Standing beside the pot, Mydei stopped tending the broth and frowned at the cart and the writhing bamboo baskets. His sharp gaze fixed on them.
His nostrils twitched as he tried to identify the strange new smell in the air.
"Huh?" March 7th narrowed her pretty blue-and-pink eyes and sniffed. Disgust and curiosity mingled on her face.
"What a weird smell... Yan Huan, have you been scooping manure?" She pinched her nose.
"Could you be a little more polite?" Yan Huan hopped down from the cart and glared at her as though deeply insulted.
"I went through hell to get these top-tier ingredients! And you say they smell like shit? Where's your appreciation for fine food?"
He strode behind the cart and, under everyone's curious, wary, or speechless gazes, yanked the damp burlap off one of the bamboo baskets.
Several nearby villagers and a few bolder children stared in shock. A ripple of gasps rose around them.
Inside the basket lay a heap of slowly writhing creatures with dull metallic shells, shaped somewhere between large beetles and tiny lobsters.
Every leg looked crudely assembled from rusty little gears and metal plates. Their joints made a teeth-grating scrape as they moved.
They gave off a strange fermented smell.
Honestly, they did smell like shit.
"Whoa! Dung beetles!" March 7th jumped back half a step and clamped both hands over her mouth and nose. Her voice came out muffled between her fingers.
"Even Dan Heng wouldn't eat these!"
Dan Heng: "..."
Even the well-traveled old village chief failed to recognize them at once. He squinted, leaned closer, then hurriedly stepped back, stroking his beard in thought.
The villagers began whispering among themselves. The children peered over from a distance, curious but frightened, pointing at the basket.
"Are those... uh... dung beetles?"
"They