Li Yuetian's voice echoed through the hall, painting a portrait of a saintly, self-sacrificing Jing Shu. Behind the heavy velvet curtains of the shadows, the real Jing Shu felt a prickle of heat crawl up her neck. She pulled her collar higher, shifting her weight. He had made her sound so noble it was bordering on nauseating.
Honestly, the food wasn't a charity. It was a cold, hard transaction—a win-win where she held the winning hand. It wasn't like she was handing out handouts for free. Even Jun Bao, the man holding the reins as Wu City's second-in-command, had personally signed off on the record. Every ounce of protein she surrendered was being meticulously logged and converted into contribution points—the only currency that mattered within the government's inner circles.
In fact, the longer she stayed, the more her mouth watered at the prospect of burning through her reserves. Those red nematode patties were a joke back home, barely worth two million virtual credits on a good day.
But here? They were golden tickets. Once converted to contribution points, they could buy things that didn't exist on the open market—prohibited tech, high-grade medicine, the kind of "unimaginable treasures" the Medicinal Herb Association used to dangle in front of people like a carrot on a stick.
But the crowd in the hall didn't see the ledger in her head. They only heard the gospel of her generosity.
A heavy silence fell over the room, thick with the sudden, suffocating weight of collective shame. The air, once sharp with accusation, now felt stale.
"So... all of it? Everything we have eaten was hers?" a man asked, his voice cracking.
"We have been trapped in this hellhole for weeks," a woman whispered, clutching her empty stomach. "If it wasn't for that food, we would have been eating each other by now."
"We are alive because of her." The murmur rippled through the crowd like a prayer.
"And we called her a hoarder? It's her damn food! How can you hoard what is already yours?"
Li Yuetian watched the transformation with a satisfied glint in his eyes. He turned his gaze toward the small group that had been loudest in their demands for a raid, his expression hardening into a mask of cold iron.
"You lot," he said, pointing a gloved finger. "You wanted to report the very person keeping your hearts beating? You wanted to search her villa for 'stolen' goods?"
He let the question hang until the silence became painful. "Fine. We are fair people here. Since you are so worried about the ethics of food storage, you won't have to worry about hers anymore. From this second on, your rations are cut.
All of them.
Figure out your own survival. Li Chenglong, take them inside. Let them search every inch of the villa. See if they can find a single crumb to justify their big mouths."
The blood drained from their faces. The reality of a world without even the gritty, salty taste of worm patties hit them like a physical blow. Starvation wasn't a concept anymore; it was a looming shadow.
"No search! No, please, no search!"
"We were joking! We didn't know!" One man stepped forward, hands trembling as he gestured wildly. "Miss Jing Shu is a saint. A lifesaver! We were blind, we didn't recognize greatness when it was standing right in front of us. Please, just... tell her we are sorry."
"I was just following the crowd!" another shouted, his voice high and frantic. "I don't know what happened. My brain just... it overheated. I wasn't thinking! I won't search, I swear!"
The mob's fire had been doused with ice water. They had realized, far too late, that they had kicked an iron plate—and that the plate was the only thing between them and a slow, agonizing death.
Li Yuetian's lip curled in disgust. "Instead of causing trouble here, you would be better off doing some real work. Maybe then you will deserve to eat."
He turned on his heel and swept out, his guards trailing behind him like a dark wake.
Li Chenglong stayed behind a moment longer, a slow, mocking grin spreading across his face. "You lot done watching the show? Or should I invite you all outside to cool off in the debris for a while?"
The crowd didn't need a second invitation. They scattered like roaches when a light flickers on, stumbling over each other to get back to their stations.
Nearby, the university students stood in a dazed huddle. The news had hit them the hardest. Jing Shu—the quiet, low-profile girl who barely said two words—was the hidden hand feeding the entire building? It felt like a fever dream.
Jiang Changke straightened his shirt, his chest puffing out with unearned pride. "And some of you were whining because Boss Jing Shu didn't have to pull shifts. She has got the qualifications to sleep all day if she wants to. You want to eat? You shut up and respect the source."
The ethics of hoarding had vanished. If she was hoarding, she was hoarding for them. That was the only logic that mattered now. If they wanted to survive, they needed to stay in Jing Shu's good graces.
Jing Shu watched the shift through the crack in the door, wishing she could just tell them it wasn't that deep. But when she finally stepped out, the atmosphere had shifted irrevocably. The way they looked at her—the awe, the desperation—made her skin crawl.
A group of her classmates swarmed her before she could reach the stairs.
"Jing Shu, hey, is there any way... could you spare just a few more patties? Just two?"
"I always knew you were a big shot! Seriously, if you need someone to, you know, keep you warm at night... I'm your guy!"
One guy pushed to the front, leaning in with a desperate, manic grin. "I'm basically an electric motor, Jing Shu. Adjustable frequency. Fast, slow, shallow, deep—I do it all. They call me Mazda. Just think about it!"
"Tch!"
Jing Shu didn't wait for the rest of the pitch. She bolted.
The villa used to be her sanctuary, but now even the hallways felt crowded. Every time she caught someone's eye, the same cynical questions looped in her mind: Are you looking at me, or are you looking at a worm patty? Do you like me, or do you just like the fact that I'm not starving?
She retreated into the depths of the villa, locking the door behind her. For the first time, she understood that hollow, lonely weight the old stories talked about—the isolation of the powerful, the emperor's longing for a single sincere heart.
Of course, that philosophical melancholy lasted exactly until she opened her secret stash.
She sat on the edge of her plush bed, unbothered and alone, and stuffed herself with braised pork until her lips glistened with rich, savory oil. When the richness became too much, she reached into the Cube Space and pulled out a cucumber, the skin cool and pebbled. It snapped with a loud, refreshing crunch between her teeth, the watery juice clearing her palate.
She spent the afternoon lounging, scooping out the heart of a chilled watermelon with a silver spoon, the sweetness bursting against her tongue. Oranges, velvet-skinned peaches, translucent lychees, and tart strawberries—she sampled them all like a queen in a private orchard.
Her only regret was the durian. The pungent, custard-like fruit sat mockingly in her storage, but she didn't dare crack it open. The smell would bypass any door seal and alert the entire building to her feast.
The days that followed took on a predictable, quiet rhythm. The hostility was gone, replaced by a wary, respectful distance.
But there was the whistle.
Every morning at seven sharp, a shrill, piercing blast tore through her dreams. She cursed the day she had given Li Chenglong those yogurt cubes; the extra energy had clearly gone straight to his lungs. He had turned the morning roll call into a full-blown military exercise, gathering everyone in the hall to bark out names.
Sleeping in was a luxury of the past.
Jing Shu would crawl out of her thick, silk-quilt sleeping bag, the warmth of the cocoon clinging to her as she stepped onto the cold floor. Outside the villa, her "sentries"—a silent, writhing collection of snakes and insects—stood guard in the shadows.
She eventually gave up on looking presentable. She would show up for roll call with her hair a bird's nest of tangles, eyes half-closed, leaning against a pillar while they discussed yesterday's progress and today's quotas.
Once the meeting broke, the rush for the cafeteria began.
Jing Shu didn't bother hiding anymore. She would have Xiao Liu bring a tray directly to her villa, then she would crawl back into bed for a glorious two-hour nap before heading out to handle her "business."
And that business required a small mountain of gear.
Over the week, her fishing spot near the outer perimeter had evolved. It wasn't just a hole in the mud anymore; it was a fortress. She had hired a few of her classmates—paying them in precious worm patties to keep the "wealth" within her circle—to build her a windproof mud hut.
Inside, it was surprisingly cozy. They had built a traditional heated brick bed, a kang, with a small fire flickering underneath. Jing Shu would sit cross-legged on the warm surface, shielded from the biting, salt-laden winds.
A small clay stove sat within arm's reach, a kettle perpetually whistling on top. She would spend her hours brewing "royal" milk tea, stirring in yogurt cubes and rich milk powder until the scent of caramel and cream filled the tiny hut. It was a liquid heat that settled deep in her bones.
But the real work sat outside the door.
A row of heavy steel bars had been driven into the muck, wrapped in a chaotic web of electrical wires and reinforced netting. A small, humming generator sat nearby, connected to an electric motor she had "borrowed" from Doctor Zhang.
The doctor had been more than happy to oblige. After Jing Shu had provided the bone powder solution that stopped the surge of uncontrollable bleeding cases in the ward, she would have asked for his right arm and he would have looked for a saw.
Bzzzt. Bzzzt.
The generator groaned, sending pulses of electricity through the wires and deep into the churning, debris-choked sea of mud.
Li Chenglong would often pass by, staring at the wires with a puzzled frown, but he never asked. Nobody did. To the rest of the building, Jing Shu was an enigma. She had a warm villa and a soft bed, yet she chose to spend her days huddled in a mud shack, staring at the gray horizon.
They thought she was suffering. They thought she was eccentric.
Jing Shu just sipped her milk tea and watched the wires. She knew exactly what was down there, buried under the filth and the cold. And she was the only one with the hook to pull it up.