Culinary God in Wilderness

Chapter 404: Chapter 251: A Man-eating Nation (Part 2)

"Hey guys, keep an eye on these fries for me. I’m gonna use the restroom."

He followed Erica to the edge of the stream. It wasn’t far from the grill, so they could return at any moment, and the constant sound of the water would help muffle their conversation.

"What’s so secretive that we had to sneak away to talk about it?"

"Didn’t you mention before that you wanted to win the prize money, buy a manor in America, and then invest in a business catering to tourists?"

"Yeah, is there a problem with that?"

Lin Chen nodded, a look of confusion in his eyes.

"A huge problem."

For once, Erica wasn’t giggling and joking around. She continued with a serious expression, "Do you know anything about American law?"

"Of course not."

"Let me put it simply. I don’t recommend you come to America. If that’s what you want to do, I’d strongly suggest you find a suitable place in Canada instead."

"Why do you say that?"

He was surprised; he never would have expected Erica to suddenly bring this up.

"It’s actually very simple. The system in America is much stricter than in Canada. Do you know why the total number of homeless people in America stays around several hundred thousand every year?"

Before he could say anything, Erica said, "It’s because of the ’execution line.’"

"Here, you can only sleep soundly if you squeeze into the top twenty percent of income earners. The middle is called the blue-collar class, which, to put it bluntly, are skilled laborers. They’re replaceable, their income isn’t high, and if any accident happens, they could become homeless at any moment."

"Speaking of which, that brings us to a topic you should be very interested in: property tax."

"The property tax here is much higher than in Canada. The average is over 1%, some states even exceed 2%, and the highest has been 3%. What does that mean? It means for a house worth a million US Dollars, you have to pay ten to twenty thousand US Dollars every year just to live in it."

"For a studio apartment or an older, smaller house, the median price hovers around five hundred thousand, getting more expensive the closer you are to the city center. It’s also affected by facilities like schools and hospitals."

"And the manor you want to buy, you said yourself it would be at least five million. That means you’d have to pay around one hundred thousand a year in property tax."

"If your steady income or savings can’t guarantee you can pay that for a lifetime, or if you get into a car accident, get sick, and receive an astronomical bill from the hospital and insurance company, you’ll face the possibility of becoming homeless."

"In America, to earn an income, you first need a job. To find a job, you need a house to provide an address. If you can’t afford the massive bills, or if you pay them but then can’t afford the property tax, or if you simply refuse to pay, your house will be seized and auctioned off. Then you lose your status as a resident and become a homeless person."

"A homeless person can’t find a job, nor can they rent a place. They can only sleep on the streets or in the sewers. These people are called ’Mole People.’"

"Sometimes, sanitation workers clean the sewers with highly corrosive chemicals. These people get corroded into chunks of flesh, mixing with the sewer sludge to be forever buried in the sunless depths."

"Or when it storms, the water rises, and they drown. These things are very common."

"And you think it’s over when you die? No. If your body is preserved intact, it’s treated as a commodity and sold to hospitals for things like, but not limited to, making specimens, medical research, or even just for cash."

"All of this can happen simply because you can’t pay your property tax. Once you fail to pay, you fall below the execution line, and it’s almost impossible to climb back out unless someone is willing to pull you up."

"Once you become homeless, you’ll most likely die within three to six years."

"However, since you’re one of the Da Xia People, it would be a bit better for you. You wouldn’t face the same troubles as a local. But why take such a huge risk when you could just go to Canada?"

"The property tax there is only around 0.2% to 0.8%. The healthcare and welfare system is also more people-friendly and won’t hit you with astronomical medical bills. Although they have an execution line too, the difficulty of survival is definitely lower than it is here."

"You’ve already been surviving over there for several years now. Conditions are definitely more suitable for you there in every way. There’s no need to take a risk and come over here to waste your money."

After hearing everything she said, Lin Chen was stunned speechless, his eyes wide with shock.

’What is all this? Is it still the 21st century?’

’Why does it sound like some giant, man-eating amusement park from hell?’

He opened his mouth and asked with some difficulty, "Why are you suddenly telling me all this?"

"Because I don’t want anything to happen to you. Plus, I still want to try the Daxia Cuisine you make yourself. If you win the competition, get a rush of blood to the head, and run over here with your only six million US Dollars to invest in a business, you’d probably be on the streets in less than half a year."

Two percent versus zero-point-two percent. That was a tenfold difference.

For a five-million-dollar manor, the annual property tax was the difference between one hundred thousand and ten thousand.

With his current fame and skill, ten thousand a year wasn’t a difficult task—it was actually quite simple. It would average out to only about eight hundred a month.

But if you added in other expenses like insurance and healthcare, it was still an outrageous amount.

But in America, the monthly payment would skyrocket to over ten thousand.

’What normal person could afford an expense of ten thousand US Dollars every month? And that didn’t even include living expenses, the costs of raising children, or even a mortgage.’

He used to think from watching videos online that homeless people were all just lazy and unwilling to work. Now, after hearing Erica’s explanation, he understood that anyone could become homeless.

One second you could be a white-collar worker or a member of the social elite; the next, you could be bankrupt and homeless.

’A man-eating country like this... maybe I just shouldn’t go?’

Erica’s description completely shattered his image of America, instantly transforming it from the world’s number-one superpower into the eighteenth level of hell, teeming with man-eating demons.

"You guys probably like playing video games and watching anime, right? Do you know the monster called a Slime?"

"Of course. Isn’t that, like, the most basic monster in a Western fantasy setting?"

"Then do you know what the prototype for the Slime was? Or rather, where the inspiration came from?"

’The prototype... for a Slime?’

He knew, of course, that all fictional creatures in the world must have some real-world reference. When he was younger, playing games like World of Warcraft and watching anime, he had always found it strange that the monsters in Western fantasy settings were all so bizarrely shaped and hideously ugly.

Now that Erica brought it up, a bold and unsettling thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.

’Slimes are known for living in rotten, stinking, sunless sewers or underground labyrinths. It was no secret that America’s underground drainage systems are vast and complex, often serving as the theme for many horror and monster movies.’

’Connecting that with what she had just said, the prototype for the Slime... could it be the fleshy sludge formed from the bodies of ’Mole People’ washed into the sewers?’

"BLECH..."

He clapped a hand over his mouth and dry-heaved a couple of times, quickly raising his other hand in a gesture to stop her. "Don’t say any more. I get what you mean."

"But aren’t you of mixed European-American descent? If the living conditions here are so bad, why don’t you go back to Europe?"

"Go ask my mom."

’A green card through marriage?’

’No wonder. That really is the most convenient way to get residency status.’

And if she hadn’t told him these things herself, he never would have known America was a country like this. They always projected an image of being number one in the world. People who were deceived by that facade would only feel the pressure after immigrating and living there for a while.

’To put it bluntly, they trick people into coming, then squeeze every last drop of value out of you.’

’This was indeed a classic tactic of the Western media.’

Then again, given her parents’ social status and income, her family probably didn’t have to worry too much about these problems.

"You didn’t tell me all this just because you want to eat my cooking, did you? What’s your goal?"