250 Chapter 250: The Whole Poin (1/2)

”Stand down!” Teacher Fielding roared as he descended from the podium upstairs and proceeded toward the arena. The uniformed students bowed sharply, and then withdrew reluctantly. As they did so, a couple of teachers threw ten sacks of rice at me. As Teacher Fielding approached, he kicked one of the sacks of rice at me, and it landed at my feet. He regarded me sternly. ”Make sure you come again.”

I glanced at the sack of rice at my feet, and then looked up to stare at Teacher Fielding determinedly.

”I didn't fight because I wanted the rice.”

Then I scowled and gestured toward all the sacks of rice.

”What the hell is the point of all these rice?” I demanded, annoyed. ”Why the hell are you giving rice out to students who scored victories in the qualifiers? Aren't the qualifiers supposed to help us score points for the purpose of trying to participate in the Spiritual Road training camp? What's with all the rice?”

Teacher Fielding shrugged silently, looking just as perplexed as I felt.

The translator hesitated, but he quickly recovered and bowed submissively to Teacher Fielding. He most likely interpreted Teacher Fielding's loss of words as a sign that he didn't understand what I just said. ”He said he will be happy to come again.”

”I never said that!” I snapped.

”Why are you acting as if I need a translator?” Teacher Fielding added, annoyed. ”I can understand perfectly what Richard is saying. What are you trying to do? And why bother translating if you're going to completely change the meaning of his words?”

The translator student paled and backed off. With nothing else to do, I turned away and began to depart the stage.

”Oi!” Teacher Fielding called out to me, and I stopped to glance back at him. ”Who exactly are you, Richard?”

I smiled grimly. ”I'm just a normal citizen of the Global Federation.”

With that, I descended from the stage, grabbed my packet of Calbee pizza-flavored potato chips and Dong Fang Yue Chu's bloodied sack of rice, intending to bring it to him. Without sparing the teachers or the student spectators a second look, I departed from the coliseum without a single word.

*

”Oh, thanks. But you really shouldn't have…”

Dong Fang Yue Chu was lying on bed in the infirmary, a few rows down the ten poor dudes that I had beaten up as revenge for his thrashing. He grimaced as he tried to sit up, and adjusted the pillow behind his back.

”You should just have taken the rice.”

”For what?” I growled, irritated. ”What's with the rice? Why are they giving out rice for the qualifiers? And what are we supposed to do with the rice?”

”Uh…cook it and eat it?” Dong Fang Yue Chu sounded as if he was stating the obvious. I sighed and rubbed my forehead.

”Ten sacks of rice? I mean, sure, they are fairly small, but it's just me and Dad at home, we don't need that much rice. Besides, this isn't World War II, it's not as if there's a shortage of food and we are starving.”

Thanks to magic and technological advancement in agricultural industries, the world no longer had to worry about starvation and food shortages. Even the less…technologically inclined empires were able to sustain their populations with magically grown and replicated crops without requiring vast swathes of agricultural fields.

However, the ultra-capitalist nature of the Global Federation still made food fairly expensive. That was how the Federation worked. Any reason they could use to generate profits, they would. While the government decreed that all citizens be allocated a bare minimum amount of food for survival, any more than that was charged exorbitant prices. Chefs made a lot of money, as did the suppliers of surplus food. There was no reason to sell them so expensively, but people did so because it would bring them money. As much as people protested and complained, they couldn't exactly do much because they all received the bare minimum of food to survive, and anything else was a luxury.

Nobody was obligated to cook for free or to settle for the prices you wanted them to accept, especially if you're not going to starve from death just because they refused to sell you food and you had your own bare minimum amount that ensured survival.

So people mostly sucked it up and paid them. Besides, even though I whined about how expensive, it wasn't as if people were charging a hundred dollars for 15 pounds of rice. Just $30 for 15 pounds of rice, for example. Not ideal, but not that bad. The better quality rice could go up to $50 or $60. I was talking the equivalent of the present day's USD, for reference.

In the end, as long as there was supply and demand, the merchants got to keep their prices artificially inflated, and the consumers just paid them while grumbling on the side. It was the same with non-essential medical services – something as cosmetic as eyesight correction, plastic surgery, slimming or pigmentation was going to cost the payer a bomb. Since essential and life-and-death medical services were covered by national healthcare insurance, the medical sector needed some way to make money, and that came from non-essential medical services. If there were people willing to pay for it – and there was quite a few – they would make lots of money from it. Otherwise, well, we weren't going to die if we were denied such things, so there really wasn't anything to protest against. They would just tell us, ”don't purchase the surgery/product/service then.”

And that was within their rights to do so. They had to make a living.

”Still, I appreciate it.”

Dong Fang Yue Chu was smiling gratefully.

”I didn't expect you to help me take revenge and beat them up for me. Really…thank you.”

”I didn't do anything.”

”Ha ha!” Dong Fang Yue Chu burst out laughing. ”You always say that, but in truth you've done a lot more than you know.”