It is made from cornmeal, with cornmeal and water boiled down into a thick porridge, then scooped directly onto a plate, topped with meat gravy and covered with vegetables. As for how it looks?

Use your imagination.

However, Samuel Young didn’t care about any of that. As soon as he got a plate of sasa, he grinned, picked up the plate, and started shoveling it into his mouth...

The fast food restaurant manager who came out later was stunned by this scene. He muttered, “God knows I’m not lying. I, Richard Mason, have traveled far and wide and seen a lot in my years, but I’ve never seen anything like this.”

The manager was a kind-hearted person. Seeing Samuel Young covered in mud and eating and drinking so ravenously, he felt a pang of sympathy and specially brought him a bowl of soup, saying, “It’s free, buddy. Drink it to warm yourself up.”

Samuel Young gratefully accepted, put down his plate, gave a simple self-introduction, and took the opportunity to strike up a conversation with the manager.

When Manager Mason learned his nationality, he smiled and said, “I get it, Mr. Young. I know why you’ve come to the resort town. You’re here to look at the land in the reserve, right?”

Samuel Young had no idea what he was talking about, so he replied calmly, “How did you figure that out?”

Manager Mason shrugged and said, “It’s simple. You Chinese have money and love buying property. In fact, several groups have already come to look at the reserve land before you, and some of them were your compatriots.”

Samuel Young needed to understand the local situation, so he took out a 100-rand note and pushed it toward Mason, saying, “For the sake of the Father of the Nation and the blue buffalo, tell me about the local situation—where this is, the land situation, and so on.”

The new 100-rand note is mainly blue. On the front is South Africa’s Father of the Nation, Mandela, and on the back is the African buffalo, one of the continent’s “Big Five.” That’s why locals like to call it the blue buffalo.

Money makes things easier.

Mason happily pocketed the bill and said, “As you wish, buddy. This is the resort town, very close to Hluhluwe. If you look southeast, there’s a big lake over there. Of course, you know, that’s Lake St. Lucia...”

At this, Samuel Young realized which reserve he’d been talking about all along: the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park Reserve, in the northeast corner of South Africa.

The Cape Floristic Region Reserve where he’d been before was in the southwest corner of South Africa. In other words, the Tree of Life had carried him across the entire country in just a few seconds!

The Tree of Life is absolutely awesome!

Unlike the Cape Floristic Region Reserve, this reserve is a wetland park that formed around Lake St. Lucia. Its terrain is complex, its species are abundant, and it lies between sea level and mountains 500 meters high, consisting of a coastal plain and continental shelf, with a total area of 240,000 hectares.

Because of its extraordinary biodiversity and variety, as early as 1999 this wetland park was listed as a World Natural Heritage Site by UNESCO.

Mason continued explaining the local customs, then talked about the land in the reserve that was up for sale.

According to South Africa’s previous policies, reserve land would never be sold to private individuals.

But in the past two years, the South African government has been carrying out sweeping land reforms. Some land has been expropriated and put on the market, such as state-owned urban land, informal settlements and their surrounding areas, private plots within farms, and some reserve land.

Coincidentally, a piece of land on the edge of the Greater St. Lucia Wetland Park Reserve was included in the expropriation and sale plan, with a total area of 404 hectares and a total value of 2 million rand.

At the exchange rate, 2 million rand is about 1 million RMB, which means each hectare of land is only 2,500 RMB. Breaking it down further, the price per mu is just over 150 RMB!

Of course, South Africa is vast and sparsely populated, so land prices have always been low. But as far as Samuel Young knew, the price of agricultural land in South Africa was at least 10,000 rand per hectare, and if it was urban land, it would be much higher—500,000 rand for 10,000 square meters.

The reserve land price was only half the normal price, so it should have been snapped up.

But Mason then told him that although the price was low, the land had been listed for months with no buyers. The reason was that the land use requirements were strict: reserve land couldn’t be used for industrial or agricultural production, only for tertiary industry development, such as tourism or building a private reserve.

At this point, Samuel Young understood why the tree spirit had sent him to eat at this restaurant.

This piece of land was prepared for him—he could buy it to protect the Tree of Life.

While the two were talking, three young Black men who had been wolfing down their food in the fast food restaurant suddenly stopped eating and stared at them.

Samuel Young knew the dangers of rural South Africa. Sensing something was off, he prepared to pay and leave.

But just then, a strong young Black man pushed aside his plate and walked over.

Samuel Young started loosening up his wrists and ankles.

That way, he could run faster if he needed to.

Chapter 5: The Fountain of Life

Unexpectedly, this young man with a face full of scars wasn’t here to cause trouble. Instead, he smiled at him in a friendly way—though, because of his looks, the smile looked more like a grimace.