His gaze swept over those figures huddled in the distance, their eyes nonetheless snagged by the sll.
"The day you can’t hand out at anymore, these starving wolves you suddenly fattened up will be the first to tear apart whoever’s standing in front of them."
Thorne had seen that ending too many tis. The old Nobility never did losing trades; charity only appeared when it could be used to keep control.
Pete was still stirring the pot. The wooden ladle scraped along the bottom, making a steady, rhythmic sound.
After a while, he finally spoke, lightly: "Knight Thorne, in the Red Tide we don’t call people bottomless pits. We call them labor."
Thorne started, not knowing what to say.
Pete went on, his tone still calm: "But first, you have to make sure they survive today."
The loudspeaker was quickly set up.
"al ti—!" The shout was dragged out long.
No movent.
Pete frowned, then signaled soone to shout again: "al ti—!"
Still no one stepped forward.
By the ti the third shout fell, the open space was already ringed with people.
Hundreds of eyes were locked on that boiling iron pot, yet it was as if so invisible line held them in place; no one dared take a step.
It wasn’t greed. Thorne knew that look very well. It was fear.
A woman suddenly yanked her child into her arms, clapped a hand over his mouth, terrified that his crying would bring disaster down on them.
A few old folks hunched their necks, lips white, as if waiting for an ending that had been written long ago.
The air turned unnaturally quiet.
Just then, an old miner with graying hair crawled out of the crowd.
He no longer had the strength to stand. He could only drag his body, inch by inch, to Pete’s feet, then knock his head heavily against the muddy ground.
"Master..." His voice was so hoarse it was barely audible.
Pete froze, not knowing what the old man was trying to do.
The old miner raised his head, his clouded eyes fixed on that pot, his voice shaking: "If you have to kill... could you... just kill alone?"
He drew a breath, as if it took all he had: "Let my grandson go to the mine... he can still work, don’t kill him..."
Pete’s hand tightened abruptly around the ladle.
Thorne stood to the side, eyes closing for a mont as if choking back so disgust. He said quietly, "Raymond’s rules. They only give them one full al when they’re about to process a batch of waste."
"A few tis, they put poison in the porridge. Powder refined from mine slag." Thorne paused, as if confirming that Pete really wanted to hear the rest. "After they drank it, they started convulsing that night, and by dawn they were all dumped into the waste pit together..."
Thorne added under his breath, "It’s easier that way. They call that al ’beheading porridge.’"
Pete asked nothing more. He knew that here, any extra words of comfort were pointless.
He stuck the ladle into the pot and filled a bowl to the brim.
Chunks of at, grains of wheat, and scalding broth sloshed in the bowl. The steam hit his face, almost forcing his eyes shut.
Under hundreds of eyes boring into him, Pete lifted the bowl, tilted his head back, and drank it down.
He seed completely oblivious to the heat, unconcerned with appearances, just gulping it down in big swallows until only a few scraps were left at the bottom.
Pete turned the empty bowl over, the bottom facing everyone.
Then he flung it down hard: "Crack—"
The clay bowl shattered into several pieces in the mud.
"Did you all see that clearly?" Pete’s voice sounded like it was ripped raw out of his chest. "No poison! Only at!"
He pointed at the pot, his arm trembling with strain. "The Red Tide doesn’t need dead people! We need the living! If you want to live, co eat!"
The instant the words left his mouth, it was like sothing slamd into the crowd.
Fear split open, and what poured out was naked instinct.
So scread, so shoved. Hundreds of dark figures surged toward the porridge shed, mud and water splashing, cries and panting lting into one.
Thorne’s face changed on the spot.
Once things spun out of control, the next step would be trampling, fighting, blood.
His hand had already closed around the whip at his waist.
"Back off!" he growled, lunging forward.
In his experience, only pain could halt this kind of chaos.
"Stand down, Thorne!" Pete’s voice crashed in from the side.
Thorne started. Several Red Tide relief officers who had been on standby rushed forward and smoothly pulled up a thick rope.
It was a hemp rope dyed bright red, stretched horizontally, blocking the way ten ters before the porridge shed.
Pete took the loudspeaker. His voice exploded through the chaos: "Listen up! Anyone who crosses this rope will never eat a single grain of Red Tide rice for the rest of their life! Get behind the rope! Line up!"
His words were like nails being hamred into the air, one by one.
The ones at the very front halted abruptly.
One al, versus every al to co.
Living through this mont, versus whether they’d live at all in the future.
The chaos felt like it’d had its throat squeezed shut.
So people backed up, gasping, others dragged their companions backward with them.
A few breaths later, behind the red rope, a crooked line had ford.
Not neat, but taking shape.
Thorne stood where he was, the whip still in his hand, yet he’d forgotten to bring it down.
He looked at that not-so-sturdy red rope, then at the crowd gradually calming, his throat tightening.
"A rope..." he muttered to himself, "works better than my whip?"
The one who answered him wasn’t Pete, but a rough, hoarse laugh.
As soon as the line steadied, a burly man with a face full of scars shouldered his way out. Old whip marks from so foreman were still visible on his shoulders. His back was ramrod straight, like he was used to bullying his way through crowds.
He shoved aside the orphan holding a bowl in front of him. Soup splashed into the mud.
"Out of the way." He looked up at Pete, then split his mouth in a fawning grin. "Sir, can you let have the first bowl? I’m very useful."
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