"These are baked and also deep-fried buns," Old Niu was enthusiastically distributing chunks of yellowed Dry Cake around. Dry Cake is essentially buns sliced into pieces, the entirely golden ones having been deep-fried, with parts golden and parts slightly blackened—those were baked.
This was the dry food that Boss Niu asked the villagers to prepare. Of course, it wasn't just these; there were also dry cakes made overnight by the villagers, simple packaged cakes from the village store that crumbled upon a single bite, and items like instant noodles and eight-treasure porridge, which were considered the better options.
There were too many people, so, realistically, nothing else could be prepared. The villagers carried over several large kettles, filled with water boiled early in the morning. Some pots contained dandelion root tea or the newly harvested and processed Willow leaf tea from spring.
