Endless Winter: My Camp Upgrades Infinitely

Chapter 1730: Chapter 549: Rotting Beast Meat, Stirring Public Outrage_2

“Rest assured, everyone, we will keep our word. Brothers, bring down the ten large pots and distribute the meat stew to everyone. Let’s eat first, and then officially start working!”

As he gave the order, the ten large pots were immediately carried down.

The laborers all brought their own utensils, and under the guidance of the Tiger Tail Village Manager, they began to line up, waiting to get the meat stew.

Watching the smiles on the faces of the laborers, Zhang Hai shook his head slightly, sneering coldly in his heart.

Ten pots meant 6,000 pounds, 3,000 silver taels; over ten days, that would be 30,000 silver taels’ worth of beast meat. Did these people really think they could eat beast meat every day? Impossible!

The progress of construction each day is up to them to decide. Father Zhang Yiqing said just last night, at most he would only allocate 10,000 taels for buying beast meat, which is about 20,000 pounds.

Calculating it, even if these laborers worked hard, at most they could eat beast meat for three days, forget about the rest of the time.

“The Finance Department only allocated a total of 150,000 silver taels. Just purchasing road construction materials would cost 120,000 taels; the remainder is just 30,000 taels, with 10,000 taels for smoothing things over. Father could have at most 20,000 left, allocating 10,000 for these people to buy beast meat, that’s quite generous already. No, I need to find a way to skim a bit more…”

Greed flashed in Zhang Hai’s eyes. Father entrusted the purchasing of beast meat to him, the entire 10,000 taels in his control. If he could find a way to skim a bit more, there’d still be some profit for him.

The laborer group was also divided by status; the hundred or so leaders of the Cold Resistance Level naturally queued at the front. They quickly got the beast stew from the Manager and started eating on the side.

“Pah… What’s this?”

“It’s smelly, the meat tastes rotten once it enters the mouth!”

“Is this beast meat?”

……

A sudden turn of events occurred; the first batch to eat the beast meat reacted violently, spitting out the meat with expressions of utter disgust, staring at their bowls with a look of extreme displeasure.

Although there were 6,000 pounds of beast meat, there were more than 30,000 laborers present tonight. So, when Tiger Tail Village Managers divided the meat, each person got only one ladle, mostly soup, very little meat, just about a mouthful.

Just these two liang of meat, chewed a few times in the mouth and it was gone. The fact that everyone showed such a reaction indicated that there were significant problems with the beast meat.

Yet Zhang Hai didn’t react immediately; he thought the laborers wanted to continue causing trouble, his face showing a hint of anger, he harshly said, “What are you all shouting about? Given meat to eat, and still want to cause trouble, looking for death?”

The Cold Resistance Level who had just made noise were immediately scared silent.

But someone still stepped forward, cupping his hands and saying, “Young Master Zhang, we are not trying to cause trouble. There’s a problem with the meat in the pot, if you don’t believe, try it yourself!”

“Ugh…”

“This meat really is rotten!”

“It’s rotten meat, take a closer look…”

“It really is, there are wormholes in this meat.”

“Ugh, there are bugs!”

…………

As more people who got the beast meat tasted it, Zhang Hai finally realized something was off. He hurried over to snatch a bowl from someone, smelled it, and his heart skipped a beat.

There was indeed a problem!

The Ice Abyss was a frigid environment; normally stored, beast meat generally wouldn’t rot, although some special circumstances couldn’t be ruled out, so occasionally spoiled meat would occur.

Usually once beast meat rots, it has no value. While cooking there may be no abnormalities, once it enters the mouth, it’s immediately noticeable.

Although Zhang Hai didn’t taste it, just smelling it was enough to know the beast meat had been stored beyond three years without being kept in an appropriate low temperature, clearly having wormholes.

“It’s impossible! The beast meat was taken from the village’s warehouse, impossible to be over a year old, this…”

Suspicion crept into Zhang Hai’s mind, but before he could ponder, he was interrupted by the loud, angry cries of the laborers full of grievance.

“Turns out the ten meals of beast meat are this rotten stuff?”

“This beast meat, perhaps no one would buy it if sold to them, yet it’s given to us to eat, and we’re expected to exert ourselves to build a road?”

“This no-cost deal, Young Master Zhang does it without fear of divine punishment?”

“Build a damn road, last night was just free snow shoveling, I’m not staying here, I’m going back.”

………..

Seeing the crowd below getting stirred up, Zhang Hai panicked.

The task of repairing the official road, though overseen by Tiger Tail Village, wasn’t solely their affair; four other families from Red Tiger Ridge were involved, plus Qinghua City had set up a temporary Subordinate Bureau at the south of Evergreen Valley, also recruiting laborers to build roads, thus multiple places were synchronously cooperating.

If these 30,000 laborers left, and Tiger Tail Village’s section couldn’t be completed on time, the Managers including father Zhang Yiqing would bear serious responsibility.

He couldn’t let these people leave!

But the beast meat was indeed rotten.

How should he argue with these people?

Inner frustration began to build in Zhang Hai, along with the continuous chatter of the laborers threatening to leave, which made him even more confused and distressed.

“Stop right there!”

Finally, seeing some people actually turning to leave, Zhang Hai could no longer remain silent, shouting angrily at those about to leave.

“This beast meat has likely been tampered with, I…”

“Young Master Zhang, don’t put on this false facade of explanation. You just killed Leader Zhu and presented ten pots of beast meat to deceive us, relying on your Tiger Tail Village’s strength to force us to work for free, isn’t that right?”