The evening news reported that in two years, to boost domestic tourism, the government would implement a new policy. During all public holidays, tickets for national tourist spots, special shuttle bus services, and highway tolls would all be free.
Grandpa Jing immediately declared he was planning to take a plane to climb the perilous peaks of Mount Hua. Jing's Dad, in contrast, said he just wanted to take a slow train to a quiet beach and see the sea.
Grandpa Jing scolded Jing An for living a "twilight life," seeking boring comfort at such a relatively young age. Jing An fired back that when you're old, you shouldn't seek unnecessary thrills. You should just go somewhere safe, calm, and relaxing.
"I absolutely refuse to let you go to such dangerous places at your age," Jing An insisted, playing the concerned son.
"I still refuse to let you go somewhere so boring and lifeless," Grandpa Jing retorted. "What's so interesting about the sea? You have stared at the home water tank for decades, isn't that enough water for you?"
Jing Shu covered her face with her hand, listening to them argue so seriously about trips that hadn't happened and, after the apocalypse began in two months, would almost certainly never happen at all. Why did they insist on debating hypothetical vacations with such passion? Neither could persuade the other. Couldn't they just agree to go their separate ways and be done with it?
The news segment that followed described a real life case of a couple who fantasized about winning five million yuan in the lottery, then got into a violent fight and threatened divorce over "unequal distribution of the imaginary money." Jing Shu hadn't really believed such stories before, but now, watching her father and grandfather, she absolutely did.
This was probably just a fundamental clash of values and personality, and in such clashes, a winner must emerge, even if the victory was pointless.
Although Jing An ended up being "verbally hammered by his father and later scolded by his wife" for arguing, he still stubbornly insisted on his core principle, "You may restrict my body, but you can't restrict my heart and my dreams."
Jing An was stubborn at heart, a trait he inherited directly from Grandpa Jing. But only Su Lanzhi could truly control him, just as only Grandma Jing could handle Grandpa Jing's fiery temper. Some forces could only be checked by an equal and opposite force.
Ah, phew, more public displays of affection and familial headbutting.
During these days with her grandparents visiting, Jing's Dad and Grandpa Jing held what amounted to nightly debate competitions. Even though Jing's Dad always lost on technicalities and filial piety rules, he managed to irritate the old man thoroughly each time.
Finally, on November 21, after Jing Shu spent several intensely busy days preparing everything at the villa, she moved her grandparents there, far away from Jing's Dad's apartment, and formally began her live streamed cooking and pickling plan.
In reality, behind the scenes, Jing Shu had been incredibly busy. She had to gather the final batches of raw materials, monitor the Sun Yinrui incident as it unfolded in the news and online, and keep a wary eye on her little aunt Su Meimei, who kept coming to their apartment to freeload meals and stir up drama.
Su Lanzhi was clearly deeply disappointed in Su Meimei now, dealing with her with a new, firm coldness and indifference. Since there hadn't been a tragic death of the eldest uncle's family in this timeline to trigger guilt, Su Lanzhi had no reason to soften, and her anger at her sister's selfishness remained unresolved.
Jing Shu didn't know what Su Meimei's ultimate purpose was with these visits. The two bedroom apartment was already cramped with the family, and Su Meimei would come to join in, eat their food, and ask probing questions. Perhaps she was trying to spy on the situation with Sun Yinrui, given their affair. But there might be another, more calculating intention.
Every day Su Meimei came, she cried and complained. She revealed she had transferred the little BMW into her own name, a car she had never even gotten to drive, only for Zhang Zhongyong to immediately take the keys. A few days later, Zhang Zhongyong returned home in his Audi. So where did the little BMW go? Zhang Zhongyong casually said a friend had borrowed it for a few days. Su Meimei didn't believe him for a second.
"It must have been given to some seductive fox spirit," Su Meimei wailed. Yet, paradoxically, she still clung to a shred of hope and desperately wanted to uncover the humiliating truth. She even talked about hiring a private investigator to track Zhang Zhongyong.
"Sister, my own sister, I'm so wronged. The money I saved to buy my own car was taken by that bastard to please some other woman. You have to help me. Let us catch him in the act, catch him cheating, and beat that fox spirit senseless."
Su Lanzhi naturally refused to get involved in such a messy, potentially violent scheme. Su Meimei, angry that her sister wouldn't help, argued with Su Lanzhi again, their voices rising. Jing Shu and Jing An took turns stepping in to help Su Lanzhi deflect the pressure. Finally, Su Meimei stormed off, furious at Jing Shu's entire family for not helping in her time of perceived need.
"Lao Sun had been right," she muttered as she left. "This family had changed. They're all selfish now."
Meanwhile, Sun Yinrui had turned visibly gray overnight, the stress aging him suddenly by eight or nine years. He hated the anonymous marketers orchestrating his downfall, wondering why they didn't just expose everything at once to give him a clean, if brutal, slate.
Those people were ruthless. Each time they revealed small, nagging scandals, like scattered chicken droppings, then at the crucial moment, they'd tease, "To be continued next time." The online public was left impatiently waiting, tuning in nightly to see what new wickedness the villain had done.
The worst part was Sun Yinrui still didn't know how much evidence they had on him. Just a few days ago, he had publicly denied ever owing anyone money, only to be immediately slapped in the face with the recorded call and transfer proof. The bribery evidence had struck him like a physical blow to the chest.
Yesterday he did a desperate PR stunt denying he ever sold customer information. Today, someone who had bought customer information from him in the past came forward and exposed him again with transaction records.
The police had officially registered the case, investigating him for intimidation, embezzlement, and even hints of illegal gun possession from old, boastful comments. Two officers now followed him twenty four seven to prevent him from fleeing the city or hiding assets.
Sun Yinrui couldn't curse publicly, couldn't hit his "unlucky kid" son anymore, couldn't hide assets. He could only smile painfully while driving the officers around, continue trying to work, and ignore the judgmental, sidelong glances from everyone around him. Otherwise, the police could act on their suspicions at any time.
Sun Yinrui felt as anxious as a student awaiting life changing exam results, or a patient awaiting a terminal cancer diagnosis. One piece of proof after another fell. He just wanted a clean, final blow, not this ongoing, torturous drip feed of disgrace.
In stark comparison, Jing Shu was living fully, productively, building her future.
First, she completed the final upgrades to the fortress villa. In the 8 square meter, 3 meter deep pond now lined with tile, she planted lotus roots that were already sending up leaves and would bloom with flowers. She released mature Chinese mitten crabs, crayfish, eels, loaches, aggressive black fish, catfish, grouper, and even added some oysters, scallops, and abalone for variety.
Jing Shu reserved a backup supply, about 2 cubic meters worth of assorted young fish fry in the Cube Space, as a precaution.
She had initially worried that mixing predatory black fish and catfish with the others would lead to them eating all the smaller fish, but it proved unnecessary. After receiving one drop of Spirit Spring in the pond water daily, all the fish became incredibly energetic, as if on adrenaline. Even the normally timid crucian carp fought fiercely with the bass, following the stark law of the jungle. The ecosystem would find its own balance.
The fry were large, healthy, and grew quickly, producing a new batch to harvest every 20 days within the Cube Space's ideal conditions.
In the cultivated soil beds to the left of the yard, she planted potatoes, Chinese yams, onions, garlic, sugarcane, and sweet potatoes, all grown from stock nurtured in the Cube Space. These seeds and tubers had been gifts from the kind seed shop owner and had fully matured in the space in less than a month. She left some empty ground purposely for Grandpa Jing to plant whatever else he fancied, to give him a sense of purpose.
In the villa's front yard chicken coop and shed, she visibly kept seven chickens, two ducks, three rabbits, and twenty quails as a cover. After several days of accelerated breeding in the Cube Space, the actual numbers were much higher, the rabbits had increased to around forty, quails to over 200, chickens to more than sixty, and ducks to forty. But only a representative sample lived outside.
The pregnant sows and ewes were left alone in their Cube Space sections for now. Once all the current vegetables were processed into pickles, Jing Shu planned to process most of the chickens, ducks, quails, rabbits, cows, sheep, and pigs into preserved foods like dried beef, spicy rabbit cubes, stuffed duck, and braised chicken, keeping only a small breeding portion of each, and rotate new batches as needed.
The newly converted upstairs greenhouse was prepared for future fruit cultivation, ensuring a supply of fresh fruit during the barren apocalypse years. Once the vegetable pickling marathon was done, she'd transplant fruit plants and vines there.
The vegetable plots in the Cube Space, recently cleared, were already filled again with a new planting. She had harvested three full batches already, storing the excess in stacks of 60 liter sealed containers, all ready to be made into pickles immediately.
Jing Shu also took a truck to the industrial outskirts and bought 4 tons of high density, long burning coal, spending 5,000 yuan to fill the two story coal storage room at the back of the villa to the ceiling. Wu City's province was a major coal producing area in China, making it cheap and high quality. A normal rural boiler needed only about half a ton to get through an entire winter. Considering the apocalypse could bring several years of extreme cold, and cooking would also require coal, she bought a large surplus. It was a solid, tangible form of security.