Within just a few days of the other twelve Planting Industry R&D Management Departments in Wu City having their mushroom crops eaten clean by carrion scavengers, those sites were overrun again, this time by vast, seething armies of maggots. Inside all twelve departments, dense, white, wriggling carpets of fly larvae were devouring the remaining carrion scavenger eggs and larvae. A grotesque biological war was unfolding in real time, one swarm consuming another.
"If we don't decide quickly, these maggots will pupate and mature into flies within days. Once that happens, the taste will be much worse, the texture will be poor and chitinous, and the protein content will drop significantly. The color, aroma, and flavor will all suffer. If people are going to eat this… protein source, they need to eat it tender for the best flavor and nutritional yield." A government biologist stated this with clinical detachment during an emergency briefing.
With the experts doubling down on their grim recommendation, the government decisively announced that "meat dishes" would now be served to the public at the new, low price point.
They had even, disturbingly, considered the issue of palatability and public psychology.
According to consulted psychologists, first impressions of a new food source mattered immensely, especially for flavor and presentation. A bad initial experience could cause widespread rejection and unrest.
To help the public accept this easily found, renewable protein source in the future, officials decided to use the last of the season's stockpiled spices and condiments to stage a grand "Wugu Bugs Banquet" on the Dragon Boat Festival. Citizens would sample different prepared flavors and pick their favorites for regular rotation later, giving an illusion of choice.
For example, pepper-salt maggots: first deep-fry the cleaned larvae until crispy, then shower on extra salt and chili powder. Bite down, and a burst of savory, pasty protein oozes out, fused with the roasted fragrance of the seasonings.
Or cumin-fried maggots.
Or a light mushroom stew with maggots, finished with chopped scallions and a pinch of precious salt.
Or stir-fried maggots with rice. They all look somewhat similar anyway when chopped up, and this first batch was of excellent quality, the officials claimed. Each larva was plump with nutrients from devouring scavengers, a full three centimeters long with a distinctive trailing tail. Every one of them was a veteran soldier that had cleared swathes of carrion scavengers.
"This batch of maggots is more than enough to replace the lost mushroom rice output for the next month. More importantly, if we don't harvest and regulate them, once waves of maggots mature into flies and lay eggs everywhere, they will eat the carrion scavengers clean and then become the next uncontrollable outbreak themselves. The best approach is to let maggots and carrion scavengers keep each other in check in a controlled cycle. That gives us a near-zero-cost solution to the protein problem."
"So we should immediately mobilize citizens to collect maggots from designated infestation sites. We can buy them with virtual currency to boost enthusiasm, then centrally process them into cooked dishes and feed them back to the people, forming a positive economic and ecological cycle to get us through this toughest time."
"As for the national grain reserves, use them only if there's absolutely no alternative. For the next two years, our country's farmland will hardly grow anything viable. Once the artificial sun is established and climate control begins, everything will slowly improve." The internal memo was brutally pragmatic.
…
Jing Shu soaked more than fifty kilograms of glutinous rice in giant basins and washed every large lotus leaf harvested from their pond and from the Cube Space's aquatic section. She trimmed the tough stems and stacked the leaves. There were no bamboo leaves for wrapping traditional zongzi, and even if she grew some in the space, she had no good excuse for producing them. So she simply used the broad, fragrant lotus leaves, which would taste just as good, imparting a subtle, grassy aroma.
She also soaked red dates and various dried beans and fruits, prepped marinated meat, and planned to make a huge variety: meat zongzi, red date zongzi, sea cucumber and shrimp zongzi (using precious dried stores), eight-treasure zongzi, red bean zongzi, and more. It was a festival of defiance against the decaying world outside.
Once boiled, cooled, and frozen, zongzi could keep for years, especially in the Cube Space's stasis.
For a foodie and survivalist like Jing Shu, both the Cube Space and the basement freezers had to be packed full. Later, breakfast or a quick meal would be as easy as reheat and eat. The corn cakes from last time were already gone, so this round of zongzi had to be a big batch, a bulwark of normalcy.
Jing Shu's personal favorite was the simplest classic red date zongzi. Drizzle on a little honey from her bees, pair it with the pure, sticky flavor of glutinous rice, bite down and it was soft, sticky, and fragrant, with the honey's floral sweetness blooming across the palate. Slurp. So good that just thinking about it made Jing Shu swallow involuntarily.
[Wang Qiqi]: "@Everyone, the Dragon Boat Festival is almost here. The government has issued a holiday benefit. Three days of all-you-can-eat buffet, 0.5 units per person per day, no limit on amount eaten on-site, but only thirty minutes per session and only once per day. I heard it tastes surprisingly good. Hurry and get in line early."
Wang Cuihua sent a voice message, her tone a mix of hope and suspicion: "Did all our protesting and complaining finally work? Did they finally release real food? Let's line up. We've been starving for days. What kind of mercy is the government showing this time? What are they giving us to eat?"
[Feng No. 3]:"I said it! As long as we dare to protest and make noise, the government will have to release food. With so many hungry people, are they going to just watch us die? Don't we have over three years of grain reserves in China? They should bring it out. This time I can finally eat my fill."
[Fat Girl No. 25]:"In the worst case, even unlimited mushroom rice would be fine. Not to brag, but I could eat the entire Ai Jia supermarket under the table if they let me."
With all the prep work done, it was time to start the actual wrapping of zongzi. Jing Shu read the buzzing, optimistic group chat and smiled a thin, humorless smile without comment. "Foolish, hopeful humans. What did they think was coming? A feast of real meat?"
In her previous life, this "banquet" had shattered her worldview and stomach. In the end, like everyone else, she had to compromise with hunger. So as not to waste the precious 0.5 units, she had sampled several flavors of maggots and found only the heavily spiced pepper-salt version barely acceptable, a gritty, pasty atrocity.
With a bit of downtime while the rice soaked, Jing Shu toyed with the upgraded Cube Space in its Second Form, simultaneously grinding a few more conical boulders inside using a mental vise and abrasive surfaces she had fashioned. Ever since she started using the rebar-studded mace effectively, she had thought: if there were a chance to make the conical "boulders" out of reinforced concrete or metal, they would be reusable. But that would draw far too much attention and require facilities she didn't have. Forget it. Use shaped stone for now. There was, at least, a whole mountainside of raw material out back.
…
"Hurry up, all of you! Meal service starts in thirty minutes! Why are you hesitating? Headquarters said it clearly. If your prepared dish is popular with the public today, you get promoted to group leader with extra rations. If yours isn't finished, you eat the leftovers yourself for the next week. First impressions must be delicious, or you will psychologically scar the public and set the program back!" A bald, sweating director barked at the line of cooks.
In the Ai Jia supermarket's newly converted, cavernous mega-canteen, eighty cooks stood in two nervous rows, each behind a makeshift stovetop. They stared into buckets and barrels full of writhing, pale maggots and nearly gagged in unison. People outside envied their secure jobs, but who knew their daily hardship?
These eighty-plus cooks had to prepare "food" for tens of thousands every day, yet they knew they were still far better off than the homeless, desperate crowd outside. They at least had a guaranteed meal and earned virtual currency.
"Director, these maggots… they're coated with bits of carrion scavengers and all sorts of filth from the growing halls. We're not washing them, just cooking straight away?" a young cook asked, his voice trembling.
The bald director glared. "If you have spare water to waste, you wash them. Do you?" The answer was silence. Water for cooking was rationed; water for cleaning maggots was a fantasy.
However reluctant and disgusted they were, everyone pulled on thick rubber gloves, grabbed handfuls of the squirming larvae, and began cooking. They couldn't just cook randomly either. Even under such horrific conditions, it had to be vaguely tasty, or the public riot would be worse.
Jing Lai, working her station, took a big, secretly hoarded packet of cumin and salt from her pocket, feeling deeply conflicted. A few days ago, Jing Shu had quietly given her these spices, saying she might need them soon. She didn't expect to use them so soon, for this.
After thinking it over, Jing Lai decided: pepper-salt maggots it would be. At least the strong spices would mask… everything else.
Coal roared in the stove, oil heated in the large wok, and handfuls of maggots went in with a sickening sizzle. At first, Jing Lai didn't control the heat well, and the bug juices splattered everywhere. After a few batches, she found the rhythm: high heat to kill quickly, then medium to crisp. She sprinkled on Jing Shu's precious cumin and salt, and the whole tray of fried maggots bloomed with a deceptively appetizing fragrance that almost, almost covered the underlying odor.
After three straight hours of grim, silent work, the cooks finished their various assigned "maggot flavors." Everyone then scarfed down their own quick staff meal, a pitifully small serving of the last mushroom rice, because they were about to open the buffet gates and then had to personally serve and enthusiastically sell the public on eating every last bug on their stations. Their own meal had a few stray carrion scavengers or maggot bits mixed in; no one complained anymore. Thinking about the fact that the tens of thousands outside would be eating whole, seasoned maggots by the bowlful, the cooks felt a strange, grim peace with their own slightly-less-disgusting lot.
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