The trading center looked way more like a hotel restaurant than anything else.
The hall was huge, and there was a raised platform in the middle. Around it, the seats were arranged like scattered dining booths, each one furnished with a leather sofa for four people and a dining table.
Of course, that wasn't the real point. The reason Jing Shu said it looked like a restaurant was because the tables were actually loaded with food.
She smelled it from far away and already knew this place was in a whole different league from the black market.
Classy.
Really classy.
The supervisor seemed to notice the confusion in Jing Shu's eyes. After he led her to a booth close to the central platform, he smiled and said, "All this food's free."
Tank scratched the back of his head, instantly regretting it. "Damn, if I knew, I'd have brought my sister. What a loss."
Jing Shu coughed. She glanced at Tank's hungry, hopeful eyes and lowered her voice. "Supervisor Wang, is the food limited or unlimited?"
"If it were unlimited, this would've turned into a buffet already. But don't worry, Xiao Zhang will take extra care of you later." Fatty Wang gave her a knowing look, wiped his hands, and got ready to leave. "It'll start soon, but there might be a lot of people today. Someone might get arranged to sit here later."
The food selection was impressive. Each dish was divided into four portions. There was even red wine. The snacks included delicate buttered bread, cherry tomatoes split into four servings, peanuts, sunflower seeds, dried banana slices, a cup of ginger brown sugar tea for each person, and a tiny meat patty.
The trading hall really went all in. Just this table of food was worth several hundred virtual coins per person.
The smell came from the meat patty. It was pan-fried to a golden crisp without any extra seasoning. Jing Shu ruled out beef steak immediately. With her top-tier foodie instincts, she realized she'd never tasted anything like this before. It had to be synthetic, maybe one of the new foods that appeared after the apocalypse.
She couldn't help remembering the synthetic meat formula ZS880 she'd brought from the States. She gave it to Qian Duoduo for research, but they were stuck on cost issues. Mass production was the real problem.
"Did the capital solve it already? But my synthetic meat formula is mainly protein. Wu You'ai's mentor suggested using cockroaches as the main ingredient since they're high in protein. It's workable, but we're waiting for the Biotech R and D Company in the capital to cultivate a bacterial cluster that can feed massive amounts of cockroaches."
Jing Shu tossed her portion of snacks, fruit, and bread to Tank so he could bring them to his sister. She took a bite of the meat patty while still thinking about cockroaches.
After Tank packed everything up, he stared at Jing Shu and asked, "What's it taste like? Is it good?"
"It's a bit fishy. They only added salt, nothing else. I don't know what meat it is. Look, there are strands of meat, but there's starch mixed in. It's soft, kinda like dumpling filling."
She knew right away this patty didn't use the synthetic meat she brought from the States. This actually had real meat inside. There was no way it could be mass-produced.
Tank was beyond envious. "If my sister could eat a meat patty like this every day, that'd be great."
Jing Shu quietly thought that if synthetic meat ever became mass-producible, she shouldn't tell the public what the raw ingredients were. Sometimes, being blissfully ignorant was its own kind of happiness. If it tasted good, then that was enough.
The trading session finally began.
The host was actually Supervisor Wang. When he walked onto the stage, he even shot Jing Shu a wink, the unmistakable look of someone acknowledging a major patron.
"Hello everyone, welcome to the eighth floor trading hall. I'll be your host today. Surprised? Alright, I'll skip the nonsense. Everyone, please open your big data screen. We're updating the on-site data."
The hall filled up quickly. Another mother and son plus a young man were assigned to their booth.
The young man wore glasses and looked dull. He expressionlessly opened his phone. Jing Shu and Tank followed Supervisor Wang's instructions. They were honestly curious about how the upgraded trading system worked.
The woman wore a qipao and had her hair pinned up. She carried an old-fashioned elegance and paired it with a white mink coat. She swayed her hips while dragging her eight-year-old son over.
"Oh dear, they're serving pan-fried meat patties today. Qiqi, try some. Qiqi, that's someone else's serving, you can't just grab whatever you want."
The young man didn't say a word.
The brat rushed over, grabbed a patty, and stuffed it into his mouth.
"You brat, I told you it's not yours. Why don't you ever listen? Oh dear handsome young man, I'm sorry."
The young man stayed silent, his expression frozen.
Jing Shu reminded her, "Your portion's untouched. You can give it back."
The woman shot Jing Shu a vicious glare, then forced out a strained smile. "I spit a little by accident while talking earlier. I'm so embarrassed. I'm sure this handsome young man won't mind." Then she swept her eyes over Jing Shu with disdain. In her head, she sneered, wondering which countryside bumpkin this was. So bulky. Her skin was annoyingly flawless though. So fresh. Youth really was unfair.
The young man didn't respond. The atmosphere turned awkward. The woman was already familiar with the system and quickly opened her big data screen.
Jing Shu immediately understood what Supervisor Wang meant about updating data. The big screen on the central platform lit up with a 3D simulation of the hall. It even showed everyone's seating positions and the items up for transaction.
She now understood all the tedious steps required before entering the eighth floor. This simplified everything.
It felt like a game. In the simulation, she could see the demand list and sale items from A04's table, belonging to Miss Jing, Mr. Zhao, and Miss Luo.
It was like a market booth event inside a game. Each player sat at their table like a vendor, displaying their goods and writing down their demands. Everyone else could browse freely.
The trading hall acted like the GM system, watching everything. They verified item quality, stabilized prices, recycled items that sold too cheap, and capped prices that were too high. As the middle platform, the most important part was guaranteeing both sides' safety.
As long as the item was legal, no matter how valuable, it would be protected. Every item had a traceable code and permanent protection, basically like binding it to the owner.
So anything traded here was high-end. None of the cheap black market junk like toilet paper or scrap materials appeared here.
Jing Shu opened the demand list of the dull young man, Mr. Zhao. It was a long list with ideal prices attached. Very convenient.
Supervisor Wang raised his voice. "Alright, same rules as always. Please enjoy the food while you vote for today's demand list and the most anticipated sale list. We'll officially begin in three minutes."