Totem Chapter 13

Knife Work Feast

“Alright, I welcome you to take a look…”

Leading Lola, Jiang Nan walked into the pigpen where he had slaughtered the pigs.

Meanwhile, Weylin kept staring at Eddy with a gaze full of despise and loathing, hating that she couldn’t slaughter this damned Eddy right there on the spot.

Yesterday, Sauron used forcefully made Weylin accept unequal conditions, and had even made her agree that West Farms would obey all orders of Suzanne Farms for the sake of welcoming Yulianne.

And just before, Eddy had represented Suzanne Farms to pass on an ‘insulting’ order.

   ……

A few minutes before, Eddy had just barged into Weylin’s living room without being shown in and offhandedly said, “Miss Weylin, for the sake of welcoming Yulianne, Suzanne Farms has asked that you cooperate with me to do something of paramount importance.”

“This woman has no time to listen to your long-winded speech, if you have sh** to say, then let it spew!”

When Weylin saw Eddy’s careless manner, she instantly radiated fiery rage. On top of that, that repeated ‘Asks you to cooperate’… F***, Suzanne Farms truly took her to be servant to be shouted at?

Therefore, Weylin’s tone was also very rude!

“You! You!” Eddy was furious to the point that he stamped on the ground and roared, “*Motherf***! Weylin, clean your mouth a bit! When this *me was cooking for the imperial household, even the Emperor wasn’t so overbearing!”
(*TL: okay so the cuss is basically a phrase in Sichuan dialect that has no real meaning, but is basically vulgar and swearing language to express one’s anger/surprise at something they didn’t expect to happen)

“So this woman’s overbearing, so what?!” With a ‘whoosh’, Weylin stood up.

Seeing the sparks fly in every direction between the two, they nearly got into a fight. Finally, a number of prudent elderly managers stepped out and settled the matter between the two of them, at least making it so that they both sat back down.

“Say it, what does this woman need to do?”

“Suzanne Farm’s lord has said: right now, Sun City awaits Yulianne’s arrival to welcome her! And as she is the quickest knife work chef on the continent, it has been said that any male whose blade speed is quicker than hers may take her as a wife… Therefore, Suzanne Farms believes that in order to curry favor with Yulianne, then we must think of a way to connect with this interest of hers!”

As Eddy spoke these words demandingly, he looked up towards the ceiling, not even looking at Weylin, “For this reason, Suzanne Farm’s lord has decided to allow Yulianne to conduct a grand competition that will be called the ‘Knife Work Welcoming Feast’!”

Speaking up to here, Eddy halted. Clearly, he was waiting for Weylin’s question, exactly what did ‘knife work feast’ mean.

He didn’t think that Weylin would just flip through a romance novel and totally ignore him.

And so these two people stayed at deadlock with each other.

At the very end, it was only after those experienced managers stepped out to help smooth things out did Eddy reluctantly give an explanation: “The meaning of knife work feast is to choose three hundred people skilled at knife work, and when Yulianne arrives, conduct a grand performance of knife work art after inviting her to be a special guest judge. This is what is called the Knife Work Feast! And as for me, I am this performance’s general supervisor!” Eddy proudly pointed at his chest, “Miss Weylin, I’m currently selecting people skilled at knife-work, and while this desolate Sun City isn’t lacking, there’s no knife-workers…”
(TL: idk… knife-workers… eh.. a lot of the terminology i choose to use i kinda regret but am way too lazy to change it back.. my mind just goes blank when i translate and all my vocabulary goes out the window…)

His tone grew warm, “Hehe, do *you have any knife work experts here? If you do, can you call them out so I can test them a bit?”

As Eddy said this, he squeezed out a full smile. Right now, his attitude could simply be considered as ‘lowering one’s voice and stifling one’s anger’.

But Weylin…

“Oh, so it turns out that a sh** person like you came to borrow some people…”

Weylin nodded in a detached manner, and then continued flipping through her romance novels.

One minute later…

Two minutes later…

At the three-minute mark, Weylin was still indifferent and unconcerned, and Eddy could no longer take it. At the end of his rope, he blew up, “Weylin, what exactly do you mean by this? *I want to borrow some of your knife work specialists! If you have them, then call them out and let me test a number of them! If you don’t, then speak clearly! That you don’t even say one word, do you even think I exist?!”

After this, Eddy turned around and walked away, “Whatever, forget about it, I’m no longer going to stand being mistreated this way here! In my perspective, there aren’t even any knife work specialists here, so all I have to do is just not choose any here.”

“Stop!”

Weylin abruptly stood up, “Who said this woman had no knife work specialists? Messenger, assemble all the knife work specialists and let Eddy test as he pleases!”

   ……

In fact, Weylin’s way of thinking was quite simple. She disapproved of the Suzanne Farms behind Eddy’s figure, so she purposely faked a face of detachment to insult Eddy.

However, Weylin didn’t want to offend Suzanne Farms over something as small as this, so she promptly called out all the knife-workers.

However, Weylin would never have predicted even in a thousand years that what would happen next would be like a slap in her face, shaming her to the point that couldn’t show her face, and only wanted to scuttle into a crack in the ground and hide!

Weylin called out all the knife-workers on the farm, but Eddy simply took a glance at their fingers and repeatedly shook his head, “This won’t do, they’re not qualified! They can’t even be considered to be knife work specialists, and aren’t worthy of joining the knife-work team! Weylin, don’t you have any better knife-workers?!”

These knife workers actually didn’t meet the standards?!

Weylin could no longer hold back her expression and roared furiously: “Go, call out this woman’s private chef! Eddy, *my personal chef was hired for ten gold coins and is a noble chef, and will definitely pass your test!”

Eddy smirked, and when the private chef came out, he told him to dismember a live pig under his inspection, “Nope, this won’t do, this fellow isn’t qualified either! Miss weylin, you really don’t have any knife work specialists here? If you don’t, then stop wasting my time!”

Weylin’s face was ashen to the point that she couldn’t even say one word.

This personal chef of hers was already the best chef on the farm, and she wouldn’t be able to find any better.

Once she thought of this, Weylin’s face flushed with heat. Just before, she had relentlessly mocked and cursed at Eddy, taking the matter to the extreme! However, after insulting him so, she couldn’t bring out any knife workers….

It was truly shameful, shameful even to her grandmother!

At this moment, Weylin even thought, F***, if anyone is able to step out as a knife work specialist and recover some face for *me, this woman, this woman is even okay with marrying him!

As Weylin burned with shame under Eddy’s gleeful look, the clever Lola stepped out and stealthily tugged on Weylin’s sleeve, “Miss, there are many slaves who have slaughtered pigs and learned some knife work for quite a number of years… it might be that they may be able to pass Eddy’s test!”

Weylin’s eyes lit up. Not bad, then there might be an expert hidden within those slaves who’ve helped slaughter pigs. She laughed heartily: “Eddy, you don’t even put my own personal chef in your eyes? That’s fine, then this woman will throw caution to the wind and take you to see true knife work specialists!”

Like this, a trail of people came to the vicinity of the pigpen, coincidentally running into Jiang Nan.

   ……

After Jiang Nan left, Eddy ordered sixty-five slaves to arrange themselves on an empty expanse of land near the pigs and have them slaughter a live pig.

Eddy looked at their work one by one, and for several of the slaves within the group, he couldn’t help but impatiently wave his hand, “Screw off, screw off, screw off! This kind of knife work even dares to exhibit and disgrace itself?!”

Weylin’s face turned a bit unsightly.

After half a minute, Eddy snatched up the butcher knives of twenty-something slaves, speaking distastefully: “No need to continue, just looking at your blade methods, none of you even the least bit qualified to join the performance group!”

Weylin’s expression grew ashen!

A minute later, Eddy drove away twenty-some slaves. At this point in time, the number of slaves who were qualified to test only amounted to three.

And Weylin subconsciously rubbed her face. F***, I didn’t think that there wouldn’t be even one slave that wouldn’t fall short… Ah *my reputation!

“Useless trash, you three beat it as well!”

At this time, Eddy eliminated the last three slaves, then smirked as he walked towards Weylin, “Miss Weylin, this is the ‘true’ knife work specialists you speak of? I’m still better off going to other people’s farms to select people, excuse me!”

Weylin’s face was totally defeated!

One of the overseers who had come along with Weylin couldn’t take that she had been insulted and retorted: “Mr. Eddy, it seems that you’re purposely making it hard for our house’s Miss! The knife work of these slaves are already pretty good, on what basis are you eliminating them?!”

“On what basis? Hmph, just based on my two eyes!”

Eddy pointed at his two eyes and said: “It is true that *I don’t look favorably at your house’s Miss, but I have never deceived people in regards to cooking! The one standard for choosing a good knife-worker is this: to be able to dismember a pig within an hour. Look at these slaves, which of them can do this?!”

The overseer had nothing to say.

Eddy truly wasn’t purposely making it hard for people, but rather that the slaves on the farm really couldn’t meet the standard!

Eddy forcefully spat, then turned and left.

But right at this moment, Lola walked over with a face full of disbelief, her steps a bit lifeless as she helplessly said to Weylin: “Miss…”

“What do you want?! Go punish Rodi, *I’m not in the mood to care for a lowly servant!”

Weylin’s mood was extremely horrible, and she thoughtlessly began scolding.

“But, but…”

Lola hesitated for a long while, then scowled miserably and said: “But I didn’t baselessly sort Rodi out! Rodi, this lowlife actually, actually slaughtered twelve pigs within nine hours!”

From last night at ten to this morning at seven, it was a total of nine hours.

Then based on that, Jiang Nan only needed forty-five minutes to slaughter a pig!

If one also counted the fact that the pigpen needed to be cleaned, the pig meat sorted and put away into storage, exhaustion, and multiple rest breaks, these bits of time… It seemed, for Jiang Nan to slaughter an entire pig… he only needed half an hour?!

Of course, these were only the speculations of the people present and not Jiang Nan’s actual ability.

However, just based on the inferred time, it was enough to make one of the four greatest knife-work chefs on the continent gape: “What did you say? There’s a person here who can dismember a pig in half an hour? Motherf***, *!@$#^$$%, get him out here!”
(*TL: Remember that cuss word that has no real meaning? yep, that’s what it is)

“Mister, were you looking for me?”

Jiang Nan emerged from the pigpen, a vacant look on his face.

Chapter end