Wearing patched clothes, the man walked to the door of the rice store carrying an empty rice bag. His face was not very good, and it seemed that he had not had a good rest for a long time.
He is a laborer who has been working in Neverwinter City recently. He mainly cleans up the ruins hit by aerial bombs and fills the big holes in the road with collapsed construction waste.
The situation in Neverwinter has been really bad recently, because a bomb hit the sewage pipe, and now half of the city is filled with a disgusting smell.
Before the Datang Group left here, some of the sewers were built. Later, the Datang Group left. As the largest port in Dorne, Neverwinter did follow the Datang Group's high standards in building many underground facilities.
Many of these facilities have been in use for more than ten years, and some are still functioning. However, the Tang Empire's bombing destroyed some of them, paralyzing the operation of the entire city.
The sewer problem is only a small problem among many problems. The biggest problem in Neverwinter City recently is actually the skyrocketing prices.
Rice has now increased to more than five times what it used to be. The local people who barely survive on meager wages are now almost unable to survive.
"Boss, buy rice for 2 gold coins." The man took out two shining gold coins from his pocket and handed them to the waiter behind the counter.
After checking it, the man put the coins into the drawer. Then he carefully took out a ladle of rice from the rice vat at the back, poured it into the man's rice bag, and weighed it carefully on the scale.
"Boss, what I gave you is two gold coins." The man glanced at the pitiful amount of rice and thought that the other party had given him the wrong amount, so he reminded him.
The boy returned the rice bag to the man and said disdainfully: "Yes, it's two gold coins! Now these two gold coins can only buy so much rice."
"What? This, this is only two kilograms, right? I only have so much savings at home, how can I exchange for so little rice?" The man immediately became excited when he heard this, and couldn't stop grabbing the rice bag.
Trembling.
"There's nothing we can do! The price is the same now! If you have the money, buy it quickly. I'm telling you, it will go up again tomorrow." The guy pointed to the wooden sign behind him with the price of rice written on it and kindly reminded him.
One sentence.
It turns out that the price of rice, which only increased five times yesterday, has increased to twenty times today! Yes! Overnight, it became four times more expensive than the previous day!
"Twenty times the price of rice? Doesn't this official care about it?" Seeing the soaring price of rice, the man's entire face became distorted.
He worked hard in the city, carrying bricks and broken pieces for a day, and earned less than 10 silver coins. But now, he can only buy one or two rice. In other words, the money he earns every day is not even enough to feed him.
There are not enough people.
And he still has a family to support: Tang Dynasty bombers destroyed the textile factory. His wife is a textile worker and is now home on vacation, and her salary has been suspended.
The black-hearted textile factory owner said that when the machines in the factory are repaired and work resumes, wages can be recalculated. But when will this happen?
You know, the Tang people not only destroyed the textile factory, they also bombed the power plant. When the power is restored, the textile factory will resume work, which will probably not be until this time next year.
He is the only one in the family who earns so little money. The few gold coins they saved in the past few years have been spent on buying food for the past few months. The two gold coins just now are actually their last bit of property.
Already.
But now... there is only enough food for them to eat for two more days.
"Boss! Okay! Just give me a little more... we really have no money." The man almost knelt down in front of the waiter at the counter.
It's a pity that no matter how humble he is, no one will give him more food: now in the city, even the nobles can hardly afford meat. There is a shortage of materials, transportation is paralyzed, and if prices don't rise, then what will happen?
It's really a ghost.
Just as the man was begging, a man wearing more ragged clothes also came to buy rice. He had less money, so the man only gave him two ounces of rice.
The man also began to beg, and finally he knelt down and kowtowed, but he kept kowtowing until his forehead bled, and no one gave him another bite to eat.
The man who came first tightened his grip on the rice bag in his hand, fearing that others would snatch it away, and walked out of the cannibalistic rice shop. Holding on to his family's last hope, he staggered back to his rented house.
The house is almost in the suburbs, and the rent is cheap. Moreover, he has lived here for more than five years and is familiar with the landlord. Occasionally he can default on the rent, which is more convenient.
When I got home, I saw the old man next door sitting at the entrance of the alley, crying like crazy. It turned out that the old man's wife had just starved to death, and the old man had not eaten anything seriously for several days.
The man didn't stop, didn't even look at his neighbor, and just returned home with the only food he had. When his wife heard that the price of rice had risen again, she secretly hid aside and wiped her tears. The man's mother sat on the bed.
Unable to stop sighing.
There was a sad atmosphere throughout the city. The people hurriedly walked through the circular craters filled with broken bricks and tiles, and walked beside the ruins of collapsed buildings, with almost no communication.
Everyone is hoarding food as much as possible, even though the city lord's palace has issued relevant notices, promising that a large amount of food supplies will be shipped soon, and any form of hoarding is prohibited.
But in fact, the nobles were still hoarding a lot of food, and the people still didn't have enough to eat. In the end, the city lord personally arrested dozens of people buying food and found more than 20 kilograms of rice in their homes.
They were charged with hoarding grain.
After killing these unruly people in public, the city lord once again assured the people that the food would be delivered soon, so please be patient.
Regrettably, the city lord's guarantee was of no use. Although some food was indeed transported to Neverwinter City, most of this food was allocated to the army.
The army does not dare to run out of food, but the civilians in Neverwinter City can go hungry for a while. Since the army is nearby, they are not afraid of rebellion by these unruly people, right?
And not everyone is starving, the nobles in the city still have something to eat, and some factories are even giving out meat and vegetables as rewards - this is the case with the large factory outside the city that produces radar.
Yes, Pan Yiping can get meat and enough food for his workers. After all, he is a popular figure in the military. If anyone's things are missing, his will not be missing...