Upon closer inspection, there was a line of small red text under the ridiculous number of years: [Calculated based on the base account balance].

Work years are calculated based on the account balance? Qi Huan frowned, clicked on the small text, and his vision went dark again:

[Base account balance: -17,969,052]

Qi Huan felt like he was about to shatter. They sent him all the way here just to experience poverty, didn’t they?

He originally thought that being a resident of the Waste Star meant being at the bottom of the Alliance, but he had overestimated his social status. This wasn’t the bottom; it was negative seventeen levels, without even the most basic personal freedom.

After devouring two luxurious mixed rolls, Qi Huan managed to piece himself back together. To figure out where the debt came from, he started going through the details.

The debt records were similar to bank statements, listed in reverse chronological order, with the newest at the top.

The first entry was the base medical cabin usage fee, 330,000 silver coins per hour. He had been in there for 28 hours, and with the cost of medication, labor, and other medical supplies, it totaled 9,509,000 silver coins.

Qi Huan clicked his tongue. No wonder he felt something was off. In such a poor place, there was free medical care? Turns out it was all automatically billed.

Excluding this ‘life-saving fee’ of his, the rest were debts transferred from Uncle Lin Sen, which the original owner had to repay.

Most of the original owner’s debt was Uncle Lin Sen’s medical expenses, house repairs, and new kitchen equipment, totaling over five million.

The rest was Uncle Lin Sen’s debt, with the three largest amounts coming from store licenses, store equipment and renovations, and the original owner’s base quota fees. Over the years, a lot had been repaid, but there were still over three million left.

After reviewing the account details and searching the base’s announcement regulations, Qi Huan angrily took a big bite of his roll. The original owner was being double-teamed by life and the base! What base employees? They just saw the high cost-effectiveness of Waste Star natives. It was clearly feudal slavery under a new name!

In simple terms, although the base trains recruited employees, the training requires a fee. Meals and accommodation during training also need to be paid for. If you don’t have money, no problem, just put it on the tab and slowly repay it with your salary after obtaining a base work qualification.

After moving into the base, the assigned housing incurs rent, and the standard equipment provided—like the basic personal terminal Qi Huan had—also needs to be billed. Other situations, like taking a loan to open a store or damaging public base equipment, will also be added to the personal bill.

The original owner was too young to obtain a staff quota, so Uncle Lin Sen had to take a loan to open a store—store owners could get extra quotas for family or employees, but of course, it required a fee.

Each person’s total debt is converted into base work years, automatically updated on the first day of each month. Qi Huan’s 250-year contract was calculated from all these bits and pieces.

In terms of income, ordinary base employees have two fixed incomes: a base subsidy for all employees and a salary from their workplace. But combined, it’s not much, barely covering basic living needs. After paying rent, energy fees, and other expenses, there’s little left. Most people in the base still rely on the cheapest nutritional agents provided for free, which is why ‘side jobs’ like garbage picking emerged.

There are three ways to clear the debt.

The first is death. If the debtor dies, the debt is automatically transferred to relatives or descendants. If there are none, the debt is cleared thirty days after death.

The second is termination and expulsion. The base has three assessment standards for employees: security, professional ability, and base contribution. If scores fall below the standard, the employee status is revoked, and they are expelled from the base. Although the huge debt is forgiven, they lose security and face certain death against stone beasts.

Even if someone is particularly skilled and can handle stone beasts, they would live in fear as a nomad and illegal resident in the hunting zone. Without the base’s resident status, they can never set foot on other planets.

The owner of the house next to the restaurant was expelled for robbery, with all security points deducted.

As the current owner of the restaurant, Qi Huan’s residence rights are also precarious. Food ratings and customer complaints at the Command Hall can deduct the restaurant’s professional points. The Human World Restaurant’s professional points are already on the brink. If more points are deducted, the store will be closed, the contract canceled, and he will be expelled from the base.

The last way to clear the debt is naturally to ‘redeem oneself.’ Pay off the debt and reset the work contract years to zero. Then, one can freely choose, for example, to apply to migrate to other planets as a Waste Star resident.

For the original owner, who had a store, income was more flexible. The cost of goods was self-borne, and store profits were his own, making his income relatively higher than ordinary base employees, giving him a better chance to save money and pay off the debt. But opening a store is a bigger pit, with exorbitant fees. Except for a few particularly diligent and successful businesses, paying off the debt is almost impossible.

People in the discussion area say the ‘best’ choice is to lie flat, live life step by step, and work here for a lifetime.

At first, Qi Huan thought the base might be trying to cover ‘bad debts’ from ‘death’ and ‘expulsion,’ so they deliberately raised prices like rent. But after seeing most people’s comments and attitudes in the discussion area, he realized that raising prices was real, but the base managers were even more sinister than he imagined. Besides cost issues, they wanted to extinguish the hope of leaving the base with huge debts, making people ‘lie flat’ and work obediently. Only then could the entire base operate like a machine, with stable personnel and smooth operation.

The image of the stone beasts he saw at the unloading site flashed in his mind. Qi Huan felt that leaving the base might mean he wouldn’t survive three days. Lying flat was not an option. He chose to earn money and redeem himself without hesitation. His future goal was to fight for his personal and financial freedom!

With a debt of 18 million and a 250-year contract, the Alliance has 13 months and 390 days a year. It can be deduced that the original owner’s daily wage was about 184 silver coins. According to the past expense details in the bill, the daily cost of the Human World Restaurant, including rent, utilities, and management fees, was roughly 192 silver coins. If nothing was done, the debt would increase by 8 silver coins daily.

The store is self-sufficient. If the Human World Restaurant’s daily profit could reach 300 silver coins, it would take about 154 years to pay off the debt. A daily profit of 500 silver coins would take about 92 years, and 1,000 silver coins would take 46 years. If the daily profit could reach 4,500 silver coins, it would only take a little over ten years.

Calculating this way, paying off the debt wasn’t entirely hopeless. Qi Huan chewed on the remaining half of his roll, silently comforting himself.

As he was trying to reconcile with himself, a furry shadow suddenly jumped onto the table.

A kitten? Qi Huan was stunned. He had placed a board over half a person’s height at the stairway entrance, yet it managed to jump that high?

“Meow!” The little fellow squatted by the plate, gently nudging the plate’s edge with its pink paw pad, glaring at Qi Huan with its green eyes, as if accusing him of eating alone.

The chubby little furball was inexplicably cute, and Qi Huan’s heart trembled slightly. The pressure from the huge debt was temporarily kicked away.

“Want some?” He picked up the last shrimp from the plate and offered it. The kitten bit it and turned around to eat it.

“Where’s your owner?” Qi Huan reached out and poked its round back, feeling the soft warmth. It was so well-behaved, it must have an owner.

The kitten, holding the remaining half shrimp, moved a couple of steps to the table’s edge, avoiding his ‘harassing’ fingers.

“If you can’t find your owner, how about staying with me for now?” Qi Huan couldn’t help but poke it again. The kitten arched its back to dodge, continuing to eat the shrimp.

“Silence means consent,” someone propped their chin up, self-satisfied, and stamped the equation. But in his heart, he was planning to post a notice to find the owner tomorrow morning. Such a cute little fellow, losing it would surely make someone anxious, right?

Interrupted by the little fellow, Qi Huan realized it was getting late. He quickly stood up to clean the dishes and tidy the kitchen.

He originally planned to continue looking at the original owner’s other data before sleeping, but he was too tired from getting up early and running around all day. As soon as his head hit the pillow, he fell asleep.

When he woke up again, it was already bright outside.

Twenty-two hours a day just didn’t feel enough. Qi Huan yawned as he got up, prepared food for the hungry, meowing kitten, and wrote a notice to find the little fellow’s owner. By the time he was done, it was almost ten o’clock. He grabbed two tubes of nutritional agents, stuffed them in his pocket, and ran towards the ingredient store.

When Qi Huan arrived at the ingredient store, the Wan brothers were discussing something at the counter. Seeing him come over, Wan Laoda nodded, and Wan Laoer cheerfully led him to the unloading site in the backyard.

Wan Laoer was very talkative, explaining the situation as they walked.

The unloading site mainly had two functions. One was cutting. The meat beasts transported from other star domains were usually large and needed to be cut into smaller pieces for sale.

The second was what Qi Huan saw yesterday afternoon, helping hunting teams disassemble stone beasts.

Cutting food ingredients was usually done in the morning. At this time, the hunting teams were either still in the hunting zone or sleeping. In the afternoon, if hunting teams came, they would disassemble stone beasts; if not, they would continue cutting.

When they entered, a cart of thawed beast meat was already piled up in the yard. The disassembly master, Lao Wu, was splashing water and sharpening knives. Wan Laoer introduced them and indicated for Qi Huan to learn from Lao Wu before turning back to the front yard.

Seeing another set of knives and a sharpening stone beside him, Qi Huan also started sharpening his knife.

He hadn’t dealt with stone beasts before, but he was no stranger to skinning and deboning. Many ancient recipes required these skills, like the “Red Sheep Branch Staff” that required “cutting a sheep into four parts,” or more challenging ones like deboning without breaking the skin, such as pigeon wings, eight-treasure gourd duck, and braised whole pig head. In the past, to perfect these dishes, he had studied the skeletal structure of ingredients and honed his knife skills.

“I heard you run a restaurant?” Lao Wu suddenly spoke as Qi Huan was focused on sharpening his knife.

“Yeah, but business isn’t good. I owe Uncle Wan for ingredients and can’t pay back. I hurt my hand recently, so I thought I’d help out here for a couple of days.” Qi Huan straightforwardly explained his situation to Lao Wu, including his ‘amnesia,’ to avoid future confusion about his lack of common knowledge.

He wanted this job partly because it was an affiliated business of the ingredient store. Working under Uncle Wan’s watchful eye would reassure him, showing his sincerity in repaying the debt and providing a short-term stable way to pay it off. He also wanted to take the opportunity to familiarize himself with the world’s ingredients.

When he was buying things yesterday afternoon, he realized he knew too little about this world’s ingredients. Given his current financial situation, buying ingredients to experiment with like before wasn’t realistic. This opportunity was like a gift from heaven.

Moreover, being close to the source, if the ingredient store had any discounted good stuff, he could snag a bargain, improve his cooking skills, and nourish himself. In short, it was a win-win situation.

“You only have one right hand. Can you manage?” Lao Wu glanced at his splinted left arm.

“I can’t compare to you in speed, but I should be better than Uncle Wan and his brother.” Qi Huan smiled brightly, his amber eyes sparkling with clarity. “I’ll try today. If you think I can’t do it, I won’t come tomorrow.”

Lao Wu was momentarily dazzled by his smile, frowned slightly, but ultimately said nothing more.

After sharpening the knives, they donned protective clothing and began working.

Today’s task was to disassemble a cart of Kui beasts. The heads had already been removed, and they were split into large halves, each about two to three meters long, covered in palm-sized gray-black scales.

They needed to remove the scales first. The rest was similar to cutting pork or lamb, using a saw to make large cuts into sections like the front, belly, ribs, back, and tail, then manually doing finer disassembly.

Lao Wu took half a piece to demonstrate the fine disassembly. People here didn’t eat bones at all, discarding claws, tails, and spines, and even removing the meat between ribs.

After watching once, Qi Huan started working on his own.

Two and a half hours later, Wan Laoer came to change the meat storage freezer. Qi Huan was using a fixture and his knee to press down and leverage to remove scales, his knife movements clumsy and slow. Lao Wu was already on his third piece, while Qi Huan hadn’t finished half of his.

No good, too slow. Wan Laoer shook his head. At this rate, he’d only manage to cut one piece today.

There was a one-hour break at noon. Wan Laoer brought a handful of grilled meat skewers to the backyard, giving a few to Lao Wu and two to Qi Huan, saying they were sent by a familiar restaurant for them to try.

The meat was fresh and delicious, though slightly overcooked, it had a surprisingly charred aroma, and the taste was still good.

After finishing the skewers and drinking the nutritional agents he brought, Qi Huan put on the hot protective clothing again and squatted next to the half-done Kui beast. Lao Wu glanced at his back a few times but said nothing, quietly resting in the shadowed corner of the yard.

In the afternoon, no hunting teams came, so the two of them spent the afternoon cutting Kui beasts. Wan Laoer had been mentally drafting a ‘dismissal’ speech for Qi Huan, but when he walked to the backyard, he was stunned.

Qi Huan’s freezer had two whole pieces of beast meat!

How was that possible? In the morning, he had only cut half a piece.

Did Lao Wu help him? Wan Laoer suspiciously looked at the other freezer, where three and a half pieces were piled, adding up to six pieces for the day, Lao Wu’s normal speed.

This kid, on his first day, managed to cut two and a half pieces? And with his left hand not fully functional! Wan Laoer rubbed his chin and immediately put on a smiling face, “Kid, how did you suddenly get so fast?”

“Just practice,” Qi Huan wiped the sweat from his cheek. Initially unfamiliar with the bone positions and muscle directions, he spent extra time studying them.

“Good, good.” Wan Laoer cheerfully patted his shoulder. A chef was indeed different, with some basic knife skills.

The pay for cutting beast meat was commission-based, more work, more pay. Qi Huan’s first-day pay was 38 silver coins. He only took 8 silver coins, leaving the rest for Wan Laoer to offset his debt.

After finishing work, they needed to clean the used tools and stone tables. Qi Huan was mimicking Lao Wu’s way of scrubbing the stone table when he saw Wan Laoer sweeping the removed scales, bones, beast feet, and tails into a cart and pushing it towards the garbage disposal well at the back door.

“Wait,” Qi Huan ran over and stopped Wan Laoer, “Are you throwing these away?”

Wan Laoer laughed, “They’re not stone beast bones, what’s the use of keeping them?”

“If you don’t want them, can you give them to me?” Qi Huan looked at him with hopeful eyes.