sha Tong nodded. “As you command.”

The rules for Bone Ferry had been hammered out by Nie Du and Gu Haoping after much trial and error.
Just a few hundred words: no court, no arbitration—punishing only severe crimes. Murder, robbery, theft, violent crime—the Guard enforced martial law, dealing out immediate execution.
As for fugitives, they were blacklisted for life, never again allowed on the Bone Ferry. Encountered in the wild, all player teams were urged to hunt them down for a bounty.

Lesser offenses—fraud, brawling, petty theft—were left unmentioned, handed over to the law of the jungle.

It was a helpless necessity. From the start, the Guard’s numbers were too limited—they had missions to run and couldn’t afford to maintain a prison.

As the head of a large settlement, Nie Du understood one thing above all: never create rules you cannot enforce—else you only undermine your credibility.

This unavoidable style of leadership inevitably bred friction between eligible players and service players at Bone Ferry.
The Gu Haoping rebellion had been personal, but it was also the outgrowth of long-standing tension.

The Miracle of Suffering had cost Nie Du the power to sense human hearts, but he still understood that, even had he possessed perfect insight, such fundamental conflicts were beyond resolution.

Fortunately, then came the farm—and everything changed.

The moment he’d set foot in the Forest Hot Spring Inn and saw its rules, Nie Du had sensed this was coming.
The rule itself—neither severe nor trivial—was ideally suited to test the limits.

Sure enough, it all happened right before his eyes.

Nie Du reached under the table to stroke the raven pecking at rice, then gazed out toward the forest windows.

Sunlight flickered through emerald leaves, lush and full of life.

What a wonderful place, Nie Du thought. It would be such a waste if it were ever to become a hell on earth.

That Farm Master, reigning high above the clouds and mist—could such a person ever understand the human heart?