Love and passion, cutting up the wasteland

Chapter 13 Poisonous Food

The children of the poor have become masters early, and Huo Buyang is even more precocious. It is more worry-free and rational for him, a native of the wasteland, to leave tasks such as negotiating prices to him than if Lu Meng does it himself.

Of course, in order to ensure Huo Buyang's safety, Lu Meng also kept a guard up before leaving.

He left the palm he had previously cut off from Lao Lei on the stall.

Then use charcoal to write "at your own risk" on the wooden sign.

Coupled with Huo Buyang's indifferent eyes, it was quite intimidating.

……

Lu Meng here is walking around on the street.

When I encounter a product I am interested in, I stop to ask for a price, which gives me a bit of leisure time as I go to the market.

Occasionally, when passing by some breathtaking places, I would stop and observe them without entering at the door.

Because he had a knife on his waist and a freshly dried cloth with blood stains on it, he was not easy to mess with at first glance, so he didn't encounter any trouble along the way.

He also bought a rattan hat and put it on on the way.

The rattan hat is shaped like a bamboo hat, but it is made of special rattan. The gaps are reinforced with leather glue. It is carefully made and has good defense.

Paired with another pair of newly purchased masks, it can prevent wind and sand as well as slaps on the face.

After the whole set, Lu Meng's entire facial features were almost completely obscured.

He also bought a pair of the same model and planned to bring it to Xiao Huo so that they could be masked knights together.

All that was spent was Lao Lei’s money.

"Eh?" Lu Meng suddenly stopped.

"How do you sell this?"

"Oh, 30 on."

The vendor in question seemed to have just woken up.

"30 per pound?"

"Of course it's 10 pounds, not sold in bulk," the vendor reminded kindly with a suspicious look. "This won't be the first time you've seen it, right? Don't eat too much of this stuff, it's easy to get poisoned."

The stall in front of Lu Meng had several bags of things like plant roots.

He determined it was cassava.

The plant cassava is not unfamiliar to people in previous lives. The pearls in pearl milk tea are made of cassava starch.It has high yield, drought resistance and salt-alkali resistance. It is also a high-quality starch source that solves the hunger of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

However, wild cassava is highly toxic.

In fact, many foods that use tubers as edible parts are more or less toxic, such as potatoes, taro, and konjac.

After treatment, the toxicity is negligible.

Cassava must be peeled, cut into pieces or ground into powder, soaked in water for a long time and then fermented or cooked before it can be safely eaten.

Here comes the problem. At the hub station, the most scarce resource is water.

Even daily drinking is a problem, and it is impossible to use it to process water-intensive foods like cassava.

The most common residents can do is slice and grind cassava into powder when they are really hungry, and let it sit in the sun for a few days to barely eat it.

However, no matter how long it is dried, it can only reduce the toxicity of cassava by about [-]%. In the end, it still needs to be cooked with water for consumption.

This results in not only hub station residents not liking to buy cassava, but even if they do buy it, they won’t eat too much at one time.

The business of this hawker is obviously not good, but he is still willing to remind himself not to eat by mistake. He seems to be an honest person.

But handling cassava is not a problem for Lu Meng.

He has "tap water".

Although the current hunting harvest is enough to prevent them from starving to death, simply using meat as their staple food is still too luxurious, which also limits Lu Meng's exercise plan.

It also puts a heavy burden on the kidneys.

He still has some use for it.

Cassava is a good temporary substitute for staple food. After ensuring the intake of carbohydrates, he can conduct some higher-intensity training and comprehensively improve his physical fitness.

Old Tangtou is right. If he wants to take a step forward in strength, he must make up for the shortcomings in his body.

Not to mention the price is even cheaper than cactus chew bars.Lu Meng thought.

"I've got you covered."...

Lu Meng said it was all-inclusive, but actually he had to go through some selection.

Naturally, tubers that are moldy, sprouting, or immature should be screened out. Because cassava is inherently toxic, you don’t have to worry too much about insect infestation.

Even if there are worms, it will be the same after cooking, so it can be regarded as a snack.

After this selection, Lu Meng's two large cloth bags were filled, totaling about eighty kilograms.

After Lu Meng paid the money, the vendor closed the stall with a happy face. He didn't even bother to pick up the remaining small pieces of cassava, obviously he didn't care much.

The vendor probably dug all these cassava from nowhere, so he set up his stall with the mentality that it was better than nothing.

Now that the transaction is completed, he has purchased more than 200 coins.

If you spend this money extravagantly, you can buy five kilograms of meat at Lu Meng's meat stall.

Or with careful budgeting, it can be enough for a hub station family to live comfortably for half a month.

If it was just for survival, it would be possible to last for two months if all the food was replaced by crude rations like cactus chewing sticks.

Judging from the way he was walking in a hurry, he was probably afraid of the long nights and dreams, and wanted to go home early to avoid being stared at.

Lu Meng carried a cloth bag on his shoulder and continued shopping.

I didn't have such good luck next time. Basically, I didn't see any other staple food for sale.

Even if there is, the price is ridiculously high.

After all, the hub station itself does not produce staple food and relies entirely on external input.

What you can occasionally see are some wild vegetables and nuts, as well as some dried mice, insect paste and the like.

There is no one that sells serious game. I think only the old hunter named Zhang Ying could catch some game before.

Now I have to add myself.

Lu Meng had almost spent all the more than 500 coins he picked up from Lao Lei.

The "market research" was over and time was almost up. Lu Meng went back to find Huo Buyang.

Classmate Xiao Huo looked tired, but when he saw Lu Meng, he could not hide the joy in his eyes.

"Brother Lu! Come on, come on..." the young man urged in a low voice, nervous and excited at the same time.

He pointed secretly at his pocket.

"Coin opening at 1231! Coin opening at 1231!"

After all, fur is not a necessity in the hub city like food. Even in terms of quantity, dozens of pika skins come from the sponsorship of more pika compatriots, but the total price is not as good as the meat from a few pikas.

It’s better to sell meat for nourishment.

Presumably the rats and rabbits would feel this way.

However, even if the rat and rabbit skin was sold for only 1200 karat, it would still be a huge sum of money that Huo Buyang had never seen before.

On this trip to the black market, he realized that he had learned a lot by following Brother Lu.

Lu Meng smiled and encouraged him, but only received two hundred Kai coins.

This was what they agreed upon before coming.

Pijiarou was sold for a total of more than 3000 Kai coins.

Thirty-seven is open, Lu Meng is seven, Huo Buyang is three.

Although Lu Meng now lives close to Huo Buyang's family and takes care of each other, they are not a family after all.

What's more, even brothers have to settle accounts clearly.

Although the prey was all caught by Lu Meng, the processing of rat and rabbit skins and meat was done by Huo Buyang and his son.

If Li Liu makes knitted fabrics and trinkets and sells them on the black market in the future after he recovers, then Huo Buyang will get the lion's share and he will get a bodyguard fee.

Lu Meng was also happy to not have to worry about it and could concentrate on his skill proficiency.

He weighed today's harvest. He made a net profit of almost 2200 Kai coins in one transaction.

This is almost as much as a scavenger earns in a year.

(End of this chapter)