When Xu Xing discovered that Li Xiang was welcomed by many etiquette ladies when entering and exiting hotels, she immediately felt uncomfortable. This was a complete manifestation of extravagance and waste. She didn't feel anything too wrong yet, so she wanted to go to the hotel's back kitchen to see what ingredients were there and to clarify the source of the ingredients in these hotels in order to catch the big rats that ate the grain from the granary.
The granary in Jiangyang was already empty, and whoever could do this must not be a small mouse, but a giant rat. After all, a whole granary of grain, even if transported by trucks, would require dozens of trucks. Such a scale of corruption is definitely not a small problem.
"I must find a way to enter these hotel kitchens and ask for the source of the news. However, if I ask them directly, it probably won't work. It seems I can only find a way to sneak in later," Xu Xing thought to herself.
There is a common saying in China, "You can't catch a tiger's cub without entering the tiger's den," which means that without venturing into a dangerous situation, one cannot obtain the most crucial information. This is also known as seeking wealth in danger.
Xu Xing thought that nowadays, the only people who could move freely in the hotel were the service staff. If she wanted to disguise herself as a service staff, it would be quite simple. She just needed to knock out a service staff and change into her clothes.
Xu Xing had already made plans for this, so she acted immediately. She found a private room, ordered many precious dishes, and placed a stack of ration coupons on the table. Immediately, someone respectfully took the ration coupons and prepared to have the service staff serve the dishes.
When the last dish was being served, Xu Xing grabbed the female service staff and lightly chopped her on the back of the head with a palm strike. The female service staff immediately fainted. The clothes worn by the female service staff and the etiquette ladies were actually different. The clothes worn by the service staff were very conservative, all work uniforms. Xu Xing immediately and quietly changed into the female service staff's clothes, showing no abnormalities. Then, she picked up a tray and walked towards the back kitchen.
When Xu Xing arrived at the back kitchen, she quickly saw many breeding cages. Inside these iron cages were animals of various sizes, and there was a feeding trough outside these cages. A lot of corn or rice was poured into these feeding troughs for the animals to eat. Then, after the animals grew enough, they would be caught and killed to be cooked.
This situation was naturally a thankless task, because hotels needed to make a profit, so they didn't have time to raise animals. Killing animals at this time was undoubtedly a waste of time.
However, in the apocalypse, many breeding farms had already gone bankrupt. This was unavoidable. Now, to have enough meat, one could only raise animals themselves. The hotel's choice was naturally not a problem, but the problem was where the grain needed for raising animals came from. Clearly, many people on the streets were starving to death, but here, animals were being fed with corn or rice. This seemed very strange.
"If the grain used to feed animals were given to people, then so many people would definitely not starve to death. These people are truly damned. They have grain to feed animals but no grain to feed people!" Xu Xing was very angry at this moment. She didn't expect these people to not treat the people outside as humans, giving grain to these pigs and dogs instead of to humans.
"What are you standing around for? Hurry up and get some wine. The City Lord has been waiting for a long time, and you still haven't served the wine. What's going on? And are you new here? Hurry up and get to work, don't make me rush you!" At this moment, the hotel owner got angry, ran over, and yelled at the people in the back kitchen because the City Lord had already arrived at his hotel, and he was unable to serve wine and dishes promptly, which was very impolite.
"Okay, I'll go get the wine right away!" A nearby service staff hurriedly bowed and then took the wine to the wine cellar.
Xu Xing also quickly said, "I'll follow to take a look."
In fact, a prohibition order had been issued throughout the country, or even the world, especially prohibiting the use of grain to brew alcohol. This is because brewing alcohol with grain consumes a lot of grain. At that time, if anyone still wanted to drink, it would undoubtedly be disrespectful to others. Ten jin of grain could only produce one jin of wine. If this grain were given to others, it could not only fill the stomachs of many people but also prevent disturbances caused by drunken behavior.
Therefore, many wineries had gone bankrupt because, at this time, brewing alcohol could only be done using fruits. However, fruits were almost extinct because the cold weather caused a large number of fruit trees to die. The cold weather was also not conducive to the fruiting of these fruit trees, so it was no longer practical to brew wine with fruits.
When Xu Xing arrived in the wine cellar, she quickly saw many wine vats. The smell of alcohol was emanating from these wine vats, making people's nostrils itch. It could be confirmed that there were many wine vats in this wine cellar, all filled with wine brewed from grain.
"A bunch of damned things! Besides feeding animals with grain, they even use grain to brew wine. It's truly damned. If feeding animals is a waste of grain, then brewing wine is a complete squandering of grain!" Xu Xing thought to herself.
The amount of grain required for brewing was too much. Although the distiller's grains produced after brewing could also be used to feed animals, since prohibition orders had been issued in various places, and they were still brewing wine continuously, it indicated that the people in these hotels simply did not take the issued prohibition seriously.
The two of them arrived at the side of the wine barrels and found a faucet connected to the side of the wooden barrels. As long as the faucet was turned, wine could flow out. Here, there was sorghum wine, corn wine, and grape wine. Among them, grape wine was the most precious because grapes could no longer grow in this weather, so the grape wine stored here was quite old.
Then, the two of them carried the tray, placed a exquisite wine bottle on it, and walked towards the banquet. Xu Xing had specially disguised herself. By simply applying some pigment to her face, she could change the color of her skin. Then, by adding a few more strokes elsewhere, she could make her appearance very different.
When the two of them arrived at the banquet, they delivered the wine on the tray and began to pour wine for the people at the banquet.
"City Lord, our cooperation is so pleasant now. We've made enough money without doing anything. Even if the world is peaceful in the future, we won't have to do anything, and we can still be rich. Even our children won't be able to spend all this money in a lifetime!" someone said to Li Xiang.
Upon hearing this, Li Xiang replied, "No need to say anything else. Anyway, the grain problem will be on my shoulders from now on. As long as I sign and agree, you will have an endless supply of grain. I just need to remind you of one thing: never let people starve to death, otherwise, if the higher authorities blame me, I won't be able to bear it!"
At this time, Li Xiang was naturally the highest-ranking person at the wine table. Others had to flatter him, and such banquets were also something many people disliked.
When eating and drinking, people often flatter those in high positions. Only then would they be considered sensible. If they ate and drank silently, didn't toast, and didn't say nice things, they would most likely be considered a simpleton. After a few such banquets, leaders would be unwilling to mentor them.
If there were exceptionally outrageous people, in such situations, leaders would even lecture these people, acting as elders from a superior position, pointing fingers at them as if they were the only smart people in the world. In reality, the reason everyone flattered them was not because they were smart or capable, but because they were in that position. As the saying goes, "The butt determines the head." Therefore, because their butts were in the right position, whatever their heads said would be recognized by others.
"City Lord, please rest assured, we will not let our subordinates starve to death. Although many people are hungry for a while now, they will not starve to death. In short, at this time, grain is the absolute resource. Since we have power, it is only right to take a little more resources," someone raised their wine glass again to the City Lord, then lowered their body slightly. With a "ding" sound, their glasses clinked, and then they brought the glasses back and drank them in one gulp.
"If you listen to me and work with me, I will definitely not treat you badly, because I had a life-and-death friendship with Lord Fengshen. Back then, I was one of his core forces. Only then did he entrust such an important city to me to manage. You can imagine how much he valued me! Back then, we all came from the same school, and then with the strength of tens of thousands of people, we forcefully recaptured this city under our command..." Li Xiang began to brag now. Since he was talking to people whose status and position were inferior to his, he could say whatever he wanted, and he began to talk about his past glorious achievements.
Upon hearing this, Xu Xing contemptuously thought, "This guy has drunk a few cups of horse urine and really doesn't recognize anything. Clearly, he was just a logistics officer back then, and he was basically not needed in combat. Now he's boasting as if he were a god of war. It's truly ridiculous. It seems the biggest rat is him!"
If the disappearance of grain had nothing to do with Li Xiang, Xu Xing wouldn't have thought this way. But after hearing the accounts of these people, she also understood that Li Xiang was definitely one of the people who embezzled the grain. Without his approval, how could the granary casually hand over the grain? Now the problem was very clear: Li Xiang, the City Lord, was personally leading the embezzlement of grain, which was truly shameful.
After this matter, Xu Xing immediately rushed back to Yuzhou and informed Shen Feng. Due to too much travel, she didn't even have time to tidy herself up and appeared before the City Lord in a disheveled state.