The food at the Unity Society manor was nothing special.
Bread, beans, mushroom soup.
Jia Xiu could guarantee, based on his dining experiences over the past two years, that none of it tasted good.
The bread was not the carefully made, almost pastry-like bread from bakeries. Compared to a staple food, it was more like a "qualified jaw exercise device," which also happened to grind your teeth.
The beans were always cooked until they were practically bean paste, with no texture to speak of, and they were incredibly salty.
The mushroom soup was usually not thick soup either, but thin and watery—and Jia Xiu did not like mushrooms.
But that was only his personal preference.
Objectively speaking, given the current material conditions, these counted as good food.
And judging from how happy little Jack looked, these foods were indeed very popular here.
In a city where supplies were relatively scarce, feeding several hundred people was no easy task.
Their treatment even rivaled that of towns in the Southern Kingdom where life was considered fairly decent.
By that measure, the Unity Society's manors had been quite successful in terms of living standards.
How exactly had they done it?
Just by farming and small workshops?
If those were all they had, they could probably barely afford the food.
But they absolutely could not afford a cook who looked anything but ordinary, whose every gesture radiated nobility, and who had a Pit Fiend serving as her guard.
Jia Xiu could now fully confirm that the Pit Fiend standing beside the cafeteria shed with an expression that warned strangers to stay away was protecting this female cook.
It always remained close to the cook, vigilantly watching every living creature that tried to approach.
It might as well have written "something's wrong here" across its