18.
The vast majority of the people in the plaza were, at this moment, disappointed at heart. Though at the outset they too had reckoned a decree of this kind somewhat hard to bring off, they'd nonetheless clung to a sliver of hope. For, after all, over this past year's time, the Owl Dragon System had indeed seen a great improvement in the matter of the people's basic livelihood. It had given them a sliver of fancy… perhaps that lord of theirs, that dragon who showed his tail but never his head, truly could pull it off?
The greater the expectation, the greater, too, the disappointment. And add to that those people who hadn't joined the Owl Dragon register, off to the side fanning the wind and stoking the fire — it drove the public grievance to begin to accumulate, liable to erupt at any moment.
"We want to protest! We want to march!"
"What sort of business is this! A dignified lord, and yet he deceives us."
"I truly did think we'd no longer have to eat those nutrient rations — who'd have imagined it'd turn out to be such a farce as this. If you couldn't manage it, then you shouldn't have made the promise back then!"
Some began to grumble; some began to rail and denounce.
And it was just at this moment that, throughout every area of the city where holographic projection equipment was installed, there suddenly appeared, one after another, virtual electronic great-screens. And the figure within them was precisely the acting lord, Jiang Hong. Jiang Hong, dressed in a full business suit, sat before an office desk, upon which were planted the flag of the Starlight Empire and the lord's armorial crest of the Owl Dragon System.
"In accordance with the lord's decree promulgated earlier, from eight o'clock on April the first, the channel for purchasing natural food ingredients shall be thrown open to all personnel of the Owl Dragon register. The purchasing channels are chiefly divided into the local cities' large-scale official grain supermarkets, and online ordering — with delivery, within three days, to a designated grain-procurement point. Because this decree has only just been promulgated, each register resident may, on the first occasion, purchase only a three-day ration's quota of grain; hereafter, we shall progressively loosen the controls. It is anticipated that a complete loosening may be reached before the end of April: apart from private reselling remaining forbidden, the grain-purchase quota shall be thrown open. …………"
Jiang Hong, by the book and to the letter, announced the various matters there. The crowds throughout the various cities, whose grievances had before filled the very roads, at this moment all fell quiet.
At the same time, everyone discovered that, overhead above them, there had appeared dozens of T1 transport ships — every one of them setting down at the local city's official grain-operations point. Those points had, originally, been for the sale of nutrient rations; but over this past month, a portion of their areas had been converted into sale-points for natural food ingredients. And, moreover, within every handheld terminal of the Owl Dragon register, there was received a message. It was the online-ordering channel for natural food ingredients; upon it, the information of every last register member had already been recorded — one had to be an Owl Dragon register member to place an order.
In this instant, the cities of every planet all boiled over. Great masses of people began to surge toward the official grain-operations points. And the security squads of the various cities, originally readied to suppress the public grievance, at this moment all turned instead into squads for the maintenance of order. There were simply too many people surging toward the official grain-operations points.
Over in that plaza —
"Can we really buy natural food ingredients on the cheap?" That wife gave her own husband's thigh a hard pinch. Amid her husband's cry of pain, the wife came to believe this was fact.
The husband rubbed at his own red, swollen thigh; but he found, on the contrary, that he didn't feel the pain at all, and said in his excitement, "Then let's hurry over to the official grain-operations point and buy some!"
"Are you a fool. Right now I'd guess that place is already packed to bursting with people. Rather than go there and queue to procure, wouldn't ordering directly online be quicker." The wife rolled her eyes. And then she at once set about the operation of ordering online; before her appeared a holographic projection screen, and upon it was that website for online-ordering of natural food ingredients, with the price of every ingredient marked out.
The prices were exceedingly low!
Set, of course, against the previous market selling-prices of natural food ingredients. They were, basically, all several times cheaper. Even natural husbandry-raised meats had reached a quite low price. Though, admittedly, it couldn't let ordinary residents enjoy such fare every single day, at the least it was no problem to satisfy a month of "coarse tea and plain rice" — and an occasional return to meat, once a week, was doable too.
"This cheap!" The wife's two eyes fairly shone; she at once, without a second word, used the none-too-plentiful savings in her own electronic account to buy up the foods within the limits of the quota. There were vegetables, there were meats — there was even a single piece of fruit! Fruit, that thing — these bottom-stratum residents had never once eaten it before.
"My heavens! Wine brewed from natural crops, actually this cheap! Before, I'd only heard tell that a wine of this kind is the true fine drink; never did I imagine I'd have a chance to actually get to drink it!" One man, fond of a drink, gritted his teeth and went straight ahead and used several days of his own wages to buy the cheapest bottle of wine. The drunkard beside him, who'd been jeering and hollering earlier, was, at this moment, utterly dumbfounded. He'd caught sight of the price on the other man's payment interface… and that price was, of all things, exactly the same as the "industrial wine" he himself drank…
"Ding — payment successful. Your order will, within three days, be conveyed to your nearest official grain-operations point. Please take note to check for it!"
Throughout the plaza, the sound of payment-success rang out ceaselessly.
Outside the plaza, that pair of lovers up in the residential building, who'd originally been watching for a good show, were at this moment utterly dumbfounded.
"This… you can really buy natural food ingredients?" the woman said in astonishment.
The man beside her clenched his fists, and said, unwilling to accept it, "This has got to be fake! How is it possible!"
"Pah — the way I see it, you two are simply the fox who couldn't reach the grapes, calling them sour! If you don't believe it, go browse the forums yourselves; someone's already bought genuine, honest-to-goodness natural food ingredients over at the official grain-procurement point!" The neighbor next door, at this point, poked his head out from his own window and fired back without the least courtesy. By the look of it, this neighbor had endured a good many days of this couple's snide, sneering mockery.
The woman opened up the local city's forum interface; the information up on the trending searches was, beyond doubt, one and all connected to the buying of natural food ingredients. Several of them were pictures and footage of people who'd bought natural food ingredients — indeed, someone had even captured footage over at the loading-and-unloading bay of an official grain-operations point. A T1 interstellar transport ship was there unloading crate upon crate of natural-food-ingredient shipping containers, within which was, all of it, natural raw materials of every kind, or semi-finished goods — and a portion of finished products besides, of the wine-and-liquor sort.
In this instant, those people in the Owl Dragon System who'd earlier not joined the Owl Dragon register had, at this moment, regretted it until their very bowels turned green. But there was, among them, still a portion who reckoned a matter of this kind couldn't be kept up for very long. Perhaps, in another three or five days, the supply of these natural food ingredients would be cut off!
Three days passed…
Apart from the various official grain-operations points having long queues from morning to night, there was no change of any kind.
The fifth day… the tenth day…
In the blink of an eye, half a month had passed. The supply of natural food ingredients was, still, a ceaseless flowing stream; and the online-placed orders, too, all arrived on schedule, every one. At this, every last person came to believe in that scarcely credible clause within the lord's decree.
This led great numbers of the people who hadn't joined the Owl Dragon register to begin pleading — pleading with the local government organs to grant them one more chance! And no small number, on account of this affair, had family disputes erupt among them — even fathers and sons grumbling at one another. Those who had not only failed to join the Owl Dragon register themselves, but had, before this, told others not to join, became rats crossing the street, reviled by all. There even erupted, at one point, several hundred incidents of conflict, and cases of injury and death appeared besides.
In that plaza, that drunkard turned, in one stroke, into a madman, his mouth still muttering, ever and again: it's all fake… it's all fake… this is all fake…
From this moment on, the prestige of the Owl Dragon lord climbed, within the Owl Dragon System, to a height never before seen. Anyone who dared malign the Owl Dragon lord, malign the Zhao clan — that was, beyond doubt, to set oneself against the very residents of the Owl Dragon System!