Conquering alien worlds starts from the game

It was built with stones and covered with a layer of mud and slapped on the solid farmhouse earthen stove. In the old iron pot that has been repaired several times and even the handles have been replaced, the hot water boiling the diced potatoes is gurgling.

Farmer Mary poked the potato cubes in the pot with a spoon to confirm that they had softened, then grabbed two handfuls of strange vermicelli that she had never cooked before from the bamboo dustpan next to the clay stove, and carefully sprinkled them into the pot.

This weird vermicelli is milky white in color, the length of an adult's palm, and has been dehydrated. It looks very similar to the macaroni that people in the city like, but it is not as thick as macaroni, and there is no hole in the middle of the vermicelli.

This was distributed to everyone by the undead lord in the village during the day, and each family received ten catties—the price was that starting tomorrow, every household had to provide an adult labor force to work for the undead lord.

Mary thinks that the undead lord who is always making strange noises is a bit unintelligent... Her neighbors think so too.

——I’ve never heard of the lord who makes people work and also gives them food!

Before Mary's second child was born, the lord of the village was still there; at that time, the lord asked the villagers to do things, not only did not give them anything, but also let the servants watch to prevent the villagers from stealing things!

The next door village is a fiefdom of a baron. Every year, many people are called by the housekeeper to work in the baron’s manor, and they are not given food. They only have two meals a day for the workers... That’s all. It made Mary envious, at least she could send out the most edible half-sized kid in the family for a while.

Mary couldn't even write her own name, but she had common sense - working for a lordship was a common thing, as normal as having to pay taxes every year.

Of course, since the undead lord is willing to distribute food to everyone, no one will be stupid enough to remind him that he doesn't need to distribute food... Anyone who dares to do this will offend the whole village.

As the hot water rolled down, the vermicelli thrown into the pot gradually became softer and thicker, and the portion became much larger. It can be judged by the naked eye that it is indeed edible food.

Mary, who had been staring at the pot nervously, was relieved, as long as it could be eaten, she quickly grabbed the washed vegetables in another dustpan and threw them into the pot.

Finally, a little salt is added... The sea salt from the Norsk Federation is not as white and clean as the refined salt shown by the lord, and there is still a lot of silt mixed in it, but as long as it has a salty taste, most people will not be too salty. picky.

Cook a large pot of potato cubes stewed with potato vermicelli and stewed with vegetables, then stuff the slices before the stew into the black bread baked inside the clay stove, and the family's dinner is ready.

There are six people in Mary's family, Mary and her husband Todd, Todd's brother Kim, and Mary's three children.

While it was still dark, the family sat around in the small yard to eat as fast as possible. Mary divided the whole pot of stew into six portions and brought them to the stone table that served as the dining table. I don't care if the vermicelli in the stew has never been eaten.

"Mom, these white strips are really delicious and soft." The little girl who is changing her teeth liked today's dinner very much, grinning happily with her two missing teeth.

Mary smiled and touched her youngest daughter's head, then divided the baked bread slices into three portions, and placed them in front of her eldest son, her husband, and her husband's younger brother Kim.

The 16-year-old eldest son is already able to do the same work as adults, and can share the adult's portion of food.

Husband Todd stared at the slices of bread on the plate for a while, then took out two slices from his portion and handed them to Mary: "Tomorrow you are going to work for the lord, and you will eat too."

Seeing this, the sensible eldest son also wanted to share his own bread with Mary: "Mom, you eat."

"You don't need to give it to me, I can eat these." Mary felt sorry for her husband and son, and pushed all of them back.

Kim sighed: "Mary, I should go, digging sand and rocks is not suitable for women who do heavy work."

"There is still a lot of work to be done on our land, if you can't get away, I'll just go." Mary said indifferently, "There are still two furry kids going to the next door, I can't even compare the two kids let's go?"

Todd didn't make a sound. What Mary said was the truth. Their field is far away from the river, and it hasn't rained much this spring. Just watering and irrigating can make three men who do heavy physical work tired. Can't squeeze people out.

Todd's younger brother, Kim, knew this too, and stopped talking.

Kim is almost 30 years old. Because she is not married and has no family, she can only live with her elder brother. It is not that there is something wrong with Kim himself. Only [-]% to [-]% of rural men can get married smoothly. There will always be some unlucky ones who have not had time If you save enough money for marriage, or fail to meet a girl who is willing to share weal and woe, you will miss the age.

As a sister-in-law, Mary doesn't mind having a troublesome uncle. First, this kind of thing is very common. Among her uncles, there are people who are as unlucky as Kim. Second, Kim is also a middle-aged labor force and can help the family. live.

Mary used a bamboo fork to pick up the potato vermicelli that she cooked by herself and stuffed it into her mouth, her eyes curled up: "This is really delicious, our undead lord is really generous."

Potato vermicelli should be said to be delicious, but in fact, it is barely...noodles and noodles are eaten with seasonings, and vermicelli with a very light salt taste is definitely not very tasty.

But compared to the hungry but hard-to-eat black bread and wheat rice (cooked or steamed directly with bran wheat without flour), potato vermicelli has an absolute advantage: it doesn’t hurt your teeth.

People at the bottom of this world have no chance to "enjoy" the "richness disease" that is eroded by sugar, but chewing hard-to-swallow food for a long time and lack of tooth maintenance, the wear and tear is also very serious... People like Mary's age, at least Both the back molars on one side cannot bite hard objects. (This is also the main reason why adults in poor areas are more likely to have the lower half of their faces deformed and ugly than those in rich areas.)

It is easy to eat, has no strange smell, and has a tender and soft taste. Even if it has no taste, it is a rare and good ingredient for Mary.

Husband Todd and younger uncle Kim, who also have dental problems, nodded while slowly thinning vermicelli... Even such fine grains were willing to be distributed to them, the lord is so generous.

Although the owner of the orange cat asked Miss Linda to tell the villagers to eat before going to work, most of the villagers were still like Mary's family, and they were reluctant to open up... The meal at Mary's house at noon was cooked before being summoned. Ingredients, for this evening meal, Mary was only willing to cook more than a catty of vermicelli, and each person only shared less than two taels. The "main" to fool the stomach were potatoes and vegetables.

In contrast, the distribution trio in the lord's mansion didn't search like this—the deacon, who didn't want to go near the kitchen, cooked the food himself, using the method of cooking macaroni to make a feast of vermicelli with plenty of flavor and complete ingredients.

"It's not as springy as macaroni, but the taste is okay, and it's not as troublesome to cook as macaroni. Just change the water once." The deacon looked at Miss Linda with some interest after dinner, "This is from Inadoli's side. business?"

"It seems to be. It is said that it is produced in Westham." Miss Linda wiped the corners of her mouth with a napkin gracefully.

"Since it's used to send those poor ghosts away, this kind of solid powder should be very cheap, right?" The deacon's eyes brightened even more.

"It's really cheap. There are 25 copper coins and ten catties for sale in small street shops in Inadoli City." How could Miss Linda not know what the deacon was thinking, and said with a half-smile, "Unfortunately, Inadoli does not allow this kind of cheap civilian vermicelli to flow out in large quantities. If a person carries more than a hundred catties and leaves the country, he will be interrogated. If he does not know the purpose of carrying it, he will be 'invited' to build roads in the Tarantan Wasteland. "

The deacon who was about to continue asking questions closed his mouth.

"Why don't you sell it?" the guard asked suspiciously, "If you bring it to Moses Port, you can sell it for [-] copper coins and [-] catties, or [-] copper coins and [-] catties."

Ordinary citizens are willing to pay for food that does not wear out teeth and tastes good.

"Who knows, there are so many incomprehensible things about Inadari." Miss Linda stood up holding the tray, "Like those undead, can you imagine that they can kidnap Lionel on the battlefield Does the ghost of the prince still know how to paint and make music?"

The guard & deacon who have never been to Inadari: "??"

Mary got up before dawn the next morning.

There are two houses in Mary's house. The smaller one is used to keep ducks, farm tools, seeds, food and other sundries. The six members of the family live in the larger one.

Like the houses of other villagers, this relatively spacious house with about fifty square meters (the living area in the countryside is not tight, but building a larger house requires more building materials, and there is a problem of keeping warm in winter, so the villagers It is impossible for the house to be so spacious) only a small inner room belonging to the couple was isolated with wooden boards, and the large room outside is not only the bedroom of Kim and the children, but also the living room, kitchen, and living room of the family. .

Mary dressed and came out of the inner room, walked around Kim and the children's bed--a large bed made of stones and planks, with a layer of dry straw reeds and a bed sheet--to the In front of the clay stove near the window, I squatted down and groped in the hearth, took out two cooked potatoes and put them in my arms, then went out the door.

There is no such thing as a breakfast without breakfast in a farmer's house. Even those who have to go out to work can fool their stomachs with one or two potatoes.

Like Mary, there were many people who left the house early, and many people who registered their names with the Lord of the Undead yesterday... When Mary came out of the house, she saw several villagers walking down the mountain in the dark with torches.

"Come together, Mary." A villager saw Mary coming out of the house and waved to her.

"Okay, wait for me." Mary quickly ran out of the yard and joined the villagers.

The hillside where the village is located is not steep. Although it is not dark, it is not too difficult to walk, as long as you are careful not to fall.

When Mary and a few villagers she happened to meet walked together, more villagers came out of their homes, either in groups of twos and threes, or alone holding torches, and they were also rushing down the mountain.

When there was a twilight in the sky, and the villagers who generally suffered from night blindness could see the scene a little farther away, Mary, who went down to the foot of the mountain together with the villagers, exclaimed like her neighbors...

On the empty river beach in the past, where only ducks, geese and children would run past, there were many tents and huge unrecognizable machines; there were several boats parked by the river a little past the reeds!

"When did these things appear? I didn't see them yesterday!" Mary kept tiptoeing in surprise.

"Yes, our place is closest to the bottom of the mountain, and we didn't see anything here before dark." The villager who lived at the bottom of the village said in surprise.

The boats appearing by the river are not big, at least not as big as the deep-draft boats that the villagers usually see from afar in the middle of the Barcelo River, but they are boats after all, and they are all steel-framed boats, not the kind that occasionally Small fishing boats parked on the bank of a nearby river.

The machinery that appeared on the river beach was also very large, painted bright yellow that made people's eyes shine, and it didn't make people feel scared at all, it just stood there quietly.

But... just these small boats and the machines that don't look too scary are enough to make the villagers afraid and dare not go forward-even though the river beach is a scenery that the villagers are used to, the women in the village still don't care about it. I often go to the river beach to pick up duck eggs and goose eggs.

This group of villagers, who have never seen much of the world, and the farthest place they have been to is a country market twenty miles away. The lord's mansion looked around... The people from the lord's mansion didn't come, and they didn't dare to move forward.

The sky was getting brighter, and there was no movement in the direction of the lord's mansion, but there were figures moving around in the tents on the river beach.

Dozens of young men in uniform appeared around the tent, most of them were holding cups and towels around their necks, and went to a slightly larger tent to wash with boiled water.

These young men also found the villagers standing at the foot of the mountain looking at them, talking among themselves, and a few people walked out of the tent area and walked towards the foot of the mountain.

A long distance away, one of the energetic, tall and thin young men waved to the villagers and said hello: "Hello! Are you from this village?"

Mary seldom even went to the country market. Unfamiliar young men made her feel uneasy and flustered. Like other village women, she nervously hid behind the crowd.

The reaction of the male villagers was not much better than that of the village women, and even a little more self-ashamed than the village women... These very energetic young men wore neat and clean blue uniforms and canvas rubber-soled shoes, red and confident. They are full of vigor and vitality, making the young villagers who are about the same age as these boys wish they could hide their dirty feet in tattered straw sandals under the soil and never let the other party see them.

At the critical moment, two "old men" who are over 40 years old and everyone thinks they are just here to make up the numbers played a role. These two middle-aged and elderly men who no longer care about embarrassment walked out of the crowd, bent over, wrinkled There was a flattering and humble smile on his face: "Good day, honorable gentlemen, we are the villagers here, and it was the lord who asked us to come here and wait for work."

The tall and thin young man and several of his companions had strode to a place less than ten meters away from the villagers. Hearing this, the young man and his equally dazzling companions all laughed.

"Don't call us sir, we are all just workers from a building materials company." The tall and thin young man waved his hand and said with a smile, "My name is John, these are my friends, we are from Inad Standing here, an undead hired us, and this is the undead lord here."

Beside John, a young man with an immature face asked curiously: "Since the Lord of the Undead asked you to come here, does that mean you are all from the building materials company?"

The villagers looked at each other, and after a while, a young villager dared to say: "Yesterday, yesterday, when we were called to the lord's mansion, it seemed that the master of the undead lord had said that we were going to give a building material The company works."

"Then we are all colleagues." John smiled and clapped his hands. "Before work starts, why not get familiar with the machines first, those are those, see?"

More than 40 villagers, old and young, were at a loss. They neither dared to agree nor refused. They just stood there in a daze, as if they hadn't heard John's words.

To this seemingly impolite reaction... John was quite used to it.

He himself is a poor person from the slums, and he knows why these villagers who don't seem to be living a good life look so rude——

Poor people don't have much vision, let alone know how to communicate with others decently, but even so, poor people have self-esteem.

When encountering things beyond the scope of their own understanding, poor people who only have self-esteem and only self-esteem are even less likely to admit their ignorance and inferiority to others as decently and calmly as people who live well.

Not being rude - just afraid of being laughed at!

John slowed down his speech and explained to the villagers kindly and patiently like his respected Barton operator: "We want to dig out the sand and stones on the whole river beach and transport them to Inadoli to sell them for money. The place in the water has to be dug away. With only a few people like us, it will take a few years to dig it all by manpower, so our undead boss cooperated with Inadoli and borrowed those machines to help us. busy."

"Those machines are not as flexible as ours. They are not only clumsy, but also prone to accidents, so we have to learn about these machines in advance, so as not to hurt people when they are operated incorrectly. Not only will they not earn money, but they will also cost money to treat. Injury is a big loss."

John stepped back half a step to the side, and waved enthusiastically: "Come on, before it's time to start work, let's hurry up and learn what we need to learn, so that it will be easy to start working when we start work. "

Talk more with us, us, put others and yourself together, put yourself in other people's shoes, you can gain others' trust faster, and you can start your work more quickly—this is how Operator Patton led the group of John. When I was young, I did not hesitate to pass on the experience I had.

John didn't use "you" once, and he didn't separate himself from the villagers. This really made the villagers feel warm-at least when the village woman Mary looked at this strange boy, she no longer felt so deeply in her heart Uneasy.

When John kindly motioned the villagers to follow, Mary walked forward unconsciously, following John's footsteps as naturally as other villagers.

The group of villagers followed John up the river beach and into the neatly arranged tent area, and heard John shout to the others: "Our new colleagues are here! Everyone, come and get to know each other!"

The boys who had been looking straight at the villagers curiously, some of the more outgoing ones surrounded them.

"Hello, my name is George, and it's my first time in another city!"

"Dude, you're so close to the Barcelo River, has there ever been a flood?"

"It's okay to have water, the villages are all on the mountains."

"My hometown's village is also on the mountain, but the mountain is not as big as yours, it's much smaller."

"It seems that the mountains here are bigger than the ones on Innadril's side."

"Who said that the Sorensen Mountains are also huge!"

"Who can live in the Sorensen Mountains!"

These young men are all contract workers of the Inner City Hall, that is, the group of unlucky ghosts who were driven to the battlefield by the Bartleys family to serve as cannon fodder.

People with a little family background cannot be tossed about like this. In other words, few of these people are from good backgrounds. They are either urban poor or migrant workers from the countryside. Very few people who are particularly lucky have not been able to make it to the middle class.

Compared with the villagers in these mountain villages, the class difference is not so big that they can look down from above—many of the contract workers used to have a much worse life than the villagers here. At least the villagers are self-cultivators with land and no money in their pockets. It is easier to get food.

Even if there are a few people who think that being born in the city means they are superior to the country people, in the environment where the people around them are generally of low birth, they dare not show that sense of superiority casually...

Amid the noise with slightly different accents, some extroverted young villagers couldn't help interjecting, and the more introverted villagers gradually showed relaxed smiles.

By the time the yawning trio came down from the mountain with the owner of the orange cat who was delayed for a while, the local villagers had already learned a lot from the young men who came from Inadoli. Pay attention when working with the machine safety matters.

At the same moment... the Patton operator whom John was thinking of, no, Lord Patton, was sitting solemnly in a room on the first floor of the Town Hall of Yongwang Town, silently staring at the bustling crowd outside the window.

Today is a good day for Boss Jumao's building materials company to officially start construction, and it is also an important moment for Inadoli's public farm to recruit workers in Yongwang Town.

Inadeli's public farm is the "inheritance" of the former lord of Everlook Town, the unlucky baroness—these two farms are both within the territory of Everlook Town, and they once tried to kidnap Ms. Shirley, which greatly offended the city hall. The baroness didn't have the guts to continue the business, so she simply sold it to the city hall at a low price.

The agricultural experts in Tarantan's Undead inspected two farms and decided to use both farms as breeding experiment bases—one for earthworms and the other for locusts.

Because the Baroness only sold the land but not the people (she will not be so stupid that the city hall has the opportunity to continue to deal with her under the excuse of slave trading), both farms have to recruit workers from scratch, and considering the employment rate of Yongwang Town , the city hall only arranged half of the contract workers, and the other half was recruited locally from Yongwang Town.

People in the town are naturally willing to be able to work in front of their homes. Some young people who used to do odd jobs in the city have returned, which has caused the recruitment situation in the Yongwang Town Hall compound to exceed demand.

This crowded scene made Barton, who was suddenly promoted from the position of operator to the lord of Yongwang Town, feel very complicated...

Even for the current Inadoli, good jobs are not so easy to find. This fact was clear to Barton when he was an operator.

And this is also the biggest reason why Barton's heart is extremely divided - he has been the lord of Yongwang Town for almost three months, and Barton still has no sense of reality, he feels that he is doing a very long, beautiful, and scary battle A dream that will wake up!

Ms. Gold Coin—he used to carefully pretend to be a very loyal and capable operator, but he tried his best to cover it up because he knew he was not the pure and noble person!

He desperately showed his ability to organize work and completed each task as beautifully as possible, because he didn't want to be transferred to the dangerous Tarantan wilderness like Sam Hank to work hard!

In a safe and secure position, working steadily in a job that does not pose too much danger and does not require life-threatening work is Barton's greatest pursuit in life!

He pretended to be promoted to be the lord of the town—even if it was just a puppet lord, on the surface, Barton's status was infinitely equal to that of the baron in the city—this is really outrageous!

Just in case, in case one day I was "exposed" and was found out that he was not as loyal, brave and flawless as he appeared, it was discovered that he was actually the same as Sam Hank who ran to the Tarantan wasteland for half a year without hesitation. Even his companions can't compare to... Barton himself doesn't even want to think about the consequences.

Even to his wife, Barton couldn't and didn't dare to tell the truth...

Patton personally supervised the recruitment site with a fair and serious face, and when Barton was full of worries, an operator entered the room with a sigh.

After Barton was sent by Rex to take over Yongwang Town, he also assigned operators who had a good relationship with him to assist Barton, and this operator was one of them.

"It's a pity for that young man just now." The operator put the roster in his hand on the table, sighed and said, "He has experience working on a farm, and he is also very nice, but unfortunately there are too many competitors, and his qualifications are not enough. better than anyone else."

Barton looked over silently.

"His grandma is so old, and his father died young. The whole family relies on the income of this young man and his brother. I feel pitiful when I see it." The operator sighed, "Although other people also need this job. , but I think he should be the one who needs it the most... I said Barton, can't we accommodate and take care of this special situation? His brother is still our contract worker, you know him too, he is the very Hard-boiled lad—”

Barton couldn't help sighing.

This silly boy, let alone Ms. Zhao, only let Rex hear what he said, and he will stop at being an operator in this life.

"You think his situation is special. I'm afraid it's not just because he has a grandmother in his family and lost his father. It's just because you know his brother, so you want to take extra care of him." Barton said.

Relying on the close friendship with Barton, the operator also accepted, and smiled embarrassedly: "After all, this is my own, Barton."

Barton shook his head and said, "You'd better think about how you got the job as an operator first, Ron, we were all members of the city defense army before, but not all the people in the city defense army became operators. You How can you be more competitive than others? Because you are careful and conscientious in your work, and you have no bad record of gambling and whoring. You got the position of operator and gained the trust of the city hall by your own ability, not because you are with someone who has already become an operator. I, or someone else, has a deeper friendship and a better relationship."

After Inadoli changed hands, less than half of the disbanded City Defense Forces were hired as operators by the city hall, and this operator was one of them.

Some of the others went to make their own way, and some were even sent to the prisoner road construction team—no way, when the city hall is rectifying the history, even the city defense army supported by the Bartleis family will inevitably have some A batch of dishonorable people.

The operator's face changed a little, a little proud, but also a little unhappy: "Barton, what exactly are you trying to say?"

"What I want to say is that it is determined by the rules and regulations of the city hall to let capable people work in suitable positions." Barton regarded the other party as a friend, and explained patiently, "You and I are both like this." The beneficiaries of the set of rules and regulations, we don’t have to fight for connections and relationships, as long as we are capable, we can get the positions we expect.”

The operator's face suddenly turned pale.

"If everyone in the city hall thinks like you, and appoints everyone based on relationships and connections, how do you think, our big soldiers, compare with those decent people in the middle of the city? Compared with the earliest dealings with the undead, with Lei How does it compare with the Westham folks Mr. Cox dealt with?"

Barton got up and patted his friend on the shoulder: "We are all people who have no foundation. For people like us who have to climb up on our own, talking about rules and regulations is much better than talking about personal connections. There is much hope."