I Can See Your Combat Power
Chapter 1080 - Chapter 1080 Chapter 374 Eating Dirt Exercise

Chapter 1080: Chapter 374: Eating Dirt Exercise Chapter 1080: Chapter 374: Eating Dirt Exercise “`

As soon as the Chaochang farmers sold their fields, they all became rich overnight, but very few managed to use the money to make more money and rise against the tide.

It’s said that wealth does not last three generations, and these farmers, who suddenly acquired a fortune from selling their land, lacked the ability to manage it, with most indulging in the pleasures of lively entertainment and nightly revelry.

After all, Chaochang, a city filled with desires, can always provide just the right temptations at the right time.

The money from selling the fields would soon end up back in the pockets of the merchants, and the people, having lost both their good land and their wealth, were left with only two choices.

One was to work for the noble merchants, and the other was to open up new land or mine.

The most talented among them might be employed by noble merchants as shop assistants or long-term workers, but most had only manual labor to turn to.

In such cases, just staying alive required all one’s efforts, never mind the energy to marry, beget children, and bless future generations.

Therefore, many say that Chaochang is a city filled with dreams and hope, while others say it is a city where dreams and hope go to die.

And the crux of such statements lies in the price of grain in Chaochang, which relies entirely on imports from Chuanyuan and Da Lin, keeping its prices consistently above the average level in Longzhou.

This slight price markup is, naturally, a negligible cost for the merchant families, but for the ordinary people who plan their meals from one to the next, it seems quite inhumane.

Because they lost their land, the vast majority of Chaochang residents need to purchase food and cook daily, and for many workers, this means dining out.

The already high grain prices, after secondary processing, become even steeper, and it’s common for ordinary workers to spend half their earnings on meals; many sturdy men rush between three docks a day, and all their earnings go to buying food.

This is the so-called “one full belly keeps the whole family from hunger.”

And the business that Brother Tian was talking about was turning the pig offal, discarded by people, into dishes to sell.

In fact, Brother Tian was certainly not the first person to attempt this, but due to the characteristics of the local pig breeds in Chaochang, the business had never taken off.

Even during famines, few would turn to the pig pens to fish out pig offal to eat, because Chaochang’s pigs are a type of bristly black pig, a prized creation of the Beast Taming Sect, a hybrid between some sort of swine beast and a domestic pig, with high conversion rates and good growth. Usually, a two-hundred-pound fat pig could be raised to size in just three months, with four batches a year.

The only downside is that they have long hair and thick skin, with an extremely strong odor. Even carefully prepared pork would have a lingering smell, let alone the dirty parts like offal.

After continuous attempts and repeated failures, the number of failures mounted, and naturally, no one thought of doing business with pig offal anymore.

And the so-called secret recipe of Brother Tian was a kind of medicinal liquid.

After enduring an entire day of foul smells and swatting over three hundred twenty insects, Brother Tian set up three large pots in the courtyard. The boiling medicinal liquid finally overpowered the stench of the offal.

Brother Tian, covered in blood, brought the processed offal to the stage, first placing pig intestines, pig lungs, and pig hearts into the first pot. The offal churned in the boiling medicinal liquid, with an odor so strong it drew complaints from neighbors knocking on the door.

Brother Tian had no choice but to set aside his work for the moment and go to the door to greet the visitors.

“`

The visitor was none other than the old neighbor, Sixth Aunt. She was startled when Tang Luo, covered in bloodstains, opened the door. Upon realizing it was indeed Tang Luo, she covered her nose and asked in a feigned deep voice, “Are you boiling feces in here, how come it smells so rank and fishy?”

“Uh…” Tang Luo’s face darkened as he explained, “It’s not feces, it’s boiling offal!”

“Ah?” Sixth Aunt was shocked: “Pig offal? Do people actually eat that stinky stuff? Our house is just next door, Tang Luo. If you haven’t eaten, just come on over for a meal. It’s just a matter of a few extra chopsticks. Why go through all this trouble?”

“Thanks for your kind offer, Sixth Aunt. I’ll be having my meal here in a bit; I’ll come over another time!”

With that, Tang Luo closed the door and, huffing and puffing, ran back to the side of the huge pot. He lifted out the offal, which had been boiled in the medicinal liquid but still smelled overwhelmingly rank, and put it into a second pot.

At that moment, from the woodshed came the sinister and feeble voice of Tang Luo, “I think the neighbor has a point, this smell really is almost indistinguishable from boiling feces. Consider this, how about changing to another line of work? I’ve got to tell you, I am the Gambling God. Take me to gamble at fight clubs or the like, I guarantee we’ll make a killing in just one day. Let’s give up this business that’s like boiling manure, okay?”

Repeatedly insulted, Tang Luo, enraged, bared his teeth and claws, and shouted weakly back at Tang Luo, “Shut up and just stay put!”

After having dominantly put his own underling in place, Tang Luo again immersed himself in the process of preparing the offal.

The reason a secret recipe is called a secret is usually that no one else has discovered it yet.

If you think about it, all the rules of the world have existed from the very beginning, and what the Human Race prides itself on inventing are merely discoveries.

The same is true for secret recipes. Even the pig offal from Chaochang long-haired pigs must have a way to remove the smell. It’s just that no one had previously put the specific conditions together to trigger this method.

If the first round of medicinal liquid made the pig offal smell even more rank, then after the second round, the smell of the offal had greatly diminished, and there was even a slight fragrance to it.

Holding the offal, the size of a face, to his nose for a deep sniff, a satisfied Tang Luo placed it into a third medicinal liquid.

In the bubbling medicinal brew, the offal churned up and down, the rank smell staying behind in the pot, leaving the final product with a mysteriously pleasant aroma.

Tang Luo plated the intestines and lungs that were drained from the third pot and, bursting with excitement, walked towards Tang Luo’s place. He found, however, that the other had shakily closed the door and issued a heart-wrenching warning, “Don’t you come over here!”

“Dramatic for no reason~” Tang Luo, anxious to test his experiment, pushed the firmly shut door open and presented the plate in front of the ashen-faced Tang Luo, boasting, “You have a sensitive nose, so help me taste if these offal have lost their smell!”

Although he said it was about trying, the strong arrogance in the air was undeniable. Despairing, Tang Luo surveyed the blood-stained Tang Luo from head to toe and said weakly, “I can certainly try, but could you go out first, and preferably close the door behind you?”

“You’re actually saying I stink!” Tang Luo, as if struck by a heavy blow, put down the plate and ran out, slamming the door behind him.

This inexplicable annoyance left Tang Luo full of question marks in his head, as he thought, “Can’t you even speak the truth anymore?”

Looking at the plate Tang Luo had left behind, which, while pale in appearance, emitted a mysterious fragrance, Tang Luo struggled within himself for a while. Gritting his teeth and taking a leap of faith, he reached out a tendril-like hand, picked up a slice of pig lung, and put it into his mouth.

“Just think of it as practice for eating dirt!”