Lord: Starting with Biological Modification

Chapter 233: Chapter 228: When Sugar Comes Knocking

The next morning, a large warehouse in the west district of Newly Town was temporarily cleared out.

It was originally used to store dried lumber and linen.

For the rehearsal, the warehouse windows were covered with thick cloth, leaving only a few high windows to let in the daylight, keeping the interior from being too dim.

A dozen or so people, recruited from Mi Port and locally from Newly Town, stood awkwardly in the vast, empty space.

Their expressions varied; some were curious, others nervous, but most were just bewildered.

The poet, who made a living by telling stories on the docks, habitually puffed out his chest, trying to affect the air of a scholar, but his faded, threadbare sleeves and constantly fiddling fingers betrayed his destitution.

The booming-voiced porter, on the other hand, seemed out of place. He stood rooted to the spot like a wooden post, finding everything around him novel.

As far as they knew, theater was heroic epics sung by bards in taverns or pastimes for noble lords to enjoy in their castles. People like them had never imagined in their lives that they would have anything to do with "performing."

Tristan stood in the shadows of a warehouse corner, watching this motley crew of "actors" with a heart full of doubt.

’Can these people really achieve the effect Lord Velin expects?’

The wooden door of the warehouse creaked open.

Velin walked in.

He was holding a thick, leather-bound notebook—the very script of *When Sugar Comes Knocking*, which he had written himself.

The moment he appeared, the noisy chatter in the warehouse died down. All eyes converged on him.

"Welcome, everyone." Velin’s voice echoed in the empty warehouse, clear and calm. "Starting today, you are the first theater troupe of the Grey Marsh Territory."

He wasted no time on pleasantries, walking directly to the center of the warehouse and placing the leather-bound notebook on an overturned wooden crate.

"I know what you’re thinking." His gaze swept over each person. "You think acting is for the lords in their castles. But you’re wrong."

He paused. "This play of ours is for everyone in town. For the masons who build the walls, for the porters who haul sacks on the docks, and for your own families and neighbors."

His words caused a stir of repressed commotion in the crowd.

"P-perform for those mud-legs?" The poet was the first to blurt out, thinking it was utterly preposterous. "My lord, they won’t understand it! They can’t even recognize their own names, how could they possibly understand theater!"

"You’re right," Velin said, nodding at him. "That’s why we won’t tell stories they can’t understand. We’ll perform their own stories."

He opened the leather-bound notebook.

"The protagonist of this play isn’t some dragon-slaying hero, nor is he a King wearing a crown. His name is Tumo, and he’s a farmer."

"Tumo?" The booming-voiced porter froze for a moment, then blurted out, "You mean Tumo, the owner of ’Brothers, Boars, and Booze’ who lives in Barrel Building Three?"

"The very same," Velin confirmed. "But this is Tumo before he opened the tavern."

At this, everyone fell silent.

Tumo?

Many of them knew the man, or had at least heard of him.

A lucky soul who went from being a refugee to the owner of the town’s first tavern, one step at a time.

But what was there to make a play about?

His life was like a roadside stone—hard, to be sure, but hardly anything special.

Velin ignored their astonishment and began to narrate the story.

"Tumo, a villager from Gray Mist Village. When I first arrived, his family was destitute, living in a shack that could leak at any moment..."

Velin recounted Tumo’s story in detail.

He told them how Tumo, in pursuit of merit points, had ignored everyone’s ridicule and led his companions to reclaim that hard, saline land.

He told them of Tumo’s wife, Anna, who had traded their family’s last rations for meat to quietly make soup for them.

He also recounted a new scene he had added to the script.

"...Because the harvest had failed completely, Tumo’s family hadn’t eaten for a whole day. Night fell, and there was nothing in the house to eat. Little Stone’s stomach was growling, and he cried that he was so hungry. Tumo held him tight and told him they were playing a game about bears. He said they were a papa bear and a baby bear who couldn’t find food. Winter was coming, and they had to start hibernating. Whoever could close their eyes, stay quiet to save their strength, and sleep until morning would be the most capable bear in the forest."

At this point, Velin paused.

The warehouse was silent, save for a few ragged breaths.

The porter’s eyes were a little red-rimmed.

Velin sighed in relief internally.

’*The Pursuit of Happyness*, a classic film from his past life that had earned an Oscar nomination, truly had a universally powerful core. The story of a father struggling and fighting in a desperate situation for his son’s future—that was a tale that could transcend any cultural barrier. Even though I changed ’no money’ to ’no food’ and replaced the bone-density scanner with sugar, the core emotional impact remains the same. These people, who had spent their entire lives struggling to survive, might not understand art, but they definitely understood fatherly love, despair, and hope. It might not go down in history, but using this story to deliver a small jolt to the spirit in this spiritually impoverished land would absolutely be enough.’

"Later," Velin continued, "he exchanged his blood and sweat for that jar of sugar, then traded the sugar for a draft ox and labor, and step by step, he opened his tavern, allowing Little Stone to live a life with a full belly and warm clothes."

The story was over.

Many people present recalled the incident from a few months ago that had caused a sensation throughout the town.

They remembered the sight of a man with a hunched back, carrying a huge jar of sugar, his figure receding into the sunset.

So that was the struggle and sorrow behind that jar of sugar.

"Now," Velin said, closing the notebook, "we perform it."

He pointed to the booming-voiced porter.

"You will play Tumo."

"Me?" The porter pointed at his own nose, his face a mask of confusion. "But... but Tumo’s a farmer, and I’m... I’m just a guy who moves things."

"Have you ever carried the heaviest cargo?" Velin asked.

"Of course! A two-hundred-pound sack of salt! I can carry one all the way from the docks to the very back of the warehouse!" The porter instinctively puffed out his chest; it was his greatest source of pride.

"Excellent." Velin pulled him to the center of the open space.

"Act one. You and your friends have decided to reclaim the wasteland. A technician tells you the land is hard as rock, that nothing can grow there. You’re tired, you’re hungry, but you know this is your only chance to earn merit points quickly. You need to act out that exhaustion, but your eyes can’t be empty."

The porter stood there stiffly. He tried to imitate a farmer from memory, hunching his body and forcing an exhausted expression onto his face.

"I... I’m very tired," he said dryly.

Velin shook his head.

"Wrong. Don’t say it with your mouth."

"Tell me with your body."

He walked up to the porter and stared into his eyes.

"That two-hundred-pound sack of salt—the moment you finally carry it to its destination and set it down, what do your shoulders feel like?"

The porter subconsciously rolled his shoulders. It was a memory of an ache that went bone-deep.

"That’s the feeling," Velin’s voice was calm.

"Now, take that feeling in your shoulders and put it in your whole body. Your legs, your back, your arms. You’re not acting like a tired person. You *are* Tumo, who’s been digging in rocky ground all day and can barely lift a finger."

"Forget this is a warehouse. Forget about us. All you see is a shovel. Grip it tight. Do this, and your son, Little Stone, will have enough to eat in the future."

The porter closed his eyes, his breathing heavy and ragged.

When he opened his eyes again, his expression had changed.

It was the look of a man crushed to his absolute limit by exhaustion and hunger, with only a final, feral spark of fire left, burning for survival.

His back was hunched, but it wasn’t a curve of weakness. It was a bow, drawn taut by reality.

Tristan watched from the shadows. He saw the clumsy porter transform, as if he had truly become another person under the guidance of Velin’s few words.

"Now, the next scene," Velin’s voice rang out again.

Velin watched him intently.

"You have to make everyone who watches you want to cry."

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