Chapter 31 - Mill Stone
With a thought, Zhao entered his spatial farm. This time he didn't take anyone with him. The reason he allowed Meirin and Meg to look around the space was in order to secure their help for the Buda clan.
Once they knew about the spatial farm, they would be more confident about the future. With the Black Waste throwing them into one crisis after another, if they were to lose confidence, then everything would be over.
In the spatial farm, Zhao immediately sold his radishes, but only three quarters of it this time. This earned him a total of fifteen hundred gold coins, in addition to his original fifty gold coins. And if he used these coins to buy radish seed bags, he would be able to plant ten new batches of radishes.
Anyway, the radishes were able to earn him a lot of money. If he were to sell the rest of them, he would be able to earn even more, but he decided to wait until Green came back. Maybe then he could buy some books about plants so he would be able to decide what were the best crops to grow in the future. But right now he knew very little about the plants that grew on the Continent.
Tomorrow, he would get another batch of radishes. He had told Green that he had eighty thousand catty, so even though he had sold three quarters of his radish supply, with this new batch, he would temporarily have a sufficient amount.
But although selling those radishes gave him fifteen hundred gold, it still wasn't adequate enough. Zhao felt very helpless. His level was too low. Even if he wanted to buy higher ranked seeds, he couldn't. With such a slow speed, he didn't know how long it would take for him to level up.
Leaving the spatial farm, Zhao soon fell asleep on his bed.
The next morning, Zhao was woken by the space telling him that his radishes had matured. But it wasn't just the radishes, the corn were also about to mature too.
Zhao immediately harvested the radishes, then he bought another bag of radish seeds. Since it seemed like the corn would need just a few more minutes to mature, Zhao decided not to leave the spatial farm yet. Instead, he washed his face and rinsed his mouth while he waited.
Looking at those corn, Zhao felt like a glutton. In his past life, he used to live in the northern city. At the time, no one considered corn as a staple food, but they would sometimes eat it as a meal, and it was good. Zhao had occasionally eaten it a few times as well, like when he traveled to the rural areas to visit his relatives, who gave him cornmeal pancakes. Delicious.
The cornmeal pancakes were completely different from the ones you could buy in the city. Although they were both made from coarse cornmeal, their pancakes were served with fragrant soup, along with some red crispy rice. Each bite of the crust released a waft of fragrance.
Thinking of it, Zhao could not help but salivate. He smiled as he swallowed his saliva.
But although he ate this cornmeal porridge with pancakes, he didn't know how to make it. Processing the corn seemed very troublesome as he would have to grind it down into cornmeal.
In his past life, processing corn was very simple. All you needed was to find a food processing plant with the right machines. But here it was a bit more difficult. They simply didn't have a grinder to process the corn.
Zhao sighed, but then the voice sounded. The corn was mature. Zhao immediately harvested this batch of corn, and then replanted more in the two acres. But while he looked at the corn field, he couldn't figure out how to process them.
Suddenly the clever Zhao discovered something about his problem. People must have grinded corn for many years before they used machines. At that time, the people weren't stupid, right? So how did they process corn?
Zhao paced a few laps in the space, habitually touching his forehead, thinking of how his ancestors processed corn.
He suddenly smacked his head when he finally remembered something he had seen on TV. It was something that hadn't been used in a long time, but you would sometimes see it in rural areas.
Mill Stone!
Yes, when Zhao had gone to his relatives who lived in rural areas, he saw a disc. The disc wasn't used now but the rural people still had them. Out of curiosity, he asked about the disc. They told him that people would put rice or corn on the surface, and then they would roll another disc on top of it to grind it down.
Most importantly, he only needed some stones and a bit of wood to make it. Although they couldn't mine that much stones from the mountain, it should be sufficient since they didn't need that much good materials.
Thinking of this, Zhao immediately left the spatial farm, then he looked at the sky outside. Meg should also be up. Zhao pushed open the door to his room and walked out.
Zhao found Meg and Daisy who were carrying two copper basins towards his room. When they saw Zhao, Meg couldn't help but be surprised. "Master, how come you're up? Have you washed yet?"
"I just got up early and I already washed. Daisy, is your brother any better?"
Daisy, who was standing behind Meg, quickly said, "Master, brother is good. He's waiting outside to meet you."
Zhao smiled. "That's not the kind of place to hold an audience. Go call Ann and tell him to meet me in the living room. I have something to ask him."
Meg was stunned for a moment, but she didn't say anything. She followed behind Zhao as they went to the living room, while Daisy walked outside to call her brother.
There was a difference between the main parts of the castle and the servant rooms. The servants, such as Daisy and Ann, lived in the rooms of a small building behind the main part of the castle. Although they were now commoners and have been given Zhao's surname, their identities still had a long way to go to reach someone like Meg's. They could only be regarded as common servants.
Soon, Daisy returned with Ann. Her brother looked better, just a bit thin, but still very strong. Although he didn't look like someone who was dying, he still had his head down and he didn't dare to talk.
Daisy walked ahead and stopped in front of Zhao. "Master, I've brought Ann."
Zhao nodded. "Call him over. I have something to ask him."
Daisy called him over immediately, and when he came in front of Zhao, he knelt down and bowed. "Ann greets Master. Thank you, Master, for your kindness."
It seemed like Daisy had told him everything. Although he referred to Zhao as Master, he wasn't saying that Zhao was his slave owner.
"You don't have to be so polite," Zhao said. "You are now part of the Buda clan. Stand up and answer my questions."
Ann bowed his head and said, "Master." He then got up, but half his body was still bent and his head was down, afraid to look at Zhao.
Zhao couldn't help but wrinkle his brow when he saw Ann's apperance. He didn't like it when people acted that way towards him. Although Ann was no longer a slave, he still acted like it. "Ann, look up. You have to remember that you're now part of the Buda clan. You are a free commoner. Later, whenever you go out, you must not lose face for our clan. Don't kneel and act like a slave. It will make people look down on our Buda clan."
Seeing that Zhao seemed angry, Daisy and Ann knelt down while bowing. "Please, Master, punish us."
Zhao sighed. What did he just say? "Stand up, get off your knees." The two stood up, and Zhao noticed that Ann's back was as straight as possible. "Ann, let me ask you. Do you know any mason skills?"
Ann quickly said, "Yes, Master. My father was a mason. I learned a little from him. Although I'm not very proficient, I could still build a few things."
Zhao nodded. "That's good. I'm going to give you a drawing. See if you can build it. If you can, then immediately organize some people to mine stones. I want it done as soon as possible.
Ann's heart couldn't help but tighten, but he still bent over. "Yes, Master."
Translator Notes: I probably fudged up the food description. I definitely need to read more Shokugeki no Soma. Plus, although I written it as pancakes, it's probably better described as some sort of Chinese corn flat bread.
Translator Notes #2: This chapter was edited from an MTL. Please leave a comment if you've spotted anything that looks wrong.