The fields in the Cube Space only needed watering once a day, and Jing Shu also fed the animals the diluted Spirit Spring just once daily. Each animal drank about a mouthful of the treated water, so the twenty or so precious drops she had taken out today could last for a good while, making the resource stretch further than she'd hoped.
After leaving the space, she sat at her computer and searched for practical farming information online. Then she went downstairs to the apartment complex's communal lawn. She found a dry, neglected corner and pulled up a thick bundle of dried grass and wild weeds, bringing the scratchy bundle back home. Entering the Cube Space again, she used her absolute control to dismantle the flimsy chicken wire cage. She laid it flat like a horizontal grid and suspended it about ten centimeters above the soil floor. She then carefully fashioned fifteen little nesting bowls from the dried grass for the hens, and made smaller, cozier nests for the ducks and quails from the softer strands.
This way, the chickens would be encouraged to lay their eggs inside the nests, while their droppings would fall straight through the wire grid onto the ground below, keeping the eggs clean. After a few days, once the droppings dried out a bit, she could scoop them up and mix them into the pig feed. A sudden, useful inspiration struck her.
According to what she'd read, pigs actually benefited from eating some chicken manure, as it could provide extra nutrients. This way, she wouldn't have to worry about finding a place to dump the chicken waste. However, the future problem of pig, cow, and sheep manure piling up might be a bigger issue to solve later.
She added more grain and fresh water for all her little creatures. Then she left the Cube Space and sat on her bed, beginning to practice her Rubik's Cube diligently. The 5x5 cube clicked and turned in her hands. Mastering it wasn't something that could be done overnight, and sometimes luck played a role in a fast solve. But the only thing she could do was keep practicing, building muscle memory until skill came naturally. She hoped to upgrade the Cube Space to the fifth level before the apocalypse arrived. Every second shaved off her time was a step toward more security.
On November 3, the third day after her rebirth, she woke early to the sound of her parents moving around in the kitchen. Going for a morning jog left her parents astonished, exchanging looks. In reality, her main task during the jog was disposing of manure. She had a system. Each time she passed a large public garbage dumpster on her route, she'd stop, pretend to stretch, and touch the side of the bin. She'd instantly make a large load of accumulated animal waste from her space vanish into its depths before moving on to the next bin a few blocks away.
As expected, anything produced by the Cube Space was of the highest quality, and the Spirit Spring was incredibly effective, perhaps too effective.
When she'd inspected the space that morning, a thick, fresh layer of manure already covered the ground beneath the suspended cages. This made the once spacious sections feel crowded and pungent. The female cow, sheep, and pig had all grown noticeably larger in just a day, their sides rounder. They were groaning with what seemed like constant hunger. The males had grown slightly but didn't seem as ravenous. She'd hurriedly fed them all with more fodder and refilled their water.
The chickens, ducks, and quails had laid many eggs overnight, a small bounty. The more Spirit Spring they consumed, the more eggs they seemed to produce. She carefully separated the eggs into three separate cubic meters of storage space. She left a few marked eggs in the nests to hatch naturally so she could observe how long it would take in the space's environment.
Next, due to their rapid growth, she expanded the living quarters. She allotted four more cubic meters for the cattle and sheep, and two more cubic meters for the pigs. This left only thirty one cubic meters of free, flexible space remaining. The reality of the space's limits was becoming clear.
The feed she'd been given for free was already running dangerously low, so she had to buy more today. Clearly, the Spirit Spring dramatically accelerated growth, food intake, and digestion. It was a powerful catalyst. Thankfully she hadn't rashly drunk it herself in her first life. The consequences, rapid aging or metabolic chaos, could've been unimaginable.
After clearing away the manure via her jog, she went home for breakfast. The earthy smell on her hands didn't affect her appetite in the slightest. After all, in the apocalypse, she'd eaten everything that could be eaten. This included the ubiquitous five grain bugs, which were essentially fat, protein rich maggots farmed in waste.
During the first year of extreme heat, countless livestock and people had died. Mountains of rotting food and corpses produced endless swarms of maggots, crawling everywhere. It was a sight and smell that had once made her vomit.
Back then, she'd sworn never to touch them. But when hunger left her too weak to stand and the government distribution centers handed out coarse grain buns supplemented with oil fried, braised, or stir fried five grain bugs for protein, she eventually got used to it. At the end of the day, it was still meat, and it kept you alive.
"I have suffered enough of that," she thought, sipping her tea. "I don't want my parents to suffer the same way. But watching Su Meimei eat them again in some future crisis, I wouldn't mind that at all."
Breakfast was simple and hearty. There was thick, sweet pumpkin porridge, steamed potatoes with their skins on, a small plate of crunchy garlic sprouts pickled in vinegar, and fluffy scallion pancakes as the staple.
Her father and mother had both taken the day off from work to wait at home for Uncle Sun's promised repayment. The air was tense with expectation. After finishing breakfast quickly, Jing Shu drove her new red car directly to a large feed factory on the city's industrial edge. She bought a whole truckload of different feeds, poultry mash, cattle pellets, pig grower.
After the delivery truck left the factory, she found a quiet side road, transferred it all into the Cube Space, and sent the confused driver on his way with a cash bonus. She deliberately prepared enough feed to visibly store at the villa as well. Otherwise, in the apocalypse, she'd have no logical excuse for suddenly producing feed out of nowhere.
Afterward, she navigated straight to a large aquatic breeding base on the other side of the city to buy fish and other creatures.
In her long term plan, she wanted to eventually dig a sizable pond in front of the villa. She'd raise lotus leaves, lotus roots, fish, and shrimp. Even without sunlight in the apocalypse, she could set up solar powered lamps and generate her own electricity to keep a small ecosystem alive. It would serve mainly as a cover for her hidden bounty. From time to time, she could subtly swap in fish raised inside the Cube Space, cook them, and enjoy a fresh meal without raising eyebrows.
The aquaculture base offered a dizzying array of species. She knew she couldn't buy everything, as her space simply couldn't hold that much volume of water and life.
She went to a large scale wholesale fish store on the base. She explained to the owner, a sun leathered man in waders, that she'd dug a private pond at her countryside home. She wanted to raise crayfish, river crabs, various fish, and lotus for herself and her relatives to eat, a hobby farm.
The boss initially discouraged her. He said such intensive mixed breeding in a small pond would lead to disaster, with the stronger species wiping out the weaker. But she insisted, playing the part of an optimistic amateur. This was because in her Cube Space, with her control, anything could survive and be managed.
Eventually, the boss shrugged and gave her a starter breeding package and some earnest advice. She should mentally divide the pond into zones. She should keep aggressive predator fish like bass, catfish, and mandarin fish separate from the milder ones until they grew larger. After that, they could be carefully mixed to naturally weed out the weak and diseased.
Crayfish and crabs could be raised together, he said. The crabs would eat sick or weak shrimp, acting as a natural clean up crew.
In the end, she bought a little of almost everything he had. She bought several pounds of live crayfish, a bucket of scrambling river crabs, a net of wriggling eels, a bag of muddy loaches, and assortments of crucian carp, silver carp, grass carp, and bass. She even bought some oysters, scallops, and clams for good measure.
After driving to a secluded wooded area, she pulled over. She then used her power to dig up rich, wet soil from the Cube Space fields. She spread a thick layer into a newly expanded eight cubic meter section, since loaches and crayfish preferred muddy environments. She filled it with water from the Spirit Spring's overflow. Then she released about twenty jin of wriggling, splashing fry into it. She used her will to create simple mud barriers to keep the more aggressive species separated for now.
By the time she returned home, the sun was high. It was already two o'clock in the afternoon. Her mother was in the kitchen, cooking while arguing heatedly with her father in the living room. Her voice was sharp with frustration.
Judging from the burnt smell overpowering any hopeful aroma, her mother was truly furious.
Her father sat slumped on the sofa, smoking one cigarette after another. The ashtray was full. He occasionally retorted in a defensive mumble, "He must have something important to do, or maybe he didn't see the call. There could be a reason."
"Then call him again right now," her mother shot back. "Is this not holding up our business? He promised to repay at noon. First he said he'd transfer in fifteen minutes, then he just vanished. If he can't pay, he should just say so. Why make people wait around like fools? What kind of man has no credit at all."
Her father was fuming too, puffing out smoke as he tried to argue back.