Cave Refuge

Last time Ye Liuyun managed to get a good amount of high-quality ingredients produced by the Cave from Dong Tianyu. Although he made a handsome profit from selling them outside, it didn't help with the daily supplies he provided to the camp.

At this moment, although he still had some food stored in the Storage space, Ye Liuyun was clearly aware that he must figure out a way to store more food before he secured a stable source of food.

Moreover, most of the food he had in the Storage space consisted of Food Bricks, which contained a lot of plant fibers. The survivors often ate this stuff, which at best could barely fend off starvation but was unlikely to be nutritious enough for a full meal.

Based on diet alone, there were roughly three groups of people in the camp. At the top was a very small group that included Ye Liuyun and the Thompson Family, who had meat and vegetables with all three meals, rich in nutrition and very healthy.

The rations Ye Liuyun provided to his Guard Squad and the members of the Patrol Team who guarded the walls were basically just Food Bricks. However, occasionally they were supplemented with dried meat or vegetables, and sometimes even nuts, to ensure they always had enough fighting strength.

Ye Liuyun was neither foolish nor stingy. He clearly knew that at this time, having absolute military force was the only way to ensure his current standard of living.

The rest of the camp, which made up the majority of the residents, were only provided with Food Bricks, and the quantity each meal was limited. At this point, there were virtually no idle people in the camp; unless they were pregnant women or children, even teenagers and the elderly needed to work daily in exchange for food.

Anyone who had eaten coarse grains for a long time knew that, despite the strong sense of fullness at mealtime, they did not stave off hunger for long. Even after eating to fullness, hunger would return in three to four hours, a sign of the body's lack of oils and fats.

The easiest way to alleviate this issue was to eat meat, specifically fatty meat. That's why many elderly people prefer fatty meat, finding it more fragrant and tasty, while young people nowadays prefer lean meat.

The reason is that the older generation has lived through a period of famine and food shortages, where the fatty portions of a meal were their only chance to supplement fats, whereas modern youths not only have better food options but also have plenty of chances to get oils and fats and, for the sake of keeping fit, prefer lean meat over fatty meat.

The current situation in the camp was like those days of old famine. Although no one was starving to death, any perceptive person in the camp knew that there was no stable source of food there, and all food depended on Ye Liuyun's private reserve.

Therefore, even though the vast majority couldn't eat their fill and had to work so hard every day, they did not have any thoughts of revolt or complaint. After all, unlike before the Natural Disaster, it was not as simple as finding a random place to earn money, or at least get a meal.

Just like the story one could find online, never trust those beggars who claim they haven't eaten for days. If they truly hadn't eaten for several days, they could simply walk into any police station and ask for food – it could not be guaranteed other than a wrapped meal, but at the very least they would be provided with a ticket to go home.

And now, even if they left the camp and theoretically went to the Officials for a minimum living allowance – since the Officials had announced the location and coordinates of the city they had built online –

Even if they had the exact address, who could guarantee they would safely reach the city where the Officials resided, given the dangerous world outside?

What's more important is, to be honest, although they couldn't eat their fill in the camp, Ye Liuyun actually treated them quite decently and didn't push them to the brink of death.

Most of the survivors in the camp were once crew members of the fleet Ye Liuyun had organized. Having endured those hard times, they hadn't forgotten the bitter life before joining Ye Liuyun's fleet, so even though the conditions were tough now, they were actually able to persist.

And like Zachary knew, Ye Liuyun wasn't the type to disregard human life; he was actually quite aware of the basic survival conditions in the camp.

If it weren't for Zachary telling him now that he had harvested a large amount of meat in the forest, maybe Ye Liuyun would have taken out some of the high-end ingredients he had purchased from Zachary. It wouldn't be possible to distribute them per person, but it was possible to take some to mix with Food Bricks and cook a nutritious mixed-grain porridge.

After all, those high-end ingredients commanded high profits when sold, so Ye Liuyun had been hesitant whether to give up the camp. After all, these past days, he had been using his own reserves to cover the camp's expenses, and more importantly, there was no clear end date to this situation.

For a businessman, earning less means a loss. If he hadn't established the camp, just relying on the goods he had accumulated before would have allowed him to live a very comfortable life for a long time.

But Ye Liuyun was greedy for power and wanted to control the futures of thousands of people, which was why he impulsively established the camp. After such a long investment, although there was no hope of breaking even yet, the sunk costs invested in the camp were simply too much. So the more time passed, the less Ye Liuyun was willing to give up.