Two or three li north of the yizhuang, there lay the Bian River, which ran through the city of Kaifeng. On this stretch of the river was a dock where many goods entering and leaving Kaifeng would stop, be traded, and so on. Over time, a bustling town gradually formed here, called Bianhe Town, and this was also the main area of activity for James Thompson and his group of orphans.

James Thompson and his companions headed straight for the dock. It was still before dawn, but quite a few people had already gathered there. Most of them were laborers carrying heavy sacks at the dock, waiting for the foremen to come and pick workers for loading and unloading as soon as daylight broke. Wages were settled daily, and this was how they made their living.

Henry Clark hunched his neck as he came to an open space by the dock, where many laborers like him had already gathered. Henry Clark's surname was Niu, and he was as sturdy as an ox. As the foremen would say, he was born for this line of work. While others could only carry one sack at a time, he could carry two. Since laborers were paid by the amount they carried, he naturally earned more than the others.

However, though Henry Clark was tall and strong, his appetite was also twice that of a normal person. So after several years, he was still dirt poor. When there was work, he ate his fill; when there wasn't, he made do with thin gruel. He could barely feed himself, let alone save up to marry a wife.

It was just the beginning of spring, the busiest time for river transport, so Henry Clark wasn't worried about not having work. At the moment, he was clutching the ten wen in his pocket, calculating how to spend it. This ten wen was his meal money for the day, and he had to eat his fill in the morning, or else he wouldn't have the strength to work. The dock's steamed buns cost one wen for two, and he could eat four or five in one go, plus a bowl of pickled vegetable soup. After all, theirs was hard physical labor—without salt, there was no strength. But now that salt prices had gone up, the pickled vegetable soup sold by Old Smith had also increased in price, costing two wen a bowl. It was simply outrageous.

"Steamed buns~ Freshly steamed buns!" Just as Henry Clark was cursing Old Smith in his heart for being so greedy, he suddenly heard a familiar vendor's cry. This instantly perked up all the laborers waiting for work. The bun seller's surname was Liu, known as Baker Foster. His buns were not only chewy and delicious, but also substantial. Most of the dock laborers liked to buy a few buns from him in the morning to fill up.

As soon as Baker Foster started hawking, Henry Clark and the other laborers immediately crowded around. The big, soft buns were one wen for two; while others could get full on two, Henry Clark needed four or five.

"What smells so good?" Just as Henry Clark and his group were buying buns, they suddenly caught a whiff of a strange, delicious aroma. Right after, they heard a child's clear voice hawking: "Zheluo~ One wen for a big ladle, with both vegetables and meat!"

At first, Henry Clark and the others thought it was just a kid fooling around. They had no idea what zheluo was, and the idea of getting both vegetables and meat for one wen seemed impossible—after all, even Old Smith's pickled vegetable soup cost two wen a bowl.

But soon they saw that just behind and to the right of Baker Foster's stall, a few children in shabby but very clean clothes were energetically hawking their wares. Behind them, a large pot sat atop a makeshift stove built from bricks, steaming hot and giving off that strange, delicious aroma they had just smelled.

James Thompson sat on a cart behind the stove, calmly watching Billy and the others hawk their goods. The so-called "zheluo" was actually a big hodgepodge of leftover dishes and rice mixed together. In James Thompson's era, not many people knew this name, but if you went back a few decades, quite a few would recognize it. Many restaurants would combine their leftovers, reheat them, and sell them. Since there were both vegetables and meat, and most importantly, it was cheap, it was very popular among poor families. Today, he was counting on zheluo to earn his first bucket of gold since arriving in the Northern Song.

Chapter Five: Pig Offal

The zheluo made from restaurant leftovers had almost disappeared in the era when James Thompson lived. Except for a very few people, most would never eat such a thing—after all, in most people's eyes, eating someone else's leftovers was filthy.

But dirty as it was, you had to admit that zheluo contained both vegetables and meat, and the flavors of various leftovers, once reheated and mixed, created a unique aroma, sometimes even more tempting than the original dishes. James Thompson had even deliberately set up his stall upwind, letting the aroma waft across the entire dock.

"Smells so good! Is this really one wen for a ladle?" Henry Clark sniffed the aroma drifting from the pot, and finally couldn't resist being the first to come over and ask. He was a big eater and a foodie, but he was usually too poor to eat meat more than a few times a year. Now, smelling the meat in the pot and seeing how cheap it was, he couldn't hold back.

"Honest business, no tricks! This is the handiwork of Yuefeng Restaurant on West Street. Though it's leftovers, it's cheap, and there's both meat and vegetables. Miss this chance and you won't find another!" Billy, quick-witted and sharp-tongued, saw someone interested and immediately began his enthusiastic sales pitch. He even made it clear that these were restaurant leftovers—this was James Thompson's idea, to avoid any disputes from people not knowing what they were buying.