Darkstone Code-Chapter 694 - 0691 The Secret to Making Money

A convoy trudged along the bumpy roads of Amelia, people with bewildered and numb faces lacking any yearning for life. They were like walking corpses, holding broken bowls or cups or similar utensils that could hold things, standing in line by the roadside.

From a distance, these people seemed devoid of life, lacking the aura of the living, making one feel uncomfortable, like living dead.

Though chaos had been going on for so long, the affected were not only the Gafura people within the Empire zone, the locals suffered too.

Every time the rebel forces launched attacks on the Gafura people, it was followed by their bloody revenge. They would conduct mass searches throughout the city; anyone suspected of being a rebel or associated with one would be dragged out for execution or sent to labor camps.

While hating the Gafura people, ironically, they were equally tormented by their own, many broke down or became numb amidst such turmoil.

By the roadside stood a woman, looking thirty or forty, holding two children dressed only in shorts, with hair down to their waists indistinguishable as boys or girls, her face completely numb too.

The three of them were very dirty, the clothes on the woman couldn’t even be called clothes; it was more like a sheet with a hole cut in it, through which her head protruded.

Soon, a five or six decades old, short, filthy old man came over with a metal cup filled with food resembling barley porridge. He spoke with the woman briefly, then, after instructing the children, she and the man went into an empty house by the road.

Minutes later, she and the man emerged from the house, the man poured some of the food from his cup into the woman’s broken bowl, licking the remaining barley bits with satisfaction and wobbling away into the distance.

The two children gazed at the broken bowl with longing eyes, the woman took a sip herself and gave the rest to the children.

Shortly after, a second man approached...

This was not an isolated case; actually, there were many such people throughout Amelia. Many families had their men executed, while the women struggled to find work while raising children, which was utterly impossible.

As local conflicts with the Gafura people escalated, Gafura distributed relief food only to compliant citizens; those with family members in rebel forces or executed for various reasons lost their rights to receive relief food forever.

These people had no jobs, no food, no means to live; surviving in the city became tough.

Initially, some might exchange things for food, but eventually, they had nothing left to offer, except their dignity.

As the convoy slowly passed, the woman had already seen the third man, wiping her leg with the dirty sheet as she emerged from the room, removing the residue of genetic fragments.

She watched as the man poured some food into her bowl, took a brief rest, then holding her satiated children again, prepared to head home.

At home, there were elders needing food.

Sometimes that’s life; one person’s impulse can drag a whole family, even several, into the abyss.

Lynch’s convoy passed at this moment, the numb eyes of the people slowly turned, including that woman and her children, with faces calm as if not in pain at all!

They looked at the cars, the gentlemen inside dressed beautifully, watching them enjoy life so much while they themselves lived under the same sun, yet in Hell.

"Did you see it?"

"These people!"

Lynch asked Mark beside him, who swallowed his saliva.

Having lived in the Federation for so long, the so-called spirits of freedom and equality had been deeply ingrained into his bones.

Even in Nagariel, he had never been as shocked as now, those expressions, eyes, gestures, all seeping with despair.

He shuddered, a shiver from the depths of his soul, "Yes, I saw it, Mr. Lynch."

His attitude became formal; these scenes disturbed him.

Lynch withdrew his gaze from outside too, "This time I brought you over because we are jointly investing in a food factory."

"There’s a lack of everything here, and it’s already summer, with only one harvesting season left for wheat this year. From planting now to harvesting requires some time, millions of people need food; we don’t need to take over the entire market, just one or two cities, and we can make a lot of money."

"You’ve managed a food factory before; you have experience. I trust you more with this." He turned to Mark, flashing his pearly teeth, "Besides, we’re friends!"

Mark was flattered yet somewhat timid, laughing along awkwardly with Lynch before cautiously saying, "Mr. Lynch, I used to... you know, when my uncle was in office, the finance would subsidize the food factory. But without local financial subsidies, food factories actually don’t earn much."

He looked towards the long queue outside, "These people seem to receive relief food without spending money. I don’t know if they have money, but they certainly can’t afford to spend a lot on food. This also means we are very likely to incur losses."

After he finished speaking, he fell into silence. The cost of food is transparent in some ways; a hundred grams of finely milled wheat flour is just a hundred grams, fifty grams of barley malt is just fifty grams. The value of these things is transparent.

In addition, it seems that raw materials for food production still need to be transported from the domestic market, along with freight costs. Even if they don’t earn from sales, it doesn’t necessarily mean they can sell.

Lynch wasn’t surprised by his words. Many people, before starting a business, list out all the problems they can imagine, then tell themselves it won’t work by doing this.

Such people are not few; many are like this. When facing various opportunities, they always shrink back, always find reasons not to reach out and seize opportunities.

Actually, it’s not that they’re smart; those who give up facing opportunities aren’t really smart. They’re just afraid, fearful, because they have never reached out, naturally filling them with instinctive fear towards everything unfamiliar.

Mark has never done business outside of policy, so he mistakenly thought his experience was the correct one and tried to convince Lynch.

Lynch just smiled, looking at Mark. His gaze was gentle, yet it made Mark a bit uneasy.

"We are merchants. Do you know how people evaluate merchants?" Before Mark could say anything, Lynch continued, "People would project words like cunning, vile, stingy, greedy onto merchants. Even if a merchant isn’t actually like this, they believe their judgment that merchants should be such."

"So we can loosen our grip a bit!"

When Lynch said this, he paused and then asked, "Do you know why people get hungry?"

This slightly abrupt question made Mark’s thoughts unable to keep up with his pace. After a few seconds, he tentatively asked, "Because they haven’t eaten for a while?"

Lynch laughed and shook his head, "Because there’s nothing in the stomach, the body tells the brain, and the brain tells us, we’re hungry."

"So as long as there’s something in the stomach, people won’t get hungry so easily; nutrition is another matter."

"Then do you know what stays in the stomach longer?"

Mark shook his head blankly. Apart from despair and dead silence, his foolish demeanor at this moment was not much different from the people in line outside.

"Foods with coarse fibers, things that aren’t easily digestible, will stay in the stomach for a long time, preventing the body from quickly telling people they’re hungry."

"Turn around and start the factory first; our main product is a kind of biscuit. Here’s a recipe..." Lynch took out a recipe from his pocket and handed it over, "Just follow this recipe to produce."

Mark looked at it for a while, his mouth opened wider as he read, ultimately staring in shock with no words.

After a good long while, he finally uncertainly asked, "Mr. Lynch... are you sure this is the recipe?"

Lynch nodded, "Do you have any questions about this?"

"A bit..." He scratched his head and displayed the recipe to Lynch, "This... I’m not quite sure what the non-toxic wild grass is, and these, the crimson tree powder..."

"Ah, you mean these." Lynch took the recipe from him, folded it slightly, and the ingredient list split in half, "You should look at it like this."

The recipe now only showed half, with eggs, milk, pork powder, beef powder, fish powder, and various high-nutrition food powders.

But if you turned the recipe list over, it only showed parts of various plants readily found in the wild.

"While providing what satisfies people’s daily nutritional needs, the most important thing is to prevent them from getting hungry quickly. These things won’t harm people but have the sole value of staying longer in people’s stomachs." 𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"Not easily getting hungry, having enough nutrition. You wouldn’t think... I’m a cunning, vile, shameless capitalist, would you?" Lynch smiled as he handed the recipe back to Mark.

Mark looked at the recipe, didn’t dare to raise his head. He really wanted to say, "Yes, you are," but his instinct told him he best not speak the truth.

Lynch patted his shoulder, "This is why Landon wants you to go out more, Mark. You’re too young, and the environment you’ve lived in before was too privileged, so you don’t truly understand what this world needs, what people at the bottom need."

"As long as there is barely enough minimum nutrition required by the body, and it’s not easy to get hungry, even if I add a handful of mud in here, they’ll be willing to eat."

"You’ve never been hungry; you can never truly understand the fear of an empty belly!"