196: Chapter 196 The relocation team is eating gruel! The partition construction is ahead of schedule.

3:05 PM.

Second floor public living area.

A long queue stood at the kitchen entrance.

Chen Li sat behind a folding table with a registration book spread out before him and a pen in his hand.

Song Ya stood beside him, an electronic scale and a pile of cloth bags in front of her.

The 532 members of the Relocation Team were at the very front of the line.

The first to walk to the table was the middle-aged man from this morning, wearing the same fur coat as before, his eyes fixed intently on the flour bags behind Song Ya.

"Name," Chen Li asked.

"Wang Jianguo."

"ID number."

"Relocation ID 001."

Chen Li wrote the name and ID in the registration book.

"150 grams of flour, enough for three bowls." Song Ya put the weighed flour into a small cloth bag and handed it over.

Wang Jianguo took the bag and hefted it.

He looked down at the flour inside.

It was off-white with a hint of pale yellow and had a wheaty aroma.

"This is flour." His Adam's apple bobbed.

"Yes, it was just ground this morning. It's Fast-growing Wheat grown in the Greenhouse," Song Ya said.

"Fast-growing Wheat."

"Harvested every seven days. You haven't heard of it?"

Wang Jianguo shook his head.

He clutched the bag of flour and walked toward the corridor, but stopped after two steps.

He turned his head to look at the induction cooker at the kitchen entrance.

A pot of hot water was boiling on the stove, with several communal bowls placed nearby.

He walked to the stove, poured the flour into a bowl, added hot water, and stirred it with chopsticks.

The flour paste turned a cloudy white in the bowl.

He picked up the bowl and took a sip.

The wheaty aroma spread from his mouth to his nasal cavity.

He stood before the stove and finished the entire bowl of flour paste.

The people queuing behind him began to urge him on.

"Move along, there's still a line behind you."

Wang Jianguo stepped aside and stood by the corridor wall, holding his empty bowl.

He watched the people behind him receive their flour one by one.

After a young woman holding a child received her flour, she first dipped a finger in it and put it into the child's mouth.

The child smacked their lips twice and grinned.

After receiving his flour, a white-haired old man didn't mix it immediately. He tucked the cloth bag into his shirt and walked toward the Residential Area with his head down.

After a few steps, he came back and stood before the stove for a while, eventually pouring the flour into a bowl and adding hot water.

"Chen Li." Lu Chen's voice came through the communicator.

"City Lord."

"Distribution progress."

"Of the 532 members of the Relocation Team, 316 have received theirs. Progress is smooth. It's estimated that distribution for the Relocation Team will be finished by 4:30, followed by Zhao Tiezhu's unit and the Engineering Team."

"Any issues?"

"One small issue. Some people in the Relocation Team didn't know how to prepare it and ate the flour dry. I had Song Ya post a notice nearby with instructions on how to mix it."

"Eating dry flour can easily cause choking."

"Understood. It's much better since the notice was posted."

"Good. Continue the distribution."

The communicator hung up.

Chen Li continued the registration.

Song Ya continued the weighing.

The line moved forward slowly.

The wheaty aroma began to fill the corridor.

Some mixed the flour into a paste to drink, some added salt to make a thick porridge to eat slowly, and some kneaded the flour into small dough balls to bake on the stove.

A thin man squatted in the corner, pinching a thumb-sized piece of dough, chewing it for a long time before swallowing.

Another man sat beside him, drinking flour paste from a bowl. Halfway through, he looked up at him.

"Kneading flour into dough makes it hard to digest. Eating it like that will give you a stomach ache."

"I know," the thin man said, swallowing the dough. "I just wanted to chew something. I haven't chewed anything in a long time."

"Don't you chew Nutrient Bars?"

"That's different."

The man beside him said no more and lowered his head to continue drinking his paste.

4:20 PM.

Distribution for all 532 members of the Relocation Team was complete.

Zhao Tiezhu's men began to line up.

The 300 soldiers queued much faster than the Relocation Team; they came one by one, took their share, and left without a word.

Zhao Tiezhu himself was at the very end of the line.

When it was his turn, he took the flour bag and nodded to Song Ya.

"Thanks."

"Don't thank me, thank the City Lord."

Zhao Tiezhu clutched the flour bag and walked toward the corridor.

He ran into Han Zhengqing at the corner.

Han Zhengqing's hands were stained with soot from welding, and a large patch on the front of his work uniform was blackened.

"Battalion Commander Zhao."

"Chief Engineer Han."

"Got your flour?"

"Got it."

"How's the partitioning of the Storage Area going?"

"The first partition frame was welded this afternoon. We're two hours ahead of schedule. Tomorrow we'll weld the second and third," Han Zhengqing said, glancing at the flour bag in Zhao Tiezhu's hand. "Your three hundred men can move into their housing the day after tomorrow."

"Thank you for your hard work."

"It's nothing," Han Zhengqing wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. "As long as there's enough noodles, it's not hard work."

The two men passed each other.

Han Zhengqing led the Engineering Team to the end of the queue.