Jing Shu knew she had to focus on growing the most valuable medicinal herbs first: things like fleeceflower root (He Shou Wu) for vitality and hair, tall gastrodia tuber (Tian Ma) for headaches and dizziness, ginseng (Ren Shen) for energy and shock, caterpillar fungus (Dong Chong Xia Cao) for lungs and kidneys, and pseudoginseng (San Qi) for stopping bleeding and reducing swelling. Whether for her own family's future health crises or for trading to save others in desperate times, these would be priceless.
She also planted a range of common, practical herbs based on memorized online guides: astragalus (Huang Qi) for immunity, purslane (Ma Chi Xian) for infections and dysentery, isatis root (Ban Lan Gen) for fevers and sore throats, honeysuckle (Jin Yin Hua) for heat-clearing, Chinese angelica (Dang Gui) for blood-building and menstrual issues, motherwort (Yi Mu Cao) for uterine health, and hawthorn (Shan Zha) for digestion. These could treat everyday ailments, and pseudoginseng and angelica could staunch bleeding and help circulation. With these growing, she would no longer have to dip into her precious Spirit Spring for every minor wound, conserving it for true emergencies.
As time passed in this broken world, the value of any real medicine would only skyrocket. Jing Shu planned to eventually trade small, carefully measured amounts of herbs for supplies that were currently impossible to get through normal channels, specialized tools, information, or even protection.
She left one of the new plots of land for everyday vegetables to replenish their fresh supply.
The other five new plots, divided into thirty individual sections, were quickly sown with fast-growing radishes and daylilies, with an expected yield of over a thousand jin (500 kg). She needed bulk produce for preservation.
During this first half-year of the apocalypse, Jing Shu intended to grow and process large quantities of vegetables. Some would be stored fresh in her Cube Space's climate-controlled environment, but the rest, the majority, she would sun-dry into vegetable and fruit preserves. That way, when she eventually had to live in crowded public shelters or during migrations, her food stores wouldn't be obviously fresh and draw lethal attention. Dried goods were mundane, expected.
The timing was perversely perfect. Only during this first year of the apocalypse, starting at the end of May, did the world enter this sustained superheat stage that would last roughly six months. After this period, such consistently extreme, dry heat would never appear again, making it impossible to sun-dry vegetables outdoors effectively. This was her one window.
This was the best, and only, time to make naturally sun-dried vegetables and fruit. The heat was so intense, the air so desiccated, that after one day spread out in the open air, all moisture was sucked from the produce. Once sealed in airtight containers and stored in a cool place, these vegetables and fruits could be rehydrated back to a semblance of freshness with a little water and would last an extremely long time. They would be the perfect, lightweight, non-perishable food to carry during the great migrations she knew were coming.
By the second year of the apocalypse, humidity would creep back in strange ways. Even clothes would stay damp, and food left out for a few days would mold. Wild fungi would sprout everywhere. At that time, unless she had an electric dehydrator (and the power to run it), making dried vegetables on a large scale would be impossible. That was why Jing Shu was driven to make as much as she could during this brutal six-month window. It was a race against the future climate.
The last six original plots were still occupied by the towering coconut trees. Though they had taken over three months to mature initially, the payoff was worth it. She could now harvest a batch of coconuts every five days. Every day, Jing Shu kept the Cube Space's Second Form active while doing other tasks, using the dual awareness to mentally prepare coconut-based treats: coconut milk pudding, coconut sticky rice, coconut jelly. Sometimes she would just mentally 'crack' one open within the space and enjoy the cool juice, a private refreshment.
Outside, the scorching heat climbed again from the low 40s°C to a relentless 50°C, and some people who had begun to adapt to the lower extremes were now collapsing from heatstroke in droves. Worst of all, water shortages had become critical, life-threatening.
At this point, a heatstroke diagnosis was almost a death sentence. Hospitals had no medicine or IV fluids. Neighbors often watched the afflicted not with pity, but like vultures, waiting for their death so they could report the corpse, drag it away for the disposal team, and collect their two precious work credits, which could be exchanged for a little extra drinking water.
This created a vicious, dehumanizing chain reaction.
Households began trading everything of non-immediate value: their last seasonings, spare bedding, extra clothing, spare knives and utensils. They used the credits earned to buy the increasingly expensive rice and water. The government's daily ration of 500 ml of water was far from enough to prevent dehydration in this heat. People were ready to sacrifice every comfort, every tool, just to survive another day.
In Jing Shu's community, residents had just received their first small allotment of work credits, but most of them had immediately exchanged it all for water. Even though they sipped it drop by drop, hoarding each milliliter, it was still not enough to counter the relentless heat draining their bodies. Only in the evenings, around five or six, when temperatures plummeted to single digits Celsius, could they feel a little relief, a brief ability to breathe.
Even Jing Shu, in her well-insulated, air-conditioned home kept at a steady 26°C, found she needed to drink over a dozen coconuts' worth of water a day, plus ice cream, yogurt shaved ice, and watermelon juice just to feel normal and offset the metabolic cost of her enhanced physique. The thirst was a constant, low-level companion.
"I wonder what Wu You'ai is eating at her teacher's place. With the city's gas supply cut, I bet they can't even cook properly." Grandma Jing's voice carried a note of genuine concern as she sorted dried daylily flowers.
"Don't worry, Grandma. I will bring her some food today. I made extra on purpose."
Jing Shu packed a large insulated box with meals from her private stock: sweet glutinous rice balls, century egg and lean pork congee, a container of braised pork belly, and a sealed five-liter barrel of mineral water. It was enough for two people for a couple of days.
She wasn't overly worried because she could monitor Wu You'ai's room from the pinhole camera feed on her phone. The image was small but clear.
Contrary to what the anesthesiologist A Lan had grimly warned, that Wu You'ai would be in agony when the anesthesia wore off, nothing like that had happened. Jing Shu had only seen Wu You'ai lying propped up in bed, scrolling through her phone, reading downloaded comics. When hungry, she grabbed protein biscuits from a nearby table; when thirsty, there was a bottle of water with a straw; when she needed the bathroom, she didn't even have to get up.
That was thanks to Chu Zhuohua's disturbing efficiency. Wu You'ai's mentor had somehow procured a fully electric hospital bed with a built-in toilet function. With one press of a button, the bed could reconfigure, allowing her to use a bedpan without movement. Wu You'ai's mental state was excellent, even bored, though she still couldn't move her legs due to the burn and nerve damage. Jing Shu visited daily to bring real food, inspect her wounds for infection, and covertly apply diluted Spirit Spring. She hoped the girl would recover fully, and quickly.
Wu You'ai had even joked over the camera's audio (which Jing Shu had muted for privacy but occasionally checked) that her life had peaked. This was her favorite way to live, being waited on hand and foot. If only there were more snack varieties and the weather wasn't so oppressively hot, it would be perfect.
After all, not every household or even secure facility could maintain a constant 26°C like Jing Shu's villa. Energy was a more precious commodity than food.
On one visit, Jing Shu was surprised to discover that Chu Zhuohua, the brilliant researcher, owned a sleek, pre-collapse Maserati sports car. That wasn't the most shocking part. Chu Zhuohua had personally, illegally modified it into a hybrid electric-petrol vehicle and had even built a custom, high-output charging station in his garage. The man was a multidisciplinary genius with a dangerous hobby.
Reworking a high-performance combustion engine to integrate an electric drive system was like replacing its soul. Jing Shu could only admit it was terrifyingly impressive.
Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully as an idea formed. Before the apocalypse, she had briefly considered buying a recreational vehicle (RV) to survive earthquakes or future migrations but had abandoned the plan because of the high maintenance, fuel costs, and its eye-watering million-yuan price tag.
But now, the calculus had changed. If she could acquire a second-hand, gasoline-powered RV cheaply (perhaps from a desperate former owner) and prepare a stockpile of batteries and parts, perhaps Chu Zhuohua could be persuaded to convert it into a robust hybrid vehicle for a fair trade. That would make survival during the coming migrations infinitely easier. A mobile, fortified home with its own power.
Gasoline and natural gas were now classified as national strategic resources, tightly controlled. Even the United States had stopped exporting them to civilian entities abroad. The value of liquid fuel had skyrocketed, but ironically, gasoline-powered cars themselves were practically worthless without access to that fuel. An RV might be very cheap to acquire now.
"I will look into this carefully," she murmured. In her previous life, she had seen some wealthy or well-connected survivors using energy vehicles or even siphoning precious gasoline for cars during the great migrations. RVs were rare but existed. Those who owned them lived far more comfortably, with shelter and storage on the move. The thought of significantly increasing her own family's quality of life and safety in this life filled her with a sharp, focused excitement.
The extreme heat lasted several more days without any sign of breaking. Public outcry and protests for increased water rations were ignored; the government had bigger, more terrifying problems. The city's few remaining polluted rivers and reservoirs had become perfect breeding grounds for the newly evolved, larger carrion scavengers. They had already hatched in countless numbers and were spreading throughout Wu City's drainage systems and basements.
The new wave of carrion scavengers had grown to the size of a human thumb. Worse, they had developed a horrifying new feeding habit: like mosquitoes, they now sought out living flesh for sustenance, not just rotting meat.
Actually, that wasn't quite right, mosquitoes only sucked blood. These new carrion scavengers preferred to take tiny bites of flesh itself. They usually did not actively swarm and attack people, but when their other food sources were scarce and their numbers swelled, they wandered into human dwellings at night and began feeding on sleeping occupants.
A single bite was small, almost painless, and hardly noticeable, a pinprick.
But according to the fragmentary news reports and spreading local horror stories, if you slept through the night with any exposed skin, and a batch of these scavengers laid dozens of eggs in or near the tiny wound, you might wake up missing a small patch of flesh. That wound, festering with eggs, would then slowly rot, attracting more scavengers in a vicious cycle.
And then more carrion scavengers would come…