Maybe it was because they had been drinking Spirit Spring for more than half a year, but the bees inside the Cube Space were more irritable, their buzzing a higher, angrier pitch, and their stingers were more venomous than ordinary bees, the venom a darker, more potent drop.
These last few days, Jing Shu had been using Xiao Dou as a test subject. She held Xiao Dou down, her hands firm on the chicken's solid back, so the bees could sting, otherwise Xiao Dou would bolt, counterattack with a claw, and swallow the bees in one bite. The spots where Xiao Dou was stung swelled into big, angry red lumps. It hurt so much that the chicken let out sharp, indignant clucks. Only after Jing Shu smeared on some honey, the golden substance cool and thick, did the swelling go down.
"Good girl. This is like giving you a shot to build your resistance," Jing Shu soothed Xiao Dou, scratching under its beak. As for why she always used Xiao Dou for experiments, maybe she simply couldn't help herself. The chicken was both resilient and forgiving.
How thick was Xiao Dou's skin?
After seven months of drinking Spirit Spring, Xiao Dou's whole body was solid muscle, dense and tough like cured leather. When Jing Shu tested the Spirit Spring's hemostatic effect before, she had to press the knife hard to even open a cut. Yet the bees could still pierce that hide, which meant bees raised on Spirit Spring might have developed an armor piercing effect, their stingers evolved to penetrate enhanced flesh.
In any case, after half a year of raising them, the bees could serve as an interim means of attack. They were more covert, could catch people off guard, and there were many of them, which meant swarming, a cloud of tiny, directed fury.
Most important of all, they produced honey, the sweet byproduct of their labor.
"If only I had a person to test the bees on. Then I could judge their lethality more directly." The thought was clinical, detached.
Thinking that, Jing Shu turned the seven layer cube over in her hands, the colored squares clicking softly. As the name suggested, the 7×7×7 cube was several tiers harder than the original 4×4×4, a complex puzzle of 294 moving parts.
Solving a seven layer cube in a short time was impossible. Restoring four faces of 7×7 squares to neat single colors was already beyond Jing Shu for now, let alone at a professional level. The patterns scrambled her focus.
Professionals trained for years and still might fail. Jing Shu could only practice diligently and make up for talent with effort, her fingers memorizing moves through repetition.
Unlocking a completely new cube was its own challenge. If she wanted the cube's heaven defying ability, she had to work for it. There was no such thing as a free lunch. Jing Shu didn't expect that someone willing to test the bees' stings would show up so soon, and it was someone she never expected, fate delivering an experiment.
Wu City had been supplying maggots as food for half a month. People's adaptability was shockingly strong, a grim testament to necessity.
Just like Jing Shu in her previous life, they had gone from refusing to eat any at all, to nibbling when they were starving, to fully accepting the stuff now. Every day they even went out to collect bugs for work points. The hot topic each day, besides the death toll of the Hainan migration, was maggots. The conversations were a bizarre new normal.
For example:
[Feng No. 3]:"What flavor of maggots are you eating today? The pepper salt ones have a line every day, and you might not even get any."
[Fat Girl No. 25]:"Dry fried, I guess. At least it has dried chili. I really miss the three days of the Dragon Boat Festival banquet. We could eat whatever we wanted."
Wang Cuihua sent a voice message, her voice crackling through the speaker: "Young folks don't know thrift. Plain boiled maggots are the most cost effective. At least they come with water. The water price went up again. A whole day of digging bugs for work points just to trade for water."
[Feng No. 3]:"Sister, please stop. People like you lead the charge to dig maggots from toilets every day and then boil them in plain water. Yellow water is more like it. I really can't drink that kind of soup."
[Wang Qiqi]:"@Everyone, from now on the state will open a one day buffet for every major holiday. This is a new benefit. Also, our community's assigned Consolation and Counseling Specialist has arrived. Heads up. This person was sent by the government to collect information. Watch what you say. I heard they have a lot of authority and can directly decide whether you have committed a crime."
Jing Shu frowned, her thumb pausing over the screen. A moment later, the WeChat group pushed a new alert, a bright notification.
Wang Qiqi invited "Consolation Specialist Su Meimei" to the group.
Jing Shu: "???"
What kind of stunt was this? Jing Shu tapped the profile of the newly added visiting specialist and saw it was none other than her former aunt, the estranged Su Meimei. How did Su Meimei land this position? The question coiled, cold and sharp.
She narrowed her eyes. Could it be that her so called cheap father really had some connections, a backdoor she hadn't accounted for?
She had planned to deal with Su Meimei, but that got delayed when Wu You'ai was kidnapped. Then a dozen other things piled up, and she had only just cleared her schedule. Now Su Meimei had delivered herself to the door, a mouse walking into the cat's house.
As the saying went, the road to heaven is open and you refuse to walk it, but there is no door to hell and you insist on barging in.
Thump, thump.
Her heart beats faster, a quickening drum in her chest, Jing Shu clenched her fists, nails pressing into her palms. For some reason, excitement stirred again, that old, familiar thrill. She sent Wang Qiqi a message: "Want to bet? Guess how many days Su Meimei lasts."
Wang Qiqi: "?? I have no idea."
"I'm guessing she won't last seven days." Jing Shu's lips curved, teeth flashing in a smile that didn't reach her eyes.
Wang Qiqi was baffled. What was with Jing Shu? Was something about to happen again? The air in the room felt suddenly charged.
Meanwhile, in the group, Su Meimei had already started her speech, the text popping up line by line.
[Consolation and Counseling Specialist Su Meimei]: "@Everyone, hello. From today on, I'm the person in charge of this community. I will now tally the number of survivors and deaths, and record current occupancy.
From now on, I will also tally survival rates daily. Each person must sign in with me before 18:00 every afternoon and describe what you did today, what you ate, where you went, and so on.
Of course, starting today, I will conduct daily home visits to understand your living conditions, see what you normally eat, and assess your household situation. You must also explain the source of certain goods. If any items were obtained through improper means in the past, hand them over and we won't pursue the matter.
Wu City is now in a strike hard period. If any robbery or murder is discovered and reported, once confirmed, it will be recorded.
Oh, you still don't know the consequences of being recorded, do you? Anyone recorded in Wu City can no longer receive any food from major supermarkets.
Alright, remove the deceased from the group now. Everyone else, report to me first. I will start visiting each household."
In a buoyant mood, Su Meimei kept posting in the group, the messages rolling out with palpable glee. Holding power over life and death felt amazing. These country bumpkins had no idea. Once the tag for robbery or murder was stamped on you, forget getting food, even keeping your life would be hard, a slow starvation sanctioned by the state.
She loathed those days of living in fear. Those who had robbed and killed deserved to die. The thought was a burning coal in her chest.
Also, the entire Jing Shu family deserved to die.
Her eyes burned with hatred, staring at the screen. She had originally been assigned to the area near her family home, but her father said there were too many high ranking officials there and it would be hard to control. Better to go somewhere with fewer people, somewhere she could be a big fish.
So she immediately chose this community precisely because that damned Jing Shu and Su Lanzhi were here. After hearing about the new policy, Su Meimei decided she would use her methods to destroy this family. The honest Su Yiyang could be spared, but Jing Shu, who beat her and reported her repeatedly, deserved death, a long, drawn out one.
Turning through the big data assessment report for Jing Shu on her phone app, the numbers and graphs glowing, Su Meimei sneered, the sound a dry scrape in her throat.
"Too bad I only have Level 1 permissions right now. I can only see your family's scores and some trivial wage logs and credit evaluations. But that's enough. With scores this high, I can make up a reason to confirm your crimes and then get rid of you." She whispered it to herself, the plan crystallizing. The tool was in her hand, and she knew just how she wanted to wield it.